My Final Exam Question: Can You Answer It?

The quarter is winding down at Stanford, and my course assistants and I are busy grading some very creative final exams.  In my course "Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-Based Approach," I give the students the final exam question on the first day of class, and it is due the last day.  It is, "Design the ideal organization. Use course concepts to defend your answer."

It is really a hard question, but the best answers knock my socks off.  I think of great ones over the years, like the paper on the ideal mosque, the one on the ideal honey company, the guy who was engaged and showed about how he would apply course concepts to building the ideal family, and this year, the student who did something like Alice-in-Wonderland, meets a start-up, meets behavioral research and somehow pulled it off perfectly.  I asked students this question for years, but never tried to answer it myself until I wrote The No Asshole Rule.  But frankly I would have failed myself for the answer, as I exceeded the 3000 word limit by about 40,000 words!

What is your ideal organization? You don't have to use all 3000 words -- in fact 25 words or less might be most fun.  There are hints about aspects of my ideal organization that go beyond The No Asshole Rule on my list of "15 Things I Believe." But if I forced myself to stay under 25 words, I would say something like:

"A place where people are competent, civilized, and cooperative -- and tell the truth rather than spewing out lies and bullshit." 

Right now, I am very tired of the lies and bullshit.

What is your answer?

Comments

[Sam Howley]

To paraphrase Charlie Munger :

"A web of deserved trust, just like an operating theater."

[Markus]

I found your question so inspiring that I(we) have implemented it on our basic course on business administration. Gonna be really interesting to see what they come up with! Just wanted to share this bit of "non-important" information!

Btw, following your blog and I like it a lot!

Cheers,

/Markus

[JWMcCoy]

An organization where leadership recognizes that everyone has strengths and weaknesses and that each one of us is fundamentally different from other people - and that trying to remake people into what they are not only leads to inefficiency, bad feelings and eventually tragedy. One infamous quote from my past: "I can teach anyone to sell."

[Murthy]

Ten Things Necessary for an Ideal Organization:

1) A leader, who can recruit other leaders, who can recruit staff that are all committed to the vision, determined to get results, and being unwavering in how you get there

2) A value system that rewards proactively creating value and identifying problems

3) A process that views talent as investments and has means of training and supporting them to increase the company's return on talent investment.

4) An acknowledgment that staff are human beings

5) A process that constantly seeks input from customers, investors, press, and employees; delivers a plan to address that input; and efficiently aligns the staff to deliver to that plan

6) A process that constantly verifies that staff consider their work challenging and have an intellectual motivation to do their unique duties

7) A model for operations that scales so that as you grow in the number of staff, it gets easier to do things, not harder.

8) A structure for making decisions that rewards seeking input from many, but that makes it clear who individually and singularly is ultimately accountable

9) An extreme level of communication and near real-time flow of information between all staff

10) A genuine commitment to having fun, cause hard work is a lot easier to do when it doesn't feel like work at all.

[JR]

An organization where everyone is dedicated to the mission and their colleagues. Where no-one fails because their colleagues won't let them. In other words "An organization where no-one is there for the paycheck."

[nraynaud]

It reminds me of the last company I worked for.

The website stated the unavoidable words from the COO : "At [company] a collaborator is not treated like a resource, but like an asset."
And then the "facts and figures" page shows a graph with "Income" and "Resources" as legend.

When I explained the contradiction to the recruiter before being given an offer, I only had a hollow speech, about values. All I needed to hear was: "We made a mistake, I'll send a mail as soon as I'm before my computer". We all make mistakes, but I blame them for not recognizing and correcting it.

I had no money left, I had to take the offer, but needless to say I'm not proud of my work there as a "resource".

[rlively]

Where people think then act and do not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do.

[Matt]

An environment where the resources can proactively create synergy and add value for stakeholders by thinking outside the box--oh crap, I'm wearing my asshole collar today. Sorry!

[Theresa]

A place with strongly enforced requirements of all employees, and in particular, of its leaders:

1. Mutual respect
2. Honesty and transparency, and an open medium of communication to facilitate free-exchange of information
3. Must display strong levels of curiosity. Especially management and above. Curiosity is a symptom of self-realization that one does not know everything, and also facilitates open dialogue and growth.

In that order.

[Hal]

No Fair. You've set the bar very high, but I'll try anyway.

"A group that gives attention to each others' ambitions as the means to accomplishing their work."

[Allison O'Neill]

A place where every single boss within it has reached The Boss Benchmark! (www.thebossbenchmark.com) there are too many bosses around and not enough AMAZING bosses. **sigh** I'm working on it!

[Whitney M.]

My ideal organization is one where I can have more positive impact in the world than I can accomplish on my own.

I've worked for both kinds of companies. I left my last employer because group work took everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Where I work now, 1 + 1 usually adds to 3.

[Michael Sporer]

"A place where people leave their egos at the door and the bullshit at home".

Lately, Bob, I have become much less tolerant of bullshit! Too many people with FOSS (Full Of Shit Syndrome).

[Julia R]

Maybe it's the ENFJ in me, but ...

An environment that wants its people -- employees AND customers -- to reach their authentic potential, and gives them the freedom, support, and inspiration to get there.

[dblwyo]

A place with a good idea that's value-creating, leadership that walks the talk, good people who are competent and team players and a management system with clear objectives, honest measurements and appropriate compensation. Forgive me but on that last I've actually put it down:
http://llinlithgow.com/bizzX/2007/07/aholes_shirkers_and_performanc.html#more
And on the whole, again my apologies, but the whole enterprise that balances strategy with execution in the short- and long-term views and has a good management system might fit this blueprint of the resilient enterprise (what a bunch of gobbledygook but):
http://llinlithgow.com/bizzX/2009/03/wmt_as_exemplar_ii_diving_into.html
That takes me weigh over 25 doesn't it ?

[Hayli @ RiseSmart]

Fewer meetings, more teamwork.

[Jared]

You know, quite simply the company I strive to build is simply

"A job that you look forward to when you wake up, a company that you feel proud to work for."

A little subjective, but for most people I think this is what matters at the end of the day.

[John Mone]

A place where capable people collaborate earnestly, own the decision-making process, and share in the rewards of producing good things.

[CareerAnnie]

A place where workers are rewarded for their creativity and passion, a place where "status quo" is a dirty word.

This is a nice blog. I enjoy reading all of your observations.

[Sami]

"A place where all business decisions and facts leading to them are transparent and available to everyone."

Or, taken one step further:

"A company driven by an internal decision market and one that shares its successes as equally as possible among all employees."