Organization is a tool. As with any tool, the more specialized its given task, the greater its performance capacity.
Organizations are special-purpose institutions. They are effective because they concentrate on one task. If you were to go to the American Lung Association and say, “Ninety percent of all adult Americans suffer from ingrown toenails; we need your expertise in research, health education, and prevention to stamp out this dreadful scourge,” you’d get the answer: “We are interested only in what lies between the hips and the shoulders.” That explains why the American Lung Association or the American Heart Association or any of the other organizations in the health field get results.
Society, community, family, have to deal with whatever problem arises. To do so in an organization is “diversification.” And in an organization, diversification means splintering. It destroys the performance capacity of any organization—whether business, labor union, school, hospital, community service, or church. Because the organization is composed of specialists, each with his or her own narrow knowledge area, its mission must be crystal clear. The organization must be single-minded, otherwise its members become confused. They will follow their specialty rather than applying it to the common task. They will each define “results” in terms of that specialty, imposing their own values on the organization. Only a clear, focused, and common mission can hold the organization together and enable it to produce results.
ACTION POINT: Make sure your organization has a clear focus, a mission that everyone can identify with, and that it concentrates on producing results.
Post-Capitalist Society
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker