Читать книгу Foundations of management - Juan Antonio Pérez López - Страница 12

An organic model seeks to explain the coordination of actions for the satisfaction of present motivations, that is, the motivations actually experienced by those who participate in the organization. Of course, an organism includes a technical system (it also organizes an interchange of objects through its formal organization), but also goes beyond it.

The production system and incentive system—that is, the formal organization—is explicitly considered to be but a partial aspect of the entire organization. The informal organization is also taken explicitly (not just residually) into account as an integral part of the model used to represent the organization. Moreover, an attempt is made to represent and account for the interactions between the informal organization and the formal one. The aim is to analyze the influence of the informal system on the behavior of the organization.

An organism's function is not only defined—as with the technical systems—by the achievement of the goals that the formal organization pursues. In the case of organic models, this function also includes preserving people's actual motivations, taking into account the satisfactions they obtain through their interactions within the informal system.

Just as a technical system views the organization as if it were a machine—a coordination of material elements—an organic model views it as a social group—an association of individual persons in a society which they join voluntarily in order to satisfy a series of motives. The sharpest difference between the organism and the technical system lies precisely in the fact that the latter fails to go beyond the level of objects, while the former encompasses the level of subjects and considers their actual motivations for cooperating with the organization.

Later on, we will discover the consequences of this difference. For the time being, it is sufficient to see that it is obviously a very different thing, for example, to organize a group of people so that each one may have certain foods, than it is to organize them so that each may satisfy (as far as possible) his appetite (as he sees fit) on the basis of the others' production capacities.

Clearly, although the formal organization may be a part, or aspect, of the latter, this latter goal is much more comprehensive, complex and complete than the former. This is not only due to the greater or lesser variety of the diet to be taken into account when defining purposes in the respective organizations, nor even to the greater degree of involvement required in the latter for defining the particular food products to be used, but, above all, to the greater interaction required between consumers and producers for the operation of the production process.

These points, and other similar ones, have direct consequences for the motivation of the organization's members, in their roles as consumers and as producers as well. This is so— and this is a basic difference between a technical system and an organism—because an organic model seeks to analyze the coordination of human actions not only by looking at their objective side (what they produce) but also at their subjective side (their greater or lesser appeal for the persons who perform them). It must be this way because the “efforts” or “actions” of the organization's members actually do affect their motivations, and it is precisely these motivations that the organization seeks to satisfy.

Within the organic model, the process of defining a purpose in an organism seeks not only to adapt it to its external environment by strategic planning, as in a technical system; this process also has to consider the organism's adaptation to what we might call its internal environment (which is the informal organization). In other words, the specific performance goals, determined by the process of purpose definition, seek not only external achievement but also acceptability by the people who have to achieve them (internal achievement). This acceptability is what guarantees the satisfaction of people's actual motivations, in so far as motivations are affected by what people are asked to do. For this reason, the process of purpose definition in an organism is basically a process of negotiation.

The communication process seeks not only to convey the information necessary for achieving the goals which have been set by means of the definition process. An additional feature of the communication process in an organism is its attempt to facilitate “upward communicationthat is, the transmission of information about the members’ actual motivations, so that members may influence the definition of purpose. The same could be said about lateral communication, which is usually necessary to define and specify the operating goals.

The motivation process is not assigned entirely to the incentive system. It is recognized that only some of the members' actual motivations can be satisfied by means of it. Function—or role—allocation in the production system is also an important part of the motivation process, as are participation and negotiation in the purpose-definition process.

Thus, it is apparent that the complexity of the purpose-definition, communication and motivation processes, as they appear in an organic model, is far greater than in a technical system. In the latter these processes are not only distinct, but separate. In an organism, they may be differentiated, but basically they are different aspects of the same process: the process of management.

It can therefore be said that the process of management in an organism consists of defining purposes while communicating and motivating at the same time. The decisions made in order to keep the organism in operation will normally affect what has to be done (definition of purpose), what has to be transmitted (communication) and the satisfaction of the persons participating in the organization (motivation).

When the organization is viewed as an organism, one no longer seeks more or less complicated rules for optimizing and maximizing particular parameters. This second type of model necessarily includes two different levels of objectives, which normally cannot be maximized simultaneously.

One of the levels includes the satisfaction of actual motivations in so far as it is caused by what is received from the organization. The other level includes the satisfaction of actual motivations in so far as it is produced by what is done in the organization. The simultaneous maximization of both levels can only be achieved under very particular conditions.

Think, for example, of the maximum satisfaction for a company's customers (the best product at the cheapest possible price) and compare that with the maximum satisfaction for the producers of a product (the product they most enjoy making at the greatest possible profit). The difficulty of simultaneously maximizing both levels is readily apparent. In fact, any attempt to do so would lead to the utopian or contradictory organizations we discussed earlier. We would be missing the real problem.

A realistic approach to the problem would start from the fact that there is a wide range of product and price combinations that are adequate to satisfy the actual motivations of both consumers and producers. Within this range, the organism is viable. Its viability would increase if any of the four variables involved (the product's value to the consumer, the product's affordability to the consumer, the attractiveness of making the product to the producer, the producer's earnings) were to increase without adversely affecting the others.

Even in this simple example we can see that by conceptualizing this interchange organically we bring to light possibilities that remain hidden when we merely consider it technically. Specifically, it seems impossible for earnings to grow without an adverse effect on the consumer's costs. However, there is nothing to prevent growth in the product's value to the consumer from being compatible with a parallel increase in the attractiveness of producing it to the producer (even aside from the case in which this occurs due to a technological change). Experience has verified that a great number of improvements in products or services have been achieved simply by increasing the motivation of the people who produce them.

through closer, often informal, contact with the users.

If one had to set a single goal for an organism, this could only be the growth of what we call the organism's viability, that is, its vitality. This growth would mean the organism's closer adaptation to the satisfaction of its members' actual motivations.