12 Feb Organization Leadership and Development

Order Instructions

Books used for this class:

1. Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (7th ed.). Jossey-Bass.

 

2. Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2017). Organizational Culture and Leadership (The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series) (5th ed.). Wiley.

 

Case Study Guidelines:

 

1.Select an organization that is of great interest to you. It could be your current work organization, an organization you worked for in the past, or one you are simply interested in. (I had a class recently in which a team of students decided to use the Trump White House as a case study. It was fascinating because even though the team lacked lots of key information due to lack of transparency, vacant and constantly changing job roles, unpredictable leadership, a culture based on personality, etc., the team produced an excellent and honest assessment of the White House as an organization. They got extra points because of the difficulty of the undertaking.)

 

2. Use Exhibit 20.1

Exhibit 20.1.

Reframing Ethics.

 

Frame Metaphor Organizational Ethic Leadership Contribution

Structural Factory Excellence Authorship

Human resource Extended family Caring Love

Political Jungle Justice Power

Symbolic Temple Faith, belief Significance

in Bolman and Deal, page 414, to create a table for your selected organization identifying each frame relative to the two questions “What is going on?”. and “What options are available?”. Try to fill in the cells of the table based on the goals of how do you make the organization:

 

a. “high performing”;

 

b. “a great place to work”; and

 

c. with extremely low employee turn-over (e.g. SAS)?

 

3. You should analyze your selected organization in terms that allow you to explore all the “classic” (not the same as “classical”) schools of thought per Bolman and Deal that we have or will soon cover in this class. You can emphasize some schools or frames more or less over other frames others dependent on the specific organization, but all frames should be addressed. You have carte blanche and freedom in choosing and applying these frames, theories and tenets to your selected organization.

 

 

4. Tell a story. Be sure to use the symbolic frame, which for some reason is hard for many people. Be a story teller. Give a sense for the variables of age and size of the organization, identify the genetic DNA and history per Schein. Make the story compelling.

 

5. Just don’t recite or enumerate principles, frames or theories (we did that, somewhat, already in the reflection papers), but instead use this case study to synthesize your learnings into a mosaic of understanding and create an organizational culture story.

 

6. Assess leadership- What kind of leadership is it? How can it be better and improve toward what ends? Invoke adhocracy, matrix, network forms with horizontal communication and coordination mechanisms. What is the role of power, politics and voice in leadership?

 

7. Assess culture- how was culture developed through the process of “shared learning,” struggle and growth? What do the ‘old timers’ say? What are the Schein artifacts, espoused beliefs and hidden assumptions in your selected organization?

 

8. How does leadership embrace a learning and change dynamic, what is that and how is that “sold” to oneself, the leader, and subordinates, who may be captivated by groupthink, gaslighting or confirmation bias dynamics?

 

9. Assess organization- What would the neoclassicists and Simon think of your organization if they were alive today?

 

10. Address issues of integration and specialization as it relates to the vertical and horizontal organization. Is Adhocracy possible? What is the current and potential role of support staff? If so, what, where and how? More important, why and why not. Elaborate on why not? How does that happen?

 

11. Assess human motivation- Why should anyone care, and toward what end? Maslow is a sleeper cell here. More complicated than what appearances would suggest. It always in the background …from classics to matrix to groupthink to gaslighting. (See recent ICMA Maslow article under week 3)

 

12. Assess the macro-culture- overlay the macro-culture with the organizational analysis of culture. Where are the points of congruence and incongruence in organizational culture with occupational and macro-culture?

 

13. How do you see Schein’s “survival anxiety” versus “learning anxiety” playing out in your selected organization?

 

 

Apply these 13 questions/areas to your case study. You are required to address Questions #1 and #2 and can selectively address the 12 other questions as you see fit. Choose the ones that fit your selected organization best with the goal of creating an excellent paper. I am giving wide latitude here so as to encourage creativity, spirit and fun. That is why these are “guidelines” and not “rules”, a bit like the difference between Simon (neo-classic) and Weber (classic), allowing the human dimension to have a free hand.