Designing and Leading the Entrepreneurial Organization
This tongue-twister of a title is the official name of one of my Sloan classes this semester (I'll call it the "entrepreneurship class" from now on). This class is based on case studies of various entrepreneurial organizations. As such, it relies heavily on class participation to analyze the different situations.
When the semester first began, the classroom was bursting with first-year MBA students many of which had signed up because of professor Diane Burton's awesome reputation (she's returning to lecturing after a one-year hiatus, I believe). Diane Burton's reputation is well deserved. She conducts the class well, but the class participation is pretty weak: half-baked opinions, confusing thoughts, long-winded answers, etc. (not to say that my own participation has been any better; there have been no pearls of wisdom coming out of my mouth). Despite Diane's best efforts to extract the essence of these case studies from us, we rarely express the main points clearly and objectively. So in the end, it's up to her to unveil the curtain and show us what went right or wrong with that particular case. Despite all this, I'm learning something from every single case we study: powerful lessons and reminders reinforced by my own work experience in an entrepreneurial organization.
Here's one...
Organizational models are defined by the founders of the organization. Some observers may think that all start-ups are the same, but that's not true. Different founders come up with different organizational models based on their personal beliefs and values. Furthermore, founders have a long-term effect on the structure and culture of an organization. Changes in these models are difficult to undertake and can be catastrophic in some cases. Stanford did a study on this and came up with 5 basic organizational models as defined by three different measures: employee attachment, selection of employees and the type of control/coordination enforced upon employees.
Ok, enough of this... If you're really interested, read about these models at: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2001/summer/1a/
When the semester first began, the classroom was bursting with first-year MBA students many of which had signed up because of professor Diane Burton's awesome reputation (she's returning to lecturing after a one-year hiatus, I believe). Diane Burton's reputation is well deserved. She conducts the class well, but the class participation is pretty weak: half-baked opinions, confusing thoughts, long-winded answers, etc. (not to say that my own participation has been any better; there have been no pearls of wisdom coming out of my mouth). Despite Diane's best efforts to extract the essence of these case studies from us, we rarely express the main points clearly and objectively. So in the end, it's up to her to unveil the curtain and show us what went right or wrong with that particular case. Despite all this, I'm learning something from every single case we study: powerful lessons and reminders reinforced by my own work experience in an entrepreneurial organization.
Here's one...
Organizational models are defined by the founders of the organization. Some observers may think that all start-ups are the same, but that's not true. Different founders come up with different organizational models based on their personal beliefs and values. Furthermore, founders have a long-term effect on the structure and culture of an organization. Changes in these models are difficult to undertake and can be catastrophic in some cases. Stanford did a study on this and came up with 5 basic organizational models as defined by three different measures: employee attachment, selection of employees and the type of control/coordination enforced upon employees.
Ok, enough of this... If you're really interested, read about these models at: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2001/summer/1a/
posted by sorinescu at 10:00 PM
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