Types of Crisis when spans are misaligned

In the last blog, we looked at the need for having equilibrium amongst the various spans. In today's blog we look at what happens when these spans are misaligned.

Spans of job if misaligned could create havoc in the way an organization works. Fundamentally, research has shown 3 possible situations

1. The Crisis of Resources
2. The Crisis of Control
3. The Crisis of Red Tape

Crisis of Resources occurs when executives focus on creating an entrepreneurial gap excessively - they focus too much on thinking about control, influence, and accountability and do not think about support. In pursuit of the entrepreneurial spirit, the essential support to this would be neglected to such an extent that the whole job design would not be able to reach out to anything.

Crisis of Control is the opposite of what could happen in crisis of resources - In this scenario, the resources would exceed the demand for them - leading to suboptimal economic performance. The excessive decentralization leads to a lack of coordinated efforts across units, thus leading to missed opportunities and wastage of resources.

Crisis of Red Tape occurs when spans of accountability and influence are very high but resources are insufficient and misdirected. One of the indications of this issue is the end-less time sent in staff meetings coupled with slow decision making - this put the organization on a slow track in responding to the changing customer demands and finally loose to competition