Understanding Organizations...Finally! Structure in Sevens

The iconic Henry Mintzberg provides a crystal-clear map to the forms and forces that shape all human organizations, synthesizing his fifty years of research.

We live in a world of organizations, from our birth in hospitals until our burial by funeral homes. In between, we are educated, employed, entertained, and exasperated by organizations. We had better understand how these strange beasts really work. But where can we go to find out?

Welcome to Understanding Organizations . . . Finally! For half a century, Mintzberg has been observing organizations, advising them, engaging them, and escaping them. Here he offers a masterful update and revision of his 1983 classic, Structure in Fives.

Believing there is one best way to structure organizations is the worst way to do so. A better place to start is by recognizing different species of organizations. Mintzberg identifies seven—personal enterprises, programmed machines, professional assemblies, project pioneers, and others. He explores these forms and the seven forces that drive them toward hybrids and across their life cycles.

You will find no better guide to the care and feeding of these extraordinarily varied and vital creatures than this book.

Henry Mintzberg is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal, the winner of awards from the most prestigious academic and practitioner institutions in management (Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management, Association of Management Consulting Firms, and others), and the recipient of twenty honorary degrees from around the world. He is the author or coauthor of twenty books, including Managers Not MBAs, Strategy Safari, and The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, and is a founding partner of CoachingOurselves.com.
 

1. Our World of Organizations
Part I: Re-Viewing the Organization
2. The Players and the Parts
3. The Art, Craft, and Science of Organizing
Part II: The Building Blocks of Organizational Design
4. The Mechanisms to Coordinate
5. The Elements of Design
6. Design in Context
Part III: Four Fundamental Forms of Organization
7. The Personal Enterprise
8. The Programmed Machine
9. The Professional Assembly
10. The Project Pioneer
11. The Four together
Part IV: Seven Basic Forces for Organizing
12. A Force for Each Form
13. Three Forces for All the Forms
Part V: Three More Forms
14. The Divisional Form
15. The Community Ship
16. The Political Arena
Part VI: Balancing the Forces across the Forms
17. In Praise of the Anchored Form
18. Hail to the Hybrids
19. Riding the Life Cycle across the Forms
Part VII: Organizing Beyond Sevens
20. Organizations Outward Bound
21. Opening Up Organization Design