Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

The second barrier of this kind is related to the perception of what is important. “In most cases,
managers and staff are focused on achieving those aspects of performance which are explicitly
measured. The systems and procedures of the organization … tend to determine which
characteristics of the organization receive more attention. … Staff in an organization will seek to
achieve the targets, which are established through reported measurement – those things which the
organization instructs them through its measurement system to regard as important.
The role of culture is, probably, obvious. Differently from formal procedures, cultural norms are
semi-’voluntary’; they are of a social nature and cannot be administered by management in the
same way as formal regulations. Cultural norms do not know exclusions. If the head of the
department can afford not to have time to talk with a client who appeals to him – then a clerk of
smaller rank may also ‘be too busy’. If somebody may be coarse with a client, and it is tolerated,
then any one else may do the same. Organizational culture is a feature of an organization as a
whole. It may be customer oriented or not. Quality may be a value, or not. In many cases, culture
is the only serious barrier to a good quality of service.
Organizational design – is not only the organizational structure. It involves all aspects of the
interrelations and functioning of all elements. Any organization operates in the way it was
designed. There may be a lot of barriers for quality. Beckford describes three of them:
“The first, and most frequent, error is what can be called institutionalized conflict. This means that
an organization has been designed in such a way that conflict between quality and some other
characteristics; such as productivity, is inherent…
The second barrier is… the design of the organization’s information system. This does not simply
mean the computerized management of an executive information system, but the whole of
information generating and processing activity of the organization, both formal and informal. These
activities must generate the right information, in the right format, at the right time, and deliver it to
the right decision makers if it is to be of any benefit…
The next barrier to quality is one of understanding and articulating roles within the organization,
particularly among staff involved in control and development functions… There is a tendency
among many such staff to delve into the operation of the organization, perhaps taking direct control
when errors occur or the unexpected happens. While doing so they may be neglecting their own
roles within the organization. This ‘fire-fighting’ or ‘crisis’ style of management is seen in many
organizations as heroic… A low-level intervention by senior management will rarely address the
root, or fundamental cause of the problem and that is their proper role, not to deal with operational
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