Organization Culture
Organization Culture
The stories told in organization define an organizational culture. The stories provide useful information about an organizational culture according to Boyce (1996). The stories help understand the organizational culture and intervene. They provide researchers and OD practitioner with information to develop solutions to the organizational culture. There are different perspectives used to explain story telling in organizations. That is a social construction, organization symbolism and critical perspective. The reality people experience is constructed by social interactions. Social constructed reality is shared by all people in a first generation. The reality is communicated from one generation to another.
However, communicating reality is hard as one need to integrate a new generation into the present reality. The organizational symbolism explains the construction of meaning in organizations. Various things help in the construction of meaning in organizations including stories, myths, logo and ceremonies and rituals events. Boyce arguments is logical and strong as it enables one understand the importance of telling stories in organizations. The information can be used to solve organizational cultural issues by examining stories and their meaning (Martin, 1992).
Story telling plays an essential role in organizations according to Denning (2004). Story telling can change an organization direction and help in attainment of goals. Story telling motivates employees to do things with energy and enthusiasm. Also, storytelling helps in understanding problems in the organization. Managers do not use storytelling to present information, and this affects the organization’s performance. Story telling is vital even when presenting financial information or problems. The stories should be taught well to motivate the audience. The characters and plot should be well developed. Denning (2004) has a strong argument as he shows the importance of storytelling in organizations and how managers should tell stories to ensure the audience understand them and stick. The information is vital in solving problems and motivating employees in organizations.
Public administrators acquire knowledge and use it differently. Public administrators acquire knowledge through story telling. The knowledge acquired through story telling is crucial for students, practitioners and scholars. Hummel (1991) has a strong argument as he has managed to prove that story telling helps public administrators acquire knowledge and use it. He does not agree with critics who believe that public administrators generate and use knowledge based on pure and objective reasoning. His argument helps resolve the shortage of information and knowledge in organizations.
What employees talk about in an organization
When people tell stories in the organization talk about various things. They talk about issues in the organization that affect them and the organization. Some of the issues include discrimination, sexual harassment, benefits and wages. They also talk about the organizational culture. The organizational culture affects employees differently. A strong organizational culture affects employee behavior and performance positively. On the other hand, a weak culture affects the behaviors and performance of workers negatively. Moreover, the employees can talk about the organizational structures and systems and how they affect their performance. The organizational policies and procedures affect employee performance differently (Ambrosini & Bowman, 2001).
Stories
A. Janet explains to her friends how they disagreed in their meeting yesterday and failed to resolve their differences. Janet, her coworkers, and their departmental head held a meeting to resolve conflict of duties in their department. However, the meeting was not effective as employees and the departmental head did not have effective communication skills. Also, they do not have active listening skills and this affected the meeting. The members did not listen actively to what others had to say concerning the conflict of jobs. Instead, the members disrupted each other as they gave their views. Some members dominated the meeting and prevented others from airing their viewing. This resulted to conflicts. As a result, the meeting was post phoned to a later date. According to Janet, the department will continue to have problems if the departmental head and employees cannot solve the problem.
B. John explains to his fellow employees how the hiring process in the organization is effective. According to John, the organization has a good human resource department, and this has made hiring of employees effective. The human resource department follows all the employment laws when recruiting, selecting and hiring workers. It ensures an applicant gets the job if he or she qualified. Race, ethnicity, disability and cultural background do not hinder one from getting the job. John claims that he got the job though he was from minority groups in the country. He says that he trusts the human resource department when it comes to recruitment of workers as they promote equality and fairness. He thinks any one can get a job in the organization as the human resource managers do not use unethical methods to fill positions in the organization.
C. Mercy has worked in the organization especially the sales department for more than 15 years. She complains of the managers using unethical and unfair practices when promoting employees in the organization. The managers employ discriminatory practices and favoritism during promotion. According to Mercy, the managers do not consider the experience and education background of the employees when filling positions. Instead, only family members and friends are promoted. This has affected employees in the organization especially the minority as they rarely get promoted. She claims that she has applied for a promotion in her department several times, but she has not been promoted. In addition, she claims she has the experience and education needed to perform the task, but the management ignores her. She tells her friends that she is certain that only relatives and friends can get promotion in the organization.
D. Irene is complaining of technology change in the organization. The organization has introduced new technology and automated most of the processes to be productive. The organization has not performed well for the past years as it has recorded low production. It has also remained behind when it comes to technology and failed to compete with other organizations. Though the technology will be beneficial to the organization, Irene and her co workers do not support it. Irene and their employees believe that the technology will affect their jobs and job security. The introduction of the technology will lead to job loss as the organization will not need the employees. The organization will need few employees after automating its operations. Thus, the other employees will be fired as they are not useful. The employees opt to resist the change in order to keep their jobs.
What I learn from the stories
I have learned that stories help to understand problems in the organization including culture, policies and procedures. The stories tell various things about the organizational culture, policies and procedures. They reveal the organization does not encourage honest and fairness when promoting works as relatives and friends get promoted. However, the hiring process is effective as the managers encourage equality and fairness when recruiting. Also, managers and employees lack conflict management skills as evidenced by Janet story above. In addition, the managers do not involve employees in the change process and do not addresses employee issues that might cause resistance. They do not address job security issues. The stories show how employees and managers should behave. The employees and managers should be honest and fair when carrying out their duties and making decisions. They should work together to bring change and use active listening skills to resolve conflicts (Boyce, 1996).
Reference
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