Organizations: Balance between Team-working, Power and Control - Essay Example

1. INTRODUCTION Understanding when and, in particular, how to implement change is a vital part of management. The team-working environment is usually a powerful force when something in the organization either has changed or is going to change, leaving the organization with little choice but to change as well. ALCAN Management implemented substantive modifications to various practices brought about by both external we well as internal forces. Although ALCAN realized significant success with the trade unions including stable relations, more discussion and single table collective bargaining, it would appear that despite the introduction of a flatter structure, they did not achieve the same measure of success within the organization. Common complaints identified by shop-floor employees were the difficulty to implement change as a result of poor communication, lack of consultation with and input of staff on the ground as well as a sense of distance from Management. Although several indicators initially showed improvement in productivity, the poorly managed changes created feelings of frustration and resentment together with an atmosphere of complacency, uncertainty, the perception of non-attendance to grievances and overall dissatisfaction with Management’s treatment of employees. 1.1 Organizational Structure The Machine Bureaucracy uses standardization of work processes as its prime coordinating mechanism and limited horizontal decentralization is established whilst decision making is centralized. Employee alienation, lack of flexibility, and poor adaptability are overriding problems for Machine Bureaucracies (Kreitner et al, 1992;p678). This kind of organization is generally mature, and its environment is usually stable and predictable whilst a rigid pattern of authority is also typical. 1.2 Organizational Culture Every organization has an unwritten culture that defines standards of acceptable and unacceptable behavior for employees. While many organizations have subcultures – often created around work groups – with an additional or modified set of standards, they still have a dominant culture which conveys to all employees the main values of the organization. 1.3 Organizational Values Values are abstract ideals about what an organization believes to be good, right and desirable; they provide the context within which an organization’s norms are established and justified. Norms are rules and guidelines that prescribe appropriate behavior in particular situations and they shape the actions of individuals toward one another. Both values and norms are influenced by prevailing political and economic circumstances, social structure, language and education. It is obvious that important implications for global organizations flow from these differences; for example an organization would need to examine the connection between a country’s culture, the cost of doing business there, and its national competitive advantage. It is thus evident that the values and norms of an organization do not appear out of nowhere fully formed. They are evolutionary products of a number of factors at work in that organization. (Griffin, 1990;p782) 2. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEAM-WORKING, POWER AND CONTROL 2.1 Description 2.1.1 Team-Working Team-working may be widely used in organizations resulting in advantages such as 1) more complete information and knowledge by aggregating the resources of several individuals, 2) increased diversity of views - in addition to more input, groups can bring heterogeneity to the decision process opening up the opportunity for more approaches and alternatives, 3) increased acceptance of the solution which translates into more support for the decision and higher satisfaction among those required to implement it, 4) increased legitimacy which implies that the decision making process is consistent with democratic ideals. (Robbins, 1989;p 285) . 2.1.2 Power and Control The purpose of control is to guide the organization toward its goals; thus control is very important. To increase the effectiveness of control the control system should be flexible, accurate, timely, and as objective as possible. Where does power come from? What is it that gives an individual or group influence over others? The acquisition of power is a natural process in any organization. Power determines the goals to be sought and how resources will be distributed which in turn have important implications for member performance and satisfaction (Robbins, 1989;p341). The need for power is the desire to have impact, to be influential, and to control others. 2.2 Analysis An organization is a system of consciously coordinated activities to achieve the four common denominators 1) coordination of effort, 2) a common goal, 3) division of labour, and 4) hierarchy of authority, (Kreitner et al, 1992;p652. One way of achieving this is to foster the development of a common culture. In the case of ALCAN communication and authority flowed through the formal chain of command receiving directives from head office. A major task for such an organization’s head office is to control the various subunits of the organization to ensure consistency with strategic goals; this can be achieved through control systems (Hill, 1994;p396). Four situational factors that help determine the appropriate control strategy are management style, organization style, the accuracy of performance measures, and employee desire to participate. (Griffin, 1990;p621). However, it is also necessary that people are motivated and integrated if their performance is to be effective. Democratization does not eliminate the fundamental conflict in the Machine Bureaucracy between engineering efficiency on the one hand and individual satisfaction on the other. For example, giving workers the right to vote for directors periodically does not change the realities of their everyday work. Job enrichment (multi-skilling) where the workers are given a wider variety of tasks to perform, and perhaps even control over the design of those tasks as well, does not seem to hold a great deal of promise for major improvement of the work environment. Machines consist of mechanical parts; organizational structures also include human beings – and this was where the analogy broke down. Problems arose in the operating core because people saw themselves as more than just mechanical factors of production. Evidence indicates that outside control tends to concentrate decision-making power at the top of the organizational hierarchy and to encourage greater than usual reliance on rules and regulations for internal control. External control groups find it convenient to hold individuals at the top responsible and accountable for organizational actions; this dependence causes concentration of authority at the top (Mintzberg, 1997;p289). In the case of ALCAN Lynemouth’s Management were under intense pressure from head office to raise the level of production efficiency without spending large sums on capital investment. On another occasion Head Office also issued a directive to reduce capacity, with the plant having had little influence over the decision. The Machine Bureaucracy functions most clearly in accord with the classical principles of management: formal authority filters down a clearly defined hierarchy, throughout which the principle of unity of command is carefully maintained, as is the rigid distinction between line and staff. All this suggests that the Machine Bureaucracy is a structure with an obsession, namely control (Mintzberg, 1997;p319). Bureaucratic control is a form of organizational control characterized by formal and mechanistic structural arrangements (Griffin, 1990;p610). The goal is to extract employee compliance whilst relying on strict rules and a rigid hierarchy, ensuring that employees meet specified and acceptable levels of performance. They only allow limited and formal employee participation and in the case of ALCAN it was evident that there was an unwillingness to establish shared ownership of issues. Whilst many matters did go through committees there was insufficient action and progress tended to be slow. Technical changes were made which could have been better had ALCAN Management invite the input and recommendations of shop-floor employees. ALCAN could be classified as a ‘performance organization’ not a ‘problem solving’ one. Theirs is a perpetual search for more efficient ways to produce given outputs. This is evident from the fact that ALCAN ‘s worldwide output remained more or less static despite increasing competition in the aluminium industry, emergence of new producers such as Venezuela and declining demand. In organizational settings, there are usually five kinds of power: legitimate, reward, coercive, referent, and expert power. (Griffin, 1990;p477). The power-control approach is essentially non-contingent (Robbins, 1980;p414). It assumes little change within the organization’s power coalition. Hence, it would propose that structures are relatively stable over time. More important, power-control advocates would predict that after taking into consideration strategy, size, technology, and environmental factors, those in power would choose a structure that would best serve their personal interests. These structural dimensions will most likely maximize control in the hands of senior management. Change is not merely doing A on Monday and B on Tueday. There is a transition between the two, and if this is ignored – by either the recipient or those instituting the change – full adaptation to, and embracing of, the change itself is jeopardized. Cooperation, negotiation, and compromise are critical to the implementation of any change; it is difficult to get cooperation, negotiation, and compromise from people who are effectively ordered to change, never listened to or supported. In the case of ALCAN a common complaint was Management’s refusal and/or inability to listen. Employees were not satisfied with the appraisal system whilst technical staff blamed team-work as part of the reason that their status had diminished and that their job territory was under threat. They may have been concerned about their ability to meet new job demands, or they may have thought that their job security was threatened. When contractual allowances were reviewed and awarded only to certain technical staff, they also claimed that Management were aware of their grievances, but refused to address them. The challenge of change is, perhaps more than anything, that of managing paradoxes, tensions and trade-offs. ALCAN Management realized that it was important to win employee consent by reforming the communications system and by promoting employee involvement by introducing team-work. As time passes, a series of events begin to signal what the event has meant overall to individuals and to the organization. Knowing precisely what each group won or lost dominates individuals’ thoughts. In the case of ALCAN team-work from a shop-floor point of view was favorable and senior Managers felt that significant change had been made. However, middle Managers and technical staff expressed some reservations about teams. Thus, now paramount becomes managing the conclusions and ensuring that employees and managers are drawing evaluations and conclusions consistent with the organization’s mission and strategy. (Jick, 1993:p24). Communication serves four major functions within a group or organization: control, motivation, emotional expression and information. If ALCAN Management and employees had an opportunity to express their ideas and to assume the perspectives of others, employees would have been more likely to accept the changes gracefully and with a clear understanding of the circumstances. If there is no sense of trust in the organization, if people are preoccupied with protecting their backs …. Creativity will be one of the first casualties Manfred F R Kets de Vries, INSEAD, France Trust is more than a good idea or attitude (Cooper et al, 1998:p94). Mistrust between the organization and its employees can be damaging and over time impose a kind of steep tax on all forms of economic activity. 3. CONCLUSION It should come as no surprise that ALCAN will have to provide workers with increased control over and ownership of what they do. Workers want an increasingly greater say about what they do in the workplace and how they perform their jobs. This is not an easy task considering the configuration of the design parameters; i.e. routine operating tasks, very formalized procedures in the operating core, a proliferation of rules, regulations, and formalized communication throughout the organization and relatively centralized power for decision making. Managers will need to be prepared to deal with a work force that is increasingly heterogeneous across every imaginable dimension. Modern organizations will recognize the pull of two polarities: a need for greater centralization to create low-cost shared resources; and a need to improve market responsiveness with greater decentralization. Today’s winning organizations are the ones that can handle the paradox and tensions of both pulls; thus the need to meet the challenge to achieve a workable balance between the two extremes. I N D E X 1. Introduction 1.1 Organizational Structure 1.2 Organizational Culture 1.3 Organizational Values 2. Relationship between team-working, power and control 2.1 Description 2.1.1 Team-Working 2.1.2 Power and Control 2.2 Analysis 3. Conclusion LIST OF SOURCES Cooper, R. and Sawaf A. (1998) Executive EQ Emotional Intelligence in Business UK: Butler & Tanner Ltd Griffin, Ricky W. (1990) Management (Third Edition) USA: Houghton Mifflin Company Hill, Charles W.L. (1994) International Business, Competing in the Global Marketplace (Second Edition) USA: Richard D. Irwin, Inc Jick, Todd D. (1993) Managing Change, Cases and Concepts USA: Richard D. Irwin, Inc Kreitner, R and Kinicki, A (1992) Organizational Behavior (Second Edition) USA: Richard D. Irwin, Inc Mintzberg, H. (1997) The Structuring of Organizations USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc Robbins, Stephen P. (1989) Organizational Behavior, Concepts, Controversies, and Applications (Fourth Edition) USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc Read More