The Fourth Agenda -- Organizational Vitality

(The following notes are not necessarily in order but are an attempt to capture the major concepts discussed and provide information from the outlines which were provided on overheads.)

PARADIGMS OF COMPETITIVENESS
Agenda	Edge	Criterion
1. Craftsmanship

5000 BC - 1799 AD

7,000 years	Artistry	Customized, individualized production and services.

NO SIMILARITIES
2. Productivity

1800 - 1950

150 years	Quantity	Large numbers of standardized products and services.

NO SHORTAGES
3. Quality

1950 - 1975

25 years	Accuracy	Totally accurate production and delivery of products and services.

NO ERRORS
4. Vitality

1975 - 1990

15 years	Immediacy	Production and delivery of products and services a customer wants and when a customer wants them

NO DELAYS

MINDSET PRINCIPLES

1.	Some Kind of Mental System Is Necessary to Make Sense out of Experience; Mindsets Are the Perceptions and Reasoning We Use to Evaluate Experience.

2.	We "see" or understand experiences in accord with our mental systems.

3.	The way we understand experiences is affected more by our mental system than we think it is.

4.	How we interpret, see or understand experiences depends on the way in which they are presented to us.

5.	Although we feel that we can understand others by projecting our own mindsets onto them, it is naive to think it actually works.

6.	We try to explain the behavior of others by attributing motives to them, which is a form of mindset projection.

7.	Institutionalized information processing (organizational learning) is affected by the same principles as individual understanding and information processing.

8.	Symbols and words are themselves mindsets.

Work

Systems	Work

Perceptions
Employee

Effectiveness

MOTIVATION

The Willingness to Exert Effort Toward Achieving a Goal

WHAT DO AMERICANS SAY THEY WANT OUT OF LIFE?

(Summarized from over 100 attitude and opinion surveys)

1.	People want more control over their own lives and over the destinies of their families

2.	People want opportunities to learn and develop throughout their lives.

3.	People want interesting work/meaningful activity/important roles which offer recognition and rewards.

4.	People want to participate in and actively experience life rather than watch or experience others performing.

5.	People want challenges to their creative/problem solving abilities.

6.	People want to live and work among open, happy, trusting people.

7.	People do not want to be unwillingly or unwittingly jeopardized.

Life Cycle of a New Venture

1.	Wild Enthusiasm

2.	Disillusionment

3.	Total Confusion

4.	Search for the Guilty

5.	Punishment of the Innocents

6.	Promotion of Non-Participants.

Vitality is that extra element that characterizes the spirited employee, the person who feels the need to do the very best job he or she can, regardless of work conditions or compensation.

VITALITY

The desire and ability to perform effectively and vigorously and to derive personal satisfaction and growth from life and work.

Growth and vitality are intimately connected. People who feel energized and excited by their work have work that lets them grow!

PERCEPTIONS OF PERFORMANCE

1.	To cultivate talents and skills; to excell at or do something really well; to develop excellence and depth in an area of expertise and to stay at the cutting edge.

2.	To explore new horizons; to develop breath of knowledge, skills, and interests; to expand a point of view; to experience greater variety.

PERCEPTIONS OF OPPORTUNITY

3.	To have greater influence on people and decisions; to help make things happen; to be more of a force in moving things ahead; to have other acknowledge the impact.

4.	To be more connected with others; to work together and share expertize; to be loyal to others and have people count on you; to have a sense of community and intimacy.

5.	To be more confident, centered, and clear about who you are; to acquire greater respect for our own talents, skills, and limitations; to be valued and accepted for who we are.

PERCEPTIONS OF FULFILLMENT

6.	To have our efforts add up to something meaningful and significant; to work with integrity to our own vlues and beliefs; to have resons for actions that stem from what we consider to be important.

7.	To have greter autonomy; to develop more initiative; to be free from external control and constraints; to take risks; to be better able to stand on our own and not be dependent on others.

8.	To create and use our own ideas, solutions, and plans; to evolve ideas that are expressions of ourselves; to turn our own ideas or concepts into actions that affect others; to build positive memories.

PERCEPTIONS OF EXPECTATIONS

9.	To aspire to greater things; to want more; to see a possible, tenable, and happier individual existence.

10.	To feel assured that the future will be better; to believe passionately in the infinite perfectibility of human beings.

11.	To dream, have visions, and engage in wild and extravagant hopes; to picture cities yet to be built and gardens yet to be planted.

EFFECTS OF NEGATIVE WORK PERCEPTIONS

The four sets of worker perceptions have an impact on the organization in the following ways:

1.	Perceptions of poor performance may result in the withdrawal of effort to meet quotas and deadlines.

2.	Perceptions of lack of opportunity may result in losses of self-esteem, lowered aspirations, reduced commitment to the organization, less energy devoted to organization tasks, and passivity and grumbling rather than taking the initiative to solve problems.

3.	Perceptions of lack of fulfillment lead to doubts about the necessity to subordinate self to the organization and the concomitant need to sacrifice for the organization, to work hard, and to obey the rules.

4.	Perceptions of unmet expectations lead to dissatisfactions with the organization, disillusionment, frustration, anger, defensiveness, insecurity, seething unrest, potentially aggressive interaction, and low morale.

HOW TO MANAGE VITALITY: PERFORMANCE

What can an organization do to manage the performance of its members?

Organizations must teach employees how to develop their talents and skills, expand their points of view, and experience greater variety. Then, organizations must give employees work to do that matches their talents and skills.

If organization members are to enhance their perceptions of their performance in the organization, they must be helped to cultivate their talents and skills, to develop excellence and depth in areas of expertise, and to stay on the cutting edge of their work.

HOW TO MANAGE VITALITY: OPPORTUNITY

What can an organization do to manage opportunity for its members?

Organizations must teach employees how to have greater influence in the organization and to be a force in moving things ahead. Then, organizations must acknowledge the impact that employees are having and demonstrate to them that they are valued and accepted.

If organization members are to enhance their perceptions of their opportunities in the organization, they must be helped to have greater influence in the organization on people and decisions and to have others acknowledge their impact; they must acquire greater respect for their own talents, skills, and contributions.

HOW TO MANAGE VITALITY: FULFILLMENT

What can an organization do to manage fulfillment of its members?

Organizations must teach employees to contribute ideas and plans for action that are uniquely their own that may affect the organization. Then, organizations must implement the ideas and plans.

If organization members are to enhance their perceptions of their fulfillment, they must be helped to see that their work allows them to create and use their own ideas, solutions, and plans, and to build positive memories of what they do in the organization. They must be encouraged and allowed to work free from external controls and constraints.

HOW TO MANAGE VITALITY: EXPECTATIONS

What can an organization do to manage the expectations of its members?

Organizations must teach their employees to want more, and then organizations must belp their employees to achieve more.

If organization members are to enhance their perceptions of their expectations in the organization, they must be helped to see that their work can assist them to achieve a possible, tenable, and happier individual existence. If their work helps them aspire to greater things and to feel assured that the future will be better, their perceptions of their expectations will be enhanced.

EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDELINES

1.	Guidelines standardize and formalize jobs and tasks by removing worker discretion over where, when, and how jobs are to be done, and by routinizing job procedures and activities.

2.	Guidelines limit decision-making.

3.	Individuals are alienated by the impersonalization of organization processes through formalization and guidelines.

4.	Rigidity is fostered through rules and regulations designed to produce consistency and commitment through formalization.

5.	Lack of discretion in making decisions because of formalization leads to feelings of resistance of carrying out policies without having participated in establishing them.

6.	Formalization reduces trust among individuals at different levels in the organization.

7.	Formalization often leads to hostility and opposition to programs and managers and to the deterioration of human relationships because of deference to policy statements rather than to human problems.

EFFECTS OF THE ORGANIZATION'S STRUCTURE

1.	Individual innovativeness is limited by the centralization of authority and decision making.

2.	Selectivity of information is encouraged by the controlling influence of the centralized hierarchy.

3.	Message flow is curtailed by the centralization needed for coordination of actions.

4.	Sharing of frames of reference is limited by specialization and differences in complex organizations.

5.	Hierarchical authority structure encouraged by complexity leads to fear of punishment from someone higher in the organization.

6.	Feelings of power over others is encouraged by the centralization of authority and decision-
making.

7.	Distances between units associated with complexity often lead to the ineffective utilization of resources.

8.	Centralization often leads to the distortion of goals and objectives and the failure to accomplish objectives.

9.	Complexity often leads to loss of interest by organization members and reduced energy to put into the job.

EFFECTS OF THE WORK ITSELF

Certain characteristics tend to be responsible for select psychological states that actually lead to highly motivating work:

1.	Skill variety, task identity, and task significance combine to contribute to the meaningfulness of work.

2.	Autonomy leads to responsibility for outcomes of work.

3.	Feedback from the job leads to knowledge of the actual results of the work activities.

The ability of the psychological states to create motivating work depends to a degree on the strength of the employee growth goals.

1.	People who have steong natural growth goals tend to have high internal motivvation when working on a complex, challenging job.

2.	People with strong natural growth goals tend to experience the psychological states experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of actual results more strongly when a job is high in motivating potential.

3.	People with strong natural growth goals tend to respond more eagerly and positively to enriched work.

4.	Employees with weak natural growth goals may reject work with motivating psychological characteristics.

5.	Thus, organization members must learn how to develop strong natural growth goals because motivating work is effective primarily with individuals with strong natural growth goals.

EFFECTS OF LEADERSHIP PRACTICES

1.	The negative effects of leadership practices are found primarily in the climate they create by the way in which work is assigned, suggestions for improving efficiency are given, instructions are given for developing work skills and technical aspects of the job, and selection and placement interviews are conducted.

2.	Leadership practices are the primary means by which employees discover that the organization:

a.	trusts them and allows them the freedom to take risks,

b.	supports them and gives them responsibility in doing their jobs,

c.	openly provides accurate and adequate information about the organization

d.	attentively listens to and gets reliable and candid information from them,

e.	actively consults them so that they see that their involvement is influential in decisions in the organization, and

f.	has a concern for high standards and challenging work.

3.	When leaders say and do things that others interpret as not trusting, unsupportive, hiding information, providing inaccurate and inadequate information, not being attentive to and not listening to them, failing to consult them and emplwering them, and encouraging low standards and inefficiency, then climates of apathy, hostility, defensiveness, and lack of vigor tend to develop.

NATURAL GROWTH GOALS

Natural growth goals are conscious intentions to achieve some purposeful action that allows a person to grow and expand in their lives.

Natural growth goals are derived from the capacity of human beings to project thoughts backward and forward in time, to imagine things being different from what they are, to project images of what might be and what ought to be, to infer and deduce explanations and conclusions, and to further their own happiness and well-being.

WORK PERCEPTION GOALS

Do Better

Move Ahead

Work Free

Want More
Quotable Quotes:

How do I know my energy has been spent?

Because my get-up-and-go has got up and went!

But in spite of it all I am able to grin,

When I think of where my get-up-and -go has been!

Living with a saint is more gueling than being one. (Robert Neville)

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. (Charles Schltz)

I have a simple philosophy. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. (Alice Roosevelt Longworth)

There is more to life than increasing its speed. (Mahatma Ghandi)

PERFORMANCE

Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute. (Anonymous)

You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again. (Joan rivers)

EXPECTATIONS

Only the mediocre are always at their best. (jean Giraudoux)

FULFILLMENT

There Is No Pleasure in Having Nothing to Do, the Fun Is Having Lots to Do and Not Doing it. (John Raper)

OPPORTUNITY

The good Lord never gives you more than you can handle, unless you die of something. (Giundon Cartoon)

GUMPERSON'S LAW

The contradictory of a welcome probability will assert itself whenever such an eventuality is likely to be most frustrating.

MURPHY'S LAW

If anything can go wrong, it will.

If I die, I forgive you; If I live, we'll see. (Spanish Proverb)

Praise does wonders for the sense of hearing. (Anonymous)

There are two kinds of complainers, men and women. (anonymous)

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent. (Jean Kerr)

Success didn't spoil me; I've always been insufferable. (Fran Liebowitz)

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care. (William Safire)