2.

"Organizing can only be thought of in connection with

disorganization." Why do things appear disorganized and what
are the ways in which people respond to this disorganization?
Discuss with particular reference to one particular organizing
effort in which you actively participated yourself.
Marcus Aurelius, one of the most successful leaders of the Roman Empire,
once said, The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. His
meaning behind this was that in order to be successful we must not only maintain and
organize the important aspects of our lives, but also ensure that minor details and
fundamental issues are managed and organised effectively in advance. This idea
outlines the central point of the argument I wish to portray in this essay; while
organization is closely associated with disorganization, it doesnt have to be a
reaction, but rather a pre-emptive effort to minimise any disorganization.
Fineman et. al argue that You do not have to have had a leadership role to be
part of organizing, and already to know, through experience, what seems to operate
successfully and what seems to fail. As such, I will be drawing on various examples
of organizing efforts I have been involved in to elaborate or demonstrate specific
points regarding organizing and disorganization. The particular organizing effort I will
be focussing on concerns the time I have spent as a tennis coach and the various
tennis lessons I have had to supervise and lead.
Why do we feel the need to organize our files? Why do we need to plan ahead
for a trip? What reason is there for making a to-do list? All of these things are
answered by the same response: We want to avoid disorganization. Things appear
disorganized whenever their natural order is broken or put out of place and, as such,
disorganization can lead to extreme reductions in productivity and performance.
Disorganization results in a feeling of frustration and irritation, and this can escalate
to genuine anger directed at either the guilty party or anyone else taking part in the

task. It can also lead to tasks not being performed well, on time, or not even being
completed at all as the disorder and disorganization interrupts the flow of the task so
much as to cause participants to give up on it.
Clearly disorganization is something that we all wish to avoid to ensure tasks
are accomplished effectively and participants remain amicable throughout the task
itself. As a result of this I believe that the majority of people look to avoid
disorganisation from the outset rather than having to respond to it. For example, when
I first started tennis coaching I would look to have a vague outline and plan for each
lesson so that the sessions would run smoothly and everybody I was coaching got the
most out of the hour they had. I did this by having a list of all of the various exercises,
games and drills I could use and grouping them into lesson plans. These drills all
worked on the same aspect of a players game and so each lesson focused on one
specific aspect. I would then rotate these drills each week to ensure my clients had
variety whilst still learning (or improving) an aspect of their game. However, I still
wanted to leave room for improvisation and reaction to how the lessons were running
and so did not have a particularly rigid structure.
This strategy was particularly effective with adults because it provided fun but
structured sessions that allowed for development of each players game. However, it
was less effective when running the childrens sessions because they werent able to
decide for themselves which groups to be in or what drill to do. The lack of a formal
structure was also an issue because I had two assistants for these sessions and so I had
to make it clear to them what was happening at the start of each session. At first,
following the adult lessons structure often resulted in fairly high levels of
disorganization, with children not being sure which drill to go to next or who they
were supposed to be playing against. This disorganization resulted in the children

becoming confused and lots of questions being asked; meaning lots of time being
wasted on having to repeat myself and my instructions to various people. Another
problem with this disorganization was that some of the children would not get as
much one on one time and so were not able to improve as much as others. It would
also often result in petty squabbles between the children and a general feeling of
frustration and stress for all three members of staff running the session.
After having endured a few sessions with this disorganization and the
problems associated with it, I looked to improve my planning for each lesson. The
main aim was to make it extremely clear, to both staff and students, who would be
playing with whom and what drills were being done each day. By doing this I was
able to control the lessons better and ensure that all players were involved and
continued to improve.
The process of organizing in this example is twofold: pre-planning to
minimise disorganization, and reacting to further disorganization that occurs
unexpectedly. I feel that these are the two ways in which virtually everybody
approaches the concept of organization. It is very rare to see people organizing for the
sake of organizing, they are looking to minimise disorder. When I was planning my
gap year I had to plan where I was going to earn the money to pay for it, where I was
going to go, what I was going to do, etc. This organization was well in advance of the
actual date, but it was all in an effort to minimise any disorganisation that could occur
whilst I was travelling. I was not simply being organized for the sake of it, but trying
to minimise any stress, anxiety or worry that would be associated with being
disorganized.
The other way of dealing with disorganization is to react to it once it has
occurred; and this is demonstrated well by the simple example of tidying ones room.

Although some people are able to maintain a tidy room constantly, a lot of people will
only decide to tidy and organise their room once the level of disorganization has
become too great, and there are many other situations in which reaction to
disorganization triggers organisation.
There have been many studies into the effect that disorganization has on
companies and firms and these effects are very similar to the effects felt by
individuals. McCroskey and Mehrley (1969) found that companies will see reduced
profits and productivity when their structure or industry suffers from a certain level of
disorganization. This point was also developed by Konings (1998) in a study of
Bulgarian and Estonian firms in which it was found that disorganization, measured by
complexity of a sector, has a negative effect on productivity growth in Bulgaria. So,
clearly, disorganization has a negative impact on all aspects of life and can effect both
companies and individuals.

To conclude, organising is generally associated with disorganisation but the

reaction to disorganisation generally falls into one of two approaches; either preemptive planning, or post disorganization reaction. The two methods both look to
minimize the effect that disorganization can have as it generally is extremely
detrimental to whatever task is being carried out.
Word Count = 1200

Bibliography:
Fineman, S., Sims, D. & Gabriel, Y. (2010) Organizing and Organizations (Fourth
Edition) London: Sage.
Konings, J, 1998. Firm Performance in Bulgaria and Estonia: The effects of
competitive pressure and disorganization, The University of Michigan
McCroskey, J C, Mehrley, R S, 1969, Communication Monographs, The effects of
disorganization and nonfluency on attitude change and source credibility, 36 (1) pp
13-21.