Making organisations work

169 Pages·1978·6.307 MB·English

by  Trevor Owen (auth.)

Making organisations work
International series on the quality of working life
Vol. 7
Editor-in-Chief
Hans van Beinum,
Foundation for Business Administration, Delft-Rotterdam
Editorial Panel
Fred Emery,
Australian National University, Canberra
Nitish R. De,
National Labour Institute, New Delhi
Mauk Mulder,
Foundation for Business Administration, Delft-Rotterdam
Einar Thorsrud.
Work Research Institutes, Oslo
Eric Trist,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Dick Walton.
Harvard University, Boston
Tommy Wilson.
London Graduate School of Business Studies, London
The QuaHty of WorkiDg Life series bas been establisbed ill coUaboration with the International
Council for the QuaHty of Working Ufe.
Making organisations work
Trevor Owen
cfft'1artinustJVijhoff Social Sciences Division
~eidenl~stonl~ndon 1978
Distributors for North America
Kluwer Boston Inc.
160 Old Derby Street
Hingham, MA 02043 USA
ISBN-13: 978-90-207-0779-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-4093-5
001: 10.1007/978-1-4613-4093-5
© 1978 by Trevor Owen
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof
in any form.
Contents
PREFACE. . . . . . . . . . IX
1. THE MANAGEMENT ENERGY CRISIS 1
How we use management energy 2
2. INDUSTRY IN A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE. 4
The aims of Western society. . . 4
Living with uncertainty . . . . 5
Intervention by society into industry . 8
Ignorance of industry in society 11
Turbulence and uncertainty - and individual freedom as
well!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Managing in a democracy . . . . . . . . 17
The location of power in industrial organisations. 19
The diffusion of power . . . . . . . . 22
Fundamental changes in the management task. 25
3. SOURCES OF ENERGY WITHIN THE ORGANISATION. 27
The nature of complex organisations. . . . 29
The manager at the interface and the sources of energy at
his disposal . . . . . . . . . . 30
Releasing the energy of the working group . 33
Boundary control . . . . . . . . . 36
Second thoughts about boundaries 37
Boundaries may shield people from reality. 39
The work group as an 'open system' and the boundary as
an infinitely permeable membrane. . . . . .. 43
4. USING THE ENERGY SOURCES . . 47
Co-operation and sharing power 48
Ways of avoiding anarchy . . 50
VI CONTENTS
Mutual hostility and mutual trust . 57
Creating an environment of mutual trust 58
Sharing problems and the 'San Andreas Fault' syndrome 62
The pain barrier. 65
Crossing the pain barrier - or not . 67
5. CREATING ENERGY NETWORKS 69
False linking pins 70
Improving linkages. 74
U sing linkages to create a common framework of
perception. 77
6. MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING. 81
Conflict between the objectives of the organisation and
the objectives of individuals within the organisation. 83
When people seek to avoid decisions . 86
Finding the right level for decisions to be made 90
7. THE NATURE OF THE MANAGEMENT TASK AND THE PROBLEMS
OF ACHIEVING IT . 97
Is a manager necessary? 98
Managers in other cultures 101
Conflict in a democratic society and its implication for the
manager 103
Identifying the maximum area of common purpose 106
Letting reality in 108
Helpful and unhelpful interventions 113
Questions for the manager to put to the group he manages 117
8. WHO'S ON OUR SIDE? 120
Evading the pressures of society 122
The two different worlds of manager. 126
Bringing the two worlds closer together 128
9. COME BACK LEADERSHIP, ALL IS FORGIVEN! 134
The manager as a leader . 136
CONTENTS VII
Creating a framework of shared values 138
Decisions of fact and decisions of stance. 146
10. MANAGEMENT ENERGY - CONSERVATION PLAN 150
Preface
I have worked as a manager in a large industrial organisation for the
last twenty years. During that time I have seen the job of a manager
change almost out of recognition in both complexity and difficulty.
For the last five ofthose years I have held ajob which has been much
concerned with the problems which managers face under these cir
cumstances, and I have been in the position to discuss these pro
blems with people doing similar jobs in other large organisations,
who have in turn often asked me for advice on their problems.
The result has been to build up a general picture of the manager in
large and complex industrial organisations and of those practices
which will help him or her to be effective and those which will not. I
suspect that the picture which emerges is one which may have some
validity for large and complex organisations in other spheres - trade
unions, for instance, or the civil service - but I have no first-hand
evidence to show whether this is so or not. It is a picture which is
certainly not so relevant for small organisations. These (and I have
had the pleasure of working in some from time to time) have their
own problems, but they tend to be different ones.
This book thus draws extensively on practical experience, and all
the examples quoted are real. I have been party to many of the
events myself and the rest have been directly experienced by it;t
dividuals with whom I have myself discussed them. None of them is
more remote from reality than that.
In fairness to those who have shared their problems with me, all
the examples quoted are anonymous. A few are from my own com
pany and will no doubt be identified as such, but I hope that the rest
are sufficiently well-camouflaged to ensure that identification is
impossible.
My own debt in writing a book like this is not only to these
numerous friends and informants but also to the many people who
x
PREFACE
have, over the years, helped me to a greater understanding of the
nature of the management task.
First and foremost amongst these are the Board of Imperial
Chemical Industries, Ltd., my employers, who have given me so
many exciting and rewarding jobs in this time, and the managers for
whom I have myself worked in that remarkable enterprise - notably
George Costley, John Garnett, and Geoffrey Gilbertson. I have
learnt much from their examples and much from the opportunities
which they have given me to experiment and to learn, both from my
successes and from my failures.
Then there are many other colleagues who will find in this book
ideas which have been filched from them, or which have arisen out
of discussions which we have had together; Jim Bell, Brian Jenkins,
Arthur Johnston, David Jones, Robin Paul, Jack Rowbotham,
Derek Sheane, and Tony Ward are amongst those who come into
this category.
Finally, I have been lucky enough to discuss some ofthese ideas
from time to time with many wise people who look at the problems
facing managers today from an academic, or at least a more de
tached, viewpoint. In particular, Dick Beckhard, Oliver Clarke,
Fred and Merrelyn Emery, Madeline Heilman, Harvey Hornstein,
Gaie Houston, Michael Long, Will McWhinney, Philip Sadler,
Rosemary Stewart, Eric Trist and Tommy Wilson have all helped to
deepen my understand of the subject, and many were kind enough
to read and to criticise an early draft of this book.
Without the help of these and many other friends, this book
would never have been written. Its shortcomings, however, are mine
and mine alone.