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MPA
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Theories of Practice: The Political Frame PowerPoint Presentation:
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It
was clear that at all levels of the organization there was fear,
uncertainty, The political theories of management and leadership practice liken organizations to mammoth athletic arenas within which individuals and groups sometimes engage in gladiatorial contests and battles and more oftentimes less momentous games to further (and hopefully, effect) their diverse interests and agendas, given the organization's purpose and finite resources. Viewed from the theories afforded by the political frame, organizations structure power and available resources in a way that allows for organizational survival as individuals and groups contest and battle one another to effect diverse interests and agendas. By analyzing how the combatants' actions collide or coincide in various contests, battles and games, managers and leaders are better positioned to understand what really is transpiring within the organization (Bolman & Deal, 1997). And so it is: whenever people converge in organizations to achieve a subjective personal interests or an objective organizational purpose, politics will inevitably emerge. And politics---like bacteria which lurk invisibly in the air humans breathe---are poised to infect people and to poison the organizational atmosphere. Why is it that people and politics are so inextricably related and pervasive throughout human organizations? The political theories of practice argue that politics abound any time human beings come together to create order out of diversity. There is a simple reason to explain this phenomenon: human beings are different. Their task interests, career interests, and extramural interests (Morgan, 1997, pp. 161-162) are different. In addition, humans hold vastly differing sets of predispositions, goals, values, issues, expectations, and other orientations and inclinations that lead individuals and groups to prefer one direction to another. Whenever diverse interests collide, politics emerge. Perhaps this is due to personality differences, cultural differences, or even, differences in the functional roles that people assume in organizations. Or, perhaps for any and all of these reasons, rationality does not rule and politics take center stage in human organizations (albeit behind the protection afforded by the curtain of rumors, intrigue, and conspiracies). In light of these organizational realities, managers and leaders ought to view politics as an expected and natural response to those tensions which emerge in organizations precisely because people are different and possess divergent interests. Furthermore, because people cannot attain what they desire without assistance, the compromise effected between these people---the compromise from which an organization emerges (Barnard, 1938)---is itself a political process involving negotiation between the parties to the compromise. Contrary to many of its victims' opinion, organizational politics are not necessarily bad, immoral, unethical, or evil. Rather, "organizational politics" is a neutral concept specifying the actions of people as they endeavor to achieve their individual and/or collective ends. That having been stated, organizational politics can be bad or good, immoral or moral, unethical or ethical, or evil or holy. What demarcates negative organizational politics from more positive forms is the rationale underlying why individuals and groups engage in political behaviors. Are these individuals and groups endeavoring to do the right thing, to the right person, in the right place, and at the right time? This is the question Aristotle (1958) raises in his Nicomachean Ethics as the criterion for judging human behavior. For managers and leaders, what is critical when considering the reality of organizational politics is not so much human behavior as the process humans use to resolve conflict. Perhaps the most important means for resolving conflict is the wise use of power (in Greek, kratia, that is "to rule"). Thus, no matter what type of power managers and leaders use, they need to hone their ability to rule other people, that is, to get others to do something they otherwise would not want to do, in the right place and at the right time. However, as DeCharms (1968) notes, it is not infrequently that people working in organizations complain that they feel powerless, that is, like pawns in a chess match, in political contests, battles, and games. But the simple fact is that, in most instances, individuals do possess power to effect organizational outcomes if only they would exercise it, that is, to act as origins of their own ends. Sadly, what these people lack is the virtue of courage, the virtue that would enable these people to engage in the self-change that is necessary and which functions as the precursor to and foundation for substantive organizational change (McWhinney, 1992). Politics, then, is not attributable merely to human selfishness, myopia, or incompetence. Interdependence, differences, the scarcity of resources, and the reality of power relations set in place by organizational hierarchies will inevitably produce political forces in organizations regardless of who the players are. The political frame suggests that it would be naive if managers and leaders were to believe otherwise. Successful managers and leaders understand this dynamic. They use the power of "positive" politics to provide multiple avenues for individuals and groups to reconcile their differences. Then, through a process of principled consultation and negotiation (Fisher & Ury, 1981), these women and men struggle to steer their organization's members toward achieving their organization's purpose and away from its members' more selfish self-interests. Success is measured incrementally, that is, as managers and leaders gradually achieve desired ends by identifying how ideas and actions collide or coincide and by forging coalitions among and between individuals and groups. Additionally, successful managers and leaders strive to avoid what most people innately dislike, that is, the power of "negative" politics. Rather than utilizing multiple avenues to exploit people through dominance over the disenfranchised, these women and men attempt to navigate these complex moral mazes (Jackall, 1988) and maintain their credibility by doing right things in the midst of all of the organizational conflict and the political maneuvering that people will use to effect their individual and group self-interests. In sum, successful managers and leaders forge a negotiated order out of the diversity present within any organization (in Latin, e pluribus unum, that is, "out of the many one"). This negotiated order advances the organization's purpose incrementally. These managers and leaders avoid imposing unitary ideologies or utilizing coercive tactics that turn human organizations into rule by a terrorist regime or a jungle inhabited by blood-thirsty predators.
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