Why Companies Should Welcome Disorder — IELTS Reading Answers

Section A

“We are told that we ought to organize our company, our home life, our week, our day and even our sleep, all as a means to becoming more productive”

vi: section A notes we are told to organise 'our company, our home life, our week, our day', the pressure to be organised described by heading vi.

Section B

“A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed.”

i: section B reports many workers 'dissatisfied with the way their work is structured and the way they are managed', matching heading i.

Section C

“he designed a number of principles to improve the efficiency of the work process, which have since become widespread in modern companies”

iii: section C describes Taylor's principles 'to improve the efficiency of the work process', which is heading iii's efficiency theme.

Section D

“This assumption has also fostered the idea that disorder must be detrimental to organizational productivity. The result is that businesses and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at the end goal and usefulness of such an effort.”

ii: section D warns firms organise 'for the sake of organising' because they assume 'disorder must be detrimental', the mistaken belief in heading ii.

Section E

“recent studies show that order actually has diminishing returns”

ix: section E reports that 'order actually has diminishing returns', exactly heading ix's point about too much order.

Section F

“These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally structured environments (filled with bottlenecks in terms of information flow, power structures, rules, and routines) would never be reached.”

vii: section F says such environments 'lead to new solutions' unreachable in structured settings, supporting heading vii on innovation.

Section G

“For example, Oticon, a large Danish manufacturer of hearing aids, used what it called a ‘spaghetti’ structure in order to reduce the organisation’s rigid hierarchies.”

iv: section G gives Oticon's 'spaghetti' structure, created 'to reduce the organisation's rigid hierarchies', which is heading iv.

Section H

“the evidence so far suggests disorder, much like order, also seems to have diminishing utility, and can also have detrimental effects on performance if overused”

viii: section H concludes disorder also has 'diminishing utility' and can harm performance 'if overused', matching heading viii.

“all as a means to becoming more productive. Every week, countless seminars and workshops take place around the world to tell a paying public that they ought to structure their lives in order to achieve this.”

The gap needs the goal of organising life; the text says it is 'a means to becoming more productive'.

“This rhetoric has also crept into the thinking of business leaders and entrepreneurs, much to the delight of self-proclaimed perfectionists”

The rhetoric about organising life 'has also crept into the thinking of business leaders', much to the delight of 'self-proclaimed perfectionists'.

“A large proportion of workers from all demographics claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured”

Workers 'claim to be dissatisfied with the way their work is structured', so dissatisfied completes the sentence.

Both businesses and people aim at order without really considering its value.

“The result is that businesses and people spend time and money organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at the end goal and usefulness of such an effort.”

TRUE: businesses and people spend time 'organising themselves for the sake of organising, rather than actually looking at ... usefulness', pursuing order without weighing value.

Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles.

“research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group”

FALSE: research shows innovation works best in 'an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy', with everyone 'as one organic group', not in distinct roles.

Google was inspired to adopt flexibility by the success of General Electric.

“Google and a number of other tech companies have embraced (at least in part) these kinds of flexible structures”

NOT GIVEN: Google's flexible structures are mentioned, but the passage never says General Electric's success inspired them.