Thompson Believes This Paradox Can Be Resolved

By Adreanne Fessler

Few phenomena so remarkable have received less attention than the degree of change in material civilization and human progress - with the processes that have created the things that lubricate the machine. and has brought many conveniences to our daily lives over the past half century. It is no exaggeration t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adreanne Fessler
• Release date: May 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869359223

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Thompson Believes This Paradox Can Be Resolved

Thompson Believes This Paradox Can Be Resolved

Copyright © 2023 by Adreanne Fessler

All rights reserved

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 : THE DIFFICULTY OF CHANGE

CHAPTER 2 : AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEMESTER, WE LEARNED EQUATIONS

CHAPTER 3 : THE ROSETO MYSTERY

CHAPTER 4 : FEELINGS ABOUT THE MANAGER'S POSITION

CHAPTER 5 : AFTER THE MEETING

CHAPTER 1 : THE DIFFICULTY OF CHANGE

We've heard a lot of hype about change lately. It seems that no executive begins his or her speech without paying homage to the quote: We live in an age of great change.

Are you sure? My car still uses combustion technology and looks exactly like a Ford Model T; We still wear clothes made from fabrics that have existed for decades, even cut in the same style as before. Every morning I wake up and button my shirt just like my ancestors did (most likely these buttons were sewn with a Singer sewing machine; a century ago, this type of machine was popular around the world and popular. no less than the products of an international corporation today). In fact, even the declaration of change has not changed at all:

Few phenomena so remarkable have received less attention than the degree of change in material civilization and human progress – with the processes that have created the things that lubricate the machine. and has brought many conveniences to our daily lives over the past half century. It is no exaggeration to say that in just 50 years of life, we have accomplished countless miracles, taken advantage of countless rich and useful discoveries, and conquered countless brilliant achievements - much more. all that the entire period of previous generations had accomplished.

This passage appeared in Scientific American, published in 1868! It is true that the more things change, the more the world remains the same!

In my opinion, we only notice what is changing, not what is not changing, but most of what exists around us is like that. (When you wake up every morning, do you wonder why, in an era of great change, you still button your shirt like before?). Certainly, many things have changed, especially in the field of information technology and economics. We all have to face this reality, but not in such an extreme way that we lose sight of things that have not changed, because everyone, especially managers, also have to face this reality. face that reality.

We've seen a lot of trouble avoid change – organizations need to adapt to change, even lead in it. What we need to be more aware of is that too much change can lead to long-term anxiety and confusion. Therefore, no manager is capable of regulating change alone – it is chaos. Every manager also needs to regulate stability, so we encounter the problem of The difficulty of change: How to manage change when the organization requires maintaining stability? Again, the solution is to find the right balance.

Chester Barnard believes that the job of management is not that of the organization, but is a specific job whose goal is to maintain the operating state of the entire organization (1938). That also means keeping the organization on track and correcting it if it goes off track, all the while continuously maintaining the tracks, or sometimes building new ones. connect to other points. Managers effort… constantly to adjust… behavior little by little, to suit the ever-changing environment, while also seeking stability, trying to keep the amplitude of fluctuations to a minimum … although change often occurs (Sayles, 1964; see also Aram, 1976).

Jonathan Gosling, a colleague of mine, has interviewed many managers about the methods they use to manage change. What surprised him was that most of them talked about continuity management. Likewise, over the course of 29 days, I witnessed many changes that were completely intertwined with continuity. At the Red Cross refugee camp, Abbas Gullet and Stephen Omollo encouraged change to maintain stability, while Royal Bank's John Cleghorn successfully changed from small things to big problems – fixing redecorating a sign, acquiring an insurance company - to help the bank maintain its operating pace. And Fabienne Lavoie has developed a new system to better control the nursing area.

The dual quest for stability and flexibility. In his seminal book published in 1967 titled Organizations in Action, James D. Thompson wrote about this difficult problem in the form of the paradox of management – the search for Dual swords for stability and versatility. He primarily describes how organizations operate to reduce uncertainties and transition to a state of relative stability, in order to protect the technical core of the organization. However, the fundamental characteristic of the management process [is] the search for flexibility.

Thompson believes this paradox can be resolved by creating a stable, sustainable environment in the short term to ensure performance and a flexible environment in the long term for freedom from commitment. The problem, of course, is that we never get to the long run (or, as John Maynard Keynes said, by then we'll all be resting under three feet). Therefore, managers face this problem, like all problems, in the short term – specifically in their current behavior.

As mentioned earlier, there is always some change occurring in the midst of continuity, even if the change is not obvious in particular areas of work, and there are always elements of continuity – a little bit. stability – amid changes. An organization may go through some periods in which change is frequent and widespread, and other periods in which it is relatively stable. Cyert and March (1963) wrote about continuous attention to goals in organizations, in this case identifying conflicting needs for change and stabilization needs by spending time Time considers one need and then the other, sequentially in a cycle. In management, just like in the Bible, there will be a time to sow and a time to reap.

We can see this clearly in many studies of the development of strategies in different organizations, over very long time periods (discussed in the Difficulties of planning section). For example, between 1939 and 1975, the National Film Board of Canada went through surprisingly regular periods in filmmaking, each period lasting about six years: periods with many Experimental films were followed by other periods with many films in a relatively traditional, classical direction, then cycled back. This phenomenon is relatively common in creative and rapidly changing industries, while organizations in mechanistic industries go through quite long periods of stability, sometimes interrupted by sharp changes. short and moderate fluctuations (Mintzberg, 2007).

General difficulties

Finally, we come to the common difficulties, one for managers, the other for me. Here we can find a compromise – at least between these two difficulties.

The last difficulty

How can managers maintain balance when they are constantly under pressure to lean in a certain direction? In other words, how can managers handle all those difficult problems at the same time? Recognizing the task of management means having to balance enormous pressures – it is one of the most difficult and important lessons for new managers entering the profession (Hill, 2003). .

These difficult problems occur sequentially, overlapping and intertwining, leaving managers surrounded in a mess. Therefore, management is not just about walking on a thin wire, but rather about traveling through a multidimensional space on all kinds of thin wires. Management requires careful consideration and decisiveness. Paul Hirsh has a habit of welcoming incoming MBA students at Northwestern with the words, Welcome to the world of tolerance! Or as Charles Handy said in The Age of Paradox:

Now I realize that paradox is inevitable, an inherent, eternal disease... We can and should reduce the level of contradictions, minimize disagreements, and understand the problems in paradoxes. , but we cannot make them disappear, completely resolve them, or escape them. Paradoxes are like the weather, it is something we have to live with... the disadvantages need to be minimized, the positive aspects need to be taken advantage of and used as a basis for the next steps (1994). .

I have noted that the best solution is to find the right balance. But this is not a stable balance; actually, it is a dynamic balance. Circumstances cause managers to almost always be in a state of tilt (for example, they lean toward confidence when faced with challenges, or lean toward change when they perceive opportunities). In its multidimensional space, management is a balancing act at the highest level.

I also constantly assert, like Charles Handy, that we cannot completely solve the above difficult problems. There are no solutions because each problem must be solved based on the specific context, the pressures they cause are constantly changing. Paradoxes and complications, mazes and mysteries are woven into the business of management – they are the business of management – and they will be forever. They can be minimized but never eliminated; they can be moderated but never resolved. Trying to avoid those problems is very wrong. Managers have to face them, understand them, interact with them, and even play with them.

In Management of the Absurd, Farson argues that difficulties require deductive thinking…the ability to put a larger framework around the situation in question, to understand it in a variety of contexts, subject to closer examination and often accompanied by paradoxical cause and effect (1996). The goal of this chapter is to encourage managers to behave in that direction. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: The test of a superior mind is the ability to hold two conflicting opinions in mind at the same time and still maintain the ability to work. What other kind of intelligence can we rely on in the world of management?

Of course, all of this implies that the ultimate managerial difficulty – how to handle all these difficult problems at once – still exists. If so, perhaps our last source of hope lies in my own final conundrum.

My own difficulties

Finally, there is my difficulty: How do I reconcile the fact that all of the above conundrums, when presented separately, seem to be one? I have commented a lot on the overlap of the above issues, the similarities between them, even if one issue seems to be just a new expression of another issue. All in all, it's just a huge, extremely confusing and complicated management problem. In that case, you don't need to worry about the difficulty we just mentioned, there is no final difficulty – just taking care of all the difficulties we listed before is more than enough .

6. EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

This is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of a beginning.

Winston Churchill

Welcome to the end of the beginning. This chapter examines a rather delicate issue: effective management, although simply assessing whether a manager is effective is difficult. Believing that the answer is easy only makes the question ten thousand times more difficult. During the selection, evaluation and development process, managers and those who work with them face numerous complex issues. Helping them face their difficulties is the purpose of this chapter.

Let me add that I had an extremely enjoyable time writing this chapter. Perhaps it is the complexity that gives me a humorous view – of managers with their inevitable flaws, of the dangers of excellence, of what we can learn from them. healthy managed families, and so much more. Therefore, I hope you will feel comfortable reading this chapter.

Let's start with the seemingly efficient manager who actually has inevitable flaws. This leads us to a brief discussion of unsoundly managed organizational families that failed because of (1) people, (2) work, (3) fit, or (4) ) success. Next, we will study healthy managed organizational families, which can be found where abstract reflection meets fundamental action, supported by analytics, worldliness and the power of collaboration, all framed in terms of individual effort on the one hand and social integration on the other. From this issue leads us to three practical issues: selecting, evaluating and developing a group of effective managers, associated with the question: Where has the sense of judgment gone? This chapter, and the book, will end with a comment on managing naturally.

There are countless qualities of a manager that are considered effective

The list of qualities of an effective manager is extensive. They are usually quite brief, because who has time to pay attention to dozens of topics? For example, in a brochure for the EMBA program at the University of Toronto's business school with the headline What Makes a Leader?, the answer was: The courage to challenge reality, to rise up in a harsh environment, to join hands for the good of the whole, to establish clear direction in a rapidly changing world, to be decisive without fear (Rotman School, 2005).

However, this list clearly has many shortcomings. What about natural intelligence, or the ability to listen, or simply being enthusiastic? Surely managers also need these qualities. But don't worry too much – they'll appear on other lists as well. So, if we intend to rely on any of these lists, what we need to do is combine them all together.

Therefore, I have taken the liberty of doing the above-mentioned summary in the Table6.1. This table lists all the qualities from the various lists I've seen, plus a few of my favorites. This comprehensive list includes 52 items. Just try to achieve the above 52 standards, you will become a good manager.

Managers are not perfect

This is part of a leadership saga (Meindl et al., 1985), on the one hand it places ordinary people of flesh and blood on high places of fame (Rudolph is perfect for this job – he will save us all!), on the other hand it allows us to criticize and trample on them without mercy when they fall short (Why would Rudolph do this? How disappointed are we?). However, there are some managers who still stand firm, if not on that silly high platform of fame. How did they do it?

Table 6.1: A comprehensive list of basic qualities that help managers ensure success

The answer is simple: successful managers still have flaws—everyone doesn't have flaws—but their flaws don't cause disaster, at least in their circumstances. (Even superheroes have weaknesses – remember Kryptonite, which can destroy superhuman strength?). During a conference, Peter Drucker commented: The leader's job is to create a balance between people's strengths so that people's weaknesses become insignificant. He should have added that includes the leader's own weaknesses.

If you want to know someone's flaws, you just have to live with them or work for them. Soon all their shortcomings will be revealed. And also some other things (at least in case you are an adult and have made a relatively correct decision), whether you can continue to live with these shortcomings or not. Managers and marriages remain successful. Thanks to that, the world continues to rotate in its uniquely imperfect way.

What hides the fatal flaw is the list of qualities of a manager that is only for superheroes that we just mentioned above. Why? Because they are full of utopia. In most cases they are even wrong. For example, managers must be decisive – who can argue? That's true only for beginners, for those who imitate the mechanics of George W. Bush, and for those who know the importance of decisiveness through case studies at Harvard. . On the University of Toronto list, this quality is called fearless assertiveness. When he was bogged down in Iraq, President Bush must have had this quality in him. And judging by some of the criteria on that list, this President's stubborn enemy in Afghanistan certainly has the courage to challenge reality, while Ingvar Kamprad - the man who developed IKEA into into one of the world's most successful retail chains − having spent 15 years building a concrete direction for a rapidly changing world. (Actually, he succeeded because the world of home appliances didn't change dramatically; he changed it.)

So perhaps we should proceed in a different way.

Organizational families are not skillfully managed

Tolstoy opened his novel Anna Karenina with these immortal words: Happy families are all alike; But every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And perhaps the same applies to managers and their organizational families: they have endless ways to mess things up, and with every new day there are more and more amazing ways. discovered, but perhaps only a few have achieved success.

A tale of two managers

I would like to take the liberty of telling a story about two types of managers. Liz and Larry's problems are both common. Both are modern, intelligent, highly educated managers. They worked close together in the same company, one heading the core office staff, the other heading the core production team. Liz has a hasty personality; Larry often hesitates. A person often makes decisions too hastily, so these decisions still have to be revised a lot; The other person hesitates and doesn't dare to decide, or makes a vague decision. The consequences are the same: their team members feel confused and discouraged.

When outside and interacting with others in the company, Liz is often confrontational, while Larry applies the avoiding the elephant is not embarrassing strategy. Liz argues with all her colleagues in the company - because she is better - except the general boss, who always gets preferential treatment from her and treats her in a different way. On the contrary, Larry is too cautious, not daring to offend anyone, so he is always hesitant and does not dare to face challenges when needed.

Perhaps each of them will immediately recognize the other after reading the descriptions above. But do they recognize themselves? It should also be added that although the family each manager is not exactly happy, our managers are not failures. None of these defects have fatal consequences. All work is done. It's just that they could have worked more effectively—and in a happier way.

The second story comes from a study of a small-town daily newspaper in Quebec that we conducted several years ago. This newspaper was owned by two wealthy