Images of Organizations

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Images of Organizations Gareth Morgan
1997 Morgan discusses organizations
metaphorically in an attempt to explain them more
fully Think of the blind men and the elephant
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Organizations are instruments created to achieve
some end(s) The origin of the word is from Greek
organon a tool or instrument Earliest
organizations pyramid building, churches,
armies Mechanized with advent of machines
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• As Machines
• efficient, routines, reliable, predictable
• Organizations that are designed and operated as
  if they were machines are now usually called
  bureaucracies.
• Rules for the machinery

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Classical management theories and
theorists Organizations can or should be
rational systems that operate in as efficient a
manner as possible Gave little attention to human
aspects of organizations
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• Strengths of this approach
• Works well if
• Are straightforward tasks to perform
• In stable environment
• To produce many identical products
• When precision is at a premium
• When humans are compliant, behave as designed to
  do

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• Limitations
• Create orgs that cant adapt easily to change
• Can result in mindless, unquestioning bureaucracy
• Can have dehumanizing effects

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• As Organisms living systems
• Began with Elton Mayo, Hawthorne Studies
• Work activities influenced as much by nature of
  human beings as by formal design

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Employees work best when motivated by tasks to
perform process of motivation hinges on allowing
people to achieve rewards that satisfy personal
needs Since 1960s research on increasing
productivity, improving work quality, reducing
absenteeism, turnover
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Open System Systems approach studied separately
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• Strengths/Limitations of Organism approach
• Emphasis on understanding of relations between
  orgs and environments
• Management can be improved through systematic
  attention to needs to be satisfied if org is to
  survive

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• Identifying species of orgs gives a range of
  options
• Stresses virtueo of organic forms of org in
  process of innivation
• Contributions to org development, particularly in
  contingency approach
• Focus on ecology and inter- organizational
  relations

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• Limitations
• Too concrete a view of orgs and their
  environments
• Misleading to suggest that orgs need to adapt
  to environment
• Functional unity not an apt metaphor
• Danger of the metaphor becoming an ideology

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3. As Brains Concept of the learning
organization Holography whole encoded in all of
the parts Cybernetics focus on information,
feedback Single-loop learning vs. double-loop
learning
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• 4 key principles
• Capacity to sense, monitor, scan significant
  aspects of the environment
• Relate to operational norms
• Detect significant deviation from norms
• Initiate corrective action

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• Cybernetics principles
• Systems must have capacity to sense, monitor,
  scan environment
• They must be able to relate information to
  operating norms to guide system behavior
• They must be able to detect significant
  deviations from norms
• They must be able to initiate corrective action

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Single-loop vs. Double-loop learning Single-loop
detect, correct errors in relation to given set
of operating norms Basic skill to keep org on
course Double-loop takes a double look by
questioning operating norms Scan environment ----
compare against norms --- question whether norms
appropriate --- initiate appropriate action.
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Difficult for orgs to review and challenge basic
paradigms of operations Bureaucratization creates
fragmented patterns of thought, action Defensive
behaviors for self- protection Challenger
disaster
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Implications for brain metaphor counters
traditional views imposing goals on
employees Setting goals (from cybernetics)
setting objectives important, but must be space
for questioning, for learning and innovation US
objectives as hard, fast, clearly stated Japan
objectives emerge from values exploration by
employees
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• Orgs as holographic brains
• Build the whole into the parts diversified
  roles, teams, vision as DNA
• Importance of redundancy in information
  processing, in work design, skills
• Requisite variety internal complexity to match
  environment
• Minimum specs define no more than necessary
• Learn to learn double-loop, scan environment

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4. As Cultures Cultural differences between
companies (between different businesses)
beliefs, routines, rituals American vs. Japanese
companies Diversity/gender issues
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A corporate culture develops an ETHOS, created
and sustained by social processes, images,
symbols, rituals (Ethos the distinguishing
character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding
beliefs of a person, group, or institution)
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Bateson culture of US businesses recreates
patterns of parent-child relations Rewards,
positive reinforcement, Golden
banana Leadership styles can create superficial
appearance of harmony while driving conflict
underground Team approach carries set of
obligations of members for each other
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Geneen (ITT) motivation through fear Different
professional groups may each have a different
view of the world and of the nature of their
organization (accountants, DCs)
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Nature of a culture norms, customs, if one
adheres to rules one will be successful. Creating
a culture within an organization culture as an
ongoing, proactive process of reality
construction shared frames of reference
internal slogans
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Culture evolved form of social practice influence
by many complex interactions between peopole,
events, situations, actions, general
circumstances Culture is self-organizing and
always evolving
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6. As political systems Organizations as loose
networks of people with divergent interests who
gather together for the sake of
expediency Concepts of leadership/teamwork
relevant here Leadership types/models Power and
conflict relevant too wheeling and dealing
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Orgs as systems of government Autocracy Bureaucra
cy Technocracy Codetermination Representative
democracy Direct democracy Mixed types
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Aristotle politics stems from a diversity of
interests generates wheeling and dealing,
negotiation, coalition building, mutual
influence Task interests Career
interests Extramural interests Relationship and
tension between job and other activity overlap
striking a balance
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Political metaphor encourages us to see orgs as
loose networks of peole with divergent interests
who gather together for the sake of
epediency Coalition of diverse stakeholders in
coalition with multiple goals Power Conflict Decis
ion-making
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• As Psychic Prisons
• Platos Cave
• People in organizations imprisoned, confined by
  images, thoughts, actions the way weve always
  done it here
• Group behavior groupthink - defensive behavior
• Group dynamics, effective leadership, innovation
  and change

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Orgs can get caught in vicious circles whereby
victories and strengths become weaknesses leading
to their downfall. Ways of seeing become ways of
not seeing. The last thing a fish is likely to
discover is the water in which it is swimming.
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Defense mechanisms pervade almost every aspect of
organizational activity people construct
realities wherein threats and concrens become
embodied in structures for coping with
anxiety Sometimes shared fears, concerns,
general anxiety Aspects of organizational
structure can be understood as social defenses
against anxiety
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Patterns of unconscious anxiety often exert a
decisive influence on coalition building and the
politics of organizational life (union
organizing)
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• Work of Carl Jung psychic energy and
  archetype
• Jungs work has major implications for
  understanding how people enact organizational
  reality
• Relations between internal and external life
• Role of archetypes in shaping understanding of
  external world

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Jungs work led Isabelle Myers and Katherine
Briggs to develop MBTI personality type
indicator Looks at ways people process data
about the world and make judgments
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Psychic prison metaphors lie at center of many
organizational issues relating to group dynamics,
effective leadership, innovation and change Also
help us understand limitations of other metaphors
(learning organization, cultural cultures)
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• As changing entities
• Autopoiesis livings systems as organizationally
  closed, autonomous systems of interactions
• Chaos- unpredictable events and behaviors acquire
  coherent form
• Managing change

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You cannot step twice into the same
river Universe as flowing, unbroken
wholeness Process, flux, change as fundamental
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1.Autopoeisis the way we see and manage change
is product of how we see/think about ourselves
and how we enact relationships with the
environment 2. Chaos and complexity
organizations and their relationships with the
environment key organizing rules tend to hold
these relationships in particular correlation
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3. Mutual causality Cybernetic concept change
is enfolded in strains, tensions found in
circular relations keys to management 4.
Change is the product of tensions between
opposites dialectical analysis paradoxes and
tensions created when elements of a system try to
push in a new direction
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Organizations as Instruments of
Domination Organizations have a large negative
impact on our world Combination of achievement
and exploitation of environment, of
workers Authority and power and its use and misuse
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• Understanding ultimately rests in the ability to
  recognize how many different phenomena are really
  part of a coherent whole Heisenberg
• Conclusions
• No one way to see an organization
• Dealing with diverse perspectives
• Understand and deal with complexity
• Imaginization imagine in new ways