How do you lead your organisation when today’s work environment is so competitive and complex? When you become responsible for leading an organisation, your most important leadership challenge will be enabling your organisation to deliver on its strategy while ensuring it remains sufficiently agile. This course will prepare you to tackle this challenge. You will examine what organisational culture is, the primary organisational structures, and what we mean by ‘systems’, before building on your foundational knowledge and taking a more strategic perspective. The structured learning activities that complement this course (video lectures, quizzes, discussion prompts and written assessments) will not only prepare you to take your organisation forward in a more strategic direction, but to make better decisions along the way.
This course is part of the Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership Specialization
Organisational design: Know your organisation
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About this Course
5.0
17 ratings
What you will learn
Define the key organisational capabilities required for a firm’s positioning strategy as the anchoring point for leading an organisation
Assess the degree of alignment between key capabilities and organisational architecture (culture, structure, people practices, systems)
Identify the organisational misalignment issues that a leader should prioritize and focus their change plan on
Develop and present concrete, suitable, and feasible organisational change recommendations that can resolve organisational misalignment issues
Skills you will gain
Value ChainOrganisational leadershipOrganisational alignmentChange planning
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Week
1Organisational alignment
Welcome to your first week of the Know your organisation course. Have you ever wondered what it means to be more strategic as a leader? What differentiates a leader from a strategic leader? Of course, this label can mean all sorts of things; some people seem to have started using it simply because it sounds good! But when it comes to leading an organisation, being "strategic" does have a specific meaning. It is about ensuring that your organisation is fully focused on executing its business strategy. What does this involve exactly? How do you make sure that your organisation can deliver on the business strategy? This week you learn to understand the organisation as consisting of a number of elements: people, structure, culture, and systems. Each of these elements will be covered in depth in weeks 2-5 of the course. In this first week, you will take a broader perspective across them as a basis for understanding the importance of aligning them in such a way that they can enable the execution of the business strategy. This focus on alignment brings us to the central concept for this week: key capabilities. This week you will learn what key capabilities are, why they are so important for strategically focusing your organisation, and how you can identify them. If you learn to master the ability to clearly define a set of key capabilities for any given strategy, and are able to align your organisation to these, you will become a truly effective leader, worthy of the term "strategic".
7 videos (Total 28 min), 10 readings, 2 quizzes
7 videos
Week 1 Outline - Organisational Alignment1m
Organisational alignment6m
The importance of key capabilities5m
How to identify key capabilities3m
Value chain analysis5m
Habit corner – sample2m
10 readings
Become a Global MBA learner1m
Course overview1m
Learning activities and assessment1m
Which continent do you hail from?1m
Preconceptions: Is it time for change?1m
Explore organisational alignment20m
Explore key capabilities20m
Explore value chain analysis20m
About the habit corner1m
Habit corner task – sample1m
1 practice exercise
Recall: Organisational alignment15m
Week
2Organisational culture
What do you think is the most challenging aspect of making sure that your organisation can deliver on its business strategy? Many senior executives would definitely say: "organisational culture". When your organisational culture works to support your business strategy it gives you a huge advantage; when it doesn't it can spell disaster. So what is "organisational culture" exactly and what is so challenging about it? And how do you know if your culture is aligned with your strategy? These are some of the key questions that you will grapple with this week. You will learn to apply a powerful diagnostic tool for identifying your predominant culture type, and for assessing whether you should try to change it or not. You will also learn a number of important change levers that you can influence if you do decide culture change is needed. Be careful though! The road of culture change can be treacherous. This week you will learn how to navigate it better.
5 videos (Total 29 min), 3 readings, 2 quizzes
5 videos
What is organisational culture?3m
Why organisational culture is important5m
Types of organisational culture7m
Levers of cultural change10m
3 readings
Explore organisational culture30m
Explore strategic fit40m
Explore culture change30m
1 practice exercise
Recall: Organisational culture15m
Week
3Organisational structure
What would you do first if you wanted to fundamentally change the direction of your organisation? Well, if you are like most leaders, you would definitely consider changing the structure of the organisation. But when you dig a bit deeper into this topic, you will quickly discover that there are a huge number of structural options to choose from. So how do you know which option is best? What are the main types of organisational structure, and what are their advantages and disadvantages? How do you make sure that your organisation structure enables your business strategy, instead of making strategy execution more difficult? These are the key questions that you will engage this week. You will learn about the key trade-offs involved in organisational structure decisions, and how to balance these trade-offs in relation to your business strategy. And you will learn to apply a powerful 4-step process for developing an effective organisational structure for your organisation. Even if you are not in a position yet to directly influence the structure of your organisation, wouldn't it be great to at least know what the structure of your organisation should be, theoretically speaking? This week is focused on just that.
4 videos (Total 25 min), 2 readings, 2 quizzes
4 videos
Key trade-offs in organisational structure7m
Types of organisational structure6m
Advantages and disadvantages of different structure types8m
2 readings
Explore key trade-offs20m
Explore types of organisational structure40m
2 practice exercises
Recall organisational structure15m
Week 3 Graded quizs
Week
4Organisational control systems
What are systems for exactly? This can be quite a tricky question because it obviously depends on the particular system we are talking about. Yet, from a management perspective there is a straighforward general answer to this question: systems are there to control performance and risk. This week you will learn what this means exactly, and what the most important implications are for how you design your systems around your business strategy. You will learn to understand systems more broadly than just IT systems, and how to deploy them effectively to manage and control performance and risk. An important part of this involves deciding on the key indicators that you want to track, and how you want to report information that is strategically relevant. Too many business leaders drown in numbers to the point where they can't see the wood from the trees. This week is focused on helping you design systems that can keep you focused on seeing the wood instead of the trees.
3 videos (Total 15 min), 3 readings, 2 quizzes
3 readings
Explore types of control systems20m
Explore the balanced score card30m
Become a Global MBA learner10m
2 practice exercises
Recall: Organisational control systems15m
Week 4 Graded quizs
5.0
7 ReviewsTop Reviews
By MC•Dec 21st 2018
Learned a lot of practical things that I can apply in my current job. Thank you Professor Lok and the rest of the Macquarie and Coursera team!
By SK•Oct 22nd 2018
Best course for C level candidates and C level aspirants too.\n\nAm really enjoying the subject..\n\nThank you.
Instructor
Professor Jaco Lok
Department of ManagementMacquarie University
Start working towards your Master's degree
This course is part of the 100% online Global Master of Business Administration (Global MBA) from Macquarie University.
If you are admitted to the full program, your courses count towards your degree learning.
About Macquarie University
Macquarie is ranked among the top one per cent of universities in the world, and with a 5-star QS rating, we are recognised for producing graduates who are among the most sought-after professionals in the world. Since our foundation 54 years ago, we have aspired to be a different type of university: one focused on fostering collaboration between students, academics, industry and society.
About the Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership Specialization
Become an adaptable leader, ready to face the challenges of the disrupted workplace. This specialization will equip you with the skills to lead and navigate the ever-changing global environment we now work in. Through four themed courses you will: learn how to motivate staff with meaningful work (Become a Meaning Maker); better enable your organisation to deliver on its strategic objectives (Know Your Organisation); harness your team’s diversity and use teamwork to innovate and increase your organisation’s output (Know Your People); and strengthen your personal leadership skills (Adapt Your Leadership Style).
Frequently Asked Questions
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
Once you enroll for a Certificate, you’ll have access to all videos, quizzes, and programming assignments (if applicable). Peer review assignments can only be submitted and reviewed once your session has begun. If you choose to explore the course without purchasing, you may not be able to access certain assignments.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
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Is financial aid available?
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