BOOK SUMMARY 94 Understanding Organizations
·
Summary written by: Jacqueline van
Dyk
"Management can only be learnt, and learnt, even
now, in the school of experience. But experience, guided and enlightened by
understanding, is likely to be a gentler experience for everyone and to lead to
a shorter learning cycle."
- Understanding Organizations, loc. 171
Along
with Peter Drucker and Henry Mintzberg, Charles Handy is considered one of the
most influential management thinkers. Handy’s work focuses on the changing
shape of work and organizations, and what this might mean for our
futures. Understanding Organizations catalogues conceptual
frameworks that are useful in the interpretation of organizational phenomena,
and discusses their application to particular types of organizational problems.
Taking
the premise that organizations are micro-societies, then those who lead them
have to understand the needs and motivations of the people in them. To this
end, part one covers the concepts: motivation to work, roles and interactions,
leadership, power and influence, the workings of groups and the cultures of
organizations. Part two discusses the application of those concepts in the
workplace, covering: organizational structure, work design, environment,
politics, change, management and the future of organizations. Ultimately, this
book provides a better understanding of how human communities work.
In
reading this book, I recognized aspects of organizational life; gaps were
filled in by having a well-described and thorough lists of organizational
concepts. Building on these foundational elements, Handy offers valuable
insights regarding the impacts and implications of decisions that are made
around individual roles, leadership styles, motivation, structure, environment
and politics—and the behaviours and actions that are fostered by these
organizational decisions.
The Golden Egg
The Culture You Create will Determine Your Results
"Many
of the ills of organizations stem from imposing an inappropriate structure on a
particular culture, or from expecting a particular culture to thrive in an
inappropriate climate."-
Understanding Organizations, loc. 3532
Handy
describes four main types of culture, and the structures and systems
appropriate to that culture:
1.
Power Culture: reliant on a central, controlling power source. The
quality of these central individuals is of paramount importance for the organization
as these cultures put a lot of faith in the individual. They judge by results
and are tolerant of means.
2.
Role Culture: often stereotyped as bureaucracy; structure, logic
and rationality rule. In this culture, the job description is often more important
than the individual who fills it. The role culture succeeds as long as it can
operate in a stable environment.
3.
Task Culture: job or project oriented.
Emphasis is on getting the job done, relying on the capacities of individuals
working within a network. Teamwork, which thrives on integration, creativity
and sensitivity, prevails in this extremely adaptable, albeit difficult to
control, culture.
4.
People Culture: an unusual culture in which the individual is the
central point. Rarely do organizations exist with this type of dominant
culture. What you may find is individuals who operate with this orientation in
a more typical organization; with very little allegiance to the employer, these
employees are not easy to manage.
Each
can be a good and effective culture.
Handy
describes a normal trajectory for an organization: most start as power
cultures; time and success leads to growth and the need for a role culture; the
role culture is next confronted with the need for greater flexibility; hence,
the task culture and need for greater diversity.
Finding
the right cultural diversity is aided by an analysis of activity types, which
can vary in different parts of the organization: steady state (routine),
innovation (change), crisis (dealing with the unexpected), and policy (overall
guidance and direction of activities). The suggestion is made that if the
appropriate culture prevails where that set of activities prevails, then that
part of the organization will be more effective. “Organizations that are differentiated
in their cultures, and who control that differentiation by integration, are
likely to be more successful,” he writes.
For my
own work, I took this as a caution to ensure that the systems and roles we have
in place, the relationships and networks, values, leadership styles, and even
the information we collect, should all match and support our desired
collaborative culture.
Gem #1
Cultivating Change
"To
‘manage change’ is wishful thinking, implying as it does that one not only
knows where to go and how to get there, but can persuade everyone else to
travel there. To ‘cultivate change’ is something different, suggesting an
attitude of growth, of channelling rather than controlling, of learning not
instruction. A changing organization is one that uses differences to grow
better, that treats politics as a bonus and people as individuals who are
rightly different and usefully different."- Understanding Organizations, loc. 5784
This
framing of change really articulates for me how change can happen at a deeper
level – and I love the creativity it implies as change unfolds organically, yet
with intent. Genius!
One
simple change in words makes a whole shift in mindset: you are not the manager
of change, but the cultivator of change. Simply change your mindset, and
consider this: “Perversely, organization theory would suggest that more trust
and less control, more diversity and less uniformity, more differentiation and
less systematization might be the ways that organizations should move.”
Gem #2
Illegitimate Use of Power
"Negative
power is the capacity to stop things happening, to delay them, to distort or
disrupt them."- Understanding
Organizations, loc. 2542
Don’t
know about you, but I’ve certainly experienced these tactics in the workplace!
It can happen when someone doesn’t agree with the decisions or actions
legitimately made by others in the organization – or it could be that they
didn’t go about it the way someone thought it should be done. And yet these are
the joys of working with other people who bring their own ideas and experiences
to the organization.
Releasing
others’ energy in the organization can place managers in the uncomfortable
position of letting go of control. Next time you are tempted to use your power
to control decisions made by others in your organization, give some thought to
whether you are supporting the goals and growth of your organization, or
yourself. Keep in mind that discontented, low-utilization organizations bring
out negative power; the use of negative power breeds lack of trust. Successful,
high morale organizations see little negative power.
While
part one in particular reads like a textbook, what it provides is a language.
The array of concepts, sets of categories, and various pieces of jargon, all
contribute to the development of a vocabulary from which to interpret
experiences, learn from others’ experience, and link concepts and knowledge.
Part two shows us how this language can be used to help with better
understanding the problems that are encountered in all organizations. As Handy
says, “It is not a managerial cookbook but an exploration of the art and
problems of cooking given what we know of the materials and the processes.”
That
said, many valuable resources and toolkits are included in the book. I’ll be
using some of Handy’s tools with my management team to analyze the cultures and
structures within our organization. I expect this will provoke deep
conversations about how that’s working, and where we may need to make changes,
or pay more attention in differentiation and integration.
Understanding
Organizations, a classic, first published in 1976, is now
in its fourth edition. Forty years later, this book stands the test of time;
its concepts are timeless and, perhaps surprisingly, incredibly relevant to
today’s work environment with all its pressures to change, and constraints in
which to produce.
In
your leadership practice, what organizational elements could use some analysis
for improvement? What practices do you employ to cultivate change?
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