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Book Notes: Seeing Organizational Patterns |
The way an organization behaves can be broken into a project mangement triangle type set of constraints.
These constraints are:
- cooperation
- control
- autonomy
Seeing Organizational Patterns
[The director of training for a major industrial corporation was committed to helper move her firm from an authoritative style of decision making to one that was more collaborative] It soon become clear that certain issues were unresolvable except by fiat. At the same time, other decisions concerned individual matterns that had nothing to do with the department.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 5 ()
Reastically professional's work does call for autonomy, large scale manufacturing does demand control, and teamwork does depend on cooperation. But each of these situations - like most organizational problems - require that all three variables be taken into account.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 5 ()
Organizations are inherently triadick because there are only three ways in which people can related, without conflict, to each other - patterns that correspond to the three code design variables identified above: autonomy, control and cooperation.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 6 ()
Autonomy vs control is the classic field versus headquarters dilemna: nitty gritty verse big picture. Those in the field are "where the rubber meets the road" as the famous tire commercial used to put it. They are in touch with customer needs and geographic nuances in a way that remote corporate managers and staffers can rarely be. What field personal tend to lack, however, is a view of the whole. Control vs cooperation is tantamount to consistency vs innovation. Autonomy vs cooperation is equivalent to accountability vs synergy - indivdual vs the goup. The more an organization stresses individual or unit accountablity, the less likely it is to benefit fom spontaneous cooperation amoung individuals or units. Conversely, the greater the commitment to synergy, the more difficult it is to sort out each player's contribution.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 11 ()
Three ways to fail. Managersand organizations can fail in any of three general ways:
by overdoing their top priority - whether it be autonomy or control or cooperation.
By under-doing their bottom priority
By operating without priorities.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 16 ()
Many self styled "process consultants" continue to encourage organizational teams to reach virtually every decision in a collaborative manner. Such an ambition is unrealizable. In any social system some decisions will always have to be mandated, while others will have to be delegated to specific individuals.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 20 ()
Two variable design comes in two varities: (1) those that seek a compromise or tradeoff between two variables and (2) those that try to combine or maximize two variables. The former believe that increasing one variable neccisarily decreases the other; they live in a shades of gray world. The latter are convinced that both varibles can be maximized without having to trade off anything; they live in a world of black and white.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 21 ()
Underdoing autonomy During the past two decades in the United Status, much of what has passed for quality of worklife, employee involvement, and Japanesse management techniques has attemped to counterbalance control with cooperation, but with virtually no attention to autonomy.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 21 ()
Underdoing cooperation Most corporate managers that I have observed percieve organizational design as linear - reducable to a continum of centralization (control) at one end and desentralization (autonomy) at the other, with teamwork (cooperation) nowhere in site. The firm, like a trolley, goes back and forth between the two extremes. "Things have become too bureaucratic we need to drive decision making down to those who are where the action is", or "things have gotten out of hand; we need to concentrate authority where we have the big picture"
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 23 ()
Effective three varible thinking does not mean maximizing all three variables. Rather it means emphasizing one or two variables, ithout negeting any. Any organization that tries to maximize all three patterns will likely lose any sense of priorities.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 24 ()
Corporate planner Peter Schwartz explains why he favors triads when constructing future scenarios. "... people's minds can cope with only two or three possibilities. Two may not capture reality, so you can use thre. On rare occasions you might consider four. Any more choices will produce a hopeless muddle"
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 25 ()
Note that matrix organization is depicted as stuck in the middle of the triangle. Matrix designs typically try to combine an input (control) bias and an output (autonomy) bias by requiring certain managers to report to both an input (for example, functional) boss and an output (product/market) boss. But to make this combination work, considerable volentary oooperation among all parties is essentian; without quesion, the absense of such cooperation has sunk many a matrix.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 29 ()
There are, to be sure, successful examples of matrix organizations and dual-reporting relationships can work so log as autonomy, control and cooperation are carefully prioritized. Still, maintaining a matrix is one tough act - especially long term.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 29 ()
In their classic book, Organization and Envinonment, Paul Lawernce and Jay Lorsch define differentiation as "the difference in cognitive and emotional orientation amnong managers in different functional departments."
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 33 ()
At this point, I introduced a triad that had been useful in several other contexts; motivations for middle management change. I suggested that, initially, skeptical managers are likely to go along with change (to the extent that they do so at all) primarily for political reasons because such behavior is "expected" by their boss (and pay the promotional opportunities may hang in the balance).After having come on board for political reasons, such individuals may later support organizational change initiatives for peformance reasons - because they have seen successful examples and believe "it works". The third stage is to embrace cooperative change for personal reasons - because it "is right". the mistake a lot of senior management make is unrealistically to expect early commitment by thei subordinate managers for personal reasons. It is often sensible to start with political / performance postures and then encourage the humanistic aspect of change motivation to deevlop over time.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 43 ()
Organizational strategy answers three fundimental questions (1) why an organization exists (2) what it is (3) how it competes.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 49 ()
Character is defined in part by cultural bias - that is, by the overriding social values of the organization. It is also defined by mutal expectations; what the organization expects from its people, and what the people in turn expect from their organization. Finally character is expressed in terms of an organization's development pattern - the manner in which it grows, develops and renews itself
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 52 ()
employees/cooperation shareholders/subsidizers (control) customers / clients (autonomy)
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 52 ()
In the opinion of CalTech president Thomas E Everhart, "one outstandig scientist can do 100 or 1,000 times more good than someone who is almost as good"
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 59 ()
A concluding note: Organizational Strategy defines purpose, vision, mission, raison de d'etre. Although the framework presenter here is idealized - and therefore vasily oversimplified - it does enable serios dialog about choices. Too often, corporate purpose is dismissed as something like "the vision thing". But unless an organization periodically thinks through issues of consituencies, character and capabiliies - why we exist, how we exist and how we satisy customers - the odds are strong it will lose direction and flounder, no matter how rigorously it addreses atters of structure and systems.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 63 ()
"Whole persons aren't contained in the boxes on organizational charts. But managers forget that, which is why organizational charts are never the way things work - even though people invest enormous time in drawing, reviewing, pondering, and worrying over them.' -KARL E. WEICK, The Social Psychology of Organizing Second Edition
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 65 ()
A traffic circle is a space in which so many people interact so often that almost everyone becomes overwhelmed. The effect isa similar to that in an actual traffic circle (rotary), where there is no legal right of way: Cars and trucks continuously cut each other off as they enter and exit. Virtually any organizational unit can degenerate into a traffic circle-if it attracts enough commerce from enough directions. This pattern is particularly evident in departments (or locations) that are lodged between two or more other departments that need to work together closely; the in-between zone becomes inundated from both (all) ends.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 72 ()
With sequential interdependence, organizational parts interact in series; each renders an incremental but cumulative contribution to the whole.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 74 ()
With reciprocal interdependence, the parts interact in a back-and-forth manner and make joint contributions to the system
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 74 ()
Spiral interferences defines a work flow that originates at one point, gradually goes away from this point , and eventually truths do it / but at a higher level
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 74 ()
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 74 () Closed-loop interdependence describes a pattern in which adjacent* individuals or units interact with each other in a manner that ensures complete information exchange, or "coverage" of a work area. }
Pivotal interdependence features one central individual or unit around whom (or which) others interact. It is exemplified by a classic offensive pattern in basketball, in which the center acts as a pivot by receiving the ball from, and passing it to, the other players as they cut toward the basket.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 75 ()
Aside from education and training, there are three good reasons for group of people to meet at work:
to create a forum
to make decisions
to build a team.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 82 ()
The array of meeting types (excluding info-dumps) can be triangulated (exhibit 6-4). A soapbox is a meeting in which one or more individuals sound off or "grandstand."
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 85 ()
A muster is a roll call in which attendance and obedience are the name of the game. The convener of such an assembly is more interested in displaying his or her power to force others to show up than in accomplishing anything.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 85 ()
A Lovin is a team building meeting in which concerns about people's feelings are allowed to overwhelm concerns about tasks
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 85 ()
A meander is a random walk through various meeting types, both positive and negative. The meeting jumps from one pattern to another, without signal.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 86 ()
"Pure" Modes of Decision-Making There are six viable ways to make a decision-three "pure" and three mixed- and four nonviable modes. The "pure" patterns and their flawed extremes will be discussed first. To delegate a decision is to permit one or more subordinates to decide within boundaries set by the manager. Delegation is a form of empowerment that has three strengths:
It moves authority close to the action- real-time, real-place
it increases subordinates' ship of the decision; and
it frees up the delegator's time for more strategic decision-making.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 87 ()
To abdicate a decision is to wash one's hands of responsibility - a Pattern that [often(?) - RPW] amounts to abandonment rather than empowerment
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 88 ()
To mandate a decision is to make the call unilaterally. When a manager mandates, she or he usually brings to bear a global perspective--the big picture. And mandating is easy to do since no one else is involved in the process. The downside of a global perspective is an insensitivity to local conditions the nitty-gritty. And the price of an easy decision-making process is that those left to implement the decision may lack energy. Few people feel ownership of a decision when they have played no part in arriving at that decision. To dictate is to impose orders what to do/how to do it-without explaining why, and without concern for subordinates' reactions.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 88 ()
To collaborate is to decide jointly with subordinates (and perhaps peers) through a consensual process
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 89 ()
To placate is to pacify--to prevent or dampen discord and emotion. The process of decision-making becomes more important than the decisions at hand. In an effort to keep everyone happy, decisions are either avoided or made subject to unanimous approval.
- From Seeing Organizational Patterns by Keidel on page 90 ()