Organization Diagnosis - Paper Example

Organization diagnosis refers to the effective means of looking for a company to find out the gaps between the present and the targeted performance and how the targeted goals can be achieved. Organization diagnosis has evolved over the years and has become part of the organization development process. For a successful organization diagnosis, the process should be organic in such a way that you look at the organization at different perspectives, its structures, the right things that the organization engages in and the negative things that are part of the organization. A deeper understanding of the operations of the organization can help solve the situation and make the organization achieve goals in a much easier way. This paper, therefore, will look at organization diagnosis by looking into some of the challenges that leaders face, factors causing the challenges and the organization metaphor that best explains the organization.

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Leaders are the head of the organization. Whatever action they take or their manner of ruling the company has a lot to be reflected in the performance of the organization. As a leader, they are faced with some problems. They are faced with moments when they have to make decisions that will not favor some group of employees. From the interview that I had with one organization leader, I was able to determine some of the challenges that they face as leaders. The organization leader who works as a human resource manager told me that the biggest challenge they get as a leader is making some decisions that are critical. This happens to him daily. There are moments when as a leader, he had to make the decision of laying off some of his best friends that were not performing to the expectations of the company. Social life must be different from the work life. This has made him as a leader o lose most of his friends. In making decision also, one can face a lot of opposition, especially from the junior employees. According to theory X, man is lazy and must be forced or compelled by strict rules to make the employees work. Therefore, making such rules that do not favor the lazy employees results in employees rebelling from you as a leader. This makes it difficult for the leaders to make friends from the organization they are serving. Another major challenge that I was able to find out, that affects the organization leaders from the interview is the lack of resources. The junior employees always look up to the manager who is their leader for their resources (Latham, 2014). This makes a leader be under real pressure when the owner of the organization has not provided the materials that are required for carrying out the activities of the organization. From the interview, the human resource manager elaborated how work could not continue for two days because there were no resources to carry out the activities. It is the leader that acts between the owner of the company and the workers. This means that the leader is subjected to deal with the pressure that comes from the owner of the organization as well as the pressure from the workers. This results in the other challenge that leaders face, stress. Too much pressure can cause stress to the leader. The stress can then affect their personal life.

From the challenges that have been presented above, derivatives of the factors that cause them can easily be identified. The first major factor that causes the challenges faced by the leaders is inadequate resources or failure of cooperation from the owners of the organization. Another major factor is the lack of emotional intelligence among leaders. Leaders must have emotional intelligence when they want to successfully achieve their goals as leaders. Having emotional intelligence refers to the ability to be able to self-regulate, to have self-awareness and also to have social regulation and awareness. Therefore to avoid the stress that they do have as a leader, they must be able to know their strengths and weaknesses and how them as leaders contribute to the outcome of various circumstances. Lack of honest feedback is also a major factor to the challenges that leaders face. It is not all time that the employees give the correct answer to their leaders. Then generally, most of the employees fear to tell their leaders what they think of. This is because of the fear of being laid off or just fear of the power. Leaders are the left in a situation of the dilemma. They are then only forced to make the decision on what they feel is right. It is because of such like decisions that might result to internal rebels. When there is no open communication among the workers and the leaders, then the situation can continue recurring for long. This can only be solved when there are open and free forums where the employees can speak out their concerns without any fear (Johnson, 2013). This can also be done through communicating and operating across the organization and teams that are involved in the organization (Johnston, 2016). From the interview, the leader can only view the organization existing when the targeted goals are being achieved. When the organization is performing well, it is the joy of the leader. Despite the challenges, the leader can afford to put a smile on his face and look how to minimize or solutions to the challenges. This shows that performance is what determines the existence of any organization.

From the organization concepts that are described by Gareth Morgan, the hotel that the organization leader was working on can best be described as a machine. This is what can best describe from the responses that the organization leader was giving. Organization as a machine is the basis of Taylorism. Following the challenges and the major factors that lead to these challenges as disclosed by the organization leader, the company operation depends on each other just as a machine works. In the organization, there is the owner, the organization leader and the workers. These means that failure in one of the segments may lead to disruption in other sectors (Cummings, 2014). This is just like the machine. When one part of the machine fails to operate, the whole machine becomes impaired and cannot be operated. Therefore, the organizational leader is the connector between the owners of the organization and the workers. He has to ensure that he does the coordination so well so that the machine (The organization) is efficiently operated. This also means that the organization manager is the engine of the organization. He determines the performance of the organization. As an organizational leader, therefore, it is prudent to have a broad knowledge of how to manage the employees and the owners of the organization for the smooth running of the company. From the above explanation, the organization machine metaphor is clear. When the organization leader can view the organization that he is managing as a machine, his perceptions, actions, and expectations are in a profound way. Human beings have been able to design machines that make their work easier and achieve their goals in a much easy way. It is through this same way that the organization leader can design the organization as has the power to attain the objectives that he is in for (Oswick, 2016). Through this, the organization leader can expect consistent performance, when every part of the machine is carrying out their duty without variation. To enhance the performance of a machine, it is only prudent to look at the blueprint of the machine. The machine does not participate; its just static and operates only when change is made to them by their designers or the operators. Sudden changes to the machine are bad as it can cause wearing out to the machine. Wrong results given by the machine is an indication that something is wrong in the machine and must be identified and be replaced. The machine is metaphorically used to mean the organization. As the organization leader, he must be in a position to handle the organization in the required direction to get the expected changes. The core value of the machine, therefore, is control. The organization leader, therefore, is responsible for the design, the implementation and the output of that company. However, it is important to note that organizations are composed of people and not machine parts. Therefore, there must be some considerations that the organization leader must consider. The organization leader must understand that human beings are dynamic and that the workers thinking and attention are constant to fluctuation.

There are advantages and disadvantages of the metaphor of organization as a machine. First, it is advantageous to the organization leader as it motivates them to have control over the organization so as to achieve the required goal in a much easier way. Furthermore, the metaphor plays the role of focusing on the attention between the actual performance and the intended goals of the organization and as a result, change can always be seen. Also, it creates wholly unrealistic expectations of control that cannot be easily achieved, thus giving the defensiveness, anxiety, and conflict. This helps in creating emotional barriers to change and diverting the effort and attention from the job itself. The only main disadvantage that is associated with this metaphor is that as an organizational leader, you may fail to treat the workers as machine parts and this may lead to misunderstanding in the organization. Theory X can best explain the problem that is being experienced by the leader. The theory states that as a leader, you must learn to compel human beings to do what is right to achieve the intended goals.

Action Plan

Challenge Solution

Lack of resources Always be in contact with the owners of the company when resources are getting scarce.

Plan efficiently with the existing resources

Pressure as the leader Engage in open communications with the workers and the owners of the organization

Difficulties in making decision Engage in open communications with the workers and the owners of the organization

Not mixing life outside workplace with life at workplace.

Reference

Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.Johnson, C. E. (2013). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow. Sage Publications.Johnston, M. W., & Marshall, G. W. (2016). Sales force management: Leadership, innovation, technology. Routledge.Latham, J. R. (2014). Leadership for quality and innovation: Challenges, theories, and a framework for future research. Quality Management Journal, 21 (1), 5.Oswick, C., & Grant, D. (2016). Re-imagining images of organization: A conversation with Gareth Morgan. Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(3), 338-343.