Why companies should welcome disorder

Section A Organisation is big business. Whether it is of our lives… we are told that we ought to organise our company, our home life, our work, our day and even our sleep, all as a means to becoming more productive. This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders… much to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists with the need to get everything right.

Section B Ironically, however, the number of businesses that feel less able to successfully manage disorder has increased. A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed.

Section C Frederick Taylor was one of the forefathers of scientific management. He designed a number of principles to improve the efficiency of the work process… New research suggests that this obsession with efficiency is misguided… Businesses and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at the end goal.

Section D What’s more, recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns. Order does increase productivity to a certain extent, but eventually… any further increase in order reduces productivity. Some argue that if the cost of formally structuring something outweighs the benefit, then that thing ought not to be formally structured.

Section F In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group.

Section G In recent times companies have slowly started to embrace this disorganisation… For example, Oticon, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, used what it called a “spaghetti” structure… The former chairman of General Electric embraced disorganisation… Google and a number of other tech companies have embraced those kinds of flexible structures.

Section H A word of warning: disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility… Like order, disorder should be embraced only so far as it is useful. But we should not fear it – nor venerate one over the other.