ABSTRACT
The Egyptian pyramids were built using an organizational structure that was hierarchical. For hierarchical or bureaucratic structures to exist there are two mandatory conditions. The first is specialisation with regimentation. The second mandatory condition is that society must share the common belief that control is always in the level above and this is the right and proper way to organise society. The impact of specialisation is to create 'silos' within the organization. This 'shell shocked' state continued to exist through the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties when organizations began to discover 'Total Quality Management. TQM presented the leaders of organizations with a new challenge. Quality circles appeared widely throughout industry and government under many names such as, 'business improvement teams' an investment in improvement team activities generates a significant increase in performance. The work teams at the 'value-adding end' of the business were suddenly asked to make decisions for which they were ill prepared.
