Intentionally designed or off the shelf?
At conception, most organizations follow a similar pattern:
Someone sees a need and recognizes an opportunity in serving that need.
That person, with a small group of individuals who also see the opportunity, begin serving the need.
The number of people serving the need grows and the number of people being served increases
The scale grows beyond the ability of the original group to manage.
The group adds organizational structure using boilerplate models found online or recommended by advisors.
On the surface, step number 5 makes sense. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use what is already working elsewhere.
Many of the problems I work on with well-established organizations stem from step number five. The organization adopts a model that worked elsewhere. They evolve the organization to fit the model. It is almost always a bad fit that limits the organization.
You can see the same pattern repeated within organizations as they adopt new technologies, make changes to the organizational structure, or kick off process improvement initiatives. The organizations looks for similar situations elsewhere and adopts the tools and models. Those tools and models kind of work, but the organization is forced to shift to match the tool or the model.
There is a significant difference between intentionally designing the evolution of an organization and unintentionally changing an organization to fit an arbitrary constraint. And the unintended consequences of those unintentional changes can impede growth, effectiveness, and differentiation.