Assessing an organization's effectiveness involves not only determining how successfully the organization achieves its stated objectives, but also ascertaining how thoroughly the needs of the individuals involved are met and how readily the organization can change to address the needs of both the organization and the individuals who compose it. Coordinating organizational efforts with individual efforts in such a way that organizational and individual goals become united increases the effectiveness of organizations. Responsiveness to new demands is particularly difficult for large, formally structured organizations. When faced with new demands, schools can adopt new forms suited to the new requirements or can develop new policies and values conducive to greater flexibility in problem-solving. Emphasizing an organization's formal structure at the expense of informal relationships tends to encourage values of rationality and task completion that in turn lead to the construction of organizational and personal defenses that obstruct the change and experimentation necessary when meeting new demands. (PGD)