Class Agenda for Today

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Class Agenda for Today

• Class business
• Discussion of the managers job
• Introduction to the congruence model as an OB
  problem-solving framework

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Course business

• Enrollment issues
• Go to the Undergraduate Program Office (S450)
• Arrival, attendance, and seating
• Website and email
• http//courses.haas.berkeley.edu/spring2005/ba105
  
• Login ugba105 password jlincoln
• Face cards and name tents
• Class reps
• Syllabus
• Readings
• Case analysis
• Team projects

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The general managers jobSession objectives

• What is the managers job?
• How do the observed activities of general
  managers square with received theories of
  management?
• How should managers balance their different
  roles?

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What is the (general) managers job? (Kotter,
1996 Mintzberg, 1973 ) What does theory say?
The Manager

• Plans, organizes, coordinates, controls(Fayol,
  1916)
• Is a rational and contemplative planner
• Relies on formal decision and information tools
• Delegates to subordinates goes through channels
• Favors written communication
• Carefully budgets his or her time

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The historical thrust of management science and
education has been to

• Develop formal systems and tools that relieve
  managers of the personal work of leading

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What are the facts? Managers

• Rely heavily on intuition in making decisions
• Favor oral over written communication
• Spend much of their time networking and
  politicking
• Have their hands in everything
• are the most central nodes in networks
• have the broadest knowledge base
• Have short attention spans
• Appear reactive rather than proactive
• Is this good or bad?

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Management is Janus-faced

• Manager as engineer trained technician who uses
  a professional body of knowledge to create formal
  systems that plot strategy, make decisions,
  incent people, and coordinate units in maximally
  efficient ways.

• Manager as leader individual who
  leverages highly personal resources (energy,
  stamina, charisma, vision, warmth, charm,
  gregariousness, toughness, daring, know-how) to
  inspire, empower, and channel the actions of
  others.

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IT and the managers job

• Folklore IT has made organizations flatter,
  leaner, more flexible, more virtual, more global,
  less integrated, empowered people, reduced need
  for rigid control systems

• Fact The effects of IT have been complex
  contradictory. It has also disempowered employees
  by intensifying surveillance, increased written
  communication and some forms of standardization,
  created information overloads and shortened
  attention spans

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A third model congruence

• Both the formal and the informal/people sides
  of organization are essential for long run
  success. It is the managers job to align them
  with the tasks and strategy of the organization
  and the demands of the environment.

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The Congruence Model
Organizational problems usually involve one or
more disconnects, or incongruencies, among the 4
major parts of the organizations architecture
Informal Organization (culture, leadership,
networks, politics)
Inputs Environment (Competition,
change) Resources (munificence) History (age,
conditions at founding)
Formal Organization (job titles, departments,
reporting hierarchy, IT HR systems
Outputs Systems Unit Individual
Tasks (technologies, work flows)
Strategy (diversification
innovation)
People (ability, skills, motivation, biases)
In turn, solutions involve the analytic - and
creative - achievement of congruence.
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Problem-solving and organizational analysis

• Four stages/components
• Problem/situation assessment
• Analysis
• Possible courses of action pros cons of each
  alternative
• Final recommendation/implementation plan

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Identifying the problem

• What is wrong here? What type of performance
  gap is the organization experiencing?
• or (less frequently)
• What is right here? What strengths can be
  leveraged? Is the success sustainable?

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Principal OB Levers

• Problems can be solved by changing the
  organization in the following ways
• Tasks
• Formal organization
• Informal organization
• People

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But not in isolation or in ignorance of inputs,
strategy, and outputs.
Hence, the congruence or fit hypothesis The
degree to which the major components of an
organizations architecture are coherently and
smoothly aligned determine its ability to
compete and succeed.
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AnalysisGetting Past Symptoms and Finding Root
Causes
Problem(e.g. falling sales)
Why?
Were not getting new product out
Why?
Inter-unit conflict
Why?
Lack of coordination devices
Conflicting reward schemes
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Solutions

• Definition a solution to a problem (a
  performance gap) is a change to the organization
  that removes one or more causes of the problem
  without creating new and larger/more serious
  problems.

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Solutions
STRATEGIC GOAL
STRATEGIC OUTCOMES
WORK
INFORMAL ORGANIZATION
PEOPLE
FORMAL ORGANIZATION
CAUSES we have the wrong people to do the
work? SOLUTIONS Get or train new people.
CAUSES Do we have the wrong corporate culture to
do the work? Are effective communication
networks missing? Bad office politics? SOLUTION
S Change the culture reduce conflict politics.
CAUSES Do we have the wrong organizational struct
ure to do the work? SOLUTIONS Change the
structure new groupings, linkages.
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Next week

• Strategic organization design
• Tuesday
• Read Ancona
• Thursday
• Read case Allentown Materials