informal coalitions

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 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.

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."

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.

The informal organization in action

This is the fourth post in my ‘mini series’ of commentaries on the report about the informal organization published by respected US-based consultancy Katzenbach Partners.  In the earlier posts, having welcomed the authors’ recognition of the power of the informal organization, I have raised a number of issues with the report arising from an informal coalitions view of organizational dynamics.  To date, I have looked at:

• whether or not this represents a radical challenge to conventional management thinking and practice (#1);
• the extent to which managers can control the impact that the informal organization has on organizational outcomes (#2); and
• whether the notion of “managing” the informal organization is a credible aspiration (#3). 

Here, I draw attention to the strong inclination in the report to equate the “informal organization in action” with such things as empowerment strategies; an emphasis on personalized customer service; and the adoption of other semi-structured, people-centric approaches (such as the use of communities of practice), rather than to see it in terms of the natural, underlying dynamics of all organizations.

Managing the informal organization

This post continues my informal coalitions commentary on the report by Katzenbach Partners about the importance for managers to pay attention to the informal organization. 

In two earlier posts, I have questioned whether or not the report represents a fundamental challenge to management orthodoxy (#1); and the extent to which managers can control the impact that the informal organization has on organizational outcomes (#2). 

Here, I want to build on Post #2 by looking further at the ability of managers to manage the informal organization. In simple terms, can the informal organization be managed at all?