Organized Organizations

Translate information into action

2011-08-24T18:02:00.006+07:00

You are facing slowing sales because a competitor had introduced a better product. You may have left opened a critical gap between encouraging innovative thinking and putting it into action throughout the organization.

Only few managers know how to channel innovative thinking into practice. Companies that fail to adapt themselves may be condemned to repeat mistakes endlessly, lose top performers, and ultimately perish.

There are three steps needed for learning to occur:

1. acquire information

2. interpret information

3. translate information into action

Most companies generally take the first step, but don’t know how to approach the following two. You should emphasize the importance of establishing an environment conducive to organizational learning. Managers need to be ready to hear new views, to be able to ask open-ended questions, to listen to the responses, and to lead a productive discussion free from rigidity.

Because successful organization doesn't rely only on old answers to new problems, but encourages employees to collect and examine new data and come up with new approaches.

The cultural obsession erases the biological and the anthropological

2011-07-23T12:01:00.002+07:00

When we talk about cultural differences, one of the most accepted popular believes is, westerners shall be cautious in their communication with easterners: “Easterners don’t like to lose face.” This believes is the premise to either over-protecting a country, or, disrespecting the others.

Indeed, nowadays, how could we erase the biological and the anthropological parts of the human being existence? Who could believe that easterners are more concern about human dignity?

The people culture of a specific country is more complex. It goes first with the biological and anthropological of the human nature, then with a socio-economic context, and finally with an education.

Charles Darwin remind us a biological fact: “We must acknowledge that man with all his noble qualities, still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

Claude Levi-Strauss broadens our mind with an anthropological fact: “Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization”. To conclude, he ask us to more humility, in claiming: “To show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.”

Lead culture to strategy

2011-06-18T19:42:00.001+07:00

How to lead a corporate culture to its strategy? The success depends on ethics, and it must be conducted with pedagogy.

Herein, committees supporting a corporation to align its culture with its strategy:

1.      Executives Committee: defines the culture and the strategy;
2.      Organizational Committee: keeps aligned the organizational system with the strategy;
3.      Budget Committee: keeps aligned the budget with the strategy;
4.      Management Committee: keeps aligned the managerial practices with the strategy;
5.      Audit Committee: keeps aligned the corporate policies with the strategy.

Using these committees as points of reference, a corporation can measure the degree of alignment, and hence the synergy, being achieved across the organization. Corporations that master this system can create competitive advantages that are difficult to dislodge.

The corporation must also align its employees with its strategy. Having integrated strategies in all divisions, if employees are not aware of the strategy, they won’t help their unit to implement it. Corporations must have a proactive communication, to educate, to motivate, and to embark employees on the strategy.

Uncertainty zones could be dispelled

2011-05-29T18:37:00.001+07:00

The most powerful way for leaders to ease organizational performance, is to remove the uncertainty zones blocking the corporate strategy’s implementation. Typically, this involves looking closely to roles of the actors of the system, knowing that this fundamental issue is likely to be painful. But pain contributes to a species’ survival by triggering adaptation. From our observation, even one-to-one conversations between a key manager and the CEO do not move the organization forward. At the opposite, these methods lead to cynicism, and cynicism is the enemy of commitment to change.

We believe that organization-wide collegial conversations are essential, so we launched the Strategic Alignment Committee designed to enhance leaders’ capacity to implement strategy effectively. It does so by fitting the organization to the strategy, the capacity of the organization to learn and change. Since then, this process has been used in more than 30 businesses in the education, retail, tourism, high technology, banking, construction, and hospital industries.

How to institutionalize change?

2011-05-14T22:09:00.001+07:00

From our experience, when a company hires a new CEO engaging change initiative, the company will experience a slight decline in its performance. Indeed, most of the time the organization did not redefine employee roles, responsibilities, and rewards, nor alter core systems, and in consequence, social groups’ behaviours returned to the way they had always done things.

By conducting an organizational audit comparing the formal and the informal organizations, it allows us to identify the barriers for successful institutionalization. We note that the people engaged in the process change from the different phases, which creates confusion.

The change initiative process fell into four major categories:

1. Chartering refers to the process by which the organization defines the purpose and scope of the initiative, as well as the way people will work with one another;

2. Learning refers to how managers refine ideas through experimentation prior to full-scale rollout;

3. Mobilizing entails the use of compelling stories to engage people's hearts and minds to build commitment;

4. Realigning consists of reporting relationships as well as new approaches to monitoring.

These four categories must be undertaken to build commitment, and insure that the components of the initiative become institutionalized. From our clients’ feedback, after our organizational audit, the changes initiative produced substantial improvements in companies’ performances.

Strategy requires frequent redirection

2011-04-29T18:57:00.001+07:00

Organizations are built around social groups, and the bigger the company the more responsibility in those groups. If you add up what the Management Teams actually do, which ideas they choose to institutionalize, the consequences of that activity is what adds up to the strategy, not words on paper. So CEOs should ask themselves, what determines the Management Teams actions? And how can I lead it?

Forty years ago companies realized that to win market share they had to commit to enough resources. But, when they looked at the way they allocated resources, it had nothing to do with their strategy. What they were doing was simply allocating resources to projects on the assumption that all the businesses were fine. Now companies have to make radical choices at the top, and a very different kind of planning from the bottom. For example, when managers make proposals for investments, they should not be driven only by opportunities to grow and the need for resources, but should know if customers want it and will commit.

Customers’ relationship plays an important role. A company can decide an exponential growth in its strategy, but at certain point, managers would have to respond to the customers’ need, and it turns out that earnings steer the resource allocation process. In others words, the projects that get approved are the ones that deliver earnings. But, when a company begins to run down, the internal processes don't really respond. Management believes they need to pour more money into businesses because it will fix them. Unfortunately, when the bankers exert pressure to really change the strategy, it could be too late and leads to a new Execute Team.

We know that strategy requires frequent redirection. What are the things that will help redirection occur? We have gained a much better sense of how the corporate office adds value. Most companies think that corporate adds overhead. But in fact, great corporate offices do important things in driving a company. Probably the most vital work of the corporate office is making sure that leadership continues over time.

The Strategic Alignment Committee

2011-04-09T18:49:00.003+07:00

The most challenging aspect of creating winning strategy is how to sustain the effort. Many Executive who have read books or attended conferences, returned to their organizations to lead inspiring projects. But none are able to sustain the energy to deliver the results. What helps to distinguish organizations that sustain their efforts?

When the Executive Team makes clear that the performance of the past is unacceptable, it has also to develop a vision and a strategy for how changes would be achieved. The Strategic Alignment Committee, including the Management Team, helps to make this a single, integrated strategy. Next, the Executive Team has to communicate the new strategy and the Strategic Alignment Committee’s purpose throughout the organization, devising new compensation systems linked to the scorecard and revising the budgeting processes to support the strategy.

Once the Strategic Alignment Committee is installed, it becomes the agenda of the Management Team to discuss scorecard objectives, and to share best practices across the organization. The responsiveness of the new system to the evolution of the strategy is powerful. Because, when the changes are integrated into the management system, the change is institutionalized. But don’t forget, creating an entire organization that is aligned to and focused on the strategy requires the active leadership of the Executive Team.

We have collected data from over 20 companies for the last four years, from 2007 to 2011, and it shows the elements of dramatic turnaround to profitability. The strategy created labour cost reduction, better utilization of existing assets, and generated additional improvements in cash flow. It also produced increased customer satisfaction, which led to increased revenue. None of this success would have occurred without a complete cultural shift at the grassroots of the organization. Annual organizational audit showed that only 20 percent of the workforce understood companies’ strategy in 2007. By 2010, awareness and understanding exceeded 80 percent.

Constructive Criticism

2011-03-21T18:17:00.005+07:00

Constructive criticism is essential to maintaining strong relationships and if implemented mindfully it can make a big difference.

Firstly you have to realize that relationships matter. When an employer criticizes an employee’s performance it must rests on documentation, as a contract of employment and a job description. But, when a colleague criticizes a coworker it only rests on respect, because the same assumptions in term of authority are not in place.

Secondly you have to review assumptions. If you criticize someone for never listening, your assumptions might include your perception that you've been clear in your communication.

Thirdly you have to share intentions. You might say, "My intention to talk with you is that I want to maintain a harmonious working environment, and I' m feeling that you might be getting taken advantage of here."

Fourthly you have to clarify expectations. You have to share your perspective on, how you understand working agreements, then, the other person’s performance.

Fifthly ask questions and listen to the answer. Learn more about, how the other person understood his role, and how he felt about his performance.

Many people feel criticized more than appreciated at work, and many people leave their place of employment because of such interpersonal problems. Before a meeting where you'll be providing feedback to a coworker, make a list of things that you really appreciate about the individual. Next, once you've shared your intentions, share what you really appreciate about him and his work, before moving on to constructive criticism. Then, wrap the meeting with a recap of positive thoughts.

Assertiveness can help

2011-03-06T11:54:00.002+07:00

Some persons think assertiveness is a verbal aggression on another person, while assertiveness goes hand in hand with a person’s confidence in his ethical judgment.

An assertive person can help:

• Reduce inefficiencies caused by misunderstandings
• Clearly communicate one's vision
• Motivate others to rally around an idea
• Eliminate unnecessary meetings
• Create synergy between groups

People cite fear of reprisals, and choose passivity to please others. While it takes courage to realize why you are not assertive, you can learn how to be more assertive.

What it takes to be assertive:

• Realize that it's all in your head
• Let your intentions motivate your response
• Be specific
• Don't feign agreement
• Ask for clarification

Assertiveness can help strengthen relationships and improve your image.

Conducting change

2011-02-15T11:03:00.003+07:00

Change is uncomfortable, and adapting to change is chaotic. Even the perfect plan couldn’t predict the development of a social context. A good approach for having a more effective organization, would be linking the fundamental question of what exactly is changing, and why, with the daily round of your organization. At first, you should know what results you want, from both the change initiative and the communication program. And answering to what organizational changes are underway should provide you the framework for the desired results.

Consider sharing information with employees in order to avoid fear and insecurity. Otherwise, you will waste a lot of time getting back to a place of order, and many people may leave your organization. Use the strategy of not communicating too much, but communicating mostly insignificant information. Remember that a change effort starts with the announcement. Many leaders underestimate the length of time required by a change cycle. That's why numerous reports indicate poor performance following many change initiatives. Never forget people don’t change but adapt themselves to new contexts.

Use a variety of communication pathways. Some organizations make an enormous mistake in using only e-mail. Don’t forget, redundancy is helpful in creating an effective communication program. But, don't confuse process either with a double language. Give people multiple opportunities to share concerns and offer ideas. The more people are involved in the process, the fewer you'll have walking out the door or worse, staying and acting as internal saboteurs.

Strategy must be built on a human-resource foundation

2011-01-22T15:32:00.002+07:00

A recent article in Bangkok Post, on the 7th December, suggested a shortage of workers since 2009. A preliminary estimate from the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) shows the industrial sector needs more than 200,000 unskilled and skilled workers.

Most of us today understand the strategic implications of the information-based and service-intensive economy. We know what it requires: speed, flexibility and continuous improvement. Organizational change is originally dedicated to back up reforms with guarantees, as producing employees’ empowerment. Yet, in many companies only marginal managerial attention is focused on the problems of employee capability and motivation. Somewhere between theory and practice, precious human capital is being misused.

Having studied more than twenty companies engaging a restructuring plan, we have concluded that although structure is indisputably an impediment to the process, an even bigger barrier is managers' outdated understanding of strategy.

The search for more sustainable advantage leads many to an internal competency assessment. They recognize that development capabilities would be more difficult to copy: The core-competency perspective focused attention on the importance of knowledge creation and building learning processes for competitive advantage.

But this approach face limits as companies recognize that their people are not equal to the new knowledge-intensive tasks. By definition, competency-based strategies are dependent on people. In short, people are the key strategic resource, and strategy must be built on a human-resource foundation. As more and more companies come to that conclusion, competition for scarce human resources heats up.

A changing view of senior managers' roles

2011-01-12T15:18:00.002+07:00

Unlike capital, knowledge cannot be accumulated at the top of the company and distributed to those projects in which it will yield the greatest strategic advantage. It resides in the heads of individuals at all levels and is embedded in the relationships of work groups. Therefore, rather than allocate capital to competing projects (the zero-sum game), senior managers must nurture individual initiative, then leverage it through cross-unit sharing (the positive-sum game).

Also, CEOs must rethink their role in shaping strategic direction. Their main contribution has shifted from deciding the strategic content to framing the organizational context. That means creating a sense of purpose that not only provides an integrating framework for bottom-up strategic initiatives, but as well injects meaning into individual effort. It means articulating company values that not only align organizational effort with the overall enterprise objectives, but also define a community to which individuals want to belong.

In consequence, it means developing organizational processes that not only get work done effectively, but also ensure the empowerment, development, and commitment of all members of the organization. The philosophical shift requires executives to expand beyond strategy, structure, and systems to a simultaneous focus on the company's purpose, process, and people.

A changing view of core values

2010-12-23T19:04:00.001+07:00

The importance in building internal capabilities causes a shift from value appropriation to value creation. Unlike finance, knowledge actually increases when shared. Obviously, the focus on values creation demands a different approach than a focus on values appropriation and today issues is how these values should be distributed.

Most CEOs operate under the assumption that shareholders have the primary claim. But companies face employees' eroding sense of loyalty over the growing gap between the compensation’s inequalities. The rapid spread of stock options as a form of compensation shows that companies recognize that the owners of the scarce resources are no longer only the shareholders but also the employees.

Also, CEOs must begin renegotiating both implicit and explicit contracts with employees. Those who contribute to the companies’ human and intellectual capital should have the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of the values creation they are driving; otherwise they will go where they have that opportunity.

A changing view of strategic resources

2010-12-11T18:06:00.002+07:00

The deeply embedded mind-set to transform is the longstanding belief that finance is the critical strategic resource to manage and that CEOs’ main responsibilities should focus on its acquisition, allocation, and effective use. For many, that assumption simply is no longer factual. Without denying the need for prudent use of financial resources, the capital is not the resource that constrains growth.

The stocks exchanges are telling leaders what the scarce strategic resource is. When it values a capital-intensive company at ten times its book value, it is seeing something of greater worth than the physical assets recorded in financial accounts. Though the latest financial crises, the exuberant funding of many companies pointed to the same lesson: There is a surplus of capital chasing a scarcity of talented people.

The CEOs’ implications are crucial and human-resources issues must move up near the top of the company's strategic priorities. It means that a first-class human-resources executive must be at the CEO's right hand. Eventually, traditional strategic-planning processes will need to be overhauled and the financially calibrated measurement and reward systems will have to be redesigned to recognize the strategic importance of human as well as financial resources.

Aligning organization with third generation strategies

2010-11-29T20:41:00.002+07:00

In the last two decades, senior managers have been left disconcert at the breadth and rapidity of change. Hierarchy replaced by networks, bureaucratic systems transformed into flexible processes, and control-based management roles evolved into relationships featuring coaching.

In studying organizations going through such change, we observed that as difficult as the strategic challenges may be, they are implemented faster than the transformation requires to sustain them. As hard as is to change the organizations is even harder to change the orientation of their senior managers. Consequently, today's managers are trying to implement third-generation strategies through second-generation organizations with first-generation management.

Afterward, we analyzed the CEOs’ evolution and the simultaneous adjustment of their leadership role during their companies’ transformation. It happened that very few top executives have been able to transform themselves from being analytically driven strategy leaders to people-oriented strategy framers. Yet, for a traditional company to make the transition into the New Economy, that transformation is fundamental.

In our ongoing research, we have identified three important changes CEOs must make:

1. Strategic resources
2. Core values
3. Senior managers’ roles

These three points will be developed in our next articles.

Symptoms of mal-organizations

2010-11-14T18:47:00.001+07:00

Any CEO knows a healthy organization structure when he sees it. But he is like the doctor who knows a healthy person when he sets one but can only define health negatively, that is, as the absence of disease, deformity a and pathological degeneration. The symptoms of mal-organization can be identified. Whenever they are present there is need for thorough examination of the organization structure. Whenever they are present the right structural principles are not being observed.

One telling symptom of mal-organization is the growth of levels of management by speaking poor or confused objectives, failure to remove poor performers, over centralization or lack of proper activities analysis. Mal-organization shows itself also in pressure for “frictional overhead” for coordinators who have no clear job responsibility of their own but are supposed to help their superior do his job. Similarly it shows in the need for special measures to co-ordinate activities and to establish communications between managers, coordinating committees, incessant meetings full time liaison men and so forth.

Equally telling is the tendency to “go through channels” rather than directly to the man who has the information. This is particularly serious under functional, for it greatly aggravates the tendency of functional organization to make people think more of their function than of the business. It tends to insulate people and functional organization, even at its most decentralized. Going through channels is not just a symptom of mal-organization; it is a cause.

Finally, whatever the organization pattern and structure, management must watch out for a serious and crippling constitutional disorder, a lopsided management age structure. To insure a balanced age structure should be one of the main CEO’s concerns. There must be enough older men to insure opportunities for younger men, enough younger men to insure continuity enough older men to provide experience and enough younger men to provide drive. Age structure of management is like the metabolism of the human body; unless it is balanced all constitutional processes are diseased.

A good organization structure is not a panacea. It is not, as some organization theorists seem to think, the only thing that matters in managing management. Anatomy, after all, is not the whole of biology either. But the right organization structure is the necessary foundation; without it the best performance in all other areas of management will be ineffectual.

How to successfully manage change

2010-10-26T22:16:00.001+07:00

The interest to compare similar companies in different countries is to show the elements producing different socials behaviors. For example, the individuals and groups’ socialization helps to discover socials processes allowing better understanding the country’s social norms, as well as the relations between the company and the country.

When noticing systematic differences between employees’ behaviors in two countries, the organizational audit helps to understand three main dimensions:

1. The educational link between qualification and remuneration

2. The organizational link between actors and system

3. The managerial link between conflicts and negotiation

To understand nationals’ differences, only the concrete actions in a particular system must be considered, and above all, it’s the only way to successfully manage changes.

Knowing that civilizations are mortals, the sociologist role is to analyze the reasons of their evolution, to reveal the signs of their sickness, the symptoms and the remedies. This expertise is essential to manage changes.

For example, if in a bank employees are not communicating, or with difficulties, the manager will reinforce the system in distributing memo, remembering the formal rules and threatening to take disciplinary actions. What will happen is that employees will hide better their behaviors and nothing will change.

Change could not be reduced to hierarchical decisions. It must go with the learning of a new mode of relation and communication. Change is accepted when actors in a system see an opportunity to gain something and would be able to control the consequences of that change. If we want to implement change, we should reason in term of power relationship.

The strategic analysis need

2010-10-13T19:17:00.001+07:00

Any system has needs and its actors adjust their behaviors in consequence. The main question is about the organization’s survival. How the organization will make individuals and groups, with different objectives, work together?

According to E. Mayo, conflicts come from the commitment of the actors to the main system and the lack of analysis of the mutual adjustment between them.

K. Merton explained that there are three types of transfers between the system and the actors: the obvious, the latent, and the unknown. And he concluded that dysfunctions are inherent to any organizational system.

T. Parsons insisted on the fact that any organization imposes norms in relation with values. Coming from the society, or the organization itself, the norms are constitutive of the social life in the system. Knowing these norms allow individuals and groups to take appropriate decision matching the company expectations.

P. Selznick claimed that the organization will always have to legitimize its action to society, and that the organization develops permanently mutual adjustment’s processes and constraint the actors to use them to reach their objectives. We are in an anthropomorphic system where the organization behaves like a human body.

None of these organizational systems allow understanding clearly the organization’s functioning. All include decisive factors on the roles of the actors, but none explain the fundamental indecision of the individuals and the social groups.

We know that participating allow commitment, but not all actors in the system want to. Besides, the most participative actor is not necessarily the most integrated, but rather the ones who know how to create the most relevant opportunities to achieve ambitious mutual objectives.

Starting from how the actor act according to the organization’s constraints, the strategic analysis allows to better understanding organizational system.

Job enrichment

2010-09-30T17:18:00.000+07:00

Adam was created to perfection, but as soon as he ate the apple, God expelled him from heaven on earth. Since then humanity was condemned to suffer and to avoid torments.

Abraham was created with full of resources from innate potentiality, and chosen by God to be his emissary here below.

According to F. Herzberg each of us are Adam and Abraham, because we all have the animal instinct to avoid torments and the human instinct to psychologically rise.

From that point Herzberg determined five factors of satisfaction:

The achievement
The recognition
The work itself
The responsibility
The promotion

And five factors of dissatisfaction:

The administrative policies
The superior
The remuneration
The colleagues relationships
The working conditions

From that analysis Herzberg developed the job enrichment and the autonomous groups which simplified and eased the communication patterns.

Herzberg redeemed the motivation at work, and ruled out the Taylorian hypothesis and the human relations’ theories. Since then, we know that in giving individual the capacity to organize his work, he could take pleasure at work.

However, the objective is not to make people happy in giving them access to decisions, but to organize work in a way to develop their abilities.

Be careful in not mixing up self-satisfaction with self-fulfillment. As far as the needs are satisfied, an individual won’t fulfill necessarily his work.

The hierarchy of needs’ mechanism

2010-09-21T17:56:00.000+07:00

In promoting individuals natural needs, managers believe it will enable people to fulfill their potential, which will result in a more cooperative and more protective's behavior.

This pragmatic analysis breaks the homo oeconomicus image which the main motivation is to make money.

But this mechanism has two limits:

Claim that the esteem needs could not be satisfy before the organic needs is daily contradicted. When someone buys a car on credit he first satisfies his self-esteem needs than organic needs.
Claim that new social demands means that the previous ones are met, supposes that individual needs come first, and creates individual determinism.

Salina third birthday

2010-09-10T13:18:00.002+07:00

Three years! This third year has been rich in new experiences. The political crisis in Thailand accelerated our internationalization with the branch’s opening in Paris. France allowed us to work with the public sector and to enrich our knowledge on complex organizations.

Thanks to these experiences, we have developed our website and have added more case studies. We also have posted articles and files to download, which are used by professionals, academics and postgraduate students.

In these three years, our business has as much strengthened its expertise as opened new frontiers. We wish the following year have similar amplitude and have the pleasure to publish our first book.

The Hawthorne experience

2010-08-31T21:34:00.002+07:00

In 1924, the Hawthorne’s workshop in Chicago employed 29.000 people, and despite the good working conditions, the employees showed dissatisfaction.

From that the management collaborated with researchers and decided to improve the working condition of one group in providing a better lighting, and observed another group where the lighting was unchanged. Both groups were told about the experience.

It happened that both groups’ productivity increased. Later, even after removed the better lighting, both groups continued to increase their productivity. Then, the management decided to change important factors. The salary system was either calculated on individual or group performance. Next, the breaks were either reduced or increased. The experience lasted for three years. But, nothing makes the productivity decrease.

One of the reasons that nothing makes workers change their productivity, it is that they knew they were observed, and that makes them feel important for the company. People react positively when we take care of them.

This experience revealed the importance of the life of a working group. Whatever happens during these three years, the workers were united. In one hand, they produced the same quantity of products without knowing it. On the other hand, the smallest tension provoked a productivity decrease. Indeed, the group life had a tremendous influence on people behaviors. That is why the relations with supervisors changed. Supervisors’ role switched from an inspector to a counselor. The management concluded to the interdependence between creating products and distributing satisfaction.

However, to focus on the individual, this managerial method failed in not seeing a group as a full actor in the system.

How to integrate actors in your organizational system?

2010-07-21T20:01:00.002+07:00

Any organization needs more informal communication than it officially allows. Indeed, in externalizing fears toward changes it helps to protect actors from the organization. But it doesn’t mean that they will accept the company objectives, and CEOs should bear in mind that in contradicting the human nature, their companies will always have to re-orientate actors to business purpose.

To integrate actors in a system, we know that participation allows commitment, but this strategy doesn’t have unanimous support. Besides, the most integrated actors are not the ones participating the most, but rather the ones knowing how to create the most relevant opportunities to achieve ambitious objectives.

For its survival, any organization has to answer to, how to make actors with different objectives work in a same system? According to E. Mayo, conflicts come from the commitment of the actors to the main system and the lack of analysis of the mutual adjustment between them. From that problematic, K. Merton found three types of transfers between the system and the actors, the obvious, the latent, and the unknown. He concluded that dysfunctions are inherent to any organizational system.

To control these natural dysfunctions, T. Parsons insisted on the fact that any organization imposes norms in relation with values. Mainly coming from the society, these norms are constitutive of the social life in the system. And knowing these norms, allow actors to take decision meeting the organization needs. P. Selznick added that an organization will always have to legitimize its action to society. In developing permanently mutual adjustment’s processes the organization constraints the actors to use norms to reach their objectives. As an anthropomorphic system the organization behaves like a human body.

However, none of these systems allow understanding clearly the organization’s functioning. All include decisive factors on the roles of the actors, but none explain the fundamentally indecisive nature of the actors. That is why we recommend analyzing how the actors act according to the organization’s constraints, and only the strategic analysis allows to better understanding organizational system.

Today best managers are sociologists

2010-06-30T17:51:00.001+07:00

From the economic and political crises at the end of the 19th century related to the industrial development. Durkheim holds crises responsibility to the increasing social differentiation, which provoke:

Individualism development
Society break-up
Loss of unifying values

To keep society unify, Durkheim ask:

How to ensure individual integration into society?
How to sustain social order?
Is society coherent and cohesive?

As we can see, today societal problems are not new, and these societal problematic are not different from companies’ ones. Our expertise is to help CEO’s to answer these fundamental questions to sustain winning strategy for all actors in the system. From our experience, we know that today best managers are sociologists.

MBA at Saint Theresa College

2010-06-18T19:27:00.002+07:00

Recently, Saint Theresa International College asked us to lecture the Business Strategy module of their MBA program. We have decided to seize this opportunity to share with future managers important matters about how to craft, execute and sustain winning strategies for all actors in a system.

Besides the basic business strategy’s elements, we study how the sociology of the organizations could support companies to prevent organizational dysfunctions. Thanks to our experience, we concretely analyze cases’ study and transfer professional problematic into academic questions.

The objective of this lecture is to help graduated students to adapt themselves into volatile financial, economical and social environments and to be able to develop proactive business strategies. To ensure this objective will be reach, we ask students to present their own business strategy at the end of the module.

Where to set the cursor position in between autonomy and authority?

2010-05-29T23:15:00.000+07:00

Durkheim shared the idea according to which the rule wanting that our reason should accept as true what it recognizes as such and not only a rule of logic, but also a rule of moral. He affirmed that the practice could not be different, and the idea should have for aim and for reason to guide the action. In “The moral education”, Durkheim wrote “It doesn’t matter that the thought is free, if the action is slavish”. In a mean time, he shared the sociological position that each personality takes its source in the society, and approved that the moral conscience has the right to claim its autonomy. Moreover, he refused to see the autonomy of the person as a hallucination of the public conscience.

No one more than Kant felt the imperative nature of the morale law, and has firmly refused that the will could be fully moral when it is not really autonomous. According to Durkheim, the moral law is invested of an authority, which commands respect as much to reason as to our sensibilities. Our reason as well as our sensibility needs to be limited and contained. To Kant, the moral law is immanent to reason and to the will of the moral person. To Durkheim, the moral law is not the product of the reason and of the will, but of the society as the guardian of the ultimate authority and of the collective conscience, the only source of spirit in the human being. To him, it is by the society that the human being acquires the moral conscience.

To think about these divergences in between Durkheim and Kant is still, with no doubt, relevant today in business, where CEOs have tremendous difficulties to set cursor position in between autonomy and authority.

The importance of ethics in negotiation

2010-05-12T00:12:00.001+07:00

Cynical people might say that ethical negotiation is an oxymoron. I disagree with the cynics. Every time you deal with someone, whoever he is, you have to decide what you owe him in terms of fairness, and use of pressure tactics.

Answering the question of what is fair? in negotiation is very difficult. Think about that case. A shop’s owner had to leave for little time so he asked a friend to cover for him. While the owner was gone, a kid came in and paid $5 for a rare card that actually was priced at $500. The friend had wrongly assumed that there was a decimal point. When the owner learned of the mistake and went to the boy's home, the father refused to return the card. "A deal is a deal", he said.

What is interesting is how people reached to conclusion. Some say that the father's attitude is senseless, he failed to take into account how his reputation will suffer. I don't see that as an ethical argument. It's really just a different calculation of personal costs and benefits. Other people see the situation in moral terms and requested we should treat others as we’d like them to treat us. Others emphasize relational factors, that a parent should set example for a child, or the matter of taking advantage of an inexperienced seller.

Regarding people as individual materialist is a valid point of view, but it isn't the only one. For others, meaning in life is created by how we relate to one another. They believe that attaching a price to integrity and loyalty is fundamentally to debase it.

So what makes a great, ethical negotiator?

Prudence is critical to maintaining ethical standards. People get into trouble when they make hasty decisions. Before you go to the bargaining table, you should anticipate tough questions, and you should have an answer that doesn't compromise your values. Planning ahead is a lot easier than constructing intricate excuses for your behaviour.

Durkheim vs. Kant

2010-04-23T21:36:00.000+07:00

Since the very beginning of his work Durkheim is concerned about the direction to give to moral and if we want to raise it to the rank of science. According to him, scientific facts are based on lifestyles, customs, the positive law’s prescription, and the juridical purview controlling the economical life. To Durkheim, moral facts are to be connected with social facts.

The education of this field of research, its potential itself, reopens the question of the free will and the determinism dealt by Kant. It is from that perspective he created the concept of the practical reason. According to Kant, the practical reason means that the reason is by itself able to decide if a law is a determine law and not a predetermine law. To him, Durkheim attached too much importance to society, on behalf of science, and assigned it to the sociology’s radical naturalization.

Nevertheless, we could ask ourselves if in attaching more attention to what sociology is, Kant won’t have more firmly distinguished moral law and law of the nature, and if would have not, more easily, better ensured the specificity of the human being and of the society’s role.

The moral’s nature

2010-04-08T21:34:00.000+07:00

In the actual proliferation of the moral’s philosophy, I will choose, as general framework, the debate about the priority given either to the right or to the good. The imperative conception of moral gives the priority to the right over the good, and the attractive conception gives the priority to the good over the right.

In the first case, the moral is defined by what is imposed to the person, whatever his wishes. In the second case, the moral is defined because the person would really like, if he would know what his wishes are. In the first case, the problem is about the rightness of the norm, in the second, is about what a good life is, the aim of a fulfill life.

The ancient moral adopted the imperative perspective, the modern adopt the attractive one. All the positive sociology’s form, even the utilitarian or functionalist, could bring their contribution to the questions’ clarification asked by the attractive moral, in other word, the identification of the fundamental needs for the human being.

French education prospects

2010-03-16T23:17:00.000+07:00

French education is a complex institution which needs to be homogenized, in the sense that teachers act too individually and in consequence it is difficult to adjust discipline in order to work together toward the same objective. This situation raises an essential question, how this institution could bring together teachers in order to form a whole, if those who pass on education do not feel this unity and do not know by which means he could help to reach that objective? The main objective of the French education is not to build a mathematician, nor a man of letters, but to form a spirit by the means of mathematic and literature. But how a teacher could fulfill his role if he doesn’t know colleagues’ methods, and doesn’t feel part of the common efforts?

In the middle age, the master of the Arts Faculty wanted his students to be dialecticians. After the Renaissance, Jesuits and regents from our universities had as objective to form humanist. Today, as long as indecision will be in our spirit, none administrative decision could stop apathy. The French education ideal must be understood, loved, and wanted by those who have the duty to realize it. To obtain such result, it is unnecessary to train future teachers to the practice of their profession; it is essential to provoke from them an energetic effort of ethical reflection they must keep all along their career, which must start from the elementary school in order to avoid ideological construction and inefficient daydream.

Sociology could help understanding post modern society need. Indeed, it could guide wisely the human behavior. What we must reach it is the understanding of our habits, our traditions, and the gradual development of our society, which are concealed in our unconscious. I hope this pedagogical approach will finally succeed over ideological prejudiced and that the French education institution will actively begin its introspection.

Forgetting machine

2010-02-17T00:29:00.000+07:00

Initially modernity has the obsession of durability, and knowledge has value since it was supposed to last. Nowadays, modernity has lost its past attraction. Yesterday it was seen as a capital, it risks now to be seen as a debt. Indeed, regularly media advice about what is outdated.

Today, consumerism does not consist of the accumulations of things, but in the ephemeral pleasure it brings. Why the whole of obtained knowledge in attending school should make an exception at this universal rule? In the whirl of change, knowledge is adapted to a momentary usage and is planned for a unique utilization. “Ready to use” and ready to throw knowledge appears more attractive.

Since ever, knowledge has been appreciated for its true representation of the world; but what does happen if the world changes in a way that defied continuously the truth of the existing knowledge? That is why the contemporary world it is perceived has a “forgetting machine” rather than a place considered for apprenticeship.

In a volatile environment made by instantaneous and erratic changes, the cognitive frameworks and the presence of stable values, the ultimate objectives of education, became a handicap. The problem is that nothing has been planned to stop the inertia. Never, in the human being history, educators have been confronted to such challenge. The art of living in a world inundated by a flow of ephemeral information has to be learnt.

French Republic School challenge

2010-01-29T22:28:00.000+07:00

From a sociological point of view, the French Republic School is suffering from a cognitive crisis. Today, education is moving away from being knowledge-based to ignorance-based.

The problem is, knowledge has moved from “to know” to “to know that”. Where, once a person might know a philosopher’s book, today a person tends only to know that the philosopher has written the book. This means that he could know nothing about the book’s actual philosophy. And as the emphasis on education moves more towards information, and the core of the institution dies a slow and steady death, television has became the new centre of teaching. Similarly, the importance of history is being replaced by worldwide breaking news, a situation that leads to institutional nihilism.

But how did this transition come about? The country encountered diverse sociological revolutions during its history, and May 1968, was quite emblematic. Because of this, the people have forgotten the whole point of what the Republic School stands for. Indeed, since then, the age of the video has thrust itself upon us, making only visible things important, with all the invisible entities with capital letters, like Republic, Country, and People, being diminished in importance.

Originally, the Republican School had a double purpose: to pass on knowledge and then to share it. The danger is, if you are too focused on sharing, there is nothing much to pass on. The teaching content disappears, and the emphasis is more on socio-cultural animation than on education. On the other hand, putting too much importance on passing on learning can only result in learning-overload and ineffective teaching. In fact, it was this that really inspired the public to question the Republican School back in 1968. What they couldn’t have known was that in doing so, they were actually opening the door to the era of ignorance.

In the same way, too much focus on social rights unwittingly brought about accelerated civil disintegration, and too much emphasis on creating an education system that allowed ignorant to benefit, decreased the value of the degree and disqualified excellence. In society’s bid for equality, they have played the game of disparity. In other words, in refusing to abandon the child to the teacher, they have abandoned him to the ignorance.

The Republic School challenge then is how to balance the transference of learning with sharing. And, reemphasize the primary purpose of the Republic School against the distractive forces of technological noise and commercial images. Today, economic power holds the authority over knowledge; immediacy stifles the fundamental; and the cult of data represses the critical spirit. That’s why the Republic School must seize again in balancing both sides of the problem, without excluding one or the other.

The role of education

2010-01-08T19:57:00.000+07:00

What are the duties and rights of a State in term of education? Children are first to their parents. Therefore, it is to the parents to supervise the children intellectual and moral’s development. Consequently, education is seen as a private and domestic matter. From that point of view, we naturally tend to reduce to the minimum the intervention of the State in this matter. It should serve as an auxiliary and as a substitute of families.

However, when families are not able to fulfill their duties, it is natural that the State takes over the responsibility. The others State’s responsibility is to provide enough schools to families to educate their children. In the other hand, it must be restricted to these responsibilities, and must be forbidden to take any action intended to lead the youth spirit to a specific orientation.

Structural system facts

2009-12-17T21:03:00.000+07:00

In the past, we most of the time tried to make comparisons between elements arbitrarily took within different societies. It is the favorite game of traditional politic sciences and in particular the comparison of the constitutional law.

Comparing the system of the Prime Minister’s choice in different constitutions without referring to the fact that the Prime Minister doesn’t have the same role, that the political spirit and the parliament functioning are different, is an obvious methodological mistake, which consisting to compare elements from a system without sufficient references of its structure and its coherence.

If we accept this premise that the elements have sense only according to the structure, we cannot compare legitimately separated elements, abstract from their structure. We must compare structure between them.

Let’s illustrate this premise. One day a Polish politician explained me the necessity to introduce the English parliamentary system in Poland, to what I answered “and you haven’t though yet to put some water around Poland?”

Cybernetics

2009-11-27T23:48:00.000+07:00

There is a cause if A is anterior to B and if all modification of A goes with B modification, as all the others variables remaining constant. But in practice, the anteriority is difficult to establish in organizational functioning. We observe a relation in between A and B, and this relation could be interpreted differently:

1. A leads to B;

2. B leads to A;

3. A and B are in circular relation;

4. The third cause C influence in a same time A and B

In organizational system a phenomenon is never influenced by one cause; its causality scheme is always complex. The isolate cause A or B are not important, what is important is the relation in between A and B in a whole, in a structure. The circular causality shows relation in between causes, and the relation is as reciprocal as equivocal.

In sociology of organizations we call a retroactive effect, cybernetics. Cybernetics is like the thermostat of stoves: the oven heat up and when is hot enough, it works on the thermostat, which stop the oven heat. Then, the oven cool down, the thermostat cool down and turn on again the heat. Organizations contain many feedback systems. Our role is to explain the causes and causalities of managerial dysfunctions and help CEOs to reconcile their organizational systems.

Ethical corporate strategy

2009-10-25T22:29:00.000+07:00

In the early 70’s Milton Friedman argued that “a corporation's purpose is to maximize returns to its shareholders, and that since, only people can have social responsibilities, corporations are only responsible to their shareholders and not to society as a whole”. This conception of the economy was awarded by the Nobel price, and world leaders fell in behind him. However, today, we suddenly realize that this economical precept omitted the unequal wealth redistribution, which recently provoked the household bankruptcy and sparked an unprecedented finance crisis with tragic social consequences.

To assess the extent of the challenge, we have to answer to important questions. Despite profitability imposed by stock exchanges, could companies become full time actors of sustainable social development? And how to distinguish communication strategy to the implementation of ethical corporate strategy modifying in depth practices? Today, companies are open to stakeholders involved and conscious of their social responsibilities.

However, implementation of sustainable social development could provoke conflicts and organizational dysfunctions, and that is why change management requires tactful methods. The sociology of organizations recommends approaching organizational system through its social groups which give details on the power relationship, inherent to collective actions.

Compliance vs. Tolerance

2009-10-06T19:53:00.000+07:00

The norms existence and the respect of these norms are two distinct problems. There are norms that only few comply, although most of us accept them. Indeed, in any social situation, a fair amount of people do not comply with norms, it is the phenomenon of deviance by opposition to compliance. Compliance could be an enthusiastic support to impose discipline, simply because people act in accordance with norms or become from these norms.

If in a school we list all norms from the official rules, we will note that only few students accept all these norms and comply with, and that numerous students stop more or less near the tolerance limit without being punish. Same in a church, we do not ask all believers to be saints. In no social system, we are asking to members to subscribe perfectly to norms, and the degree of laxity or of tolerance is one of the characteristics of an organizational system.

Salina second birthday

2009-09-09T18:48:00.001+07:00

Our second year of existence has seen most of our clients move to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Indeed, the political issues in Thailand have convinced many headquarters to relocate their offices.

Nevertheless, and as communicated last year, we have completed our research and have published the manual dedicated to support SMEs in transferring technologies. This manual is now available on our website.

Also, we have decided to open a branch in France and we are proud to announce that we will soon work for the public sector. This opportunity will broaden our expertise to different contexts and objectives, and will carry along Salina by a surge of optimism.

Device-value vs. Work-value

2009-08-26T23:00:00.001+07:00

Any society defines what is good and bad, beautiful and ugly, honorable and disgraceful, as well as what is worth to live, and eventually to die. When we are saying to a child he has bad behavior, we are instilling society values and we are getting him used to respect them. Kant opposed the faculty to point out truth, which is knowledge, and the perception of good, which is feeling. Involving transcendence and superiority, a value is obvious to individual as an absolute that could be refined but that could not be shaking up.

Values vary with civilizations and, within the same civilization, with groups and social categories. However, to each period and for each group, moral is an absolute, which does not admit relativism. To study values, we need to question them, and in consequence, to affect their essential nature.

Economists encountered such problem, which has already been tackled by Aristotle in “Nicomachean Ethics”. Later, in the middle age, Saint Albert the Great been opposed to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the first one believe that in trade assets should have the same device, while the second one believe that work content in an asset should be equal to the other. In other word, the subjectivity of the device-value was opposed to the work-value.

The purpose of change

2009-08-07T00:19:00.001+07:00

The main problem about analyzing the purpose of change is the problem of power, simply because change is only possible by the transformation of the power system. Even if post modern society tries to get rid of power, as the sense of guilt, the study of human nature shows that power is consubstantial to human being.

Indeed, the power relationships are directly linked to freedom that base the human existence, and which the implementation, both strategic and confrontational, shape the framework of any social life. It means that the harmonious society, thanks to virtue, is impossible. Nevertheless, this lucidity about the human being does not preclude trying to change it.

From our point of view, we could not contain power in trying to abolish it, at the contrary, in accepting it and allowing a largest amount of people to participate to the game of the power relationships with more autonomy, liberty and choices, we contribute to reshape its foundation. It is only power that can fight power. The profound threat of abuses does not come from people initiative, but from its abolition. Same as the leadership problem, it is only its development that could fight its abuses.

The development of the new power relationships, which is inseparable from the development of the collective capacity, could be considered as the implicit purpose of numerous objectives of changes, apparently divergent.

Review company loyalty

2009-07-25T23:56:00.001+07:00

Today, people are disappointed with loyalty to organizations. But, at the same time, they don't want to shift employers every three years for their entire careers. So is there a way for both parties to strike a balance when it comes to loyalty, one that gives organizations the required focus to compete, and employees the career development opportunities they demand?

Yes, but only if companies are willing to review how they define loyalty.

When companies help people acquire new skills supporting their career advancement, they often win those workers' commitment, and attract loyal new employees. But even when you can't retain talent, it doesn't mean departing employees weren't loyal. The best is when both parties are benefiting.

In that case, how can CEOs ensure that relationship benefit for both parties? We recommend this strategy:

1. Align career growth with company goals

2. Design work with diversity and autonomy

3. Focus on informal interaction

4. Reinforce links between employees' values and your company's mission

Nevertheless, it can be difficult for companies to gauge just how much effort they should put into promoting loyalty.

Consider the issue that way. A loyal workforce saves money in the form of lower recruiting costs, fewer abandoned clients, and less downtime. Also, the longer employees stay with a company, the more opportunity they have to develop the tacit knowledge needed to fulfil their responsibilities and the more they exchange it with others.

On the other hand, how should people value loyalty? Remind them, the more unique a person's expertise, the greater he will be able to wield power.

Balanced scoreboard real purpose

2009-07-08T19:55:00.001+07:00

Could you better communicate to your employees what your strategy is? Do you have employees who actually running counter to the organization’s goals because they have a different understanding of what you are trying to accomplish? Do departments in your organization focus on their own activities more than on how they support the organization’s mission and vision?

While the balanced scorecard has been touted as an effective tool for creating organizational alignment, ensuring the strategic focus of scorecard, the success of its implementation and whether or not the organization successfully cascades the scorecard down to business unit level, will not ensure the success of your strategy. What will ensure the success of your strategy is the understanding of the sociology of the organizations. In other words, how actors use the system to achieve their goals.

Indeed, aligning your organization must starts by an organizational audit allowing seeing what is hiding behind the organizational chart, and contributing to better manage the necessary changes to develop the companies’ economic performances. The balanced scoreboard is only dedicated to monitor and control your strategy and organization alignment through performances measurement.

Aligning competitive energies

2009-06-24T21:33:00.001+07:00

It is clearly in the interest of the CEO to align the competitive energies of individuals with the integrated goals of the organization. To do this he would need to moderate the swings of the formal organization with the natural bond generated by the informal organization. Such a balance needs to be struck in the social contract between all employees in the company.

These swings occur because each of the roles was created to improve the odds of gene survival. When any one role gains dominance for whatever reason in a given social setting, it soon becomes self-reinforcing. A spiralling arms race can be created with everyone seeking more and more of a good thing, until a crisis breaks up the cycle.

CEOs have several structural devices they can use to promote this balance. For example, they can balance financial and symbolic rewards for both individual achievement and teamwork. They can arrange the physical layout to place interdependent groups in adjacent space to encourage trustful bonding. Leaders can be assigned of maintaining balanced relationships within and between groups.

Of course, these same structural devices can be misused and thereby contribute to the extremes. For example, offering large financial incentives to the winners of intergroup contests would predictably pull these relationships into another destructive competition.

But if the devices are moderately stimulate, creative solutions to problems will be fostered and would be gratifying to the individual as well as useful for the organization.

Sustainable management

2009-05-28T20:24:00.003+07:00

I recently participated to a conference organized by Silpakorn University about “Sustainable management: beyond the global economic recession”. Dr. Sompid Kattiyapikul, Director of Silpakorn University International College, open the conference in being very pleased with the quality of various international speakers from Europe, USA, and Thailand.

David Hind, head of tourism at Leeds Metropolitan University in UK, presented a case study explaining how the employability and management skills are developed. These skills are integrated into all curriculums, where modules include variety of innovative assessment, learning and teaching strategies to facilitate the students’ skills development.

Chris de Boer, lecturer at Silpakorn University, raised the question of the Buddhist spirituality influence in Thai managers’ practices. According to Chris, Buddhism respects for life is an important issue, and preaches a life in harmony with natural resources, moderation and simplicity.

Steve Burns, senior lecturer at Liverpool University in UK, discussed on a survey findings about hospitality SMEs in regards to their current trading conditions. Facing a predicted future of reduced business in UK in 2009, this study suggests that SMEs are responding to changing market conditions by increasing their marketing activity and utilizing technology, particularly the Internet, to seek new ventures.

Our paper was about the importance for companies to audit their organization in order to optimize their performances. Thanks to our matrix we are able to give a clear and concise picture of the organization and explain the social behavior of the actors in the system. Our conclusion was, to sustain qualitative management, managers have to examine the informal organization, before to realign their strategy to their structure.

Nishapat Meesangkaew, lecturer at Silpakorn University, examined the impact of globalization on tourism industry, which effects the development of international programs in Thai University. According to Nishapat, despite the economical crisis, international investors still active in hospitality development.

We conclude this conference in sharing point of views about the globalization system’s future, which tends to deregulate our societies, and we inclined with Andre Malraux believes, who predicted 50 years ago, that the 21st century will be spiritual or wont be.

Competitive energies

2009-05-04T21:24:00.002+07:00

Let’s assume that the CEO has designed the formal organization so that every individual has a role, and that the interconnections between roles are planned to achieve the overall objectives of the company. Now people are chosen to step into these roles and the organization is set in motion. But, what’s happen in real?

Once on the job, every person search for others with whom they can evolve mutual objectives. When these relationships form a cluster, the participants will begin to see themselves as a group distinct from others. If the individuals in this primary group have interlocking tasks, their bonds of trust will facilitate their joint task performance and they can be formally recognized as a work group.

Individuals will also predispose them to bond with organizational groupings beyond their immediate work team and start building the informal organization. These natural bonds open a new field of actions where different types of character could play their own games, which inevitably lead to power relationships. Opportunism and selfish political behaviour would be rampant. A great deal of frantic effort would be expended, but little of it would be the kind of coordinated effort that would result in completed the company’s tasks.

Here is Salina expertises about how to align these competitive energies.

Creating a new context for action

2009-04-23T01:46:00.001+07:00

When facing the need for change most managers act predictably. Starting revamping the organization's strategy, rounding up the usual set of suspects, shifting around staff, realigning incentives, and rooting out inefficiencies, they then wait patiently for performance to improve. For some reason, the expected results still do not happen.

Why is change so difficult? First, most people are reluctant to modify their habits. Moreover, when an organization had successive leaders, resistance to change is even stronger. A legacy of disappointment creates an environment in which employees automatically condemn the next turnaround champion to failure, assuming that he is "just like all the others." Call for self-discipline is met with cynicism, scepticism, and automatic resistance.

Our research into organizational system found that for change to stick, leaders must design and run an effective persuasion campaign. Managers must ensure that employees will listen to unpleasant messages, question old assumptions, and consider new methods. This means taking a series of deliberate steps to recast employees' prevailing views and creating a new context for action. Such a shaping process must be actively managed during the first few months, when uncertainty is high and setbacks are inevitable. Otherwise, there is little hope for sustained improvement.

Best business practices

2009-04-12T22:20:00.003+07:00

Most of the technologies we observed had no direct causal relationship to superior business performance. What does matter is having a strong grasp of the business basics. Without exception, companies surpassing their industry peers excel at the four primary management practices: strategy, execution, culture, and structure. They supplement great skill in those areas with a mastery of any two out of four secondary management practices: talent, innovation, leadership, and partnerships.

Moreover, we learned that it does not really matter if you implement ERP software; it matters very much that whatever technologies you choose to implement you execute it flawlessly. Similarly, it matters little whether you change your business as long as you pay attention to simplifying the way your organization is structured. We call the winning combination the 4+2 formula for business success, and a company that consistently follows this formula has better than a 90 percent chance of sustaining superior business performance.

Besides identifying the management practices that can significantly affect a company's performance, we have developed a list of behaviours that support excellence in each practice.

Primary management practices

Strategy: whatever your strategy, whether it is low prices or innovative products, it will work if it is sharply defined, clearly communicated, and well understood by employees, customers, partners, and investors.

Execution: develop and maintain flawless operational execution. You might not always delight your customers, but make sure never to disappoint them.

Culture: if you can make the work fun, all else will follow. But holding high expectations about performance also matters.

Structure: managers spend hours agonizing over how to structure their organizations, by product, geography, customer, and so on. Winners show that what really counts is whether structure reduces bureaucracy and simplifies work.

Secondary management practices

Talent: winners hold on to talented employees and develop more.

Innovation: an agile company turns out innovative products and services and anticipates disruptive events rather than reacting when it may already be too late.

Leadership: choosing great chief executives can raise performance significantly.

Partnerships: internally generated growth is essential, but companies that mastering partnerships can also win.

Leading Change

2009-03-27T01:30:00.003+07:00

To avoid the cyclical trap of success-failure-rebirth, companies need to develop competency in simultaneously sustaining a dual management focus. One concentrates on meeting today's client expectation, another with its eye firmly set on a volatile environment.

We help top executives to better comprehend the forces of change, and demonstrate how to better manage their own organizations for long-term viability and success. But, far too often, that success breeds inertia. As customers and markets change, organizations must continually sow fresh seeds if they are to remain a viable force in tomorrow's markets.

Here's an example. If you asked someone thirty years ago what business Hewlett Packard is in, they would likely have said testing. Fifteen years ago, the reply would probably have been computers. Today, their response would be printers. Ask what business the company will be in ten years from now, and you are likely to hear e-commerce. A fundamental managerial challenge is how to design agile organizations able to leap from strength to strength.

Aligning organization to strategy

2009-03-18T00:41:00.003+07:00

Recently a CEO was looking for a way to improve the company's ability to implement its strategy more effectively. From our experience, we know that strategy implementation depends on how well the organization is aligned with its strategy.

Unfortunately, most companies do not take such a view of the organization. Instead they develop disconnected initiatives which could eliminate a sense of partnership leading to discouragement. Most people in organizations know what the problems are, but under ordinary circumstances, they are unwilling to talk about them. Our process is a structural mechanism that alleviates problems by getting information from the informal organization and helping managers speak the unspeakable.

Harmonize a system involves several demanding exercises before an organization can use newly developed aptitude. After our organizational audit debriefing, the top team must agree on a statement of strategic and organizational direction, an outline of what the company must do as a whole in order to gain competitive advantage, and then appoint leaders to manage objectives.

Having received instruction, leaders next talk with employees and, if needed, customers about what they regard as the organization's strengths and the barriers that prevent it from complete success. At the same time, we are interviewing the company's top managers about their own perceptions.

After the data collected leaders present, as a group not as individuals, employees views about sensitive issues blocking business performance. In over ten companies, the process has never failed to deliver an open and high-quality assessment of the organization.

Once leaders have completed their report and left the room, the top team uses information to re-evaluate the organization and develop a vision of how the company need to change to reach optimum alignment. Top management later reviews their proposed changes with leaders, who then evaluate the proposal on their own. Not only does this give high-performing employees a chance to contribute to management's plans, but it forges commitment which is a necessary ingredient for the next stage, corporate strategy’s implementation.

When leaders interviewed other employees, the answers heard were surprising. Instead of pointing to organizational structure, an analysis showed that employees consistently identified the following syndrome of five interrelated management problems:

1. Unclear strategy and conflicting priorities

2. A leadership style that is too top-down or, conversely, too laissez-faire

3. Poor coordination or teamwork

4. An inability to speak openly to top managers

5. Inadequate leadership skills at middle levels

We name these the silent killers, because not being acknowledged by management they are killing the company.

A changing view of strategic resources

2009-03-04T00:25:00.003+07:00

The hardest collective belief to change is that capital is the major strategic resource to manage and key responsibilities should centre on its acquisition, allocation, and effective use.

Hopefully, that assumption should change. Without denying the need for increasing financial resources, we believe that financial strategy could constrain growth. Studies show that companies without organizational coherence are destroying their capital. Indeed, most of them cannot even generate sufficient financial resources and go on economic failure.

The implication of top management is expected and human resources issues must move up to company's strategic priorities. That means traditional financial strategy will need to be overhauled to recognize the strategic importance of organizational coherence to generate higher dividends and create ethical image.

Human initial ideals

2009-02-20T23:03:00.004+07:00

Everything could be organized, understood and justified according to initial ideals, it is from the image of this ideals that human shape his own identity and we should understand and judge his acts. This moral founded the culture of human responsibility. However, this moral came up against inextricable difficulties, since the complexity of humans relationship burst these ideals. Indeed, in post modern society humans avoid responsibilities, which are overtaken by confusion.

Since confusion is the consequence of human alienation to postmodern society, he is not anymore guilty. Getting rid of this ideology, the foundation of any action stills the human motivation, and his objective the satisfaction of that one. However, this logic is partial. Because it could not consider the fact that human discovers his desire from perceived opportunities. But we know that human does not know what he wants, in changing his desire according to his possibilities and in what he believes been his interest.

Human and structure convergence

2009-02-03T20:33:00.002+07:00

A system is a whole of human where people could not be shared between problems and theoretical sub-systems, and where the human resources management enacts rules according to structural logic, but it is a system of abstract relations of the reality. Indeed, people use their position in the system to take actions toward others in order to find their autonomy, which are illogical from a structural point of view. Instinctively, individuals use the structure, and try avoiding becoming a cog in the system. The challenge is not to reconstitute the whole, but understanding logics that make system fail.

Two ways are open for the action of change. The action on humans that uses technical training, recruitment policy, and psychology; and the action on structures guided thanks to the elaboration of rational models. Limiting yourselves from one type of action will condemn you to unsuspected consequences. Reasonable changes come from the ability to associate both in the same strategy.

Normative Ethics

2009-01-20T23:25:00.004+07:00

Normative ethics concerns criteria of what is morally right and wrong. It includes the formulation of moral rules having direct implications of what human actions, institutions, and ways of life should be like. The central question should determine how basic moral standards are justified. The answers to this question fall into two broad categories, deontological and teleological.

The principal difference is that deontological theories do not appeal to values considerations in establishing ethical standards, while teleological theories do. Deontological theories use the concept of their inherent rightness in establishing such standards, while teleological theories consider goodness as the principal criterion of their ethical values. In other words, a deontological approach calls for doing certain things on principle or because they are inherently right, whereas a teleological approach advocates that certain kinds of actions are right because of the goodness of their consequences.

Deontological theories thus stress the concepts of the obligation, the right and the wrong, while teleological theories lay stress on the good, the valuable and the desirable. Deontological theories set forth formal criteria such as equality or impartiality; teleological theories, by contrast, provide substantive criteria, as happiness or pleasure.

The application of normative theories to practical moral problems is the concern of applied ethics. This sub-discipline of ethics deals with many major issues of the contemporary scene, including human rights, social equality, and the moral implications of scientific research, particularly in the area of genetic engineering.

Coherent organization

2009-01-06T00:57:00.003+07:00

Leaders interested in organization design have the edge on competitors. Indeed, appropriate organization design leads to cohesion, thus to success.

Coherent organizations act on five principles:

1. Design is driven by the business strategy and the operating context

2. Design means indivisible thinking on system, structures, people, performance, measures, process and culture, and the way the whole operates in specific environment

3. Design for the future is a better bet than designing for now

4. Design is not undertaken lightly, it is resource intensive

5. Design is a fundamental process not a repair job

Surprisingly, complex systems will evolve much more rapidly than simple systems. In organization design, getting the units aligned coherently works to the benefit of the whole organization.

Ethical leadership pays off

2008-12-14T00:01:00.003+07:00

Managing the tension between performances and people is at the heart of every leader’s job. Focus single-mindedly on delivering profits, and you will disenchant your workforce, destroying your capacity to drive needed strategic change. Concentrate solely on employees, and the organization may slide into complacency, eroding its competitive vitality.

Ethical leaders refuse to choose between profits and people, as high-commitment and high-performance companies reveals. They support both factors with actions such as:

1. Earning employees, investors, and other stakeholders’ trust

2. Engaging directly with employees

3. Maintaining focus and consistency of purpose

4. Building collective leadership power

5. Fostering shared purpose

By applying these practices, ethical leaders turn the recession-stricken companies around. Launch a global program to rearticulate companies’ mission and reaffirm their values. Then companies taught employees’ skills needed for a new strategy. Boost sales. Increase net earnings, and soar employees’ commitment to the new strategy.

Corporate culture could change

2008-11-29T23:06:00.005+07:00

An organization’s culture is made up of values to which employees are strongly committed. There are number of forces maintaining a given culture. These include written statements about the organization’s mission, design of physical spaces, hiring criteria, entrenched rituals, popular stories about key people, organization’s historic performance, evaluation criteria, and structure of the formal organization.

Structural policies are important devices that work against cultural change, and employers select senior managers who will continue the current culture. Even attempts to change a culture in finding a new chief executive are unlikely to be effective. The evidence indicates that it’s more the culture likely to change the executive.

Our argument should not be viewed as saying culture could not change. In case an organization confronts a survival-threatening crisis, members of the organizations will be responsive to cultural change’s efforts. The evidence suggests that cultural change is most likely to take place when:

1. Dramatic crisis: This shock undermines the status quo and questions the relevance of the current culture. For instance a surprising financial setback, the loss of a major customer, and a dramatic technological breakthrough by a competitor.

2. Turnover in leadership: New top leadership, who can provide alternative key values, may be perceived as more capable of responding to the crisis.

3. Young and small organizations: The younger the organization is the less entrenched culture will be. Similarly, it is easier for management to communicate its new values if organization is small.

4. Weak culture: The more widely strong culture is and the higher the agreements on its values, the more difficult change will happen. Conversely, weak cultures are easier to change.

If most of these conditions exist, the following management actions may lead to change, initiating the new rituals, promoting employees who espouse the new values, changing the reward system to support the new values, and undermining the current subcultures through transfers. However, these actions will not result in an immediate shift in the culture. Cultural change is a lengthy process measured in years rather than in months. Nevertheless, cultures could change.

From the state of nature to civil society

2008-11-15T11:08:00.001+07:00

According to Thomas Hobbes state of nature is due to a lack of government authority. Where people live in constant fear of each other and are tempted to attack one another in order to prevent being attacked themselves. The state of nature represents essentially a state devoid of justice, in which when rights are in dispute, there is no competent judge to render rightful verdict.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau state of nature’s concept differs fundamentally. To him, what makes up this difference is that people can make legal claims against one another. The fighting in this situation is not merely a struggle for sheer survival but, above all, a struggle for right. However, a struggle for right cannot takes place unless it assumes that rightful claims are already in existence.

Nevertheless, to be legitimate this claim must be based on the universal principle of right, which is the principle of mutual recognition of everyone’s equal freedom of choice. It is with regard to this universal principle of right that “The Human Right” concept gave rise to civil society.

Asocial sociability

2008-11-02T22:01:00.001+07:00

It is important to note that Kant, unlike Rousseau, appreciates the human tendency toward conflict as something positive. Whereas Rousseau condemns societal conflict as a result of the human being’s alienation from himself, Kant considers societal conflict as a precondition for the development of the individual. “The human being wishes concord, but nature, knowing better what is good for its species, wishes discord.”

While Rousseau sets out the vision of a political harmony in which alienation and conflict will be totally abolished, Kant does not want societal conflict to be abandoned. By shaking human beings out of their self-sufficiency, conflict can become a driving force of civilization. In Kant’s words, conflict awakens all powers of the human being and induces him to overcome his tendency to indolence.

It is understood that from a moral point of view, we ought to fight malicious inclinations. However, we should appreciate societal antagonism as serving a higher purpose. Without asocial behaviors, human being would live a pastoral existence of perfect concord, self-sufficiency and mutual love.

Ethical community

2008-10-19T20:54:00.001+07:00

Social duties are not confined to observing the rules of civilized politeness and fostering the development of an order. In the wake of Rousseau, it shows that the worst of all vices – envy, avarice, malicious joy – stem from society, and that society as a whole, bears a responsibility for fighting these morally problematic tendencies in establishing an ethical community.

Kant defines the ethical community as a society in accordance with, and for the sake of, the law of virtue. The notion of a duty of humanity as a whole towards itself not only contradicts the Kantian individualism, but also actually borders on a paradox. Does the awareness of duty not rest on the moral consciousness of every individual? Does, because of the ultimate inscrutability of the human heart, morality itself can never be organized on a collective basis?

Undeniably, an ethical community cannot be enacted in a straightforward manner. Society needs more than a civil code to sustain order. It needs education to moral philosophy.

Change as natural dimension

2008-10-08T22:58:00.001+07:00

The successful change could not be the consequence of the substitution of one model to another, but rather the result of a collective process, through which are mobilized resources and abilities of the participants, necessary to the setting up of new systems. The free implementation will allow to these systems to be direct as a human whole and not as an impersonal mechanism.

Such redefining of the change’s problems allows us to highlight a fundamental dimension, that it must be natural. In other words, the actors’ apprenticeship and acquisition of the new relational models are their new collective abilities. No change could take place without break off. However, a powers relationship’s change does not lead necessarily to the development of a new ability; it could be the change of the leadership.

Any important civilizations changes were prepared by the setting up of new organizational abilities, and when these abilities were asserted, the change was accelerated. To illustrate our though, it is from the changes of the human relationship’ modes, passing from the model of offering and plundering, to the model of contract and negotiation, that modern societies were formed, and the world able to continue its development.

Change as sociological problem

2008-09-21T21:21:00.001+07:00

The usual discussion about change divides leaders. To them, change is the consequence of an external logic, economical, ecological, biological, cultural and/or moral. We are not contesting these external factors; we are simply saying that change must be considered as a sociological problem, because human are not changing spontaneously, but rather collectively, in their relationship with the others.

From this point of view, all theories are founded on three types of postulate:

First, the postulate of coherence: the organization coherence is relative. Indeed, there is always mechanism to help integration, and there is never coherence between sub-organizations, and they are all full of contradictions. Even the most integrated organization does not work according to one principle. In addition, since human could not live without contradictions, the problem is the threshold of these contradictions, and the ability of integration to sustain the organization.

Second, the postulate of hierarchy: the interdependence of the hierarchical system poses problems. As strong as mechanisms are, they are always sub-mechanisms, which could not clearly implement, since their effects are masked by other co-existing mechanisms. Hierarchy used to press on the organizational spring. But, any systems have multiples entries, which mean we could obtain an effect in pressing on a variable which is not more decisive than others. We are not force to wait that the most decisive ones moves. We can have an influence on the system, to the condition to have the appropriated strategy. Thus, there is no priority spring, and there is ways according to contexts.

Third, the postulate of homogeneity: the relation in between certain types of mechanisms at different levels and in specific sectors of the organization could coexist with opposed mechanisms. It is all about strategy to balance power of decision, and the integration of the whole through games. Systems could absorb not only incoherencies, but also symbiosis of mechanisms apparently contradictory. Moreover, if we want to go deeper, we could try to understand what the possibilities of the coexistence of different games are? And which substitutes have naturally replaced inefficient systems?

That is why the organizational analysis appears irreplaceable, because it offers the possibility: to multiply comparisons, to develop more practical means, to understand changes on the daily basis, and to prepare the control and the monitoring of these changes.

Salina first birthday

2008-09-06T19:08:00.005+07:00

One year! We have accomplished our first year of existence. This first year was at the same time full of surprises and happiness. For these reasons, I like the entrepreneur life and I believe that besides creating a family, a man will not achieve its existence without creating his own business.

What I have experienced during that year, confirm what I felt. The consultancy business in this region has a bright future. Indeed, multicultural context is favorable to continuous organizations realignment, and that is why our services are essential for those who want to sustain harmonious working environment.

Today, our business prospects expand to Southeast Asia. Indeed, even in the midst of worldwide financial insecurity, smart people understand that it is the right time to invest. Besides, in addition to the workload of my business I am working on a project to publish a manual about transferring technologies to local SMEs.

The future is now

2008-08-28T07:17:00.003+07:00

Last week, the education committee of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) invited me to participate to their annual conference. This year topic proclaimed “The future is now.” The future of the Tourism industry in Thailand raises two major questions: what the country strategy, quantity or quality is? Then, how the education and professional sector could work together to help the youth to join efficiently the professional world?

Mr. John Koldowski exposed the context of the tourism economy, which, despite the world economy difficulties, will not affect the continuous growth. Simply because, the economical expansion of the two Asian leaders, China and India, is exponential, and will strongly support the region’s economy. Then, he extended his thought in depicting Thailand dynamism in term of infrastructure development, which tends to focus on mass tourism.

Then we discussed about the professionals and academics’ common duty, to pass down to the next generation the necessary knowledge and competencies to sustain society’s values. Professor Sompong Amnuay-Ngerntra described the employees’ working condition and the lack of reward of their efforts. To solve these problems he recommended developing the union’s legitimacy in order to create a better working environment and to reduce employees’ turnover. I added the importance to provide a clear internship curriculum describing the role of the students within the company, and allow them to apply their knowledge. Besides, a qualitative graduated student is the one who will able to translate professional problematic in academic question, and translate the outcomes of his research back to professional language.

Another solution came from the audience, in stating that professional would be well advised to share equitably their investment between marketing and human resources development. One way to help both parties to realize the importance of the other it’s to measure the best institutions in calculating their alumna’s ratio managing top organization. To conclude, the ideal young professional, is the one who will have solid knowledge and competences, but also the one able to take ethical decision.

How hotels survive the emerging difficulty?

2008-08-19T22:54:00.003+07:00

Recently, I have been invited by Hotel Management Magazine to participate to a forum. The audience gathered investors and hoteliers wondered about “How hotels survive the emerging difficulty?”

The first speaker, Mr. Thawatchai Arunyik, emphasized on the fact that Thailand could not survive alone and should develop international partnership to promote Thai culture. Also, he mentioned that thanks to the Thai hospitality, the repeater tourist ratio increase by 50%, but encouraged all tourism actors to play their ambassador role, necessary to reflect genuine Thai beauty.

Next, Mr. Udom Srimahachota, expressed his concern about the decrease of the hotels occupancy, the average stay, and the Revpar. He said that new marketing strategies have to be developed in order to attract more clients. Moreover, he conveyed its worries about the cleanliness of the immediate hotels areas, which are not reflecting a good image of the country.

I seized this opportunity to share to the audience a concrete case study, where the client problematic was to manage important changes in the hotel’s organization. The hotelier asked me to identify uncertainty zones slowing down businesses. From my observation, it occurred that employees blamed their boss about a lack of trust and deplored an increase of new policies. My recommendation was to create committees where managers would be able to set their own strategy in order to achieve their objectives. In a mean time, I trained the board committee members on how to keep a good distance from managers’ decision. One year later, managers asked for more challenging objectives and the hotel revenues increased by 15%.

Progressive organizational model

2008-08-07T21:11:00.006+07:00

The organizational model making sense depends on many things like circumstances, culture and context, among others.

Old models were developed with more of an inward looking prospect. Nowadays, an organization might simultaneously compete and collaborates with various sectors of activity, and has to predict and respond to changing business environment. These models are mainly emerging from non western cultural traditions.

The theory that traditional organizational models are incompatible for managing multicultural environment is supported by progressive. One of them, Jack Friedman, describes in his book “The world its flat” the way a large company adapted itself in getting rid of all its walls and looking at all its employees forming a vast pool of individual specialists who could be assembled horizontally into collaborative teams which become, de facto, a new company with its own name.

At this point we would like to remind to CEOs their citizen responsibilities, and if progressive organizational model could be effective in a short-middle term strategy, they will have to ensure that this model will match the socio-economic model of the society.

Structural contingency

2008-07-24T20:12:00.004+07:00

In the perspective of the company reengineering, the structural contingency develops the idea that constraints surrounding the organization contributes to shape it.

In her research, Joan Woodward tried to link the organizational structure to the production system. She found that there is less hieratical levels, less centralization and less administrative tasks in companies producing prototypes. On the other hand, companies producing large series, processes are written and get fewer performances. She concluded that there is a correlation between the production statement and the organizational structure.

Another researcher, Tom Burns, tried to establish a link between structure and innovation. He found that companies from which the type of product undergoes fewer changes are well organized in the mechanist framework, where problems and tasks are divided in specialties with centralization of the decisions and precision of the processes. In a mean time, companies with product undergoes fast renewal have more flexible structures and get more performances.

The theories of the structural contingency postulate clearly the adaptation of the organization to their constraints as a problem not as a necessity.

Social rationality

2008-07-13T06:15:00.004+07:00

The social rationality’s exigency is not only a moral imperative but also a practical imperative to reach pre-established objectives, without producing inadvisable side effects. A person is socially rational if he is able to provide justification to support his claim to any know-how. But this justification must have the status of a communicable knowledge.

Since M. Weber we distinguish two main forms of social rationality. The ones toward:

a. means, where the price of the achievement keeps into account the cost of the utilized means;
b. values, where the realization of valuable values is independent from the cost.

In contrast, the action oriented by tradition comprises neither efficiency’s calculation nor alternative’s examination, but consist in a spontaneous adhesion to leaders.

From this point, we could say that any system of action comprises three level of organization:

1. The technological level of the resources’ mobilization to reach a determined objective;
2. The economical level of the resources’ allocation in regards of the alternatives’ plurality;
3. The political level of the power’s mobilization and its ability to command.

The sociology’s role is to explain the causes and the consequences of any system of action.

Thai Food Business Forum

2008-07-03T22:49:00.002+07:00

Recently, I have been invited by Nestle Company to moderate debates of the Thai Food Business Forum. The objective was to discuss with researchers and practitioners about a sensitive economic issue of how to “Leveraging Competitive Advantage in Hospitality Industry Through Value Adding”?

Mrs. Veronique Cremades, Executive Director of Nestle in Thailand wished to open research’s doors to the Food Industry, and to create synergy among Food Researchers, Food Practitioners, and the Educational sector.

The first guest speaker, Mr. Christophe Mercier, explained that the brands competition is taking a new turn in choosing the innovation’s strategy. Then, he raised the global warming issue, and one of the consequences is the focus on the utilization of local ingredients, which overlap the tendency to choose inexpensive food that could have a direct impact on the increase of obesity rate.

Then, Mr. Sanjog Modgil developed the ideas that in the food industry you cannot make money by selling things cheap, and that 20% of your clientele bring you 80% of your revenue. In consequence, we should take care of these 20% and stop trying to do something for everyone.

Next, Dr. Vasina Chandrasiri expressed her inquietude about the raise of disability and mortality in Thailand due to inappropriate food consumption and physical inactivity. She insisted that food habit come from the education and we should reinforce the nutritional principles in schools.

Afterward, Dr. Lien Wen-Sze shared with us her research secrets: supply original taste difficult to copy; help save raw material cost; provide a mean to cut down salt, MSG and oil in keeping the same great taste.

To conclude Mrs. Cremades shared her concerned about the emergence of new brands that base their strategy on low price rather providing quality. Also, she developed Nestle strategy supporting food professional to increase profitability in providing different product as well as service solutions, such as, nutrition expertise, healthy product, and wellness that are real value added benefits.

Two panelists’ interventions give the opportunity to initiate a productive debate with speakers. The first one expressed his concerned about the worldwide economics’ problem that has a negative impact on families’ food budget. The second one comes from a chef who called his colleagues to be innovative and focus on the nutritional aspect when creating new menus.

As moderator of this forum, I had the opportunity to share with participants, the positive aspect of the Thai food culture, which has a long tradition and has always been able to face and overcome complex challenges. In addition, there is a natural bridge in between research and tradition. Indeed, most of the culinary revolution came from the experimentation of new techniques and products.

Function Vs. System

2008-06-22T21:10:00.001+07:00

According to functionalist, in a social system, the function of an element is likened to their positive consequences, the negative consequences resulting from dysfunctions. This conception bring functionalism to a simple research of causes and effects: such element (cause) produce such effect (function) positive or negative (consequence).

But, the notion of social function could not be separated from the structure of the social system and its environment. The problem is to describe, into universal terms, the global functioning of a system determined in its structure, its elements and its transformation processes.

Society is composed by a multitude of subsystems which are in incessant interaction. It is about to define the functional prerequisites of any social system, as, its basic functions, indispensable at the system existence, its adaptation (A), pursuit of goals (G), integration (I), latency (L). These allow distinguishing within the global society four levels of analysis: Economic (A), Politic (G), Sociologic (I), and Cultural (L).

The solution of the societal consensus

2008-06-09T20:26:00.001+07:00

According to A. Comte, sociology is the last stage in an integral system’s setting up of all existing sciences. Its foundation, announced the end of all irrational approaches of the socio-historic phenomenon.

This willingness to establish scientific methods as the only guarantors of the social thought should be set in its socio-historic context. When, the French revolution’s troubles and the Imperial adventure provoked the collapse of the Rousseau’s humanist utopia.

From that point we could ask ourselves if social order is possible without conflicts. To Comte, the solution of the societal consensus is to base politic on the scientific rationality, in other words, to know the sociology of the organizations in order to predict and to act.

The rationality’s limits

2008-05-27T23:47:00.002+07:00

The rationality’s limits turn classical decisional model upside down. However, this process does not have the influence expected, simply because its implication has not been perceived. The reason is that human could not comprehend all possible choices, essentially because he reasons sequentially and not synoptically. That is why the decision maker does not look after optimum solution, but rather a rational decision.

To understand the practical pertinence of this theoretical reasoning, let’s try to confront it to a concrete case study. A case about a whole of decisions considered as basic in an international organization.

The starting point is the study of the planning system that is extremely developed and seriously followed by all. It is a rising and descending participative process in which objectives and projects are coordinated from the base to the top, allowing each individual to express him, but also in compensation to be conscious of his place within the organization. Such planning is supposed optimizing information’s dissemination, and put the top in such position to facilitate solutions and their executions.

Now, the study shown the real planning impact on the decisions, which in practice have no link in between planning forecast and the investment realized. So, how decisions are made?

In studying the three organizational levels:

1. Corporate, without operational responsibilities;
2. Intermediate, regrouping related enterprises;
3. Operational, integrated units.

The rational model requires that the corporate level set objectives from information coming from the other two levels, and that the other levels set their objectives thanks to accurate optimization’s processes. In fact, the intermediate level was taking decisions by economic calculations, influencing the arbitration regulating the pressures between different levels. The corporate level was only setting the rules of the game in establishing the rational decision’s criteria.

It showed the decisional model inadequacy to manage changes.

The decision maker’s problem

2008-05-15T21:02:00.003+07:00

The central issue within organizations is the link between the decision maker rationality and the system rationality. From an examination of the decision maker’s problem, two series of critics of the rational model are decisive. The two themes are link and could be resumed as follow:

1. Humans and decision makers never really know what they want;

2. Humans and decision makers discover their goals through their experience, in other words through their decision.

We could draw lesson from projects financed by the World Bank. These projects, of which costs and advantages have been studied according to rational model, have been considered as failures from a rational logic. Their costs turns out more expensive than forecasted and the expected advantages have failed to materialize. From the development point of view, these projects have been successful. Indeed, the difficult situation in which decision makers were confronted because of the misdirection, made possible discovering new resources and solutions, which were unimaginable before, and allowed achieving other objectives even more interesting than the initial one. For the reason that to learn humans must act without knowing yet results, since the rational model freeze action and do not allow discovering new possibilities.

In consequence, decision makers could not stake their rational preferences. Simply because, they take out advantages from situation according to a possible minimum damage and discover their preferences afterwards. The good decision maker is the one able to take out advantage from all experiences imposed by circumstances.

Of course human could not venture into any projects. The decisional process’s difficulty is not a problem of costs and advantages, but a problem on which reflection could and should be exercised.

Decisional rationality could be disastrous

2008-04-30T22:38:00.001+07:00

At first sight, it is paradoxical that a pragmatism approach as the organizational analysis has less success with senior executives, than an abstract approach as the decisional approach. It could be explain by the psychological comfort. Indeed, the decisional approach put the actor out of the system’s constraints, which flatter the illusion of liberty of the individual. While the organizational approach aims to no one, since no one could identify himself with the organization. Also, the decisional approach has the merit of the simplicity. While the organizational approach stands by complexity and nuances. In consequence, it constitutes a convenient language that allows communicating without implicating individuals’ ulterior motive.

However, senior executives could not only use the decisional reasoning, because of the risk to lose their ways in abstract concepts. Indeed, this reasoning mode gives more importance to action than comprehension, transform consistently data and dispossess them of systemic dimension in order to assign them objectives values. Data could be faultless, but if data are based on insufficient analysis, the result could be disastrous. The solution consist to put decision and the myth of the decision-maker, into perspective, and to find rational means to move from the system’s rationality to the actor’s rationality.

Organizational reasoning

2008-04-21T06:43:00.001+07:00

We have seen that strategic reasoning and systemic reasoning are difficult to distinguish. Without systemic reasoning, the strategic analysis does not exceed the phenomenological interpretation. Without strategic reasoning, the systemic analysis stills speculative, and, without the strategic reasoning’s stimulation, it becomes determinist. In other words, the first reasoning is inductive, the second one is deductive.

To integrate both reasoning, we would use another concept, the organizational reasoning. This model integrates human nature, which supposes a dualistic vision of the socials relations: the selfish strategy of the actor and the coherence of the system are maintained together and not reconciled. Only this model, as an integrator of the social mechanism, manages to surpass them.

To demonstrate its practical consequences, let’s examine a case study where a company failed to introduce an IT system. The system, from which depends the survival of the organization, was planned to solve a relational problem in between managers and employees. Even though technical rationality and financial value were perfectly demonstrated, and the application’s possibilities have been seriously tested with success, the system has finally been rejected by employees and managers.

The case is that data capture by the IT system shows the tolerance that managers grant to the employees, in calculating the needed time to produce a product. This tolerance is so important that it allows managers and employees to increase their salary by 30%. In a mean time, it appears that the company would have an interest to increase the production’s rate. So, why both parties did not find an agreement, but more important, why they even did not try?

The negotiation’s characteristics are that employees, to maintain their liberty margin, keep negotiation in a shadow zone. Which zone, is not recognized by the formal organization. If we investigate the signification of this liberty margin, we find that the game is played by five players: employees; employees’ representative; managers; directors; and unions. The union agreement stipulates that negotiations must involved employees’ representative and managers. This condition gives to both parties the possibility to constitute, by the control of a crucial uncertainty zone, a source of power, thanks to which they could, conjointly, give great numbers of services to their common principals, the employees.

Instead to conclude in designing culprits and in indicating the means to force both parties to collaborate in order to clarify the situation, we asked ourselves about the system’s characteristics, and the means to improve its efficiency. And the organizational reasoning’s model is by far, the most economical.

Sustainable tourism conference

2008-04-10T02:41:00.002+07:00

Recently, I have been invited to a conference organized by Khon Kaen University about “The new strategies for development of sustainable tourism and poverty alleviation”. The objective was to answer the question of how tourism can offer sustainable income to local people. The opening remark from Professor Vellas proposed two reflections. Firstly, how tourism attractions could develop tourist arrival? And secondly, how to manage these attractions to sustain tourism activities?

Dr. Therchai presented the Community Based Tourism challenge in Thailand, and explained why this concept should emphasize on understanding socio-economic issues, instead of creating short term economical resources.

Then Mr. Khom Douangchantha presented the Laos strategic plan which contributes to social development through international cooperation. The biggest Laos asset is to be the only country, among Indochina region, having borders with all the others, and not having sea access. Lately, Laos has been awarded by the United Nation for the Nam Ha ecotourism project to alleviate poverty in the region.

Right after lunch, Professor Pornnarong Charnnuwong presented new ways for tourism investment. The case study was about a post Tsunami project conjointly developed in Phuket, Sri Lanka and Banda Aceh. The objective was to rebuild tourism infrastructures in respecting environment and promoting social activities.

Next Mr. Kithapatr Dhabhalabutr presented the local participation developing cultural heritage with the project rebuilding the first pillar house in Khon Kaen.

The final discussion was moderated by Professor Vellas, who expressed his gratitude toward participants, having contributed actively to this conference which exceeded the usual generic thematic. Dr. Charit Tingsabadh expressed the importance of implementing technological transfer and what could people get from it. Then, he raised the question if Thailand has collected data to evaluate the impact on community? Dr. Sinth answered in deploring the lack of national coordination, and suggested that Thai and Laos Universities should cooperate more to promote such ambition. Moreover, he suggested that the Mekong countries should educate people on their geography and national treasures in order to develop cultural knowledge and create regional synergy.

The conclusion found a consensus around the idea that all tourism infrastructures have to be developed in the way to respect natural resources and to extend tourism activities to unknown areas. In other words, Indochina region needs more strategy than marketing.

Strategic reasoning vs. Systemic reasoning

2008-03-28T23:30:00.002+07:00

There are two independent modes of reasoning to analyze organizations: the strategic reasoning based on the actor to understand the system; and the systemic reasoning based on the system to find the non natural construct’s order.

The strategic reasoning is understood not only from the actors own motivations, but also from links in between chances to win or lose the game they play with others. Therefore, if we know actors’ strategies and the constraints, we could reconstruct the game’s rationality. As well as, from the actors’ background, we can understand attitudes from which depend plays. In that case the fundamental sociological phenomenon of the behaviors integration in the same social whole is analyzed in the organizational frame as an indirect process from which actors are restraint. And, if they want to win or minimize their lost, they must adopt a winning strategy, in other words, a rational strategy which forces them to be submitting to game’s requirement, and whatever was their initial motivation, to finally work with the others to the common objectives.

If we can distinguish and associate in a mean time the strategic content and the game packaging, the systemic reasoning was already implicit in the strategic logic. In other words, instead to look after guilty persons, to try to locate the structural defect and the functioning fault, it is about to make a diagnostic of the system that allows to understand in what and why, in this specific system, the behaviors and the incriminate mechanisms are rational.

Organization and external environment exchanges

2008-03-16T20:47:00.002+07:00

Environment is not an independent variables whole. It constitutes a set of systems structured differently, and de facto, a set of specific problems that actors must solve. If we want to understand the dynamic established in between organization and external environment, we must analyze the games’ mechanism.

One of the possible answer to ease the exchanges with external environment could be to set up a specialize department to formalize the actors’ interaction. But, it could bring a problem in the accomplishment of their missions. Indeed, the actors within the specialize department will be identified with the external environment’s needs, and won’t defend the priorities of the organization they belong to. In the analysis of this situation, we must bear in mind the fundamental characteristics that differ from the ones prevailing in between the organization and their members, the freedom of each party to leave the game.

The substitutability of each party is the central issue of the exchanges. This axis allows interpreting the mechanism principles underlying the equilibrium of the power relationship. Behind the diversity of specific configuration, a same logic determines games, a logic of monopole. Not that it could be possible to actors to influence organization without monopole, nor the organization to manipulate actors in imposing itself as the only acceptable interlocutor in an open competitive environment. But the finality of this game is to be able to lay down its own rules, otherwise to manage solutions with a new partner.

However, the stakes could be interdependent, where each party has an interest to maintain the relationship stable, simply because it increases their ability to pursue their objectives. Indeed, more the relation is stable, more the actors from the organization could rely on it and reinforce their intra-organizational strategies, and vice versa, the external actors would have an easier access to the organization and a better influence on that one.

To avoid the reinforcement of this autonomous system, the organization could implement a technical measurement to evaluate results from the actors of both parties. But, the organization could not influence these actors as far as its services are efficient and match effectively the external demands. Conversely, the external environment won’t be able to impose itself to the organization, to the condition to maintain their representativeness and be helpful. It that case, the system would have a limited autonomy.

To conclude, the boundaries of the relation are variable and we must analyze first the flexibility of the organization before to set and implement strategies.

The organizations’ contingent nature

2008-03-04T18:27:00.002+07:00

It is time now to center the analysis on the interaction between an organization and its environment. To characterize the process, two types of question come forward. Which types of variables affect the organizations’ characteristics and to which extent? And what is the influence of these characteristics on the level of performance of these organizations?

In one of the first research devoted to these questions, Tom Burns described what he called the mechanistic model, characterized by an elaborated organization chart, a weak communication, and a strong power’s centralization. He opposed to this model the organic one which answers easily to volatile environment.

Another research, with a more assertive willingness of conceptualization, Frederick Emery underlined the causal interrelations of elements within environments. He discerned four types of environments: calm and scattered; calm and grouped; disrupted and reactive; and turbulent. Each environment corresponding to an economical structure which constitutes a causal framework for the organization’s structure and its type of relation establish with the external environment.

Whatever were the merits of these theories, it is not about how to apply a priori principles, but to carry out an accurate empirical assessment of the situation in order to identify the demands we would need to answer, and the problems we would need to solve by the development of efficient organizational structure. The analysis consist of reflection on the negotiation’s systems and the type of games in which actors face constraints.

Starting from the observation that the adaptation’s degree to the economic situation depends on organizations ability to reach the necessary level of performance to their survival, we deduce that, to maintain their ability to exist in a volatile environment, these organizations would not have other alternative than to practice organizational audit.

Power relationship as foundation of the organized action

2008-02-22T13:25:00.001+07:00

The power of an actor depends to the extent of the uncertainty zone generated by his unpredictable behavior, and its use to control the other actors. In a mean time, the strategy of each actor is naturally directed toward the manipulation of the other’s predictable behavior, and modifying in his favor the rules that governs relationship within the organization.

To analyze a power relationship requires also answering the question of the negotiation’s issue. This refers to the resources an actor could have at his disposal according to his social status, which will allow him to be involved in different fields of negotiation and to play with. The diversity of his activities will give him the possibility to share his bet, accumulate resources from the other actors and use them to reinforce his power in the organization.

Organizations frame and set the field’s boundaries of the power relationship among actors, and in that way define the conditions in which these ones could negotiate. However, if an organization constitutes the constraints imposed to actors, this one could not exist without their interrelations. These links seal the integration of the actors to the organizational structure. In other words, power and organization are indissolubly link.

An organization fosters its own sources of power as much within the constraints as around the official rules. We could discern four big sources of power, the one:

1. coming from the mastery of a specific competence;
2. linking to the relation between the organization and its environment;
3. arising out of the mastery of the communication and the information;
4. coming from the existence of the organizational rules.

In studying organization that way, we discover naturally a second structure of power, parallel to the codified one, and legitimized by the official organization. This analyze allows to better work out the range and the real impact of the official authority, and to assess the existent room each actor has at its disposal to negotiate. In other words, this investigation allows to understand anomalies and to measure the gap in between the formal and informal organization.

Power relationship

2008-02-10T22:33:00.001+07:00

Even if power’s phenomenon is universal, it is also multiform. It is the capacity of one person “A” to obtain from another person “B” does something that he wouldn’t do without “A” intervention. The advantage of this theory is to be able to apply to multiform powers and to hold attention on the relational nature of power.

Power is a relation, a negotiation, and not an attribute of the actors in any organizations. Also, this relation is not transitive. If one person “A” could easily obtain from another person “B” a “X” action, and “B” could obtain this same action from a third person “C”, it could be that “A” being unable to obtain it from “C”. Moreover, “A” could obtain easily from “B” a “X’ action, with more difficulty a “Y” action, and could be powerless to obtain a “Z” action that the third person “C” could obtain easily.

This action is as much reciprocal as unbalanced. Reciprocal, because negotiation goes with exchange, and if one of the actors haven’t any more resources to put into the relation, he get nothing to exchange. In consequence, “B” couldn’t bargain his willingness to do what “A” asks him, and ceases to exist as an autonomous actor in front of “A”. But, it is also an unbalance relation, because if “A” and “B” get the same assets, there is no reason to consider one of the actors in a situation of power toward the other. In the other hand, if the relation is unbalanced, this disparity corresponds to the respective situation of both actors, and here we talk about power relationship.

The actors’ strategies

2008-01-30T23:02:00.001+07:00

According to M. Crozier the efficiency of any systems could not be entirely attributed to the degree of its rationality, but balanced by the irrational play of the actors within. To him, the complexity of the individuals’ interaction escapes from the simplistic model of a mechanical organization, simply because they inevitably look to beat the system.

To illustrate his thesis, he explains that the game starts when individuals are using their share of freedom within the organization, to negotiate problems with their superiors. However, individuals’ behavior will depend on three different factors, they will look: first, to the degree of liberty allocated by their professions rules; second, to their capacity to build relation with others in order to establish and/or reverse alliances; and third, to their ability to bear psychological pressures. In any case, individuals will never accept changes passively. In other words, any organizations are the realm of power’s relation and could not be analyzed as transparent wholes.

Based on C. Argyris theory, negotiation is the reflection on the individuals’ material and psychological need. This model relies on the similitude in between the organizational structures and the need of the individuals, and deals each other as independent variable. Such model gives priority to the single relation in between individuals and organizations, making those ones an abstract entity. In consequence, this model could not convey the complexity of the individuals’ behavior within organizations.

A second model from A. Zaleznik consists to study agreements between individuals and organizations from an economical pattern. This theory postulates that individuals will try to obtain a fair remuneration of their effort, where the negotiation will stay within this fundamental equation. To avoid divergence, the criteria to appreciate individuals’ performance, are framed in a referential. The problem with this model is that individuals will not observe objectively their performances and will rather tend to elaborate a strategy to obtain compensation according to opportunities.

In their reasoning, these two processes neglect the autonomous constraint inherent to the organizational context. They both are incapable to explain the individuals’ existence within organizations. But, if we try to understand how and why individuals form a group, we note that the grievances’ similitude is less important than a common asset of a sufficient interaction capacity which will allow the development of common action. That is why M. Crozier suggests we may find strong differences among groups which are neither fond of the material equilibrium nor affectionate the economical pattern.

Technological transfer to Thai SMEs

2008-01-19T22:56:00.001+07:00

Recently I have joined a colleague, Pr. Vellas (Acting for Life’s representative), to launch the fourth stage of a project, supporting Prince of Songkla University to coordinate the implementation of the technological transfer, dedicated exclusively to the 100%Thai SMEs.

Initiated right after the Tsunami catastrophe, the project’s first stage provided logistical, technological and financial support to local SMEs being affected by the disaster. The second stage investigated the outcomes of these helps and identified what these SMEs need to regain their economical and social status. The third stage debriefed the survey and decided future actions.

Our current affair, the fourth stage’s implementation is structured in four sub-stages:

1. To identify local entrepreneurs thanks to an economical evaluation’s grid to make sure SMEs have the right potential. The grid ensure that environment would be unharmed; the company would have a benefit; and so would the community’s economy.

2. To work with the selected local entrepreneurs in finding and implementing hard and soft technological solutions.

3. To organize a symposium summarizing the outcomes of our works, gathering scholars from Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and France, as well as the SMEs having benefited from our support.

4. To publish the symposium outcomes and distribute it to others institutions that could meet similar socio-economical problems.

Organizational audit process

2008-01-08T22:09:00.001+07:00

Leaders must constantly monitor and analyze the implications of industry trends, and the changing customer wants and needs must drive the reengineering of their existing organizations. Undoubtedly, today’s volatile business environment can be challenging and an ongoing strategic planning process is essential to the health of their companies.

Leaders may also find difficult to dedicate substantial time and talent resources required for a strategic planning process, but it is critical to the future of their organizations that they make the commitment. They typically have an intuitive sense of how business is doing, but these gut feelings are inaccurate and it is common to find employees not mastering the full understanding of their leadership.

One of the usual practices to understand your currants capabilities and constraints is the SWOT analysis. However, this analytical process has a number of limitations. Indeed, it doesn’t force you to assess all areas of your organization. As a result SWOT analysis may not provide a true and extensive big picture of your current organization.

Benchmarking organization against best practices is another basic practice for the strategic planning process. But determining which companies to measure against and gathering detailed information on what makes them great can be time intensive and could dilute your organization’s culture.

From my experience the organizational audit is the best practice for the strategic planning process. This audit examines four main dimensions:

1. Strategy: assessing the strength and commitment to the organization’s mission. Measuring how the organization understands the client needs, its internal capabilities to plan, as well as how people are executing missions and achieving goals.
2. Structure: assessing the human resources system and policies procedure. Measuring how managers are controlling the standard of performances.
3. Communication: assessing the decisional process and how all actors of the system interrelate, as well as evaluating the communication flow’s efficiency.
4. Culture: assessing the organizational values’ understanding, the trust in the leadership, and the teamwork dynamism.

This comprehensive audit process is beneficial in several ways, where the results will show you are not doing as well as you thought you were in some areas. When there is a solid data indicating either the formal or the informal organization has to be realigned to your corporate strategy. The process should be easy to administer and to ensure full participation throughout the organization.

Alexis de Tocqueville ambition

2007-12-20T16:24:00.001+07:00

Alexis de Tocqueville brilliant work about democracy ideology has the ambition to answer a universal question, “How men could be in a mean time free and equal?” To him, the democracy’s study must come from an investigation of the social state; more precisely it should not from the individual’s study but from social facts.

The conditions of the democracy based on the equity of the social state, a fundamental fact explaining the orientation of the human being history. Tocqueville decodes in this principle an intention from providence from which we could understand that humanity is not completely mastering its destiny. That is why in sourcing the nature of our decision we could predict the perils that we are exposed and find societal remedy.

The most visible nature of the democracy system is the society atomization. Democracy lays on individual free will. Where society is made up by individual, confronted each other, following none common goals, and preoccupied to satisfy their own desire. To satisfy this task, democracy should provide prosperity, called affluent society, and should be able to moderate individual desire. Until today it is difficult to give a prognostic if democracy could maintain individual desire to an acceptable level, or if the conditions of the equality will exacerbate rivalry which will drive individual to escalation of wealth and will make impossible to satisfy all.

To illustrate this theory Tocqueville said, “Democracy lose social links, but tighten natural links, it brings parents closer and in a mean time it separates citizens.” And added, “I am far to reproach to equality the unruliness that it inspires. I admire it in seeing it laying down in each individual spirit and heart this obscure notion of independence, and in preparing so the remedy to the sickness it elaborates.”

New way to manage organizations

2007-12-07T22:57:00.002+07:00

Change is neither the inexorable process of history, nor the conceptualization and the implementation of a more rational organizational model. It is a concept of collective creation in which members learn together. In other word, create and set up new way to manage organizations, in order to acquire the appropriate system. This process institutionalizes the collective construct and allows more individual autonomy.

In this context, it is not so much the rigor of the principles, the proposed rational model, or the purity of the intention that lead a reform, but rather the impact of that one on the mechanism of the organization. In consequence, it becomes urgent to know the hided construct, to understand its role and signification in the organization, in order to measure the resistance’s force and the evolution’s abilities.

The understanding of this knowledge, and its utilization in change management, is not possible without a profound transformation from our reasoning mode and our action methodology. This conceptual repetition goes through recognition of the universal phenomenon of the power relationship which constitutes the foundation of the organized action.

United Nations Conference

2007-11-24T22:46:00.001+07:00

The last two days I have participated on behalf of “Acting for Life” organization, to a conference about “Accessible Tourism”, held at the United Nation Office in Bangkok. This conference organized by “Disabled Peoples’ International – Asia Pacific” (DPI-AP) had for objective to share experiences on “how to promote tourism for disable people”, and to adopt recommendations for further international actions. His Excellency Mr. Suvit Yodmani, Thai Minister of Tourism, and Mr. Shigeru Mochida, UNESCAP’s Deputy Executive Secretary, launched the conference in skilful manner.

The key note speaker, Dr. Scott Rains, research fellow from University of California, shared with us his latest works about new strategic alliance for the disability right movement. To him, the trend is less about new invention and more about standardization at the international level. Actions such as in Africa, to promote Safaris; in South America, to improve ship terminable access; in North America, to promote the Alcatraz National Park, are implemented to authorize disabled people feel as a full time citizen.

The main recommendations adopted the last day, were: The Bali declaration on Barrier free Tourism; Biwako Millennium Framework (BMF) tools for promoting sustainable tourism; to get governments sign and ratify the convention of the right of persons with disabilities; to create a national committee to coordinate effective implementation of measure to promote accessible tourism; to decide governments and professional to increase number of people with disabilities working in tourism industry.

The individual identity at work

2007-11-10T23:04:00.001+07:00

Economical structures see evolve the organization of the collective relation. According to rational principles, an organized situations’ network intervenes between the world of the interpersonal relations and the world of the collectives’ relation. In other words, it would be missing crucial challenges to believe that organizational changes affect only the economical structure, and do not have incidence on the individual identity.

In consumerist society, urbanized and industrialized, the working habit, the ways of thinking and actions differ profoundly from what they were it was only a century ago. The organizational phenomenon focuses media attention on the reproduction of behaviors and cultures. But, to what point individual could be influenced in his way of thinking? Culture, in the anthropological point of view, it is about representations and values, more or less codified, which we used to act and to be understood. This culture could be learnt and altered in the working environment.

As scientific management influenced on the workers’ behaviors, bureaucratic working system caused a profound desire for informal human relation. The relational experiences in the contemporary organizations are so intense that theirs effects go beyond the frame of the organization itself. Indeed, it moulds the identity and the method of relations between individuals independently from professional framework.

The collective action

2007-10-28T21:46:00.001+07:00

The actors’ freedom is a fact, but the existence of organized and coherent systems is another one. How these two realities can be connected and articulated? Against all illusion from totalitarian rationality, the character essentially opportunist of the people strategies, and the implacable part of liberty, exist in all collective actions.

To what conditions, and to the price of what constraints, the collective actions are possible? This is the central question. For the reason that, if the collective action constitutes a problem so decisive for our societies, it is first and foremost that it is not a natural phenomenon. It is a social construct that the existence poses a problem and it remains to explain the conditions of its emergence and maintain.

What the problems are? First of all, the cooperation one. All collective actions are based on a minimum integration of the individual comportments. Indeed, the social actors pursue divergent objectives, not to say contradictory. This integration could be fulfilled by two ways. Either by constraint, the affective or ideological manipulation, in other word by imposed or agreed submission of the partial willingness of the actors. Or, by a contract, which means negotiation and bargaining, that could take place in an explicit or implicit way.

Indeed, the contractual relations are never developed naturally. They are difficult processes in which actors put themselves only with few protections, simply because it is twice threatening for them. In one hand, it always implies recognition of the collective action, and the constraints that result from; in the other hand, their own dynamic could be such that all concerned parties are suffering.

The role of the sociologist of organizations

2007-10-20T20:43:00.001+07:00

Public interest in the development of sociological knowledge will increase as more people come to realize what sociology can contribute to human safety and welfare, as well as it participates actively to the development of the world economy.

Progress in science and technology will always be accompanied by unforeseen and unintended consequences. Progress can indeed diminish the effects of natural catastrophes such as famine and disease, but it can also bring about a wide range of new problems. These are not the menaces of an impersonal nature but dangers that arise from imperfection in human behavior, particularly in organized human relations. For example, wars have shown a tendency to become larger and ever more destructive, and the causes, though far from being understood, clearly lie, in large measure, in the complexities of social organizations, in the interaction of great corporate national bodies. It can be argued that politics, unaided by sociology, cannot reverse this trend.

There is a general rise in the severity of ethnic hostilities, internal conflicts between generations, political factions, and other people divisions. Human welfare is also threatened by widespread poverty, crime, vice, corruption, and institutions breakdown. In consequence, I believe that the prospects for human betterment depend, in large part, on the increasing application of sociology knowledge to these enduring problems.

Nowadays, sociologists are employed by national and international bodies to recommend programs, evaluate their progresses and effects, gather data for planning, and propose methods to initiate changes. Also, sociologists assist industry to obtain data on clients and workers. This work includes organizing social surveys, offering advices on human relations problems, providing labor unions with suggestion, and helping communities undertake reforms.

It may ceases to be seen as purely academic work, but it appears likely that sociologists will continue to spread their activities over an ever-widening region of national or global concern.

Sociology of organizations

2007-10-10T00:16:00.001+07:00

We are all evolving in societies regulated by organizational phenomenon. Government, justice, education, religion, labor, family are all institutions coming under the control of an organization itself guided by ethic.

Since the industrial revolution these institutions see their social fabric radically change, and modern societies meet cooperation and coordination’s problems. Indeed, how to make organizations reach their objectives in offering to each individual maximum satisfaction?

To compensate dysfunctions, the logics governing the organized actions created different models.

The bureaucratic model, dear to Max Weber, appeared as the most typical process of rationalization, thanks to immutable rules. The main criticism of this model was its routine incapable to adapt swiftly to changes.

The birth of large industrial companies at the end of the 19th century, met the same problem. How to rationalize human work in order to maximize production? Frederick Taylor developed the one best way as a standard method for performing each job, which contributed to scientific management’s development. But, neglecting completely the human aspect in the working process, soon workers reacted against this vision too mechanist of their duty.

The product of this reaction created a new model, the human relations. One of its founders, Elton Mayo, observed that workers act not as individual but as members of social groups, where informal leaders ask to participate in the company’s decision. This social demand was source of conflicts, and the company, designed as a family, rejected confrontational communication, saw as a failure. It became undesirable.

The breaking point of these conflicts was the social revolution in 1960’s. In a same time, at the confluence and in opposition of the previous models, Michel Crozier prolonged the dysfunctions examination in a functionalist perspective, leading to a strategic model. From now on, the general aim is wider and concerns the sociology of organizations. The implementation of good managerial precepts is replaced by the research of logics capable of explaining the organizations’ functioning. The analysis becomes clinical rather than prescriptive.

Sociology’s baptism

2007-09-27T21:03:00.001+07:00

Auguste Comte claimed to be representative of Montesquieu to whom he credited with the merit to have asserted the determinism of the historical and social phenomena. Thanks to his research on the human’s universal history, Comte was the sociologist of the social unity. To him, there is only one valuable type of society and all the humanity shall lead to that ideal. He is also known as the first one who named the social studies, Sociology.

In studying the human intelligence development in its diverse spheres of activity, from its initial stage the most simple, until today, Comte discovered a fundamental law. This law consists in that each branch of our knowledge goes successively through three different states: the theological state, or imaginary; the metaphysical state, or abstract; and the scientific state, or positive. The first one is the necessary starting point of the human intelligence; the third one its definitive state; the second one is only destined to be used as transition.

Sociology’s birth

2007-09-20T21:13:00.001+07:00

The work of Plato and Aristotle could summarize the opposition between the normative preoccupation of the moralist and the positive preoccupation of the sociologist. Plato built a city that should allow men to realize their ideal. Aristotle studied what formed the Hellenic cities and tried to understand their spirits. Then, he came across Plato normative preoccupation, and concluded that Athens setting up seems to be the best. For the same conclusion, Aristotle intellectual reasoning is the nearest from Sociology.

We have to wait Montesquieu to see the positive perspective of Aristotle back. Indeed, in the “Reflection on the greatness and the decline of the Roman Empire”, Montesquieu tried to understand how a civilization expands, reach its peak and die. As in “The spirits of the laws”, he tried to understand the spirit of the rules that societies impose to men.

Introduction to sociology

2007-09-12T20:05:00.001+07:00

Human societies’ study associates the understanding of societies’ interactions, and the processes that preserve and change them in examining the dynamics of constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, and populations.

Humans depend on social institutions and organizations to inform their decisions and actions. Among the most basic organizational structures are economic, religious, educational and political institutions, as well as more specialized institutions such as the family, the community, the military, and the volunteer associations.

The broad nature of sociological inquiry overlaps with other social sciences such as economics, political science, psychology, geography, education, and law. Sociology's distinguishing feature is its practice of drawing on a larger societal context to explain social phenomena.

Salina's birth

2007-09-05T10:10:00.001+07:00

I have always wanted to establish my company and contribute to the socioeconomic development of other organizations. It’s done! Salina comes into the world on September 2007.

This blog will be used as a platform of ideas from my thesis and concrete case studies. This forum is free and open minded, and will be useful as much for entrepreneurs than academics.