An organisation with no structure: case study

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A group of three friends decided to set up an organic Meals on Wheels service. They had a strong commitment to deliver good food to isolated elderly people. Their business model was collaborative and not-for-profit so they decided to share all the jobs between them. They took turns in ordering supplies, marketing, customer support, packing, delivering and finance.

The first year

The first year was busy, exciting, and successful. They started locally and built a good customer base. Word of mouth increased their success and by the second year they needed two more people to cook and deliver the orders. They were only five people so they all attended weekly meetings to share ideas and problems. The new staff became part of the team but had no ‘capital ‘investment or emotional commitment to the organisation. 

They continued to succeed and increased their finance to extend the kitchens, buy more vans and extended contacts with individuals and care centres. They had turned a small social enterprise into a business.

After three years

These developments surprised them and after three years they realised the original idea was not working so well. Team meetings took hours, their roles were not clear, the people they hired were not sure who was in charge and the outside agencies, banks, suppliers became confused about how to relate to them.

They had to decide next steps and contracted an expert in organisation design and development. They spent a day looking at their aims, plans for the future, the way they worked, their staff, and their feelings. One of the original team decided it was not his career path and agreed to stand down as a working partner.

The other two divided the work. One was a good leader and planner, the other wanted to work with their customers and their staff. They decided to employ a good finance and admin person, and set up much clearer lines of authority and decision-making.

Conclusions

In this example, we can see that an unplanned organisation can run into difficulties. When they realised their problem, they had a number of options open to them. They could have closed down, merged with another agency, downsized, expanded or changed the product. What was essential was to go back to their original aims and personal commitment. It is these foundations that help to structure an organisation and give it the shape and purpose it needs.

Have your say

Have you come across an organisation that lacks structure - or have you worked within one? What were the challneges you faced? Did you try to create a structure?

Share your experience on the Organisation development forum.