Management According to Gareth Morgan's

¶ … Management According to Gareth Morgan's book, Images of Organization, managers too often become "preoccupied with the content of organizational activity" (Morgan, 1998, xi) and tend to get all tied up in the practice of managing. Morgan insists that managers can and do waste a lot of time in the hands-on practice of keeping their organization on target and on task. But in doing so, they fail to see the bigger picture of their own organization; they don't see the image and the metaphor.

That is, managers should be creating meaning "...by using one element of experience to understand another" - and, in a sense be able to "...stretch our thinking and deepen our understanding" (Morgan, 4-5). Another way of saying it, for the purpose of this paper, is to suggest that alert, bright managers need to get out of their comfort zone - and in some cases, out of their rut - and use the insights created by metaphors.

Ten major priority points and principles as a theoretical approach to management: Priority One: A top principle in managing a company or a group within a company is to see that organization not just a group of employees, but as a culture. Actually, Morgan points out that a workforce in a given factory or office environment is very much a metaphor for the larger community outside.

Within that work culture are many of the same human / social dynamics that are found in the community, and hence, managing an organization requires many of the skills that the political and social systems in the greater community. Those include fairness, justice, opportunity, understanding, cooperation, competition and courtesy (Morgan, 113-119). Priority Two: Dig deeper than the surface when analyzing the employee culture. The iceberg is a very good metaphor for a workplace environment.

What you see on the surface is likely only a small amount of what lies beneath the surface. On page 146 Morgan points out that in an organizational culture one can see the "hoopla and ritual" that is apparent on the surface; but looking more thoroughly one can see the "deeper and more fundamental structures" that are the heart and soul of the culture that is at work in this place.

Getting below the surface, Morgan goes on, can be "an extremely difficult task," but by engaging in good management practices, and knowing that deep down in each individual, and in each employee culture, there are ideas stirring, thoughts being held back, and likely great ideas that have not had an opportunity to flourish because, like the metaphor of an iceberg, they remain submerged and out of sight. Priority Three: Keep the door to advancement open to all employees.

This requires doing more than just stating "equal opportunity" and seeming to adhering to federal law. Morgan (p. 172) points out correctly that women can "see opportunities" in their companies but "...the path is often blocked by gender bias" (Morgan, 172). If sexual harassment is allowed to go unchecked in a company that is one way to poison a work culture, and it usually leads to litigation and the image of the company suffers as well.

But a less obvious form of discrimination is gender inequality, which poisons a culture more slowly but just as surely. Priority Four: Stop being imprisoned with expected, predictable policies. One of Morgan's more interesting metaphors is his "psychic prison metaphor"; this alludes to a company being "trapped by favored ways of thinking" (men can do a better job because they have more experience, for example, or immigrants are too new to America to be given managerial responsibilities).

In other words, managers can become imprisoned in their out-of-touch thinking, and to move forward management must look outside for fresh insights and get out of the "cave" of darkness and stagnation (Morgan, 206). Priority Five: To create a smooth-functioning, productive work culture, management must eliminate the triggers for "counterproductive work behavior" (CWB). An article in the Psychologist-Manager Journal (Fodchuk, 2007) points to two CWBs that must be removed in any work culture - such as gossip, harassment, untruthfulness, bullying - the very moment it is apparent.

When these CWBs are allowed to exist, productivity and job efficacy is diminished. Good initial interview theories should be put in place to weed out potential bad behaviors. Priority Six: Good managers should quickly identify and reward "organizational citizenship behaviors" (OCB). Examples include "civic virtue" (doing things that enhance the company's image), "altruism" (assisting others without being told to), "conscientiousness" (going beyond role obligations), and "courtesy" (peacemaking between other employees) (Fodchuk, 2007).

Priority Seven: Managers should encourage employees to "cut out the instant messaging...[and] severely restrict email and conduct business the old fashioned way, by telephone" (Williams, 2007). That advice comes from the book the 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, which, according to the review in the New York Times, urges a management strategy of "tuning out" world affairs, "pointless communiques" and other distractions. Priority Eight: Smart managers and executives know how to anticipate changes in the environment.