Consensual Management as an Integration of
Decision Making at the Management - Work Group Interface.
Kwesi Agboletey. Institute of Behavioural
Studies (I.B.V.) Linköpings University.
Tallstigen 10 1 tr, 186 70, Brottby.
(Tel. 08- 511 785 96).
This paper presents arguments that emphasize a
need for engaging workers in creative management that enables full exploration
of the latent creativity and idea generation capacity in any work group, that
potentially should increase effectiveness and enhance productivity in
workplaces. Given that organisations vary along multi-dimensions, there is a
need to focus on specific work group - management interfaces to ensure that,
organizations' and their human components at lower and higher levels
practically realize and appreciate common grounds for generating operational
efficiency through knowledge input as a premise for organizing
employee-management activities.
It is the case that the process by which
employees are absorbed into an organization is presciently one that emphasizes
their roles as human components of production, with little relevance beyond
that from the organizations perspective. The whole induction process thus makes
little or no reference to the fact that employees no matter their rank are
active determinants of ultimate organization states by their individual and
collective actions, over and above assigned task execution. The point of
departure from existing organizational orientations is that while organizations
are aware of the importance of the contributory efforts of employees,
especially employees at the lower levels of the organizations. Most employees
are only conscious of their relevance to the organization as human components
of the productive effort. The consequence is that while all employees within an
organization accept the economic relevance of paid employment, there are
organizational practices that limit the extent to which employees are engaged
in idea generation and mutual decision-making as an inherent part of the their
work activities.
To be able to access the depth of hidden
knowledge and latent diverse creativity that lies dormant within lower level
employees, management must adopt radical humanistic strategies. Seeking for
task relevant ideas to enable optimum efficiency and increase idea diversity
within its collective labour pool. The rationale underlying decision making
within most manufacturing organizations seems to be that it is only the manager
who have the ability to think creatively. While the proper approach should be that
good managers are those who seek to emphasize wide-wide participation in
decision-making. More importantly, organizations must recognize and express
appreciation for the sources of creative intelligence, within their workforces.
The ability to harness widespread ideas and organize them for production or
productive effort is the hallmark of effective management. This is boosted by
the 'all employee ownership' of organizations through shared-knowledge input.
Such induced 'deep concern and engaged involvement' across the organization for
the organization, create improved identity with the employing organizations not
to talk about higher commitment towards the organizations cause. In old economy
industries the minimization of lower level employee engagement in task related
decision making seems to be the preferred norm; and lower level employees
respond by adopting a tactical non-involved attitude, assume antagonistic,
anti-managerial stance critical of management or in times of crisis a self
protecting anti-organizational stance.
Not only is the existing basis for organizing
inclusive decision making a variegated splattering of differing techniques some
of which require removal of personnel from their functional task locations to
deliberate about issues far removed from their expertise and interest. The
present paper calls for a renewed effort to facilitate worker engagement in
organizationally relevant, task focused collective decision making, the absence
of which creates deep rooted psychological vacuum between organizations and
their employees.
Where the activities of two or more
organizational subunits converge, a web of interaction is identifiable which
could be explored through mutual engagement of the interacting internal
organizational sub-system elements for organizational benefit. Depending on
whether the interaction occurs at vertical or horizontal interfaces of subunit
activity. In the instance of vertical interface interaction, this is
exemplified in manager-worker interface interactivity, which is occasioned by
transfer of order or directives and execution of specified task demands. A
confluence of fusion occurs at organizational interfaces, when directive
instructional knowledge emerging from structurally higher positioned managers
is channeled down to the work group, to facilitate group-task activity.
Seeking consensus with employees as an
integrated management activity at organizational interfaces, brings together
the widely researched knowledge base in motivational theory; control; decision
making; social cognition; Organizational development; work group studies etc.
Amalgamating these varying casts on the social behaviour within structured
productive activities to outline a process for managing lower level employees;
diagnosing them and conducting research within such organizational groups,
based on the consensual management model.
Unlike traditional group management processes
that by their unit-directional, mechanistic orientation, defines group
activities in terms of specified sets of activities, where efficiency increment
is tantamount to precision of outlining the task specificities of the group
against some management dictates. (This orientation in leadership studies is
the distinction between transactional as opposed to transformational leadership).
The flexibility factor in consensual-management implies that the extent and
depth of involvement that any interface interaction activity involves is
mediated by certain situational variable states; principally is the nature of
leadership approach a particular organization adopts, among a host oaf other
factor variable states. Varying according to the specificities of the unique
requirements that each, such activity requires. Removing the need to determine
group efficiency by any scripted pattern of technically required activities and
enabling a core, task goal focus which places the human components of unit
productive activity as the prime considerations in any integration decision
making activity merging with pertinent production or output considerations is
implied in consensual management.
The inherent creativity and idea generation
capacity within the work group is of equal merit and importance as its
productive capacity, if not of higher consideration. Since idea generation and
creativity enabled in any work group requires the establishment of the ambient
and practical psycho-socio-emotional provisions to facilitate employee
participation. Consensual-management in this sense, is thus not necessarily,
only, the merging of specified sets of activities across vertical subunits of
management-work group interfaces, but is inclusive of a process that bridges
positional gaps, fusing the exigent activities at prior positional polarities
to be functionally realized as new sets of activities at the interface activity
level with expected organizational advantages.
While there is the validated assumption that
structured sets of task-oriented activity evolve at the management-work group
interface. The characteristics that identify and determine the operational
efficiency of any existing work group activity, is expected to be positively
affected at the group climate level and productivity capacity through
consensual interaction as an integration management activity.
From the work group perspective it can be
assumed that what is relevant to enable any particular work group as an
organizationally identified unit, is to realize group desirable states as well
as to facilitate optimum efficiency through consensual engagement, should be
organizationally defined in broad framework but group emergent as an
integration decision activity in its task realization. The group is aided to
generate activity patterns that are constituents' supportive, merging with
organizations group supportive activity, through its management representatives
towards designated task realization capabilities which sublimate the group and
the organizational at a common task fusion zone with commonly derived outcome
expectancies. It is this sublimation at a common organizational interface to realize
commonly derived outcome expectancies that is the departure from existing
patterns of organizing and managing work groups.
The work group, irrespective of its location
within the organization has definite task and social dimensions. The extent to
which management as the critical element that determines the eventual quality
of that work group; its task outcome quality, the groups relationship and
interpretation of the organization, and the consequent degree of commitment of
the groups constituents to the group and organization, is tantamount to the
organizations awareness that it is engaged in deeply inconclusively defined
power relationship with the work group on the one hand and in a purely
economic-technical, productive oriented exchange activity with its employees.
The former is obvious in existing management practices, the latter, however has
been evident in the socio-normative exigencies of humanistic theorization, but
the extent to which it can be productively engineered into task group management
practices have been inconsistently realized. The fundamental recognition of a
work group as a productive entity within the organization remains unmitigated,
but its productive capacity, i.e. the work group's sustained productivity is a
miasma of seemingly unrelated factors, which integrated management must discern
and attempt to bring together at a critical functional locus, flexibility is an
indictment of the continuity of changing requirements that occasion complex
activity sets, such as those that occasion work group-organizational
interfaces.
For forestall a pattern of psychological
disengagement from organizational states and concerns, while seeking to protect
group member interests from an assumed position that the organization exists to
exploit its labour force for its benefits (which has been a trenchant
assumption among lower level workers in many organizations). Management efforts
must seek to expand the scope of involvement of work groups in organizational
affairs especially with reference to decision-making relating to the group's
tasks.
It is not per se the control factor in decision
making nor the assumption of managerial role responsibility but rather the
expanded participatory activity leading to higher employee identification with
their group's task activity set and possibly leading to higher commitment to
the organization that is at the core of consensual management.
The basis for the nature of existing patterns
of management structure and employee-employee relation in a particular organization
may be linked to that organizations culture and the preferred hierarchical
structure the organization adopts. However, while formal organization
structures indicate the pattern of formal role relationships. The particular
employee-management strategy adopted by a particular organization becomes the
major determinant of the extent to which the organization realizes an
organizational environment of shared mutual outcomes states, between
organization and its employees. Which facilitates not only high employee
commitment to their employing organization but also encourages creative
thinking at the lower levels of the organization. There can be significant
improvements within existing management practices that should enable expanded
activities across varied organizational interfaces.
Figure 1., below, assumes that based on
Maslow's motivational steps, there is adequate ground for surmising that
creating mind states in lower level employees that suggest the disposability of
human elements of the productive machinery emphasized through a workplace
philosophy of 'a fair day's work for a fair day's pay' can engender strong self
preservation mentality that translates to strong informal group activities
directed towards self protection. The organization assumes a benign 'they
against us' image for such workers.
Even where such assumptions do not hold true,
there is an implicit assumption that organizations that do not involve their
lower level employees in task relevant decision making create a different
organizational perspective from those that do. It can also further be assumed
that the later creates better scope for harnessing the relevant experiential
knowledge that could be applied for improving organizational states as well as
facilitating earlier detection of emerging problems at the shop floor level
while enabling a procedure for effecting problem solution suggestions from
problem sources, as well as from sources outside of traditional decision making
in the organization. Any assumption that open, participative decision making is
the order of the day in all organizations must be seriously reconsidered,
considering existing reality in most workplaces.
A Normative Model of Consensual
Decision-Making.
Figure 1. Inculcating shared participation as
aspect of employee induction.
Rollinson, Broadfield, & Edwards, (1998)
derive the following conclusions on decision making in organizations: -
At the individual level the decision making
process can best be described in either normative or descriptive terms.
Normative models explain how decision makers ought to behave if they followed
the principles of 'rationality', and all the information for decision-making is
available, while descriptive decision making models explain how decisions are
made under conditions of 'bounded rationality'. Thus descriptive models
recognize the limitations of normative models, for example the lack of
appropriate information and sufficient time for making effective decisions, and
so they explain how satisfying decisions rather than best decisions can
sometimes be necessary.
The majority of decision-making models use
similar factors to analyse the process of decision-making, and these include
risk, uncertainty and feedback. These factors are closely linked and many
studies have been undertaken to try to unravel their impact on decision-making.
Prospect theory emphasizes the risk factor. The extent of uncertainty and the
amount of available feedback were found to be important in making decisions.
In addition, the decision making process has
been shown to be influenced by individual differences such as perception,
values and personality, which provides not only an explanation of why different
individuals reach different decisions when confronted by the same problem but
also potentially the variety of decisions that can be reached bearing on the
same issue/s.
The recent literature on decision-making
focuses on the relationship between decision-making and communication, emotions
and leadership styles. Eventually these could give vital insights, which
explain the styles of decision makers in organizations. However, it is to be
noted that within organizations, there are micro decision making related issues
such as the exact processes by which a management directive is generated and
task executed and macro decision making covering such broad categories as
management strategies, it the latter that is expounded upon here.
The organizations environment and the influence
of power and politics also need to be included in reviewing the decision making
process in an organization. Other factors, such as organizational structure,
culture and management style feed in to ensure that the decision making process
in an organization is effective.
The organization cannot discount all the
knowledge and skill by people at lower level jobs since they have acquired
practical experience and practical task relevant knowledge through performance.
These observations serve as an appropriate
basis for deriving a reliable and valid employee-employee interface decision
making model as a management technique for managing employee groups at varied
levels of different organizations. The emphasis on groups is deliberate since
the writer focuses on groups of employees organized around tasks at the shop
floor. In any case, even where production processes are linear, collectives of
employees tend to find common identification as units around an allotted task.
Various types of groups are identifiable in any
organization. The primary distinction is that between the formal and informal
group. Formal groups comprise work teams that operate as interdependent units
of cooperating individuals to achieve some common designated end purpose. Task
Groups are defined as temporary formal groups formed for a specific short-term
purpose, or special project, and dispersed as soon as the task is completed.
Buchanan and Huczynski (1997) defines an informal group as a collection of
individuals who become a group when members develop interdependencies,
influence one another's behaviour and contribute to mutual need satisfaction.
Through their unofficial norms and sanctions, informal groups exercise strong
controls over the work habits and attitudes of individual group members. Hence,
the ability of the informal group or clique to motivate an individual at work
should not be underestimated. They further recommend that supervisors need to
be aware of both individuals' social needs and the power of the informal group,
in order to align these to achieve the formal (official) objectives.
Consensual-management and an Organizations
Effectiveness
Consensual decision making has as its primary
criteria how such an effort can improve an organizations decision making and
improve overall organizational effectiveness. There are many ways of viewing
organizational effectiveness, and each one constitutes a different way in which
it can be evaluated. The major approaches, as articulated by Rollinson et. al.
(1998) is shown in Figure 2. With reference to the model under development, the
internal processes model of organizational effectiveness are most relevant, but
given that the organization is an open system acquiring resources from various
environments; interacting with different environments, the system resource
approach is cited as relevant, albeit benign background information against
which focus is placed on internal system states.
Figure 2 Diagrammatic Summaries of Various
Theories of Organizational Effectiveness.
The Systems (or Systems Resource) Approach:
Systems resource approach is an approach to examining effectiveness, which
focuses primarily on resource acquisition. This approach views an organization
as a system that exists within a business environment from which it imports
resources, transforms them into outputs such as products or services and then
exports these to user systems in the environment. This is illustrated in figure
3. Below-, which divides environment into four important segments: social,
technical, political, and economic.
Figure 3. The organization and its environments
Rollinson et al. (1998).
In this approach effectiveness is evaluated
against two criteria: first, how resources are obtained and the transactions
involved in doing this and, second, by examining the nature of internal
processes, their relationships with each other and the environment.
Historically, the systems approach developed in the 1950s as an alternative to
the goal model, has as its main focus whether an organization is successful in
acquiring scarce and valued resources and, for this reason, inputs often replace
outputs as its main considerations (Bedeain and Zammuto 1991). The main
strengths of the systems approach are that it:
- Stresses the need to establish a fruitful
relationship with the environment in terms of acquiring scarce and valued
resources.
- Focuses on the necessity for a rapid
organizational response to changes in the environment.
- Emphasizes that it is sometimes necessary to
have key individuals who monitor the environment and use this knowledge to act
in the best interests of the organization.
However, the approach is not above criticism,
and its weaknesses are said to be:
- Too heavy concentration on resource
acquisition and what happens in the environment
- It ignores the idea that boundary spanning
activities and the people engaged in them can be costly.
- It sidesteps the difficulty of optimum
resource exploitation and knowing when it has been achieved.
- It often fails to elaborate on internal
resource allocation
- It provides little guidance on how to
determine which are the relevant resources.
Given that, though organizations are open
systems, for some organizational analysis, especially those dealing with an
organizations internal constituents an internal process approach is warranted.
The Internal Process Approach: A Hybrid Model:
This evolved from the human relations movement and reflects consideration about
the internal health and efficiency of an organization (Daft 1989): To provide
an internal efficiency element, work study emerged alongside the concern for
human resources and, more recently, business process re-engineering - the
latest management buzz word for efficiency - has been substituted for work
study techniques. Thus the approach uses work-study techniques to try to obtain
internal efficiency tempered by the human relations ideas to try to ensure that
employees are happy and satisfied. The indicators for which are:
- Supervisors show an interest in the staff's
work
- A good team spirit
- Confidence and trust between staff and
management
- Local decision-making
- Less communication distortion
- Appropriate managerial rewards for
performance in assisting employee growth, development and effective team
working
- Better integration and conflict resolution,
which is beneficial to the organization (Daft 1989).
This approach has some similarity with the
systems approach: it is related to economic efficiency and by using work study,
production control and financial control techniques it attempts to ensure that
inputs are transformed into outputs in the most efficient way.
The strengths of the internal process are said
to be that it:
- Can check that all internal functions are
fully coordinated
- Is suitable for validating manufacturing
performance
- Validates the transformational processes
- Provides feedback, not only on the efficiency
of a unit but also on employee attitudes.
However, as usual, there are some weaknesses in
the approach:
- The external environment is excluded
- Because the information from attitude surveys
can be qualitative or subjective it is difficult to know what to use or ignore
- Organizations may not have the time or
financial resources to rectify some of the employee suggestions relating to job
satisfaction.
In seeking to implement a consensual management
approach, the important issue is to involve the workers in task decisions
involving and affecting them and to create a means for interaction between
workers and the organization at a level where implied negotiations between
workers and management enable optimum participation in task management and
performance. Otherwise referred to by Rollinson (1998) as local
decision-making. The extent to which these consensual activity patterns affect
overall organization outcome states can then be assessed and compared to
previous state of organizational effectiveness.
Directing employees attention to organizational
concerns such as inducing supportive social climate, increasing workers
awareness that they are shared participants in organizational outcome states;
and thus "sink the boat and we all go down" mentality has the added
benefit of increasing employee self consciousness in their functional roles as
employees in an organization. To require employees to re-examine attitudes of
'disdain' for the fellow worker and organization, and de-emphasizing a siege
mentality among employees for their pay and hours worked are worthy management
precepts, but require a consistent, integrated implementation process which
this article seeks to address. In a way, broadening narrow perspectives to
loosen restrictive organizational practices, and widening the scope of activity
ranges at organizational interfaces, where employees are encouraged to openly
discuss task and no task related problem areas, proffer suggestions for
alternative practices, interact with management creatively within the group's
delimited activity range.
Indeed the consensual management strategy the
present paper deals with, strategically implemented sets into activation
management procedures that requires organizational subunit activity integration
at several organizational interfaces and requires by its implementation an
assessment and feed forward process. Rather than a linear-linear informational
transfer activity as occasions traditional management practices within
hierarchically structured organizations.
In implementing consensual management
practices, individual initiatives are not necessarily hampered, but there is a
focus on consultation and negotiation at a functional nexus of sub-system
interface. Enabling balanced states within the group with regards to
implemented decisions and full awareness with regards to congruency factors
that determine output of the group within the organization.
Since there is a desire to establish mutual
grounds for co-operative decision making across interacting levels within the
organization, any unexpressed objections to any aspect of the organization or
potential resistances that may arise from within a work group stand a
reasonable chance of being identified early and efforts at resolution made. The
model does not depend on the formation of any select representative group(s) or
require any specially designated process other than applying a set of process
steps that culminates in a completed phase in the organizations decision making
processes at that focal work group level. While the human relations approach
emphasized the social need requirements of workers in meeting organizational
needs, the negotiation process that is implied at some level of the integrative
decision activities that characterize consensual decision making approach,
leaves the group to determine what its self defined core needs are in order to
meet the organizations expectation. The organizations expectations are more
often than not, primarily expressed in productive activities. Whatever group
needs or view points that emerge are secondary yet held relevant, whether
defined from the perspective of management as relevant for workers well- being
will be resolved at the negotiation phase of the consensual management process.
What group emergent issues are considered as relevant or irrelevant are thus
group defined. In other words, workers may very well be saying 'thanks we can
handle that without management's immediate interference'. Production related
criteria intermingle with work group task relevant and group supportive
relevancies of psychosocial group importance but productively, technically
irrelevant. However, such issues emerging at a common group activity level,
which activity level determines the eventual productivity of any particular
work group cannot be ignored altogether. While for analytical purposes it might
be convenient to separate productivity related issues from social activity,
long-term organizational effectiveness demands the dual management of both
criteria to realize mutually appreciable goals.
However where management feels that social,
immediate, non-task relevant' issues like excessive play, diffraction along
ethnic differences, 'hazing' etc needs attention, they would have to 1. Bring
up the issue as an organizational problem. 2. Obtain the particular work
group's viewpoints. 3. Source for the ideal solution by presenting views
emanating from all concerned 4. Establish a basis for evaluation and
determinacy of accepted states of normalcy.
As social beings, humans have an irrepressible
drive to connect and collaborate, rather than to be dictated to and pushed
around. The latter usually not only requires much more investment of energy to
achieve ultimate control to facilitate efficiency but it instigates a defensive
reaction from employees. While lack of full knowledge may require high
management control over employee activities, control and integrated activities
at management-employee interfaces are not at opposing ends of the management
activity. To involve work groups directly in decision making activities, may
require only a slight departure from existing patterns of management activities
but yields immense moral boost, since it requires the organization to redefine
the role and extent of involvement of any single low level employee in a work
group, leading to a re-oriented employee self perception in the organization.
An essential requirement of integrated decision
making management, is for management to provide a clear cut unambiguous,
transparency in its dealing with work groups to facilitate effective decision
implementation.
Picture
Figure 4. Pattern of the integrated decision
making activities that occasion the consensual management strategy.
- The model is designed as a management tool
- A consultation document
- A research approach
As a management tool it requires a
re-orientation in management processes, putting forth the human relations
perspective as a practical basis for integration of task activities at the
management-employee interface of work groups. A management approach that
requires that work groups be consulted and actively engaged in mutual
decision-making is a significant departure from existing management processes.
A process of bridging the activity gap between the group and management perspective
at all work group-organization interface. It requires not only re-orientation
from a unilateral communication of executable orders from a higher
organizational location to a lower level work group, but a constant integration
of knowledge between positional locations within the organization, and the
diffusion of recommendations and ideas at the locus of task execution, where
what eventually emerges as the directives for goal setting, task implementation
and post task execution assessment is a commonly evolved derivative at the
confluence of the particular task group and the organization.
Whatever the group decides, accepts or
negotiates in tandem with management at that particular group level, embraces
all issues requiring consideration for all participating or mutually concerned
units such that in the end, the emergent directive facilitates maximum
commitment among employees, highest attainable efficiency in task execution
activities and the negotiating of conditions centered around daily task execution
and extending to all aspects and characteristics of an employees tenure,
exercised on a regular basis. In effect if psycho-socio-emotional issues become
topical areas of concern to a group, such as to hinder optimum efficiency at
production activities, such non-technical issues find easy identification for
immediate solution. Whereas, if difficulties of adaptations to existing
technology, work practices or new approaches are identified at the group level,
these problem are easily discussed with management.
As a consultation model for defining effective
management of lower level employees, the consensual model advocated enables the
establishment of a preferred state from all participating parties perspectives,
and by seeking to establish the extent to which each party engaged in the
consensual interaction, actually approximate their self defined task execution
conditions within the limitations and specifications of the organizations
provisional capacity. The model enables the organizational researcher to
determine a state of balance best conducive to maximum output at each subunit
interface. If there are significant departures from this state of desired
balance at points of interaction between parties engaged in consensual
interaction. The organizational researcher must elicit the factors that are
accountable for this shift from balanced states of effective collaboration and
seek for solutions that aim to establish the balance. The implementation of
consensual management procedures at the work group-management interface enables
quick and decisive reactions to emergent problems within the work group
concerned. Leading to group focused solution derivable engagement activities,
in dynamic and intense organization environments. The critical, advisory and directive
role of higher- knowledge base- management representative is made more relevant
as the transfer of knowledge assumes more dynamic, transferable form. In the
most ordinary management role requirement in this type of management, the
characteristic nature of consensual-management eschews mere issuance of order
that occasions traditional management styles. Managers are required to be more
open, engaging and involved.
As a research model, the consensual management
model provides a systematic guidance for establishing the formal functional
boundaries of a defined organizational subsystem subunit such as a work group,
role position or functional management role. The identifiable groupings of
these formally composed constituents, their task specifications, their
decision-making responsibilities, their task execution strategies and the basis
of establishing states of attained and desired balance. Task execution
strategies, as well as the transactional interfaces between organizational
subunits. All these and many others are detailed and delineated and defined as
standard analytic requirements for establishing basis for model implementation,
analysis and post-implementation assessment. The subunit interfaces are formal
points of interaction; these are where decision making for negotiated
implementation for mutually acceptable performance is realized. The medium of
implementation are psychosocial and individual focused, being the provision of
required materials and the appropriate organizational social milieu within
which each and all participants are engaged in task related decision
implementation effort for yielding optimum sustained productivity. The exact
nature of activities, whether it is a compromise of positional loci or a
disassembling of prior positional authority leading to aggregation at
functionally more effective loci, to yield functional knowledge derivable
options, need further detailing as a research activity conceived within the
model.
In researching groups, the interaction
processes within group constituent elements define the eventual group
characteristics. By indicating a modularity of management activity as
characteristic of consensual management activity in relation to any work group,
the group assumes some stable defining nature and varying situation dependent
outcome nature, which determines the appropriateness of group constituents
behaviour that can be researched.
The collective of total inputs congregating on
a task implementation decision is to be considered not per necessity as
one-sided transference (As pertains in most manufacturing organization shop
floor interfaces as compared to the craftsman whose activities are
all-constituent rather than solely a disembodied task execution activity devoid
of that intense self appreciativeness of a task well done.) But
consensual-management implies that emergent task implementation decision
evolves from all parties formally engaged; drawing on essential task relevant
considerations and vicarious, albeit, important non task considerations, for
the establishment of mutually encompassing preferred states for achieving
desired end states of relevant organizational consequence and individual
employee satisfaction. The researcher is enabled to comprehensively delineate
the participating parties, their unitary and mutual considerations for
specifying certain conditions as relevant implementing process consideration.
The particular work group and its peculiarities, the negotiating process by
which an attained state of balance or equity is attained for efficient
productivity at any phase of the work group's task activities, all these need
be specified as it pertains to each consensual process of research interest. By
making provisions for post implementation analysis, the researcher can evaluate
outcome states and consequences therein emerging through critical analysis. A
procedure that in actual implementation serves, as illustrated in figure 5,
above, as basis for feed forward post assessment implementation as the work
group enters another phase in its stream of productive activities.
A state of balance is an acceptance by all
parties engaged in the consensual decision process that sufficiently adequate
basis have been provided for implementing decisions that are all-participants
satisfying, to guarantee efficient group activity in the phase of productivity
under consideration. It is not by any means an end process but a necessary
state that mediates the outcome of end states through measured activity at
organizational confluences of functional exchange activities to ensure the high
effectiveness in the long run.
Figure 6. Below, shows, the consensual
management model as strategic re-orientation in the management of work groups.
The normal pattern is a unilateral transfer process with intermissions of
non-task related problem addressing slots inserted. The difference that
consensual management introduces is to put work groups at the center of the
decision making aspect of the group's management process by inducing the group
to be active participants in establishing performance norms rather than to be
task processors of orders passed down from higher functional positions. The
componential characterization of groups needs to be elicited in detail, to
facilitate the incorporation of the variable criteria in the group management
process, as the organization seeks to establish high commitment through
involved, self-direction in the work group. The organization thus creates a
real-time group management process that addresses rising issues, needs, and
ultimately transfers responsibility from the top to the source of task
execution in tandem with each phase of the production stream. The process thus
makes the management of any organization a knowledge input activity at various
sub-system interfaces. In which case, each participating subunit is to be
consulted, as an aspect of task implementation processes. While management on
the other hand emphasizes a group climate favouring active participation in
constructive mutual task related and non-group pertinent decision-making.
The model refers to a phase in the production
stream rather than a production cycle, since the very nature of incorporating
changes through feed forward re-adjustment over previous activity, post task
analysis, suggests that any segment of the continual production activity is
likely to vary, be it ever so slightly from the previous phase of production.
Figure 6. Consensual management modeled as an
integration of decision-making activity at the management-task group interface.
Consensual management, among other things,
imply that workers or work groups are recognized within the organization as not
only task executors but regular decision makers together with organizations
representatives in establishing mutually approved basis or grounds for
effective task designation and realization. It does not imply that workers
assume management role responsibilities, but management or organization
directives with regards to a work group's task activities are presented to the
work group and their reactive readjustment to, or acceptance of, those
management designations, is what establishes the state of balance through
mutually engaged participatory behaviour. This leads to sustained -intra and
-inter interaction within and across organizational interfaces focused on eliciting
and enhancing the positive aspects of the organization at the group level as
the group pursues its productive activities. If an organization does seek to
establish a state of balance, productive focus on the part of management may be
effective if only it is in synchrony with the work group's expectation, but
otherwise work group's informally create their own psycho-socio-emotional
balance through potentially, system distortion activities that are cumulatively
distractive to long term organizational effectiveness.
Management role positions are knowledge based,
while work groups acquire experiential knowledge and a unique technical
expertise from prolonged engagement on the specific tasks of the work group.
Workers thus develop an intricacy of understanding and task control actuality
that gives them a stake in exercising control over significant aspects of their
activities. This characteristic of the work group an organization may chose to
ignore or incorporate into its management processes through mutual engagement
in establishing balanced states for integrated decision making at focal task
implementation source.
A particular organizations task conduct,
resource utilization, output and goal achievement, may have related relevance
for, and elicit varied effectual response from different organizational
constituents. To assume that what is of relevance to a passionate committed
organization owner is of equal relevance to a dispassionate non-committed shop
floor employee, more than any other factor establishes the need to bridge the
differences among organizational constituents, to integrate differing
perspectives to find a common realization through mutual consent for balanced
productive effort, by eliminating differences through consensus and providing for
desired states to eliminate the differences that occasion the different parties
engaged in realizing the totality of that component of the production effort.
Re-constructing the understanding of
organizational states, assumes within this contextual consideration that full
understanding is commensurate upon full elicitation of the participation of all
the significant sub-system subunits and the constituent criteria therein
involved that enables the appropriate explication of organizational states to
effectuate the approximation of optimum effectiveness. Efficient states can be
attained in the short term by over-emphasizing productive criteria, maintaining
high managerial control, de-emphasizing non-task relevant
psycho-socio-emotional considerations, in effect shutting out the work groups
as active participants in the decision making process, and restricting decision
making activity to management or higher supervisory position, while maintaining
the productive relevance of labour. However group directed action instigates a
reactive response, which affects the organizations effectiveness.
In the dynamic setting of organizations, the
knowledge base of management are brought together with the task mediated work
group awareness and unique requirements at each and every phase of the
production stream and whatever task execution format that is situation ally
emergent, task contingent and consensually derived is accepted as a production
modulation consideration as construed within the integrated management approach.
Cooperation rather than express orders for task
execution is advocated, in situations where management oversights lead to
accumulation of unresolved differences. The issuing of production and task
related activities dictates tend to further polarize negative organization
perception within work groups. However where work groups are presented with
relevant information on organizations position as regards a task activity
group, and the group is actively engaged by the organization to integrate
management directives with group emergent considerations as the functional
formal basis for task execution and assessment, the organization creates a
conditional environment of tolerance, where acceptance of directives or calls
for critical adjustments are encouraged within any work group.
Organization effort at mutual engagement of the
employee as an owner-participant in the organization will be validated through
task relevant decision-making activities. Considering that most lower level
employees are generally oversensitive to their positions as 'mere labourers',
any management effort that brings them closer to the core relevant decision
making activities affecting their work group not only presents organizational
reality from a desirably different perspective that actually brings the workers
closer to the organizational core context rather than being at the fringes of
an activity requiring deep commitment to be satisfactory.
In a way not only are dual channel
communications channels important, but the deliberate creation of awareness
that the organization shares a common perspective with its workers is a
strategic orientation that mitigates shop floor workers self perception within
their employing organizations. This bridges the gap between formal and informal
within the group, on the one hand; leveraging the fractious distinction between
an organizations human constituents and the organization; leading to a
harmonious merging of highly committed groupings in functionally distinct, yet
mutually supportive roles.
The purpose of the above mentioned activity is
to establish balance interpreted as a state of mutual acceptance between the
organization and the work group. This is in respect to the group's task
responsibilities and goals, organizational provisions and the implementation
processes that takes into significant consideration the pre-implementation
participation in decision-making agreed upon as encompassing that collective
activity of the work group. The balance thus created is the removal of group
norms inherently detractive to ultimate organizational desired effects or
effectiveness, which group norms, normally emerge as group reactions to
organizational states presumably non-conducive to the group's welfare.
The delineation of the constituent variables
emergent of the core elements that characterize the balancing effort in its
detailing is a situation mediated evolving reality, that is defined by the
peculiarities of the organizational circumstances. However the participants
invariably are a work group, its supervisor and management representative, or
some similar designation thereof. Who negotiate at a common confluence in the
stream of organization activities and interact to establish a common
perspective from opposing perspectives of floor workers and management to
establish a common organizational viewpoint within which productive realization
is enabled.
The social emphasis is constructed from a
strictly organizational perspective of several individuals engaged in
purposive, production, and task activities, realized within the social medium
of the work group. The degree and the nature of task related interaction is
determined along several fronts, predominantly dominated by the nature of
technology employed, the homogeneity of group constituency and required interchange
of information mediated by the specific requirements of the task.
A strong phenomenological bent is here
promoted, as against a mechanistic disposition in the conception of the
organization and the management approaches implemented therein.
Figure 7. Typology of organization interface
constituent characterizations.
As figure 7. Above indicates, at 1. The group
is a definable organizational entity composed of individual employees grouped
by certain specifications along a common organizationally designated task
framework. The individual constituents' peculiarities may impact certain
characteristics of the group, but the group evolves as an expressive entity
over and above any one of its constituents. It is this work group, partly a
designation of its unique task environment and the backgrounds of the
individual constituents that the organization interacts with. The interface is
any point of interaction between any two or more separable identifiable units
within the organization. It is a point of interaction defined in virtual space,
but realizing physical end activities as a consequence of the interaction. Thus
in the organizational context what constitutes an interface is task related and
relevant, other than any other type of non-task relevant, formal or informal
interaction. While the interaction itself is a task relevant activity, the
organizations representatives, who by their functional roles represent the
organization, especially those in management role activities, have to engage in
their conveyance of directives for task formulation, designation and conduct of
task execution. By integrating management at the worker-management interface
through consensual management, interface activities are not by any means
limited to only the management-employee boundary but can also occasion
inter-managerial interface task relevant interactions.
Exemplifying Employee Induction as a
Consensually Managed Activity
What passes at any time for a group's norm is a
group derived organization contingent behavioural reaction that is adjusted to
perceived states of the organization by the work group? For the work group the
organization is its defining environment and whatever group sustaining
behaviour that evolves over time, occurs within that unique organizational
environment. Group norms partly evolve as coping strategies that sustain the
group's viability. The actual organization state is formally established
through managerial and administrative actions beyond the groups' formal
reconstructive reach. By creating conditions that bring the 'organization'
closer to work groups, it is assumed that management might be in position to
make adjustments that favour its constituencies in the appropriate direction as
specified within a larger constraining framework of realities.
As figure 8, below indicates, such a pattern as
conceived within an organizational activity as formal processes of inducting
new employees mirrors an organizationally sponsored pro-active facilitation for
not only ease of assimilation of the new employee, but through existing
integrated management activity the informal projection of positive organization
image within existing employee groups to new entrants.
Figure 8. Consensual management exemplified in
new employee induction.
Figure 9. 'Pictograph that facilitate
diagrammatic explanation of employee induction within a consensual management
conceptualisation.
Normally an organizations entry management
activity focuses around three foci, the labour source, the existing employees
within the organization and the set of activities by which an employee is
formally introduced and absorbed into existing work groups. Within the
organization work groups are involved in a dual process of productive
activities and socio-political activities. While organizations on the whole
focus on productive activities the consequences of socio-political activities
emerging from within informal work group activities tend to influence the
productive activities. Effective outcome states can be best approximated where
the organization minimizes the individual's perceptions of the organization as
conceived from within the group and the organizations desired representation of
itself to its labour force. While the organization may pragmatically consent
that employees are only relevant only so long as they are productive, the
inverse reaction where workers only interpret their position within the
organization as disposable 'cogs in a wheel' has socio-emotional consequences
that lead to a sustained 'siege mentality' among the workforce. Such low
commitment disposition, where it exists can foster deep-seated resentment
against an organization by its employees, leading to counter-productive
activities. To enable equanimity between the organization and its employees the
management process must engender as part of its entry management activities a
socially supportive work climate where new employees are inducted by existing
work groups. Such an induction process will only have organizational benefit if
it enables the work group to absorb the new employee into a positive
representation of the organization and its activities. To enable existing work
groups to develop a positive organizational orientation, the daily task
management activity must be an integrated decision making activity that
encourages workers to contribute organizational enhancing ideas through the
fostering of a creative group climate. At the same time enabling employees to
come forward with their task related problems for consideration and solution
generation all within the work group where feasible. These sets of activities
as much as possible proceed in tandem with the normal daily task activities.
Normal task activities are normally considered as phases in a stream of
activity. It is all the more meaningful when those segments of activities are
evaluated for their goal approximation, and the analytical conclusions serve as
part input for the next segment of activities. This is illustrated in figure
10, below: -
Figure 10. Breakdown of the process of employee
induction modeled within a consensual management style.
In effect consensual management as an
integrated decision making activity at the management-work group interface can
be characterized as follows: -
A pragmatic proactive disengagement from
existing mental frameworks, as regards the worker, work role and managerial
perception of workers within the organization underlie the successful
adaptation of the approach.
The fundamental basis for conflicts emerging
from misinterpreted interest always occurs along a common interaction interface
of segmented, but mutually involved groupings of identities. In the
organization, full awareness of subordinate interests, rather than downward
transfer of orders and directives will establish a basis for deciphering
shadows of early opposition and working towards the realization of mutually
complimenting outcome states, which the model proposes.
The involvement of task related knowledge
sources enable quick and effective identification of situation emergent
problems and creatively adaptive solutions emerging from source of
implementation.
There is the need to acknowledge that there is
in existence a task based communication pattern; and a non-task relevant,
otherwise referred to as the informal network. By proactively seeking to merge
aspects of organizationally relevant, informal communication into formal
communication channels in organizations decision making processes, there is a
more opened environment of mutual engagement that can be used to the
organizations advantage.
Consensual-management as an integrated
management activity consensual-management at an organizational interface of
interaction does not require any departure from existing preferred states by
drastic and radical re-orientation. By its applicatory designation, it invites
participation from sources of action rather than impose implementation
decisions as a non-negotiated requirement for task performance. It is an
activity set that devolves to a self-consenting acceptance of management
suggestions as regards all or some significant element of the group' s task.
The process is considered activated since consent is not coerced or arbitrarily
required, but is a group acknowledgement of satisfaction with management
decisions. The critical implied psycho-social consideration is that workers do
not perceive themselves as being dictated to, but being 'mentally engaged' in
pre-assessment and implementation management of organizational management
processes, as consenting participants of shared outcomes in the organizations
affairs.
The workers who perform (and for that matter
deliberately under-perform) are simultaneously problem source and likely
sources of solution. They need to be seen as participants than 'just people to
be dictated to and controlled.' Since 'management arrogance' can render
untenable on the shop floor insightful management proposals, while involving
shop floor employees can provide bulwark against deliberate interruptions, that
by elimination, enables concrete goal orientation to pertinent organizational
problems, encouraging active participation is a plus for management's success.
Management directive effort is a knowledge
dependent functional task disposition that must be complemented by factual
information and credible execution complementarily from task relevant sources
on the shop floor.
Contributions from group members should be
assessed from a group perspective and presented as group emergent. The expected
outcome is a self-adjusting situation ally mediated outcome state, which is
system determined.
Consensus must not be confused with confusion;
it actually activates more concern for detailing and precision of execution.
Since, the concern for relevance and implied pride of involved floor workers
merit a self-redemption in terms of productivity, and management
acknowledgement that will be only forthcoming where there is a noted
consistency of improved work output and improved organizational climate. The
requirement of structural re-arrangements, flexible as against strictly formal
mechanistic organizational conditions, is of related relevance, since the
interface of interaction is task mediated. Work group internal conditions must
be facilitated through managerial advise to be supportive to enable a common
front for the group, who interact as a unit with managerial constituents, to
negotiate agreement along pre-determined task related issuances from
management.
As a management approach, consensual management
as here conceived, is a task oriented, humanistic approach that acknowledges
the complex interplay of pertinently organizational task relevant and social
variables at play in any work situation; and taking note of their significant
interaction that must be acknowledged, simplified into identifiable variable
states where possible and holistically integrated into an effective management
process. Which then has a goal of enhancing organizational effectiveness
through task orientation with an acknowledgement of strong under-currents of
psychosocial and socio-emotional variables of any group cantered activity set?
It is not so much an attempt to equalize positions within the organization or
de-emphasize status and position, but to engage fully, every identifiable unit,
at each decision nexus of interface interaction, making implementation processes
a unit cantered effort, with influential management and supervisory advisory
complementary input. The units are thus not perceived nor do they accept
themselves as mere recipients and executors of directives from above, instead
directives are brought to a common interface for acceptance through negotiation
focused on mutual derived task implementation decisions. This approach thus
redefines management activity and reorients group activity in formal
organizational settings.
The no task relevant aspects of a group's
activities, which nevertheless have organizational relevance, are what are
broadly referred to as the Psycho-socio-emotional considerations. These are
group cohesive intended actions, that serve a dual purpose, the first is to
enable the group to find re-assurance of sustenance by the nature of its
interrelatedness actions, the nature of which may be naturally emerging or
coerced through normative pressures; and the second, is, the group's actions as
facilitated to expand its scope of appreciation of organizational affairs and
its engagement in establishing the basis for its primary activity within the
organization through psychologically, self sustaining (to the group as an
entity; the individual as a valuable mutually engaged participant of the organization;
and of the organization as peopled by consciously directed committed
participants) patterns of interrelated sets of activities.
Psychologically, managing group orientation
with organizationally positive ends, basically imply that the collections of
workers need to work to establish harmonious group internal environment. This
seemingly insignificant exercise is important, because, given the opportunity
strong sentiments that are the cornerstone of social identity in the 'world'
outside the organization are the basis for the formation of cliques of informal
groups, who exist to serve member interest, while rendering formal group
activity tense. Groups impose norms that discourage aberrant behaviour by
punishing its emergence from a unitary member. Relocation may occur where group
member finding -self in-group incapable of meeting the individually desired
needs finds placement within another group that approximates the desired need.
In the organization as a functionally structured productive entity, these are
more often than not informal group referent activities. But they generate
consequences that may have organizational ramifications.
Instead of assuming that full knowledge and or
problem solution resides in any single role position or (self-) structured,
acquired thinking mode. Consensual-management redirects management effort to
source of action. Which requires the management of the diversity of manifold
talent that is distributed across the organization. Decision making centers
upon catchments of employees, acting in complementation with management
expertise and external resources as a means of realizing organizational
expectations and members desires, within the situational expressions of the
particular labour task concerned. In effect a leadership state is realized that
establishes an organizational climate for facilitating individual
responsibility within the group towards group goals and each designated work
group fully responsible for its outcome state (within facilitated states that
enable full organizational support).
It is inane to have a solely task focused
orientation, as a means for achieving management efficiency objectives. The
task is a given, the interaction patterns may be task contingent, but the
negating behaviours that are organizational emergent with detractive
consequences are defined by the situation of concern. Effective management is
all encompassing rather than a narrow task focused activity. Groups must be
managed to be fully expressive, and minimal in their negative intents. That
means identifying the organizational aspects that foment accretive negations,
basically from employees' disposition towards the organization and
extinguishing where possible the organizational elements that catalyse such
negatively inclined disposition.
In effecting any change to existing management
practices there is the need to consider the organizationally relevant concept
of effectiveness and efficiency. Organizations and management processes are
especially resistant to any change to the status quo, and any change to
existing approaches will be entertained with skepticism even if it promises an
improvement upon existing states. But the basic aim remains that management
acknowledges an experiential relevancy of acquired 'on the job' awareness that
is integrated into the management process.
The aim is to engage participating parties in
mutually benefiting decision-making and to have decisions made by those who
have the best knowledge and involve those who execute the task about which
decisions have been made. Leading to functional hierarchies with de-emphasized
status roles. Management is concentric and task focused without being exclusive
but totally all inclusive, leading to greater commitment with regards to 'own
set goals' and flexible operating environments encouraging creativity.
Consensual management requires a focus towards
eliciting initiatives, innovativeness, and problem identification. Durk Jager,
former CEO of Proctor and Gamble, it was reported in Business Week of June 26,
2000, encouraged managers to leave behind the company's traditional consensus
management style, to be more innovative, and to take more risks. It would seem
that just labeling a process does not by any means mean it should stifle
innovativeness and risk taking, rather it ensures full comprehension and early
embracement of any ideas generated, to forestall resistance and rejection
further down the line, of what are otherwise good ideas. Indeed the same
article noted that the CEO lost his job because of his abrasive style that cost
him the support of managers and rank-and-file employees. Many of who have the
added power of being stockholders. The article notes, "In the
consensus-building atmosphere of P&G, lack of support is the kiss of
death."
References: -
Rollinson, D., Broadfield, A., & Edwards,
D.J. (1998)
Organizational Behaviour and Analysis: An
Integrated Approach. Harlow England: Addison-Wesley.
Buchanan D. & Huczynski A. (1997)
Organizational Behaviour. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall Europe.
