Contemporary issues in management - Essay Example

 Contemporary issues in management Introduction Knowledge and experience sharing by means of storytelling is a convenient approach in organisations and consequently it was determined to be emerging as an effective and powerful tool for disbursing information and awareness in consolidated form in several professions if not all. According to research, sharing knowledge, information and experience by means of narratives result in development of trust, transfer of tactical knowledge, cultivation of cultural norms, generation of emotional connections and facilitation of learning and unlearning (Patient, Lawrence and Maitlis, 2003). Snowden (2000) reflected that stories present informal yet powerful measure for representing ideas that are complex and multidimensional in nature. Organisational storytelling often exemplifies situations that are otherwise complex to understand. The author also pointed that well crafted and well told stories are highly inspirational as they convey emotion as well as information in an explicit and tactical manner emphasizing on both context and core of the subject. Gabriel (2013) pointed that narratives and storytelling within organisation can essentially take two fundamental forms based on two specific kinds of thinking, namely, narrative thinking and logical (scientific) thinking. Logical thinking leads to interpretation that is based on scientific generalisation, while narrative thinking results in development of constructs that comprises motivating characters and various interwoven events. The narrative thinking based story telling is considered relatively more engaging than the former one. In this context, two theories have been developed which have an important role in organisational storytelling research. These theories are Boje’s notion of quantum stories and Gabriel’s psychoanalytic account of the ‘unmanaged spaces’ which discusses tensions between individual sense-making and organisational espoused values. The paper assess role of organisational storytelling research towards understanding of organisational misbehaviour, economic malpractice and organisational mismanagement using Gabriel’s psychoanalytic account of the ‘unmanaged spaces’. The theory has been implemented for assessing this aforementioned scenario followed by substantial amount of relevant scenarios. Theoretical development Gabriel (1995) posited that a terrain exists inside every organisation that is impossible to manage and it comprises employees as individuals and as groups engaged in various spontaneous and unsupervised activities. This gray area of an organisation is referred to unmanaged organisation. The author has described the unmanaged organisation as a dream world within an organisation where emotions, anxieties and desires are expressed in the form of heightened irrational constructs. The author discussed that the major influence in this regard is fantasy while stories, myths, nicknames, jokes, graffiti and gossip form various landmarks. Gabriel (1995) also pointed that unmanaged space within an organisation is multidimensional, affluent in terms of information and is often the natural habitation of subjectivity. According to the author, besides being a privileged domain within the managed organisation, fantasy can be considered as a symbolic reorganising of various official practices of a firm in favour of aesthetic pleasure that allows momentary supremacy of sentiments over organisational rationality. Patient, Lawrence and Maitlis (2003) pointed that there are a number of reasons because of which researchers consider workplace as an ideal space for studying emotions as most individuals spend a lot of time and significant portion of their lives at workplace and integrate their energy and ambition therein. Frost and Robinson (1998) supported the authors by suggesting that contemporary workplaces are increasingly becoming stressful resulting to greater emphasis on stronger emotions such as anger, envy and fear. It is noteworthy that all these factors are essentially associated with organisational mismanagement and misbehaviour and required attention. The authors further indicated that nature of workplace environment frequently challenge emotional stability and temperament of individuals causing significant impact on organisational relationships. Nonetheless, authors such as Sandelands and Boudens (2000) and Ashforth and Tomiuk (2000) pointed that researching emotion does have certain challenges such as simplification of conceptualised structure of emotion and examining them in a critical manner. Another issues indicated therein was that emotional reflection often may not represent complexity of feelings appropriately. This notion has been supported by Gabriel (1995) where the author indicated that emotional reflection as stories may often fail to narrate the true event as emotions reflect different facts depending upon one’s perception about a situation. The author further added that each story comprises a dominant theme, prime characters and emotional qualities, which helps in developing clearly understanding a particular organisational situation. A number of authors have pointed that the concept of storytelling organisation research has been drawn from the notion of use of fictions for research purpose (Sandelands and Boudens, 2000; Patient, Lawrence and Maitlis, 2003). Narrative fictions however present stronger and clearer reflection of organisational environment. Consequently, stories can be considered as an importance source of data for assessing workplace emotions. The reason is that emotion and feeling are considered as an important aspect of stories and fictions and they help in constructing more realistic and detail reached stories. Storytelling in organisation plays a number of important roles. Denning (2002a) posited that stories essentially convey values and norms across various generations within an organisation. Most of these norms are driven from history of an organisation and they also play an important role in designing the future of the organisation. Buckler and Zien (1996) pointed that in an organisation leadership can be established by means of robust and contextual vision and the same can be achieved by means of various inspirational stories associated with the organisation emphasising on empowering aspects of the firm. They also argued that inspirational stories of a firm’s past have significant positive impact on its future. Brown (1985) pointed that existing employees of an organisation tend to express their commitment and understanding towards the firm by means of their narrated personal experiences. In addition to that, the familiarity of a member with the narrative can indicate their level of adjustment towards organisations values and norms. Narrative fictions can also be used for communicating commitment towards the organisation and discussing competencies. Revealing personal experiences in the form of stories can help in managing organisational issues by means of one’s experience, knowledge and competencies. Storytelling approach has been adopted in several contemporary firms for understanding employees and minimising cultural and interpersonal differences. In workplace, stories related complaints and commendation are discussed mainly to increase communication among employees and ensure trustworthiness and reliability. On the other hand, stories related to the company and its management conveys firm’s commitment towards the employees resulting to greater sense of engagement with the organisation. Stories regarding organisational legends have been known to have significant impact on generation of organisational commitment (Sole and Wilson, 2002). Storytelling is useful for sharing tactical knowledge in organisations where technical knowledge is of utmost importance. It was determined that knowledge sharing by means of storytelling can contribute towards solving complicated technical issues. This approach is effective especially when individual knowledge base proves to be insufficient for a particular task. Narrative fictions facilitate development of learning organisation in a firm (Patient, Lawrence and Maitlis, 2003). Denning (2002a) argued that organisational environment transformation requires not only learning but also unlearning so that scope of rethinking can be developed to determine various way of doing a particular activity. It has been further argued that unlearning process is relatively more difficult than learning process as most individuals tend to exhibit a natural tendency of knowing everything. Considering this, rational arguments often fail to facilitate the change and factual stories supported by emotions rather prove effective. Stories generally consist of intuitive and emotional element that help individual in understanding issues at tacit level (Denning, 2002a). Denning (2002b) further discussed that true narratives are inherently capable of engaging individuals’ emotions because these stories are mostly about the common irregularities of one’s life and about issues and situations that are generally different from regular activities and are occasionally encountered by individuals. Narratives related to unexpected situations prompt emotional sensations as they not only indicate various potential threats that an individual may encounter if they do not exercise control over their activities and behaviour but also deliver understanding related to future issues and their management. In a way, the stories help in developing emotional connection among individuals in organisations (Fineman, Gabriel and Sims, 2009). Understanding organisations issues such as jealousy, internal competition, misbehaviour and mismanagement by means of storytelling have been determined an effective way-out because it indirectly addresses the issue without pointing at a particular individual. Mismanagement and malpractices within organisations originate from changes and resistances (Linstead, Maréchal and Griffin, 2014). Storytelling has been determined as a contemporary solution to management negative outcomes of organisational changes such as uncertainty and anxiety. Inspiring stories help individuals to cope with changes as change is invariable and occurs within an organisation from time to time. Real narrative enables employees to understand and adapt to a particular situation more easily (Clancy, Vince and Gabriel, 2012). Extensive research on storytelling in organisations revealed that these stories form an essential part of sense-making apparatus within the firm and highlight vital aspects of cognitive functioning and understanding of individuals. Organisational stories can cover any and every aspect of organisational behaviour and culture such as organisational politics and resistance (Gabriel, 2008). Narratives has been considered as a connecting source between emotional and cultural expression and therefore are considered important for ensuring high quality cultural and ethical performance on the part of employees within an organisational framework (Golden-Biddle, and Locke 1993; Patient, Lawrence and Maitlis, 2003). Practical instances In practice, storytelling approach has been adopted by several organisations for establishing organisational behaviour, norms, culture and transparency. Storytelling has been adopted for prevention of malpractices and mismanagement and also for marketing purpose by certain organisations. Organisational storytelling framework has been developed and adopted by several organisations such as Phillips, Chevron, Schering-Plough and FedEx. Management of these renowned organisations claims that the stories should be accurate and authentic (Forman, 2013). In this context, Gabriel (1995) mentioned that often organisational stories are presented in a manipulated manner based on individual perception about an event. The primary reason for maintaining authenticity in stories is to ensure that they can be validated by employees and consumers as and when required. Falsification of facts and manipulation of narratives, when found out, can have negative impact on individuals’ motivation. Authentic storytelling regarding an organisation involves discussing various essential facts and figures in qualitative and/or quantitative data format (Forman, 2013). Storytelling instances including publishing of factsheets accompanied by supportive stories on geothermal energy at Chevron; the stories discuss about making technologies tangible and bringing the same down to the human scale. At FedEx, managers share their stories regarding their stay at different geographic locations during accelerated business growth therein, and support the same using company data related to cargo delivery in the region for the specific period. It can be drawn from the above discussion that factual narratives are relatively more effective for motivating employees for improving organisational performance. In context of Phillips, narratives related to LED-based lighting design for a particular centre have been accompanied by useful facts related to technological integration, urban development and role of creative lighting in local festivals. The CEO of Schering-Plough emphasised that listening to employees’ stories related to organisational change, its consequences and impact helps in better development of future strategies (Forman, 2013). Storytelling approach in an organisation: Microsoft Microsoft is one of the technological giants that are known for innovation, talent management and high performance. Microsoft has adopted storytelling approach as a part of its corporate communication where employees have the liberty of sharing their stories regarding their activities, projects and accomplishments with the organisation (Microsoft, 2014). According to a storytelling division manager of Microsoft, the company is a lot more than Windows operating systems and Office utility and application software packages and the employees of the technology giant are consistently working on several innovative activities (Bourque, 2015). The storytelling approach allows these employees to share their experiences and knowledge by means of their stories to other employees and consumers of Microsoft. Microsoft presently has its own site of stories where employees can share their stories regarding their experiences (Microsoft, 2014; Bourque, 2015). In one such story, Alhadeff (writer at Microsoft) talked about four designers of Microsoft who have contributed significantly towards creation of the firm’s future. Each of the designers is essentially engaged in innovating activities such as developing personal assisting devices and cloud computing experiences. The author discussed their contribution towards revolutionising various aspects of users’ experiences. In the story, it can be clearly understood that Microsoft is strongly focussed on meeting consumer needs. It was reflected in the story that these directors ensured that the products of Microsoft retains simplicity but are also pleasing from aesthetic perspective. There are several other motivating and experience sharing stories by different authors pointing towards innovations done at Microsoft. Jennifer Warwick (lead writer at Microsoft) discussed in one story about Boyd Multerer, who is also referred as father of Xbox invention (Microsoft, 2014). In the story, Warwick pointed that besides his work, Multerer has other interests such as playing guitar, recording music and reading comics. The story discusses about his work-life balance, passion and dedication towards work and projects and creativity. In another story, Warwick discussed about Microsoft’s efforts towards elimination of cybercrime by means of digital detectives and its implementation for preventing hackers from robbing commoners. Presently, almost all technology barons are making effort to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to Alhadeff, Microsoft created Cortana, which is the smartest AI in the universe comprising all kinds of human features and it is claimed that Cortana is more human than most human beings’ imaginations (Microsoft, 2014). These stories are essentially very interesting as well as inspiring for employees as well as investors and consumers. Arguably, such degree of creativity and passion at work when shared with newer and potential employees, results in greater commitment towards the organisation. Conclusion In the contemporary business world, organisational storytelling approach has gained significant momentum since late 1990s. The growing interest of researchers in role and contribution of organisational narratives towards organisational change implies that the approach is highly versatile, dynamic and not to mention, very effective. Storytelling essentially comprises sharing of experience and learning associated with an organisation with its employees for enriching their knowledge base and motivating them. In context of storytelling in organisations, a number of noted authors have made significant contribution. The paper has discussed their contribution while emphasising significantly on theoretical development by Yiannis Gabriel regarding storytelling and unmanaged space in organisations. The paper has been developed in order to discuss contribution of organisation storytelling towards understanding organisational malpractices and mismanagement from theoretical and practical perspective. The theoretical assessment revealed that organisational storytelling has gained significant importance in recent years because stories have stimulating impact on employees’ emotions and thereby affect their rational judgement which is often clouded by negative emotions. Storytelling helps in motivating individuals by clearing their confusions and hesitations related to the organisation. In the paper, several realistic instances have been presented but significant focus has been deployed on Microsoft. It was observed that storytelling is an important aspect of corporate communication at Microsoft and the stories therein are in essence very inspiring and motivating. Overall, it was observed that the practical observation complements the theory proposed by Gabriel. Reference list Ashforth, B. E. and Tomiuk, M. A., 2000. Emotional labour and authenticity: views from service agents. Emotion in organizations, pp. 184-200. Bourque, A., 2015. 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