Understanding Organizational Culture, Systems, and Style - Essay Example

? Organizational Systems and Style Organizational systems refer to day to day procedures by the stuff members that are employed toachieve its desired objectives. Style is the method used by the leadership to run or implement the strategies of an organization. It is of critical importance to access how well an organization is positioned to achieve its goal and aims. One of the ways of doing this is consider the McKinsey 7S framework which was introduced in 1980s. It was a masterpiece by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. It was majorly used to focus on company improvement, expected future changes, procedures during acquisition or a merger of departments and basically how to go about the proposed plan to improve the company. It is based on seven elements that are grouped into two, the hard and soft elements. The hard elements include strategy, structure and systems while the soft elements include skills, stuff, shared values and style. Strategy refers to the plan used to create and maintain the lead over other competitor in the market while structure is simply how the framework of an organization works. The staffs are employees of the organization while the skills refer to the competences of the organization. It is worth noting that organizations use external factors to gauge their relevance and achievements while others use internal factors. Both of the approaches are important since they are supposed to be complementary for the organization to optimize its goals and targets (Alvesson, 2002). In other words, coming up with relevant strategies requires a dynamic and well informed team. This may not be effective if the organizational style used to implement these strategies is not supportive. The staffs also need to buy the vision and the goals of the organization so that they can accurately deliver. This can happen without a motivated workforce with includes good remunerations and strong values that govern these employees. Again the style here is of great importance if this is to be of ultimate gain to the organization. The values simply refer to the culture in the organization. In reference to Alvesson (2002), culture is a pattern of basic assumptions. Among the employees of every organization there are distinct ways of doing things. This is propagated through the ‘generational influence’ among the staff. When new staffs are hired, they have to learn these values subconsciously since that is the culture in the organization. We must ask ourselves this question. What will happen if the culture of the organization leads to stagnation or even hampering of its intended results? This calls for stuffs with a different approach. In that case we need staffs who can think outside beyond the challenges, i.e. individuals who can influence the culture so that it can lead to a goal oriented approach. Sometimes changing the culture is not hard in comparison with coming up of a procedure of changing it. The organizational system should be designed in a way that it leaves room for improvement to the shared value if need be. Strict and stubborn systems can easily lock out new and fresh ideas leading to stagnation or deteriorating of an organization. This, however, calls for caution since the shared values upon which the organization was founded should never be entirely lost unless the organization wants to redefine itself. The staffs are very instrumental in propagating the goals of an organization. Arguably, the staffs are the image of an organization. When one talks about the culture, it mainly refers to the staffs, and, more importantly, how they implement the shared values of an organization. This touches on the leadership too. The system used becomes important. The system manages the culture of an organization in most cases (Alvesson, 2002). This author argues that the flow of ideas should be clear swift and effective. It is tragic to have a staff that is not goal oriented. This is because it reduces the impact of the organization. There are few reasons why this can happen when the staff is out of touch with the organizational system being used. This means that there is a communication breakdown or a general misunderstanding. Another reason is when the staff fails to understand fully the aims or goals of the organization. They may be dedicated or very learned but they only implement ‘how they understand it’ as opposed to the intended results. This definitely calls for a system which has a strong evaluation ability to avoid such results. If the staffs try to reinvent themselves or change the culture of an organization, this might also affect the impact of an organization. In most cases it happens when the staff feels something oppressive and not being involved. This causes the culture of an organization to be altered from bottom to top as opposed to the natural flow from top to bottom. Both system staffs of an organization affect the impact of an organization. The impact basically refers to the ability of an organization to achieve its goals. A faulty system leads to a faulty impact. An effective staff leads to a great impact. But then the relationship between the staff and the system of the organization being used must be tested. Staff system relationship must be strong and working. It must also be guided by the aims of the organization. The system used in trying to achieve goals may differ. It is interesting how Alvesson explains that power and organizational leadership cannot be separated. He goes ahead to suggest that the best power model should be used (Alvesson, 2002). Some leaders opt to use structural approach which is based on strategy of implementing it and how to adapt to a dynamic environment. Others prefer use of human resource approach which basically focuses on the staff and their qualifications, capabilities and motivation. Some systems are based on a political approach where some leaders build strong power bases to hit its targets within the organization while others use symbolic style where emphasis is on inspiration and belief as a strong way of achieving goals. This leadership believes that every staff should take the goals and aims of the organizational personally and that those goals should inspire the workforce (Alvesson, 2002). A situational managerial model suggests that leadership can be a function of the capabilities of the leader. This entails the experiences, confidence and values systems of the leader. It can also come from forces in the group. This tends to look at how well a group is motivated. Do they love to be independent and to what extent have they understood the organizational goals? It is the sum total of these different styles and how accurately they are executed affecting the organizational impact. In conclusion, while it is very important to look at other aspects that determine the growth of an organization – it all comes down to the style being used and the kind of system in place. I am of the opinion that we do not have a ‘best’ style to use since the style to use has to consider both internal and external factors of an organization. We have to work hard to understand our environment. Different approaches will give different results depending on the environment and the accuracy of execution. These must be designed to achieve the intended goals and must adapt to the dynamics of the environmental demands for the sake of survival. The nature of the organization and the kind of intended goals should determine the leadership model to employ. References Alvesson, M. (2002). Understanding Organizational Culture Organizational Culture Series. SAGE. Read More