Disorganisation: Why future organisations must 'loosen up'

[2004 - Demos] Changing expectations of working life have created a new tension at the heart of organisational strategy. Employees want more human organisations with greater autonomy and flexibility. They want an experience of work that fits with their values. They want a greater say in the future of the organisations they work for. In short, they want organisations to ‘disorganise’. At the same time, organisations are facing external pressures. Competition shows no sign of waning, new demands for accountability and growing concern about security are all forcing organisations to take greater control, ‘hyper-organising’ to cut costs or guard against potential failure. So far there are only case studies of organisations experimenting with ‘disorganisation’. While these ‘case study companies’ may represent a relatively small part of the corporate sector, they can be seen as surface manifestations of an underlying desire for employees to feel just a bit less organised. This report looks at how organisations can manage the desire among employees for a greater sense of ‘disorganisation’ in an ever more competitive and complex environment. Based on new data from polling of employees and business decision makers, Disorganisation argues that to stay organised in the deep sense of engaging their employees in a shared project, organisations may have to disorganise to allow people more freedom to express their personal values and individual identity. Download and read the full report