Informal organization

The informal organization is the interlocking social structure that governs how people work together in practice. It is the aggregate of norms, personal and professional connections through which work gets done and relationships are built among people who share a common organizational affiliation or cluster of affiliations. It consists of a dynamic set of personal relationships, social networks, communities of common interest, and emotional sources of motivation. The informal organization evolves, and the complex social dynamics of its members also. Tended effectively, the informal organization complements the more explicit structures, plans, and processes of the formal organization: it can accelerate and enhance responses to unanticipated events, foster innovation, enable people to solve problems that require collaboration across boundaries, and create footpaths showing where the formal organization may someday need to pave a way. The nature of the informal organization becomes more distinct when its key characteristics are juxtaposed with those of the formal organization. Key characteristics of the informal organization: evolving constantly grass roots dynamic and responsive excellent at motivation requires insider knowledge to be seen treats people as individuals flat and fluid cohered by trust and reciprocity difficult to pin down collective decision making essential for situations that change quickly or are not yet fully understood Key characteristics of the formal organization: enduring, unless deliberately altered top-down missionary static excellent at alignment plain to see equates "person" with "role" hierarchical bound together by codified rules and order easily understood and explained critical for dealing with situations that are known and consistent Historically, some have regarded the informal organization as the byproduct of insufficient formal organization—arguing, for example, that "it can hardly be questioned that the ideal situation in the business organization would be one where no informal organization existed.