Organizational Thinking

Turning organizational and management theory into practice seems to result in a consistent misunderstanding relating to accountability, responsibility, and the location (or co-location) of power in the organization. The way this misunderstanding often plays itself out is in the disconnect between management and the regular employee. It is often the case that management spends a lot of time and energy working on ideas, models, and plans at the organizational or process levels only to find them unaccountably shipwrecked on the rocks of daily practice and performance. This brief essay will explore this persistent difficulty and offer a possible solution in the context of an overarching organizational design framework.
The overall framework referred to here is the application of a three part model relating organizational, process, and performance phenomena. While much of the language used in articulating this model comes from the important work of Rummler & Brache (1995) the underlying logic and validity of the model shares a long history in work devoted to organizational design, the social sciences, cognitive science, and biological theories of learning and growth.
It also needs to be noted that the analysis of problems related to 'workplace buy-in' of management initiatives as explored here assume an existing and ongoing effort at the organizational and process levels that aims to clarify goals, identify key processes, and pay attention to the management of the same (this implies the existence of feedback loops built into the overall design process at the organizational and process levels). Absent this kind of effort (including the appropriate managerial disposition) any efforts to clarify the key relationships at the performance level as they affect the actual realization of idealized processes will be in vain.

That Old Paradox
One of the most difficult issues for organizational theorists, managers and executives to understand is the paradox of the bottom up and/or the top down organization. While this seeming paradox may be usefully addressed at the managerial level and above through the use of teams, retreats, frequent communication, increased awareness and knowledge, variable compensation, etc. it becomes quite a bit more difficult to craft relationships and mechanisms that connect the same two way linkage at the performance or practice level.

Example #1
For example, if you are in a firm of professionals (say an engineering consulting firm) where the entire product of your efforts is the result of the coordinated work of people just like you (i.e., professional engineers) it is relatively easy to coordinate bottom up processes (the actual work of engineering) with top down fiduciary and strategic goal setting. In this case we find that the owners or executives in the engineering consulting firm share so much in common with their performers that communication and feedback, buy-in and cooperation, and the host of other culture related issues are more easily met.

Most members share a similar language with similar meanings attributed to similar experiences. These people also share similar activity patterns, decision making practices, information sources, and educational experiences. The commonality of these qualities cannot be underestimated for it is in the similarity of these types of qualities that alignment to goals, coordination of practice, and similarity of interpretations are found.
The only real limitation to proactive change and the road to a quality organization in this example is the imagination and leadership ability of the firm along with the normal constraints of a competitive and dynamic marketplace.

To the extent that this hypothetical engineering firm has a large support staff they will probably be afflicted with misalignment and 'buy-in' problems roughly proportional to the size of the support staff, the criticality of its work, and the longevity of its members. Certainly the efficiencies of information technology and automation in general have reduced the overall proportion of these types of positions and allowed firms like this a bit more flexibility in designing, implementing, and managing their strategic change initiatives.

Example #2
The scenario described above, however, is not applicable or relevant to many firms and organizations. The typical manufacturing, service, or infrastructure-building organization is composed of many different cultures and ways of seeing the world. The typical organization is stratified along lines familiar to us all with relatively few people at the top in positions of control and authority over increasingly specialized and functionally defined processes below. This stratification is determined by both knowledge and power. Typically there is a higher level of general and specialized education the higher up in an organization you go. There is also an increase in power as determined by fiduciary responsibility and/or control and competence.
These firms are generally based on a top-down theory of management and supported in this by a tradition and general business infrastructure that strongly supports it. It is also true that firms like this are under increasing pressure to perform in ways similar to the less stratified and more responsive firms as illustrated by the first example. This is where we run into the paradox problem.

Resolving the Paradox
In using the firm of our first example as an ongoing point of comparison we see that the most significant fact affecting its overall success is in the similarity of work cultures. This similarity allows for information and decision making to flow quickly and effectively through the organization.

The problem for the traditional organization is to develop a common work culture that binds and links those at the top with those at the bottom. This is the challenge of organizational design and development.

Obviously an assumption implicit in this analysis and proposal is both the belief and empirical claim that it is in some sense possible to 'engineer' cultural alignment. It is also assumed that before the performance level is engaged in the process of change there has to be a significant degree of alignment at the managerial level and above.

As indicated above the solutions proposed here rest on the assumption that the organizational and process levels of management are somewhat aligned and on the road to a greater shared understanding of the entire organization. If this is the case then we can focus on the relationship between the practice or performance level with its various constituents. Those constituents being the levels above as well as external relationships with vendors, contractors, customers, and other information providers.

Approaching Performance Through Processes
Generally speaking we are what we do. We are known through our behavior. This principal is central to industrial psychology, human factors analysis, and management science in general. It is through our daily practice and performance that our work is done and that our lives take on meaning. Consequently it is through an understanding of our practice that we are able to change it. This is a key point. If we don't know what we are doing we will not be able to do what we want to do (or what we are told to do). In many ways our daily life and habits are opaque to us. We act and then are surprised if we see ourselves act (think, for example, how strange it is to see yourself on video-tape or hear your recorded voice).

The reason that the consulting engineer firm in example#1 above is successful is because most members unconsciously share the same mental frameworks and very similar ongoing reinforcing experiences. If their world is disturbed or shocked by an external force (say a major recession) they are generally able to quickly become conscious of their practice to make the necessary changes to adapt to the new circumstances.

However, in a typical organization we have multiple cultures (or multiple groups with multiple mental frameworks) acting in mostly unconscious ways in their daily practice or performance. It is also generally the case that anything that shocks or perturbs these shared mental frameworks is instantly perceived as an external force threatening the status quo.

It is in the interpretation of the external perturbation that we can see the consequences of interventions of the work groups or cultures that we are working with. In the case of the consulting engineers the perturbations are interpreted in roughly the same way. This allows the system as a whole to adjust and integrate the disturbance in a widely similar fashion.
For the work culture that is a part of the whole but acts and interprets its existence as if it were the whole we have a problem. The problem is that this sub-group acting like a whole group reacts to external stimulus in mostly unconscious ways and tends to act in a manner suggesting an avoidance of the forces causing the disturbance. This avoidance will occur along different channels but for similar reasons. For example, as the grapevine (informal information system) transmits the nature and perceived causes of the shock or disturbance there come into play historical justifications for acting that may or may not be actually related to the disturbance at hand. This behavior is seen by those external to the work culture as a sort of pathology that then becomes the focus of the change effort. The problem is that when the externally perceived pathology is targeted by the change agents (or management) the work culture responds to disturbances here in much that same way as they did with the initial disturbance. That is, the perturbing factor and its effects are displaced and dealt with more or less automatically through previously experienced reactions.

These reactions are mostly unconscious and this general process can go on ad infinitum. So that each time the focus of the external force changes - the work culture's reaction changes so as to displace it from the actual practice that is going on. And this really must be the case for if we stopped our activity every time an external forces disturbed our system properties we would never be allowed to perform our activities with the seamless and effortless wonder that we generally perform them.

A good example here is to notice that when we are driving a car we are most effective when we are not consciously reacting to external factors that disturb or potentially disturb the functioning of our driving skills. The myriad of 'things' going on while we are driving is truly amazing. Yet we bracket most of these things and put them into the background to be dealt with unconsciously and in historically proven effective ways. For example, the way that we deal with pedestrians or bicyclists is interesting. After we become relatively skilled at driving we only pay attention to them if they exceed some threshold of aberrant behavior. When we are reminded or 'perturbed' that there is a potential problem with a pedestrian or cyclist we generally act quickly and decisively to extricate ourselves from the situation so as to resume or automatic and efficient driving behavior. I might add that we are generally annoyed when we have to make these adjustments as well! This example equates the driver with her set of skills to the subculture in the organization and the pedestrian or cyclist to the person or group creating or suggesting organizational and/or behavioral change. Becoming conscious and aware of these dynamics is important in the development of skilled behavior.

The Practice of Self-Awareness
The ability to coordinate complex social behaviors rests on some fundamental assumptions of human behavior. Chief among those assumptions is trust. Trust is a comprehensive category that includes a belief that those around me are accountable for their behavior (with accountability understood as the result of acting in good faith on the basis of good feedback to strengthen existing networks that support our common enterprise). When there is trust there is also - generally - honesty. And honesty used in this instance means an ability to see and interpret one's own behavior using the same standards and criteria used when seeing and understanding another's behavior. Simply put - it is the practice of the Golden Rule.
The problem, then, is how we can develop in our organization of organizations the practice of honest self-awareness. The first step is simply to listen and hear what people in the work culture we are focused on are saying. This involves a strategy of active listening at the level of a work culture. As indicated above the ability to engage in active listening presumes a level of trust as well as a degree of sophistication on the part of the listener as to the importance and value of the information that is being heard. There is nothing so discouraging than answering someone's question when you know that the asker is not interested in your answer. This is probably the single most important element of leadership as exercised on a regular basis - that is - that the person in a position of authority has to be genuinely and skillfully interested, engaged, and open to the people that he or she is in authority over. If the person is not so engaged the people instantly and automatically know it. This creates the absolute requirement that those in authority have to walk the talk - have to model the behavior that they are interested in fostering in their subordinates. We also know that this is probably the most difficulty practice leaders engage in – if it were easy certainly more leaders would practice it!

The First Element in the Performance Strategy
Assuming that the local leadership is so disposed the first element in the strategy to align the performance culture with the other organizational pieces is carried out using a methodology similar to cultural ethnography. Ethnography is a method of collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating information from the culture itself. This information is collected through observation, interview, focus-groups, surveys, and a collection of artifacts typifying the specific culture. The transformative part of the process entails the culture itself becoming the chief interpreter and evaluator of their own cultural information.

There are two important functions embedded in the use of this tool. First of all the surfacing of the work culture's actual practice will occur during the process and this information will form the basis for the second element - the process mapping phase - which is discussed below. Second, the process of going through an ethnographic analysis opens the work culture to a conversation and practice of looking at its own functions. This is the self-awareness part. It is important to understand that the primary purpose of the workplace ethnography is to inform the participants themselves of their shared meanings and to become primary material for the development of the process mapping phase. A secondary purpose is to share the final ethnographic document with leadership at both the process and organizational levels.
The provision of this information to the process and organizational level is extremely significant in that it provides vital feedback to decision makers as to the possibilities of change and the disposition of their most significant resource (the job performers). This feedback is presented in narrative form (with some matrix analysis) in order to further connect the story telling culture at the executive and management levels with the story telling culture at the performance or practice level. It is important to not undervalue this narrative information. Embedded in these narratives are the existing metaphors, symbols, and mental frameworks that characterize the organization's daily practice. A wise leader is one that understands this system of cultural meanings.

Allowing the ethnographic phase to occur in the manner uniquely determined by the work culture, however, is difficult for managers and executives using traditional management models to function. The process can be perceived as involving a loss of control, be seen as subversive to organizational goals, or be too painful or disturbing to the organization over all. It is important to have the right people in place to assist in the process to ensure sensitivity to political realities, historical hot spots, and general institutional norms. It is also critical, as argued above, that this process occur in a context of already developing change at the process and organizational levels.

The Second Element
After the investigation into the work culture is completed (finished narrative(s)) an appropriate team(s) structure is devised within which to micro-analyze work processes and job designs. This activity is the nexus around which organizational and process level management initiatives meet with actual workplace performance. The process/work design teams form both the forum and the future shape of how performance will change to ensure quality outcomes. It is at this point that the work of the process and organizational level teams is articulated to the process/work design teams.

Those fundamental goals, standards, and process parameters developed and understood by the managerial and executive functions are now to be animated by performance level teams. The artifacts provided to these process/work design teams should include organizational relationship maps, strategic plans, and a description of the management plan envisioned to guide the development of increasingly rational and transparent business processes.
What the ethnographic process produces for the process/work design teams to build from is an analysis of job design that specifies values and beliefs, a description of actual work activities, an analysis of how and by whom decisions on the ground are really made (specification of decision criteria), and a listing and analysis of information sources utilized in carrying out the performance/activities.

These two data sets are then made to fit through the facilitated process mapping exercise.
This element of making these data sets fit is the critical activity for the entire project. It is this activity that resolves the paradox of top down and bottom up practice.

General References:
Brown Seely, J., & Duguid, P. (1999). The social life of information. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Darrah, C., N. (1996). Learning and work: An exploration in industrial ethnography. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.

Lave Jean. (1988). Cognition in practice. Boston, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1987). The tree of knowledge; The biological roots of human understanding. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Nardi, B., A., & O'Day, V., L. (1999). Information Ecologies. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Nonaka, I. (1997). A new organizational structure. In L. Prusak (Ed.), Knowledge in Organizations (pp. 99-135). Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Piaget, J. (1971). Biology and knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rummler, G. A., & Brache, A. P. (1995 2nd Ed.). Improving performance: How to manage the white space on the organization chart. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Schein, E. (1997). Three cultures of management: The key to organizational learning in the 21st century. WWW, http://learning.mit.edu/res/wp/three.html. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management.

Activity theory and social practice. (1999) (S. Chaiklin, M. Hedegaard, & U. J. Jensen, Eds.). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhaus University Press.

Strauss, A. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Strauss, A. L. (1993). Continual permutations of action. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice; Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.