Binah Advisory

Los Angeles, CA, May 08, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Economic prosperity comes from constant attention by Entrepreneurs & Senior Executives in improving the day to day operations of business. Improving areas of the business that are ineffective is one critical step towards weathering recessionary storms, as an example.

Most of the times improving those ineffective and inefficient areas of the business that matter most can give your business a competitive edge, and enable for hyper growth ahead of economies. Where many see doom and gloom when economies are down, the smart businesses see opportunity. Becoming more effective in the day to day business operations is critical to focusing on creativity and seeing new opportunities otherwise missed.

Tullio Siragusa, in his book "Unlocking Your Empire", by Binah Advisory Publishing, offers sound advice on utilizing the current economic climate to institute change and on breaking down barriers to growing a business.

“Breaking Down the Barriers. Flat Organizations. The Human Factor”

There are many factors that make up a business from procedures, technology, markets, and other factors; often one factor, that is the most critical is overlooked. The human factor. The human factor takes into consideration how others interact with one another. The walls of an office don’t necessarily separate. Many firms have tried the open floor plan environment, with the hope that there would be more open communication, yet the process has not been easy, mostly due to the fact that most managers are not accustomed to a flat organization.

What is a flat organization? It is an organization where all are equally important, and the focus is more on ownership vs. titles and who’s who and who works for whom. In most cases in a flat organization the higher you rank, the more you serve others, vs. the higher you rank, the more others serve you.

This process encourages human ingenuity, creativity; it breaks down the barriers, and encourages freethinking. Yet a flat organization cannot be without leadership. Rather it is a shared leadership, but nonetheless there are leaders who make important decision, but not on their own.

In most organizations today, information flows from the top down, in a flat organization information flows not only from the bottom up but also across all functional disciplines. A visionary company gets its vision, not from some big marketing plan that some firm from the outside packaged, almost in a production line sort of way. The intent is not to minimize the efforts or the need for outside PR and marketing firms, rather it should be the shareholders/employees who decide in a US Senate fashion, what the vision is, how it should be viewed by others, and then a professional organization can come in and make it presentable, or brand it for the public.

Flat organizations encourage the sharing of ideas, freely, and there are no wrong views, or wrong ways, just different views and different ways to do things. It is the consensus process and the mutual respect that everyone has for each other that makes all of the creative ideas come together into one brilliant solution.

How do you create a flat organization out of a very structured, almost religious natured organization? You don’t. Sadly enough, a flat organization comes with a cost, loss of good creative people who are not used to the environment, executives who feel they have lost power or prestige. The process is painful. Yet if a firm is willing to make the investment and absorb the short-term loss, the long-term gain, is a competitive company built to survive the ever-changing competitive world.

Most firms have found that starting at the branch level has been very helpful. My recommendation is to start any new division or new venture as a flat organization and slowly begin to convert the rest of the company. This is not an overnight process, to say the least; this could take years and lots of planning and work.

In many cases it may very well require executives to recognize that they will outlive their management capabilities, as soon as the organization becomes flat in nature. I say this because, as many executive try to embrace a flat organization and built most of their business units, they will eventually find themselves with Jr. Executives and newer executives, wanting the openness and the barriers down all the way up to the board of directors.

The problem is that although many firms have embraced this concept, there aren’t enough of them. And finding board members that come from flat organizations is difficult. On the other hand, starting a new venture as a flat organization can be challenging for financing. Investors, VCs and Wall Street, still look at who is running what and why, and they are blind to the human factors that make a company great.

---
Binah Advisory's Tullio Siragusa is a certified professional consultant, with 20 years experience engaged by Fortune 200 companies, specializing in process and workflow optimization solutions for sales, marketing and operations. Clients in the past 20 years include: Viacom, Disney, NBC Universal, Microsoft MSN, Facebook, JPMorgan Chase, Dow Jones, Citigroup, Zurich Financial, McKinsey & Company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and GE.

Clients, who engage Tullio Siragusa, learn how to break boundaries, by enabling their business to run like a well oiled production machine; allowing the Entrepreneur and Senior Executive to become a constant creator of new profitable realities.

To get your free soft copy, limited preview of Tullio Siragusa's book "Unlocking Your Empire", submit your request by email to: info@binahadvisory.com

You'll get an inside view into how to:

1) Make better use of time (control time vs. letting time control you)
2) Create effective operating systems to manifest more strategies
3) Set up repeatable and scalable operating systems
4) Integrate Business Dynamics (Actions, Thoughts, Time, Speed)

###