Page 41 - Managing Change in Organizations

CarnCh02v3.qxd 3/30/07 4:09 PM Page 24

Chapter 2 ■ Organization structures: choice and leadership
provide for the contribution of different professional groups to that work.
These structures emphasize task or team cultures. The various professional
groups will be interdependent, thus emphasizing the need for matrix or proj-
ect (taskforce) approaches to planning and to management.
■ Place more emphasis on trust: trust is difficult to establish. Managers, other employ-
ees and clients place trust in professionals. This creates great pressure for con-
sistency and fairness in the management of organizations; without it some
stakeholders may become dissatisfied. There will still be organizational politics
but for these to be constructively managed they need to be surrounded by a
reasonable degree of openness.
■ Place more emphasis on values and ethics: top management devote considerable
time and energy to articulating the organization’s mission, values and ethics.
They cannot control professionals directly and thus codes of behaviour con-
ducive to trusting relationships are very important. This should be a joint
management and professional task. Often it is neglected because it does not
solve everyday issues and problems. Nevertheless, longer-run success seems to
depend on greater self-regulation within professional organizations.

From control to commitment

The improvement of organizational effectiveness involved depends on our ability
to diagnose the organization’s problems, to identify solutions and to adopt and
adapt these solutions to organizational life. One approach to these various chal-
lenges has been described by Walton (1985). This approach is based on the assump-
tion that managers have generally relied on inadequate models for managing their
employees. They expect and accept much less from employees than is potentially
available. Management has failed to motivate employees or to develop their latent
capacities (and thus has failed to develop ‘invisible assets’ – see Chapter 13).
Walton refers to this traditional model as the control model. In this model,
work is divided into specialized tasks. Performance expectations are defined as
‘standards’ that define the minimum acceptable performance. Both expectations
and standards are the lowest common denominators. No attempt is made to

establish maximum or potential performance.
Two developments prompted movement away from this model. Changing
employee attitudes and expectations meant that attempts to gain control created a
dissatisfied and low-performing workforce which, in turn, meant that control and
efficiency was undermined. Intensified competition was a second development.
The control model seems to produce reliable but not outstanding performance.
Since the 1970s it has been clear that this is not enough. Competitive advantage
can be created out of high performance. High performance requires high levels of
commitment which, if sustained, creates a mutually reinforcing virtuous circle.
In the commitment model, jobs are designed to be broader and teams, rather than
individuals, are the units that are held accountable for performance. Performance
expectations are set relatively high. Continuous improvement is expected and
encouraged. The management structure tends to be flatter. People rely on shared
goals for coordination; influence is based on expertise and information, not on
position. In Table 2.1 we set out, in somewhat modified form, the control model

24