Lattice Ways to Work: How Companies Can Reconfigure When, Where, and How Work Happens

By: Cathleen Benko and Molly Anderson

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Synopsis: The traditional corporate ladder is giving way to a new kind of organizational structure-the corporate lattice-in which success is no longer defined as a linear climb to the top. Today people are working in many more varied ways than they did even 20 years ago. Telecommuting, modular job and process designs, global teams working around the clock, matrix-driven organizational models, and expanded options for customizing work are fast becoming the norm. The result is that "ladder" thinking about work is giving way to "lattice" thinking. In this chapter, the authors use real-life examples to explore the transformation of work and offer implementation steps companies can take to effectively navigate this new terrain-from abandoning traditional offices and cubicles in favor of shared workspaces and open floor plans, to encouraging telecommuting, to designing jobs that are no longer dependent on rigid descriptions of tasks and responsibilities. The chapter concludes with a section about how lattice ways of working often challenge ladder-era beliefs: The transition to this new model involves a realignment of corporate ground rules so that work simply works better-for everyone. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 4 of "The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work."