It’s amazing to venture through the management section of a bookstore, whether at a brick-and-mortar operation or online.
New editions on the topic seem to constantly appear.
One book on organizational behavior that I’ve found useful is “Reframing Organizations,” by Lee Bolman and Terence Deal. The authors suggest there are four frames of reference for any organization: structural, political, symbolic and human resource.
Each frame conveys a different way to view human interactions in organizations. The structural frame sees the firm as a factory or a machine. Rules, task management and defined roles are hallmarks. The political frame draws from the jungle of competition. Winning is everything. Within it, there’s commanding internal resources; agendas and powerbases; power and conflict. Using a symbolic frame of reference gives one the aspect of theater. Work is about symbols, esprit de corps, and creating a culture of meaning. In the human resources frame, the vantage point portrays a firm’s employees as an extended family. Assessing needs, assigning skills and aligning organizational goals with human capacity are the focal points.
Most leaders and decision makers recognize at any time in any workday, it helps to understand firm dynamics using every one of these frames. However, the last frame might need a rethink.
We are living in an era of linked information, networked colleagues and volumes of data that force firms to reinvent their internal machinery quickly and nimbly. This requires that we shape our view of talent a little differently.
One new idea comes from Reid Hoffman, co-founder of the LinkedIn professional networking site. In his new book on talent management, “The Alliance,” Hoffman argues leaders and co-workers should see each other as networks of allies. His reasoning seems to reframe how we work with each other by blending some elements of Bolman and Deal, while rewriting the extended family model of human resources.
The idea here is to get past what he rightly sees as the all too often low level of trust between firm talent and organizations. He argues instead for a workforce culture built on mutual investment by the firm and the employee. The rationale seems sound and clear: Companies without loyalty to customers, both internal and external, are companies with no long-term thinking. Without the long-term in mind, companies won’t invest in new ideas or technologies. If companies are not investing in new concepts and skill sets, then they are on the path to the economic graveyard.
To advance in this economic reality, leaders might have to assess how they think about their organizations: What frames of reference are at work in their internal psychologies? What are the best approaches forward?
Hoffman’s suggestion can be summed up this way: Help the talent develop and thrive, and they’ll help the firm develop and thrive. It is a kind of mutualistic symbiosis that everyone in an organization should learn and understand. To get there, internal training should be aligned toward that end. Every skill in leadership, project management or in communication (to name a few) a firm cultivates with its employees should be seen as an investment in the future of the firm. Wherever employees land in the future, whether internally or externally, they will be allies.
We may have more than enough management books. Can we really ever have enough allies?
Jeffrey Schmedeke is assistant director of the Management Development Institute at Missouri State University. He can be reached at JeffSchmedeke@MissouriState.edu.
