Interventions and Modes Applied for Correcting the Lame Organizational Leadership Systems - Case Study Example

Case Study 2 - Organizational Development Case Study 2 - Organizational Development Introduction Lack of proper leadership in organizations has been noted to be originating from lack of proper means and modes of communications within organizations. Many organization leaderships have since adopted horizontal mode of organizational leadership and disregarded downward mode communication thereby centralizing the communication within a given level of organizational management. Hence, changing and correcting organizational leadership to effective and efficient modes, it is vital that the organizational leaderships to initiate and adopt realistic and adoptable as well as applicable interventions within their management systems. Notably, such poor leadership skills portrayed in poor organizational communication usually lead to increased conflict thereby leading to poor production. Therefore, this case aims at addressing vital interventions and the modes they can be applied towards achieving their intended applications towards correcting the current lame organizational leadership systems. Intervention 1: Ladder of Inference To manage systematic changes in an organization, often organization development interventions prove useful. The Chris Argyris’ Ladder of Inference is the first intervention used to solve the problems of VRD (Argyris, 1985; Pg. 37). The Ladder of inference illustrates that to reach to a conclusion or draw inference it is necessary for follow the steps in the ladder that includes observing the available data, selecting the relevant data, affixing meaning to the data, making assumptions, developing belief and drawing conclusion and finally taking action based on the belief. In this applications, the inference to be applied in working the conclusions to the underlying organization problems include opinions, beliefs, and or conclusion drawn from gathering data that are based on cultural or personal experiences. The same data must be supported data based on the premises that the same data is true. In VRD, the implication of the Ladder of Inference can be explained base on the available data or evidence that shows that the organization lack strong leadership and employees are not ready to quit the status quo or to accept organizational changes. Notably, both the employees and the management are unable to understand the need of a radical change among other factors such as ineffective communication, lack of innovation, and change in the VRD’s organizational management. Other data sets that can be drawn in case for managerial management adjustments include the inadequate organizational communication that leads to poor production and intensified conflict within the organization. Nonetheless, from all identified data, only the organizational conflict relevant data from the VRD are to be selected towards drawing conclusions for the underlying problems (Wiersema and Bantel, 1992; Pg. 118). The data that are considered of high importance to be used in solving the case one underlying problem include change in style of management, ineffective organizational structure and inadequate information to individuals, and poor mode of information transmission to other departments or employees. Notably, assumptions that can be drawn for the selected data is that all these challenges emanate from lack of effective flow of information in the organization. Moreover, individuals are not involved in decision-making process do not understand the problems outside environment and the necessity to adopt and implement changes in the organization (Waddell, Cummings, and Worley, 2004; Pg. 262). From these assumptions, it can be concluded that the main problem is not the resistance of employees to embrace organizational changes, but lack of effective communication within the organizational management that forces the organizational employees to resist the sudden changes within the organization. Hence, there is a belief that initiating and adopting effective and efficient communication within all level or organizational management will enhance effective organizational management thereby reducing resistance of the employees to organizational changes. Therefore, it is vital for the management lairdship adopt and implement effective open-ended communication with the employees across all levels to ensure that all problems and fears of all employees and understood and dressed for the progress of the organization (Worley, Hitchin, and Ross, 1996). Additional effective and open communication within the organization will enable sharing of ideas among all organizational employees and this will help in future development of organizational strategies towards addressing radical organizational changes. According to the Action theory by Argyris, in critical situation like that of VRD, the CEO and high management must employ productive reasoning over defensive reasoning to help them to bond better with employees (Argyris, 1985; Pg. 42). Intervention 2: Socio-technical system and team building through problem-solving Many theorists and authors have supported the concept of organizational learning to mitigate organizational conflicts like the one prevailing in the VRD leadership and management. One of the important interventions of organizational learning is socio-technical system. According to the socio-technical system (STS) approach, work design should be such that it increases interaction between people and technology at workplace. The STS integrates social aspect of employees along with the technical aspect of the work design to bring out greater productivity and employees’ satisfaction (Waddell and Sohal, 1998; Pg. 543). The STS involves creation of self-managed teams and activities including job enrichment, job enlargement and job rotation where individuals get great exposure to the task they do thereby empowering them for task analysis and deciding on strategies for process improvement. Notably, the socio-technical system along with team building approach can be useful in understanding the problems in VRD and help in solving them. According to Dyer, team-building approach can be implemented for different situations including team building to help in reducing and eventual eradicating organizational conflicts. He further identified situations that can be resolved with team building by noting that team-building approach is useful when pattern of communication proves inadequate among individuals in an organization (Murray and Millett, 2011). In VRD, transformation can be facilitated through team building since teams will help employees to understand and relate to each other effectively and efficiently as they try to meet the set team goals and objectives. Team building is a vital intervention since it help individual employee to share their personal problems to other members of the teams who may help in solving the same problems or the team leader passing the same to relevant organizational department for adequate solution. In problem solving, teams and team members do not question and find fault in each other’s capability, but they discuss their problems and try to find solutions. In problem-solving teams, the management and employees leave aside the status quo and work towards the bigger problems. For example, using the same technique, the VRD may adopt team building towards understanding faulty production system, poor sales figure, and depleting profit from relevant employees (Piderit, 2000; Pg. 792). To achieve the goals of team building effectively, the management must be ready to diminish the hierarchical borders and explains to employees about the need of radical change from realistic point of view. In fact, this problem-solving approach helps to determine the causes of resistance to organizational change among employees and the appropriate reasons that may lead to such resistances (Cummings and Worley, 2009; Pg. 153). Inter-organizational trust is important in problem-solving teams, as it is lacked between management and VRD; it can be rebuilt through team building efforts (Honold, 1997; Pg. 209). The main advantages of problem-solving teams are high level of interdependence; contribution towards mutual efforts to success is the open flow of communication and shared goals and objectives. Team empowerment is one of the major philosophies that are used in these strategies to resolve organizational conflicts. It creates an open environment for discussion, decision-making, and operations between employees and management. Team empowerment makes individuals to feel that they belong with the company and are participating in enhancing its welfare. By making VRD employees understand the need for change and allowing them to participate in decision-making, quality of work life can be improved (Kirkman and Rosen, 2000; Pg. 58). Through team problem solving and socio-technical system approaches, it is possible for the VRD managers to identify employees’ problems and determine the capabilities of employees; followed by implementation of appropriate job designs for them towards eradicating the same problems and challenges. Job design will ensure that tasks are standardized and creativity is included in handing challenging tasks that may prompt resistance among VRD employees. According Murray, team learning bridges gap between individuals and organization. Thus, team building helps in determine the efforts and goals of the team through group interaction and individual objections (Murray and Millett, 2011; Pg. 264). Therefore, the VDR’s managers, CEO and employees can together form a problem-solving team and discuss company plans and objectives to take decisions with mutual consent through team learning. In this way, the decision will not be one-sided thereby subjecting the management to little scope of resistance from employees during organizational change implementations. Through participative interaction, new ideas can be generated and their consequences can be easily understood. The senior employees can share their experience with the new CEO, while the CEO can explain to them about the rapid changing business environment, technology innovations, and growing competition. Therefore, the CEO should take and weigh managers and employees’ opinions, instead of imposing decisions on them (Greiner and Schein, 1988; Pg. 215). Managers with participative leadership skills should be hired and necessary training should be imparted. Therefore, VRD should adopt this mode of problem solving towards reducing its managerial and leadership problems. Intervention 3: Integrated Strategic Change List of References ARGYRIS, C. (1985). Interventions for Improving Leadership Effectiveness. Journal of Management Development, 4(5), pp.30-50. CUMMINGS, T. G. & WORLEY, C. G. (2009). Organization development and change. Boston: Cengage Learning. GREINER, L. E. & SCHEIN, V. E. (1988). Power and organization development. USA: Addison-Wesley. HONOLD, L. (1997). A review of the literature on employee empowerment. Empowerment in organizations, 5(4), pp. 202-212. KIRKMAN, B. L. & ROSEN, B. (2000). Powering up teams. Organizational Dynamics, 28 (3), pp. 48-66. MURRAY, P. A. & MILLETT, B. (2011). The influence of learning behaviour on team adaptability. International journal of learning and change, 5(4), pp. 256-267. PIDERIT, S. K. (2000). Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: A multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change. Academy of management review, 25(4), pp. 783-794. WADDELL, D. & SOHAL, A. S. (1998). Resistance: a constructive tool for change management. Management Decision, 36(8), pp. 543-548. WADDELL, D., CUMMINGS, T. G. & WORLEY, C. G. (2004). Organisation development & change. USA: Thomson. WIERSEMA, M. F. & BANTEL, K. A. (1992). Top management team demography and corporate strategic change. Academy of Management journal, 35(1), pp. 91-121. WORLEY, C. G., HITCHIN, D. & ROSS, W. L. (1996).  Integrated strategic change: How OD builds competitive advantage. Boston: Addison-Wesley Publisher. Read More