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MGT 345 Case Study ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS & CHANGE MANAGEMENT STAY-AT-HOME CASE STUDY Please take a moment to read ALL instructions thoroughly BEFORE working on the Case study! Instructions: 1

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MGT 345 Case Study ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS & CHANGE MANAGEMENT STAY-AT-HOME CASE STUDY Please take a moment to read ALL instructions thoroughly BEFORE working on the Case study! Instructions: 1. This Case Study should be written in full-sentence ESSAY form. Point form is acceptable ONLY for listing specific items. You can use subheadings within your responses to separate/ organize different sections, Case studyples, etc. 2. At the top of the first page of your document (or if you prefer, on a separate cover page), please provide identifying info, including your name, date, course, Case Study, and a title for your paper, if you wish. Text should be double-spaced, 12-pt. font size, with 1-inch margins, and please use PAGE NUMBERS throughout the document!! 3. If applicable, include a reference list at the end of your essay. While you are NOT required to find or use additional sources beyond your class notes and materials, if you do bring in other readings to support your arguments, refer to CCSU Burritt Library’s APA style guidelines for how to properly cite in-text sources used for all direct quotations, facts, figures, and/or any non-original work. 4. will be assessed on your ability to: • thoroughly address all requirements of the Case study questions and provide strong evidence to support and bolster your arguments and/or opinions. • correctly apply your knowledge of MGT 345 course concepts, theories, and content to the case study, using the IDEA framework for guidance (see posting in Blackboard). **NOTE: To highlight your course concepts/terms/ideas/models, please use BOLD text the first time you introduce them in your response.** • communicate in a clear, organized manner that flows logically – you can use subheadings to help transition from topic to topic, if desired. • demonstrate good writing mechanics—that is, writing which is free from grammatical, spelling, punctuation, referencing, and syntactical errors. GOOD LUCK!! RUANE Page 1 SPRING 2021 MGT 345 Case Study ANALYZING YOUR OWN CASE STUDY I have been so impressed with your stories and reflections during our class discussions on your own employment and/or organizational membership that I have decided to design the Case Study around what you know best: your own life experience! To that end, I would like you to choose and focus on a specific organization you are/were involved with in some capacity (i.e. as a paid employee, volunteer, member, etc.) for your case study. The Scenario: Please think about either a specific incident/event, or perhaps a more general problem or issue that you experienced during your involvement with the organization. While in reality you may or may not still be connected with the organization, imagine that the organization’s leadership has reached out to you to act as a consultant (you’re flying solo now!). They found out that you have been studying Organizational Analysis & Change Management (OACM), and you have been developing your critical thinking and analytical skills. They have therefore requested your expert skills and knowledge in the area of OACM to help them understand what has happened/is happening in the organization, and importantly, how to move forward. The Report: Here are the following sections/information you need to provide in your report to the client organization: 1. The Case Study/Story Begin by telling the story about what happened/is happening in your organization. While you are writing it in the form of a story, you do need provide sufficient background so that the reader will appreciate the issues at hand. Therefore, make sure to think about how to address and include important details and information somewhere in your story, for instance: • What is the organization? What’s its purpose? • What is your relationship/role within the organization? • Who are the key people involved? What are their roles? • If a specific event or incident: What happened? When? Where? How? What were the some of the outcomes/consequences? How is it affecting the organization (i.e. operations, its people, etc.). What is the current status? • If a more general problem or issue: What’s going on? What factors led to this problem? What are the outcomes/consequences of it? How is it affecting the organization (i.e. operations, its people, etc.). What is the current status? RUANE Page 2 SPRING 2021 MGT 345 Case Study 2. Your Multi-Frame Analysis To perform a multi-frame analysis for your case study, please do the following: • To introduce your analysis, please provide a few sentences where you identify and briefly describe, in plain terms, the major problem or challenge that the organization should address. In other words, this is what YOU have identified as the major problem that they need your assistance to resolve. • Next, you should apply ALL FOUR of the theoretical frames to the problem, using that frame’s concepts/theories to analyze and explain the underlying causes. Working ONE frame at a time, discuss the problem from that frame’s perspective. To discuss the problem, you must identify, define, and apply at least ONE theory/concept/model from that particular frame. To highlight your concepts, please use bold text the first time you mention them. (Remember, the IDEA model as a guideline) • Repeat the above step for the three other theoretical frames. So, IN TOTAL, you need to analyze the major problem from ALL FOUR frames, and apply a total of AT LEAST FOUR different concepts/theories/models (i.e. one from each frame). • Remember, while the problem may at first appear as purely “structural” or “political” in nature, your task is to Case studyine the problem more holistically from different theoretical perspectives, attempting to expose its multi-dimensional and complex character. • To kickstart your thinking for the analysis, you may refer to Exhibit 15.1 in Reframing Organizations (also included in Chapter #15 PowerPoint), which summarizes how some common organizational processes and activities are interpreted from the four different theoretical frames. 3. Recommendations & Action Plan for Change Assuming that it’s not too late to address or solve the problem, you will now offer your client some recommendations and an action plan for making the needed changes. For EACH theoretical frame, offer some practical recommendations to address the problem. You should be creative with your solutions, but try to justify why you believe they will work. To implement the Recommendations successfully, you should also offer an Action Plan that will help them deal with the changes – especially any resistance that might arise from organizational members. To do this, please refer to Kotter’s Model of Effective Change (Exhibit 18.2 in textbook and Chapter #18 PPT). For EACH theoretical frame, please identify, define and discuss ONE of Kotter’s techniques that can be used to facilitate the change. To highlight your concepts, please use bold text the first time you mention them. Finally, make sure to explain how this specific action will assist in or is important to the overall change needed in the client organization. RUANE Page 3 SPRING 2021 CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PART ONE: Making Sense of Organizations chapter 1: Introduction Virtues and Drawbacks of Organized Activity FRAMING CONCLUSION chapter 2: Simple Ideas, Complex Organizations COMMON FALLACIES IN EXPLAINING ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS PECULIARITIES OF ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING COPING WITH AMBIGUITY AND COMPLEXITY CONCLUSION PART TWO: The Structural Frame chapter 3: Getting Organized STRUCTURAL ASSUMPTIONS ORIGINS OF THE STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE STRUCTURAL FORMS AND FUNCTIONS BASIC STRUCTURAL TENSIONS VERTICAL COORDINATION LATERAL COORDINATION DESIGNING A STRUCTURE THAT WORKS CONCLUSION chapter 4: Structure and Restructuring STRUCTURAL DILEMMAS STRUCTURAL CONFIGURATIONS GENERIC ISSUES IN RESTRUCTURING CONCLUSION chapter 5: Organizing Groups and Teams TASKS AND LINKAGES IN SMALL GROUPS TEAMWORK AND INTERDEPENDENCE DETERMINANTS OF SUCCESSFUL TEAMWORK TEAM STRUCTURE AND TOP PERFORMANCE SELF-MANAGING TEAMS: STRUCTURE OF THE FUTURE? CONCLUSION PART THREE: The Human Resource Frame chapter 6: People and Organizations HUMAN RESOURCE ASSUMPTIONS WORK AND MOTIVATION: A BRIEF TOUR HUMAN CAPACITY AND THE CHANGING EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT CONCLUSION 2 chapter 7: Improving Human Resource Management GETTING IT RIGHT GETTING THERE: TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT CONCLUSION chapter 8: Interpersonal and Group Dynamics INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS MANAGEMENT STYLES GROUPS AND TEAMS IN ORGANIZATIONS CONCLUSION PART FOUR: The Political Frame chapter 9: Power, Conflict, and Coalition POLITICAL ASSUMPTIONS ORGANIZATIONS AS COALITIONS POWER AND DECISION MAKING CONFLICT IN ORGANIZATIONS MORAL MAZES: THE POLITICS OF GETTING AHEAD CONCLUSION chapter 10: The Manager as Politician POLITICAL SKILLS MORALITY AND POLITICS CONCLUSION chapter 11: Organizations as Political Arenas and Political Agents ORGANIZATIONS AS ARENAS ORGANIZATIONS AS POLITICAL AGENTS POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF ECOSYSTEMS CONCLUSION PART FIVE: The Symbolic Frame chapter 12: Organizational Symbols and Culture SYMBOLIC ASSUMPTIONS ORGANIZATIONAL SYMBOLS ORGANIZATIONS AS CULTURES CONCLUSION chapter 13: Culture in Action THE EAGLE GROUP’S SOURCES OF SUCCESS CONCLUSION chapter 14: Organization as Theater DRAMATURGICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL THEORY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AS THEATER ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS AS THEATER CONCLUSION PART SIX: Improving Leadership Practice chapter 15: Integrating Frames for Effective Practice LIFE AS MANAGERS KNOW IT ACROSS FRAMES: ORGANIZATIONS AS MULTIPLE REALITIES MATCHING FRAMES TO SITUATIONS EFFECTIVE MANAGERS AND ORGANIZATIONS MANAGERS’ FRAME PREFERENCES CONCLUSION 3 chapter 16: Reframing in Action BENEFITS AND RISKS OF REFRAMING REFRAMING FOR NEWCOMERS AND OUTSIDERS CONCLUSION chapter 17: Reframing Leadership LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS: A BRIEF HISTORY EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF LEADERSHIP WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT GOOD LEADERSHIP? CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP GENDER AND LEADERSHIP REFRAMING LEADERSHIP CONCLUSION chapter 18: Reframing Change in Organizations THE INNOVATION PROCESS CHANGE, TRAINING, AND PARTICIPATION CHANGE AND STRUCTURAL REALIGNMENT CHANGE AND CONFLICT CHANGE AND LOSS CHANGE STRATEGY CONCLUSION chapter 19: Reframing Ethics and Spirit SOUL AND SPIRIT IN ORGANIZATIONS CONCLUSION chapter 20: Bringing It All Together ROBERT F. KENNEDY HIGH SCHOOL STRUCTURAL ISSUES AND OPTIONS HUMAN RESOURCE ISSUES AND OPTIONS POLITICAL ISSUES AND OPTIONS SYMBOLIC ISSUES AND OPTIONS A FOUR-FRAME APPROACH CONCLUSION: THE REFRAMING PROCESS chapter 21: Epilogue COMMITMENT TO CORE BELIEFS MULTIFRAME THINKING APPENDIX: THE BEST OF ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY THE AUTHORS NAME INDEX SUBJECT INDEX End User License Agreement 4 List of Illustrations Exhibit 1.1. Overview of the Four-Frame Model. Exhibit 1.2. Expanding Managerial Thinking. Exhibit 2.1. Sources of Ambiguity. Exhibit 2.2. Systems Model with Delay. Exhibit 3.1. Basic Structural Options. Exhibit 3.2. Structural Imperatives. Exhibit 4.1. Mintzberg’s Model. Exhibit 4.2. Simple Structure. Exhibit 4.3. Machine Bureaucracy. Exhibit 4.4. Professional Bureaucracy. Exhibit 4.5. Divisionalized Form. Exhibit 4.6. Adhocracy. Exhibit 5.1. One Boss. Exhibit 5.2. Dual Authority. Exhibit 5.3. Simple Hierarchy. Exhibit 5.4. Circle Network. Exhibit 5.5. All-Channel Network. Exhibit 6.1. Models of Motivation at Work. Exhibit 6.2. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Exhibit 7.1. Basic Human Resource Strategies. Exhibit 8.1. Model I Theory-in-Use. Exhibit 8.2. Advocacy and Inquiry. Exhibit 10.1. The Political Map as Seen by the Techies: Strong Support and Weak Opposition for Change. Exhibit 10.2. The Real Political Map: A Battleground with Strong Players on Both Sides. Exhibit 15.1. Four Interpretations of Organizational Processes. Exhibit 15.2. Choosing a Frame. Exhibit 15.3. Characteristics of Excellent or Visionary Companies. Exhibit 15.4. Challenges in Managers’ Jobs. Exhibit 17.1. History of Quantitative-Analytic Leadership Research. Exhibit 17.2. Situational Leadership Model. Exhibit 17.3. GLOBE Country Clusters. Exhibit 18.1. Reframing Organizational Change. Exhibit 18.2. Reframing Kotter’s Change Stages. Exhibit 19.1. Reframing Ethics. Exhibit 20.1. Reframing Robert F. Kennedy High School. Exhibit A.1. Top 20 “Scholars’ Hits” from Citation Analysis. 5 6 7 8 An updated online Instructor’s Guide with Your Leadership Orientations Self-Assessment is available at www.wiley.com/college/bolman The Instructor’s Guide includes: Chapter-by-chapter notes and teaching suggestions Sample syllabi and support materials Case suggestions Video suggestions Your Leadership Orientations Self-Assessment 9 Reframing Organizations 10 Artistry, Choice, and Leadership 5th EDITION Lee G. Bolman Terrence E. Deal 11 Cover design by Adrian Morgan Cover art © Shutterstock (RF) Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Brand One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104-4594—www.josseybass.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Part One epigraph, poem, “Journeys Through the Windows of Perception”: Reprinted by permission of the poet, Gian Torrano Jacobs. Ch. 3, Edmondson text excerpts: From G. Edmondson,“BMW’s Dream Factory.” Business Week, October 16, 2006, pp. 70-80. Copyright © 2006 McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Figures 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6: From H. Mintzberg, Structuring of Organizations, 1st Edition. Copyright © 1979. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ. Exhibit 6.2: From Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow by Chip Conley. Copyright © 2007 by Chip Conley. Published by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers. Used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Ch. 6 Hamper text excerpts: From Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line by Ben Hamper. Copyright © 1991 by Ben Hamper. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. Ch. 7 Gunther text excerpt: From M. Gunther, “Queer Inc. How Corporate American Fell in Love with Gays and Lesbians. It’s a Movement.” Fortune, December 11, 2006, pp. 94-110. Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. Ch. 11 Fishman text excerpts: From C. Fishman, “The Wal-Mart Effect and a Decent Society: Who Knew Shopping Was So Important.” Academy of Management Perspectives, August, 2006, pp. 6-27. Copyright © 2006 Academy of Management. Ch. 13 Kidder text excerpts: From The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. Copyright © 1981 by John Tracy Kidder. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, Inc. Ch. 15 Carlin text excerpt: From J. Carlin, “How Nelson Mandela won the Rugby World Cup.” The Telegraph (London, UK), October 19, 2007. Reprinted with permission. Exhibit 17.3: Adapted from Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies, Edited by R .J. House, P .J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman, and V. Gupta. Copyright © 2004 by Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission. Ch. 17 Hoge text excerpt: From W. Hoge, “Crashing, and Saving, the Old Lad’s Front Office,” New York Times, September 14, 2002, p. A14. Copyright © 2002 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted by permission. Ch. 20, Harvard Business School case study materials: From Harvard Business School case study, copyright © 1974 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Harvard Business Case #9-474-183. This case was prepared by J. Gabarro as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business School. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bolman, Lee G. Reframing organizations : artistry, choice, and leadership / Lee G. Bolman, Terrence E. Deal.—Fifth edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-118-55738-9 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-57333-4 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-57323-5 (pdf); ISBN 978-1-118-57331-0 (epub) 1. Management. 2. Organizational behavior. 3. Leadership. I. Deal, Terrence E. II. Title. HD31.B6135 2013 658.4′063—dc23 2013016244 fifth edition HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 13 PREFACE This is the sixth release of a work that began in 1984 as Modern Approaches to Understanding and Managing Organizations and became Reframing Organizations in 1991. We’re grateful to readers around the world who have told us that our books gave them ideas that make a difference—at work and elsewhere in their lives. It is again time for an update, and we’re gratified to be back by popular demand. Like everything else, organizations and their leadership challenges continue to change rapidly, and both scholars and leaders are running hard to keep up. This edition tries to capture the current frontiers of both knowledge and art. The four-frame model, with its view of organizations as factories, families, jungles, and temples, remains the book’s conceptual heart. But we have incorporated new research and revised our case examples extensively to keep up with the latest developments. We have updated a feature we inaugurated in the third edition: “greatest hits in organization studies.” These feature pithy summaries of key ideas from the some of the most influential works in the scholarly literature (as indicated by a citation analysis, described in the Appendix at the end of the book). As a counterpoint to the scholarly works, we have also included occasional summaries of recent management bestsellers. Scholarly and professional literature often run on separate tracks, but the two streams together provide a fuller picture than either alone, and we have tried to capture the best of both in our work. Life in organizations has produced many new examples, and there is new material throughout the book. At the same time, we worked zealously to minimize bloat by tracking down and expunging every redundant sentence, marginal concept, or extraneous example. The result is a volume that’s a bit slimmer than its predecessor. We’ve also tried to keep it fun. Collective life is an endless source of examples as entertaining as they are instructive, and we’ve sprinkled them throughout the text. We apologize to anyone who finds that an old favorite fell to the cutting-room floor, but we hope readers will find the book an even clearer and more efficient read. As always, our primary audience is managers and leaders. We have tried to answer the question, What do we know about organizations and leadership that is genuinely relevant and useful to practitioners as well as scholars? We have worked to present a large, complex body of theory, research, and practice as clearly and simply as possible. We tried to avoid watering it down or presenting simplistic views of how to solve managerial problems. Our goal is to offer not solutions but powerful and provocative ways of thinking about opportunities and pitfalls. We continue to focus on both management and leadership. Leading and managing are different, but they’re equally important. The difference is nicely summarized in an aphorism from Bennis and Nanus: “Managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing.” If an organization is overmanaged but underled, it eventually loses any sense of spirit or purpose. A poorly managed organization with a strong, charismatic leader may soar briefly—only to crash shortly thereafter. Malpractice can be as damaging and unethical for managers and leaders as for physicians. Myopic managers or overzealous leaders usually harm more than just themselves. The challenges of today’s organizations require the objective perspective of managers as well as the brilliant flashes of creativity that wise leadership provides. We need more people in managerial roles who can find simplicity and order amid organizational confusion and chaos. We need versatile and flexible leaders who are artists as well as analysts, who can reframe experience to discover new issues and possibilities. We need managers who love their work, their organizations, and the people whose lives they affect. We need leaders and managers who appreciate management as a moral and ethical undertaking. We need leaders who combine hard-headed realism with passionate commitment to larger values and purposes. We hope to encourage and nurture such qualities and possibilities. As in the past, we have tried to produce a clear and readable synthesis and integration of the field’s major theoretical traditions. We concentrate mainly on organization theory’s implications for practice. We draw on examples from every sector and around the globe. Historically, organization studies have been divided into several intellectual camps, often isolated from one another. Works that seek to give a comprehensive overview of organization theory and research often drown in social science jargon and abstraction and have little to say to practitioners. We try to find a balance between misleading oversimplification and mind-boggling complexity. 14 The bulk of work in organization theory has focused on the private or public or nonprofit sector, but not all three. We think this is a mistake. Managers need to understand similarities and differences among all types of organizations. All three sectors increasingly interpenetrate one another. Public administrators who regulate airlines, nuclear power plants, or pharmaceutical companies face the problem of “indirect management” every day. They struggle to influence the behavior of organizations over which they have very limited authority. Private firms need to manage relationships with multiple levels of government. The situation is even more complicated for managers in multinational companies coping with the subtleties of governments with very different systems and traditions. Around the world, voluntary and nongovernment organizations partner with business and government to address major social and economic challenges. Across sectors and cultures, managers often harbor narrow, stereotypic conceptions of one another that impede effectiveness on all sides. We need common ground and a shared understanding that can help strengthen organizations in every sector. The dialogue between public and private, domestic and multinational organizations has become increasingly important. Because of their generic application, the four frames offer an ecumenical language for the exchange. Our work with a variety of organizations around the world has continually reinforced our confidence that the frames are relevant everywhere. Political and symbolic issues, for example, are universally important, even though the specifics vary greatly from one country or culture to another. The idea of reframing continues to be a central theme. Throughout the book, we show how the same situation can be viewed in at least four ways. In Part Six, we include a series of chapters on reframing critical organizational issues such as leadership, change, and ethics. Two chapters are specifically devoted to reframing real-life situations. We also continue to emphasize artistry. Overemphasizing the rational and technical side of an organization often contributes to its decline or demise. Our counterbalance emphasizes the importance of art in both management and leadership. Artistry is neither exact nor precise; the artist interprets experience, expressing it in forms that can be felt, understood, and appreciated. Art fosters emotion, subtlety, and ambiguity. An artist represents the world to give us a deeper understanding of what is and what might be. In modern organizations, quality, commitment, and creativity are highly valued but often hard to find. They can be developed and encouraged by leaders or managers who embrace the expressive side of their work. 15 OUTLINE OF THE BOOK The first part of the book, “Making Sense of Organizations,” tackles a perplexing question about management: Why is it that smart people so often do dumb things? Chapter One, “The Power of Reframing,” explains why: Managers often misread situations. They have not learned how to use multiple lenses to get a better sense of what they’re up against and what they might do. Chapter Two, “Simple Ideas, Complex Organizations,” uses famous cases (such as 9/11) to show how managers’ everyday thinking and theories can lead to catastrophe. We explain basic factors that make organizational life complicated, ambiguous, and unpredictable; discuss common fallacies in managerial thinking; and spell out criteria for more effective approaches to diagnosis and action. Part Two, “The Structural Frame,” explores the key role that social architecture plays in the functioning of organizations. Chapter Three, “Getting Organized,” describes basic issues that managers must consider in designing structure to fit an organization’s goals, tasks, and context. It demonstrates why organizations—from Amazon to McDonald’s to Harvard University—need different structures in order to be effective in their unique environments. Chapter Four, “Structure and Restructuring,” explains major structural pathologies and pitfalls. It presents guidelines for aligning structures to situations, along with cases illustrating successful structural change. Chapter Five, “Organizing Groups and Teams,” shows that structure is a key to high-performing teams. Part Three, “The Human Resource Frame,” explores the properties of both people and organizations, and what happens when the two intersect. Chapter Six, “People and Organizations,” focuses on the relationship between organizations and human nature. It shows how a manager’s practices and assumptions about people can lead either to alienation and hostility or to commitment and high motivation. It contrasts two strategies for achieving effectiveness: “lean and mean,” or investing in people. Chapter Seven, “Improving Human Resource Management,” is an overview of practices that build a more motivated and committed workforce—including participative management, job enrichment, self-managing workgroups, management of diversity, and organization development. Chapter Eight, “Interpersonal and Group Dynamics,” presents an example of interpersonal conflict to illustrate how managers can enhance or undermine relationships. It also discusses how group members can increase their effectiveness by attending to group process, including informal norms and roles, interpersonal conflict, leadership, and decision making. Part Four, “The Political Frame,” views organizations as arenas. Individuals and groups compete to achieve their parochial interests in a world of conflicting viewpoints, scarce resources, and struggles for power. Chapter Nine, “Power, Conflict, and Coalition,” analyzes the tragic loss of the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger, illustrating the influence of political dynamics in decision making. It shows how scarcity and diversity lead to conflict, bargaining, and games of power; the chapter also distinguishes constructive and destructive political dynamics. Chapter Ten, “Th e Manager as Politician,” uses leadership examples from an NGO in India and a software development effort at Microsoft to illustrate basic skills of the constructive politician: diagnosing political realities, setting agendas, building networks, negotiating, and making choices that are both effective and ethical. Chapter Eleven, “Organizations as Political Arenas and Political Agents,” highlights organizations as both arenas for political contests and political actors influencing broader social, political, and economic trends. Case examples such as Wal-Mart and Ross Johnson explore political dynamics both inside and outside organizations. Part Five explores the symbolic frame. Chapter Twelve, “Organizational Symbols and Culture,” spells out basic symbolic elements in organizations: myths, heroes, metaphors, stories, humor, play, rituals, and ceremonies. It defines organizational culture and shows its central role in shaping performance. The power of symbol and culture is illustrated in cases as diverse as the U.S. Congress, Nordstrom department stores, the Air Force, Zappos, and an odd horse race in Italy. Chapter Thirteen, “Culture in Action,” uses the case of a computer development team to show what leaders and group members can do collectively to build a culture that bonds people in pursuit of a shared mission. Initiation rituals, specialized language, group stories, humor and play, and ceremonies all combine to transform diverse individuals into a cohesive team with purpose, spirit, and soul. Chapter Fourteen, “Organization as Theater,” draws on dramaturgical and institutional theory to reveal how organizational structures, activities, and events serve as secular dramas, expressing our fears and joys, arousing our emotions, kindling our spirit, and anchoring our sense of meaning. It also shows how organizational structures and processes—such as planning, evaluation, and decision 16 making—are often more important for what they express than for what they accomplish. Part Six, “Improving Leadership Practice,” focuses on the implications of the frames for central issues in managerial practice, including leadership, change, and ethics. Chapter Fifteen, “Integrating Frames for Effective Practice,” shows how managers can blend the frames to improve their effectiveness. It looks at organizations as multiple realities and gives guidelines for aligning frames with situations. Chapter Sixteen, “Reframing in Action,” presents four scenarios, or scripts, derived from the frames. It applies the scenarios to the harrowing experience of a young manager whose first day in a new job turns out to be far more challenging than she expected. The discussion illustrates how leaders can expand their options and enhance their effectiveness by considering alternative approaches. Chapter Seventeen, “Reframing Leadership,” discusses limitations in traditional views of leadership and proposes a more comprehensive view of how leadership works in organizations. It summarizes and critiques current knowledge on the characteristics of leaders, including the relationship of leadership to culture and gender. It shows how frames generate distinctive images of effective leaders as architects, servants, advocates, and prophets. Chapter Eighteen, “Reframing Change in Organizations,” describes four fundamental issues that arise in any change effort: individual needs and skills, structural realignment, political conflict, and existential loss. It uses cases of successful and unsuccessful change to document key strategies, such as training, realigning, creating arenas, and using symbol and ceremony. Chapter Nineteen, “Reframing Ethics and Spirit,” discusses four ethical mandates that emerge from the frames: excellence, caring, justice, and faith. It argues that leaders can build more ethical organizations through gifts of authorship, love, power, and significance. Chapter Twenty, “Bringing It All Together,” is an integrative treatment of the reframing process. It takes a troubled school administrator through a weekend of reflection on critical difficulties he faces. The chapter shows how reframing can help managers move from feeling confused and stuck to discovering a renewed sense of clarity and confidence. The Epilogue (Chapter Twenty-One) describes strategies and characteristics needed in future leaders. It explains why they will need an artistic combination of conceptual flexibility and commitment to core values. Efforts to prepare future leaders have to focus as much on spiritual as on intellectual development. 17 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We noted in our first edition, “Book writing often feels like a lonely process, even when an odd couple is doing the writing.” This odd couple keeps getting older (both over seventy) and, some would say, even odder and grumpier. Yet the process seems less lonely because of our close friendship and our contact with many other colleagues and friends. The best thing about teaching is that you learn so much from your students. Students at Harvard, Vanderbilt, the University of Missouri–Kansas City, the University of La Verne, and the University of Southern California have given us invaluable criticism, challenge, and support over the years. We’re also grateful to the many readers who have responded to our invitation to write and ask questions or share comments. They have helped us write a better book. (The invitation is still open—our contact information is in “The Authors.”) We wish we could personally thank all of the leaders and managers who helped us learn in seminars, workshops, and consultations. Their knowledge and wisdom are the foundation and touchstone for our work. We would like to thank all the colleagues and readers in the United States and around the world who have offered valuable comments and suggestions, but the list is very long and our memories keep getting shorter. Bob Marx, of the University of Massachusetts, deserves special mention as a charter member of the frames family. Bob’s interest in the frames, creativity in developing teaching designs, and eye for video material have aided our thinking and teaching immensely. Elena Granell de Aldaz of the Institute for Advanced Study of Management in Caracas collaborated with us on developing a Spanish-language adaptation of Reframing Organizations as well as on a more recent project that studied frame orientations among managers in Venezuela. We are proud to consider her a valued colleague and wonderful friend. Captain Gary Deal, USN; Maj. Kevin Reed, USAF; Dr. Peter Minich, a transplant surgeon; and Jan and Ron Haynes of FzioMed all provided valuable case material. Terry Dunn of JE Dunn in Kansas City has been both a friend and an inspiring model of valuesbased leadership. The late Peter Frost of the University of British Columbia continues to inspire our work. Peter Vaill of the Antioch Graduate School; Kent Peterson, University of Wisconsin at Madison; both Sharon Conley and Patrick Faverty, University of California at Santa Barbara; and Roy Williams are continuing sources of ideas and support. A number of individuals, including many friends and colleagues at the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference, have given us helpful ideas and suggestions. We apologize for any omissions, but we want to thank Anke Arnaud, Carole K. Barnett, Max Elden, Kent Fairfield, Ellen Harris, Olivier Hermanus, Jim Hodge, Earlene Holland, Scott Johnson, Mark Kriger, Hyoungbae Lee, Larry Levine, Mark Maier, Magid Mazen, Thomas P. Nydegger, Dave O’Connell, Lynda St. Clair, Mabel Tinjacá, Susan Twombly, and Pat Villeneuve. We only wish we had succeeded in implementing all the wonderful ideas we received from these and other colleagues. Lee is grateful to all his Bloch School colleagues, and particularly to Nancy Day, Pam Dobies, Dave Donnelly, Dick Heimovics, Bob Herman, Doranne Hudson, Jae Jung, Tusha Kimber, Sandra KruseSmith, Rong Ma, Brent Never, Roger Pick, Stephen Pruitt, David Renz, Will Self, Marilyn Taylor, and Bob Waris. Terry’s colleagues Carl Cohn, Stu Gothald, and Gib Hentschke of the University of Southern California have offered both intellectual stimulation and moral support. Terry’s recent (2013) team-teaching venture with President Devorah Lieberman and Prof. Jack Meek of the University of La Verne showed what’s possible when conventional boundaries are trespassed in a class of aspiring undergraduate leaders. This experience led to the founding of the Terrence E. Deal Leadership Institute. Others to whom our debt is particularly clear are Chris Argyris, Sam Bacharach, Cliff Baden, Margaret Benefiel, Estella Bensimon, Bob Birnbaum, Barbara Bunker, Tom Burks, Ellen Castro, Carlos Cortés, Linton Deck, Dave Fuller, Jim Honan, Tom Johnson, Bob Kegan, James March, Grady McGonagill, Judy McLaughlin, John Meyer, Kevin Nichols, Harrison Owen, Regina Pacheco, Donna Redman, Peggy Redman, Michael Sales, Dick Scott, Joan Vydra, Karl Weick, Roy Williams, and Joe Zolner. Thanks again to Dave Brown, Phil Mirvis, Barry Oshry, Tim Hall, Bill Kahn, and Todd Jick of the Brookline Circle, now in its fourth decade of searching for joy and meaning in lives devoted to the study of organizations. We wrapped up the manuscript in a return visit to the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix. As always, the staff there made us feel more than welcome and exemplified the Ritz-Carlton tradition of superlative service. Thanks to Grant Dipman, Jean Hengst, Sharon Krull, Joshua Leveque, Rosa Melgoza, Marta Ortiz, Jean Wright, and their colleagues. 18 Outside the United States, we are grateful to Poul Erik Mouritzen in Denmark; Rolf Kaelin, Cüno Pumpin, and Peter Weisman in Switzerland; Ilpo Linko in Finland; Tom Case in Brazil; Einar Plyhn and Haakon Gran in Norway; Peter Normark and Dag Bjorkegren in Sweden; Ching-Shiun Chung in Taiwan; Helen Gluzdakova and Anastasia Vitkovskaya in Russia; and H.R.H. Prince Philipp von und zu Lichtenstein. Closer to home, Lee also owes more than he can say to Bruce Kay, whose genial and unflappable approach to work, coupled with high levels of organization and follow-through, have all had a wonderfully positive impact since he took on the challenge of bringing a modicum of order and sanity to Lee’s professional functioning. We also continue to be grateful for the long-term support and friendship of Linda Corey, our long-time resident representative at Harvard, and the irrepressible Homa Aminmadani, who now lives in Teheran. The couples of the Edna Ranch Vintners Guild—the Pecatores, Donners, Hayneses, and Andersons— link efforts with Terry in exploring the ups, downs, and mysteries of the art and science of wine making. Two professional wine makers, Romeo “Meo” Zuech of Piedra Creek Winery and Brett Escalera of Consilience and TresAnelli, offer advice that applies to leadership as well as wine making. Meo reminds us, “Never over-manage your grapes,” and Brett prefaces answers to all questions with “It all depends.” We’re delighted to be well into the fourth decade of our partnership with Jossey-Bass. We’re grateful to the many friends who have helped us over the years, including Bill Henry, Steve Piersanti, Lynn Lychow, Bill Hicks, Debra Hunter, Cedric Crocker, Byron Schneider, and many others. In recent years, Kathe Sweeney has been a wonderful editor and even better friend, and we’re delighted to be working with her again. Kathleen Dolan Davies and Alina Poniewaz have done vital and muchappreciated work backstage in helping to get all the pieces together and keep the process moving forward. We received many valuable suggestions from a diverse, knowledgeable, and talented team of outside reviewers. We did not succeed in implementing all of their many excellent ideas, and they did not always agree among themselves, but the manuscript benefited in many ways from their input. Lee’s six children—Edward, Shelley, Lori, Scott, Christopher, and Bradley—and three grandchildren (James, Jazmyne, and Foster) all continue to enrich his life and contribute to his growth. Terry’s daughter Janie, a chef, has a rare talent of almost magically transforming simple ingredients into fine cuisine. Special mention also goes to Terry’s deceased parents, Bob and Dorothy Deal. Both lived long enough to be pleasantly surprised that their oft-wayward son could write a book. We again dedicate the book to our wives, who have more than earned all the credit and appreciation that we can give them. Joan Gallos, Lee’s spouse and closest colleague, combines intellectual challenge and critique with support and love. She has been an active collaborator in developing our ideas, and her teaching manual for previous editions was a frame-breaking model for the genre. Her contributions have become so integrated into our own thinking that we are no longer able to thank her for all the ways that the book has gained from her wisdom and insights. Sandy Deal’s psychological training enables her to approach the field of organizations with a distinctive and illuminating slant. Her successful practice produces examples that have helped us make some even stronger connections to the concepts of clinical psychology. She is one of the most gifted diagnosticians in the field, as well as a delightful partner whose love and support over the long run have made all the difference. She is a rare combination of courage and caring, intimacy and independence, responsibility and playfulness. To Joan and Sandy, thanks again. As the years accumulate, we love you even more. May 2013 Lee G. Bolman Brookline, Massachusetts Terrence E. Deal San Luis Obispo, California 19 20 PART ONE 21 Making Sense of Organizations Sit no longer at your dusty window I urge you to break the gaze from your oh so cherished glass —Gian Torrano Jacobs Journeys Through the Windows of Perception 22 chapter 1 Introduction The Power of Reframing Steve Jobs had to fail before he could succeed. Fail he did. He was fired from Apple Computer, the company he founded, and spent eleven years “in the wilderness” (Schlender, 2004). During this time of reflection he discovered capacities as a leader—and human being—that set the stage for his triumphant second act at Apple. He failed initially for the same reason that countless managers stumble: he was operating on a limited understanding of leadership and organizations. He was always a brilliant and charismatic product visionary. That enabled him to take Apple from startup to major computer vendor, but didn’t equip him to lead Apple to its next phase. Being fired was painful, but Jobs later concluded that it was the best thing that ever happened to him. “It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.” During his period of self-reflection, he kept busy. He focused on Pixar, a company he bought for $10 million, and on NeXT, a new computer company that he founded. One succeeded and the other didn’t, but he learned from both. Pixar became so successful it made Jobs a billionaire. NeXT never made money, but it developed technology that proved vital when Jobs was recalled from the wilderness to save Apple from a death spiral. His experiences at NeXT and Pixar provided two vital lessons. One was the importance of aligning an organization with its mission. He understood more clearly that he needed a great company to build great products. Lesson two was about people. Jobs had always understood the importance of talent, but now he had a much better appreciation for the importance of relationships and teamwork. Jobs’s character did not change during his wilderness years. The Steve Jobs who returned to Apple in 1997 was much like the human paradox fired twelve years earlier—demanding and charismatic, charming and infuriating, erratic and focused, opinionated and receptive. The difference was in how he thought, how he interpreted what was going on around him, and how he led. To his long-time gifts as magician and warrior, he had added newfound capacities as organizational architect and team builder. Shortly after his return, he radically simplified Apple’s product line, built a loyal and talented leadership team, and turned his old company into a hit-making machine as reliable as Pixar. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad made Jobs the world’s most admired chief executive, and Apple passed Exxon Mobil to become the world’s most valuable company. His success in building an organization and a leadership team was validated as Apple’s business results continued to impress after his death in October 2011. Steve Jobs is like many other execs who seem to have it all until they lose it—except that many never get it back. Take the remarkable rise and fall of Rajat Gupta, who immigrated to the United States, graduated from the Harvard Business School, and rose to become head of the global consulting firm McKinsey and Company. After he retired from McKinsey, he joined the boards of prestigious companies like Procter & Gamble and Goldman, Sachs. He was one of America’s most respected businessmen—until 2012, when he was convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud for leaking Goldman boardroom secrets to a billionaire hedge fund manager. His former McKinsey associates found it hard to fathom: “McKinsey’s core business principle is to guard the confidential and private information of its clients,” said a former McKinsey executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It is mindblowing that the guy who ran the firm for so many years could be going to jail for violating that principle” (Lattman and Ahmed, 2012). Gupta and Jobs were both brilliant men who accomplished extraordinary things. But each descended into a period of cluelessness, becoming so cocooned in his own world view that he couldn’t see other options. That’s what it means to be clueless. You don’t know what’s going on, but you think you do, and you don’t see better choices. So you do more of what you know, even though it’s not working. You hope in vain that if you just try harder, you’ll succeed. 23 Cluelessness is not restricted to business executives—government provides its share of examples. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Levees failed, and much of the city was underwater. Tens of thousands of people, many poor and black, found themselves stranded for days in desperate circumstances. Government agencies bumbled aimlessly, and help was slow to arrive. As Americans watched television footage of the chaos, they were stunned to hear the nation’s top disaster official, the secretary of Homeland Security, tell reporters that he “had no reports” of things viewers had seen with their own eyes. It seemed he should have relied on television news rather than his own agency. Americans were even more astounded when, shortly after the secretary’s misspeak, President Bush, touring the destruction, descended from Air Force One, slapped the Homeland Security official in charge at the scene on the back, and told him “You’re doing a hell of a job, Brownie!” Doesn’t anyone get it? Steve Jobs, Rajat Gupta, and President Bush represent only a few examples of a chronic challenge: how to know whether you’re getting the right picture or tuning in to the wrong channel. Managers often fail this test. Cluelessness is a fact of life, even for very smart people. Sometimes the information they need is fuzzy or hard to get. Other times they get bad information from advisors or ignore or misinterpret information they receive. Leaders too often lock themselves into flawed ways of making sense of their circumstances. In the discussion that follows, we explore the origins and symptoms of cluelessness. We introduce reframing—the conceptual core of the book and our basic prescription for sizing things up. Reframing requires an ability to think about situations in more than one way, which lets you develop alternative diagnoses and strategies. We introduce four distinct lenses or frames—structural, human resource, political, and symbolic—each logical and powerful in its own right. Together, they help us decipher the full array of significant clues, capturing a more comprehensive picture of what’s going on and what to do. 24 VIRTUES AND DRAWBACKS OF ORGANIZED ACTIVITY There was little need for professional managers when individuals mostly managed their own affairs, drawing goods and services from family farms and small local businesses. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution some two hundred years ago, explosive technological and social changes have produced a world that is far more interconnected, frantic, and complicated. Humans struggle to avoid drowning in complexity that continually threatens to pull them in over their heads (Kegan, 1998). Forms of management and organization effective a few years ago are now obsolete. Sérieyx (1993) calls it the organizational big bang: “The information revolution, the globalization of economies, the proliferation of events that undermine all our certainties, the collapse of the grand ideologies, the arrival of the CNN society which transforms us into an immense, planetary village— all these shocks have overturned the rules of the game and suddenly turned yesterday’s organizations into antiques” (pp. 14–15). The proliferation of complex organizations has made most human activities more formalized than they once were. We grow up in families and then start our own. We work for business, government, or non-profits. We learn in schools and universities. We worship in synagogues, churches, and mosques. We play sports in teams, franchises, and leagues. We join clubs and associations. Many of us will grow old and die in hospitals or nursing homes. We build these enterprises because of what they can do for us. They offer goods, entertainment, social services, health care, and almost everything else that we use or consume. All too often, however, we experience a darker side of these formal enterprises. Organizations can frustrate and exploit people. Too often, products are flawed, families are dysfunctional, students fail to learn, patients get worse, and policies backfire. Work often has so little meaning that jobs offer nothing beyond a paycheck. If we believe mission statements and public pronouncements, every company these days aims to nurture its employees and delight its customers. But many miss the mark. Schools are blamed for social ills, universities are said to close more minds than they open, and government is criticized for corruption, red tape, and rigidity. The private sector has its own problems. Automakers reluctantly recall faulty cars. Producers of food and pharmaceuticals make people sick with tainted products. Software companies deliver bugs and “vaporware.” Industrial accidents dump chemicals, oil, toxic gas, and radioactive materials into the air and water. Too often, corporate greed, incompetence, and insensitivity create havoc for communities and individuals. The bottom line: we seem hard-pressed to manage organizations so that their virtues exceed their vices. The big question: Why? Management’s Track Record Year after year, the best and brightest managers maneuver or meander their way to the apex of enterprises great and small. Then they do really dumb things. How do bright people turn out so dim? One theory is that they’re too smart for their own good. Feinberg and Tarrant (1995) label it the “self-destructive intelligence syndrome.” They argue that smart people act stupid because of personality flaws—things like pride, arrogance, and an unconscious desire to fail. It’s true that psychological flaws have been apparent in such brilliant, self-destructive individuals as Adolph Hitler, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. But on the whole, intellectually challenged people have as many psychological problems as the best and brightest. The primary source of dimness or cluelessness, as we have labeled it, is not personality or IQ. We’re at sea whenever our sense-making efforts fail us. If our image of a situation is wrong, our actions will be wide of the mark as well. But if we don’t know we’re seeing the wrong picture, we won’t understand why we’re not getting the results we want. So we insist we’re right even when we’re off track. Vaughan (1995), in trying to unravel the causes of the 1986 disaster that destroyed the Challenger space shuttle and its crew, underscored how hard it is for people to surrender their entrenched conceptions of reality: “They puzzle over contradictory evidence, but usually succeed in pushing it aside—until they come across a piece of evidence too fascinating to ignore, too clear to misperceive, too painful to deny, which makes vivid still other signals they do not want to see, forcing them to alter and surrender the world-view they have so meticulously constructed” (p. 235). This was the struggle faced by the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers, who were the suspects in the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon. Both mother and father resisted the abundant evidence that their sons were guilty, and grasped at implausible alternative stories: their sons had been set up, or the 25 bombing was a hoax that didn’t really happen. With one son dead and the other seriously injured, they needed some way to ward off a reality too painful and devastating to accept. As mentioned earlier, when we don’t know what to do, we do more of what we know. We construct our own psychic prisons and then lock ourselves in. This helps explain a number of unsettling reports from the managerial front lines: Hogan, Curphy, and Hogan (1994) estimate that the skills of one-half to three-quarters of American managers are inadequate for the demands of their jobs. But most probably don’t realize it. Kruger and Dunning (1999) found that the less competent people are, the more they overestimate their performance, partly because they don’t know good performance when they see it. About half of the high-profile senior executives that companies hire fail within two years, according to a 2006 study (Burns and Kiley, 2007). The annual value of corporate mergers has grown more than a hundredfold since 1980, yet one study found that “83 percent of mergers were unsuccessful in producing any business benefit as regards shareholder value” (KPMG, 2000). Mergers typically benefit shareholders of the acquired firm but hurt almost everyone else—customers, employees, and, ironically, the buyers who initiated the deal. Two years after a merger, consumers on average feel that they’re paying more and getting less. Despite this dismal record, the vast majority of the managers who engineered mergers insisted they were successful (KPMG, 2000). Year after year, management miscues cause once highly successful companies to skid into bankruptcy. Examples in 2012 included Malév, the national airline of Hungary, after fifty-six years in business, and eighty-two-year-old Hostess, unable to stay afloat despite owning iconic American brands like Twinkies and Wonder Bread. Small wonder that so many organizational veterans nod in assent to Scott Adams’s admittedly unscientific “Dilbert principle”: “the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage—management” (1996, p. 14). Strategies for Improving Organizations: The Track Record We have certainly made an effort to improve organizations. Legions of managers report to work each day with that hope in mind. Authors and consultants spin out a flood of new answers and promising solutions. Policymakers develop laws and regulations to guide organizations on the right path. The most universal improvement strategy is upgrading management. Modern mythology promises that organizations will work splendidly if well managed. Managers are supposed to see the big picture and look out for their organization’s overall health and productivity. Unfortunately, they have not always been equal to the task, even when armed with computers, information systems, flowcharts, quality programs, and a panoply of the latest tools and techniques. They go forth with this rational arsenal to try to tame our wild and primitive workplaces. Yet in the end, irrational forces too often prevail. When managers find problems too hard to solve, they hire consultants. The number and variety of advice givers keeps growing. Most have a specialty: strategy, technology, quality, finance, marketing, mergers, human resource management, executive search, outplacement, coaching, organization development, and many more. For every managerial challenge, there is a consultant willing to offer assistance—at a price. For all their sage advice and remarkable fees, consultants often make little dent in problems plaguing organizations—businesses, public agencies, military services, hospitals, and schools. Sometimes the consultants are more hindrance than help, though they often lament clients’ failure to implement their profound insights. McKinsey & Co., “the high priest of high-level consulting” (Byrne, 2002a, p. 66), worked so closely with Enron that its managing partner—the same Rajat Gupta who eventually went to jail himself—sent his chief lawyer to Houston after Enron’s collapse to see if his firm might be in legal trouble.1 The lawyer reported that McKinsey was safe, and a relieved Gupta insisted bravely, “We stand by all the work we did. Beyond that, we can only empathize with the trouble they are going through. It’s a sad thing to see” (p. 68). When managers and consultants fail, government frequently responds with legislation, policies, and regulations. In earlier times, the federal government limited its formal influence to national 26 concerns such as the Homestead Act and the Post Office. Now constituents badger elected officials to “do something” about a variety of ills: pollution, dangerous products, hazardous working conditions, and chaotic schools, to name a few. Governing bodies respond by making “policy.” But policymakers often don’t understand the problem well enough to get the solution right, and a sizable body of research records a continuing saga of perverse ways in which the implementation process undermines even good solutions (Bardach, 1977; Elmore, 1978; Freudenberg and Gramling, 1994; Peters, 1999; Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). Policymakers, for example, have been trying for decades to reform U.S. public schools. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent. The result? About as successful as America’s switch to the metric system. In the 1950s Congress passed legislation mandating adoption of metric standards and measures. More than six decades later, if you know what a hectare is, or can visualize the size of a three-hundred-gram package of crackers, you’re ahead of most Americans. Legislators did not factor into their solution what it would take to get their decision implemented. In short, the difficulties surrounding improvement strategies are well documented. Exemplary intentions produce more costs than benefits. Problems outlast solutions. It is as if tens of thousands of hard-working, highly motivated pioneers keep hacking at a swamp that persistently produces new growth faster than the old can be cleared. To be sure, there are reasons for optimism. Organizations have changed about as much in recent decades as in the preceding century. To survive, they had to. Revolutionary changes in technology, the rise of the global economy, and shortened product life cycles have spawned a flurry of activity to design faster, more flexible organizational forms. New organizational models flourish in companies such as Pret à Manger (the socially conscious U.K. sandwich shops), Google (the global search giant), and Novo-Nordisk (a Danish pharmaceutical company that includes environmental and social metrics in its bottom line). The dispersed collection of enthusiasts and volunteers who provide content for Wikipedia and the far-flung network of software engineers who have developed the Linux operating system provide dramatic examples of possibilities in the digital world. But despite such successes, failures are still too common. The nagging question: How can leaders and managers improve the odds for themselves as well for their organizations? 27 FRAMING Goran Carstedt, the talented executive who led the turnaround of Volvo’s French division in the 1980s, got to the heart of a challenge managers face every day: “The world simply can’t be made sense of, facts can’t be organized, unless you have a mental model to begin with. That theory does not have to be the right one, because you can alter it along the way as information comes in. But you can’t begin to learn without some concept that gives you expectations or hypotheses” (HampdenTurner, 1992, p. 167). Such mental models have many labels—maps, mind-sets, schema, paradigms, and cognitive lenses, to name a few.2 Following the work of Goffman, Dewey, and others, we have chosen the label frames. In describing frames, we deliberately mix metaphors, referring to them as windows, maps, tools, lenses, orientations, prisms, and perspectives, because all these images capture part of the idea we want to convey. A frame is a mental model—a set of ideas and assumptions—that you carry in your head to help you understand and negotiate a particular “territory.” A good frame makes it easier to know what you are up against and, ultimately, what you can do about it. Frames are vital because organizations don’t come with computerized navigation systems to guide you turn-by-turn to your destination. Instead, managers need to develop and carry accurate maps in their heads. Such maps make it possible to register and assemble key bits of perceptual data into a coherent pattern—a picture of what’s happening. When it works fluidly, the process takes the form of “rapid cognition,” the process that Gladwell (2005) examines in his best-seller Blink. He describes it as a gift that makes it possible to read “deeply into the narrowest slivers of experience. In basketball, the player who can take in and comprehend all that is happening in the moment is said to have ‘court sense’” (p. 44). Dane and Pratt (2007) describe four key characteristics of this intuitive “blink” process: It is nonconscious—you can do it without thinking about it and without knowing how you did it. It is very fast—the process often occurs almost instantly. It is holistic—you see a coherent, meaningful pattern. It results in “affective judgments”—thought and feeling work together so you feel confident that you know what is going on and what needs to be done. The essence of this process is matching situational cues with a well-learned mental framework—a “deeply-held, nonconscious category or pattern” (Dane and Pratt, 2007, p. 37). This is the key skill that Simon and Chase (1973) found in chess masters—they could instantly recognize more than fifty thousand configurations of a chessboard. This ability enables grand masters to play twenty-five lesser opponents simultaneously, beating all of them while spending only seconds on each move. The same process of rapid cognition is at work in the diagnostic categories physicians rely on to evaluate patients’ symptoms. The Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm” requires physicians to be confident that they know what they’re up against before prescribing a remedy. Their skilled judgment draws on a repertoire of categories and clues, honed by training and experience. But sometimes they get it wrong. One source of error is anchoring: doctors, like leaders, sometimes lock on to the first answer that seems right, even if a few messy facts don’t quite fit. “Your mind plays tricks on you because you see only the landmarks you expect to see and neglect those that should tell you that in fact you’re still at sea” (Groopman, 2007, p. 65). Treating individual patents is hard, but managers have an even tougher challenge because organizations are more complex and the diagnostic categories less well defined. That means that the quality of your judgments depends on the information you have at hand, your mental maps, and how well you have learned to use them. Good maps align with the terrain and provide enough detail to keep you on course. If you’re trying to find your way around Beijing, a map of Chicago won’t help. In the same way, different circumstances require different approaches. Even with the right map, getting around will be slow and awkward if you have to stop and study at every intersection. The ultimate goal is fluid expertise, the sort of know-how that lets you think on the fly and navigate organizations as easily as you drive home on a familiar route. You can make decisions quickly and automatically because you know at a glance where you are and what you need to do next. 28 There is no shortcut to developing this kind of expertise. It takes effort, time, practice, and feedback. Some of the effort has to go into learning frames and the ideas behind them. Equally important is putting the ideas to use. Experience, one often hears, is the best teacher, but that is true only if one learns from it. McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison (1988, p. 122) found that a key quality among successful executives was an “extraordinary tenacity in extracting something worthwhile from their experience and in seeking experiences rich in opportunities for growth.” Frame Breaking Framing involves matching mental maps to circumstances. Reframing requires another skill—the ability to break frames Why do that? A news story from the summer of 2007 illustrates. Imagine yourself among a group of friends enjoying dinner on the patio of a Washington, DC, home. An armed, hooded intruder suddenly appears and points a gun at the head of a fourteen-year-old guest. “Give me your money,” he says, “or I’ll start shooting.” If you’re at that table, what do you do? You could faint. You could try a heroic frontal attack. You might try to run. Or you could try to redefine the situation. That’s exactly what Cristina “Cha Cha” Rowan did. “We were just finishing dinner,” [she] told the man. “Why don’t you have a glass of wine with us?” The intruder had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, “Damn, that’s good wine.” The girl’s father . . . told the intruder to take the whole glass, and Rowan offered him the bottle. The robber, with his hood down, took another sip and a bite of Camembert cheese. He put the gun in his sweatpants . . . “I think I may have come to the wrong house,” the intruder said before apologizing. “Can I get a hug?” Rowan . . . stood up and wrapped her arms around the would-be robber. The other guests followed. “Can we have a group hug?” the man asked. The five adults complied. The man walked away a few moments later with a filled crystal wine glass, but nothing was stolen, and no one was hurt. Police were called to the scene and found the empty wine glass unbroken on the ground in an alley behind the house [Associated Press, 2007]. In one stroke, Cha Cha Rowan redefined the situation from “we might all be killed” to “let’s offer our guest some wine.” Like her, artistic managers frame and reframe experience fluidly, sometimes with extraordinary results. The late Marcus Foster, superintendent of Oakland, California, public schools in the 1970s, diffused a crisis situation by changing the frame. A group of administrators rushed into his office shouting, “Dr. Foster, Dr. Foster, there’s a large group of angry men outside. We are afraid they are a gang of Blank Panthers.” Foster leaned back in his chair and said, “Go outside and treat them as if they are Pink Panthers.” The administrators successfully calmed the angry crowd. Frame breaking happens naturally in the art world. A critic once commented to Cézanne, “That doesn’t look anything like a sunset.” Pondering his painting, Cézanne responded, “Then you don’t see sunsets the way I do.” Like Cézanne, Foster, and Rowan, leaders have to find new ways to shift points of view when needed. This is not easy, which is why “most of us passively accept decision problems as they are framed, and therefore rarely have an opportunity to discover the extent to which our preferences are frame-bound rather than reality-bound” (Kahneman, 2011, p. 367). Like maps, frames are both windows on a territory and tools for navigation. Every tool has distinctive strengths and limitations. The right tool makes a job easier; the wrong one gets in the way. Tools thus become useful only when a situation is sized up accurately. Furthermore, one or two tools may suffice for simple jobs but not for more complex undertakings. Managers who master the hammer and expect all problems to behave like nails find life at work confusing and frustrating. The wise manager, like a skilled carpenter, wants at hand a diverse collection of high-quality implements. Experienced managers also understand the difference between possessing a tool and knowing when and how to use it. Only experience and practice foster the skill and wisdom to take stock of a situation and use suitable tools with confidence and skill. The Four Frames Only in the last hundred years or so have social scientists devoted much time or attention to 29 developing ideas about how organizations work, how they should work, or why they often fail. In the social sciences, several major schools of thought have evolved. Each has its own concepts and assumptions, espousing a particular view of how to bring social collectives under control. Each tradition claims a scientific foundation. But a theory can easily become a theology that preaches a single, parochial scripture. Modern managers must sort through a cacophony of voices and visions for help. Sifting through competing voices is one of our goals in writing this book. We are not searching for the one best way. Rather, we consolidate major schools of organizational thought and research into a comprehensive framework encompassing four distinct perspectives. Our goal is usable knowledge. We have sought ideas powerful enough to capture the subtlety and complexity of life in organizations yet simple enough to be useful. Our distillation has drawn much from the social sciences—particularly sociology, psychology, political science, and anthropology. Thousands of managers and scores of organizations have helped us sift through social science research to identify ideas that work in practice. We have sorted insights from both research and practice into four major frames—structural, human resource, political, and symbolic (Bolman and Deal, 1984). Each is used by academics and practitioners alike and can be found, usually independently, on the shelves of libraries and bookstores. Four Frames: As Near as Your Local Bookstore Imagine a harried executive browsing online or at her local bookseller on a brisk winter day in 2013. She worries about her company’s flagging performance and wonders if her own job might soon disappear. She spots the black cover of How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business. Flipping through the pages, she notes topics like measuring the value of information and the need for better risk analysis. She is drawn to phrases such as “A key step in the process is the calculation of the economic value of information . . . [A] proven formula from the field of decision theory allows us to compute a monetary value for a given amount of uncertainty reduction.”3 “This stuff may be good,” the executive tells herself, “but it seems a little too stiff and numbers-driven.” Next, she finds Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success. Glancing inside, she reads, “Many of our officers handwrite several thousand notes each year. Besides being loving, we know this is meaningful to our People because we hear from them if we miss something significant in their lives like the high school graduation of one of their kids. We just believe in accentuating the positive and celebrating People’s successes.”4 “Sounds nice,” she mumbles, “but a little too touchy-feely. Let’s look for something more down to earth.” Continuing her search, she looks at Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t. She reads, “You can compete and triumph in organizations of all types . . . if you understand the principles of power and are willing to use them. Your task is to know how to prevail in the political battles you will face.”5 She wonders, “Does it really all come down to politics? It seems so cynical and scheming. Isn’t there something more uplifting?” She spots Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. She ponders its message: “Tribal leaders focus their efforts on building the tribe, or, more precisely, upgrading the tribal culture. If they are successful, the tribe recognizes them as leaders, giving them top effort, cult-like loyalty, and a track record of success.”6 “Fascinating,” she concludes, “but seems a little too primitive for modern organizations.” In her book excursion, our worried executive has rediscovered the four perspectives at the heart of this book. Four distinct metaphors capture the essence of each of the books she examined: organizations as factories, families, jungles, and temples or carnivals. But she leaves more confused than ever. Some titles seemed to register with her way of thinking. Others fell outside her zone of comfort. Where should she go next? How can she put it all together? Factories The first book she stumbled across, How to Measure Anything, provides counsel on how to think clearly and make rational decisions, extending a long tradition that treats an organization as a factory. Drawing from sociology, economics, and management science, the structural frame depicts a rational world and emphasizes organizational architecture, including planning, goals, structure, technology, specialized roles, coordination, formal relationships, and metrics. Structures— 30 commonly depicted by organization charts—are designed to fit an organization’s environment and technology. Organizations allocate responsibilities (“division of labor”). They then create rules, policies, procedures, systems, and hierarchies to coordinate diverse activities into a unified effort. Objective indicators measure progress. Problems arise when structure doesn’t line up well with current circumstances or when performance sags. At that point, some form of reorganization or redesign is needed to remedy the mismatch. Families Our executive next encountered Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success, with its focus on people and relationships. The human resource perspective, rooted in psychology, sees an organization as an extended family, made up of individuals with needs, feelings, prejudices, skills, and limitations. From a human resource view, the key challenge is to tailor organizations to individuals—finding ways for people to get the job done while feeling good about themselves and their work. When basic needs for security and trust are unfulfilled, people withdraw from an organization, join unions, go on strike, sabotage, or quit. Psychologically healthy organizations provide adequate wages and benefits and make sure employees have the skills and resources to do their jobs. Jungles Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t is a contemporary application of the political frame, rooted in the work of political scientists. This view sees organizations as arenas, contests, or jungles. Parochial interests compete for power and scarce resources. Conflict is rampant because of enduring differences in needs, perspectives, and lifestyles among contending individuals and groups. Bargaining, negotiation, coercion, and compromise are a normal part of everyday life. Coalitions form around specific interests and change as issues come and go. Problems arise when power is concentrated in the wrong places or is so broadly dispersed that nothing gets done. Solutions arise from political skill and acumen—as Machiavelli suggested centuries ago in The Prince ([1514] 1961). Temples and Carnivals Finally, our executive encountered Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, with its emphasis on culture, symbols, and spirit as keys to organizational success. The symbolic lens, drawing on social and cultural anthropology, treats organizations as temples, tribes, theaters, or carnivals. It abandons the assumptions of rationality prominent in other frames and depicts organizations as cultures, propelled by rituals, ceremonies, stories, heroes, and myths rather than by rules, policies, and managerial authority. Organization is also theater: actors play their roles in an ongoing drama while audiences form impressions from what they see on stage. Problems arise when actors blow their parts, symbols lose their meaning, or ceremonies and rituals lose their potency. We rekindle the expressive or spiritual side of organizations through the use of symbol, myth, and magic. The FBI and the CIA: A Four-Frame Story A saga of two squabbling agencies illustrates how the four frames provide different views of the same situation. Riebling (2002) documents the long history of head-butting between America’s two intelligence agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. Both are charged with combating espionage and terrorism, but the FBI’s authority is valid primarily within the United States, while the CIA’s mandate covers everywhere else. Structurally, the FBI is housed in the Department of Justice and reports to the attorney general. The CIA reported through the director of central intelligence to the president until 2004, when a reorganization put it under a new director of national intelligence. At a number of major junctures in American history (including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Iran-Contra scandal, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks), each agency held pieces of a larger puzzle, but coordination snafus made it hard for anyone to see all the pieces, much less put them together. After 9/11, both agencies came under heavy criticism, and each blamed the other for lapses. The FBI complained that the CIA had failed to tell them that two of the terrorists had entered the United States and had been living in California since 2000 (Seper, 2005). But an internal Justice Department investigation also concluded that the FBI didn’t do very well with the information it did 31 have. Key signals were never “documented by the bureau or placed in any system from which they could be retrieved by agents investigating terrorist threats” (Seper, 2005, p. 1). Structural barriers between the FBI and the CIA were exacerbated by the enmity between the two agencies’ patron saints, J. Edgar Hoover and “Wild Bill” Donovan. When Hoover first became FBI director in the 1920s, he reported to Donovan, who didn’t trust him and tried to get him fired. When World War II broke out, Hoover lobbied to get the FBI identified as the nation’s worldwide intelligence agency. He fumed when President Franklin D. Roosevelt instead created a new agency and made Donovan its director. As often happens, cooperation between two units was chronically hampered by a rocky personal relationship between two top dogs who never liked one another. Politically, the relationship between the FBI and CIA was born in turf conflict because of Roosevelt’s decision to give responsibility for foreign intelligence to Donovan instead of to Hoover. The friction persisted over the decades as both agencies vied for turf and funding from Congress and the White House. Symbolically, different histories and missions led to very distinct cultures. The FBI, which built its image with the dramatic capture or killing of notorious gang leaders, bank robbers, and foreign agents, liked to generate headlines by pouncing on suspects quickly and publicly. The CIA preferred to work in the shadows, believing that patience and secrecy were vital to its task of collecting intelligence and rooting out foreign spies. Senior U.S. officials have known for years that tension between the FBI and CIA damages U.S. security. But most initiatives to improve the relationship have been partial and ephemeral, falling well short of addressing the full range of issues. Multiframe Thinking The overview of the four-frame model in Exhibit 1.1 shows that each of the frames has its own image of reality. You may be drawn to some and put off by others. Some perspectives may seem clear and straightforward, while others seem puzzling. But learning to apply all four deepens your appreciation and understanding of organizations. Galileo discovered this when he devised the first telescope. Each lens he added contributed to a more accurate image of the heavens. Successful managers take advantage of the same truth. Like physicians, they reframe, consciously or intuitively, until they understand the situation at hand. They use more than one lens to develop a diagnosis of what they are up against and how to move forward. Exhibit 1.1. Overview of the Four-Frame Model. 32 This claim about the advantages of multiple perspectives has stimulated a growing body of research. Dunford and Palmer (1995) found that management courses teaching multiple frames had significant positive effects over both the short and long term—in fact, 98 percent of their respondents rated reframing as helpful or very helpful, and about 90 percent felt it gave them a competitive advantage. Other studies have shown that the ability to use multiple frames is associated with greater effectiveness for managers and leaders (Bensimon, 1989, 1990; Birnbaum, 1992; Bolman and Deal, 1991, 1992a, 1992b; Heimovics, Herman, and Jurkiewicz Coughlin, 1993, 1995; Wimpelberg, 1987). Multiframe thinking requires moving beyond narrow, mechanical approaches for understanding organizations. We cannot count the number of times managers have told us that they handled some problem the “only way” it could be done. Such statements betray a failure of both imagination and courage and reveal a paralyzing fear of uncertainty. It may be comforting to think that failure was unavoidable and we did all we could. But it can be liberating to realize there is always more than one way to respond to any problem or dilemma. Those who master reframing report a sense of choice and power. Managers are imprisoned only to the extent that their palette of ideas is impoverished. Akira Kurosawa’s classic film Rashomon recounts the same event through the eyes of several witnesses. Each tells a different story. Similarly, organizations are filled with people who have divergent interpretations of what is and should be happening. Each version contains a glimmer of truth, but each is a product of the prejudices and blind spots of its maker. Each frame tells a different story (Gottschall, 2012), but no single story is comprehensive enough to make an organization fully understandable or manageable. Effective managers need frames to generate multiple stories, the skill to sort through the alternatives, and the wisdom to match the right story to the situation.7 Lack of imagination—Langer (1989) calls it “mindlessness”—is a major cause of the shortfall between the reach and the grasp of so many organizations—the empty chasm between noble aspirations and disappointing results. The gap is painfully acute in a world where organizations dominate so much of our lives. Taleb (2007) depicts events like the 9/11 attacks as “black swans”— novel events that are unexpected because we have never seen them before. If every swan we’ve observed is white, we expect the same in the future. But fateful, make-or-break events are more likely to be situations we’ve never experienced before. Imagination is our best chance for being ready when a black swan sails into view, and multiframe thinking is a powerful stimulus to the broad, creative mind-set imagination requires. Engineering and Art Exhibit 1.2 presents two contrasting approaches to management and leadership. One is a rationaltechnical mind-set emphasizing certainty and control. The other is an expressive, artistic conception encouraging flexibility, creativity, and interpretation. The first portrays managers as technicians; the second sees them as artists. Exhibit 1.2. Expanding Managerial Thinking. How Managers Think How Managers Might Think They often have a limited view of They need a holistic framework that encourages inquiry organizations (for example, into a range of significant issues: people, power, structure, attributing almost all problems and symbols. to individuals’ flaws and errors). Regardless of a problem’s They need a palette that offers an array of options: source, managers often choose bargaining as well as training, celebration as well as rational and structural solutions: reorganization. facts, logic, restructuring. Managers often value certainty, rationality, and control while fearing ambiguity, paradox, and “going with the flow.” They need to develop creativity, risk taking, and playfulness in response to life’s dilemmas and paradoxes, focusing as much on finding the right question as the right answer, on finding meaning and faith amid clutter and confusion. 33 Leaders often rely on the “one right answer” and the “one best way”; they are stunned at the turmoil and resistance they generate. Leaders need passionate, unwavering commitment to principle, combined with flexibility in understanding and responding to events. Artists interpret experience and express it in forms that can be felt, understood, and appreciated by others. Art embraces emotion, subtlety, ambiguity. An artist reframes the world so others can see new possibilities. Modern organizations often rely too much on engineering and too little on art in searching for quality, commitment, and creativity. Art is not a replacement for engineering but an enhancement. Artistic leaders and managers help us look beyond today’s reality to new forms that release untapped individual energies and improve collective performance. The leader as artist relies on images as well as memos, poetry as well as policy, reflection as well as command, and reframing as well as refitting. 34 CONCLUSION As organizations have become pervasive and dominant, they have also become harder to understand and manage. The result is that managers are often nearly as clueless as their subordinates—the Dilberts of the world—think they are. The consequences of myopic management and leadership show up every day, sometimes in small and subtle ways, sometimes in catastrophes. Our basic premise is that a primary cause of managerial failure is faulty thinking rooted in inadequate ideas. Managers and those who try to help them too often rely on narrow models that capture only part of organizational life. Learning multiple perspectives, or frames, is a defense against thrashing around without a clue about what you are doing or why. Frames serve multiple functions. They are filters for sorting essence from trivia, maps that aid navigation, and tools for solving problems and getting things done. This book is organized around four frames rooted in both managerial wisdom and social science knowledge. The structural approach focuses on the architecture of organization—the design of units and subunits, rules and roles, goals and policies. The human resource lens emphasizes understanding people—their strengths and foibles, reason and emotion, desires and fears. The political view sees organizations as competitive arenas of scarce resources, competing interests, and struggles for power and advantage. Finally, the symbolic frame focuses on issues of meaning and faith. It puts ritual, ceremony, story, play, and culture at the heart of organizational life. Each of the frames is powerful and coherent. Collectively, they make it possible to reframe, looking at the same thing from multiple lenses or points of view. When the world seems hopelessly confusing and nothing is working, reframing is a powerful tool for gaining clarity, regaining balance, generating new options, and finding strategies that make a difference. 35 chapter 2 Simple Ideas, Complex Organizations America’s East Coast welcomed a crisp, sunny late-summer morning on September 11, 2001. For airline passengers in the Boston-Washington corridor, the perfect weather offered prospects of ontime departures, smooth flights, and safe arrivals. The promise would fail for four flights bound for California. The aircraft were commandeered by terrorists willing to give their lives for a cause. Two of the hijacked aircraft attacked and destroyed the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Another slammed into the Pentagon. The fourth was deterred from its mission by the heroic efforts of passengers. It crashed in a vacant field, killing all aboard. Like Pearl Harbor, decades earlier, 9/11 was a day that will live in infamy, a tragedy that changed America’s sense of itself and the world. Why did no one foresee such a catastrophe? In fact, some had. As far back as 1993, security experts had envisioned an attempt to destroy the World Trade Center using airplanes as weapons. Such fears were reinforced when a suicidal pilot crashed a small private plane onto the White House lawn in 1994. But the mind-set of principals in the national security network was riveted on prior hijacks, which had almost always ended in negotiations. The idea of a suicide mission, using commercial aircraft as missiles, was never incorporated into homeland defense procedures. In the end, nineteen highly motivated young men armed with box-cutters were able to outwit thousands of America’s best minds and dozens of organizations that compose the country’s complex homeland defense system. We can explain their success in part by pointing to their fanatical determination, meticulous planning, and painstaking preparation. Looking deeper, we can see a dramatic version of an old story: human error leading to tragedy. Look deeper still, and we find that even the human-error explanation is too simple. In organizational life, there are almost always systemic causes upstream of human failures, and the events of 9/11 are no exception. The nation had a web of procedures and agencies aimed at detecting and monitoring potential terrorists. Those systems failed, as did procedures designed to respond to aviation crises. Similar failures have marked other well-publicized disasters: nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in 2005. If we look at the business world, the fall of Enron, the collapse of the banking world and the Great Recession of 2009, and the trading scandals of 2012, the pattern continues to play out. We seem unable, despite our best efforts, to do anything to stop it. Each event illustrates a chain of misjudgment, error, miscommunication, and misguided actions. Events like 9/11 and Katrina make headlines, but similar errors and failures happen every day. They rarely make front-page news, but they are familiar to people who work in organizations. The problem is that organizations are complicated, and communication among them adds another tangled layer. Reading messy situations accurately is not easy. In the remainder of this chapter, we explain why. We discuss how fallacies of human thinking can obscure what’s really going on and lead us astray. Then we describe some of the peculiarities of organizations that make them so difficult to figure out and manage. Finally, we explore how our deeply held and well-guarded mental models ensure our failure—and how to avoid the trap. 36 COMMON FALLACIES IN EXPLAINING ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS Albert Einstein once said that a thing should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. When we ask students and managers to analyze cases like 9/11 or the banking meltdown, they often make things simpler than they really are. They do this by relying on one of three misleading, oversimplified, one-size-fits-all concepts. The first and most common is blaming people. This approach casts everything in terms of individual blunders. Problems result from ego, bad attitudes, abrasive personalities, neurotic tendencies, stupidity, or incompetence. It’s an easy way to explain anything that goes wrong. Once Enron went bankrupt, the hunt was on for someone to blame, and the top executives became the target of reporters, prosecutors, and talk-show comedians. One CEO said, “We want the bad guys exposed and the bad guys punished” (Toffler and Reingold, 2004, p. 229). As children, we learned it was important to assign blame for every broken toy, stained carpet, or wounded sibling. Pinpointing the culprit is comforting. Assigning blame resolves ambiguity, explains mystery, and makes clear what to do next: punish the guilty. Enron had its share of culpable individuals, some of whom eventually went to jail. But there is a larger story about the organizational and social context that set the stage for individual malfeasance. Targeting individuals, while ignoring larger system failures, oversimplifies the problem and does little to prevent its recurrence. Greatest Hits from Organization Studies Hit Number 8: James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1958). March and Simon’s pioneering 1958 book Organizations sought to define a new field by offering a structure and language for studying organizations. It was part of the body of work that helped to earn Simon the 1978 Nobel Prize for economics. March and Simon offered a cognitive, social-psychological view of organizational behavior, with an emphasis on thinking, information processing, and decision making. The book begins with a model of behavior that presents humans as continually seeking to satisfy motives based on their aspirations. Aspirations at any given time are a function of both individuals’ history and their environment. When aspirations are unsatisfied, people search until they find better, more satisfying options. Organizations influence individuals primarily by managing the information and options, or “decision premises,” that they consider. March and Simon followed Simon’s earlier work (1947) in critiquing the economic view of “rational man,” who maximizes utility by considering all available options and choosing the best. Instead, they argue that both individuals and organizations have limited information and restricted ability to process what is available. They never know all the options. Instead, they gradually alter their aspirations as they search for alternatives. Home buyers often start with a dream house in mind, but gradually adapt to the realities of what’s available and what they can afford. Instead of looking for the best option—“maximizing”—individuals and organizations instead “satisfice,” choosing the first option that is good enough. Organizational decision making is additionally complicated because the environment is complex. Resources (time, attention, money, and so on) are scarce, and conflict among individuals and groups is constant. Organizational design happens through piecemeal bargaining that holds no guarantee of optimal rationality. Organizations simplify the environment to reduce the pressure on limited information-processing and decision-making capacities. They simplify by developing “programs”—standardized routines for performing repetitive tasks. Once a program is in place, the incentive is to stay with it as long as the results are marginally satisfactory. Otherwise, the organization is forced to expend time and energy to innovate. Routine tends to drive out innovation, because individuals find it easier and less taxing to devote limited time and energy to programmed tasks (which are automatic, well practiced, and more certain of success). Thus, a student facing a term-paper deadline may find 37 it easier to “fritter”—make tea, straighten the desk, check e-mail, and browse the Web—than to figure out how to write a good opening paragraph. A manager may sacrifice quality to avoid changing a well-established routine. March and Simon’s book falls primarily within the structural and human resource views. But their discussions of scarce resources, power, conflict, and bargaining recognize the reality of organizational politics. Although they do not use the term framing, March and Simon affirm its logic as an essential component of choice. Decision making, they argue, is always based on a simplified model of the world. Organizations develop unique vocabulary and classification schemes, which determine what people are likely to see and respond to. Things that don’t fit an organization’s mind-set are likely to be ignored or reframed into terms the organization can understand. When it is hard to identify a guilty individual, a second popular option is blaming the bureaucracy. Things go haywire because organizations are stifled by rules and red tape—or because a lack of clear goals and roles creates chaos. One explanation or the other usually applies. When things aren’t working, then the system needs either clearer or blurrier rules and procedures, as well as tighter or looser job descriptions. By this reasoning, the 9/11 terrorist attacks could have been thwarted if agencies had had better protocols for such a terrorist attack. ..