Abstract of a Workshop after the Eric Gaynor Butterfield Conference in “Jornada de Desarrollo Organizacional”, Argentina 2001) - www.theodinstitute.org
If we make a selection of the main variables within the areas of Organizational Behavior and Organizational Development, we will surely find the following among them: Teamwork, Leadership, Participation, Formalization, Competitiveness, Communication and Motivation. However, there is one that is possibly implicit within each of these important "independent variables" that we have just mentioned, and it is known under the name of Decision Making.
Decision-making is at the heart of organizations as well as individuals and groups. It is the rudder and the compass with which every organism is managed and the enormous importance of them lies in the consequences they produce on those same organisms.
The importance and complex nature of decision-making is pointed out by the historian of the United States of America Lynn T. White, Jr. (1907-1987) when highlighting the importance of the behavioral sciences, pointing out that even quantitative decisions they are also, in one way or another, qualitative (“Technology assessment from the stance of a medieval historian” - 1974).
Nobody better than Kenneth J. Arrow ("The limits of organization" - 1974) in his capacity as an economist to make clear the importance of the decision-making process "in working groups" on organizational performance. Arrow points out that "The purpose of organizations is to exploit the fact that many decisions (we could almost say all) require the participation of many people to achieve effectiveness."
And the notable Swiss psychologist - Carl Gustav Jung - highlights how the quality of decisions has somehow a "limit" since rationality is somehow "limited" as stated by James March & Herbert Simon ("Organizations"; Wiley & Sons - 1958), since both the conscious and unconscious aspects are present ("The aims of psychotherapy" - 1931): "The great decisions implicit in human life have as a general rule much more to do with instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious aspects and well-intentioned reasonableness ”.
The American sociologist WI, Thomas ("Primitive behavior" - 1937) highlights the relationship between decisions and actions and how the former operate "before" on the latter. Furthermore, it is common that the same decision is preceded by a definition of the situation, which is very similar to an interpretation or a point of view that the actor eventually exercises, which is related to a particular behavior pattern.
There are many definitions of what decisions are. In our case we have preferred to accompany the concept of decision from the position of Alvar O.
Elbing (“Behavioral decisions in organizations”; Scott, Foresman & Co. - 1970) who points out that the decision-making process only begins when a situation is perceived under a “state of imbalance”. And it is unfortunate that so little attention is paid to the "why is" fact that certain situations are perceived to be out of balance while others are not. That is why our position - unlike other specialists in the field - is based on the assumption that the existence of a problem is practically the basis from which the presence of the imbalance originates.
Fortunately, we feel comfortable since the notable specialist in individual and organizational change processes (Edgar Schein; Organization Development Journal) accompanies us in our basic hypothesis. The so common position of some advisers and counselors who assume that growth is based on doing what produces "the greatest and best pleasure" sometimes does not take into account this "initial" hypothesis, which is the one that really mobilizes action towards a direction. contrary to the current one.
Decision-makers can only dedicate themselves to making decisions to the extent that the problems are really perceived by him as real problems and, furthermore, are within his reach in terms of capacity, responsibility, knowledge and interest.
In this sense, it would be extremely useful to executives, managers, executives and professionals of companies who dedicate a little more of their time and energy to trying to learn based on the fact that they decide what they have to solve and, more importantly, what they are. the signals that give me some clue about situations, processes and actions in imbalance.
All people have a frame of reference and the word “frame” is correct because although we believe that we are continually changing, a large part of our behaviors are framed within that frame as if it were the frame of a photo. And that's how rigid we behave in a large portion of each of our days, even though we believe that we are not.
The immense number of "automatic" behaviors are strong proof of this. Therefore it is very important that the manager, director and executive as well as the consultant to advisor starts from this position where we can say that most of the "people are frozen" (Eric Gaynor Butterfield: "Congress of Organizational Development" - 1999).
These automatic behaviors of most people also occur within the organizational world where they operate.
The automatic behavior of a person who takes a shower and bathes before going to work bears a strong similarity to the sequential automatic behaviors that they themselves perform on a day-to-day basis within the scope of their work. No person showers and bathes "after dressing," and this programmed and automatic decision is exercised without having spent "objective" time in deciding whether it was better or worse to bathe before or after dressing.
These types of behavior also occur at work, within different business units, among members of the same work group, when interacting with external members such as Clients and suppliers, among others. And we can almost affirm that this frame of reference that each one of us develops in an effort to “make our own decision-making easier” is built by our own “control board” / “Management information system” / "Management information systems" or whatever name you want to assign it.
This dashboard is developed based on “stimuli that we are in a position to anticipate” and that we can come to call - following other authors - as “structured stimuli”.
A "structured stimulus" is one that a company's Budget Manager has when analyzing the existing deviations between actual expenses and those that had been originally budgeted. A structured stimulus has to do with the differences between last year's sales compared to this year's sales, and in general, most of us are used to living with these deviations. Even many systems of control by exception and the very foundations of management by objectives (Peter F. Drucker: "The practice of management"; Harper & Row - 1954) find their support in the fact that anticipations of stimuli (especially if one has participated in the process of anticipating them) reduce pain (Donald W. Cole & Eric Gaynor Butterfield: “Professional suicide or organizational murder”;The Organization Development Institute International, Latin America - 2005).
There are also a multiplicity of "stimuli that we are not in a position to anticipate" to which we can give the name of "unstructured stimuli". Many times we do not have clues or signals that alert us to the possible existence of a problem. In fact, one of the jobs that executives, managers, executives and professionals should adopt is the ability to develop new warning systems through new signals.
Just as the driver of a car has learned that a yellow signal at the crossroads of a street anticipates the need to brake, executives in companies must protect themselves from future headaches for which it is essential to develop alerts oriented towards reduction unstructured stimuli.
The processes of socialization of people when they just enter a new company, require the development of new skills in the professional who has joined the organization. Ignoring these signs, which are generally neither overt nor obvious, can greatly reduce a person's survival and bond with the company (Donald W. Cole and Eric Gaynor B. - already cited).
The informal / social system is the main source of unstructured stimuli and this makes it necessary for managers, managers and executives to be highly alert to them through all kinds of clues and signals as if they were yellow lights and orange (red may not give you enough time to satisfactorily resolve something that has happened that has dysfunctional consequences for the company).
Although it may seem paradoxical, the decision-making system, which has a very strong rational basis, is triggered largely by feelings and emotions and how the person is able to relate to their own feelings and emotions. Alvar Elbing (already cited) suggests as a first step the ability to identify and accept our own feelings, something that is not as easy and simple as one may suppose, including three phases of the self-awareness process:
1. Know and recognize what one is feeling
2. Identify the probable cause and the referent of our feelings.
3. Express and manifest our feelings at the right time.
It is not an easy job to analyze our own behavior, that is, to be subjects of our own objective observation. George Lomard ("Self-awareness and the scientific method"; Science - 1960) defines observation "as the ability to discriminate / distinguish between what reality really is and reality as you see it yourself."
The first steps in any decision-making process are the most important and there are some major obstacles that arise initially. The most common and common (Alvar Elbing - already mentioned) are:
- The tendency to respond with an evaluation immediately Being able to differentiate experiences so that one distinguishes the difference between learning an experience versus learning “from” (or as a result of) an experience The tendency to make use of solutions that are “available”. The classic phrase "if we have a hammer is a problem that we see problems as a nail." The tendency to react based on how the problem is presented to us.The doctor not only takes into account what the patient “tells” but also conducts his own research The tendency to direct decisions towards a single goal The tendency to confuse symptoms with problems The tendency to not pay due consideration to what we have observed and “Filed” as unsolvable The tendency to look towards a “referent” The tendency to respond automatically
All these aspects must be considered in the first phase of decision making. It is important for the manager to know how to distinguish between the imbalance that represents a way of drawing his attention to the fact that something is not wrong, from the problem itself. We can suggest that the decision-making process begins when we perceive that something is wrong and that there is a problem to be solved, that is to say that we live in a situation out of balance, and that therefore a decision is required that allows restore the original equilibrium situation. Elbing (already mentioned) alerts us that there is usually a tendency in decision-making within organizations to focus on the situation and not so much on the perception of it.
As we have seen, the perception of imbalance represents the first step in decision-making and within it the “observation of how oneself is” is of vital importance. We do not want to overemphasize the importance of this need to develop our own ability to observe ourselves since there is usually a fairly general tendency to believe that the diagnosis stage is the first step in the problem-solving or decision-making process.
The next stage to the perception of the imbalance situation is the diagnosis. We have a strong tendency to visualize problems when they are linked to something tangible; if a machine stops working in a company it is obvious that we must act immediately to diagnose the failure and then take action to repair it.
But when interpersonal relationships exist within the context of an organization, and in the day-to-day operations of its operations, we are not always attentive to human problems that also have effects and consequences on performance. Furthermore, it is likely that the machine has stopped working due to some human fault! But most executives, managers and executives in companies usually do not have this last perspective.
For example, in the case that an employee of ours who had high performance in the past, has now substantially reduced his production level and we think that this is because he wants to sabotage the company, in that case in our quality of superiors we only think in an option or way forward: fire him.
If instead we ask ourselves why the behavior of our employee has changed, and we also ask ourselves why this change occurs “in these moments”, that is, now, and what are the implications of the behavior change of that person over the rest of the workers, we position ourselves from a different perspective and position and perhaps the decision we make has nothing to do with firing that person but rather we must take care of them and assist them in this transitory period of low productivity.
That is why the diagnosis should not be of an implicit type but rather should be made consciously and critically from a position of greater questioning. And we can suggest - following Alvar Elbing (already mentioned) - that any diagnosis must necessarily include the following criteria:
All healthy diagnoses must be able to differentiate between events and the language that is used to describe events.
A correct diagnosis must be able to specify the degree of precision required with respect to the information that has to be available.
A healthy diagnosis must be able to specify the underlying causes, and not simply be oriented to prescribe "blame".
A correct diagnosis can specify and deal with aspects related to “multiple causalities”, instead of specifying a single cause.
In its operational form it must finally be able to make explicit formulations, instead of general and vague observations.
These implications must be taken very seriously into account by the consultants and agents of change, who necessarily have to be involved at the beginning of their intervention in the diagnostic process. It is of utmost importance to have evidence that is capable of being verified regarding the situation being confronted, and extreme care must be taken because we usually transfer our conceptual and perceptual framework to the diagnosis and then incorporate it into it.
It is inevitable that when having to deal with human aspects we always have a particular approach which must be based on our basic hypotheses about human behavior. If the manager expects to be effective in his day-to-day work and the consultant wishes to achieve excellence in the exercise of his non-repetitive profession, he must be aware of these basic assumptions that he has incorporated regarding how he thinks they should respond to the people to certain stimuli and also to certain consequences.
Most of us have a tendency to make judgments - which are not based on facts - about what is right or wrong and what is good or bad. The impact of beliefs and values has already been exhibited when dealing with these two important variables and must also be taken into account as perceptions and attitudes also influence the decisions that people make in our day to day life. That is why we can say that the natural tendency to evaluate is possibly the most important cause of poor decision-making.
Usually any improvement in the organizational field is based on a state of "current dissatisfaction" as is the case of a commercial management that decides to establish a new sales target for the coming year. This is not a serious problem in itself because anyone can set a new goal, but rather the problem lies in what we can do to achieve that goal, exactly: how to do it.
Once the problem has been recognized and defined, the process of searching for alternatives begins that can eliminate those negative conditions that harm the achievement of our objective. We can define alternatives as those activities and tasks that are perceived and believed to lead to an improvement in the situation, but here we must not forget that when most people generate alternatives, we find implicit in this process the assumptions and basic assumptions that certain results are to occur. In making these predictions “a priori” our own generation of alternatives is not always totally objective.
Furthermore, we must bear in mind that the relationships between alternatives and results (or outputs) are not a type of direct and simple relationship. In the first place, it is possible that the relationship does not manifest itself in the direction that we are predicting since in many cases they are the results that can create new alternatives as detailed by Eric Gaynor Butterfield ("Executive Development and Organizational Development": The Organization Development Institute International - 2005). It may be the case that a single alternative generates several results in terms of outputs as well as that several alternatives are required to generate a single output.It is also possible that in the process of generating a new option (such as a higher level of activation in the staff) some dysfunctional consequences may occur “along” with some successes, such as the greater results that are achieved on the one hand. but they are offset by negative consequences for a particular member of the work team who has not been able to cope with the increased stress level (return to Eric Gaynor Butterfield quote above).
Assuming that we can start generating alternatives to improve and positively impact our results, we must not forget that in addition to these two variables, independent and dependent in the order mentioned, we have to face intervening variables that can moderate the relationship between the alternatives and the outcomes..
For example, a new alternative of sending our staff to a Training Course may be influenced by the fact that in some previous circumstance certain organizational participants were invited to leave the company as a consequence of the Training Course. And another aspect to take into account during the process of generating alternatives is that what happens "in the organization" in any case impacts a set of variables that "hit each other"; no change leaves all previous relationships unchanged. The decision to send certain people to a Training Course in any case must have consequences for "others" beyond what it of course has to have on those who have to participate in the training.
Henry L. Tosi, John Rizzo & Stephen Carroll (“Managing Organizational Behavior”; Blackwell Business - 1995) identify some characteristics that occur in the decision-making process, the main ones being (together with the examples cited by the authors):
What they call "Decisions within Decisions". For example, it may be the case where a superior realizes that a machinery has failures with a greater frequency than expected or the history of said machinery and its objective then is to reduce the failures to an acceptable level.
In the first place, it has been necessary to decide "in advance" regarding what would be an acceptable level of failure. Decisions must also take into account the scope of the problem and what needs to be done to include everything necessary to help define it. A poor definition of the scope of a problem - and even of "a situation to improve" - has to decisively affect the effectiveness of solving the problem. Eric Gaynor Butterfield ("Why Consultants Fail"; offprint published by The OD Institute International, Latin America - 1994) shows that the failures of many consultants in their consulting interventions are related to a poor or lack of definition of the scope of the same.So much so that some of the work carried out by Gaynor as a consultant has to do with assisting the Client in defining the scope of the work to be carried out.
Continuing with the problem of the machine and its failures, it is possible that the decision we make affects other machines, for example when deciding on the new level of failures that is acceptable. People decide on which alternatives we have to generate and consider and furthermore the decisions imply which of all the alternatives we have to take into account and also the relative weight that we have to give them. The latter has to do with the criteria to be taken into account for the evaluation of the alternatives. Therefore we can see that the phenomenon that we confront is that of multiple decisions (as defined by the authors) where all of them impact on the process.
A phenomenon is presented that the authors call “the accumulation of small decisions”. Many decisions that we make on a daily basis within companies are minor and are made very quickly.
However, the consequences of a series of small decisions can accumulate in a way that finally becomes a serious problem. An employee can postpone a call that he had to make to a Customer since he wanted to get home on time, plus another employee who ignores a Customer's order because something he has eaten has disliked him, and a third party who belongs to the The company's dispatch does not "upload" to the truck some products that had to be dispatched, they are all small examples that at that time do not seem to have a great importance but that added together can make you lose a very important account for your company.
Another point to take into account has to do with the fact that in any case the Decisions that are made are Partial and Temporary Solutions. It is practically impossible to foresee all the possible errors that can occur as a result of a decision and also we must not forget that most of the decisions almost never solve a problem in a definitive way forever.
After every process of trying towards an improvement that prompts a decision, and after making the decision, we have to confront new problems and this leads us to affirm that every decision to solve a problem is also "the seed" for a new one. problem. Just as the car has helped us to move faster and better than in a cart, we are also now paying the negative consequences on our own environment.
The Research and Development departments of many companies create new products and services, which will surely determine the need to lay off many people who do not have the necessary skills for these new products and services. We must not forget that many times organizations can be seen as units where conflict prevails - and it is not even advisable to eliminate it.
The efforts of the Credit and Collections Managers to anticipate their collections have an impact on the efforts and energy deployed by the Sales and Marketing area. Any decision to reduce the prices of our products can have long implications over time as well as the decision to establish a particular policy, such as the case where "We will refund Your money if You can buy cheaper elsewhere".
The consequences of decisions on the level of stress are important and every responsible superior must take them into account. IL Janis and L. Mann ("Decision making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment"; New York, Free Press - 1977) suggest that we are all "procrastinators in decision-making" and make mention of the following sentence: "No problem is so big or so complicated that I cannot escape from it." There are very few times that people can deal for a long time and in a systematic way with an important decision and also when different and difficult options are faced where both the benefits and the costs are significant, emotions play an important role that they can overcome. all kinds of rational analysis, appreciation and evaluation.
We are going to include below a select list of experts in organizations, institutions and companies that have privileged the rational. And nothing better than starting with Michel Crozier.
- Crozier, Michel
Michel Crozier has led change projects and worked with many public companies and government agencies in his country of birth, France, also being exposed to various experiences in organizations as a result of his years of residence in the United States of America. One notable difference between Crozier and other business practitioners and consultants is that his view of bureaucratic organizations is distinctive; for Michel bureaucracies are not merely rational organizations of a monolithic type, but rather entities where there is a continuous interaction between the organizational participants and the entity itself.
These organizations are characterized by having and enjoying significant stability during many of their years of existence that are modified during a very short period of time characterized by some type of crisis that triggers the need for organizational change.
For many years the organization operates as if it existed within a stable context, with rules and norms that are largely unchanged, and conflicts can be swept under the rug. But this "chicha calm" the only true thing that it does is herald an explosion, and, consequently, crises are seen as necessary elements that allow the organizational transformation to be promoted and to emerge. In these moments of crisis, figures appear that begin to informally replace the established rules and norms, as the forces in favor of change begin to have a greater relative weight.
The figure that emerges is what Michel calls an “authoritarian reformer” who excels beyond the routines, rules and norms during that moment of crisis, to achieve a new organizational arrangement. In any case, we should not be totally critical of the bureaucratic model since, according to Michel, there has never been so much change and such a high rate of change as we are experiencing today, and especially within large organizations.
There are differences between the French bureaucratic organization and that of the United States of America that Michel Crozier brings to light.
Within this whole panorama, Michel is optimistic suggesting that the public administration system in France, together with its caste system, can be reformed through various mechanisms and privileging among these the recruitment / selection of personnel as well as through training programs.. A point that Crozier suggests take into account all those who are involved in some way in organizational change and development - sustained by the power games that exist in bureaucratic entities - are the “power games” that slow down the development of the organization.
These "power games" as Michel Crozier calls them are based on a set of assembled games that hold preponderance over the "organizational design" that the directors have in their heads (or rather their minds). Through play, power relations are channeled within the organization, something that March & Simon (“Organizations”; Wiley and Sons - 1958) treat in a somewhat different way, but to which they also pay attention.
The concept of inducements-contributions together with that of bounded rationality (by James March and Herbert Simon) bears some relation to Crozier's conception, since the different organizational participants and their respective sub-units and sub-groups play games where they distribute power above the formal distribution of power envisioned by those at the top of the pyramid.
These power games where there is a multitude of both formal and informal coalitions between superiors, subordinates, contracted, outsourced, clients, suppliers, professionals, experts, consultants, among others, come to form what Michel Crozier calls - sarcastically and ironically - the “ strategic model of the company ”.
Michel Crozier makes it very clear that everyone who participates in this strategic model does so to some extent; everyone has “their limit”. All of them distribute power but are aware that above all, "the organization" must continue to exist. The struggles in the “power games” refer to different positions adopted by the organizational participants, but these struggles are characterized by not being of life or death, since there are many subtle mechanisms to appropriate power without killing the contrary (see additional material in the Book of Dr. Donald Cole and Eric Gaynor entitled: "Professional Suicide or Organizational Murder"; The Organization Development Institute International - 2005)
Again the work of James March and Herbert Simon coincides with that of Michel Crozier when the latter points out that "the level of uncertainty affects power." In a major study case in a tobacco industry, Crozier supported the position mentioned.
Maintenance personnel was in a position - and did so - to completely shut down the factory, making the entire company dependent on the exercise of this very small number of employees. The maintenance staff had extremely specific knowledge about "how to make the machines work" that was not taught or shared with other people in the company and then, at their discretion, they regulated the operation of the entity to the point of totally paralyzing it.
This happened about 60 years ago in France and we have examples with aviation airlines where the pilots and people in charge of the instruments can completely paralyze the company. (During a consulting job in Argentina where a company had a high level of dependence on a certain group, the owner, when I participated in Crozier's experience, told me that this is not very likely to happen in this country since a large part of the specialists do not know their own work… and furthermore they cannot be fired with which ignorance is generalized).
There is a way to reduce uncertainty and that is through norms, rules and procedures and this is "democratically distributed throughout the organization" covering both superiors and subordinates, where the latter reject them because they reduce their degree of discretion. but on the other hand they encourage them since they also reduce the level of discretion of their superiors.
In summary, we can say that Michel Crozier largely agrees with our point of view that maintains that bureaucratic organizations are entities where “managers look up waiting for instructions from the top management that never come… and worse, these instructions must be fulfilled and obeyed by subordinates of managers, who really have little interest in fulfilling them.
Michel Crozier: "The bureaucratic phenomenon"; Tavistock Publications - 1964
Michel Crozier: “Comparing structures and comparing games” in European contributions in organization theory - 1976.
- Lindblom, Charles E.
Charles Lindblom ("Usable knowledge: Social science and social problem solving" Yale University Press - 1979) is part of the select group of academics and researchers who see organizations as cognitive units that in turn are composed of different organizational participants that act in based on their particular way of making-decisions. In this process of mutual inter-relationship between the individual and the organization arises the importance of the decision-making process and also of those-who-make-the decisions.
To some extent Lindblom agrees with Herbert Simon and James March ("Organizations"; already cited) that management, and also decision-making, is not rational. As an economist and also a student of political sciences who favor the "macro" approach, Charles Lindblom shows how the deductive rational approach (which he considers ideal and which occurs in the management of the economy) has to take into account a multiplicity of high variables. complexity that in turn all interact with each other and require that one go to the same root of the situation / problem.
The deductive approach pays strong attention to values and their application, and as a result it limits what "is about", and would lead us to a "synoptic approach" for decision making. Unfortunately, it is not common to find applications of it within the organizational or business environment, and Lindblom suggests that this is due both to the decision-making process that is present in companies and also by the decision-makers themselves.
As the ideal-rational-deductive method is not practiced in companies due to the above and also to other factors (hand-to-hand fighting and resistance between people and between groups / units), a process of accommodation - which does not necessarily have to do with reconciliation - which gives rise to what Lindblom calls "mutual partisan adjustment," with its characteristic of resistance. But even if I had clear all the values of the different interests at stake, I could not rank them based on their importance.
But on the other hand - and unlike the approach of the economist or student of political science - the manager within the company is usually managed with a less complex scheme where the objectives are rather simple and the market, although turbulent, can be largely predictable..
This would lead us to a series of alternatives that can be handled reasonably well, especially considering that many situations "repeat themselves" with some assiduity, leading us to make decisions that, within certain parameters, are reasonably rational, although limited. Herbert Simon ("Administrative Behavior"; Macmillan - 1960 / "The new science of management decision"; Harper & Row - 1960) suggests that those who make decisions in companies should adapt in their daily actions within organizations to act taking into account account for your own limited decision-making abilities.
And Lindblom does not stop emphasizing the importance and mutual relationship that exists between values and facts, thus making it necessary for values to be limited for decision-makers (Edgar Schein: “Organizational Psychology”; Prentice Hall - 1980) he has talked a great deal about this subject making subtle suggestions for management).
Taking into account all these factors, Charles Lindblom suggests that the decision-making strategy that is usually in force within the organizational world is not the one he defines as a synoptic approach.
According to Lindblom, the current strategy is what he calls the “strategy of disjointed incrementalism”. Under this strategy, decision-makers do not start from scratch but from a reality that previously existed in the life of the decision-maker. Charles has given this approach the name "successive limited comparisons."
In the mind of the decision-maker, small increases are taken into account related to processes that are not coordinated and with each other and that are generally disconnected.
This "incrementalist" approach - which is valid in different areas of the sciences of the behavior of individuals within organizations (see the book by Dr. Donald Cole and Eric Gaynor: "Professional Suicide and Organizational Murder", The OD Institute International - 2004), makes the tremendous mistake of not distinguishing between incremental and non-incremental. And summarizing we could go so far as to say that limited decision-making organizations and limited decision-making processes can come to work when instead of the “root” approach mentioned by Charles Lindblom (see above) it is replaced by the “branch” approach. (branch).
The “disunited incrementalism” makes decision-making within organizations characterized by focusing on the illnesses of the day that are not necessarily related to departmental sub-objectives and even less to organizational objectives. And choose the following characteristics that are present in "disunited incrementalism":
- Marginal analyzes are carried out, which are based on a limited number of alternatives, where instead of the means being adjusted to the ends, they are the ends that conform to the means, oriented to rebuild, that is, in the best of cases return to the original situation through sequential steps that punish a holistic approach that identify and prioritize disease situations from which to move away rather than focus on the goals to be achieved, and finally it is a fragmented approach with only partial coordination
If we had to find a characteristic common to "disunited incrementalism" you could choose "size reduction" since it is looking for:
limiting the information to be taken into account
restricting the total memory by recalling only some parts "that we believe are important"
reducing the number of options as there are difficulties in fully processing and evaluating the situation
the horizon to be taken into account
is reduced the time to be taken is limited makes available for decision making
In the daily life of the organization this means that everything that is not taken into account now can be handled later. The famous phrase "resistance to change" is a good reflection of "disunited incrementalism" (which is very common in the mouth of consultants).
In the race to escape the rational-deductive synoptic approach, managers opt for the (limited) strategy of disunited incrementalism. In situations of relatively low change it can give certain results since in any case the consequences of it are short-term.
Something that all change practitioners, consultants, agents and facilitators within the organizational and business world should take into account is the suggestion that Charles Lindblom makes when he points out that it is reasonably possible to make changes quickly both as a result of small successive changes with high frequency and thus also drastic changes are adopted with less frequent or assiduous steps. And company directors and managers should also take into account that the synoptic approach can stop decision makers from initiating all kinds of action which means a total stoppage of the company. The seasoned reader is expected to be able to effectively handle these two dimensions efficiently, to the benefit of both organizational participants and the organization.
- March, James E.
He has been a Professor of Management at Stanford University, California which he combined with his strong interests in decision making in organizations at Carnegie-Mellon University. He always maintained very close ties with two other cognitive scholars: Richard Cyert and Herbert Simon, both of whom were also at Carnegie-Mellon University.
The artistic component stands out in this excellent researcher in Behavioral Sciences with a strong specialization in decision making. The poetic, the game / entertainment, the exploration of seemingly "silly" alternatives along with inconsistent options, are a hallmark of James March's genius.
March ("Decisions and Organizations", Blackwell - 1988) suggests that - in the best of cases - what really exists in the life of companies is what he himself defines as "organized anarchy", where decision-making processes enter through usually in one of these four categories:
Quasi-conflict resolution, which is what occurs most frequently, being related to the political nature of the organizations, not finding a resolution of the problem. For this reason, they are quasi-resolution mechanisms that make it possible to live with problems, one of them being the mechanism of “local rationality”. Each one of the organization's departments satisfies the local objectives (in reality they are organizational sub-objectives), that is, of its own unit.
The purchasing department focuses on "how to buy", the human resources department on "how to recruit staff", and the sales department on "how to sell" and the behaviors of these units are rational but only in terms of themselves. These apparent rational decisions turn out to be inconsistent when high interdependence is required between departments, such as when the marketing department requests additional money from the Budget management for a promotion that is not included in the company's budget.
Another form of quasi-problem solving is through a mechanism by which a solution is reached through what March calls the “acceptable level”; Differences are tolerated and sometimes the level of tolerance may have to do with how power is distributed within the company.
Within quasi-problem solving there is another way that March calls "paying attention to objectives in a sequential way." This is very common to happen in new projects where consideration is given to some phase that, once completed, allows us to move to the next.
It is very common for companies to embark on a program where a “stock balance” is promoted and then find themselves in an uncomfortable situation for one of two reasons: or because they run out of stock very quickly and cannot satisfy all the requirements of the Clients or else, or for not being able to leave the “stock in time”. The method of paying attention to objectives sequentially occurs when conflicts arising from different objectives cannot be resolved.
It is very common that as a result of the dilemmas that arise from decision making, they are resolved by the method of "avoiding uncertainty". In reality, much of what happens within the corporate world that is outside of the monopoly or oligopolistic markets is really uncertain.
Companies are not sure of their level of sales, or of the sales mix of their different products and services, or of the taxes that others want to transfer to them, or of the labor cost that can be strongly influenced by external regulatory bodies. Therefore the "ostrich policy" can be extremely practical; not seeing the problem supposedly this does not exist. The lobbies that companies carry out with the current rulers are one of the mechanisms that organizations use, and so is the fact of awarding exclusive contracts to certain Clients such as the establishment of annual open purchase orders for certain relatively large volumes.
Another method is what James March calls "search limits" (search is problemistic). It is true that a problem originates a search for the solution, but it is very common for it to happen that when one believes that one has a solution, one stops the search. Urgent information is prioritized over relevant information and the two are not always correctly discriminated against.
In this bustling with a solution, it is likely that the problem is associated with the previous story and a solution is evoked… that was previously applied to a different situation and time. Creative and innovative propositions that are necessary in turbulent markets where the changes required are transformational in nature, lag behind, to say the least.
Commercial companies often choose to promote from within with the purpose of "not making waves" within the organization. The United States Postal Service has a staff promotion system that is based primarily on its own current staff.
Another way to reduce organizational anarchy is through organizational learning (see also Peter Senge: "The Fifth Discipline"). Many times within companies, things work under the postulate of "starting the cart without accommodating the melons" assuming that they are going to be ordered with the march of the cart. Many companies have an induction system for new hires that is based on the “nothing or drown” principle (see Edgar Schein above).
Organized anarchy is a characteristic that is present within every organizational arrangement, although it is true that not all the time, which means that there are some limits to such organized anarchy. The limits are established by three main characteristics which are:
- The organization gets to know its objectives only when it is running, as its own technology is not really known, the same processes are not known, and learning is largely done by the method of the animal species known as "trial and error". who actually participate (and show up at committee meetings, for example) have to do with what happens and what is changed and modified.
James March's monumental work with its extraordinary artistic dose goes so far as to suggest that decision-making is so "non-rational" that it can be understood as a famous painting, poem or novel.
The lack of rationality on the part of the different organizational participants, added to the turbulent changes in the market, mean that not only do people fail to understand what they do, but also that the organizations themselves do not believe if what they do makes any kind of sense.. For March, there are limits in terms of rationality in decision-making both from the cognitive point of view and from the political and organizational point of view. And what happens as one of the main engines of this limited rationality has to do with the phenomenon of "attention"; people do not pay attention and as a result, attention turns out to be a scarce resource that organizations have to deal with anyway.
Consequently, only "a part" is attended to in the decision-making process, and many times the focus on something prevents us from seeing "the other", suggesting James March that "every input represents an output that is not always the best". The combination of scarce “attention” added to limited cognitive capacity leads us to a concrete fact that is defined as “limited rationality”.
To make things even worse there are what James March calls erratic preferences that result from the combination of:
people change what they have in their mind about what they want
even knowing what they want they can ignore their own preferences they
can follow the advice of others or refer to their own preferences in an ambiguous way which also alters their decision
In an expansion of their original work - and jointly with Cyert - both authors (RM Cyert & JG March: "A behavioral theory of the firm"; Prentice-Hall - 1963) suggest that as a consequence of the summation of cognitive limits of rationality with political limits a company is nothing more than a political coalition with multiple objectives in permanent change. The coalition is made up of different actors such as shareholders, suppliers, clients, tax and pension collection bodies, insurance brokers, employees, managers, among others.
They all have their preferences regarding what the organization should be and seek to achieve its sub-objectives that may be in conflict with other sub-objectives and even against the company's own objectives. Therefore, we continuously find within this political coalition an organizational form that is reached as a consequence of negotiation and bargaining processes, and this causes organizational anarchy to be greatly reduced.
But a very important dilemma arises that James March puts it in terms of comparing "organizational inducements" with the contributions of organizational participants. And every seasoned reader should bear in mind that organizational inducements can leave the quantitative aspect and have within themselves qualitative components; but this is not the case for organizational members who must make contributions / contributions.
Another important contribution is the fact that James March and Herbert Simon overthrew a conception that has had - and continues to be - very valid. We refer to the basic assumption of the school known under the name of Human Relations, which suggests that the higher the level of satisfaction (on the part of the employee) as an independent variable, we have to achieve greater organizational efficiency or productivity (dependent variable).
From now on - at least conceptually - March & Simon made it clear that this relationship is not true but rather can be seen the other way around; a productive person is very likely to be satisfied / content. The practical component of the monumental work of James March and Herbert Simon published under the title "Organizations" and edited by Wiley & Sons in 1958 was taken up by Frederick Herzberg ("Work and the nature of man"; World Publishing Co.
- 1966 / “One more time: How do you motivate employees ?; Harvard Business Review - 1968 / and with B. Mausner & B. Snyderman: “The motivation to work”; Wiley - 1959) who has gone a step further by identifying the motivating forces and distinguishing them from the hygienic components, which although important do not have a direct implication on productivity. Apparently, and following March & Simon, the levels of job satisfaction are more closely related to a “low staff turnover” and a “low level of absenteeism” with which it is important to distinguish the employee who attends the employee's organization that actually produces.
The creative - and partly sarcastic component of James March - together with the collaboration of two other scholars (Cohen and Olsen; see March & JP Olsen: "Ambiguity and choice in organizations"; Bergen - 1976) suggests the existence of a "model organizational called garbage can ”, with which they have become famous. This garbage can receives both solutions and problems that organizational members throw there as they are generated. For James March it is extremely paradoxical that:
people struggle within the company to participate in decision-making… but they do not make use of such participation
people request information… which they don't use later
they struggle during the debate about what to decide… but they have no interest in following up to see if the decision has been implemented
To the super-alert eyes of James March all this is extremely curious, to say the least. And then it suggests that a decision is the result of the relationships between organizational participants, problems, solutions, methods of choice and options to follow. In turn, decisions are reached as a consequence of three main routes:
by resolution, through a specially designed process to which a reasonable time is devoted
by fast track, when decisions are made very quickly on
the fly, which arises when the original problem statement "has left or flown" recognizing a choice that can be made but that solves absolutely nothing.
According to James March, most of the decisions made within "organizational anarchy" have to do with the b routes. and c. described above.
As a final point, nothing better than to quote one of James March's magisterial phrases, such as when he points out that “an organization is a collection of choices in the search for problems, themes and feelings that in turn are in search of decisive situations and solutions that they look for issues for which they hope to have an answer, and where decision-makers are interested in having a job ”.
*** James March and Herbert Simon devoted a lot of energy to the analysis of the bureaucracy and focused on its dysfunctions in their treatise "Organizations" of the year 1958. And nothing better than to go to these authors to know in greater detail the limits of bureaucratic organization.
Max Weber ("The theory of social and economic organization"; Free Press - 1947) and tries to show that bureaucratic organization is a rational response to the complexities that arise in the daily actions of companies. More specifically, it tries to show how the bureaucratic organization manages to overcome the computational limits that people have for decision-making or other alternative forms of organization such as specialization, the division of labor, among others. There is no doubt that Weber goes beyond the “mechanistic” model, since among other things, he studies in detail the relationship between the person and his role.
But nevertheless, Weber perceives the bureaucracy as an adaptive system to make use of specialized skills, and ignores some aspects related to the character of the human organism.
And it is interesting to note that when we move away from Weber and consider other more recent scholars of the bureaucracy we find that they pay attention to the "unanticipated consequences" of organizational members. Such is the case of RK Merton (“The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action” - 1936), by AW Gouldner (“Patterns of industrial bureaucracy”; Glencoe - 1954 / “Theoretical requirements of the applied social sciences” - American Sociological Review - 1957) and also Philip Selznick (“TVA and the grass roots”; Berkeley - 1949), who make mention of many of the dysfunctional consequences of bureaucracy. These scholars suggest that operating under the "mechanistic" model may even perpetuate the "mechanistic" model even more.
The models of these authors show certain similar aspects in particular when identifying organizational procedures and the way in which they control individual behavior as an independent variable.
It seems that organizational procedures have consequences for leaders but at the same time there are some dysfunctional consequences for the organization.
Merton ("Bureaucratic structure and personality"; Social Forces - 1940) pays attention to dysfunctions in organizational learning. It suggests that organizational participants learn responses to similar situations that, under other conditions, are inappropriate for the organization. An independent variable of utmost importance to Merton is the “greater demand for control” demanded by those at the top of the organization, which in turn impacts on greater reliability of behavior and “accountability”. This is set in motion within companies through standardized procedures which have a negative impact.
Among the negative aspects, Merton mentions the reduction in the number of personalized relationships, the internalization of rules and regulations against organizational objectives, and a simplification in the categorization for decision-making, which in turn impacts on a lower search for alternative solutions. And it includes a series of examples of dysfunctional consequences in customer relations, which have been notorious in “service” organizations and government entities.
Selznick (already cited - 1949) differs from Merton (who chooses the highest control variable) and pays attention to the delegation of authority. Delegation has a multitude of consequences, including necessitating more and better training in specialized skills. These specialized competencies tend to narrow the gap between organizational goals and personal accomplishments, further strengthening delegation. At the same time, delegation results in greater departmentalization and an increase in the “bifurcation of interests” between the different sub-units of the company. In turn, training entails greater competition, which will cause higher expenses in "personnel changes" and this leads to even greater differentiation.
The bifurcation of interests increases the conflict between the different organizational sub-units, which makes the difference between the objectives of the company and the career development of the organizational participants even greater. To make things worse, the different organizational sub-units begin to develop ideologies for each of their units.
Gouldner's (1954 - already cited) model somewhat resembles that of Merton and Selznick. Like Merton, Gouldner is interested in the impact of bureaucratic norms and rules on organizational functioning. It tries to demonstrate how a control technique designed to maintain the balance of a sub-system alters the balance of the system as a whole.
Gouldner suggests that creating rules and norms at work give organizational participants "clues" to action that stray from company goals and from what those at the top of the pyramid are trying. Organizational members learn what is the minimum acceptable behavior. This "minimum acceptable" performance is considered a failure by superiors, which in turn entails a "closer supervision" that increases the degree of tension within the work group, and finally alters the "original balance that was expected to be achieved. through the implementation of rules and regulations ”.
James March and Herbert Simon point to other authors: R. Bendix (“Bureaucracy: The problem and its setting”; American Sociological Review - 1947), R. Dubin (“Decision making by management in industrial relations”; American Journal of Sociology - 1949), and PM Blau ("The Dynamics of Bureaucracy"; Chicago - 1955), critics of the bureaucratic system. What is important and remarkable for March and Simon is based on the fact that the three main authors mentioned above (Merton, Selznick and Gouldner) exhibit dysfunctional consequences for organizations that adopt a bureaucratic arrangement.
- Simon, Herbert A.
Both James March and Herbert Simon in their monumental work entitled "Organizations" (1958 - Wiley and Sons) describe a necessary red flag for Max Weber's approach to bureaucratic organization. In this work, the two authors summarize an infinity of field and research works that lead them to conclude regarding the dysfunctional aspects of the bureaucracy. Both authors show how the inadequacies of the bureaucracy can - paradoxically - be as much a reason for its perpetuity as for its efficiencies.
James March and Herbert Simon are worthy pioneers of the cognitive movement in organizations. For James March an organization is a collection of options in the face of problems, issues and feelings that seek decisions for situations in the environment, where solutions are given in the search for issues for which they can become the answers, where decision makers are in search of a job. On the other hand Herbert Simon suggests that the administration task is such that the individual can get as close as possible and in the most practical way, towards rationality in her decision-making (in terms of organizational objectives).
Simon is a distinguished political and social scientist and his contributions have had a strong influence across various disciplines. He began his work in public administration and operations research, and as a consequence of his role in multiple universities, he was able to integrate different aspects of administration. At Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburg he delved into decision-making, making use of computers as a means of simulating human thought. In 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, based among other things on his important contributions in micro-economics (see book: "Organizations", 1958 by Wiley and Sons).
For Herbert Simon, management is synonymous with decision-making, having focused on how decisions are made in practice and how these decisions can become more effective. It suggests that there are three main stages in the general decision-making process:
Finding occasions in which there is a decision to be made, which we can associate with an intelligence activity in the military sense.
Inventing, developing and analyzing possible courses of action, what could be termed as a design activity.
Choosing a particular course of action from all possible options, representing a “choice / choice” or “elective” activity.
Simon suggests that intelligence activity usually precedes design activity, and that design in turn occurs before election, but this is not so simple sequentially and cannot always occur under this scheme. What is absolutely certain within Herbert Simon's model that all managerial activity is embedded in decision-making.
The basic question that Simon asks himself is the following: On what basis do managers make decisions? Traditional economic theory is based on an assumption where man is hedonistic and that he is supported by his rationality.
Economists have for this a model of the "economic man" who rationally chooses the best possible alternative course of action with the purpose of maximizing his returns, a model that of course is far from reality, since we know very well that there is an element non-rational in people's thinking and behaviors. On this basis, the need for an administrative theory exists precisely because there are practical limits to human rationality.
In turn, these limits regarding rationality are not static since they depend on the organizational context within which the individual decision takes place. Consequently, the task of "managing" is strongly linked to the design of an organizational context where the individual can approach rationality in decision-making, and that this approach is practical in terms of organizational objectives.
As a consequence of his hypotheses, Herbert Simon proposes a model of the "administrative man" to replace the "economic man". Whereas the economic man maximizes by selecting the best course of action out of all possible options, the managerial man simply "satisfies" in his effort to approach a decision that is sufficiently satisfactory. According to Simon, in his day-to-day actions, the manager seeks to make and adopt decisions within a range of satisfactory alternatives that are not necessarily the optimal alternatives, and this in turn has implications beyond individuals, which means in the A practice that organizations also only meet their objectives far from their optimization.
In personal terms we could say that if they had to make a birthday cake for one of their children they would make a “cake that could be eaten” and NOT a cake that is greatly enjoyed and remembered by their child's classmates (perhaps that is why it is remarkable the excellent predisposition that managers have to "delegate" in other tasks that are trivial). Observing this phenomenon in organizational terms and from the business point of view, we can say that the management process within companies does not seek to "maximize profit" but rather to have a reasonable profit, instead of paying an optimal price they speak of a fair price and instead of selling at the best price, sales are made at “a price that ends up with this stock once and for all”.
In terms of Herbert Simon the experience of managers, their degrees and Diplomas in the best Universities, Postgraduate Courses are not enough to maximize decision making. Furthermore, Simon also points out that in terms of both situational and temporal “novelty” in terms of product and service processes, management can operate intelligently but must be less effective and efficient. This carries a very important consideration as it puts the organization in a risky situation when the “relative exchange rate is high”.
When analyzing the organizational decision-making process that is carried out within a changing context, sometimes by being reactive to what happens in the market and other times when the company takes initiatives and acts pro-actively, Herbert Simon makes a distinction by identifying two polarities: decisions can be programmed and non-programmed, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Programmed decisions closely resemble what occurs within mechanistic organizations in terms of Burns & Stalker (1961) or in Max Weber's rational bureaucratic organization (1947). This type of programmed decisions are based on the fact that they are repetitive and respond to routines in the day-to-day operations within the company. This means that, faced with a new repetitive action of something that has been done in the past, it does not generate the need for a new decision.
Mechanistic organizations make great efforts to develop routinization (and also control) mechanisms and their dysfunctional consequences have already been mentioned at length. In fact, if most management decisions were simply scheduled, less time would be required from on-site managers. We will talk about this later as it is a very important issue in today's business reality.
When confronted with a new and unstructured situation or also under situations where no single best option clearly emerges (something that was of great concern to Frederick Taylor some 40 years earlier) we are faced with an unscheduled decision. Faced with this type of situation, which is the current business characteristic, the organization no matter how much effort it makes to find an answer in its organizational or individual history, it is very possible that it will not find the optimal solution.
It is no coincidence that in this type of situation, of Organizational Change and Development, companies “bring” external resources to the organization as a means of assistance and help. Here the beautiful phrase of Maslow applies when he points out that "if what we have to solve a problem is a hammer, then we have to see almost everything as a nail." Therefore the best way not to see so many "unique" nails is to have a more complete kit of tools… and consultants and their consulting firms are very good at showing this, regardless of the results they are later to achieve - or better. said, not reaching.
There are many techniques that have emerged and taken a new turn in the 20th century such as operations research, electronic data processing, computer technology, computer simulation, mathematical analysis, digital communication which were initially used for routine activities and programmed operations that were of application for administrative staff mainly. But with the passage of time, more and more new elements of appreciation are incorporated for operations that in the first cycle are initially non-programmed and that each day are transformed into operations programmed for their second cycle.
Eric Gaynor Butterfield (World Congress of the Organization Development Institute in Zimbabwe, 1999) makes reference to this fact that he treats it applied especially to the "Professionals" who make up an extremely important percentage of the staff of large corporations. Today the large multinational corporations are in a position to make significant reductions in the total strength of professionals since "discretion" in decision-making is in sharp decline and makes their "Graduates" unnecessary.
This phenomenon is treated in detail by Dr. Donald Cole and Eric Gaynor in the book: "Professional Suicide or Organizational Murder" - The OD Institute International - 2004; here we want to honor Herbert Simon for his role as illuminator in this regard.
And we consider that there is no better ending than to reproduce the meaning of some words of the genius of Herbert Simon when he points out that the company of the future has to operate on the basis of programmed decisions that in turn are taken in the automated office that is next to him. And remember that this was expressed "to others" around 1960!
- Tannenbaum, Arnold S.
For a person who started and finished his first formal studies in the hard sciences (after graduating from Purdue University as an electrical engineer) to become recognized in the social sciences as Arnold Tannenbaum has achieved, it is not easy. But his conversion as a social psychologist, later working as a researcher, consultant, professor and practitioner and as a member of the Institute for Social Research (leader in social research), catapulted him as one of the main exponents of participatory models within organizations. And the extraordinary richness of the work of Arnold Tannenbaum (“Social Psychology of the work organization”; Tavistock - 1966 / “Control in Organizations”; McGraw-Hill - 1968 / “Controversies about control and democracy in organizations”;The International Yearbook of Organizational Democracy - 1986) is based, among other aspects, on the multitude and variety of organizational arrangements where research has been developed to which a multitude of cultures and countries must be added.
But the contribution made by Arnold Tannenbaum favoring the participatory approach within companies goes a little further than other important exponents of this orientation (Rensis Likert “New patterns of management”; McGraw-Hill - 1961), Donald Cole (already mentioned), Carl Frost "The Scanlon plan"; MSU - 1974) in the sense that it discovers an apparent paradox through successive field work and research: "When management operates in a participatory manner, it increases its total degree of control over its subordinates by giving up part of its authority." And this may have arisen when you discover that the most effective unions are those where both unionists and other members had both - at the same time - the greatest influence.
It seemed that social participation within an organization began to behave in a special way, producing a particular impact on the degree of control; control seemed to be an elastic product or service where everyone could have more. From then on, organizations have to stop thinking that what one gains the other has to lose; Furthermore, the pie (resources to be obtained) is no longer fixed but is variable, so that everyone within an industrial sector can earn more, provided that the total pie is enlarged.
For Arnold Tannenbaum, control is a process by which a person or a group of people influences another person or other groups with which consequent compliance (in terms of Amitai Etzioni: "Modern Organizations"; Prentice Hall - 1964) of the " other part".
There are two main questions to which Arnold Tannebaum tries to find an answer. The first one has to do with how much influence someone in particular has and the second one has to do with how much you think they should have. An important finding that Tannenbaum found in his research is related to the "slope in the amount of control", which may or may not be the same pronounced, in relation to the other variable studied, which are the "hierarchical levels" divided into managers, supervisors and employees. The ideal slope - following Arnold Tannebaum - is one that is not very steep and is characterized by the lower levels having a degree of participation quite close to the other two hierarchies. Here a new hypothesis arises:It is possible that the "higher influence" effect will somewhat reduce the negative aspects that originate hierarchies within the organization.
Arnold Tannenbaum found evidence very similar to that of the founding fathers in Organizational Development. The business world in the 60s and 70s of the last century strongly criticized some practitioners, academics and researchers in Organizational Development, on the basis of a soft approach of little use to the business and corporate world. For example, Chris Argyris was mentioned as a promoter of a movement that the business world came to call the evangelistic movement.
At that time, many of the work of experts in organizational change and development was carried out in non-profit entities with social aims and orientations. Excellence as a consequence of the results obtained by the practices of agents of change specialized in organizational development made the business world "check their words" and turn their eyes to these people - who through organizational development - achieved better results through “non-monetary” incentives to which the organizational participants of private companies were used.
Arnold Tannenbaum found something very similar: Productivity in organizations and nonprofits with members who are “volunteers” is higher than that of paid people within companies in the industrial sector. And this is explained by Tannenbaum under the terms that in this type of organization, and with the participatory approach, it is possible that "everyone" in general increases their degree of influence as a result of participation.
The apparent paradox - which today is adopted in a fairly generalized way in the face of the multitude of evidences - where workers and employees can have a greater degree of control and "in addition" supervisors and managers can also have greater control, is experienced as a concrete reality. Control is not a game based on the “add 0” process; everyone can add. We must bear in mind that the one who leads is also led - under this participatory scheme - and that he also feels comfortable in this situation.
On the other hand, the authoritarian leader who operates under a vision of (sum 0) perceives that the cake is fixed and that it cannot be increased. Faced with this perception, the authoritarian leader to win needs to increase his control by “taking away” part of the control that the subordinate already has. It is easy to see, especially for those who are involved in processes of change and organizational development, that in this way they add obstacles on the way to business efficiency, to say the least.
And an important warning for those who practice organizational demagogy. It seems that business efficiency is more related to increasing the degree of control (influence) of all organizational participants instead of distributing and democratizing control among all through the different hierarchies. Under this last option, which is adopted by practitioners at the macro level, what is usually achieved is to even down. The famous business practice of "power equalization" has thus come under heavy attack from its own heart.
- Vroom, Victor H.
During Victor Vroom's existence, a particular theme has been present where he combines two variables that show a strong presence in individual and organizational behavior and especially in the relationship that individuals maintain within organizations. These variables are:
decision making, and participation
Since his very completion of doctoral studies, these variables have been present; His dissertation - as well as other field studies and research papers - showed evidence where staff participation in decision-making produces positive consequences on both attitudes and motivation. But the singularity of Victor Vroom's thesis (“Some personality determinants of the effects of participation”; Prentice-Hall - 1960 / “A new look at managerial decision making” - 1974 / with PW Yetton: “Leadership and decision making”;
University of Pittsburg - 1973 / and with AG Jago: “The new leadership: managing participation in organizations”; Prentice-Hall - 1968)) shows something new, since, as an intervening variable, we have certain personal characteristics of people. Authoritarian people who have low needs for “independence” are not significantly affected by the opportunity to participate, while non-authoritarians and with a strong orientation towards independence-autonomy achieve greater participation in decision-making. motivation and better attitude of staff with a positive impact on organizational efficiency.
In later work - and in collaboration with Yetton - the scope of the original work was expanded and the impact on subordinate participation was also studied. Perhaps inspired by the excellent work of Rensis Likert, Vroom and Yetton distinguished different profiles in the superior-subordinate relationship where the participation variable had a greater or lesser influence (In his original work, Rensis Likert made mention of four styles but later extended it to five). Two of the styles responded to autocratic processes, two to consultative processes, and the remaining to group processes (or teamwork).
And following the above distinction, Vroom and Yetton posed two main questions:
Which process (of the five above) should managers use to increase organizational efficiency?
In turn, this question leads us to the following:
What is the decision-making process that managers actually use in companies?
It is clear that the first question is prescriptive (closer to a formula or a recipe) while the second is mostly descriptive.
The work of Vroom and Yetton represents a very important and distinctive contribution by distinguishing three classes of consequences that influence efficiency in decision making and they are:
The degree of rationality implicit in the decision
The level of acceptance or commitment on the part of subordinates in order to execute the decision efficiently.
The amount of time it takes to make a decision.
As a consequence of this, it is in a position to develop a decision-making model where the decision-making process to be used would be defined, so that we can achieve an acceptable “decision-making quality” in the minimum time. The interesting thing about the model is that it shows how each of the profiles in the superior-subordinate relationship can be applied in certain circumstances, having the options of: autocracy, consultative and group. However, the frequency with which each of them should be used has to depend on the type of decisions that the manager must make. This normative-prescriptive model suggests that all managers should operate “across” all ranges.
Regarding the second question that has to do with the descriptive, Vroom's work was based on two methodologies and an important finding is the one that shows that it makes much more sense to speak of participatory or autocratic situations than to speak of autocratic or participatory managers. Working during a Leadership development program, Vroom compared the decision processes that he envisioned in his normative model to those executed by the managers themselves. It is interesting to note that the model presents greater variations in decision-making for each situational problem than what the “typical” manager usually does during a work shift.Vroom suggests - as a consequence of his model - that during decision making the manager oriented towards organizational efficiency should be trained to be more autocratic and also more participatory, according to the problem he faces.
