the organizational skill: compathy (part 6)
TRANSCRIPT
The Organizational Skill:
COMPATHY (Part 6)
Contributed by Vardar Cobanoglu on December 22, 2014 in Management & Leadership , Organization, Change, & HR
Note from the Editor: This is the final piece in a series of 6 articles written by the author,
Vardar Çobanoğlu. The full series is a compelling piece on Organizational Behavior,
Human Resources, and Corporate Management. You can read the other parts and find the
author’s other articles here .
* * * *
A New Model for Achieving the Overall Performance and Labor Peace
The “raison d’être” of a Business Enterprise is the Entrepreneur’s CONCEPT or Goals it 1
would like to realize through this entity. Modest Concepts can be achieved via the smallest
Single Proprietorship where the Entrepreneur may even assume the roles and functions of
the Managers and Employees. As Concepts get more ambitious and consequently more
complex in terms of Operations, Organization, Planning, Coordinating, and Control, the
one-man show is not feasible anymore and the Business Enterprise requires additional
People as Partners, Managers, and Employees, each with its own COMPETENCES along
with its Needs/Wants, Resources, Skills/Systems and Behavior.
A new model for achieving the Entrepreneurial Concepts with appropriate Corporate
Competences while ensuring the Overall Performance and maintaining the Labor Peace with
the concerned parties’ respective satisfaction, is the OCTAHEDRAL MANAGEMENT
APPROACH (OMA) 2 where the 4 cardinal points (i.e. Resources=R, Skills/Systems=SS,
Needs/Wants=NW and Behavior=B) are reciprocally shared by the Entrepreneurial (the
Employer), Administrative (the Management) and Performing (the Employees)
Constituents of the Business Enterprise as illustrated by the following prismatic
configuration:
For this approach to function well and maintain its delicate balance, COMPATHY, as the
Reciprocal Recognition of respective Competences through Responsive
Constructive Communication, should be definitely adopted and sincerely practiced by
all parties in the Business Enterprise:
1. If the Employer does not properly recognize its Corporate Needs/Wants, it will not
be able to determine the Concept - related Goals and consequently the Overall
Performance will remain at a standstill in the short-run, but subsequently decline
as outperformed by the Competition. Loyal Managers and Employees might continue
to contribute their best for some time, but then, they might leave in frustration and
desperation. The sub-performers’ greasings or the interest-seekers’ fantasies might
get credit instead of competent Managers’ critical thinking or professional advisors’
recipes, the decline accelerating and potential losses exponentially increasing along
with wishful thinking, incapacity or dishonesty.
2. If the Employer does not recognize the insufficiency or strength of its own Resources
and Skills/Systems,it can not provide for or fully mobilize them, hence it may not
optimize its Goals, and might go through the previous situations, sooner or later.
3. If the Employer does not recognize the excesses or lacks of its own or its Managers’
and Employees’ Behavior, the Labor Peace will deteriorate with gradually
increasing reactions and counter-actions such as Lock-out vs Strike, Suppression and
Aggression of all kinds, or good Managers and Employees will leave, at worst to the
Competition.
4. If the Employer does not recognize or properly communicate its opinion on its
Managers’ and Employees’ Resources and Skills/Systems, it cannot make full use of
their potential and consequently may:
enroll them to unnecessary trainings causing further frustrations, or
force them to resign or simply dismiss them, blaming them for under-
or misperformance, or
reluctantly keep them until finding supposedly better, but more
expensive replacements, or else
overstaff and provoke dangerous intracompany competitions,
all such practices resulting in the deterioration of the Labor Peace as
well as the Overall Performance .
5. If the Employer does not recognize or properly communicate its good intentions
about its Managers’ and/or Employees’ Needs/Wants, willingly or unconsciously, it
might lead them, to the following individual or collective processes:
Disappointment => Reactive Resignation with/out Legal Action,
Affiliated Rationalization => Frustration after Persistence of Non-recognition
=> Demotivation => Inefficiency => Reluctant Resignation or Dismissal,
Over-achievement for Improvements => Desperation after Persistence of
Non-recognition => Disinterest => Unexpected Resignation with/out Legal
Action,
Passive Opposition => Lobbying => Dismissal with/out Legal Action,
Exasperation => Revenge => Abuse => Dismissal with Legal Action,
Distrust => Hostility => Confrontation => Revolt => Strike or Lock-out,
all affecting the Labor Peace as well as the Overall Performance . Hence, two
situations along with the famous Turkish sayings should be avoided: “The Well-fed does not
realize the Hungry’s State!” as well as “Stealing comes from Scarcity, as Impudence from
Plenty!”
6. If the Managers do not recognize the Behavior expected from them in line with their
recognized Resources and Skills/Systems as their intermediate status of
Performance Administration as well as Communication Channel between the
Employer and the Employees, then they might:
get discredited and immediately replaced by a powerful Employer,
be exploited by the Employees up until bypassing them and directly
communicating with an easy-going Employer who might even lose the total
control beyond restitution,
form their oligarchic junta with a strong grip on the Employees against a weak
Employer by Nature (i.e. the Entrepreneur’s Inheritors lacking Vigilance) or
Structure (i.e. Micronized Partnerships).
7. If the Managers do not recognize the Employer’s Behavior and Needs/ Wants by
acting insensitively, they get discredited and immediately replaced. If they do the
same to the Employees, then, depending on the latter’s conditions along with the
Labor Contract, Law and Market, they might:
pursue their endeavor up until the Overall Performance is affected , or
realize that the attrition rate can not be compensated because of the bad
corporate image discouraging new job applications, or else
back down by the Employer’s inevitable intervention as the Employees’
opposition starts deteriorating the Labor Peace .
8. If the Managers do not recognize the insufficiency of the Corporate Resources and
Skills/Systems also including the Employees’, they will be:
blamed for eventual Sub-performances or Failures, because they had not
flashed the proper signals on time, but turned their ventures into an
adventure, or
discredited and immediately dismissed along with their intra- or extra-
company rivals’ relevant criticisms and warnings to the Employer.
Moreover, if they do not recognize the strength of the Corporate Resources and
Skills/Systems also including the Employees’, their own Recognition will suffer either at
their very candidacy or their Mismanagement will be very short-lived.
9. If either or both of the Managers and the Employees misuse or abuse the Employer’s
Competences , not only their undertakings, but their future career might be
penalized by Legal Action.
10. Even if unionized, the Employees’ NON-RECOGNITION ACTS towards either or
both of the Employer’s and the Managers’ Competences at work, are rewarded by
dismissal, because their Recognition is the prerequisite of their very employment.
The adoption and implementation of COMPATHY as the fundamental activator of the
Corporate Culture , first by the Employer, nurtures the Managers’ and then the Employees’
TRUST in OMA . Consequently, the integration of the Psychological Harmony and the
Organizational Reconciliation as COMPATIBILITY is attained. Next, CONSENSUS on
the relative and respective priorities and COMMITMENT in executing the related
Strategies, Plans and Policies as well as fairly sharing their outcomes by the Employer,the
Managers and the Employees altogether, result in the Labor Peace and the Overall
Performance . Finally, the concerned parties’ respective satisfaction evidences the Success
of the model and thus ensures the CONTINUITY of the system.
Similar to its microscale Corporate application, the COMPATHY-driven
OCTAHEDRAL MANAGEMENT APPROACH might equally serve higher scales as
macro/ Sectoral, mega/ National , giga/ Regional and tera/ Global all over the World
in overcoming the associated Psychological, Social, Political and Organizational Conflicts ,
provided that the other 5 C ’s of the Global Culture as Concept, Competences,
Epilogue
Human Behavior is at least as complex as its infrastructure, the Human Body. In spite of the
observations, research, findings, and teachings of sciences as recorded in the written history
of some 12,000 years, we are still far from fully understanding and hence predicting it.
However, the 1977 Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry Ilya Prigogine suggests in his auto-
biography: “… In addition, the research I conducted with my friend R. Herman on the
theory of car traffic, gave me confirmation of the supposition that even human behaviour,
with all its complexity, would eventually be susceptible of a mathematical formulation… ” I
am also one of the fervent proponents of the Predictibility of Human Behavior, in spite of its
Complexity, especially under and facing emergencies potentially leading to Crises . With all
my due respect to I. Prigogine’s suggestion that such a formulation could be made as a joint
undertaking of mathematicians and anthropologists, my proposal calls for the inclusion in
the task force of additional contributors as strategists, psychologists, psychiatrists and
economists, as well.
The analytical methodology in trying to understand, explain and predict Human Behavior
might be similar to that proposed by Richard Dawkins , the famous author of “The Blind
Watchmaker”, as “ hierarchical reductionism ” of a biologist as he is, while mine would be
the ” interactive deductionism/inductionism ” of a philosopher, as follows:
Complexities (Unknown) + Dissociative Deduction (noting the interactions and
interrelations between the dissociated parts) => Components (Known) +
Associative Induction (in line with the already noted interactions and interrelations)
=> Composites (Complex, but now Known).
It is already, though limitedly, but soon, it will be definitely possible to achieve conscious,
preplanned, well designed and monitored Derivations, Mutations, Corrections,
Modifications, Amplifications, Innovations and Inventions through Creative Induction
and even the Predictibility of a very complex mechanism like Human Behavior will come
true… But would it be the right thing to do?!? …
As for Mr. Harts and Bings ?… They will always be around, but creating much less
problems under Compathy -driven OMA’ s contributions.
1 IT will be used as the neutral pronoun in order to avoid gender offenses to Whoever is concerned.
2 Copyright 2014, I. Vardar Cobanoglu (STRATMAN-OMA). All rights reserved. No part of this article, on the basis of The
Copyrights 1986-2004, I. Vardar Cobanoglu (STRATMAN) related to the concerned lecture notes, can be used in any form
nor by any means for any purposes without the Author’s written permission.
About Vardar Cobanoglu
Vardar Çobanoğlu specialized in the Practice, Consultancy and Lecturing in Strategic Management
(Crisis, Power, Change, Entre-/Intra-preneurship and SME Management, Foreign Expansion,
International Marketing and Trade Management), in Banking (Commercial and Correspondant Banking
including Loan Syndications), in Business Management (including Contract Negotiations), in Career
Orientation and Education in his professional life of some 40 years. He had his Banking Career with
Citibank Türkiye, Byblos Bank Belgium SA and Credit Lyonnais Türkiye; he also conducted training
programs at major universities, private and public banks, enterprises and institutions (1986-2003); his
experience as a Corporate Executive had been in Pharmaceuticals; in Chemicals, Edible & Essential Oils;
all in Türkiye. He was assigned as one of Türkiye’s experts to IMD Lausanne’s panel entitled “World
Competitiveness Yearbook” (Jan. 1998-Jan. 2005). You can contact Vardar at [email protected] .
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