How's our Business Organized?

For this question, I turn to my textbook: Business Essentials, p.166. An organizational structure in a business is the "specification of the jobs to be done within an organization and the ways in which they relate to one another."

OK, so far, so good. But what determine's an organization's structure? The most important element, the textbook says, determining how an organization is structured, is "the organization's purpose, mission, and strategy" (p.167). Other influences are size, technology, and changes in the organization's environment.

OK, so how's this apply to us? We are a local Branch in the National Association of Letter Carriers. Much of our structure is already determined by the purpose of our organization. The NALC says that our organization, begun by 60 letter carriers in Milwaukee in 1889, espoused four main objectives:

• fraternity
• fidelity
• benevolence
• unity
  

Today, we in Branch 214, representing the letter carriers in the San Francisco-Bay Area, are joined with 2,560 other branches in the nation, (see NALC History Facts), and our national organization represents 300,058 letter carriers nationwide (211,015 of us are actively delivering mail, and the rest are retired - like me!).

What's this mean to us? It means that much of our organization's structure is already determined - by our organization's purpose, by our history, by our needs, and by our make-up. The little bit left for us to decide is:

• Who gets elected, and
• What we want them to do when they are!