Polarizing or Fusing
Participation in Practice
As just explained, to understand and foster satisfactory participation, it is necessary to recognize the interplay of autonomy and compulsion that spontaneously emerges in a work setting.
This is the unavoidable inherent tension, the dynamic duality. It is activated by management within any organizational community.
This polar duality affects the organisation of management differentially at each grouping/level. Applying the duality to this structural hierarchy reveals 10 Centres as shown in the diagram and explained below. How these Centres are used and linked in practice determines the socio-emotional atmosphere.
Apply the Duality
G1: Duties
Assigned duties-G1 must activate responsibility if there is to be management control. This leads to a single balanced Centre labeled:
• Responsibility for Duties-G1B.
Why?
Any duty must be meaningful and necessary in organizational terms. Discharge of duties is compulsory to ensure management control. Omission will lead to failures, discord and disputes. At the same time, those duties must be willingly owned by staff members for tasks to be identified creatively and performance to be satisfactory. Willingness to perform a duty is not enough without a corresponding organizational demand.
G2: Oversight
Ensuring oversight-G2 in a way that enables cooperation via dialogue leads to a single balanced Centre labeled:
• Managerial Oversight-G2B.
Why?
Oversight involves relating using intuition as well as convention and common-sense. It is perhaps the most sensitive of all inter-personal activities within an organization and is used for performance assessment. Staff at adjacent levels must be willing to contribute and cooperate with each other. At the same time, however, oversight is an essential requirement and everyone is compelled to participate. The contents of discussions are also simultaneously dependent on taking an autonomous position (for expression of views, judgements, preferences) and bowing to irresistible demands (for instructions, briefings, priority-setting, information &c).
G3: Improvement
Driving improvements-G3 to deal with dynamic pressures for coevolution forms two polar opposite Centres that are labeled:
• Authorized Developments-G3O
• Personal Initiatives-G3P
Why?
Pressures caused by changes, whether internal or external, require a decisive response. These responses emerge from the organization's needs and potentials, and final proposals for improvement are compulsory even if some or even many staff disagree or are resistant. So there is a Centre labeled: Authorized Developments-G3O.
Members of staff are continually exposed to situations where they want to fix something going wrong, or make some opportunistic improvement. Such cases still require implicit or explicit approval, so they are official. However, they are essentially manifestations of personal autonomy and exist apart from the main planning process. So there is a Centre labeled: Personal Initiatives-G3P.
This raises the issue of which pole should be viewed as dominant. Local initiatives spring from an immediacy of need, are always judged reasonable and feasible. Also, their pursuit feels satisfying and so they naturally dominate in practice. That Centre is placed on the right.
G4: Roles
Designing roles-G4 to embody functional expertise leads to a single balanced Centre labeled:
• Roles in Functions-G4B(or My Role-G4B).
Why?
The functions and roles are fully intrinsic to the organization and essential to its structure and performance so they are compulsory. However, roles can only be satisfactory if staff members are willing to be make them work and are given the necessary discretion to work autonomously and be creative within role boundaries.
G5: Goals
Determining goals-G5 so as to shape achievement with a realistic likelihood of success forms two polar opposite Centres that are labeled:
• Formally Accepted Goals-G5O
• Individually Generated Goals-G5P
Why?
Achievement is channeled by goals, and these goals are determined primarily on the basis of organizational and situational factors. Often they are developed in groups to ensure consensus. Personal factors may be given attention when formulating a goal, but any official goal is compulsory and must be accepted, taken seriously (i.e. owned), and used as a criterion in evaluations. So there is a Centre labeled: Formally Accepted Goals-G5O
However, staff within organizations find themselves independently generating goals of their own. As long as these make sense and are beneficial for the organization, this is to be welcomed. Developing and using these goals provides more personal gratification. So there is a Centre labeled: Individually Generated Goals-G5P.
There is not much issue of which pole should be dominant. The compulsory official goals must be given precedence, and so that Centre is placed on the right. However, sometimes there is organizational adoption of a personally generated goal, and that goal then switches Centres (or is in both for the particular person who devised it).
G6: Motivation
Expecting motivation-G6 in accordance with distinctive obligations forms two polar opposite Centres that are labeled:
• Motivation via Obligation-G6O
• Motivation via Creativity-G6P
Why?
The organization expects staff to follow instructions and actively pursue, comply with or enforce its policies and rules. This is unequivocally driven by obligation and there is no option. Motivation is here backed up by the contract of employment, because failure would mean termination. This Centre is labeled: Motivation via Obligation-G6O
Employed staff are also expected to take on challenges. That entails applying idiosyncratic perspectives, innovating and contributing imaginatively for the organization. This creativity lies within the sphere of personal autonomy and cannot be compelled. The exercise of personal creativity is highly motivating. The result is a Centre labeled: Motivation via Creativity-G6P
Which pole should be viewed as dominant? It seems that the compulsory component is essential and usually given more significance in practice. So that Centre is placed on the right.
G7: Commitment
Enabling commitment-G7 as a condition of membership within the organizational community leads to a single balanced Centre:
• Commitment via Community-G7B.
Why?
Commitment is part of an autonomous choice to join an organization and make personal work part of something bigger. However, membership and equality mean that everyone is compelled to follow the same rules and any contractual restrictions or requirements.
Having applied the dynamic duality, each Centre is now primed to influence and interact with others. A potentially destabilizing opposition is already evident at: G3, G5, and G6.
Originally posted: 23-May-2014.