tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6559710283964047904.post4578596763045876841..comments2024-03-28T01:46:24.954-07:00Comments on Learning from experience_Larry hirschhorn: Best Buy and Organizational Rationality larry hirschhornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03225178328441480792noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6559710283964047904.post-31589782671567380882012-09-10T13:31:48.499-07:002012-09-10T13:31:48.499-07:00Terry great questions. You are right of course tha...Terry great questions. You are right of course that work can be exciting and feelingful. But at least in the US where we have the legal tradition of "employment at will" people are ultimately judged by how well they perform the work they are accountable for. This is the sense in which I was arguing that organizations are indifferent. If for example an organization keeps a poor performer because of some personal characteristic, e.g., he or she is ill, it risks creating a sense of unfairness among others who must work harder to make up for the employee's poor performance. I was using the term "rational" in this narrower sense, i.e that there is a logic to organizational decisions, particularly personnel decisions, based on performance rather than on arbitrary criteria like a person's gender or race. Now of course this is an ideal though an important one. There are plenty of examples of where this logic is violated.But human resource policies are typically designed to provide employees some protections within the process of holding people accountable. Similarly, one reason that unions are appealing to employees is that they offer members protection against arbitrary actions by supervisors. This is why I argued that people accept some level of "impersonality" as long as it is not arbitrary. It is the arbitrary nature of supervisory conduct that appears in this sense as "irrational." Make sense? larry hirschhornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03225178328441480792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6559710283964047904.post-59228684502657842532012-09-04T22:16:32.572-07:002012-09-04T22:16:32.572-07:00I am having difficulty with your view of the ideal...I am having difficulty with your view of the ideal performance organization is one that is psychologically secure by being rational and impersonal. For me this view diminishes the emotional side of each organization as its this energy that is the foundation of each new enterprise from initial founders - Bell, McGowan, Wegman, Marriott.<br /><br />Every business operates in some state of anxiety and uncertainty - mainly from market challenges. Its the leaders responsibility to see reality and make course correction or transformations to best serve their customers and stakeholders. Managers don't lead - they just handle transactions and most transactions can be impersonal. And customers will move their dollars to those firms that give them then type of transaction they desire - price, delivery, quality, information, service. I seldom see a pizza place go out of business but sure see expensive restaurants fail often.<br /><br />I thought from your past writings that its leadership awareness of the underlying psycho-dynamics that can help them to better understand and lead. Leaders have the hard job of making a compelling case for change and improving each place they steer. They have to build a team to help them define that change, explain and guide the change and I don't envy anyone who shows up or succeeds to find their leadership team to be dysfunctional, self-serving, backstabbing group. <br /><br />Its my view that most customers are not well served and its the exception not the norm. Maybe the model for most organizations are psychic prisons (Morgan).<br /><br />Maybe the reason why the Best Buy board decided to do what it did was an unconscious group mind of 'parent' finally holding the 'kids' accountable for lack of character and not serving as role models for the rest of the firm. <br /><br />The landscape is littered with aberrant leadership and poor market place value propositions- Tyco, MCI, Quest, Enron, Circuit City, Garfinkles, Raleigh, Britches, AT&T, Nortel, Lehmans, Merril Lynch, Hechingers<br />. <br />If organizations are truly rational then how do they so fail? Why can't such smart men and women avoid bankruptcies if they are rational? If employees are treated with indifference and as machine parts then how would any leader expect their customers to be treated fairly, with warmth, excitement and interest - like in most Apple stores, or Wegman's or Nordstroms. Terrance Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02325722950286319199noreply@blogger.com