informal coalitions

The nature and dynamics of organizational coalitions

A colleague recently drew my attention to an excellent article on the nature and dynamics of organizational coalitions that I had not come across before. It was written by three senior academics at the University of California (Stevenson, Pearce and Porter) and published in 1985 by the Academy of Management Review.

Its title, The Concept of ‘Coalition’ in Organization Theory and Research, hardly sets the pulse racing! But it has some important things to say about the characteristics of coalitions, which resonate strongly with those discussed in Informal Coalitions. In particular, the authors challenge many of the ways in which the term has been misused in the past. They argue that this has led to "… great confusion as to whether it applies to collections of individuals, to collections of subgroups, or even to the entire organization."

I see this article as adding value in two ways. Firstly, the authors offer a definition of the term "coalition", which provides a useful framework for thinking about their nature and dynamics. Secondly, they offer a number of hypotheses about the process of coalition formation. This post considers the first of these.

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.

Orange's "I am Everyone" advert and an informal coalitions view of identity

Travelling on the London Underground yesterday, I caught sight of an ad by international communications company, Orange. 

Its message was both straightforward and profound:

"I am who I am because of Everyone."

"Google 'I am'", said the advert.  So, at the first opportunity, I did.  And a sponsored link took me to Orange's website. There I found a one-minute clip of the company's I am Everyone tv advert, based on the same theme:

It struck me how well this captures the informal coalitions view on the nature of 'who we are' and how our identities are formed.

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?

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 …

Conversations, coalitions and change in New Labour?

Following recent setbacks at the polls, speculation is rife within the Labour Party over the future of Gordon Brown as leader. And, as we can see from comments by Times Assistant Editor Peter Riddell in today's paper, the dynamics of informal coalitions will have a big part to play in deciding whether the Prime Minister goes or stays.

Leadership communication in organizational change

In Lessons in Communicating Change, on her Body Talk blog, Dr Carol Kinsey Goman, challenges conventional wisdom on leadership communication in organizational change.

In particular, she stresses the critical importance of informal communication - the "complex web of social interactions and informal networks" as she puts it – which accounts for upwards of 70% of all organizational communication. Her post goes on to underline the powerful role that she sees non-verbal signals playing in the communication process.

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.

Fostering innovation and change by 'breeding' Red Monkeys® (and building informal coalitions, of course)!

I was recently introduced to a new series of short videos clips on YouTube about innovation and change in organizations. Posted by Jef Staes, these describe, in a simple and engaging way, his concept of the Red Monkey®.  He uses this as a metaphor for those creative ideas born at the edge of an organization, which he sees as the real source of innovation and change.

Jef, who is a leading authority in Belgium on learning processes and innovative organizations, argues in the first clip in the series (below):

"If you want to change an organization, you will have to like Red Monkeys."

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?