Читать книгу Foundations of management - Juan Antonio Pérez López - Страница 13

An institution approaches the coordination of actions as a means of satisfying the real needs (or potential motivations) of the organization's members. An institution includes an organism: that is, it also organizes actual motivations (what individuals currently desire), in addition to its technical system. The difference with respect to an organism is to be found in the fact that it takes the organization to a deeper level than that of actual motivations.

The institution seeks to satisfy actual motivations, but in such a way that this satisfaction is not harmful and, as far as possible, is beneficial for all of the person's needs (that is, including those other needs that are not directly satisfied when actual motivation is satisfied).

Whereas in a technical system the only relevant variables are the things that are done, and in an organism the things that are done and how they are done are relevant, in an institution, in addition to these two levels, it is also relevant why they are done. The goal of the institution is not only that of an organism but also that of giving meaning to all the human activities that it coordinates. The main features of an institution are its embodiment of some set of values and its attempts to elevate the motives for cooperation in the members so that they internalize this set of values. An organism views the organization as a social group; an institution views it as a social group that embodies certain values which must permeate everything it does.

In a technical system, the only value considered is the one obtained by measuring the ratio between what is produced and what is consumed. In an organism, the decisive value is indicated by the degree of present satisfaction felt by participants. In an institution, the ultimate value is the degree of future satisfaction of the people being organized. For an institution, the present satisfaction is a necessary operating condition (if actual motivations are not satisfied beyond a certain minimum, there will be no people with sufficient motivation to belong to the organization), but it is not the final goal of its operations.

For example, a company seeking to develop institutional relationships with its employees does not confine itself to providing a good salary and a task that is well designed from the point of view of the employee's capacities. It will also seek to challenge its employees with tasks that may help them to learn, to develop their potential, even though performing those tasks may be difficult and demand particular effort. Such a company could be helping its employees to grow and develop but, all other factors being equal, it would be more difficult to work there than for another company which did not assume this responsibility. Therefore, the latter company would satisfy actual motivations better than the former, but not potential motivations.

Since the satisfaction of actual motivations is what directly induces people to cooperate with an organization, this “greater difficulty” referred to above might require such a degree of sacrifice that the lack of satisfaction of actual motivations might also dissuade people from joining the organization in the first place. For this reason we say that a certain minimum actual motivation is necessary for the organization to operate at all. Without achieving this minimum, the institution's good intentions could not be put into practice, since what it offers as a starting point would be “too difficult” to be acceptable for potential participants.

In short, an institution's primary objective is the future satisfaction of its members. The concrete values embodied by an institution are precisely those which, once accepted by the person, help him in his personal development. These values mold the organization's entire modus operandi to such an extent that any action contrary to them is rejected, regardless of whether it would be acceptable at a particular time in the participative or negotiation processes.

Codes of ethics, basic personnel policies, etc., tend to configure institutional values that enable the organization members to identify with what the organization intends to achieve. In general terms, it can be said that, whether explicitly acknowledged or not, every human organization has values. These values are determined by the way each organization treats people, which in turn implies:

a) A conception of human beings and the processes whereby they improve.

b) A conception of the mission the organization sets for itself regarding its role in these improvement processes.

The influence of these values appears throughout the organization's life—the real question is what it does, not what it says—and that behavior is what leads its members to identify with, or grow alienated from, the organization.

The purpose definition, communication and motivation processes in an institution must all be permeated by institutional values. The purpose of this book is to analyze these processes inorder to be able to formulate practical guidelines consistent with an institutional view of business organizations.

The processes are different from those of an organism; whereas in the organism it is possible to design participation, negotiation and communication mechanisms that are sufficient to implement the processes, in an institution the mechanisms are no more than a part, and not even the most important part, of what must be done to implement the processes properly.

In order to find the point of divergence between the two types of organization, one need only observe that while these mechanisms can guarantee the present acceptability of coordinated actions, they cannot guarantee their consistency with the organization's values, since these values, if they are correct, attempt to generate future acceptability, that is, the a posteriori recognition that it was worthwhile to sacrifice, for example, the implementation of easier action plans in order to preserve the effective validity of the organization's values.