Organizational structure
A few years ago, I worked for a company called Douglas. The company has different stores over Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, and Italy. The stores sell products like perfume, skin care, and make-up. I worked at a store in Alkmaar in The Netherlands. The team consisted of twenty one people in which the majority of them were female. The consistency of the team was very diverse in age. I was not that old when I was with this team and I was not fully aware of the successfulness of the team, but if I reflect on the basis of my memory, I think this team was a successful one.
The goal of our team was to sell as much as we could, while also making sure that the client had an ultimate shopping experience. We had to help the clients with their needs and we also had to make their experience even better by asking them if they would like to test out the sample perfume.Other than the main goal of selling products, we needed administer and make sure that the store would be completely clean . There were a three people that did the administration regularly and there were a few more people that could do simple tasks for the administration. We had a lady that did the administration normally and when she wasn't at work, the manager would do it instead. When both weren't able to do the administration the assistent manager did the administration. Besides those three people there were two more people that could do some simple administration tasks. This meant primarily the counting of the cash register and typing it in to the computer. The other tasks within the store, selling, and cleaning, were done by everyone working (also the three administrative people).
As I said above, the store had a strict manager. The manager made sure that everyone was doing a great job and did what he or she was supposed to do. Within the team, the manager made all the final decisions such as how the products would be assorted in the store. I had the feeling that those decisions that the manager made were fine with everyone, because in a case that someone felt like it would be a bad idea, the person would speak up. When the manager wasn't available, the assistent manager got the role of the manager in the way of making decisions and doing administration. When the manager was available, the assistent manager had the task to sell in the store and motivate the sales team.
In the book 'Reframing Organizations' the authors talk about five basic structural configurations. The structure 'One Boss' has one leader/manager that leads the team. The team will communicate directly to the manager when this is necessary. This structure spoke to me at first when I reflected on the team at Douglas. The reason that I thought about this structure is because of the big role my manager plays within the team. Another structure is 'Simple Hierarchy' that looks like the 'One Boss' structure, but it has a little difference. The difference is that the 'Simple Hierarchy' has a team that communicates to one person and that one person communicates to the leader/manager. After looking at that structure I find it more fitting for my team, because my manager is the boss of the store that communicates with the assistent manager and the assistent manager has the practical role to motivate the staff that is selling/cleaning. When the manager is not available, the assistent manager will take over the manager role so those days the team would be more similar to the structure of 'One Boss'. When looking at the other three structures that the book mentioned, I think those are not relatable to my team at Douglas. The structure 'Dual Authority' does not relate enough for the structure in within my team, because it is one team instead of a separation of teams. However, there are two types of tasks within the store, namely administration and practical selling and cleaning, but the administration people are also selling and cleaning. This separation is not strict enough in my opinion to fit the structure of 'Dual Authority'. The other two structures 'Circle Network' and 'All Channel Network' are both without a leader/manager function so therefore those two structures wouldn't fit the team structure as well.
My team at Douglas was in my opinion a successful team with a 'Simple Hierarchy'. There is a clear scheme of the roles and relationships within the team that make working together easy and effective. The manager made sure that there were specific and measurable goals for the selling team and the goals were in a reasonable manageable size. The diversity in age made the sure that the team consisted of a right mix of expertise.
