Tensions in Organising Managers
Managing is Personal
The previous Frameworks in the Satellite have focused on work largely as an impersonal requirement flowing from the acceptance of responsibility. However, when the focus turns to organising people to be managers and to be managed, personal issues come to the fore.
These issues are psychosocial in that they deal both with inner psychological states and with outer social tendencies. Such matters can all too easily be regarded as extraneous. However, these factors enter, or intrude, into the work situation and generate dilemmas and tensions. The result is the emergence of as explored further in the next Framework.
Key Sensitivities
At , the dependence on personal capability often means that a subordinate may be intrinsically more capable than their boss, or even manager-once-removed. The most difficult situation is when performance of duties is marginally sub-standard.
At , all oversight is emotionally charged, most particularly in terms of the use of power and the specific authority that is vested. Probably no life relationship except parent-child is more fraught.
At , the involvement of the manager-once-removed in relation to significant changes, especially when these are not formalized in programs, is commonly disturbing for the manager.
At , functional management can lead to the emergence of empires, silos and power-clashes if attention is not given to culture. Sensitivities have sometimes got functions labeled as evil and led to weakening or inappropriate removal of authority.
At , all goals are shots in the dark. Sensitivity lies in the development of a genuine consensus.
At , motivation, leading and following are all sensitive to genuineness in relating at work. Norms are needed to bring tendencies to dominate or be subservient under control.
At , enabling commitment and respecting a deep equality can be controversial.
Summary
The table below summarizes key hierarchical psychosocial propositions developed in this framework.
| G | Organising Process | Psychological Needs |
Inner Tension | Social Expression |
Organizational Tension |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G7 | Enable commitment voluntarily |
Autonomy in holding and expressing values. |
Self v community. | Community is built on shared values. | Community-equality v organization-discrimination. |
| G6 | Expect motivation naturally |
To be assertive and to be guided. | Dominance v subservience. | Differential power and status with norms to prevent excesses. | Expecting managers to simultaneously lead and follow. |
| G5 | Determine goals realistically |
Idealism, service and dynamism. | Self-interest v organizational success. | Concern for success rather than process. | Abstract imperatives of the mission v desires for expedient results. |
| G4 | Design roles comprehensively |
Culturally-endorsed occupation identity. | Loyalty to a profession v loyalty to an organization. | Institutionalized education and research. | Functional division v other divisions e.g. based on needs or on customers. |
| G3 | Drive systematically |
Desires for both continuity and improvement. | Tolerance for change. | Co-evolution is intrinsic to social life. | Stability v improvement under competitive or political pressures. |
| G2 | Ensure appropriately |
Attention to both context and content for effective control. | Continuous field v discrete objects | Cooperation based on dialogue within agreed rules. | Implementation v policy-making. |
| G1 | Assign prescriptively |
Use of natural work capability i.e. language constructing reality. | Focus on personal duties v interest in higher level choices. | Duty as an ethical rule that is also a personal right. | Work at any one level may lead to sub-optimal output of the whole. |
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Originally posted: 11-Apr-2014