Week 4 Organizing Work Paper
Intro:
The American Heart Association, even as a non-profit organization, must have a solid structure to maximize the effectiveness of the company. As a non-profit the organization the goal is to help American citizens foster heart health. The association depends heavily on donations and a primarily volunteer workforce to operate. As Americans are living longer the American Heart Association has taken on the challenge to increase the quality of life through promoting heart health and stroke prevention.
It takes on a quintessential “Functional” Departmentalization Structure which means that the AHA is set up to be very efficient in terms of putting people together with shared skill sets and specialties, but can also hamper communication for the same reasons. When you have specialists together, more than just the structure can prevent fluid communication. Often times there are cultural distinctions between departments. Their values are weighted differently and departments can even take on a language of their own with specialized jargon. Functional designs are also prone to perceiving other departments as “out groups” which can create the unhealthy type of intercompany competition. Even though the majority of the chart fell into the functional category, there were also a few Executive Vice Presidents that were geographically based, all of whom report directly to the CEO. If you add together the chief of staff, chief admin officer, chief science officer, deputy chief medical officer, chief mission officer, chief diversity/marketing officer, chief development officer, and all of the regional vice presidents, you get a total of 14 people managed directly by the CEO. That’s just too much direct oversight for any one individual in my opinion. I almost wonder with a COO position should be created to help reduce the CEO’s level of direct oversight.
Conclusion:
Overall the American Heart Association has enjoyed major success for nearly 100 years. Operating with a
The American Heart Association, even as a non-profit organization, must have a solid structure to maximize the effectiveness of the company. As a non-profit the organization the goal is to help American citizens foster heart health. The association depends heavily on donations and a primarily volunteer workforce to operate. As Americans are living longer the American Heart Association has taken on the challenge to increase the quality of life through promoting heart health and stroke prevention.
It takes on a quintessential “Functional” Departmentalization Structure which means that the AHA is set up to be very efficient in terms of putting people together with shared skill sets and specialties, but can also hamper communication for the same reasons. When you have specialists together, more than just the structure can prevent fluid communication. Often times there are cultural distinctions between departments. Their values are weighted differently and departments can even take on a language of their own with specialized jargon. Functional designs are also prone to perceiving other departments as “out groups” which can create the unhealthy type of intercompany competition. Even though the majority of the chart fell into the functional category, there were also a few Executive Vice Presidents that were geographically based, all of whom report directly to the CEO. If you add together the chief of staff, chief admin officer, chief science officer, deputy chief medical officer, chief mission officer, chief diversity/marketing officer, chief development officer, and all of the regional vice presidents, you get a total of 14 people managed directly by the CEO. That’s just too much direct oversight for any one individual in my opinion. I almost wonder with a COO position should be created to help reduce the CEO’s level of direct oversight.
Conclusion:
Overall the American Heart Association has enjoyed major success for nearly 100 years. Operating with a