ORGANIZING NOTES
(2000)
Organization
Communities in Action
(#10)
This week we look at communities in action -- organizations through which we mobilize common resources on behalf of common interests. Last week we discussed how relational, interpretive and action tactics could be strategically and motivationally woven together as campaigns. This week we look at how to structure organizations -- formalizing our relationships, our methods of interpretation, and our action routines -- to make ongoing effective collaboration possible.
THE DILEMMA OF UNITY AND DIVERSITY
Dilemmas inherent in organizing are those of unity and dissent, solidarity and diversity, deliberation and action (Smith and Berg). Unity gives an organization the power to act -- combining its member's resources is the foundation of its power. But we lose a capacity to discern common interest if the organization fragments into factions -- each of which views its own interests as the interests of the whole. We also lose the capacity to mobilize common resources on behalf of those interests. On the other hand, too much unity (Janis's "groupthink") can stifle an organization by destroying its responsiveness to its constituency and its capacity for renewal. For democratic organizations, responsiveness and renewal are directly tied to legitimacy of dissent. Accountability only works if linked to open debate of different points of view. The tension is in the fact that the more united a group, the better it can "take a hill"; but the more diverse a group, the better decision it can make about whether to "take the hill." Research shows dissent (psychologists call it "deviance") is associated with better decisions, but poorer performance. Unanimity is associated with better performance, but poorer decisions. The challenge is to design an organization in which interests and resources are concentrated enough to assure effective action, but diffuse enough to assure a capacity for change.
PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION
The dilemma described above cannot be resolved, but we can learn to manage it. In democratic organizations, as illustrated in Organization Chart #1, three important ways to manage it are: (1) pushing responsibility down and broadening participation; (2) doing the organization's work collaboratively (for which diversity is an asset); and (3) establishing rules of accountability in which dissent is viewed not as disloyalty, but as essential.
Pushing Responsibility Down and Widening Participation
The strategy of pushing responsibility down and widening participation is based on the following observation: the more we share responsibility for organizational results, the greater our interest in the common effort, and the more resources we will commit to its success. It may be more "efficient" to get 5 people to spend the whole day collecting signatures in the Yard, but it may be more "effective", to get 10 teams of 5 to spend one hour each getting signatures in their own dining hall. The more we share the responsibility for doing the work, the more getting the work done depends on our collaboration. The more our collaboration is required, the more accountability we can exercise. If the work can be done with five people, only their collaboration is required so only they can exercise real accountability. On the other hand, if it takes 50 people to get the work done, their collaboration is required. This enables them to exercise some accountability.
Pushing responsibility down -- delegating -- not only empowers an organization by engaging the resources of more people, it empowers people within the organization by giving them the means to exercise accountability. When an organization's work does not depend on resources generated by the collaborative efforts of many people, but on resources generated by a single fund raiser, who holds real power within the organization? Have you ever been in a meeting where you start hearing about what the funders will support and won't support and why we need to do this or that so we can get the money -- all, of course, interpreted by the person responsible for raising the money? No matter how democratic the formal structure of an organization, if one person's work drives it, that is the person who will "have the say." This is why effective democratic leadership rests on a solid practice of delegation - a practice that we focused on during our discussion of leadership.
Collaborative Organization: Diversity as an Asset
We can do organizational work in ways that create more or less interdependence. Leading a unified organization requires more than avoiding "faction." It requires designing the work so people actually engage with each other -- in collaboration, in interdependence. When we "professionalize," we minimize interdependence. Instead of relying on a team of volunteers (and their inefficiencies) we hire someone to do their job. But something is lost with this choice. Whom does this empower within the organization? Whom does it disempower? .
Effective collaboration depends on skilled leadership, a chief qualities of which is learning to blend the unique capacities - and deficits - of different people. Work assignments are the result of a negotiation between the actual persons -- their personalities, their experience, their talents, and their difficulties -- and the "roles" they are needed to play. If everyone were the same age, race, gender, had the same skills, life experience, and so forth, their "power to" would remain limited because of so little opportunity for productive interdependence. We can't lift a table of we all lift the same corner at the same time. But if we each lift our own corner, we can. The trick is to match people and corners.
Productive collaboration is the result of harmony not homogeneity. This is what it means to learn how to construct community based on difference. The idea is to create a "star team," not to be a "star player." A coach begins with the common interest a team has in winning. But it only becomes a winning team if the coach learns how to combine the unique strengths and weaknesses of each player. The team then has an interest in remaining a team.
Accountability: Dissent is Not Disloyalty
The capacity of a democratic organization to respond to its constituency and to new conditions is based on accountability. Democracy is based on a claim that leaders exercise leadership in our interest not because they are virtuous, but because we have the power to hold them accountable. Accountability (as in electoral competition) is also the main mechanism requiring democratic leaders to respond to new circumstances. The contribution of a "loyal opposition" is not only in holding leaders accountable. By giving voice to alternatives it can stimulate adaptive response to change. For this to work, however, we have to learn to manage differences -- neither denying them nor accepting them as absolute. To make "dissent" legitimate, we develop agreed upon ways to maintain our collaboration, even when we disagree. This requires "decision rules" -- rules that allow us to make decisions, move forward, and get work done, even if everyone doesn't agree. Formal procedures for debate, discussion, voting and evaluation can help by "depersonalizing" our disagreements. Roberts Rules of Order did have its uses. Leaders can also work to develop a culture which values difference - affirming the single voice that the rest of the group tries to drown out rather than joining the chorus. Learning to deliberate in ways which affirm our commonalties, while protecting dissent, can transform our diversity into an asset in realizing and acting upon our common interests. It is equally important to learn to celebrate in ways which both affirm the distinctiveness of our identities and the communality of our organizational undertaking.
ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY: BOUNDARIES
We wrestle with these dilemmas in the choices we make about who is the organization. Almost by definition a community is bounded and, as Smith and Berg point out, every inclusion is exclusion. On the other hand, a community without boundaries -- or, for that matter, a marriage, a family, or any other kind of group -- can't exist. How we bound our community gives it an identity -- an identity that those of us who participate in it share.
A community we can enter any time we want (when it is convenient, when it is doing what we want) and exit any time we want (when it is inconvenient, when we disagree) is a community of rights, but no obligations. But without obligations it never becomes a community. Obligations give us an interest in making the community work; even when it is difficult and we disagree with it. Community without obligations can never generate social capital because we never know if there is "a there, really there" when we need it to be. Consumers enter a market place at will, exercise their preferences, and exit. But they are not responsible for managing the market place. They just use it. Citizens, on the other hand, are responsible for the governance of their community. Their acceptance of obligations to it entitles them to voice within it (see Socrates on this).
Boundaries are usually recognized though the rituals with which we honor them -- membership oaths, membership cards, buttons, hand shakes, songs, meeting rituals, induction ceremonies, installation ceremonies, "swearings-in," symbols of office, etc.
Every viable organization has to decide how to bound itself. How are these questions handled with your group? What is the difference between members and nonmembers? How do you combine inclusiveness, diversity, and dissent with boundedness, commonalty, and unity?
WHAT ORGANIZATIONS DO
Organizations do just three things as organizations -- they meet, they celebrate, and they act (Organization Chart #2). We manage organizational dilemmas by pushing responsibility down, facilitating collaboration and assuring accountability not rhetorically - but in how we meet, celebrate and act. In terms of our meetings, it will help if they are well managed, assure all voices are heard, and are conducted with clear and agreed upon decision rules. Our celebrations can manage the dilemmas in the ways we organize them, the kinds of symbols we draw upon, the manner in which we honor our successes and deal with our failures. And finally, the more our action draws on the resources of our members, engages them in working together, and are conducted in a spirit of learning and evaluation - the more our action will strengthen our organization as well. Poor leaders celebrate their own success; great leaders celebrate the success of their people.
© Marshall Ganz, Kennedy School, 2000