wk 1 550

SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT: OGL 550 Reaction Paper Name: ____________ ***(PROF’s NOTE: “LOREM IPSUM” fake text is used below as filler.—SD)***

Chapter 4 in Morgan, G. 2006. Learning and Self-Organization, pp. 71-114. Key Concepts / Synopsis (75 percent of the space in this two-page assignment)

Images of the Brain

○ Metaphors re. the brain have included ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique ○ Debate about the brain’s doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ○ The brain ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. ○ The right hemisphere loreum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique ○ The left side lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

QUOTE: “Et lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius” (Morgan 2006, p. 95). In other words, we need to link our brains and be open to criticism (if constructive) in order to achieve true greatness. Information Processing

○ Organizations Et lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus ○ Herbert Simon and James March quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione

ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. ○ “Bounded Lorum” quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint ○ est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius (pg. 79).

Rational est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. QUOTE: “The cry of ‘Et tu Brute!’ est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut

maxime quia non sequi eius est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius” (Morgan 2006, p. 101).

○ Information processing est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia

Fostering and growing via Learning Organizations

○ Norbert Wiener Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius (pg. 81). ○ Cybernetics Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius ○ Cybernetics leads to Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius

Systems help monitor placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

• Ut sint ut maxime quia non sequi eius

• Ut placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

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OGL 550 Reaction Paper (page 2) ■ Start some actions to sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius

• Placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

• Ut placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

• Ut sint ut maxime quia non sequi eius

Change and begin to ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius

• Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

• Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

• Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius

○ Double-loop learning Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius ○ Single-loop learning Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius ● Holographic Brains

• Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius

• Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non

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• Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius

“Reflection Section” (25 percent of the space): This chapter reminded me of the failures (and subsequent successes) of one of my professional teams two years ago, when lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. Ipsus lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. Et lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. Ipsus lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius.

Et lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. Ipsus lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. Ipsus lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius. Ipsus lorum ipsum dolor sit amet. Aut ullam similique doloribus quia est laborum consequuntur est ratione ducimus. Ut sint placeat ut maxime quia non sequi eius.

corporations. The compartmentalization created by mechanistic divisions between different hierarchical levels, functions, roles, and people tends to create barriers and stumbling blocks. For example, when new problems arise they are often ignored because there are no ready-made responses. Or they are approached in a fragmented rather than a holistic way so that they can be tackled through existing organizational policies,

procedures, and patterns of expertise. But standardized procedures and channels of communication are often unable to deal effectively with new circumstances, necessitating numerous ad hoc meetings and committees, which, because they have to be planned to fit rather than disrupt the normal mode of operation, are often too slow or too late for dealing with issues. Problems of inaction and lack of coordination thus become rife. In such circumstances the organization frequently becomes clogged with backlogs of work because normal routine has been disrupted, and complex issues float up the organizational hierarchy as members at each level find in turn that they are unable to solve them. On the way, information often gets distorted, as people hide errors and the true nature and magnitude of problems for fear of being held responsible for them. Those in command of the organization thus frequently find themselves facing issues that are inappropriately defined, and which they have no real idea of how to approach. They are often forced to delegate them to special task forces or teams of staff experts or consultants—who, since they are often remote from the concrete problems being experienced, further increase the delay and inadequacy of response.

The difficulty of achieving effective responses to changing circumstances is often further aggravated by the high degree of specialization in different functional areas within the organization (e.g., production, marketing, finance, product engineering). Interdepartmental communications and coordination are often poor, and people often have a myopic view of what is occurring, there being no overall grasp of the situation facing the enterprise as a whole. As a result the actions encouraged by one element of the organization often entail negative consequences for others, so that one element ends up working against the interests of another.

These problems are often compounded by the fact that mechanistic definitions of job responsibilities encourage many organizational members to adopt mindless, unquestioning attitudes such as “it’s not my job to worry about that,” “that’s his responsibility, not mine,” or “I’m here to do what I’m told.” Although often seen as attitudes that employees “bring to work,” they are actually inherent in the mechanistic approach to organization. Defining work responsibilities in a clear- cut manner has the advantage of letting everyone know what is expected of them. But it also lets them know what is not expected of them. Detailed job descriptions have this two-edged character, creating many problems when the organization faces changing circumstances that call for initiative and flexibility in response.

This institutionalized passivity and dependency can even lead people to make and justify deliberate mistakes on the premise that they’re obeying orders. The hierarchical organization of jobs builds on the idea that control must be exercised over the different parts of the organization (to ensure that they are doing what they are designed to do), rather than being built into the parts themselves. Supervisors and other hierarchical forms of control do not just monitor the performance of workers—they also remove responsibility from workers, because their function really becomes operational only when problems arise. In a similar way, a system of quality control on a production line often institutionalizes the production of defective goods. People realize that they are allowed a quota of errors.

Much of the apathy, carelessness, and lack of pride so often encountered in the modern workplace is thus not coincidental: it is fostered by the mechanistic approach. Mechanistic organization discourages initiative, encouraging people to obey orders and keep their place rather than to take an interest in, and question, what they are doing. People in a bureaucracy who question the wisdom of conventional practice are viewed more often than not as troublemakers. Therefore, apathy often reigns as people learn to feel powerless about problems that collectively they understand and ultimately have the power to solve.

These difficulties are often linked to another set of problems: the development of subgoals and sets of interests that undermine the organization’s ability to meet its primary objectives. Functional specialization is supposed to create a system of cooperation. Yet it often ends up creating a system of competition as individuals and departments compete for scarce resources or job positions higher up the hierarchy. Empire building, careerism, the defense of departmental interests, pet projects, and the padding of budgets to create slack resources may subvert the working of the whole. If the organization is staffed by rational men and women who behave in accordance with the formal interests and aims of the total organization, “fitting in” rather than using the organization for other purposes, then this may not occur. But humans are human, and the best-laid plans have a habit of turning in ways never intended by their creators. Formal organizations thus often become guided toward the achievement of informal ends, some of which may be quite contrary to the aims underlying the original design.

A final set of problems relate to human consequences. The mechanistic approach to organization tends to limit rather than mobilize the development of human capacities, molding human beings to fit the requirements of mechanical organization rather than building the organization around their strengths and potentials. Both employees and organizations lose from this arrangement. Employees lose opportunities for personal growth, often spending many hours a day on work they neither value nor enjoy, and organizations lose the creative and intelligent contributions that most employees are capable of making, given the right opportunities.

Mechanistic approaches to organization have proved incredibly popular, partly because of their efficiency in the performance of tasks that can be successfully routinized and partly because they offer managers the promise of tight control over people and their activities. In stable times, the approach worked from a managerial point of view. But with the increasing pace of social and economic change, the limitations have become more and more obvious.

As we enter the twenty-first century we find bureaucracies and other modes of mechanistic organization coming under increasing attack because of their rigidities and other dysfunctional consequences. The total quality movement (TQM) and emphasis on flexible, team-based organization that came into prominence in the 1980s and 1990s signaled an early response to these problems and the need to find other nonmechanical ways of organizing. From a historical perspective, the mechanistic approach to organization belongs to the mechanical age. Now that we are entering an age with a completely new technological base drawing on microelectronics, new organizational principles are likely to become increasingly important. Some of the images of organization considered in the following chapters give a glimpse of what may be both possible and appropriate for managing in these new times.

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