Managing Change Enquiry and Action

□ Introduction

Classic management theory argues that organisational structure exists primarily to enable coordination and control of work through the division of labour. An organisation's structure is, at face value, one of its most clearly defined and tangible dimensions. It appears deceptively simple – boxes, lines, labels and names on a page. An organisational chart, however, offers a skeletal view at best, and is not the structure itself. Structure is amenable to review, whether internal or external, and is highly visible to all stakeholders. Changes to organisational structure can be driven by strategic, pragmatic or political purposes. As organisations grow and diversify, structural change is essential to ensure effective and efficient coordination and control. Structural change is also associated with declining organisational performance and changes in senior executives, especially CEOs. For these reasons and more, structure is often the focus of change.

LucasArts, headed by George Lucas, was the company commissioned to provide the special effects used in the Star Wars movies, amongst other digital technology products. In the last decade, competition in the special effects industry has increased dramatically, but so too have the opportunities in line with the increasing quantities and qualities of digital games – some of which use techniques that only companies at the top end of the market, such as LucasArts, can achieve (Jones, 2009). However, LucasArts had a problem. They employed a large number of creative digital artists, who would be well placed to take advantage of new market opportunities, but the digital artists worked independently within departments that focused on specialist activities, often communicating only between departments that were geographically remote from each other via video conferencing systems. Lucas decided that it was necessary to restructure in order to change the process and output of the company. He relocated the digital artists into a single site that was designed to encourage interaction. It included open areas, lounges and high-quality communal facilities. He asked them to develop a common digital platform so that people currently working in different departments could potentially collaborate. The operational leaders introduced temporary project teams and challenged the workers to develop new products for both the film and games industries. The result has been an increase in the sharing of skills between individuals and departments.