You are being challenged to bring together many related, but diverse ideas. So, as you proceed, recognize your accomplishments, and give yourself a "pat on the back." Be proud of the work you are doing, and engage with your online colleagues in the "Student Lounge."
This course is an organization, a group that has self-organized around interactive learning. It is a hybrid--physically located and virtual--information organization that achieves its purpose through knowledge networking. Thus, you are encouraged to become more actively engaged in conversations with me and your fellow students. You are encouraged to critically discuss important topics that are essential for organizational success and how they pertain to how organizations develop knowledge generationing/applying conversations and empowered working relationships.
Interdependence and Control In Self-Organizing.
As you can see from your reading, there are various strategies on how to organize and create strategic discourse--hierarchical, relational, cultural and networking. Each has its specific purpose, as well as its advantages and disadvantages. Each has its own perspective on learning, and how to foster it. As an organizational leader or manager, you will have to decide which strategy is called for by your particular organization, department, or project team in light of its mission and personnel. You will have to decide which provides the best way to create a collective identity, share the operative vision, motivate employees, and enable the assigned tasks to be accomplished.
Organizations have to be consciously (re)designed. Their structure (or architechture), managerial practices, information flow, and growth over time, has to be planned and intentionally, even strategically, faciltated. Organizational architechure dictates communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing, and thus an organization's ability learn and respond to changes.
Further, two qualities of an organization are interdependence and control. An organization's units, departments, and project teams are dependent upon each other. Together they form the heart of the organization, and must effectively network together with information easily flowing across boundaries. The heart of the organization, though, must link with external individuals, groups and organizations. It must share with and receive information from suppliers, business partners, customers, etc. Internal and external linking must be able to form spontaneously--formally and informally-- as needed, and information must be able to flow freely and unhindered. Business and work relationships must be able to be emerge as needed. Managers, staffs and employees must have the authority to take the leadership to create the networks and share information to fulfill their job responsibilities, accomplish their assigned tasks, learn from each other, and collabortaively problem solve, as well as aid the orgainzation to grow and develop, and achieve its goals.
Yet, there must be control, a structuring of the networking and conversations so that managers and employees stay focused on the organization' s mission, work is completed in a timely manner, and that information is shared and utilized appropriately. The organizations culture, structure and leadership (e.g., power systems) establish and maintain the communication styles and boundaries.
So, organizational communication involves balancing individual freedom and control for the sake of the function of the collective, i.e., the organization. It involves being aware and interpreting the organization's context, continuously monitoring the situation, and building the appropraite structures, management systems and workplace processes that enable, even empower, and motivate employees, as well as garner their loyalty and unleash their creativity.
What are effective ways to balance freedom and control, and thus enable empowerment and interdependence? What are examples of organizations that have good organizational communication? What makes their organizational communication effective?
Organizational Communication as Fostering Organizational Learning.
Keeping the above in mind as it relates to the knowing organization, let's further examine organizational learning, and the factors that comprise it and enable organizational development.
As you know, for today's agile organization on-going learning is essential. It is pivotal for effective operations and competitive advantage.
"...[L]earning is the key to long-term survival and growth...[and]...organizational effectiveness is...intimately linked to adaptability and flexibility....An organization cannot become a learning organization without first becoming a 'teaching' organization" (Gavin, 2000, p. 188)
Like employees, organizations need to continuously be evolving, and adapting to economic factors, market demands, newer technologies, and improved ways of operating. Organizations are continuously shifting ways of perceiving and behaving, "morphing" themselves to into new entities with new ways of operating.
Gavin (2000), in Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work, outlines some key points about organizational learning.
- First, there is no one "best" approach to learning. A portfolio of skills and practices are needed in an effective organization supported by its culture and the training and development department.
- Second, learning involves 3 core steps: "acquiring, interpreting, and applying information." Each has its strengths and limitations, and need "vastly different sensitivities, systems and skills" (p.47).
- Third, organizational learning involves "collection and interpretation of information that exits outside the organization....the accumulation of knowledge through experience and the manipulation of variable and experimental conditions to draw from inferences." Learning is a "progression from less to more active modes, from techniques that accept the environment as given to those that engage or alter it to create insights...small-scale improvements...radical changes...breakthroughs and dramatic innovations" (p. 48).
- Fourthly, a critical attribute of the learning is a workforce--managers and staffs, individuals and teams that routinely "gather intelligence," analyze it, and apply their insights--a) search for information, b) inquire, ask questions and explore, c) observe surroundings and events, d) experiment, e) reflect upon their experiences, f) review their conclusionsLastly, when learning, it is important to remember that issues and problems have "complexity, scope and unexpected. surprises" (p.122).
Ongoing learning must be part of the organization's culture, managerial empowerment strategies, and an employee's skill set. It must be a component of way the workforce and its managers self-organize. Further, in the sociotechnical organization learning happens in both a physical--face-to-face--and virtual manner. Blended learning approaches mix these different learning methods "to optimize the effects of each" (Tai, 2008, p. 26).
So, what organizational cultural perspectives and values, and managerial practices promote and reward on-going learning and professional development? Plus, what are your suggestions on how to blend face-to-face and computer or online based learning and training opportunities? Why do you make these recommendations?
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As mentioned earlier, you are being challenged to bring together many related, but divergent principles and perspectives. As you move forward, there are a few points to keep in mind:
- Organizational communication is a complex subject and phenomenon, and has many angles. At this point, focus on the main themes related to the sociotechnical knowing organization, organizational communication, and team dynamics.
- There are many aspects and levels to the concepts you are examining. Do not try to understand or remember them all, or every characteristic mentioned. Focus on a few concepts, principles, issues, etc. of interest.
- Take time to reflect upon the material. Do not strive "just to get through the assigned reading." Allow yourself to stop to think upon and/or critically examine concepts that are new or that intrigue you. Since all the ideas are inter-related, by spending time on one, the others will eventually be covered, and come into greater focus and understanding.
- Try to see the course's organizational communication and team concepts in your workplace or community. Identify and think about how they operate there. Use them as lens to understand and assess your workplace culture and processes. Make practical applications, noting how the concepts and principles discussed here impact how you work or understand your organization.
- Finally, spend time reflecting upon the course material, and strive to articulate your own critical definitions of organizational communication and team as they appear in a dispersed work environment that is sociotechnical and information-driven in nature.
With that said, the next few blogs sketch out some perspectives on components of organizational communication that are important.
To continuing the exciting conversations...
Chuck Piazza
References.
Gavin, D. (2000). Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work. Boston, MA; Harvard Business School Press.
Tai, Luther (2008). Corporate E-Learning: An Inside View of IBM's Solutions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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