Crabs That Inch Sideways Rise Upwards

 

Top-Line vs Horizontal (flat line) system

Communications between managers and employees are important both in public and private sectors.  Positive, supportive interactions are encouraged in organizations but are often hard to obtain.  Democratic systems bear this style with ease.  Democratic management produces effective communication in a flat hierarchy. 

  

Employees and managers have hurdles to overcome: 

              

•  Clear word choices, purposes, and moves to take.        
•  Positive relay of messages.        
•  Receiver fails to read or listen.
•  Receiver does not act appropriately.

 

 How does the manager correct this problem?

 

        1.  Communication skill training for all employees.

        2.  Target training for manager.

       3.  Spot checking activities at the lower plane to check the directives received.

 

Root of the communication problem is perception and credibility.  Attitudes and behaviors break down mistrusts and create a clear line of communication.  If two employees are on bad terms temporarily, they are better off not expressing those feelings.  Better to wait a little until things cool off before they talk again.  Running feuds between two employees can be solved by refraining from communicating with one another.  It solves the problem short-term.  Part of organizational politics is to know when not to speak openly about a problem. 

                 

•    Improvise to turn out better result
•    Better not to solve the problem if the trial is unlikely to succeed
•    Bring up interpersonal clashes

 Bargaining and Political Model of Communication

•   Considerable sustained conflict
•   Tendency to conceal
•   Motives of expediency

 

Consensus-building model has an eye for maximum gain in an organization.  They work by cooperating than by political trade-offs.  They seek to agree and further mutual aims.  They talk openly about differences and agreements. 

  

Managers consider the following:

  

• Share an open communication
• Achieve organizational goals
• Reaching consensus with agency
• Sensitivity of information shared

 

 Long-range needs of the organization are met in political support for others. 

 

Why communicate?  Communicating facilitates control of large firms/companies in more than one ways:

  

• Define and complete objectives
• Determine divisions; assign responsibilities across full range
• Identify problems in ongoing programs
• Anticipate long-term and short-term options
• Motivate employees/ Pinpoint problems
• Solicit ideas from individuals throughout organizations
• Resolve conflicts as they occur. 

 

 COORDINATION

 

 

Coordination is built on common goals and interests, compatible objectives, and collaboration. 

 

Some of the concerns in coordination:

 

Growth

Increasingly Complex

Drawing the line for domestic use/service

 

 

Bringing together divided labor, here are few likeness and nuances:

 

• Prerequisites
• Purpose
• Obstacles
• Remedies
• Consequences

 

Channels for coordination must be purposefully maintained.  Companies and organizations may have hard time organizing autonomy.  They may find hard time clearing away organizational activities. 

 

 

Here are some obstacles when differing views on program goals occur:

  

• Degrees of commitments/goals to coordination process that assumes consensus on a goal process among participants.
• Divergent views on major/minor aspects
• Conflict of priorities
• Unequal fiscal capabilities
• Conflicting political pressures
• Poor organization
• Breakdown in communication
• Inept leadership

 

Coordinating across organization boundary is more difficult than intraorganizational boundaries.  

Coordination obstacles have to be overcome. 

 

Remedies:

 

1.)     Better communication leads to

•     Objectives
•     Tactics
•     Perceived Problems
•     Opportunities

 

They lead to better gears for coordination.

 

Can better communication facilitate better coordination?  It depends on numbers of conflict present in the relationship. 

 

• Limited conflict allow use of consensus-building model of communication.
• Significant conflict leads to political model of communication; holding back information work against coordination.
• Absence of conflict will better coordination in the key staff in affected organizations.

 

Leadership effect in 2 ways:

 

1.)     Responsible managers dedicate resources to labor their influence in manager’s coordination backing. 

 

Related managerial tasks:

 

•       Goal setting
•       Building consensus of common goals
•    Control of conflict aimed at containing/resolving internal rift before they ruin organization’s harvest.
•       Information management.

Interpersonal:  managers of organization initiate efforts to coordinate activities of their respected entities.

Control for formal coordinative working.

 

Success of the leadership depends on personal commitment and ability to organize and build coordinative backing.

 

Organizations for stronger coordination fall into 2 categories:

 

1.)     Central Coordination:  decisions are made by coordinative that follow the lead or individuals.

2.)    Mutual Adjustment (Lateral Coordination):  Consulting, sharing of information

3.)    Aggregate of these lead to lateral coordination which speeds up and smooths out from an independent or higher-up coordinator.

 

 

LINE & STAFF FUNCTIONS

 

Traditional treatment of organization

Line activities, units, officers have been first included with matters that run and manage the agencies.  They deal with programs that have a direct impact on the outside clienteles and are liable for objects and essences of the task.   Accepted since the 1930s when principle approach came out, staff use is defined as support and counseling activities undergirding abilities of line personnels in  carrying out their duties.  An example would be budget and finance, personnel administration, planning, buying, and legal counsel.  Staff meaning has changed since the 1940s as well as planning, research, advisory activities needed for long-term health.   

Auxiliary has to be performed in all units.  An example is budgeting, purchasing, and personnel.  A major relationship exists between line, staff, and auxiliary and activities of varied units require coordination.  Great conflicts between line and staff exists especially in priorities and differing time perspectives.  Line personnel are concerned with the immediate present matters at hand.  Longer range planning span five to ten years.  Top management must integrate activities, if not directly link their activities.  Unavoidable conflicts arise between staff; for example, agency budget officer responsible for reduced costs and budget requests upkeep cuts funds.  Bureau chief may believe that top management is not aware of bureau’s work; simultaneously, budget officer regards the bureau as a liberal spender for department’s budget.  City manager tries to centralize purchasing use but it upsets the department directors who have their own order and support refusing to give up control and politics.  These markings are less important in an era where rapid changes inside and outside organizations have prevailed.  Long-term strategies have taken a greater legitimacy becoming a big part of top line managers.  The planning use has become more closely integrated with daily drives. 

 

 

Reciprocal understanding is growing which blurs the old line between line and staff.  Demands for better programs have led political leaders to strengthen jobs of staff personnel vis à vis their line counterparts.  As societal demands and management have changed, gaps between line and staff narrowed. 

 

 

CENTRALIZATION/ DECENTRALIZATION         

 

 

Centralization affects all phases of an organization.  Centralized authority has become acceptable in an organization.  New organizations support decentralization.  At its extreme, all decision-making and putting into effect is placed at the top management in a centralized company.  Communication and coordination is a one-way street from the top-down.  Few entities may still work this way but many government and private sectors do not.  Decentralized system offers a fresh new perspective.  As a margin of organization boosts, running control is delegated to the line managers whose post is lower than the top management. 

 

 

Employees are on the verge of getting their votes.  Employees give their voice.  Employees get their say.  Decentralization’s decision-making responds to this demand without waiving oversight or control.  Decentralizing increases internal working —citizens participating, neighborhood empowering, community activism are all examples of increased citizen participation under a decentralized organization.  The final policy or administrative responsibilities rest with the top managers; however, day-to-day working decisions are made from delegating to lower ranks officers inside the organization.  Some program activities are supervised by middle-level managers that are under discretionary authority of senior managers.  Communication is a multichannel matter which encompasses messages, directives, and informal contacts.  Top managers show greater inclusive attitudes in mapping out their long-term strategies.   Centralized organization applies centripetal force.  Decentralized organizations use both centripetal and centrifugal force.  Force is applied to the center and away from the center.  Decentralized organizations stress employee empowerment paired with participating managers, labor-manager cooperation, customer service, and employee-enriching bulletins.           

    

 GRAVITY OF CENTRALIZATION vs DECENTRALIZATION

 

 

What value does it serve for greater or lesser centralization?  Centralization hoists up control and uniformity  in internal programs.  It decreases the chance that management rights and privileges can be challenged from those below.  Outgrowths are held in an orderly fashion in a centralized organization.  Decentralization allows middle-level managers to act as organization’s sensors.  They detect new problems and opportunities by responding to policy needs.  In an age of diversity and change, organizational keeping depends largely on the speed to which changes in the environment are brought to attention to managers who provide for mid-course actions.  Need to adapt is so great that it gives up central control in organizations —private corporations that depend on the changing market and local government services that has to confront changing citizen's demands.  Through question and change, it is important for organizations to continue and endure. 

 

 

To what extent do members of the organization intend participants in its rule?  In society, decentralized organizations allow greater participation and those that were previously excluded to take part in organizational decision-making.  Democratic participation improves the quality of the decisions reached and raises the prospect clienteles and customers in accepting those decisions.    

Like centralized organizations that have top mangers choose either control or flexibility, decentralized organizations make it hard to hold those who make decisions liable.  The workings of a decision-making have many take part to hold one liable.  Co-optation follows lessening  criticism and competition by giving critics and competitors a stake at decision-making course.  Co-optation has important consequences in any setting for carrying on clear competition and supporting debates over policy directions.  Those committed to decentralization favor the democratic model and its rationale.   

 

 

TALL vs FLAT HIERARCHIES

 

Bureaucracy is defined as a chain of command where key tasks are coordinated —managerial control, division of labor, sending and receiving communication.  Bureaucratic edifice hold layers in a tall hierarchy.  Circumstances and other factors in early bureaucracy evolved into a tall hierarchy.  Most importantly, varying tones and shades of performed tasks required significant vertical and horizontal distinctions.  Narrow span of control composite with task diversity and interdependence of activities fostered the growth of tall hierarchies.  Chain of command broadens as limited scope of subordinates impels the ratio of supervisor to subordinates to rise giving color to coordination.  Higher-level employees are urged to differentiate top from bottom. 

 

 

Flat hierarchy offers a new model after the 1990s.  Flat hierarchies have following features:

 

•     Top management carry in a collegial “board of directors” fashion
•    Subordinates below top managers are esteemed as hierarchical equals
•      All of the Above

 

Early examples of flat hierarchy include a commission system in local governments where the commissioner was equal to others; the task of municipal control and management was shared equally.  Contemporary example includes a scientific research team where division of labor and coordinator exists but no one leader is named or offhandedly admitted by team members.  Another example is a small staff in a non-profit social service agency like the Girl Scouts that banks on active participants in the community. 

 

 

GRAVITY OF TALL vs FLAT HIERARCHIES 

 

The two differ by communication.  Multi-layered tall organization preclude transmitting thorough communication.  Customers and lower employees often lack access to the higher ups.  Problems are greater at taller hierarchies.  Employees are often alienated from the organization because of coordination problems in an intricate network.  Tall hierarchy and centralized/decentralized relationship have greater interest.

 

Flat hierarchies also have problems.  Staff run closely together on the same class creates problems when bad bloods or standoffs occur.  Too many managers and not enough successors can also pose a problem.  However in terms of communication, flat hierarchy transmit messages efficiently across varying channels and differing classes.