Preparing new R&D leaders for cross-functional manufacturing management

Classroom Management Across the Organization

Managing Across the Organization

The purpose of this work is to conduct research and then to assume through a scenario the identity of a CEO or an organization which has been effectively managed including the relationship processes across the organization. The Senior Manager left the organization it was discovered that he had left a bad legacy through controlling information in an attempt to gain control and power over his peer and insubordinates. The new manager must be prepared for this situation so that it may be effectively dealt with. Through conduction of research regarding power and politics and employee involvement in the organization the basis for a confidential memorandum to the new manager will be constructed giving a description of the successful management of a cross-functional team across a manufacturing organization. The following questions will be addressed:

What critical internal partnerships and alliances must a new R & D. leader maintain in a manufacturing organization?

How does the formal power structure assist or deter cross-functional team effectiveness?

What information should the team leader be in possession of about the informal political landscape? In a system with a strong informal culture, whose help and support should the new team leader cultivate and why?

What strategy should be suggested to the new team leader to ensure success?

Subject: Effective Leadership in an Organization

Resulting information from two Gallup Organization studies which took place over a 25-year period and involved more than one million individuals identified the elements that they believed were most relevant to great management. These elements relate to the relationships between bosses and employers and the quality of those relationships. According to these two polls high-performing employees are in possession of the following:

Knowledge of their boss' expectations

Evidence that their bosses care about them as an individual

Experience that their opinions count

Regular praise or recognition for good work

Encouragement for their ongoing development

Also identified in the two polls were key behaviors of great managers which are:

Assessing individual talents and aspirations, and;

I. Collaboration: A Powerful Tool in the Social Structure of the Organization

Collaboration is described as cooperative participation in a joint effort. Collaboration is when individuals from different organizations or units within an organization combine their efforts, time and resources toward the achievement of a final product, service, or result. The obstacles or barriers which will arise in the R & D. position are those of the nature of Individual, Organizational, Societal and Systemic with the specifics listed below:

A. Individual Obstacles in the Organization:

There are obstacles for collaboration such as the individual obstacles which are as follows:

1] The need for power, 2] Fear of losing control, autonomy, quality, identity, and/or resources

3] Lack of trust, and;

4] Turf-protection concerns.

B. Organizational Obstacles:

There also exist "organizational hurdles" which are:

1] The costs are clear and borne up-front, the benefits are unclear and come later, 2] Different goals among parties

3] Little organizational credit or reward for collaborating

4] Individual orientation of human resources (HR) systems for hiring, training, measurement, evaluation, promotion, and so forth.

5] Different cultures among the units involved.

C. Social Obstacles in the Organization:

Societal obstacles are the following:

1]The American ethic of individualism makes collaboration difficult, and;

2] The societal emphasis on competition creates a win/lose mindset for many.

D. Systemic Obstacles:

Systemic Obstacles are the fragmented government systems such as the separation of administrative from operational units, the separation of policy from administration, the power of the oversight boards, and the separation of federal, state, and local levels of government and the Categorically funded programs which are usually defined narrowly as initiatives with a single problem focus which results oftentimes in further fragmentation and duplication.

In order for an idea to become widely deployed, it must first become widely accepted. Wide acceptance, in turn, implies acceptance by groups and whole social systems. The process by which new knowledge is formulated by individuals, validated by communities, and embraced into practice by organizations is what we call innovation"

McElroy (2000)

II. Human Social & Political Systems within the Organization:

McElroy (2004) relates the fact that predisposition exists in human social systems in making knowledge in accordance with the "same endemic social patterns" which are present in all "complex adaptive systems. " McElroy (2004) Knowledge is made by "mutual consent." McElroy (2004)

In an effort to improve any aspect of business the focus must begin on the social patterns of behavior which will reveal or account for the knowledge production, diffusion and the use of that knowledge within the organization. McElroy states that all organizations are endowed "hereditarily with the same basic patterns" and that the approach to take is the adoption of: "policies which are aligned with these innate patterns of behavior, and which support, strengthen and even amplify them. Policies which fail to meet this test (of alignment) are doomed from the start, and can only be expected to engender temporary behaviors of an disingenuous kind." Exposure of the organizational social system to that type of stress will: "invariably return to their natural state, in which knowledge making, diffusion and use are carried out in the form of unmanaged social processes." McElroy (2000)

The "politics of knowledge" is an element described as having the ability to have a dramatic effect on the overall rate of business innovation as well as the quality of ideas. According to McElroy:

Most organizations tend to be organized oligarchically around these functions. Management teams and their administrative designates, including R&D functions, Product Planning and so forth, tend to monopolize innovation while the rest of the organization is relegated to knowledge following and a regimen of obedience. Intellectual Diversity supported within a business is supportive of each individual's idea, even those which are dissident in nature which will have "a material impact on its overall performance..." McElroy (2004)

Connectivity" refers to the degree that communications are valued within the organization. The fourth of what McElroy terms as being: the "Four Areas of Organizational Life" is the "embryology of knowledge" which refers to the "extent to which individuals in an organization are free to pursue their own learning agendas, and the degree to which they are further free to self organize into knowledge-making communities of interest, or practice. These four elements are stated by McElroy (2004) to be "the most important variables in human social systems when it comes to how well an organization learns and produces new knowledge."

Therefore as you can see it is vital that you form partnerships and alliances with all team members within the organization as well as familiarize yourself with the "cultural and social" hierarchy within the organization. The formal power structure within the organization has been explained. The suggested strategy is one of collaboration and cooperative efforts in which all team members are involved in decision making processes which can be termed to be a process of "consensus" whereby each team member feels that they own the decision and therefore will contribute more genuine efforts at success in the process. In management and initiative and other efforts in the R&D position the key words for handling the social and political aspects within the organization are those of 'collaboration, cooperation, consensus, and connectivity' which are vital and necessary tools in gaining support and in the creation of an organizational-wide effort that results in productivity for the organization.