MPA 502 Organizational Theory and Behavior

Fall 2016 Midterm

Joseph Aigbojie

As it pertains to cluelessness in organizations, reframing plays a key and critical role.

Reframing can be the antidote to remedy the situation of cluelessness. I like to first think of
reframing in the context of framing. Organizational framing or the frame work of an
organization can somewhat be described in terms of that organizations culture/way of doing
things. The framing serves as a map or blueprint if you will. Employees that are a part of an
organization follow this map and use it as a navigational tool to guide them through the
organization. These guidelines are very helpful during the early stages of
employment/organizational introduction. Once one has developed his/her own identity within
the organization (which usually is established through consistent work and making a name for
oneself) theyre able to move away from that original framework/blueprint that once guided
them. This is not to say that theyre no longer following the policies and procedures of the
organization but theyve come into their own and better understand the organization.

Now as far as the organization losing a sense of direction is concerned, this is more so a
people issue as opposed to an organizational issue. The sense of direction in which an
organization has is only as good and clear as the people who are leading the organization.
Having said that, the role that reframing plays in dealing with cluelessness in organizations is to
serve as the redirection of the original framework of that organization. Reframing is merely
tweaking/repositioning/restructuring as it pertains to people and the direction of an
organization. Successful implementation of these items requires strong leadership that isnt
complacent and input from frontline staff members (especially those that are in the trenches).
Leadership complacency and poor leadership are the cause of staff not knowing whats going
on and doing more of what they know even though its not working.

Structural organization is an interesting concept. It speaks to the makeup of an

organization, the organizations policies, procedures, the chain of command as it pertains to
leadership within the organization, the mission of the organization and the drivers of these
items for the organization. Structural dilemmas often arise within an organization because the
policies, procedures, mission, goals, etc arent in line with that of those that have been tasked
with driving the initiatives of the organization. This is to say that the goal of Company X as an
organization might be to make profits of 2 million dollars during the course of the year,
primarily by selling designer headphones. Company X as an organization feels as though they
have a superb product. People can listen to music through the headphones and on top of that,
the headphones are designer/fashionable. Leader X who works for Company X in a managerial
role (in their production department) is concerned that customers are receiving a disservice.
Leader X is very insightful as it pertains to music production and sound. He feels as though
Company X needs to do a bit of tweaking as it pertains to the hearing aspect of their
headphones to increase the value of the sound that emanates from the headphones speakers.
In the grand scheme of things, this shouldnt be of any concern to Leader X (even if hes correct
or not). He should merely be concerned about the production of the headphones and insuring
that his team produces them in a timely fashion so that they can be manufactured and sold.
The structural framework assumes that everything will go according to the organizational
blueprint/or organizational bible if you will. It doesnt consider random occurrences or
unpredictable events. The onus is once again on experienced and seasoned leadership to
navigate through such dilemmas in a fashion that the organization receives and takes into
consideration the presentation of these concerns. As it pertains to the hierarchy of the
organization, that too must not be so rigid, if it is, then it means that the structural frame of the
organization is not rebuild-able, which will translate to continuous structural dilemmas.

Structure is a pretty thematic term as it pertains to organizations. Bureaucracy,

although different from structure shares some of the same definitions as structure. Both words
in some respect pertain to systems. While a bureaucracy typically is a system of government in
which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected
representatives, structure pertains to the arrangement of and relations between the parts or
elements of something complex. A government or organization can definitely be described as
complex. We can describe or relate these two terms simply by stating that the government of
the United States of America is structured similar to that of a bureaucracy. As a matter of fact,
it is a bureaucracy. Its as though the bureaucracy is the system as a whole, its parts, what its
made up of, etc. The structure is the design of the system and the manner in which the system
operates. They are both intertwined and depend on each other for functionality.

Organizations/bureaucracies rely heavily on people. People that work for these

organizations are their most important assets, however, at the same time, organizations
exploit people chew them up and spit them out. These two views are incompatible
(especially to those that are immersed in professional roles for their respective organizations)
because the fact that an organizations people are its most important assets does not take into
consideration that in organizations, no one is indispensible. There are people who work for
organizations and contribute heavily to the success of the organization. Typically these people
are thanked by being given more work and responsibility and in the event that these same
people are injured or unable to work, they are replaced within no time. Its like organizations
are a system and the people that work for organizations are a part of the system. The system
depends on the people but not in the manner in which the people depend on the system. If a
person leaves the system, he/she can be replaced immediately and the system will be fine. It
can move forward seamlessly despite this, however, if a person leaves the system, that person
isnt necessarily fine most of the time. That person is burdened with the challenge of finding
work elsewhere. That persons family might be burdened as well. An idea to reconcile the 2
incompatible views that have been discussed would be organizations giving employees stake in
the organization/company. If people felt that they were working extremely hard for a check
and a piece of a large organization, they might be compelled to give a little more as it pertains
to their work efforts and when they leave, they leave with their small piece that they worked
for. Maybe this piece or share could be paid out to the employee after he/she has been
terminated or resigned. This is a policy that would obviously need some tweaking.