Control, Power, and Organizational Change: A Comprehensive Guide
Control and Power
Four Steps of the Control Process
- Establish and review standards set in the planning process.
- Measure performance at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels.
- Compare performance outcomes with the standards that were set.
- Make a decision:
- Successful performance should be rewarded.
- Unsuccessful performance should be corrected.
Goals
- Difficult but attainable
- Measurable
- Flexible
- Clearly stated
Departments and Measures to Analyze Them
- Marketing: They work to make sure that items are tailored to customer needs.
- Production
- Sales
- Quality Control
Standard Production Goals
- Quantity: May be established by unit or by volume. Benchmarking (evaluating something to see if it needs improvement) is used to note the completion of various tasks.
- Quality: Examined by variation and defect levels. Examines intangible, qualitative issues.
- Cost: These measures can be combined into quarterly, semiannual, and annual reports about the production department’s level of efficiency (low cost) and effectiveness (high quality).
- Time
Ratio Analysis
Bases of Power
- Legitimate Power: Based on position held
- Reward Power: Based on the ability to give and take away rewards
- Coercive Power: Based on influencing behavior by threatening or punishing
- Expert Power: Based on having superior power, can be technical expertise
- Referent Power: Based on followers’ perceptions and admiration
Organizational Structure
Organizational Design
The process of creating this structure and making decisions about the relative benefits of alternative structures.
Job Specialization
The term division of labor refers to the process of dividing a large task into successively smaller jobs. All jobs are specialized to some degree since one person can’t do everything, but some jobs are considerably more specialized than others.
Departmentalization
Is the process of combining jobs into groups or departments. Managers must decide whether the most appropriate structure is to have a homogeneous department with similar jobs or a heterogeneous department with unrelated jobs.
Span of Control
Managers decide how many people should be placed in a group under one supervisor; the number can vary along a continuum from few to many.
Delegation of Authority (Centralization versus Decentralization)
The more decentralized an organization, the greater the extent to which the rank-and-file employees can participate in and accept responsibility for decisions concerning their jobs and the activities of the organization. Decision-making authority can vary along a continuum from centralized to decentralized.
Mechanistic Structure
Most managerial decisions were made at the top, and there was strong centralized authority.
Organic Structure
The hierarchy of authority was not clear, and decision-making authority was broadly decentralized.
Forces of Change
Types of Change
- Developmental Change: Involves incremental improvement in skills, methods, or processes to help an organization function more efficiently.
- Transitional Change: Is having an organization evolve slowly from an old state to a new state. The change occurs gradually, but it involves more than improving the current processes, as in developmental change.
- Transformational Change: Characterized by a radical reconceptualization of the organization’s mission, culture, products, leadership, or structure. This kind of change typically occurs in companies that have become stagnant and need to be rejuvenated.
Lewin’s Theory of Change
Change occurs when the forces pushing in one direction are greater than the forces pushing in the opposite direction. A state of balance exists when the restraining forces acting to prevent change are equal to the driving forces attempting to produce change.
- Unfreezing occurs when people see a need for change.
- Change is the action-oriented stage, in which the situation is diagnosed, improved patterns of behavior are selected, and a new equilibrium is created. As a result of change, people develop new values, attitudes, and/or behaviors.
- Refreezing stabilizes the change and solidifies the new patterns of behavior.
How to Overcome Resistance to Change?
- Education and Communication: Explain the need for change, what will happen, and how it will affect employees. Help them see the logic for change.
- Reinforcement: Incentives (offer incentives for compliance), coercion (force employees to change using threats)
- Peer Group Influence: Allow groups of people to participate in the change process by discussing ideas.
- Inspiration of One’s Personal Experience: Others are empowered as they model the transformation of the change agent who served as an example for others.
Creativity
Creativity
Developing novel ideas.
Innovation
Making the idea happen.
Components of Creativity
- Creativity thinking skills
- Expert knowledge
- Intrinsic motivation
Characteristics of a Creative Culture
- Challenge and involvement
- Freedom
- Trust
- Openness
- Idea time
- Playfulness/Humor
- Debates
- Risk-taking