A few weeks ago, I came across some work by US-based Katzenbach Partners on the working and value of the “informal organization”.
Founder and senior partner of the firm, Jon Katzenbach, is well known for his authorship of several popular books on teams, leadership and change in organizations (such as The Wisdom of Teams, Teams at the Top and Real Change Leaders). To date, though, I have always seen these as being rooted in mainstream assumptions about how organizations work and how success is achieved. The company's enthusiastic endorsement of the power of the informal organization was therefore particularly welcome. It appeared to offer further evidence that the sands are beginning to shift away from an almost messianic belief in the power and efficacy of rational management principles and practices.
The important question is, though, whether this really does signal a fundamental shift in thinking about the dynamics of organizations and leadership practice, or is simply a superficial ‘gloss’ applied to conventional management thinking.
A ‘smorgasbord’ of articles
The report is eye-catching and creatively put together – offering a sort of smorgasbord of articles, thought pieces and provocations around the general theme of the informal organization. Its central proposition is that managers need to pay attention to both the formal and informal organization, where the authors define the latter as:
“… the interlocking set of relationships that connect people who share a common organizational affiliation. It is the aggregate of behaviors, interactions, norms, personal and professional connections through which work gets (or doesn’t get) done.”
New ‘tool’ or radical challenge?
The various stories and anecdotes of the “informal organization in action” contain some useful, ‘first base’ challenges to the rational assumptions that continue to govern the thinking and practice of most managers and organizational consultants. At the same time, an important question remains: Do the authors view their work as a radical challenge to this prevailing management discourse or simply as another ‘tool’ for managers to use in an essentially unchanged view of managerial prerogative and control? My sense is that they would argue in favour of the former; whereas, in my view, the stories and commentaries continue to reflect conventional assumptions of the way in which organizations work and outcomes are achieved. I shall explain my reasons for saying this in subsequent posts; looking in turn at:
- the implied ability of managers to choose the extent to which the informal organization has an impact on outcomes;
- the assertion that the informal organization can be "managed" ;
- the nature of "the informal organization in action";
- the use of mechanistic metaphors in relation to organizational dynamics; and
- the origin of change in organizations.
A first step beyond conventional wisdom
Despite these important reservations, the report makes some useful statements about the need for managers to move beyond conventional wisdom in crucial areas of their practice. For example, it argues that they need to “…cultivate informal, as well as formal, channels of communications”. It also calls on managers to value everyday social interaction (their own and others’) rather than seeing it as a waste of people’s time. If, as a minimum, managers were to act on these two points alone, the report would advance current management practice. My frustration lies in the fact that these and other insights about the power of the ‘informal organization’ are not taken to their logical, frame-shifting conclusion but continue to reflect a largely mainstream paradigm of management control and business alignment.
More information on the Katzenbach report can be obtained here.
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