Analysis of Strategic Organizational Communication (pat 19)

Emotion Regulation and Unobtrusive Control
by
Charles Lamson

So far we have discussed cultural control in terms of employees' thoughts - the ways in which they come to identify with the dominant beliefs and values of their organizations. But human human beingsare not only thinking creatures; they also are emotional beings. Emotions are relevant to cultural forms of motivation and control in three ways. At the simplest level, organizations can overtly manipulate employees' emotional responses. 

The emotions may be positive, as in ceremonies of enhancement. Often employees receive recognition based as much on complying with the organization's demands as on making tangible contributions. 

In any case, public recognition of subordinates serves to solidify the supervisors power position, And because she or he makes the decision about whom to recognize and how to do so, negative emotions serve similar control functions. For example, many observers of the downsizing and outsourcing of tasks that dominated U.S. firms during the 1990s, believe that both practices are designed more to control workers through fear and anxiety than to enhance organizational efficiency. 

Manipulating negative emotions reduces employees' self-esteem and makes them more compliant; they follow orders more readily and are less likely to see emotional manipulation as a control strategy. For example, Pan American flight attendants (who had been made to feel shame about their age, weight or sexual orientation) were more likely to refuse to go along with a union slowdown, and vote against their co-workers, than those who had not experienced degradation. Supervisors who are made to feel embarrassed for mixing with their subordinates, tend to withdraw from them and become more autocratic.

Control also is exercised when employees learn to interpret emotions in ways that are preferred by the organization. Emotional responses are highly ambiguous. Fear and excitement feel very much the same, so they must be interpreted. The core beliefs and values of an organization often tell employees how to interpret their emotional responses. They may learn to feel pride only when the organization's goals are met, not when their own objectives are fulfilled. For example, flight attendants may be successfully taught to interpret their anger at obnoxious passengers as care and concern for their helpless and dependent charges.

Finally, employees may learn to actually feel the emotions that are desired by their organizations. The process begins when employees are taught to obey particular display rules as part of their jobs. For example, people who work in the leisure/tourism industry are required to constantly display positive emotions, and to elicit them in their clients or customers. Flight attendants and cruise ship employees are expected to be happy, perky and concerned about meeting their customers' needs and to make the customers feel the same positive emotions.

In contrast, bill collectors are expected to display negative emotions (guilt) from the people they contact. Other employees must display neutral or no emotions, even in crisis situations to calm the people around them.

Many times with 911, a crisis is involved. For example, a  burglar is actually in someone's home. Operators are expected to remain calm, collected and emotionally distant. Employees can manage these demands in three different ways. they may pretend that they feel the emotions that they display. This is a process that usually is labeled "surface acting." This kind of acting is exhausting in many ways. It is easier to manage the dissonance and discomfort created by surface acting by learning to actually feel the desired emotions - to engage in a kind of deep acting.

For example, Arlie Hochschild's study of flight attendants found that emotions are often not just responses to work, but that emotion control is the work. Flight attendants learn to experience only the feelings that are required by their organizational roles, and to suppress other feelings. They create a package of emotions, and emotional displays, in which genuinely felt emotions are transformed into organizationally acceptable emotions. 

In a way, this is the easiest response to organizational demands for emotion regulation. Acting in either its surface or deep forms, creates dissonance (it is uncomfortable to feel one thing - for instance, feeling disgust at a client's lifestyle) and display another (warmth and concern). and is exhausting to continually do so - acting takes a great deal of effort. 

This dissonance is lowest, and the amount of effort is reduced, when one actually feels the emotions that he or she is supposed to feel and express. But if employees learn to deal with it emotion (emoticism) management, it can increase job satisfaction and enhance feelings of connectedness, as well as, causing workers to believe that they are performing their tasks well, and having a major impact at work. This is why employees who have been in careers that require emotion management for a long time experience less dissonance and less effort than newcomers to such a profession.

*SOURCE:  STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY, SIXTH EDITION BY CHARLES CONRAD AND MARSHALL SCOTT POOLE; PAGES 171-173*

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Analysis of Strategic Organizational Communication (part 18)

CASE STUDY
It's My Party and I'll Do What I Want To
by
Charles Lamson

Subtle and covert political games often take place in settings that on the surface do not seem to be political settings at all. 

Organizational ceremonies are part party (a celebration of a sense of community that binds people together) and part work (a reminder of the status and power hierarchy that separates). The Shoenman and Associates annual Christmas party had characteristics of both. Although it was held after hours on the Friday before Christmas, attendence was required. No spouses or family members were allowed to attend, except the boss's family. But the event also was a party. It was held at a rustic bar, away from work where people seemed to "eat drink and make merry" with one another as equals regardless of their formal rank, and where the boss acted more like like a host than like a supervisor - wearing casual clothes, and circulating from table to table, making small talk at each stop. But the tension between the two identities is also quite clear. As one married member put it, "The structure of the event tells employees that "'your work is your life, and these are your friends.'" It's so fucking weird. There's dancing later. I don't want to dance with people that I work with." 

After dinner was over, the program began - a series of jokes and skits that were carefully prepared and professionally executed. All of them were funny. All were ambiguous. Most made fun of the higher-ups in the firm. 

Together, they created a joking relationship that seemed to help bridge or flatten the hierarchy of the firm. They celebrated the bosses' problems. All three top managers were going through divorces. The employees joked about the divorces, and presented a skit entitled "The Mating Game" - a take off of the series The Dating Game - that included a voluptuous blond asking pointed questions about the sexual appetites and exploits of three divorcing upper managers. 

Other jokes and skits made fun of the managers' status symbols, and of one manager's inability to keep secretaries, because he was so obnoxious. The humor also commented on the crazed pace and work hours of the agency - one skit raffled off a coupon for electroshock psychotherapy treatments. Many of the jokes were about the craziness of the work environment. They also made fun of other workers. 

One skit spoofed the large number of female employees who dyed their hair blond. Another made fun of the different attire of the business side of the operation (dark blue suits and ties) - and the creative side - (almost anything else).

At one level, the humor made it seem that the organization's hierarchy had disappeared, and it was a community of equals. After the program ended, the participants adjourned to the bar, and the dance floor during this very informal part of the ceremony, filled with bosses and subordinates. Bosses and subordinates buddied around the bar, arms on shoulders, joking and laughing. Workers commented on how the humor had skewered the bosses. Some were even honest with management. The obnoxious manager asked the office manager what people thought of him. 

"What the hell," she thought. She told him that he was considered to be a bastard and was the most disliked person in the agency. This is something she admitted that she never would have said at work. She could get by with saying it, because they were at a party. 

In Western societies eating signals community, and drinking alcohol symbolizes freedom, especially from the drudgery of work. Parties are times of unusual license. And frictions encountered in the presence of alcohol tend to be forgiven. It seemed that the rules of the game were very different at the party than they were at work

But behind the scenes things were different. Hierarchy and formal power/relationships were subtle, but still in place. People seemed to dance with one another as equals. But even during the most informal part of the party, most females were secretaries. They danced with the males who were their own age or older, and who occupied higher positions in the organization. The skits that skewered upper management were written by a skits committee, only after a lengthy negotiation process, and they were revised many times before being approved by the committee chair. 

As one member put it; "We really had to watch our asses. But we had a fucking ball putting this thing together."

Interactional rules were constantly being negotiated. But negotiated in a way that maintained the underlying power relationships. Subordinates could make fun of their supervisors, but only in approved ways. Supervisors could fraternize with their subordinates but only in ways that maintained the hierarchy of the firm. Supervisors could ask for reports on how they were perceived by others; but they alone could decide what to do with that information. Subordinates could give frank responses, but only in private, and only when asked. Some kinds of communication were out of bounds, and other kinds were permitted. Although the bounds were different at the party than at work, boundaries did exist, and in negotiating them everyone was reminded that underneath it all was a power relationship that could not be challenged.

After the breakfast, the speeches started. The boss "Walter" was in control of the entertainment part of this ritual. Walter congratulated for the firm's success, and noted that it occurred in spite of problems in the public relations division, and because of their hard work and sacrifice - late hours and frenetic work pace.Walter gave gifts to retirees and recognized their loyalty to the firm. Walter talked about the things agency does for us, like funding the pension program - not mentioning that the agency is giving year end bonuses that are customary in other advertising agencies.

*SOURCE: STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY - SIXTH EDITION BY CHARLES CONRAD AND MARSHALL SCOTT POOLE; PAGES 167-171*

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ANALYSIS OF"STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY..." (part 17)

Cultural Strategies of Organizing
by
Charles Lamson

Organizational Symbolism and Cultural Strategies of Motivation and Control

Organizational symbolism - metaphors, stories, myths, rituals and ceremonies - have a duel relationship to cultural strategies; they express the assumptions of the culture, and when and when articulated, reproduce those assumptions. Some advocates of the cultural strategy of organizing assume that upper-management can motivate and control employees by using the strategic managing of organizational symbols. Unfortunately, this view seriously oversimplifies the nature of symbolism. Employees are human beings, and humans actively perceive, process and choose to respond to messages in their own often idiosyncratic ways. They interpret stories and other symbolic forms, precisely as they interpret identification messages, in terms of their own needs, experiences, and frames of reference. Different employees, or different subcultures of employees, may interpret the same symbolic act in different was. They also may tell different stories, create their own independent rituals, or describe their organization or unit through the use of different metaphors. Upper management may tell a different story to explain an organizational disaster or (success) than production employees do; employees in a subculture dominated by marketing employees may tell a different story that blames the research and development division for a failed product line; research and development employees may tell the same story in a way that satirizes members of the marketing division. In these cases, organizational symbolism may actually reduce managerial control, and motivate employees to act in ways that are not preferred by management.

Metaphors

These are symbols in which one image is used to describe another one. They are often used to describe an entire organization. Frequent organizational metaphors are military machines (working here is like being in the army), families (these people are my closest friends, my family, or this desk is my home away from home), and games (to survive here, you have to play the game, pretend to be what the big shots want you to be). For fifty years a large West Coast toy manufacturer has been described by its employees as an "army under siege." Although the enemy has changed many times from profit-hungry East Coast companies in the 1950s, to wily foreign importers who keep their workers in poverty, during the 1960s and 1970s; to computer firms that care about wires and chips, not children, in the 1980s, the guiding metaphor has been the same. Employees talk about "fighting the battle," which means constantly working hard to maintain efficiency; "taking no casualties," which means that everyone constantly monitors quality (including a company program, in which samples are donated to employees, if they will take them home and see how long it takes their children to destroy them); "everyone being a spy," which leads most employees to regularly take their children to toy shops, just to see which of their competitors' products are popular and ought to be duplicated; and "foot soldiers in the battle," which involves every employee in the mission of  the organization, and justifies a hierarchical, rule-governed style of management. But the most powerful expressions of the metaphor are borrowed from the larger culture: "be all that you can be" is used to justify voluntary overtime, and "lean mean fighting machine" is used to explain reductions in the number of middle managers. Almost every normal work experience is explained in language reflecting the army-under-siege metaphor; almost every behavior desired of workers can be justified by referring to the metaphor. In cases like this one, management and employees share the same metaphorical description of their organization, and define that metaphor in the same way. Motivation and control are enhanced.

Stories and Storytelling   Human beings are storytelling animals. From childhood fairy tales; to the tales told during executives weekend retreats, stories provide concrete and vivid images, of what is or will be like, and what behaviors our culture values or prohibits. Stories present events in sequence, rather than in a list or chart, which makes some events seem to be the causes or effects of other events. At least in Western culture, stories are based on a dramatic conflict between a protagonist and an antagonist. Stories are relevant to the needs and experiences of members of the organization. Stories are told most often, and are most powerful when people are confused and concerned about what is going on in their organization (for instance, when a person is entering a new organization, or when the organization is undergoing major changes). They provide explanations of events, policies, procedures, and so on, that are beyond doubt or argument. They function as social myths, not in the sense that they are untrue (although they may be), but in the sense that their "truths" are taken for granted by the people who tell and listen to them. The power of myths, like that of stories stems from their coherence, their ability to help people make sense of their surroundings and their consistency, with other organizational stories and myths

Rituals and ceremonies   A final form of organizational symbolism involves rituals and ceremonies. Like storytelling, these gain their power from the act of participating in them, as well as from the meaning that people extract from them. Because the meaning of rituals and ceremonies is located in the doing, they can be especially powerful symbolic acts. Rituals are informal celebrations that may or may not be officially sanctioned by the organization, and ceremonies, are planned, formal and ordained by management. when a work crew gets together at a local bar on Friday evenings, it is a ritual - an informal gathering. When all the employees of a department store are asked to appear at a media event designed to kick off a new line of clothes, it is a ceremony. Participating in rituals and ceremonies helps individual employees understand the political and interpersonal nuances of their organization. If they perceive that the ritual or ceremony is meaningful, participating may increase their commitment to the organization, because it makes them feel they are a part of the organizational community.

*SOURCE: STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY 6TH EDITION BY CHARLES CONRAD AND MARSHALL SCOTT POOL; PAGES 163-166*

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STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY: AN ANALYSIS (part 16)

CASE STUDY
Empowerment or Iron Cage?
by
Charles Lamson

Xel Communications, a telecommunications manufacturing company located in the Denver suburbs, changed its manufacturing plant from a traditional hierarchy to a flattened design, that depended on self-managed teams. Xel made this change because because vice president, Joe Painter became convinced that the company could survive in the highly competitive telecommunications market only if it was adaptive and innovative. He concluded that self-managed teams, that harnessed all employees' energy and creativity, were the most effective way to increase Xel's flexibility.

Self-managed teams are peer groups of ten to fifteen totally responsible for the manufacture of major components. Members of the team make all the decisions and undertake all the work involved in manufacturing the components; they are also responsible for hiring and firing, obtaining materials, and general management of the team. If a self-managed team has a problem coordinating with another team, members of the two teams meet to come to a workable decision. J.R. Barker, C.W. Melville, and M.E. Pacanowsky observe, "These teams fit best in organizations characterized by interdependent tasks, complex processes, time sensitivity, and the need for rapid change and adaption."

Xel implemented the new program gradually, starting with a trial team that performed well beyond anyone's expectations. Within eight months, the plant had been reconfigured to accommodate three self-managing teams; labeled the red, the white, and the blue teams. Painter's role became that of a coach, a consultant the teams would call on for advice and problem-solving suggestions. Otherwise, the teams called their own shots, and were proud of their independence. In fact, at one point, the white team encountered a crisis and sent their coordinator to ask Joe for advice. When she returned with an order from Joe about how to handle the situation the team rebelled - they were angry and resentful that Joe would order a self-managing team to do anything. They confronted Joe and aired their grievance at which time Joe told the white team that they were absolutely correct that they should make their own decisions and that Alma had misinterpreted his suggestion as an order. The members of the white team were pleased when their independence was confirmed. They felt they had learned to stand on their own two feet and take responsibility. They also had started to feel that the fate of the company rested in their hands. They were responsible for decisions that could make or break Xel.

Over time the team's empowerment confronted it with a thorny issue; what was it to do with members who had their own ideas about work and did not go along with the group's sense of what should be done? No longer were their supervisors around to write up employees who did not act as the team wanted them to. One particular problem was employees who arrived late and left work early. In theory members could set their own hours now that the team managed itself and a degree of flexibility was seen as desirable by some members however when these members worked fewer hours than other members but received the same pay it impaired the white team's ability to deliver orders in a timely fashion. At one of the team's 7 am meetings, when the day's activities were planned, and other decisions were made, the members decided that everyone should arrive before the 7 am meeting, and work until 5 pm to meet the backlog of orders. A worker who arrived five or more minutes late would be docked a day's pay. When one late arriving member protested the penalty, team-members scolded her, and refused to relax their rules. This and similar incidents had an interesting effect on the members of the white team. They noted their fellow members' strictness and became afraid of it themselves. Moreover, having seen the team be hard on its own members, they were also not inclined to let other members "get by" by relaxing the norms. Over time some members began to resent the rigidity of the white team, but it steadily increased its focus on the control system. Eventually, the team wrote more and more rules, which were more and more concrete and restrictive. They began to talk more about following their very bureaucratic rules than about teamwork and commitment to Xel.

Stitchco, a textile plant in the United Kingdom underwent a similar change. Prior to the institution of a team system, all decisions were made by managers and employees were rewarded individually, based on their output. In the early 1990s, the British textile industry was hit hard by foreign competition. Stitchco responded by closing half of its company, without a warning to the employees or the community, and converting the other half to a teamwork system. Management's goal was to increase flexibility and speed of manufacturing. One division was told that it would constantly be in competition with external suppliers, with a clear threat that manufacturing would be completely shifted outside the firm if the division failed to compete successfully. It was clear that an influential contingent of the company's top managers wanted to close manufacturing altogether, and that the division had been excluded from the decisions. To close some operations and restructure the others. a complex accounting system was implemented to monitor the performance of the division in comparison to external producers.

Teams were made up of members who were classified as high, medium, and low performers. Based on their previous records, workers were paid a flat rate, and bonuses were based on the performance of their team as a whole. Initially, the performers resisted the change, because they feared that their incomes would decline. But, once the system was in operation those fears dissipated. Team performance was monitored twice a day, and the results were posted where everyone in the plant could see them. Management hoped that the combination of team-based rewards and public displays would motivate the strongest performers in each team to teach and motivate the weaker performers to improve. Unfortunately, the strategy failed: "team members were not necessarily committed to improving or maximizing their collective output, especially if it meant compensating for other team members, or resolving conflicts over the allocation of work within the teams." In short the self-managing teams refused to self manage.

*SOURCE: STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GOBAL ECONOMY 9TH EDITION BY CHARLES CONRAND AND MARSHALL SCOTT POOLE; PGS. 130-132*

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STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY: AN ANALYSIS (part 15)

Relational Strategies of Motivation, Control and Surveillance
by
Charles Lamson

Job Enrichment and Enlargement

Three of the most influential advocates of this approach to motivation and control were Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, and Chris Argyris. Maslow's model of human motivation is widely known: people have five kinds of needs that are arranged in a hierarchy: physiological (expressed in feelings of thirst, lust and so on), safety (feeling free from danger, harm, and the fear that physiological needs will not be met), belongingness (a desire for meaningful relationships with other people), esteem or ego (feelings of accomplishment and recognition), and self-actualization (a concept that Maslow never explained clearly but that seems to be related to the feeling that one has done or is doing what one is meant to do). Once lower-level needs are fulfilled, upper-level needs become salient. Herzberg refined Maslow's model by differentiating lower-level needs (which he called hygeine factors) and higher level needs (which he called motivators). Hygiene factors motivate people by allowing them to avoid pain. When these needs are not met, people feel discomfort; when they are met, the discomfort is reduced, but once an adequate level of fulfillment is reached, no additional pleasure is felt. Motivators create pleasure when they are provided, but their absence does not cause frustration or pain. Although neither Maslow's nor Herzberg's conclusions have been supported consistently by subsequent research, their perspective became the basis of a number of strategies for increasing workers' job satisfaction by enlarging and enriching their jobs.

One of the earliest and most influential advocates of job enrichment/enlargement was Chris Argyris. He argued that many of the key characteristics of traditional models of organizing frustrated the needs of normal, psychologically healthy people. Jobs that are specialized or routinized (performed in the same way day after day), supervisors who control their employees "tightly" and highly competitive, individualistic atmospheres are especially frustrating. People respond to these situations by acting in ways that are counterproductive for their organizations - becoming defensive (attacking or withdrawing from coworkers) or apathetic (for example, daydreaming),  socializing with other frustrated workers instead of focusing attention on their work, leaving the organization, or attempting to advance to positions that are less frustrating. The traditional strategy focuses on creating precisely these kinds of situations by acting in ways that are counterproductive for their organizations. Managers are charged with de-skilling jobs - segmenting, simplifying, and routinizing them - making them "impoverished and small" as possible.

Presumably, this de-skilling of jobs is designed to increase organizational efficiency. It is so alienating for employees that it often leads to a net loss in individual and organizational productivity. the real reason de-skilling often is used is to enhance supervisory control, rather than to improve efficiency. Direct surveillance is easiest when jobs are de-skilled. In addition, organizations with many de-skilled jobs can hire employees who have few alternatives, and thus cannot resist management, regardless of how alienated they are - high school people, disabled or most recently, residents of third world countries, including children perform de-skilled tasks that can easily be outsourced (contracted to outside organizations who use their own workers to do the job, often at much lower rates of pay), or assigned to part time, or other contingent workers (people who are hired for a specific project only). and because workers perform tasks requiring few skills, they are easy to replace when they are fired. Arraying de-skilled tasks along an assembly line provides workers with little or no opportunity to communicate with one another, and forces them to adjust the pace of their activities to the pace of the machines. This keeps them from sharing grievances, comparing the way management treats them, or making plans for collective action.

New technology can be developed solely for the purpose of simplifying and routinizing jobs even further. For example, at one time the service jobs of grocery store checker and fast-food sales clerk required at least minimal arithmetical, keyboarding, and memory skills. Today, computerized cash registers, like all other de-skilling technologies, can increase output per person hour - make it possible to hire people without these skills. The next time you visit your local McDonald's, look closely at the keyboard on the cash registers and ask yourself what skills are necessary to operate it. To see just how de-skilled these jobs are, order something that is not represented by a button on the keyboard and see what happens. By the mid-1960s, most production workers in the United States were involved in this kind of routine, repetitive, de-skilled activity, which failed to fulfill individual needs for creativity, autonomy, or sociability. By the mid-1980s, many white collar workers were involved in similar jobs.

Although de-skilling does increase productivity for a time, it also decreases job satisfaction and encourages resistance. Sometimes resistance is informal. For example, sales clerks have long resisted de-skilling by creating and using their own informal relational strategies. They are friendly and supportive of one another, huddle together on the floor to foster in-group communication, ignore management's efforts to make them compete against one another, share duties that management assigns to individuals, and meet together outside of work to engage in "rituals of women's culture," such as wedding and baby showers. Other forms of resistance involve more overt hostility between labor and management.

An alternative to de-skilling is for management to do just the opposite, to enlarge or enrich jobs. Doing so increases productivity, because it allows organizations to decentralize. It also increases profitability, by substituting the upper level rewards of enhanced creativity and autonomy, for expensive lower-level awards, such as salaries and wages. But, successful enlargement/enrichment relies heavily on relational communication. If a job is too complex, it is frustrating and unsatisfying. If it is too simple, it is boring. Successfully matching workers and jobs, as Frederick Taylor realized a century ago, requires a high level of open communication and feedback between supervisors and their subordinates. In addition, workers seem to figure out how rich their jobs are, both by monitoring what they do and by talking with other workers. Unless people believe that their tasks are stimulating, they will not be stimulated. Workers develop these beliefs when other workers tell them that they envy their jobs. In fact, job satisfaction in  general is influenced by both the objective features of employees' jobs, and by what their co-workers say about their jobs thus successful. job enlargement/enrichment requires both careful job-design and active, and supportive relational communication.

*SOURCE: STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY 9TH EDITION BY CHARLES CONRAD AND MARSHALL SCOTT POOLE; PGS. 125-127*

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STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMUNICATION: AN ANNALYSIS (part 14)

Scenes from the Electronic Sweatshop
by
Charles Lamson

Barbara Garson, playwrite and investigative journalist, investigated how computers were transforming office work. Her book The Electronic Sweatshop  documented some negative consequences that occurred when ICTs (information and communication technologies) were used to coordinate and control work in traditional organizations. Here are two vignettes based on her book that illustrate the dark side of ICTs.

The Automated Airline

Until the late 1970s, airline reservation agents were valued long-term employees of the major airline companies. They had to learn and remember the companies' fares, routes and policies, and apply this knowledge to solve problems for customers on an individual basis. This made them highly skilled employees, who were difficult to replace. Some made as much as fifteen dollars per hour in the early 1980s, good money at that time.

However, once computerized reservation systems were developed, companies attempted to redefine the work of the reservation agent. Much of the problem-solving was built into the system - the agent simply had to type in the place of departure and the destination, and the computer listed the available times and seats. However, there was still need for a human in the loop, because each customer's circumstances were so different that adjustments had to be made.

Although the airlines still had to have people online, they wanted to regulate their behavior, as much as possible, to maintain strict cost-and-quality control. Based on studies of the work processes involved in making a booking, conversation between agent and customer were broken into typical segments, with recommended scripts and prompts assigned to each. For example, if a customer called up knowing what he or she wanted, agents were instructed in ways to get the reservation down as quickly as possible, so they could go on to the next customer. In cases in which customers were fare-shopping, agents were taught ways to probe for a sale. One strategy was to tell the customer that there were limited seats at the low-fare, and that a seat could be held for twenty-four hours at no cost, thus insuring that many customers would call back and offer another opportunity to close the deal. Agents were also taught never to ask yes-or-no questions, such as "Would you like to book?"; instead they were to ask "Would you like the 10 a.m. or the 2 p.m.?" All transactions between agents and customers were tightly scripted. Supervisors listened in without the agents' knowledge and graded them on how well they kept to the script and efficiently booked passengers. Too much small talk or empathy could get the agent a lower grade. The companies also set performance targets: in the company Garson studied, agents were supposed to make a sale during 26 percent of their calls.

Time online and offline was carefully monitored by the computer system as well: AHU ("after hang-up") time, the time between calls was supposed to be fourteen seconds on average, if the agent wanted a raise. To keep his or her job and get raises, the agent had to be available, plugged in for booking, 98 percent of the time. For this, new agents were paid $5.77 an hour.

The Automated Social Worker

When New York state installed a computer system to keep track of its welfare system, it took a job that one would think is impossible to automate, and turned it into a series of steps. Most social workers adopt the profession because they want to help people. They are taught in school that every person is an individual and that it is important to take each individual's needs into account, to help him or her. People attracted to this field typically enjoy working with others, and hope to make a difference in people's lives. However, the computerization of work in New York, did not take this approach.

Job analysis divided the social worker's task into units, and assigned a time value to each. For example, making food stamp change counted .5, authorizing funeral and burial expenses counted .7, and replacing a lost or stolen welfare check counted .4, where the numbers stood for tenths of an hour. As a worker does each of these tasks, they are toted up to give a figure for hours of work done. Once a worker reaches his or her allotted 160 hours (actually the target is about 120 hours per month. Because 40 hours are required for staff meetings, maintaining work records and other activities), he or she is done for the month. An experienced worker can do most of these tasks in much less time than the official time figure, so it is possible to get credit for 160 hours with much less work.

So do the workers stop working when their credits reach their limit? Although we have not provided a full list of tasks here, suffice it to say that activities such as making exceptions for clients, trying to help them with their special problems when the help goes outside procedures, and providing sympathy, are not on the officially sanctioned list of tasks. The task list includes only bureaucratic operations involved in registering parties for welfare and delivering their services, not the human side of welfare. Garrison found that the social workers spent the time they had left, after satisfying their hourly credits on these other activities, coaching clients in how to get the best benefits, giving them sympathy and support working around the system and also in helping and counseling each other. The social workers made the system human by "gaming" the system.

Sadly, social workers who really try to help clients within the system often receive poor performance evaluations. If they diligently carry out their work, it takes more time than is allotted in the work analysis. One social worker commented,

Now if you are a person with a problem, you don't want to just tell it to everyone, you want to feel it out first. "This social worker, does she have some sensitivity to my problem. Can you hear me?" But I can hear her. I can't listen to her. I'm just trying to get my points. The whole system is survival. And she goes away feeling as bad or worse than when she came down here....Some people come here, they are at the end of their rope. They think, "You are a social worker. That's something. Maybe you can help me." And they start telling me about a child that is getting out of hand, starting to drink, not coming home...

This woman was a dedicated social service employee, who wanted to do the best she could for her clients. But engaging a client in this way was not efficient, and did not earn her the points she needed to make her hours. She had been "written up for Corrective Action" three times in the previous four months.

Unlike the studies of physical labor, conducted by management scientists, New York's studies made a profound error. Sympathy for the client and advocacy for his or her needs are important parts of the social worker's job, that were simply omitted from the analysis; the system captured all the physical motions of being a social worker, but ignored the spirit of the profession. This may have been inevitable in a system that was intended to enable computerization of social work. Behaviors that could be counted were emphasized, because number crunching is what the computers, at that time did best.

A good deal of the social worker's time was spent filling out papers that documented all the papers they filled out for clients, so that their work records could be entered into the computerized system. The next step was to set up the system so social workers could enter their activity records into networked computers themselves. As the system developed further, the workers would enter data about their clients directly, and the system would guide the social worker through the steps of authorizing burial expenses and other activities. In theory, this might eliminate the labor of filling in forms, freeing the social workers to engage their clients. However, judging how the system had developed at the time of Garson's interview, it is doubtful that this was the direction it took. Instead, the social workers would simply have their caseloads increased.

Ironically, the dedication of the workers to their clients kept this system going. One of the supervisors said, "I blame the union for the way it is operating, because they are not sabotaging it. If they followed the rules, the department issued them, this system would have collapsed in three months....If I were a worker and a union activist, the first time I did 100 percent in the first three weeks of the month I'd stop work and if they tried to make me do anything over 100 percent, I'd fill out an overtime form. The problem is that all the workers have developed systems of their own to get the points they need and still deliver timely service. That's what keeps this place going."

*STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY 6th ed. by Charles Conrad and Marshall scott Poole; pgs. 98-101*

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STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY: AN ANALYSIS (part 13 )

The Power of Rewards at Industry International

by

Charles Lamson

Industry International is a manufacturing firm with about twenty-five hundred employees in a number of plants. It is often touted as a monument to the power of financial reward systems. In an industry that has been battered by foreign competition for three decades. It has remained highly profitable in large part because its workers are 2 1/2 to 3 times as productive as those of its competitors. Their compensation is also three times the average salary for U.S. manufacturing employees. They are not unionized, have no paid vacations, and work 45-50 hours per week. Much of their income comes from a year-end cash bonus each year, after company taxes and dividends have been paid. The board of directors determines the size of the bonus pool, which is divided among the employees - based on their base salary and individual merit ratings from 1943 to 1994. The bonus percentage ranged from 55 percent to 104 percent. In 1994, it was 61 percent, meaning that an employee earning $30,000 base salary, and receiving a 100 percent merit rating would receive a bonus of $18,300. The bonus is kept secret from October until a meeting/celebration in December. When the meeting ends, the employees rush to their cars, bonus checks in hand, and tie up traffic for hours going to their favorite places of celebration.

Most employees use the money to pay accumulated bills. In fact, many spend far in excess of their base salaries, and then put off paying bills and loans until the bonus checks come in.  Some employees use the money for less mundane activities. One got his bonus in $100 bills. He spread them on the living room floor, and along with his wife, rolled around on them (among other activities) in celebration. Some made major purchases, like houses, cars and other luxury items. When asked why they spend the money as they do, three answers were commonly given; to live the good life so valued in the United States and to assert their autonomy. One said, "Spending bonus money is the one thing they [management] ain't telling me what and how to do." Workers also enjoyed the social status that money provides. Other employees commented, "As soon as they [friends and neighbors] find out you work there, they think you have money coming out of your ears, and they think I am the richest motherfucker in the world." 

What they do not tell their envious neighbors is what they go through to get the bonus. Merit points are based on output quality, dependability and personal characteristics`. the first two can be quantified, leading employees to work like dogs until they are dangerously exhausted by long hours and difficult working conditions. 

Things have changed for Industry International. The recession of the mid-1980s sucked. Many workers lost their homes and cars because they were relying on large bonuses to pay mortgages and loans. Workers attributed the decline to many things, but primarily, to management greed and incompetence.

Workers talk about resisting management. They fear that management will eliminate the bonus system, replacing it with a form of profit sharing that is not as lucrative for the workers. Many predict a massive walkout or work stoppage if that happens. Others consider unionizing the firm. Management has persuaded them that the bonus system relies on a nonunion shop. But, if  the bonus system is eliminated, they have no reason not to unionize. Others predict that without the bonuses, employees would quit the company - still others predict plummeting productivity and quality. Others threaten physical violence against management and sabotage of the plant if they got rid of bonuses.

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Strategic Organizational Communication: An Analysis (part12)

CASE STUDY

Feel Safer Now?
by 
Charles Lamson

Within days of September 11, 2001, pundits and politicians alike were trying to explain the intelligence breakdowns that allowed twenty or more terrorists to carry out attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As in the case of accidents, the dominant impulse was to blame "operator error."

However, there also was a second tendency almost as soon as the investigations began, Informed and uninformed experts started attributing those breakdowns to communication problems. Although the bulk of the information about the hijacking and hijackers still is not available to the public - and is not likely to be available for many, many years - some items have been made public. The story begins at the end of World War II, not in 2001.

Myriad federal agencies are in some way involved in national safety; from the Department of Agriculture, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The most visible and most important are the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Agency (NSA). When World War II ended, a proposal was made to continue the Wartime Office of Secret Service as the "CIA." The head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, fought the creation of the CIA, primarily on the grounds that the two bureaucracies were unnecessarily duplicitive. Hoover lost the battle, but he was able to ensure that the two agencies would have separate intelligence functions; one for targets outside of the United States, and one for internal targets. Even at the time, critics questioned this division of labor, because spies and saboteurs regularly cross national borders.

It did make sense politically. Over time, the two bureaucracies developed different ways of doing business, and different rules for operating, and making decisions, and they even attracted different kinds of employees.

During the same era, the operations of the CIA became progressively more secretive, even after the creation of the even more secret NSA.  All of the relevant agencies developed norms of sharing information with one another only on a "need-to-know basis." Throughout the intervening decades, their operations often were criticized. Much of the criticism focused on the FBI, which under Hoover, had engaged in spying and various "dirty tricks" against antiwar groups. Occasionally, Congress would act to restrict their powers; as when it forbade the CIA to attempt to assassinate the leaders of foreign governments, or acted to reduce racial bias in the FBI's decisions about whom to target for its investigations. 

Former FBI Director, Louis French concluded that there is so much information available that analyzing intelligence information can be like trying to take a sip of water coming out of a fire hydrant.

No government agency had any relevant information on sixteen of the nineteen hijackers prior to 911.  However, some information was available on the remaining three; Khalid al Midhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and his brother, Salim al-Hazmi (all three were aboard the plane that supposedly crashed into the pentagon). The intelligence community began a worldwide effort to monitor people connected with Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. During 1999. the intelligence community closely monitored a meeting in Malaysia, from which the CIA discovered new information about Al-Midhar (his full name, passport number, and so forth), and learned that he was leaving Malaysia on an airplane with Nawaf al-Hazmi. Eventually, they decided that none of this information was important enough to pass on to the other agencies. The NSA's secret database also included the name Nawaf al-Hazmi, along with information indicating that he was linked to Al-Qaida. A low-level employee, whose job it was to improve communication between the CIA and the FBI, did brief the latter agency, and summarized the briefing for other CIA agents. Later, an overseas CIA agent notified his headquarters that Al-Hazmi had entered the United States. The information was not communicated to the FBI, because he had done nothing "illegal or threatening" (in fact this report evidently was not read by many people in the CIA).

The most egregious example of not connecting the dots - at least according to the U.S. press - involved a presumed "almost-hijacker," Zacharias Moussaoui. He had been in the United States for some time, attending various pilot schools. When he made it clear to a trainer in Egan, Minnesota that he did not want to learn how to take off or land, the instructor became suspicious, and called the local FBI office. When Moussaoui refused to allow agents to search his laptop computer he was arrested on charge of "visa violations" constructed by the FBI, in order to hold him, while conducting an investigation. They learned from French intelligence officials that he had connections to Al-Qaida. Local agents asked the Washington office to obtain a search warrant for Moussaoui's computer. The Washignton office made the request to the special U.S.  National Security Court, but did not include the French reports in that request. The request was denied, leading to a heated (and now famous), memo from Minneapolis Special Agent, Coleen Rowly, to the Washington office. Other agencies experienced similar errors. The NSA intercepted a message believed to be recorded via telephone. It was a conversation that referred to a "big event planned for 911." But it was in Arabic, and was not translated until after the attack.

*SOURCE: "STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNCATION IN A ..."*

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