Leadership, the Kessler Syndrome in Organizational Failure - Assignment Example

 Leadership Studies Abstract Over the recent years, it can be seen that more organizations have failed than have been able to succeed. This is despite the fact that within management and business research, the study of organizational failure is always considered as being secondary to the study of organizational success. In the American business environment, more than approximately 10% of all companies end up closing each and every year, this translates to more than 10,000 companies closing every week. It is therefore vital to conduct adequate research on all causes of organization failure so as to be able to adequately stem this large scale failure in organizational success. The Kessler Syndrome in Organizational Failure The Kessler effect which is also commonly referred to as the Kessler syndrome is a theory that was proposed in 1978 by Dr. D. Kessler. The theory describes a scenario where most of the objects orbiting the earth at Low Earth orbit have a high enough density that could possibly result in collisions between such bodies generating debris that ends up increasing the possibility of even further collisions (Kettl, 2009). A theory that is commonly referred to as the conflict theory has been designed and developed with the main aim of attempting to generalize and interpret about the pressures that conflict can have in an organization. The conflict theory states that most of the cascading changes in companies and organizations tend to occur due to the resultant effect of the different interests and opinions on the part of the different players in a company or organization. These opinions and interests tend to mostly be influenced by the company’s commercial environment. In the case of most international and local companies, the companies are exposed to a large number of cascading and unavoidable conflicts between different interest groups within and outside the organization. An organizations institutional environment is key in the provision of stability and meaning to an organizations social behaviour as well as constraining and shaping organizational actions. An organization’s response to cascading internal conflict is determined by regulations and rules, social expectations and normative prescriptions. The responses are also determined by institutional logics which help solve the cascading conflicts since they act as broader cultural templates that provide the decision making arm of an organization with organizing principles as well as means-end designations that are clear and concise (Essec & Insead, 2010). It is common place for most organizations to experience a series of cascading issues and problems that tend to occur in rapid-fire succession and end up affecting multiple departments and organs of the organization with disastrous effects that can result in the demise of the business or organization. The cascading conflicts and issues in a business can quickly become numerous, fast developing and complex, that they become perceived as a virtual tidal wave. It is argued that most of daily decisions made by an organization’s executive may not be rapid or adequate to solve all these cascading issues. The resultant effect of such an occurrence is that a successful business organization may end up floundering and in considerable jeopardy. Most organizational scholars have pointed out that most organizations and companies are embedded in pre-set environments that end up influencing their behaviors. Organizations are sometimes faced with conflicting cascading problems demands and any attempts made towards solving one of the problems can result in causing another problem or demand to grow (Essec & Insead, 2010). Institutional theory shows an account of how most of these companies and organizations make attempts towards complying with normative, cognitive and regulative environmental elements all in efforts to try and secure support and legitimacy. It is quick to suggest that by an organization making attempts geared towards satisfying only one demand, it may end up resulting in the resultant violation of other resulting in a series of cascading conflicts (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). This can have the effect of causing a jeopardizing effect on the legitimacy of most organizations. It can be seen that most models for solving cascading and conflicting conflicts and demands in a business recognize that solving and trying to comply with most of the current conflicting institutional demands can be quite problematic and try to point to possible alternative response strategies that can be used to solve these issues. Despite this, the models mostly remain silent as pertaining to the possible responses to the different organizational conditions. An example of this is that the implications of an organization experiencing a multiplicity of demands and cascading conflicts are addressed in Oliver’s (1991) model design for the strategic responses to multiple institutional demands. The model try’s to integrate resource dependent arguments and institutional theory but lacks a general perspective power in discussions concerning the possible responses to an organization’s conflicting demands (Essec & Insead, 2010). Key among the causes of cascading internal conflict in an organization is the neglect of strategic internal communication, it is widely acknowledged that most of the successful corporations and companies have been able to successfully create work forces that understand the values, goals, missions and all the internal procedures of the organizations that they happen to work for. Another vital factor to be considered that often results in cascading internal conflicts within an organization is the fact that most organizations have departments that happen to be highly fragmented. Fragmentation in this respect refers to the fact that most departments within an organization may not be making attempts geared towards trying to coordinate their actions with other departments in the same organizations. This will often have the resultant effect that conflicts emerge within the organization and end up cascading into each other with each emerging conflict further weakening the company. If this trend is permitted to continue escalating, the business finds that it is constantly growing weaker by the day due to these internal conflicts and if the company management, which mostly comprises of a few coordinated decision makers within the organization fail to adequately address the issue, the company may find itself being unable to handle all the cascading conflicting demands being pressed upon it, and if these cascading conflicts eventually couple with external cascading conflicting demands, the company may eventually be forced to close or shut down as a whole (Essec & Insead, 2010). Solving Kessler Syndrome type Problems in Business. Most of the cascading problems experienced in the modern business environment can easily be solved using some basic models. Some of these include: Team Learning Team learning is a useful tool in resolving cascading conflict as it encompasses all the members of an organization in the conflict resolution. It’s power is gained from the fact that high levels of cohesiveness can be developed within the existing organizational and departmental team groups which can then be able to foster better working relations in the entire organization. One of the key benefits of using team learning to allay chances of cascading conflicts arising is that as opposed to other models of learning, team learning encourages the employees undergoing the program to not be merely passive recipients of the content and information being provided but to be responsible for the ensuring that they attempt to solve the problems initially and if not possible, it encourages them to attempt to work collaboratively with other member of the team in able to solve the problem. In the implementation of group learning, several factors must be considered (Senge, 2006): The Learning Departments and Groups Must be Properly Managed and Formed: The different learning groups and departments must be formed in such a manner that makes it easy for the members within the group to be able to easily perform the different assignments that have been allotted to them. This requires that any barriers that might hinder the group’s cohesiveness must be minimized. Such barriers include negative previously established mindsets within the members of the group, previously established relationships within the group such as fraternities, cliques and boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, these subgroups could also be demarcated along native language, nationality, religious and cultural lines. Equitable Distribution of Member Resources: To facilitate the effectiveness of each of the departmental learning teams within the organization. Each team should be granted whatever assets that it needs to solve the cascading conflicts. The groups should also share an equal burden in the liabilities and challenges that could be experienced during the course of study. When relevant liabilities, characteristics and member assets are equally and evenly distributed it is then possible for all the learning teams to be able to work more effectively. The Teams Undergoing the Study Program should be Diverse and Large. This is mainly because team learning involves fairly highly challenging intellectual tasks. So as for the teams to be able to perform relatively well, the teams need to be somewhat large so as for them to be able to fully maximize on their individual team intellectual resources. Care should be taken not to form teams that end up being too large as this will effectively hinder attempts at full participation by all the team members. Permanency of the Groups. It normally takes sometime before the members of a group can be able to effectively evolve into functioning teams. Constant reformation of the teams will result in the team developmental process being impeded and having to be restarted all over again. It has been shown that when groups have just been newly formed, most of the members in the team begin by engaging in general small talk and will try as hard as possible not to engage themselves in any disagreements. This is despite the fact that by doing so, the newly formed team limits its ability of being able to work effectively. It is as a result of this that the team will find that it rely heavily on the team’s most competent member leading to a limited ability by the team to be able to effectively tap the rest of the groups resources. With time, the team develops into a group and communication within the group inevitably becomes more open and if members of the groups are provided with relevant information, they are able to solve issues more effectively. When the members of the different teams effectively learn the different concepts and apply them in their various positions after the study program. It is found that cascading problems within the organization are effectively reduced and the different departments within the organization are able to work more effectively. Building Shared Visions In his book, Peter Senge is keen to define a shared vision as a force in people’s heart, this force has impressive power and at its most simple level, a shared vision can basically be viewed as the answer to the question that asks, “What does the organization aim to create?” A shared vision can further be defined as the mental picture or image that all the company’s employees carry in their hearts and heads (Senge, 2006). Shared visions have the effect of converting the attitude of the company’s employees into a mind state that considers the company as “Our Company”. It helps in the creation of a vital sense of commonality as well as giving adequate coherence to diverse activities within the organization. Shared visions have the effect of causing all the individuals within the organization to try as much as possible to work together by creating a common sense of purpose as well as fostering a common identity within them. Shared visions encourage the members of the organization to adopt new ways of acting and thinking. Without a shared vision, a company’s attempt at the creation of a vision is both meaningless and pointless and the company cannot exist as a learning organization. It is vital for a company to always be a learning organization as this allows it to constantly benefit by effecting improvements based on the outcomes of what the company has recently learnt. Learning organizations tend to be able to learn faster than other competing organizations and the organization’s entire knowledge base is not reliant on the efforts of a single top person. The Learning organization is constantly learning from its failures and uses them to create a new paradigm (Senge, 2006). A shared vision can be able to help reduce the number of internal conflicts within the organization as members all have the same goals in mind and try as much as possible to avoid any conflicts that may arise in the course of work. The company also benefits from the formation of new paradigms as incidences of reoccurring cascading conflicts with the organization are effectively minimized. System Thinking System thinking is a process by which one seeks to understand how things eventually end up influencing each other within a whole unit. It is a concept that focuses on attempting to approach problem solving by viewing the problems as being part of an overall system as opposed to making attempts at reacting to specific parts. System thinking can be viewed as being not one thing but a combination of practices and habits within a larger framework. It works on the belief that the parts forming the components of a system are better understood in the context of the relationships that they form with each other as well as with other systems as opposed to trying to understand them by isolating them. By using system thinking in the resolution of cascading conflicts within an organization, one is better able to understand the root cause of the conflict and be able to predict any conflict that may possibly arise and cascade with the current conflict. Armed with this information, cascading conflicts within the organizations can then be effectively solved with very positive results. By doing this, the leaders within the organization will find that they are able to encourage openness within the members, dissuade any office politics that may interfere with the resolution of the cascading conflicts and listen to their teams more effectively (Senge 2006). Relationship between United Auto Workers Union and General Motors At the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated. NUMMI was initially opened by General Motors in 1963 as an automobile assembly plant but by 1982 it was forced to close down. There were various reasons for the closure of NUMMI some of which included the plant was ranked at the bottom in terms of productivity out of all the GM plants in the country. The vehicles being produced by the workforce in the plant were also of the poorest quality standard. There were alarmingly large numbers of grievances by the union usually averaging between 5,000 and 7,000 for every contract running for three years. The plant experienced a large number of wildcat strikes, slowdowns, sabotage and high use of sick leaves. The plant experienced a daily absenteeism rate of about 20 percent. Managers in the company had to carry weapons to ensure their own personal protection while they were at work. Alcoholism and drug abuse was also quite rampant in the company. As a resultant consequence of these factors, there was a constant atmosphere of mistrust and fear between the company’s worker and the managers. George Nano who was one of the union representatives at the plant described labor relations at the plant by saying “It was basically war, At General Motors, the workers had to fight for everything and the company’s management appeared not to be concerned at all about the workers. As a result of the management not caring about the workers, the workers also refused to care about anything pertaining to the company” (O’Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000). NUMMI was reopened back in 1984 as a joint venture by both Toyota and General Motors. Toyota initially held about 70% of the total company shares while General Motors held the rest of the shares. General Motors initially wanted to learn how to effectively produce good quality vehicles at the cheapest of prices from Toyota which is a global leader in the production of good quality small cars. Toyota on the other hand hoped to be able to gain a strong foothold in the United States market, while learning about how the US suppliers normally worked. Toyota also wanted to experiment and see if their brand of management and manufacturing could be able to work with American employees. General Motors hoped to be able to copy the new model that it would learn from Toyota to all its other factories in the United States. The management of the company depended largely on Toyota. In 1983, When General Motors signed the letter of intent with the Toyota Company aiming to reopen the plant, Don Fraser who was by then the president of the American United Auto Workers Union, took the opportunity of committing the workers in his union to the new Venture. The Then UAW head for GM Don Ephlin also proceeded to make a commitment With the changes and recommitment, NUMMI went on to become one of the best plants in the automobile industry employing about 4,000 union employees. The company also manages to manufacture about 8 vehicles per employees which are seen to be way above the 50 cars produced by employees at Buick City and Saturn (O’Reilly and Pfeffer, 2000). In 1998 NUMMI was awarded the National Association of Manufacturers’ award in recognition of its excellence. In receiving the award, NUMMI was recognized as having been able to completely change over to a new model of business within the short duration of only 5 years and being able to reach full production capacity within only 30 days. The quality of the vehicles produced by the new company was among the best in the industry and about 80% better than the vehicles that were previously produced by the company. In 1998 the company employees made about 3.2 suggestions per individual of which about 81% were adopted. According to O’Reilly and Pfeffer (2000), the modern NUMMI system heavily relies on a unique and positive relationship between the management and the union. The union fully supports the company’s production system, job classifications and team concepts and has adopted a non confrontational approach towards solving any arising issues choosing to ask “why?” as opposed to asking “who?”. In return for all this support that the company has received, the NUMMI management officially recognized the same workers union that has been representing workers at GM-Fremont. The company signed a new collective agreement with the workers in addition to asking the previous union leaders to resume their former roles and reappointing a union bargaining committee. The company also implemented a team leader’s selection process that actively involved the joint efforts of the union as well as the company’s management. A NUMMI like approach is applicable to other organizations facing the same problem. This is especially in the light of the recent economic recession which affected companies in different industries all over the world. Massive layoffs were implemented and as a result of this, worker performance was significantly reduced in almost all the companies. A NUMMI like approach would be beneficial to all the affected companies that are trying to turn-around their company’s relations with their workforces. References: Senge M. P. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Currency/Doubleday. Random House. Kettl F. D. (2009). The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail and How to Fix Them. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. Crosby, Barbara C. (2010). “Leading in the Shared-Power World of 2020.” Public Administration Review December 2010 Special Issue. O'Reilly A C. & Pfeffer J. (2000). Hidden value : how great companies achieve extraordinary results with ordinary people. Boston, Mass : Harvard Business School Press. Essec P. A. & Insead S. F. (2010). When worlds collide: the internal Dynamics of organizational responses To conflicting institutionaI. Retrieved on October 13th, 2012 from: http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/centres/social_entrepreneurship/research_resource s/documents/AcademyManagementReviewWorldsCollide2010.pdfAcademy of Management Review 2010, Read More