06-21-2021, 03:31 PM
(06-21-2021, 02:52 PM)fifteenth Wrote: There are looser forms of organizational structure, but I think that usually applies to project management, and for it to work there has to be a daily team meeting where everything is aired, everything is out in the open, and everyone knows what every else is doing.
Yes, both looser and tighter organizational structures can work. It seems like a looser structure may have worked for Mark in the past, and that he may be resistant to moving beyond it.
As you point out, a looser structure requires a stronger communications system, and also someone at the top who can intelligently and effectively resolve conflicts. As organizations get bigger, and communication and people who know enough about what is going on gets more difficult/rare, organizations tend to have to move toward tighter structures, dependent on processes, procedures and delineated lines of authority, so that operations can move to some extent on auto-pilot. (That can also result in a certain amount of drag on decision-making, as the bureaucracy becomes more entrenched.)
Mark is at the top of the food chain, and it appears he isn't paying enough attention to really understand the dysfunction in his organization. Either that, or as he appears to claim, he is smarter than everyone else and has some secret analysis indicating that a disorganized, survival-of-the-fittest system is the best.
If Donnie came to Mark about how the structure wasn't working, and Mark dismissed the complaints, and then Rick came to Mark about organizational structure, and Mark dismissed the complaints, then I think we're probably doomed.
It's not encouraging, but I don't know that it's doomsday yet. The recent departures of Nelson and Carlisle were clearly not planned. Neither was the flood of bad publicity. It is possible that this degree of implosion has gotten Cuban's attention, and will convince him that it's time to try something new, even if he publicly forever insists that everything he has done was Einstein-level. I mean, he did hire Cynt Marshall when that side of the business was in crisis.