Page 215 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

214 Part 3 • Organizing
cASe APPlIcATIon 3
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A New Kind of Structure

dmit it. Sometimes the projects you’re working on the click of a single button on their computer desktop. They
(school, work, or both) can get pretty boring and describe what they need on an online form, which is then sent
A monotonous. Wouldn’t it be great to have a magic but- to one of two Indian service-outsourcing firms. When a request
ton you could push to get someone else to do that boring, time- is received, a team member in India calls the Pfizer employee
consuming stuff? At Pfizer, that “magic button” is a reality for to clarify what’s needed and by when. The team member then
a large number of employees. e-mails back a cost specification for the requested work. If
As a global pharmaceutical company, Pfizer is continu- the Pfizer employee decides to proceed, the costs involved are
ally looking for ways to help employees be more efficient and charged to the employee’s department. About this unique ar-
effective. The company’s se- rangement, Cain said that he
nior director of organizational relishes working with what he
effectiveness found that the Wouldn’t you like a MAGIC prefers to call his “personal
“Harvard MBA staff we hired BUTTON you could consulting organization.”
to develop strategies and in- push to get someone else The number 66,500 il-
novate were instead Googling to do all your tedious and lustrates just how beneficial
and making PowerPoints.” 63 PfizerWorks has been for the
Indeed, internal studies con- boring work? company. That’s the number
ducted to find out just how of work hours estimated to
much time its valuable talent have been saved by employ-
was spending on menial tasks was startling. The average Pfizer ees who’ve used PfizerWorks. What about Joe Cain’s expe-
employee was spending 20 percent to 40 percent of his or her riences? When he gave the Indian team a complex project
time on support work (creating documents, typing notes, do- researching strategic actions that worked when consolidating
ing research, manipulating data, scheduling meetings) and company facilities, the team put the report together in a month,
only 60 percent to 80 percent on knowledge work (strategy, something that would have taken him six months to do alone.
innovation, networking, collaborating, critical thinking). And He says, “Pfizer pays me not to work tactically, but to work
the problem wasn’t just at lower levels. Even the highest-level strategically.”
employees were affected. Take, for instance, David Cain,
an executive director for global engineering. He enjoys his Discussion Questions
job—assessing environmental real estate risks, managing fa-
cilities, and controlling a multimillion-dollar budget. But he 6-23 Describe and evaluate what Pfizer is doing with its PfizerWorks.
didn’t so much enjoy having to go through spreadsheets and 6-24 What structural implications—good and bad—does this
put together PowerPoints. Now, however, with Pfizer’s “magic approach have? (Think in terms of the six organizational design
elements.)
button,” those tasks are passed off to individuals outside the 6-25 Do you think this arrangement would work for other types of
organization. organizations? Why or why not? What types of organizations
Just what is this “magic button”? Originally called the might it also work for?
Office of the Future (OOF), the renamed PfizerWorks allows 6-26 What role do you think organizational structure plays in an orga-
employees to shift tedious and time-consuming tasks with nization’s efficiency and effectiveness? Explain.