“An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success”

Introduction:

Success or failure of an organization depends on its organizational structure. Various views, strategies, trends and techniques are used to strike a success formula which can bring long term success. These methods are always changing as experience and experiments are made use of for further bettering the ways and means used and bringing about innovation and change in the structure of the organizational behavior.

Five important elements for success

Although success cannot be contained in just five elements it can be categorized into five very important elements through which the organization can be made successful. They are,

·         vision and mission analysis and application

·         innovation and change

·         principles and values

·         organizational structure – manage operational and business partners

·         creating a new culture and pushing new changes until the work is done

Vision and mission accomplishment strategies:

Vision setting is the major role every organization should focus on. Careful analysis of what to achieve, when to achieve and by who to achieve is like the foundation for an organization on which the whole structure is going to be based on A good strategic plan is always empowered with the following elements

·         Vision:  well defined vision with a mission strategy defining the hierarchy of roles and responsibilities

·         As per the goals conducting the SWOT analysis

·         Formulate necessary action to process these goals

·         Implementation modules

·         Control the process through careful monitoring and feedback

·         Employee appraisal and welfare goals

An effective vision statement must include,

·         Lucidity and lack of ambiguity

·         Clear picture or model of the vision and goal setting

·         Must be aligned with the organizational value and principles

·         Must have realistic aspirations

·         Ways and means to achieve the short and long term goals

Innovation and change:

In their best selling book “The Heart Of Change”, John P.Kotter and S.Cohen  has stressed thus, ‘ emphasizing again and again the critical need for leadership to make change happen, leading change provides the vicarious experience and positive role models for leaders to emulate’. Change is imperative and unavoidable today as organizations also need to evolve from their monotonous success formulas and outdated performance strategies.

Any organization which wants to be successful must know how to control the forces which reject change in any form. Grabbing opportunities and taking bigger leaps when compared to gradual slow improvement is much preferred. A need and an urgency can bring about better employee performance than trying to get him work gradually under the pretext slow and steady wins the race.

Innovation and change has to first be implemented in peoples minds and it should reflect in the people’s behavior. Rather than influencing their minds through theories and analysis trying to influence their feelings by getting them to see the truth will definitely get more success than the traditional formulations. The change should happen inside out right from peoples heart to the work they do and ultimately to the organization they work for.

Principles and values

Every organization should have a culture of its own based on preset principles and values. Principles are nothing but the guides to behavior and values are beliefs which are fundamental. These core values must be identified, finalized and developed to provide a 360-degree view to the functions of the organization. All employees have a role to play and responsibilities to keep and thus a general common structure to clearly formulate such roles, responsibilities and behavior is imperative. It gives a common structure as to what to do, how to do, and when to do aspect.

Organizational structure

The structure of the organization depends on the product or service that is produced by that organization. The hierarchy of roles hugely depends on this structure. It also depends on the ambition and ambience. There are many organizational structures such as functional structures and matrix structures etc. each organization should have a unique strategy which should be flexible as well as feasible. The organizational structure has to be altered from time to time to keep up with the changing times.

Creating a new culture and pushing new changes until the work is done

New culture with group norms and shared values help in employee performance thereby increasing the success rate of whatever he does. Timely promotions, orientation of new employee according to his skill level, and other ways which can involve the employee emotions can bring a great difference in the performance level. Thus guiding teams with various motivational schemes, and teams guided by multiple levels for performance maximization is very imperative.

When changes are implemented, risk factors do increase and thus special care to evaluating threats and mitigating risks should be taken. Last but not the least to manage operational and business partners is also a very imperative step to be taken by any organization.

Conclusion: Change and innovation is what will strike success in organizations today as people’s attitudes and lives change. Sticking to age old traditional ways and methods will only bring down the operational level and employee level performance in an organization.
Source of reference

Ø  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure

Ø  http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1578512549/ref=sib_fs_top?ie=UTF8&p=S00P&checkSum=4z3P3ip5uGGvgwmd19tWvL5q0sMvKIuJ7Az5OSWlYP8%3D#reader-link

2. Before going into a detail discussion about whether a capitalistic organization is a happy medium or not we need to understand what a capitalistic organization is?

Wikipedia clearly defines capitalism as, “an economic system in which capital goods are owned, operated and traded chiefly by private individuals or corporations for the purpose of profit”.

Thus we see the goal and vision of any capitalistic organization is profit making. The point to be discussed here is whether it is important to make money and survive (regardless of the quality of the product or service) or is it important to satisfy customers? No organization can function without customers and that too satisfied customers. There is no harm in being profit oriented but then trying to profit compromising on the quality is not a healthy business strategy.

One great tactic of these capitalistic organizations is that there do great marketing to allure customers to buy their product. So, initial success is generally assured as people are attracted by these packages and walk in to buy the goods. But these organizations which try just want to make profit minus the quality cannot survive long-term. Success of an organization depends on customer satisfaction and trust. A satisfied customer will trust the organization and walk in again and again to get its products and services and thus the organization benefits long term.

The profit and customer satisfaction has to be well balanced and should not be one sided. Giving too much attention to customer satisfaction is also not good, as anyone cannot satisfy everyone. Profit is every business’s goal and hence a greater vision to withstand time and gain profits becomes imperative. People are becoming more quality conscious today and they prefer branded items to cheaper goods in which they have lost trust.

Examples: