Quotes from the book:

“A good structure is a design that will create the best environment for your intended outcome.”

“Organisational structure is therefore an extremely important subject which can have far-reaching impact on businesses’ performance and people’s lives. Despite this, the subject has been neglected as an object of study”.

“What distinguishes us from all other species is our ability to communicate in the abstract about highly complex challenges and to organize large numbers of people to handle these challenges.”

“This is how a startup is built around people, rather than how it should be: around functional unites defined by a clear description of tasks and responsibilities which are then filled with people with the right profile, skill and experience for the specific function.”

“ … all the points above can be summarised by saying that it was the structure we had made that created the environment for the merger to be successful and set the strategy in motion.”

“Bureaucracies are very resistant to change and usually only a deep crisis can force them to rejuvenate.”

“The fear of the transition from the old to the new is probably one of the major reasons we all dislike change.”

“Profit centres are organized by need, but sales should be organized as a function within the profit centre and reflecting the specific decision makers that decides to buy on the customer side.”

“Fast growing start-ups are sales-driven and often organised by sales rather than by market needs.”

“A structure should be based on a logical driver. A driver in this regard means “where the revenue comes from.”

“The paradox is however, that a lot of organisations become centralised because of poor planning, unclear objectives, insufficient control and bad information systems.”

“But another, more covert reason for making matrices was to avoid having to take the difficult decision about which unit should be the driving force. (Chapter about Matrix Organisations).”

“Managers always struggle for power, but matrix organisations actually encourage them to do so!”