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California State University, Dominguez Hills
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Created: July 29, 2003
Latest Update: July 29, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Soc. 328-01: Agencies: Week 2
Preparations for Class and Internet Discussions

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Week 2: Week of September 1, 2003
Topic: The Aesthetic Seed from Which the Organization Grows

• Topic: Agencies are organizations. So are corporations, but they're a little different. You won't get to create the structure when you first start work, but you'd better understand how they did it.

• Preparatory Readings:

  • Introduction to our text: Reframing Organizations : Artistry, Choice, and Leadership by Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal. (B and D) Amazon.com had 22 used copies available on July 23, 2003.

  • Reframing Organizations By Lee G. Bolman & Terrence E. Deal. Notes by Ted Nellen, a Doctoral Candidtate in Teaching at Columbia University. If, Heaven forfend, the book isn't in, this might help to get you started on note taking. I like that he used it in an educational setting. I do not like that, like most study outlines, it is spare of details, while being too long for quick scanning. Backup

  • Hardcopy: Bolman and Deal, Chapters 1 and 2

• Lectures:
  • When in Doubt, Regroup and Redefine
  • Lecture on Bolman and Deal, Chapters 1 and 2
  • The Morality of answerability

• Concepts:

  • Public sector and private sector differences and similarities. (at p. xiii of B and D)
  • What role does artistry play in management and leadership? (at p. xiii of B and D)
  • Understanding the situatedness of your piece of the organization (at p. xiv of B and D)
  • What do we mean by organizational structure? Formal, informal, and aesthetic. (from lectures)
  • satisfice - get the job done well enough so the rest of us can get on with our jobs. Perfection ain't necessary, and it's kind of important to learn that. (from lectures)
  • interpenetration - Lecture on Bolman and Deal, Chapters 1 and 2
  • artistry in the organization - at pp. xvii-xviii - Lecture on Bolman and Deal, Chapters 1 and 2

• Discussion Questions:

  1. What's wrong with just going into an organization and doing your job as best you can?

     Consider that an organization is a social group, much like a family is a social group. There are different roles to be played, different status badges to be displayed, and different learning and working styles, never mind different personalities? One thing you might consider sharing in these early weeks are stories you have seen enacted in work places, private and/or public.

  2. Is the manager always the leader in a work group?

     If you answer "yes" to this we will be pleased to direct you to the counseling center.

  3. Is the manager always the titular leader of the work group?

     Yes. That's what formal organization means: the way the organization chart reads. That ain't necessarily the way it really works. Welcome to the real world.

  4. What does your text mean by the artistry of management and leadership? Will the text cover the "aesthetics of answerability?"

     The text is practical. The authors might agree with the theories on which we base our studies, but I doubt the book will cover them. This is an educated guess because I don't have the book yet. Had to switch to it unexpectedly when I discovered that Schuck's book was out of print.

     What's the difference between management and leadership?

     Consider B and D, at P. xii: Management is stewardship, taking care of what needs to be done; leadership is both the entrepreneurial creativity to see solutions to problems, and the risk-taking personality that will indulge them with minimal harmful arrogance. The student director we talked about in the lecture was managing. He gave out a coding task, and he wanted the coding done. The community stopped him long enough to make him realize that there was a more important need to solve the misunderstandings that led to the problem. That balance is important.

     What comes immediately to mind when we ask sociologists about organizational structure?

     Consider that organizational structure is socially constructed. The story we told you in the lecture about the origin and growth of the SSRC is about how organizations grow from the seed of an idea. As they grow, the community becomes too large to manage like a topsy turvy weed, so rules and roles develop and managers or stewards take over. Then someone draws up an organizational chart so she can say that mistake was your fault. You should have done x, y, or z. And for a while we survive with a formal organization chart and job descriptions. But the organization grows older, and people settle into a community of workers, and the job descriptions get lost, and x, y, or z, still gets done wrong, or not done. But at that point it could cause pandemonium and cost your career if you march up and announce to the one responsible on the formal organization chart that it is his fault. So an informal organization grows up slowly. No chart. No official recognition of its existence. But if you really want y done you'll have to catch Bill. He's usually in Friday afternoon around 3.

     By organizational structure we mean the patterns through which individuals form interrelationships that permit them to satisfice the work goals, even when some people act as obstacles in different departments and at different times. Formal organization means that the one doing y is the one supposed to do y according to the organizational chart. Informal organization means that the one doing y is somebody else who just gets the job done because it has to be done. Since the work community is socially constructed, you'll have to keep your eyes open and your mouth shut for a while until careful observation gives you the information you need on who does what when and where. It's a good idea not to ask such questions openly if the one who's supposed to do y is within hearing distance and hasn't done it. Gee whiz, kids. This is just common sense.

  5. What's the word that tells you how picky you have to be to get each task done that's assigned to you?

     Consider that if you write the best legal brief ever seen it won't help your client at all if you're thrown out of court because you were late and missed the filing date? Can you imagine how many people in an office would like to choke the perfectionist who always comments on how much better his work is than everyone else's? Do you reckon he understands "satisficing?"

Some Recommended Activities for Academic Assessment:

• Required Activity: Show And Tell This activity is scheduled to go on as we have things to share. In this class we are creating a community of learners. In the workplace we create a community of workers. Sometimes that community may differ in structure from the larger community in which it is embedded. No matter what, people who form a local community can alter the climate of that community by the aesthetic process of creating their interrelationships. Remind me to tell you about the stolen articles at UCLAW.
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  Week 3: Week of September 8, 2003
  Topic: The Nature of Agencies: Administrative Law