The Main Differences between the Two Management Philosophies - Essay Example

Name: Course: Topic: California Case Institution Date: Table of Contents Introduction 2 The main differences between the two management philosophies 3 The underlying assumptions leading to the commitment-based management philosophy 4 The implementation cornerstones of the model 6 The key challenges to the implementation 7 My understanding of the positive and positive negative outcomes of the commitment based management philosophy. 9 Conclusion 10 Introduction Reports of increasing medical errors have in healthcare organizations have been made. Attempts have been made to try and reduce these cases. Most notably, recent technology ha been used to try and reduce these cases. However, this has not realized a lot of success and this requires re-examination of the cause of the problem. This re-examination has indicated that the problem has been caused by the management style. This paper examines two management styles: control-based approach and commitment-based approach. The intention is to indicate that commitment-based style of management is the way to go for health care services. The main differences between the two management philosophies One of the differences between the control-based management approach and the commitment-based management approach is the nature of the human resource system. For instance, in the control-based approach, communication is done in a top-down manner. The information to be communicated comes from the top hierarchy and goes down to be implemented by the people at the bottom level of management. The work of the workers at the bottom is to implement what has been communicated. On the other hand, communication in the commitment-based approach moves in both directions. Information to be communicated moves in the top-down mode, horizontal mode and can move backwards in the bottom-up mode before implementation of the communication. This implies that there is room for communication in this type of management and this consultation can be done between the individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy as well. Another difference is the manner in which human resource management is conducted. In the control-based management, hiring ad firing of individuals takes place at will of the owner. This implies that workers can be hired and fired at any time that the owner wishes to. This can be done without notice to the worker being fired. On the contrary, the commitment-based approach is more structured in the manner in which hiring and firing of individuals takes place. The individual are hired, trained and developed so as to suit the commitment levels that are expected of them by the company management. This is done so as to improve their commitment level and during the training, they are made aware of what is expected of them by their employers. Firing of these workers takes place in a more organized manner since the reason for their dismissal has to be made known to them. This reason also has to be investigated well enough before establishing if it is worth firing the individual. The culture of control-based management encourages some traditions that are not good for the organization. For instance, there is the culture of blame and finger pointing in case of a mishap. Reporting of such occurrences could also be suppressed in cases when the management has not found out. For the case of commitment-based approach, the culture favours collective solution of problems. Individuals take the collective responsibility of ensuring that the problem does not recur. Whenever there is an event, reporting is done by the responsible persons and the appropriate preventive measure taken so as to stop the event from happening again. The underlying assumptions leading to the commitment-based management philosophy One of the assumptions that is made in commitment-based management is that individuals work best when they are totally committed to the organization in which they work. This assumption is made based on the fact that when one is under less pressure, they are bound to give their best at work. This is so because they will make fewer mistakes than when they are working under a lot of pressure. Therefore, by letting the individuals work at their own space, they take time on focusing on the assigned tasks and as a result they are bound to take responsibility of their own tasks and carry out their assigned tasks as expected. In fact, tis type of management is bound to realize results that are more than the expectations of the management since the individuals are working responsibly. Another assumption made is that people get committed to their organizations if they are trusted by the organization and are left to work autonomously. When organizations trust their workers, they are given the space to make decisions and these decisions will most probably be to the best interest of the organization. Since the workers are trusted, they will do their best not to betray the trust that their organizations have on them. This assumption works with the belief that employees give back what they receive, and therefore if they are trusted, they will also trust the organizations and the result is a committed workforce. In addition, this type of management assumes that individuals are capable of self-disciplined. When these individuals are given the opportunity and experiences of development, they will seek responsibility and exercise self direction, ingenuity and personal initiative. These individuals will most likely work best under minimal supervision and as a result, they save the time and resources required to continuously monitor their moves and activities. These individuals work responsibly since they have been given the space and the opportunity to work on their own. Further, the individuals have been developed and will therefore work towards ensuring hat the experience of their development is felt by the organization. Finally, this mode of management assumes that money is a factor that makes people to seek to work for organizations. However, it also realizes that money is not the only factor that makes individuals seek work and therefore the philosophy provides for other factors that help these individuals perform at their best. This philosophy assumes that when given all the factors that will make them comfortable in the organization, individuals work at their best. The implementation cornerstones of the model One of the cornerstones of implementing this model is breaking down of the hierarchy, silos and the caste structure. These status differences in health care organizations have been reported to be prohibiting the rendering of services that are high quality and safe care to patients. This hierarchy has to be broken down and this will require training and education of employees so as to wipe out the prejudice that exists based on the differences in status. Silos have been reported to exist in cultures and structure of health care organizations. These organizations have a functional design which is bureaucratic and its response to environmental change is slow. Therefore, breaking down this structure is part of the ways of eliminating the barriers to implementation of the commitment-based management. Another cornerstone is fostering involvement and communication of individuals. This means that all the individuals should be involved in the activities of the organization this can be achieved by fostering communication so that the individuals are aware of the activities that happen in the organization. In addition, the individuals should be involved in making decisions so that they play a part n contributing to the development of the organization. By so doing, the individuals are aware of the developments in the organization and they become a key part of making changes in the organization. This gives them the chance to come up with innovative ideas on developing the healthcare further and on generating ideas on administration of the organization. Another important cornerstone is instituting just and fair management practices. These practices are key to the creation of a committed workforce. When management practices are just and fair, the individuals under this management will trust their organization and this makes them to demonstrate the trust by committing to the organization. This cornerstone involves other practices like providing training opportunities, assignment of various projects to the employees, fair and just transfer of employees within the organization and fair promotion of employees. This effort can be replicated by the employees because they will work with the notion that their hard work can pay justly. The final cornerstone is placing transformational leaders in key positions. This kind of management approach is complex and requires a lot of skills from the managers. These managers should also have good leadership skills that will enable them to understand the behaviours of humans. The leaders should also be transformational so that they can the level of the practices of a group to the values of the organization and by so doing, they create a common understanding among individuals and foster the willingness to change for the better. The key challenges to the implementation One of the challenges that will face this implementation is that the system design and processes will have to be consistent with the broader style of management for it to be effective. Practices that are consistent with control based approach of management may not work with those practices that suit the commitment based approach. This means that for proper implementation, the practices that are consistent with commitment-based approach have to be used in tandem with this approach and not be mixed with control-based approach practices. For instance, if the management style is control-based, then the style of management has to be followed appropriately and those practices should be used in this style of management and not used in commitment-based approach. Another challenge that is bound to be faced is that of cause and effect. For instance, workers are likely to behave badly and expect to get away with it since they will feel it is their basic nature. The risk will be that this management style could make them passive and indolent over time and as a result, they become disinclined to responsibility and initiative. The behaviours shown by employees are usually a reflection of the management style in the organization. Therefore, the management will have to face the challenge of continuously ensuring that the management practices do not make the employees relax and gradually lose the sense of responsibility that they had initially. The challenge is to maintain the standards that were set in the beginning and even get better than they were initially. A different challenge faced is the effective empowering of workers without making the empowerment appear like it is forced empowerment. The empowerment of the people has to come naturally and this calls for careful but effective incorporation of the elements that accompany commitment-based approach. If the individuals feel forced into commitment and empowerment, then the whole process has not been carried out effectively and sooner or later, this flaw will be seen in the way operations will be run. For instance, there will be occurrences of resistance from the workers and this shall be counter productive to the organization. In addition, this style of management faces the challenge of trusting employees first before getting the payback from the employees. The challenge is to get employees who will be capable of understanding the trust input in them by the organization and working so as to payback their organization for the trust. This requires excellent skills during hiring so that the organization gets the right people for the right job. Should the employees take the trust input in them for granted, the organization will suffer by getting less from what they expect. The organization should therefore devise a careful approach in according the freedom and other privileges to its employees so that these privileges are not abused by the employees. My understanding of the positive and positive negative outcomes of the commitment based management philosophy. One of the positive outcomes of this approach is that the organization gets employees who are committed and actively engaged in their work. This improves the productivity of the organization. Further, the employees will have high morale and there will be cooperation and teamwork amongst the employees. This means that the team capability of the employees will be productive to the organization. Less time will be spent in arguing out issues and this saves some of the resources for the organization. Employees working under this style of management are highly energized and motivated. They carry out their work as required to meet and even supersede the expectations of the organization. Furthermore, this kind of management style encourages low employee turnover because the employees are satisfied with what the organization is offering them. In essence, the organization is the beneficiary in this kind of approach since the employees will be doing their best to ensure that the organization gets the best. The positive negative outcome of this style of management is that the organization loses the employee when the employee decides to move on. The investment input in the employee by the organization will benefit another organization and the organization faces the challenge of replacing the lost employee. This implies that investing so much on an employee in commitment-based management is a risk taken by the organization. Conclusion Provision of healthcare has faced a lot of challenges particularly the challenge of medical errors. This challenge can be attributed to the style of management where there has been negligence among employees. For this situation to realize a turn-around, it is vital that the style of management be changed so that the most suitable style, which is the commitment-based style of management, is used in the operations in healthcare. This style of management will ensure that employees pay more attention to patients and execute their services better than they are doing at the moment. Read More