JP Morgan Chase analyzed through Bolman and Deal's four-frame model

Organization Analysis of JP Morgan

Analysis of organization, its development and change, can be understood better by looking at the Bolman and Deal's four-frame model (2003). From the insights acquired in the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology and political science, the authors have managed to effectively break down organizational management principles into four dimensions.

Bolman and Deal's leadership theory has four essential frameworks: structural, human resource, political, and structural. The theory relates to the four frameworks or orientations that signify the ways in which leaders view organizational situations, shape how these situations are defined, and describe how they can be managed effectively. The human resources and structural frames are related to the effectiveness of managers, while the political and symbolic frames relate to the effectiveness of leaders. Bolman and Deal describe the difference between a leader and a manager as, people who "focus on execution, leaders on purpose" (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 343). Bolman and Deal also assert that leaders bearing leadership tendencies in each of the four frames result in the most effective leadership style.

According to these authors, each of the frames constitutes ideas that are meant to help the reader comprehend and constitute the information into a coherent form. Therefore, the reader is enabled to internalize the concepts and can easily put them in practice. If we can view a frame as an entity that has numerous potentials in functional terms; lens, map, tool, prism, orientation, perspective and filter (Defoe 2013), we would build organizations that end up performing many functions that we would not manage as individuals. We are born in hospitals and die in hospitals. We go to school for education while universities prepare us for career roles. Organizations play a large role in shaping our lives. These and some more of the social properties we gain, can be attributed to the positive aspect of organizations.

These entities called organizations manifest their dark aspects too. We know from experience that there are many people who are frustrated and their lives destroyed by organizations. Patients are harmed within hospital institutions, there are products known to kill or harm people who use them. There are instances when drugs turn on their users. Food can be just as lethal as it is nourishing. Elements such as air, water and the earth, can be contaminated by chemicals that are released from factories.

Organizational management sciences have been developed to help the managers of such institutions to make the organizations more beneficial to society that they harm. It is evident from research and experience that some organizations need to be led actively, if they are to change for the better and embrace this cause (Defoe, 2013).

JP Morgan Chase offers a range of financial services to organizations and individuals. It is one of the leading firms in the sector. The firm offers banking, credit securities, financial consultancy and brokerage services. Jp Morgan has been a leading consumer credit card issuer for a long time, through Chase Bank; one of its subsidiary companies. The organization has consequently been an active lobbyist as far as financial market's laws are to be enacted. These reforms include: bankruptcy laws, reforms and regulation of the banking industry. The organization was formed back in 1799. Chemical Banking Corp merged with Chase Manhattan Corp in 1996 and became one of the country's largest financial institutions. JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan merged in 2000. Chase firm, is built on the structures of over 1200 institutions that preceded it. It borrows heavily from Chase Manhattan, JP Morgan, Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical, Bank One, National Bank of Detroit and First Chicago. These institutions were known to work in collaboration in the development of banking approaches and innovations. Like JP Morgan in today's world, the firms mentioned made significant contribution to their local communities (Padua, 2014).

This paper cross examines JP Morgan and attempts to help the reader understand why the organization has applied the structural frame outlined by Bolman and Deals (2003). It also seeks to lay bare the possible consequences, if the firm were to use a different approach.

Organizational Effects of the Dominance

The structural approach as presented by Bolman and Deal (2003), presents outlines of clearly structured roles and relationships (p. 45). The result is that JP Morgan:

I. Is in existence to achieve specific goals.

II. There will be a clear division of labor and specialization that will enhance performance.

III. Through coordination, and proper control, individual efforts and that from the various units intertwine.

IV. It is effective when operations and decisions are based on rationale rather than personal preferences and pressures from without.

V. The design should fit into the circumstances well; including the objectives of technology, environmental circumstances and the workforce.

VI. Performance gaps and other problems will arise from the deficiencies inherent in the structures, but can be corrected through restructuring and analysis.

By assigning roles to people, evolving objectives and goals, and crafting effective policies and rules plus a working command chain, the organization has applied the structural model successfully and has achieved great feats in the world of financial services business. The structural frame is based on the premise that organizations operate on a rational foundation that guarantees certainty and predictability, if there are appropriate structures in place (Durocher 1996). Certainty and predictability applies to the behavior of the workforce (Durocher 1996)

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Perspective's Dominance

Advantages

When structural frame is the key driver of success for leaders in organizations, they serve as architects and analysts.

The system enhances the morale and productivity of the employee. According to a study conducted by Moeller in 1968, a school that used a structured approach in the running of its operations manifested high morale among the staff and students as compared to the one that was loosely structured.

Cons

The structure is not beneficial, if it is based on bureaucratic red tape (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 51).

It has also been observed that if the structural frames are rigidly followed, there is a risk of promoting individual interest, instead of organizational objectives.

There is a tendency to ignore everything that falls outside the structures outlined; however important.

Rigid adherence to structural frames inhibits innovation and leads to lack of resilience.

The Structural Frame Dominates in The Organization --Why?

A frame is a set of ideas that one keeps in the mind for the purpose of getting around issues or perceiving them. The structural frame has been shown to promote efficiency in organizations. Leaders who use the structural frame tend to be drawn to analysis of data, employing clearly set directions and hold the stakeholders accountable for their actions, in addition to solving problems through structural procedures. The dominance of the frame is a function of its effectiveness in making clear what you should expect and what to do about specific challenges. The application of frames to resolve complex organizational issues requires a creative perspective so as to figure out the nature of the problems. One should also incorporate traditional approaches in their use of frame analysis to solve problems in organizations. 'Frame analysis is close to art,' say the authors Bolman and Deal (2008). They further explain that art is essentially an enhancement of engineering techniques; not a replacement (p. 21). Managers can use frames analysis to identify the root cause of the problems they face in organizations. This helps them figure out how to solve such problems.

The Good and Bad Consequences of the Above Dominance in the Organization

The direct consequences of the frame-analysis in JP Morgan are the risk of micromanagement and bureaucratic red tape. On the flip side, once managers are made aware of these negative possibilities, they act to prevent their occurrence. There are tensions and downfalls in the use of the structural frame as pointed out by Bolman and Deal (1997). The authors have surprisingly faulted division of labor and specialization. They cited that although the creation of different roles affords you the benefits that come from specialization, the practice makes it hard to control and coordinate activities (p. 41). The framework tends to make each unit focus excessively on their own priorities (p. 41), at the expense of the common goals. There are examples of losing focus of the common vision in individual chapters of the book.

How Does Frame Analysis Influence the Way People Work?

The outstanding element of structural frame is the fact that it has specialization at the core of its agenda. The organization works like a machine with different functional parts. An earlier review by a former employee of JP Morgan pointed out that micromanagement is rife. There are times when you need to ask for permission to go to the restroom. The review says that there also times when you are bound to work without breaking for rest (Personal Banker and Teller (Former Employee), 2013). Yet another employee reported disconnect from the field officers. The management does not seem to know what services are needed or even which ones need to attract a premium rate. There was cited to be little confidentiality. They reported that all the communication has to pass through the official management channel. There is little of such communication spread among the lower cadre employees. Employees who oversee the daily operations seem to be resented, compared to the ones in the upper corporate office. There is a clear need for polished and gifted staff. However, it seems that these jobs are largely strenuous and opposed to tasks that one performs out of inspiration. It's more of perspiration than inspiration. Such an exclusion-based environment definitely runs short of "perspirers" (Too Much Growth, Too Little Oversight, 2015). This takes us back to the issues of bureaucracy and how the frame structures perceive the constituents. Specialization of work is the initial aspect that affects organizational structure. This relates to the details of how to split tasks to separate components of the job. If the job is split into smaller tasks, it calls for deeper specialization by an individual worker. There is a correlation between specialization and efficiency. It relates positively. The sloppy side of specialization is that specialized staffs soon run out of steam as a result of engaging in the same repetitive tasks.

Departmentalization is another element of how frames structure affects the organizations. There are many ways to group jobs. They may be grouped based on the function, territory or product line. Organizations have an established chain of command that sets up the hierarchy of authority that stretches from the top to the bottom of the organization. The structure of any organization worth its salt should show the number of managers that are required to give direction to junior employees. The practice is referred to as the span of control. It is the one that determines the number of employees that a manager can effectively direct in order to get results. The companies that have a wider span of control need fewer managers. They tend to be more effective than organizations with a narrower span of control. The flip side of wide spans of control is that if the employees are too many for a single manager, they may fail to get adequate leadership and direction. Decentralization and centralization are other functions of the frames structure. This refers to the point of decision making. JP Morgan's top management makes all the important decisions that affect the organization and does not solicit any input from lower level employees. We can, therefore, say that the organization is highly centralized. The frontline staffs are the most affected by this kind of organizational structure. Their work life is seriously affected because the senior management does not care about their career or personal concerns and job inputs. Decentralization begins with involving more and lower management employees. Formalization is the last aspect of how Frames affect organizational structure. This is the aspect of the organizational structure that determines the extent to which the jobs are standardized. Highly formalized jobs give little room for creativity. Lower levels of formalization allow employees significant freedom on how they attend to their duties. A former employee at JP Morgan described the organization as a highly production-focused entity. They further pointed out poor ethical practice, disorganization and biasness on the basis of age (Operations Specialist (Former Employee), 2015) (McLaughlin, n.d.).

How Does The Management Approach Affect A Company?

Organizational leaders tend to view their institutional experiences against the backdrop of the frames and leadership approaches. Leaders with a structural bias define clear goals, assign roles to their staffs and oversee specific activities with specified policies and command lines. Such a leader makes an effort to align the organizational procedures to the environment outside, even as they grapple with the dilemmas in the organization (Bolman & Deal, 2003). The leadership frames are effective measurement tools for establishing the performance of managers and leadership. Bolman and Deal point to a research conducted on a couple of schools; Singapore School and Florida Heads. The study showed that all the four frames were linked to the effectiveness as managers and leaders (Bolman & Deal, 1992). The structural frame was yet the most significant and clearest indicator of the effectiveness of managers while the symbolic frame was highly accurate in predicting the leadership effectiveness. In a twist of the study, it was shown that women rated higher than their male counterparts in each of the frames. However, the figures were not significant (Bonita Sasnett & Ross, 2007). Since JP largely employs the structure frame, the leadership activities tend to be directed at placing structures in place, including scheduling, organizing, and observing the work that is completed. JP Morgan is a clear statistic in the observance of structure, implementation, strategy adaptation and experimentation. The role of a leader is, ideally, architectural and designing formats. In effective leadership environment, a leader is deemed to play the role of paying attention to petty details. Based on these inferences, therefore, JP Morgan is a dictatorial leadership set up that thrives on more assignment of tasks and very little relationship.

There is little allowance for cooperation with task oriented leaders. Such leaders focus on victimization rather than problem solving, whenever an issue arises. They are intolerant and make it hard for others to play a part on development (Clark, 2015).

Perspectives and Frames I would Like to See in the Organization and the Reasons Why

I Would Recommend a Political Frame. This Frame Will Help Focus on What the Realities of Conflicts Are Including the Organization's Power

The political frame postulates that

Organizations are basically individual coalitions and groups with a common interest

Coalition members often harbor lasting differences in beliefs, values, information, perspectives, interests and realities

Scarce resources form the basis of important organizational decisions. These scarce resources inform conflicts in organizations. They are the most important resources.

Decisions and goals emanate from jostling for positions between the stakeholders.

The frame is a form of democracy that seeks to convince the factions to align to a particular perspective and goal. There will always be more needs than the available resources. The principles have to voice the concerns of their staff that have the potential to influence the larger team. They build support teams that stay steadfast in the event of new initiatives. They have their point men in place to consult before they present challenging decisions to the larger crowds. They are well connected with the influential community members. Political frames hold the key to the interventions that can deal with the strongest leverages in organizations (Benson, 2014).

Leadership

Leaders with a political bias make items and working gear what they want. They have the capacity to cross examine the points of power. They know the weak and strong points and make use of socio-political and economic influences to persuade. They employ all possible tools to get the systems working. Ideally, an effective leader is supposed to be an advocate that builds teams and coalitions. In an ineffective leadership situation, the leader is a manipulator and a hustler (Clark, 2015)

Possible Consequences of the New Approach in the Structural Frame-Dominated Environment of JP Morgan

The political frame often removes task focus from the picture where there is need. It employs negotiation and people centered approaches when there is need. The frame has the potential of influencing others (by affecting their thoughts, behavior and emotions) when there is need to do so. The frame also applies authority where it deems appropriate. If JP Morgan adopts this approach, the effectiveness of the organization will be hinged on the political skill and the ability of determining when to be collaborative and when to change approach. There is need to consider the collaborative potential and the essence of long-lasting relationships with employees. They should also consider their own personal principles and values (Bolman & Deal, 2003, p. 220). The framework will change how work is done at the company. It may also do the following, depending on the task in question: