Matrix Organization at American’s Biggest Corporate Turn-Around

In 2008–2009, during the darkest days of Great Recession, Alan Mulally, the CEO of the ailing Ford Motor Company then, was steering towards the biggest corporate turn-around in American history.

Bryce Hoffman’s book “American Icon” has in-depth coverage of the struggles and triumphs of Ford’s turn-around. One thing that stood out to me until this day was Mulally’s Matrix organization structure voluntarily emulated from top to bottom like cascade.

Reading the Matrix organization chart from Mulally, I told myself: There must be a future Harvard case study on Mulally’s Matrix organization.

By the definition of Harvard Business Review article “Making Matrix Organizations Actually work”, a manager in a matrix organization has two or more upward reporting lines to bosses who each represent a different business dimension, such as product, region, customer, capability, or function.

However, the number of bosses was not the key deciding factor for Mulally’s Matrix organization.

Instead, at Mulally’s Matrix organization, Ford employees are likely to serve two different purposes, but still reporting to one single functional-area boss. For example, an engineer reports to his/her engineering manager, but also supports many particular regions or…