Boundarylessness Text

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Many executives and management scholars today consider open access to information in all directions to be an organizational imperative. Jack Welch, when he was CEO of General Electric, coined the now-famous word boundarylessness. A boundaryless organization is one that has no barriers to information flow. Instead of metaphorical barriers separating people and places, in "boundarylessness" organizations' ideas, information, and decisions move to where they are most needed.117

This free flow does not imply a random free-for-all of unlimited communication and information overload. It implies information available as needed moving quickly and easily enough that the organization functions far better as a whole than as separate parts.

GE's chief learning officer used the metaphor of the organization as a house having three kinds of boundaries: the floors and ceilings, the walls that separate the rooms, and the outside walls. These barriers correspond in organizations to the boundaries between different organizational levels, different units, and the organization and its external stakeholders—for example, suppliers and customers.118

GE's famous Workout program is a series of meetings for people across multiple hierarchical levels, characterized by extremely frank, tough discussions that break down even vertical boundaries. Hundreds of thousands of GE people have been through a Workout program.119 Customers and suppliers participate in Workout programs as well, breaking down external boundaries.

GE uses plenty of additional techniques to break down boundaries. It relentlessly benchmarks competitors and organizations in other industries to learn best practices all over the world. GE places different functions together physically, such as engineering and manufacturing. It shares services across units. And sometimes it shares physical locations with its customers.

Boundarylessness facilitates dialogue by turning barriers—physical or psychological—into permeable membranes. As the GE people put it, people from different parts of the organization need to learn "how to talk."120 They must also learn "how to walk." That is, dialogue is essential, but it must be followed by commensurate action.