effects of organisational behavior
TRANSCRIPT
8/9/2019 Effects of Organisational Behavior
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A Review
of
A Tale of Complexity: The Effects of Organizational Behavior on Project Outcomes
Marie A. George, RN, BSN
Duke University School of Nursing
April 3, 2004
“A Tale of Complexity: The Effects of Organizational Behavior on Project Outcomes” is
a research work carried out by Marie A. George in a small, privately held healthcare
software vendor (Phoenix) in New England. The study intends to research the use of
different organizational and managerial practices and their perceived challenges that
managers are facing and practical insights and prospects that could be applied to achieve
success. Therefore, it strives to use principles of complexity theory and complex adaptivesystems management to describe what could have been done differently in the past, as
well as what can be done in the future.
The researcher has studied the case of a healthcare software company that was brought to
the brink of destruction by absentee executive management. Actually the company was
sold once and repurchased. The original owner of the software company had a style of
management that was informal and unstructured whereas, the new owner was
geographically remote and visited the office infrequently. Because he was remote and
was under a great deal of pressure from the investor, he had to rely on the Vice President
of Technology. Particularly, because of the management style of the Vice President, this
changed the structure of the organization form one of informal leadership to one where
the structure was Newtonian and mechanistic. According to Wheatley (1999), in the
Newtonian view, organizations and projects are broken down into parts and the parts are
supposed to make up the whole. Managers manage from the top, down and subordinates
have little influence on decisions. While the organization chart showed the hierarchy that
mixed ‘legacy’ and ‘new’ employees together, the grapevine of the company’s shadow
system exposed an ‘us vs. them’ culture. Upper management did not listen to the shadow
system and the organization became polarized. A consultant recommended creating cross-
functional teams represented by both legacy and new employees to pool the knowledge
and develop creative solutions to difficult tasks and features. This not only gave the
legacy employees a feeling of security and belonging, it also served to give new
management an appreciation for the value and creativity of the legacy employees, despite
the fact that they did not have all the skills to support the new technology.
The study makes some recommendations like the manager of the company should adopt
relationship-based leadership fostering open communication(exchange of information)
and giving value to the ideas of the diversity, focusing on professional values and
expertise (listening to the shadow system to avoid losing more employees until she can
restore the pay cuts). Therefore, leaders should pay attention to the management of 1 | A R e v i e w o f “ E f f e c t s o f O r g a n i z a t i o n a l B e h a v i o r ” .r b t d h a k a l @ y a h o o . c o m
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relationship rather than management roles. Similarly, the company should not fear
change, but should embrace it. It is still important for the company to listen to the users
and discuss their suggestions and ideas for incorporating into the new product. One way
for Phoenix leadership to embrace change is to give up control. Another recommendation
was to use minimum specifications since people do not have the time or resource to writeextremely detailed specs for the remainder of the project. If the teams continue to meet
frequently, and are allowed to communicate freely; minimum specifications will serve as
a way to speed up development while fostering creativity and independence. And finally
it makes a claim that to work collectively smarter is to remain in touch with those around
us, both with their ideas and with their energy. And to work spiritually smarter is to pay
more attention to one’s own spiritual qualities, feelings, insights, and yearnings.
By taking advantage of complexity management strategies such as creating relationship-
based leadership, embracing change, using minimum specifications and working
collectively and spiritually smarter, Phoenix is currently in a position to finish the
software project and introduce a comprehensive innovative product into the homecare
market. While Phoenix should continue to listen to its users and develop its new product
according to the feedback from its beta project, the use of probes is probably not a good
idea at this point. Another strategy that should be used with caution at this time is conflict
management. Therefore cultivating management roles such as activist, devil’s advocate,
and counselor to stimulate and manage conflict would be another alternative which could
have been taken.
I liked the researcher’s style of putting the ideas in an interesting narrative way. While
reading this article, I felt more like reading a story than perusing a research article that is
mostly facts-and-findings loaded. I found the article worth having in my shelf to help me
think about what kind of adaptive system management and different complex managerial
skills I need to develop in me. I know I am not Wonder Man and I may have similar
predicament in my professional career, so I think I have learned something of the
management of relationships and management of roles that are worth the price in any
organizations even today.
- Rebat Kumar Dhakal
10 March 2010
Organizational Behavior
M. Phil. in Educational Leadership
Kathmandu University
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