Organizations and the Kaospilot spirit

How do they fit?

Process notes and theoretical input

Patrizia Venturelli Christensenpatrizia@venturelli-consulting.com

Team 10Internship feedback workshop

18.01.2006

Content

1. Premise• What is an organization

• Function• Elements• Types of organizations• History

2. Organizations between fluidity and solidity• Organizational emergence and growth• Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial firms and established company• Different organizational and sets of required skills

3. Societal change and organizational adaptation• Institutions change at pace with the broader societal transformation

• Modern epoch and modern institutions• Leaving behind the modern institutions

4. The Kaospilots competences• The humanizer• The dreamer• The traveler

1. Premise

• What is an organization

– Function– Elements– Types of organizations– History

WHAT IS AN ORGANIZATION?

• Max Weber (1864-1920)– The “corporate group”:

“a social relationship which is either closed or limits the admission of outsiders by rules,…so far as its order is enforced by the action of specific individuals whose regular function this is, of a chief or “head” and usually also an administrative staff” (Weber, 1947, pp.145-146)

In organizations, social interaction is “associative” rather than “communal”

…so what are the ELEMENTS of an organization?

Is the action of two or more individuals, reciprocally

referring to each other (…)

Based on commonality of

interests

Based on a subjective feeling of

belonging

WHY DO WE HAVE ORGANIZATIONS?

To get things done…

Organizations emerge to help individuals do things that they can not accomplish on their own

ELEMENTS OF AN ORGANIZATION

• Social relationships• Boundaries• Structure of interaction (with a division of labor, work roles

and a certain hierarchy of authority)• Rules• A common interest (goal) or purpose

– Other authors after Weber have strengthened the focus on communication patterns, conflicts and outcomes.

TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS(1/3)

• Talcott Parsons (1960)

Based on the type of function served:- Production organization (goods or services)- Oriented towards political goal (power)- Integrative organization (commitment)- Pattern-maintenance organization (continuity)

• Amitai Etzioni (1975)

based on why people participate:– Utilitarian/remunerative: provides material

rewards for its members (i.e. business enterprises)

– Normative: pursue goals that are considered morally worthwhile (voluntary associations)

– Coercive: distinguished by involuntary membership

TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS (2/3)

• Mintzberg (1979)

based on the way organizations are structured:– Simple structure: small, dynamic environment, not

sophisticated technologies involved;– Machine bureaucracy: large size, standardized work,

stable environment, control by some external body;– Professional bureaucracy: key factor is the skills and

knowledge of the operating workers, who are professionals – there is no external control;

– Divisionalized: each division has its own structure– Adhocracy: dynamic environment, rapidly changing

structure

TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS (3/3)

THE NATURE OF BUREAUCRACY

• Formal organizations date back thousands of years

• The skeleton for all forms of organizations can be drawn back to the ARMY and the CHURCH

2. Organizations between fluidity and solidity

• Organizational emergence and growth• From entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial firms to established

company• The different organizational life stages require different sets

of skills• The market today is pushing companies towards regaining

or remaining more entrepreneurial/fluid all the way through• This implies that organizations develop alternative

structures, which guarantee flexibility/fluidity and a tthe same time efficiency/economic efficacy - and that workers are given a different set of additional skills and competences compared to the specialist/task oriented ones currently required– These additional sets of ”generalistic” skills are at the moment

possessed by the KP as ”specialistic” sets of competences

PANTA REI…

(Heraclitus 6th century BC)

FLUIDITY AND SOLIDITY

• Solidity and fluidity are a very important metaphors in the western world

• Solidity tends to be associated with strength, truth, firmness but also with stubbornness

• Fluidity tends to be associated with change, flow, flexibility but also with unpredictability

Fluidity/Movement Solidity/Institution

Informal organizationsEntrepreneurial firmsAd hoc organizations

Formal organizationsEstablished firms”Machine” bureaucracies

The two states require different skillsLeadership skills Management skills

Either the entrepreneur can become a manageror he needs to move on – KP are a lot like entrepreneurs

Organizations go from a fluid to a more solid state, where rules and roles and regulations get stabilized. This assumes a relatively stable and predictable environment.The speed of the market dynamics today force also established organizations to keep on being or return to a state of ”fluidity” where it is important to constantly redefine theexternal and internal needs, the objectives and the guiding values. KP can do that!

3. Societal change and organizational adaptation

• Institutions change at pace with the broader societal transformation– institutions change when the underpinning needs, technological and economic circumstances,

values and social norms change;• During the modern epoch, institutions have evolved, which are based on important

assumptions, needs and values:– The world can be objectively known– Everyone should be treated equally (value of individuals instead of groups)– Impartiality and rationality can guarantee individual freedom and therefore allow for personal

achievement– By taking “personalism” away from organizations, we can create better settings for individual

freedom– This understanding of the role of institutions and organizations (state, schools, businesses,

families…) can be seen as rational or ”male” compared to a more non-rational ”female” pre-industrial understanding

• We are now in the process of leaving behind this understanding and moving towards a new epoch, which is based on different assumptions, needs and values:

– The only objective understanding of the world, which we can aspire towards, it the ever-changing emerging meaning that comes out of our individual meanings when they become social, through interaction

– Everyone can only be treated equally, if treated differently (one individual is not equal to another! Difference needs to be taken seriously)

– What we as humans have in common, is that we have lots of other, more messy things than our rationality. And that is was actually moves the world, including the business. Only by recognizing and valuing these more human elements, we can achieve freedom in harmony, life balance and quality of life. If you eleminate personalism, you create cold, dead or deadly structures (the holocaust, the iron cage, inefficiencies, slowness, unsatisfactory and alienating work)

– If you bring humans into the business, you can get work to assume a more holistic/non alienating perspecive that can help people live in harmony within themselves

– If the pre-modern way was the ”female” – and the modern was the ”male” way, this is the ”gay way”, that merges the two elements on a different level. In this sense, by redefining how organizations act, the gay-way has the potential of “breaking the glass ceiling” by eliminating it!

ORGANIZATIONS AND SOCIETAL CHANGE

• Pre-modern (Pre-Industrial

Agrarian)

• Modern(Industrial)

• Post-Modern(Post-Industrial)

WHEN

From about 5,000 years ago with large but decreasing numbers today

From about 1750 to the present

Emerging during the last 20-30 years

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Two parents-farm family, extended family, large family, countryside

Father breadwinner, mother-homemaker, non-farm family, nuclear family, small family, cities

Dual earner, non-farm and one-parent families, blended families, single households, cities/metropolises

Guiding Principles (MAX WEBER)

TRADITION: sentiments and beliefs passed from generation to generation

RATIONALITY: deliberate, matter-of-fact calculation of the most Efficient means to accomplish a Particular goal

(…(FLEXIBILITY (FLUIDITY)…)) (not from Max Weber…!)

RATIONALIZATION AND DISENCHANTMENT

• Weber views both the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism as evidence of an ongoing rationalization process;

• The rationalization of society denotes the historical change from tradition to rationality as the dominant mode of human thought: Modern societies, he affirms, are “disenchanted” as scientific thinking and technology have canceled the belief in tradition and the past;

• Weber brings evidence for the importance of ideas in driving societal change: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

WEBER AND BUREAUCRACY

• Bureaucracy is an organizational model rationally designed to perform complex tasks efficiently.

– Max Weber’s 6 key elements of the ideal bureaucratic organization:

• Specialization• Hierarchy of offices• Rules and Regulations• Technical competence• Impersonality• Forma, written communications

SPECIALIZATION•Instead of everyone doing everything, bureaucracy assigns to individuals highly specialized duties

HIERARCHY OF OFFICES•Personnel is arranged in a vertical hierarchy of offices. Each person is supervised by people in a higher position

RULES AND REGULATIONS•Operations are directed by rational rules. Bureaucracy seeks to operate in a completely predictable environment

TECHNICAL COMPETENCE•Official are expected to have and are hired based on their technical competence. Performance criteria are dominating (not personal relations).

IMPERSONALITY•Rules dominate behavior and uniform treatment of employees and clients/citizens is encouraged (the “face-less” bureaucrat)

FORMAL, WRITTEN COMMUNICATION•Rather than casual, oral communication, bureaucracy is based on formal, written memos and reports / files – things are done the way they were done before

THE INFORMAL SIDE OF BUREAUCRACY

•IN THEORY, power resides in offices – not people–IN REALITY, personalities and personal relationships matter!

•IN THEORY, formal communication dominates–IN REALITY, informal information sharing and unwritten rules create a “parallel organization”

•When working for or within an organization, try to understand both its FORMAL and INFORMAL rules•Work as an anthropologist and try to create your mental map of the organization!

PROBLEMS OF BUREAUCRACY

• Alienation: reducing humans to cases

• Inefficiency and Ritualism: following rules more than the organizational goal

• Inertia: tendency to perpetuate itself

• Abuse of Power: Oligarchy/ the power of the few

MODERNITY AND THE HOLOCAUST

• Hannah Arendt• Zygmund Bauman

Did bureaucracy make the Holocaust possible?

PARADOXES

• Parkinson’s law (1957):

WORK EXPANDS TO FILL THE TIME AVAILABLE FOR ITS COMPLETION

• Peter’s principle (1969):

BUREAUCRATS RISE TO THEIR LEVEL OF INCOMPETENCE

MacDonaldization (Ritzer)

• Rationalization and bureaucratic behavior expanding to all sectors of human life:

– Efficiency– Calculability– Uniformity and Predictability– Control through automation

Can this process be resisted?

POST-MODERNITY AND CHANGING ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS

• Decentralization• Self-managed working teams• Humanization of work• Blurring boundaries between work/leisure – public

and private life• Networks and ad hoc organizations?

– How can we grow “fluid” organizations?• From movement to institution to new movement?• From generalists to specialists to generalists-

specialist?• How can we create sustainable, large

organizations?

4. The Kaospilots competences

• When KP enter organizations, they fulfill three types of ”roles”, all of which can be titled under “the gay way” that can be synthesized into the following three archetypes:

– The humanizer– The dreamer– The traveler

”Business happens in between”

The humanizer• Bureaucratic organizations• organizations of rigid work roles

based on assumptions about what tasks are to be performed

• often the tasks take over compared to the purpose

• the expectations about what is a ”professional” behavior prevent workers to express their creativity

• The assumption that work and professional life are in the realm of rationality and all the rest, which is in the field of emotions and feelings is supposed to be outside work (in the private sphere) is preventing people to find harmony in their life, to realize themselves as whole people and is keeping women away from important positions in the work market and in society

• Kaospilots work in un-bureaucratic ways

• KP break out of work roles• KP question the purpose• KP redefine professionalism including

creativity into it• KP build on the human in (and not

outside business). This allows for:– Capitalizing on the richness of

human experience, which is made of both rationality and intuition

– Supporting balance between the two main experiences of human life (work and private life) by merging work, leisure and private sphere

– Redefine ”professionalism” so that there is space for the human difference

– Seen from the product/market perspective, this new way of working also allows for finding the solution that a post-modern market requires (experience economy, creativity …)

– Seen from a global perspective, it might set the basis for a different form of solidarity in an individualistic society

The dreamer/opportunist• At some point of time in their

evolution, organizations get very static/solid

• They can not see new opportunities or new needs

• Workers follow the rules blindly, even when they are dysfunctional

• Solid organizations are afraid of change

• People in solid organizations are afraid of taking (personal) risks

- KP enter an organization with no fear

- KP are curious and ask all the time what could be done in alternative?

- KP look for opportunities and alternative solutions instead of given rules and current problems

- KP dare communicating difficult truth straight but with grace and respect

- KP can choose their fights- KP are blind to hierarchy;

they knock at all the doors knowing that behind a door there is just another person!- KP are change agents

The traveler• Established/solid

organizations, but sometimes even young/fluid organizations get stuck into their own culture and can not look at themselves with clean eyes– Cultures can be national– Industry-specific– Sector-specific (first, second,

third, forth)– Corporate– Departmental

- KP collect a large set of very different experiences from different cultures/national contexts, industries, sectors, and organizations which makes them capable of transfering knowledge from very different contexts

- From their educational experience, KP learn to bridge cultures and get a fine sensitivity towards cultural differences

- KP are good at creating networks made of weak ties across cultures and industries and at using the network actively and creatively to perform concrete taks/projects

- KP develop a form of naivety that allows them to see the organizations they are entering with fresh eyes and to offer a very impressive ”mirror” to the hosting organizations and leaders (!), who through the contact with the KP often discover a lot aboutthemselves.

Basic bibliography/suggested readings

• Alberoni, Movement and Institution, Columbia University Press, 1984• Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Penguin Group, 1994• Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, Cornell University Press, 1989• Crozier, The bureaucratic phenomenon, University of Chicago Press, 1967 • Gordon, Organisational Behavior. A Diagnostic Approach., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle

River, NJ, 1996, Chapter 15• Hage, Theories of Organizations, Wiley, New York, 1980• Hall, Organizations: Structures, Processes, and Outcomes, Prentice Hall, 2002• Macionis and Plummer, Sociology (a global introduction), Second Edition, Prentice-

Hall, 2002, Chapters 4 and 6• Ridderstrale, Nordstroem, Funky Business: Talent makes capital dance, Pearson

Education, 2002• Ritzer, The MacDonaldization of Society, Pine Forge, 2000• Ritzer, Enchanting a Disenchanted World, Pine Forge, 2005• Scott W.R., Organizations. Rational, natural, and open systems, Prentice Hall ,

Englewood Cliffs, 1992• Schein, Organizational Psychology, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1980• Simon, Administrative Behavior, The Free Press, 1976• Turner, “Role Change”, in Annual Review of Sociology, 16. pp.87-110• Vecchio, Organizational Behavior: Core Concepts, The Dryden Press, 2000, Chapter

15• Weber, “Bureaucracy” in Essays in Sociology, Routledge 1997, pp.196-244• Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It, Basic

Books, 2000