informal coalitions

A relational view of identity in organizational dynamics

In a previous post, I used the slogan from Orange’s latest advert to introduce the nature of individual identity in organizations as seen from an informal coalitions viewpoint. A reader (signing himself GDA9) strongly dismissed this view, adding the following comment:

“‘I am who I am because of everyone’ - What a bloody wrong concept of identity. It shows that the person who made up the slogan can't place boundaries on his own identity - a sign of psychosis. A person is who they are because of their personality traits, memories, ideas, the sense of self, consciousness, etc. NOT because of external factors or others' identities. It doesn't take a philosophy professor to understand what identity is.”

This view of identity as an innate part of the individual is well established. So there will no doubt be many who will be reluctant to embrace a socially constructed and relational view of identity. I therefore thought it would be useful to take time out to say a bit more about this contrary perspective – as I see it - in this new post.

The time machine of organizational decision making

In Technology, Management and Society*, Peter Drucker describes decision making as

“… essentially a time machine which synchronizes into one present a great number of divergent time-spans.” 

“Our approach today,” he goes on, “still tends towards the making of plans for something we will decide to do in the future. This may be a very entertaining exercise, but it is a futile one.”

Incredibly, Drucker first made this statement to a management conference in 1957!  And yet, 50 years on, the notion that present and future decision making are separated in time still dominates management thinking; the former focusing on current operations and the latter on the visions, strategies and plans intended to realise the desired future.

So how do Drucker’s insights on the time dimension of decision making and the need to focus on the present play into current thinking about the dynamics of organizations?

The limits of rationality and the illusion of management control in organizational change

Stories abound of change efforts that have petered out, failed to deliver the expected benefits or disappointed those who were once their most enthusiastic supporters. All too often, the initial enthusiasm, intense activity and (frequently) large-scale investment are followed by disillusionment, cynicism and a feeling of wasted effort.

Can we escape from this pattern into something more useful or is it inevitable that events will take this course?

Stacey on Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics

I have been a fan of Ralph Stacey’s work since I first purchased one of his early books (Dynamic Strategic Management for the 1990s) almost 20 years ago. In particular, I have been attracted by his willingness – eagerness even – to challenge conventional thinking and practice in relation to the leadership and dynamics of organizations. The latest edition of his textbook on the subject, Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics, continues this tradition.

The “keep it simple” mantra and the complex dynamics of organizations

"Keep it Simple!" How often have you heard this phrase used to signal the need for a change in the way that business is carried out or that organizations function?

Recently, it appeared on the cover of the Chartered Management Institute's journal, Management Today. This featured two articles about, as the MT put it, "managing complexity". The first, How to Survive Complexity, charted a round-table discussion on the subject between a number of senior executives and advisory specialists. The second, Simplicity: Not as Easy as it Looks by journalist John Morrish, suggested that although "simplicity has become the modern mantra of business ... it's easier said than done."

The call for greater simplicity in organizational design, management and operation is a natural, commonsense reaction to the overly complicated nature of many modern-day organizations. However, it is misleading and unhelpful to talk of this in terms of "managing complexity".

The secrets to successful strategy execution - sort of, perhaps!

I was delighted to read the words of Harvard Business Review’s editor, Thomas A. Stewart, in his editorial introduction to the June 2008 edition.  In his piece headed “Tools for Change,” he briefly previews the journal’s lead article, “The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution”.

In re-stating the authors’ claim that clarifying decision rights and designing information flows are the most important aspects of execution, he points out that “… those [areas] are the least subject to corner-office diktats. They involve dirty hands and messy conversations [my emphasis].” 

Reading this, I eagerly thumbed through the pages of the journal to see what the authors had to say about the messy conversations at the heart of strategy development and delivery …

The everyday ‘street magic’ of change leadership

In this final commentary on Katzenbach’s report on the informal organization, I want to underline why I see it both as an important endorsement of the need for managers to engage with the informal organization and, at the same time, an opportunity missed.

A deterministic universe - if only things had been different

As someone who believes that outcomes in organizations - and life in general - emerge from the complex social interaction of people in conversation, the cover story of a recent edition of New Scientist (22 March 2008) caught my eye.  Headlined The UnCertainty Principle, it drew attention to a recent series of papers by "a sizeable minority" of physicists which claim that the universe is objective and deterministic.

Giant Hairball meets the wiggly world of organizational dynamics!

In commenting on a recent post, Paula Thornton interestingly makes a connection between my description of the "wiggly world of organizational dynamics" and Gordon Mackenzie's notion of the Giant Hairball, as entertainingly described in his book Orbiting the Giant Hairball.

Mackenzie uses the Giant Hairball metaphor to describe a corporate world which is "honeycombed with ... established guidelines, techniques, methodologies, systems and equations."  These, he argues, create an "inexorable pull of Corporate Gravity ... toward the tangle of the Hairball, where the ghosts of past successes outvote original thinking."

Mackenzie's Hairball, then, describes what he sees as the impenetrable, tangled mass of the formal organization, which grows up over time as a result of the quest to achieve "conformity with the 'accepted model, pattern or standard' of the corporate mindset".  My Wiggly World relates to the hidden, messy and informal dynamics of organization that underlie its formal manifestations. The two are inextricably linked.  But how?

Mechanistic metaphors and organizational dynamics

This is the fifth in a ‘mini-series’ of posts on Katzenbach Partners’ interesting and important report about the power of the informal organization. I am delighted that the report is helping to raise awareness of the impact of the hidden, messy and informal dimensions of organization. It is cleverly put together and its stories engaging.

At the same time, there are a number of aspects of the report with which I would take issue from an informal coalitions view of organizational dynamics. Here, I want to draw attention to the inconsistency between the authors’ use of a well-worn mechanistic metaphor to describe how organizations work and the general tenor of the report, which recognizes that more complex social dynamics are at play.