Читать книгу Organization Development - Donald L. Anderson - Страница 68

For OD practitioners, systems theory offers a number of benefits. First, it can offer useful explanations for human behavior in organizations with attention to roles and structures rather than individual idiosyncrasies. Instead of seeing individual differences, OD practitioners can note where systems may encourage certain behavior patterns, usually subtly and without conscious decision. If a call center regularly measures the number of calls completed per hour, then call-takers may be motivated to quickly complete calls at the expense of careful diagnosis and resolution of customer problems. Service managers may be motivated to dispatch replacement parts for customers via overnight mail (thereby inappropriately increasing expenses) in order to increase customer satisfaction (for which they will receive a bonus). The measurement and rewards system in both cases directs a certain behavior on the part of call-takers and service managers. Narrow job definitions and roles in one division may result in no employee taking responsibility for a certain problem as employees act in accordance with what the system has asked them to do in defining the role they occupy. Structured role definitions can explain how and why certain people interact with each other in patterned ways (for example, the emergency room nurse may take instructions from the attending physician). The systems theory perspective helps us see role-based interactional patterns rather than isolated actions of single individuals.

Second, understanding the system and its dynamics gives OD practitioners a more appropriate place to begin interventions for change, since the object of change is often best directed at the system level rather than the individual level (Burke, 2002). For example, inadequately maintained or broken equipment can reduce factory output levels. Instead of blaming the production manager’s poor management skills for low factory production yields, or placing blame on factory workers for slow work, the systemic issue is a more direct cause. When an organization has unhappy customers due to a quality problem, instead of conducting training for customer service representatives on how to deal with angry customers, the quality problem should be addressed as the source of the problem. Katz and Kahn (1966) wrote that this attention on training was a common error in organizations—and little change results from it:

It is common practice to pull foremen or officials out of their organizational roles and give them training in human relations. Then they return to their customary positions with the same role expectations from their subordinates, the same pressures from their superiors, and the same functions to perform as before their special training. (p. 390)

An organization that fires an unproductive employee and hires a highly paid, skilled replacement often discovers that the new employee is no more successful because the role exists in a structure (say, low budget, little decision-making authority) where virtually no employee could succeed. As Senge (1990) puts it, “When placed in the same system, people, however different, tend to produce similar results” (p. 42). OD practitioners can delve more deeply into the causes of problems and interconnections among groups, looking at systemic problems rather than at individuals or individual components of the system as the primary sources of error (M. I. Harrison & Shirom, 1999). This can lead to more fruitful targets for change.

Third, because changing one part of the system also results in changes to another part of the system, OD practitioners can be more deliberate about changes that are being proposed, and possible negative results can be predicted. If bonuses are given to sales executives who sell a certain product, the factory likely will need to produce more of that product than others. If computer equipment is not replaced in order to reduce expenses, then additional expenses likely will be incurred in repairing equipment. If insurance claim application processing can be completed 2 days more quickly after a work process redesign, then the payment processing department that processes approved claims may have more work to complete more quickly than it can handle. Taking systemic issues into account may mean a more successful organizational change, as undesirable or “downstream” outcomes can be predicted and addressed before they become problems of their own. The organization as a whole can be internally consistent about the changes it wants to make.