Organization structure.

APA, no title page, at least one scholarly reference.

Initial discussion question

Analyze and explain a successful organization’s structures and conditions that facilitated creativity and innovation. What structures inhibited creativity and innovation? Give examples and explain.

Respond to this response to the above question:

Colleen Barrett is the president of Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines is widely known for its constant demonstration and focus of leading the company with servant leadership. Southwest Airlines has so much success it has been names as one of the most prominent servant leadership examples in the world (Robbins, T., 2019). They remain focused on their outstanding treatment of employees and customers. Southwest utilizes a U-form organizational structure, also known as unitary. The U-form is typically known as this form “because of the use of business function as basis for grouping resources and activities, such as finance and airline marketing” in Southwests case (Robbins, T., 2019). Businesses use this organizational structure in order to seek and maintain strong central control on all operations from top-level strategic management at the organizational level. The main features of Southwest’s corporate structure is groups based on business functions specific to commercial aviation and centralized hierarchy (Robbins, T., 2019).

Southwest Airlines facilitated creativity and innovation through communication. “Leaders of organizations that sustain innovation offer multiple opportunities for communication” (Adler, J., 2019). Open communication between management and its employees creates an atmosphere of trust. Southwest used their policy of sharing information to remain successful through the sudden increase in fuel costs during the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Southwest consistently kept everyone informed when the fuel prices became more expensive. At that time Southwest’s CEO enlisted the help of their pilots. With the pilots innovative thinking they were able to find ways to rapidly drop fuel consumption without compromising safety and service to its company (Adler, J., 2019). In regards to structures that have inhibited creativity and innovation, I was not able to find any examples of this with Southwest airlines.

Adler, J. (2019, September 3). 7 Strategies for Sustained Innovation. Retrieved September 28, 2019, from https://innovationmanagement.se/imtool-articles/7-…

Robbins, T. (2019, January 28). Servant Leadership as Demonstrated by Southwest Airlines. Retrieved August 21, 2019, from https://www.tonyrobbins.com/career-business/how-ha…