Richard J. Spady, Cecil H. Bell, Jr. and Gary A. D'Angelo
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[This article was originally published substantially in its present form in 1980 in FUTURICS, Vol. 4, No 2, pp. 143-157. It predated and predicted the movement away from authoritarianism and away from centralism and toward democratic processes in society five years before Michael Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union. As such, the authors feel it has credibility and its premises today are as fresh and valid as when they were first written over a decade ago. The authors were all directors of the Forum Foundation and were involved in research in the field of administrative theory. Administrative theory is part of the larger field of organization development and defined as: "those organizational and societal dynamics that tend to move all organizations and societies, universally, toward solving their problems and anticipating or adapting to changes in their internal or external environments."
Dr Cecil H. Bell Jr., Chair of the Department of Management and Organization of the University of Washington School of Business Administration, is co-author of the textbook Organization Development (French and Bell) now available in its 5th edition, Prentice-Hall, publishers. Mr. Spady, president, and Dr. Bell, vice president, co-founded the Forum Foundation in Washington State in 1970 while Mr. Spady (a self-employed Seattle businessman since 1954) was a student at the university. Mr. Spady then served on the volunteer staff of the Church Council of Greater Seattle with the portfolio of "Futures Research" from 1971 to 1990. They defined Futures Research, not as forecasting, but rather as the search for ways to improve the technological and sociological future through consensus building and thus "community." Thus, the religious community provided the arena of (1) people and (2) organizations to do the research over the years. Dr. Stuart C. Dodd, Professor-Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Washington, 14 years head of the Washington State Public Opinion Laboratory at the university, an early supporter of the World Future Society, and a pioneer in social science research, served on the board of directors of the Forum Foundation until his death in 1975. He did much to focus the research of the foundation in its early years. Mr. Spady and Dr. Bell are just completing their research findings; their manuscript titled ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY Applied! (A New Approach to Civilization Building)** is expected to be released to publishers in early 1996. Mr. Spady has been a Rotarian since 1980 with the active classification of "Futures Research" and was the recipient of the "Earl Award" as "Outstanding Religious Futurist for the Year 1993" from the World Network of Religious Futurists.
The following article has been updated to reflect the change in the authors' understanding of administrative theory since 1980. All such changes are underlined or are enclosed in brackets "[ ]" to identify the change from the original paper.]
["Fast Forum" and "Opinionnaire" and "Viewspaper" are all registered trademarks of the
Forum Foundation, Seattle office; 4426 - 2nd Ave. N.E.; Seattle, WA, 98105-6191 USA
Fax (206) 633-3561. Used with permission. **Unpublished manuscript draft 6F
Copyright 1995 Richard J. Spady, Cecil H. Bell, Jr., and Gary A. D'Angelo
(This document was last revised on 9/1/95.)]
Today bureaucracies and large organizations are in trouble. The biggest of them all -- the governmental bureaucracies of national, state, and local governments -- seem increasingly "out of touch" and "perceptually detached" with themselves, their subordinate units, and with the people whom they purport to "represent." Bureaucracies in the private sector exhibit many of the same symptoms. Decisions by leaders at all levels in society (public and private) often are not accepted by people, with continued turmoil, alienation, and unhappiness resulting. People in organizations and society often feel that they are not adequately involved in the decisions that affect their lives. It is often difficult to get anything done due to foot-dragging and resistance. This is reflected directly in enormous additional cost burdens both to organizations and their constituencies. "Man has discovered how to make and control the most complicated machinery, but he has yet to improve his self-control and his understanding of his own human nature." (Prince Philip, 1976)
Scholars of the past and present who have greatly contributed to our understanding of this problem are Mayo, Bronowski and Tofler. They have stated:
The art of human collaboration seems to have disappeared during two centuries of quite remarkable material progress. The various nations seem to have lost all capacity for international cooperation in the necessary tasks of civilization. The internal condition of the nation is not greatly better; it seems that only a threat from without, an unmistakable emergency, can momentarily quiet the struggle of rival groups. . . . How can humanity's capacity of spontaneous co-operation be restored? It is in this area that leadership is most required, a leadership that has nothing to do with political "isms" or eloquent speeches. What is wanted is knowledge, a type of knowledge that has escaped us in two hundred years of prosperous development. How to substitute human responsibility for futile strife and hatreds . . . (italics added). (Mayo, 1943)
Science is the world of what is. Ethics is the world of what ought to be. . . . There has been a deep change in the temper of science in the last twenty years: The focus of attention has shifted from the physical to the life sciences. . . . There cannot be a philosophy, there cannot even be a decent science, without humanity. . . . (There are those who are) in love with the aristocracy of the intellect. And that is a belief which can only destroy civilization that we know. If we are anything, we must be a democracy of the intellect. We must not perish by the distance between people and government, between people and power. (Bronowski, 1973)
I would urge all of us as futurists. . . to devote some of our energies to finding new ways to destandardize, deconcentrate, descale, delimit, and "democratize" planning. (Tofler, 1975)
In a similar vein Lawrence Hayworth writes:
It may be fairly said that the discovery of techniques by which the institutional ground of urban life can be ordered is the outstanding problem of the twentieth century, comparable in gravity to the problem of world peace.
Mr. Hayworth could have gone further. If we can find a technique to help us order our institutions in our society and elsewhere in the world to resolve organizational conflicts, we will have taken a giant step toward world peace, for world peace and institutional order are of the same dimension.
Because they are created to accomplish purposes, all organizations are involved in the administrative process. Unfortunately, the great majority of organizations today are using administrative techniques that are based upon organizational and administrative theories that are both outdated and erroneous. The research of modern administrative theorists like Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor, Likert, Argyris, and Schein suggest that those old theories were based upon false assumptions about people and their abilities and capacities. As a result, our organizations and institutions frequently create many "human problems" as they attempt to solve the problems for which they were established. In government bureaucracies and private organizations the realizations are just today beginning dimly to be perceived that there is a whole range of human problems involving both the organizational members as well as constituents that should be dealt with constructively on some level. These problems concern the feelings, emotions, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and values of people which seem directly connected to their "state of mind" and "morale" and are reflected either negatively as "alienation" or positively as "happiness." People want to contribute to and participate in the running of their own lives, including their lives as organization members and citizens.
Many people believe our nation is on the verge of social disintegration because they see so much "conflict and dissension." What we are seeing today in America is not a nation on the verge of collapse, but rather a nation that has basically met the physical and security needs of most of its people so that now more and more individuals are rising to Maslow's higher levels of human need which are social, ego-fulfilling, and self-actualizing. This is a positive force, not negative, and we have to learn how to tap into it in our organizations and societies.
The adoption of new administrative philosophy and processes by those who govern and are the administrators of public and private organizations and institutions can provide organizational members and constituents the opportunity to participate viably and contribute their "leadership" to the planning processes affecting them. Such participation holds the key to the release of a fabulous amount of human creativity and energy, for "leadership", like creativity, is a quality that infuses all people from the highest to the lowest in an organization, and from the older to the younger in a society -- it is not a quality reserved only for the titular heads of organizations or society. This energy is capable of lifting our society and others to unparalleled achievements in an increasingly complex and interdependent world. One essential result of such viable participation by people in their organizations will be a strengthening of the "authority" flowing to titular leaders from their constituents and colleagues enabling them to make decisions which will be accepted with a minimum of organizational resistance and tension. This will result in increased organizational and societal effectiveness and efficiency.
CHANGING DEFINITIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS
The source of "authority" in organizations and society is not widely understood today. It does not lie in the "office" or "task" as is popularly believed, but rather "authority always lies with him to whom it applies. . . . Authority is just another way of talking about the willingness of people to submit to collaborative systems." (Barnard, 1968) Similarly, anthropologist Alexander Leighton in his classic research concluded, "It is the governed who determine the governing of men." (1958) Authority flows upward from people to leaders, not downward from leaders to followers. The "sovereignty" of the individual is of a higher form than that of the state or of any organization or institution within it. Therefore, the Theory of Authority (the source of power in all organizations and society) perhaps can best be understood as: Those who govern derive their power from the consent of the governed.
A "governor" is anyone who governs someone else, i.e. parents govern children, teachers govern students, principals govern teachers and students, supervisors, "bosses," managers, administrators, representatives, officials, etc., are all "governors." And so in theory, if a child does not want to be "parented," then the parent cannot "parent;" if a student does not want to be taught by a teacher, then the teacher cannot teach; if a colleague or employee does not want to be governed by a "superior," then the superior cannot supervise, etc. This "power" is exercised by an individual merely by withdrawing his or her "authority" to be governed without regard for personal consequences. It is important to note that it is the person who is governed who holds the power to continue or terminate the relationship to be governed and not the governor.
This suggests, in turn, that to achieve a high degree of willingness of people to collaborate spontaneously with a leader(s) toward organizational objectives (i.e., to achieve a high degree of "authority" in the organization), a positive relationship between the governor and those who are governed must be established first. This applies whether we are talking about a relationship of a child with his or her parent or whether we are talking about the people of the United States and their relationship with the Congress and/or the president -- and all organizations and relationships between. For if the people were not willing to be governed by them, even the president and Congress could not govern them, Constitution or no Constitution, army or no army, for all of the power of the president and Congress are not derived from their offices, but (similar to the leaders of all organizations everywhere -- public and private, formal and informal) merely from the willingness of the people to be governed by them. It is not just rhetoric that the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations begin, "We the people." It is history's clue to the ultimate source of power and authority in all organizations.
At the start of our nation under the free enterprise system, the original impetus to organize was provided by the entrepreneur. Since it was (usually) his enterprise, his funds, and his risks there was wide acceptance of his "right" to direct and control others in the enterprise. He assumed, and others accepted, this "authority." This system worked; the various incentives provided caused organization members to accept his "authority" and perform their tasks. Today however, the primary form of organization is the corporation.
The leaders of most corporations are no longer owners or entrepreneurs but are professional "managers." They do not occupy the same authority base as did the entrepreneur. Yet they accepted and continued the same administrative style, i.e. authoritarian. In a similar vein, John J. Tarrant, author of Drucker, The Man Who Invented the Corporate Society (1976) in an effort to capture the essence of the writings of perhaps America's most widely read and influential author in the field of management writes, "Once the corporation had been truly responsive to its shareholders. The power of the managers of the corporation grew out of the property rights of the individual. Thus this power was legitimate power. But not any more. Now the vast majorities of shareholders did nothing but sign proxies. They had no say in management. . . . By definition then, corporate power was illegitimate power." Tarrant writes further, "The corporation is not just an economic entity. It is social and political. Its purpose is the creation of legitimate power." He goes on to quote Drucker himself in words that are basic to his philosophy over three decades of writing: "No society can function as a society unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate power." (Drucker explains that while the corporate managers of today are hampered in their rule by not having legitimate power, neither do they exercise illegitimate power -- it is just that their power is not legitimate.) That is, our task today in governing our technological society is to find new ways to make the rule of managers of our public and private enterprises legitimate by giving individuals (stockholders, workers, citizens, etc.) a viable opportunity to achieve social status and function.
Unfortunately, as corporations and bureaucracies have grown ever larger and more complex through the years, the open doors between these new leaders and their constituents and colleagues have been soundlessly slamming shut until today; the din is everywhere because research indicates that the authoritarian style cuts off feedback systems and informational flows. Organizations and institutions are often "flying blind" increasingly out of touch with themselves and their constituents. The basis of authority has changed, but today's leaders have not recognized this. The new basis of authority which is prevalent today in our culture requires a different leadership style and requires also two-way feedback communication systems. These two imperatives go hand-in-hand.
A NEW DEFINITION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS
A major part of the problem stems from a lack of understanding of the administrative process. Most organizational leaders of today have been taught that the administrative process is: plan, organize, motivate, and control (or a derivative: plan, organize, coordinate, direct, and control). If an individual's concept of being a "boss" or "manager" or administrator is that one must "direct and control" others, the individual quickly and easily moves into an authoritative administrative style (the most pervasive administrative style in the culture today in both the public and private sectors). This causes the open doors for two-way communication and feedback to begin to close, and the organization begins to "fly blind." The situation is similar to a ship with defective radar traveling at high speed in dense fog through waters filled with icebergs -- its chances of survival are not good. On the other hand, an organization whose leaders use techniques permitting the constituencies to participate viably with their ideas and opinions whenever possible receives accurate feedback; it is the same ship but with reliable radar -- it perceives its problems accurately and can change course frequently to adapt and avoid calamity.
Rensis Likert (1967), former director of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan, identifies four primary "management styles" as: Exploitive Authoritative, Benevolent Authoritative, Consultative, and Participative Groups (Systems 1 through 4). His analysis of the character of upward communication processes in the System 1, Exploitive Authoritative, management style indicates that there is very little feedback through the line organization and what there is tends to be inaccurate. On the other hand, in System 4, the Participative Group style, constituents can easily contribute their ideas without fear of reprisal, and upward communication via the line organization is both adequate and accurate. This suggests that the leaders of most organizations today, public and private, because they are using the authoritarian administrative style, may be "perceptually detached" from their own organizations and their constituents because of inadequate and inaccurate feedback information. This seems especially true of governments, schools, churches, and large business organizations -- the very organizations on whom we are most dependent for our physical, intellectual, spiritual, and economic survival!
How can we hope to change the administrative style from that which prevails today? A first step would be to define more accurately what the administrative process actually is. Based on our experiences and study, we believe the administrative process is: diagnose your problem, theorize its solution, decide what to do about it, accomplish what you decided, and review what you did (which is just the diagnostic phase using hindsight and continues the administrative process as an ongoing, never ending process). Notice that there is no mandate to "motivate, direct, or control" others in this definition. What is really the goal in our democratic culture is to achieve self-motivation, self-direction, and self-control by both individuals and organizations to the maximum extent possible. The best "boss" or administrator may seldom "tell" anyone what to do but rather provides a "climate" within the organization that helps others to achieve their organizational objectives by "diagnosing, theorizing, deciding, accomplishing, and reviewing." The primary role of an administrator is as a "helper" and facilitator. This requires feedback and a participative, "give-everyone-a-piece-of-the-action" leadership style.
This new definition of the administrative process views leaders and administrators as part of the "helping professions." Arthur Combs (1970), a pre-eminent educator and psychologist, has been doing research for well over a decade on how to identify "good" and "poor" teachers, counselors, priests/ministers, and others in the "helping professions." We believe leaders and administrators, since they are also primarily teachers and counselors, are a part of the "helping professions" as defined by Combs, and what he has discovered applies equally to the field of administration. Several characteristics he has identified are:
Good Helpers (return to the top of this article)
- internal data are important (have "sensitivity" to the feelings, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and values of people)
- are concerned about people
- feel people are trustworthy and able
- preserve the dignity and integrity of people
- see themselves in positive ways
- have freeing purposes
- have broad purposes
- are self-revealing
Poor Helpers (return to the top of this article)
- external data are important (i.e., order, neatness, forms, etc.)
- are concerned about things
- feel people are not trustworthy or able
- violate the dignity and integrity of people
- do not see themselves in positive ways
- have controlling purposes
- have narrow purposes
- are self-concealing
Other key points made by Combs are that: (1) We must learn to "listen" to each other; (2) The Scientific Method works fine with things but not with people; (3) We must learn to look at our own and other's beliefs and opinions.
Comb's work is of tremendous importance to the student and scholar of administrative theory and to an understanding of how the "art of administration" can be made more effective. In an address given in Seattle, Washington in 1978 he stated:
"Historically we have done our planning for curricular activities on the basis of a system of psychology which is no longer adequate. Historically we have tried to deal with the problems of curriculum development and management from an essentially behavioristic psychology in terms of behavior modification primarily. . . . But in a world where we no longer know the goals, where the goals have to be the development of intelligent persons, people who are skillful at problem-solving, we need a different psychology. We need a psychology that deals with humanistic kinds of approaches to human behavior, and especially one that will help us to understand the internal life of human beings. . . . (To do this) we have got to turn our attention to values because the problems of beliefs and feelings and attitudes and understandings will determine the choices we make. . . . I am not talking about "teaching" values; I am talking about helping people to explore and discover their own values which is the important question."
One of the best statements on "administrative strategies" is by Edgar Schein (1970), author of Organizational Psychology. He writes that the most important implication in the implied managerial strategy of administrators today is, "The successful manager must be a good diagnostician and must value a spirit of inquiry." This requires feedback. But the problem today is how does an administrator become a good diagnostician? Again, we face a problem in administrative technique.
"NATURAL" ORGANIZATION DYNAMICS OF FEEDBACK COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
(return to the top of this article)
There is an organizational concept that we have come to call the "natural factors." And whenever anyone organizes anything, one should try to utilize as many "natural factors" as possible, i.e., try to organize such that people are able to accomplish their tasks and role assignments naturally and spontaneously with a minimum of or no direction from superiors under the precept that the most desirable and efficient work climate is one in which people are self-motivated and self-controlled in constructive interdependence to the maximum extent possible. Natural factors might include tasks and role assignments which are considered by those participating as being, for example, fun, interesting, meaningful, constructive, inspiring, important, profitable, personally supporting, mentally healthful, physically healthful, prestigious, power-giving, etc. --energy-giving rather than energy-depleting tasks and role assignments. And as people perform their organizational tasks and roles naturally, their efforts performed for intrinsic personal reasons tend to move the organization toward solving its problems and/or adapting to or anticipating changes in its internal or external environments. We define "Administrative Theory" as the search for those dynamics which result in that above. "Natural Factors" are related to that search in important ways.
When an organization has a reliable, routine feedback system (and most organizations have no such system), we believe that "natural" organizational dynamics occur that tend to move the organization toward solving its problems and/or adapting to or anticipating changes in its environment. These dynamics are natural in the sense that no one has to tell leaders or their colleagues or constituents "what to do;" they will just tend to do it because it is the natural, spontaneous thing to do. We believe there are three natural organizational dynamics which occur in the presence of a reliable feedback communication system in organizations.
Diagnosis of Organizational Problems Leads to More Effective Decision Making (return to the top of this article)
When an organization establishes a routine feedback communication system, the data generated provide a diagnostic tool to decision making. Theoretically with better diagnosis of system and organizational problems will come better decisions -- the third step in the administrative process of diagnose, theorize, decide, accomplish, and review. Specifically, the natural dynamics that occur are similar to the following: When leaders of large organizations or bureaucracies have a reliable feedback communication system (and again, most leaders do not have such a system), they may perceive that their colleagues or constituents may want to go through "door A" on some issue. They may know through their knowledge or expertise that the better course of action is through "door B." This is an organizational dysfunction, an imbalance between perceptions of leaders and constituents; it happens frequently in organizations. Since most leaders have no feedback communication system, they often make decisions based only on their own perceptions of the "facts." When this happens there is often organizational turmoil because that is not the way their colleagues or constituents may see the problem at all. (It should be noted that often the "facts" as perceived by leaders are correct. Leaders frequently have more reliable data on which to base a decision than others since they occupy a "focal point of information" in the organization and other people funnel them information.)
When leaders have a feedback system, however, they perceive the dysfunction earlier, and they react naturally and spontaneously by bringing their rationales to their colleagues or constituents. Why? Because from their point of view their people are "misinformed" and "don't have the facts," so, being responsible leaders, they issue a press release or a report or they just go out and talk to their people. After a period of time subsequent feedback will show one of two possibilities, for purposes of this explanation. First, it may show that the people want to go through "door B" where the leaders wanted to go in the first place. That is, theoretically, the leaders conveyed their rationales to their people and their people agreed. Under our representative form of government, which is pervasive in both public and private sectors, the leader then grabs the tactical, short-range "legal" lever of power which he or she controls as "representative" and turns it -- and both the leader and his or her people then go through "door B" and everyone is happy. But notice if the same leader had tried to take the same people through the same door at an earlier point in time than their "consciousness" or "consensus" or "Zeitgeist" would have indicated was appropriate, there would have been hostility and tensions released into the group because the people were not ready for that action at that point in time.
Thus a leader can make the right decision based on the right facts but apply it at the wrong time and fail as grandly as if he or she had made the wrong decision based on the wrong facts. Time is a necessary ingredient of decision making in all organizations and timing depends on feedback. Leaders must not only ask, "Is this the right decision based on the right facts?" -- but they must also ask "Is this the right time for this decision?"
On the other hand, subsequent feedback may show that the people are more highly polarized than before and still want to go through "door A." At this point another "natural dynamic" occurs (natural in that you don't have to tell the leader). The leader asks the question: "Did the people hear me?" If the judgment is "No," he or she merely tries again, but if the answer is "Yes," they know the issue and the rationale, but they have concluded we must go through "door A," then the leader faces the Rubicon. He or she has the tactical "legal" power to take people through "door B" where they don't want to go. But any leader of any organization, big or small, who tries to take people where they don't want to go is treading on thin ice. If the leader takes them through "door B" under those conditions of perception (i.e., the leader knows they don't want to go there, and they know the leader knows they don't want to go there) and the leader is successful -- everything works out just the way he or she predicted, we call this phenomenon in our culture "statesmanship," and in effect people say, "Mr. or Ms. Leader (or Statesman), you were right and we were wrong. We didn't understand then, but we understand now. You are still our leader."
But if the leader fails under those conditions of perception, it is a mark against the leader's record. If the leader is an elected official, come election time, the people weigh the good marks against the bad, and they either remove the leader from office or allow the leader to remain based on their perception of his or her overall performance which seems appropriate in a democracy. If the leader is not an elected official, such as might be the case with a bishop or minister appointed over a group or congregation by others, then "the Theory of Authority" comes into play which says, "Those who govern derive their power from the consent of the governed," and the way it works is: the leader calls a meeting, and the people don't come; the leader asks for service and the people don't provide it; the leader asks for money, and the people don't give it. That is the way people control leaders over whom they apparently have no control. They merely remove their "consent" to be governed (in which case the leader may soon become extinct as a leader). If the ineffective leader can not be removed by the people, then organizational resistance increases at ever mounting economic and social costs to the organization.
Learning by Individuals and the Organization Leads to Increased Capacities for Future Problem Solving (return to the top of this article)
When programming is developed which permits individuals in organizations to contribute their opinions and respond to the ideas of others, those individuals participating are thrust into the dynamics of the "creative thinking process" of the Socratic Method, one of the most dynamic learning techniques available. It is a primary source of individual creativity. Creativity is a process of bringing some new idea into an individual's mind that wasn't there before, i.e., it is "learning."
The dynamics, we believe, are as follows: When an individual is faced with a problem, or is asked a question (i.e., by cassette tape and the "Opinionnaire" ® ), the individual is thrust into the dynamics of the Socratic Method -- probably our most dynamic, proven, learning technique. The first step is awareness --no one ever solved a problem until he or she was first aware of the problem. The second step is frustration -- as mentally injurious as this may seem, moderate frustration seems to be a necessary prerequisite for success. If an individual doesn't think about or ponder or worry about his or her problem, he or she will not generate enough psychic voltage to give light to it. This frustration sets the stage for the third and most important step which is called insight -- the individual says, "Aha! That's the answer to my problem," or "That's the answer to the question."
We believe it makes no difference which is chosen --Yes or No. The process has nothing to do with what is "right" or "wrong." At that very moment of insight, the individual literally becomes a brand new person psychologically speaking -- he or she is what he or she was plus the new insight or decision and is no longer at that level of awareness but moves to a higher level. Along comes a new problem related to the old problem, the individual uses the new little bit of information gleaned out of the previous effort, and if the problem is beyond grasp, again frustration is experienced. But when insight is achieved into this new problem, the individual goes into an even higher level of awareness and so forth.
The moral to the story is: If we really want people to learn and grow in their abilities and capacities in their organizations and society, then we must provide people (as we must also learn to provide youth) with opportunities (but they don't have to do it) to make lots of "decisions" about lots of real problems, and in the process of doing it, they grow in their abilities and capacities, i.e., they learn. And when an individual in an organization learns "X" amount, the organization learns exactly the same amount and both move toward solving their problems and/or adapting to changes in their environments. The first three steps of this "Creative Thinking Process" are personal, just an individual and his or her problem in the world, and other people are not involved. But the fourth step is a group effort and is called verification -- where the individual comes up against the practical side of his or her own thinking and asks the questions: "Do my ideas work? Are they practical? How do they stack up against the thinking of other people?"
In the "Fast Forum?" technique, participants always get back a printed, finished profile report from the computer which details how people answered in a simple, condensed, straightforward, easily understood report. The individual who participated (as well as others) can now see how everyone responded. They know how they themselves responded, and they gain secondary insights to continue the learning process -- without putting anyone in a "win-lose" situation which makes it an ideal learning climate. What is occurring overall is a process of integrating the individual and his or her world and bringing new meaning into the human situation. It begins to answer the "identity" questions which face all of us and may well be among the religious questions of the century: Who am I? What is my role in life? Where do I fit in? Every human being should be permitted and encouraged to contribute his or her most precious resource --his or her own thinking -- to help fashion everyone's world of today and tomorrow.
Tensions are Reduced and Movement Toward Conflict Resolution and Organizational Peace Occurs (return to the top of this article)
Finally, as important as it is to develop programming in organizations and society to help in diagnosing overall system problems leading to improved decision making, and as important as it is to have programming in which individuals and organizations can learn together, there is a third reason of possible greater importance. For when people are provided viable opportunities to contribute their ideas and opinions, respond to the ideas and opinions of others, and respond to the queries of their leader-representatives toward the solution of those problems which interest and concern them, the process is therapeutic, i.e., "tends to lead to peace." First it leads to peace of mind for those participating -- the final sanctuary of every person. If an individual can capture a little peace of mind in his or her day-to-day routine, the world isn't all that bad. As more and more people in an organization achieve peace of mind, then it achieves organizational peace. When more and more organizations achieve peace, then comes institutional peace. And when more and more of our institutions achieve peace, finally we achieve the peace of civilization itself.
Peace, then, is a process that springs up spontaneously from among groups of people, large and small, and is not a process that can be forced upon people from the top down by force or coercion. As soon as you remove the force, there is no more peace, and what we are trying to achieve in the democratic culture of which we are a part is the spontaneous collaboration of people toward their organizational and societal objectives.
Participative processes are therapeutic like the voting process itself is. Occasionally some persons say, "The issues of today are so complex that the average American citizen cannot even understand the issues let alone make intelligent decisions at the polls. Only officials and experts trained in the area can make these kinds of decisions." It might then follow that we could do away with the voting process and save all that money. But if we hadn't had the voting process, it is not likely that our nation could have survived these past 200 years; the process is therapeutic and people rationalize their efforts, even though they often do not get their way, because they had a viable, equal chance to participate with everyone else.
And when we develop programming in our organizations and society which tend to "lead to peace" and a reduction of tensions among those individuals participating, we are talking about improving individual "mental health." And when we develop programming which tends to improve the mental health of many individuals participating, we are really talking about improving "community" mental health, i.e., we are improving the "happiness" of people. And happiness is one of the fundamental reasons we form governments everywhere -- for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Programs in our public and private sectors, therefore, that are designed to help people feel better about themselves, their roles in their organizations and society, and their relationships with their leaders in our public and private organizations are just as important as physical programs, i.e., roads, schools, public utilities, police protection, military security, and economic prosperity. These other physical programs are "life" and "liberty" issues, and are very important but with which our governments and organizations at all levels have been nearly obsessed these past 200 years since the founding of our nation. Beginning now and increasingly in the future, our nation and its people must devote more time, energy, and resources toward our "human problems" which directly involve the happiness of people -- the pursuit of which is one of their "inalienable rights."
We have been experimenting in the Seattle area since 1965 in churches and community organizations with an informal feedback system that operates at a degree of complexity below statistical random sampling and below the "Delphi" technique but above letter writing and interpersonal dialogue. It makes the same contribution to solving organizational and societal problems as does letter writing, the telephone, and dialogue, and it does so in a more systematic fashion. It is called the Fast Forum®.
The technique allows an administrator in an organization to establish a routine (an in-place interactive feedback system) to get feedback information from his or her colleagues or constituents easily, accurately, and inexpensively by polling themthrough the mail or otherwise through internal distribution facilities using an "Opinionnaire®" composed of opinion statements from constituents and/or questions posed by one's self or one's staff for objective yes/no or multiple-choice responses with two through five choices plus an abstention. Participants record their answers on a "Fast Forum® Response Sheet." These response sheets can be optically scanned by machine or keypunched and transferred directly to magnetic tape or micro disks accurately, economically, and swiftly with the results tabulated by computer into finished profile reports showing numbers and percentage of response by various categories and demographic information as desired. The reports arecomplete and can be printed by offset or Xerox and distributed easily as required without the need for transcription by a secretary. Turn-around time is usually but a few days. A summary of the highlights of the data can be prepared, if desired, by the person or committee analyzing the data; it is called a Viewspaper®. Sheets can be scanned locally at numerous school districts throughout the country and the tape mailed or expressed to Seattle for tabulation. If local scanning facilities are not available, the response sheets can be mailed or expressed to Seattle for processing. A capability to establish and maintain an organizational, institutional or national feedback system now exists.
The system is designed to accommodate the administrator who must make decisions, who needs and wants feedback from his or her constituents and colleagues, but who is not an expert at preparation of questionnaires. It permits participants to indicate their feelings for the appropriateness of questions considered which reassures and encourages the administrator who professes no expertise. Here is how it works. The administrator writes a "letter" in the form of a number of questions or opinion statements together with general information and, when possible, transcribes a cassette tape detailing the issues and the alternatives faced by the organization for copy and distribution to constituents or colleagues as required. Either individually or in small groups, the constituents and colleagues can listen to the tape, read materials provided, and then talk about it if in a group. Upon completion they respond to the "Opinionnaire®" which provides them an opportunity to project their objective responses about the ideas and issues under consideration. The administrator in this way learns what the members and constituents think.
It is important that participants perceive that "something happened" with their feedback so that the next time the administrator asks them to take their time to participate, they will recall that the last time they were asked, the administrator treated their data responsibly. It is also important to understand that we are not talking about pluralism. The prerogatives of the leader are not usurped. He or she still makes the final decision when that is appropriate. The only difference is that now constituents and colleagues are included in the organization's decision-making process. The organization's problem-solving and decision-making process will have become democratized -- "The need today is in finding new ways to destandardize, decentralize, deconcentrate, descale, and democratize planning." (Toffler, 1975)
With this process it is possible for every member to participate viably, within his or her own time and energy levels without going to big meetings. Of course, all members probably will not participate but could do so since mass means of communication are being used, i.e., small groups, audio or video cassette tapes, printed materials, U.S. mail, optical scanner, and the computer. "The essence of participation is not that everyone participate, but rather that the viable option to participate is made available to everyone." (Gardner, 1969) As constituents and colleagues participate in the problem-solving and planning process, the vitality of the organization is enhanced and the "credibility" and "authority" of the organization and its administrators expand. The Fast Forum® technique does not use objective "Questionnaires" using random samples based on statistical theory which in turn is based on mathematical theory. Instead, the Fast Forum® technique utilizes an objective instrument which is called an "Opinionnaire®" which is based on participation theory which in turn is based on administrative theory. Different rules apply! We in the Forum Foundation have been working with scholars to define these rules.
(Dr. Stuart C. Dodd was probably the leading expert in the Northwest on typical statistical polling as head of the Washington State Public Opinion Laboratory at the University of Washington for nearly 14 years. In fact he was the only pollster to accurately predict that President Truman would defeat Governor Dewey and was called to testify before Congress as to how that all happened. After my first full presentation to Dr. Dodd of our administrative theories as we understood them in 1973, he told me, "Dick, don't ever let anyone tell you that what you are doing is not important." I haven't. RJS).
There is also a great need for this kind of programming in communities everywhere to enable citizens to participate in their long-range governmental planning processes. Here citizens would meet together quarterly in small groups of 10 to 12 persons in homes or at the call of their convener to listen to cassette tapes and study materials from their public officials and planners, talk about the issues, and respond to an "Opinionnaire®" included. As officials, planners, and citizens "talk" to each other about the issues in this manner, the community members grow in their awareness of the problems faced by the officials and planners and begin to provide both direction and support for solving the issues and problems under consideration. The process should build positive relationships between leaders and their constituents and colleagues as they search together; "authority" will begin to flow from people to their leaders, and in turn, this will enable the leaders to make decisions that will be better accepted by everyone.
[ For example,
- Redmond, Washington was the first municipality to initiate this small group "Community Forum" discussion process beginning in 1990. Some comments: "The process worked." "This is a worthwhile process and if sustained, holds promise of revitalizing the political process." "The forum was an outstanding idea and ours was very useful as an opportunity to discuss widely divergent views peacefully, respectively, and insightfully." The process continues in use and has grown at the time of this writing.
- A developmental series titled "What United Methodists Believe" based on a study of The Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church was successfully begun in the fall of 1992 in several churches in Washington, Ohio and South Dakota as part of a new approach to "Psycho-social Education." Results were reported in a Viewspaper® which were inserted in the Sunday church bulletins. A similar national research project was then successfully initiated in January 16, 1994 through March, 16, 1994, which included nearly 400 people in 40+ churches throughout the country. (A copy of the Viewspaper® #9, Evaluation, is available on request to the Forum Foundation, 4426 Second Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98105-6191 USA. Two petitions to the 1996 General Conference of The United Methodist Church have been prepared to study the new Fast Forum® technology and the administrative theories which underlie it by The General Commission on Communication (UMCom) and the General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church.]
As administrative and communication theorists, citizens, and members of various organizations, we have been searching for those dynamics which help organizations solve their problems and adapt to changes in their internal or external environments. While the discipline of "administration" perhaps remains more of an art today than a science, nevertheless, it is very important that ways to improve the functioning of organizations be discovered. An extremely important ingredient is the presence of a reliable and routine feedback communication system. One fundamental administrative principle which we call the "Zeitgeist (Spirit-of-the-Time) Principle" states, in effect: No human organization will function properly unless it has a reliable feedback communication system. We believe this principle applies from a husband and wife, the smallest organization, up to civilization itself. This is best accomplished in most organizations by a democratic, open, participative, reliable, viable, anonymous, routine and objective feedback communication system. We call it "Zeitgeist" because the flow of information and communication interaction allows the discovery of what people think and feel about things -- the "Spirit of the Time." Most organizations, public and private, have no such system.
We call these theories which have evolved the Zeitgeist Administrative Theories (Spady, 1970), and today we are working to define the field of human communications which we call "Zeitgeist Communication." This field is concerned primarily with communicating ideas -- and opinions about those ideas -- across and upward in organizational and societal structures in contradistinction to most other communication media such as newspapers, TV, radio, magazines, books, lectures, speeches, sermons and so forth which are primarily one-way, downward, communications. These are all important, but we believe it is only when ideas -- and opinions about those ideas -- flow down, across, and upward that "natural organizational dynamics" tend to occur which move organizations and their constituencies toward solving their problems and adapting to changes in their internal and external environments.
The Fast Forum® technique which we have developed over the past several years to achieve the principles of Zeitgeist Communications is basically an interactive process in which people generate ideas and opinions about matters of importance to them; large numbers of people react to these ideas and opinions objectively, i.e., yes/no, multiple-choice, value scales; the reactions are made known to all; on the basis of the reactions, new ideas and opinions are generated which, again, are reacted to. The process continues, moving on to new topical areas or focusing in greater depth on ideas that show wide differences of opinion. A measure called the "P-C" rating which we developed (for Polarization-Consensus) is applied to all yes/no answers when used showing the amounts of polarization and consensus in response to each question which greatly improves understanding. Profiles showing responses by different respondent groups are likewise generated. The result is valid public data about how people and groups think, believe, and value.
A summary "Viewspaper®" highlighting results can then be prepared for distribution to participants when desired. These data then become the basis for future meaningful discussions of concern by all. Everyone is encouraged to generate ideas and opinions in efforts to get reactions to them by others. This enables individuals to discover how others think about things important to them. The subject matter of the opinions is usually derived from the purposes for which the people are interdependently related to one another, i.e., church members generate opinions about church-related matters, Chamber of Commerce members generate opinions about business-related matters. It is imperative that the process be cyclical and routine because as people become aware of how others believe, and as issues are explored in depth or in different contexts, opinions and ideas often change overtime due to "natural organizational dynamics." In this way the Zeitgeist -- the prevailing system of beliefs and opinions of a specific group of people at a point in time -- is revealed, and it begins to allow everyone to provide "leadership" and help direct the organization toward its goals. Most importantly, it is accomplished in a democratic, not authoritarian, context.
[Further, while the process and Fast Forum® computer program are designed for electronic "Groupware" networking, the process is independent of it as participants need not meet in real time or at a single place -- they can meet symbolically with their leaders at times and places convenient to the participants during a "participation window" lasting several weeks.
Finally, large groups of people will use response sheets which are scanned optically; these sheets do the same thing that a computer terminal does but at a fraction of the cost. Thus, response sheets allow thousands of human beings to communicate simultaneously. We call this process "many-to-many" mass communication to distinquish it from the "one-to-many" mass communication provided by newspapers, radio and television. Ultimately, we believe that in the next 100 years "many-to-many" communication may have as great an impact on human civilization as newspapers, radio and television had in the last 100 years.]
[The Fast Forum® computer program was first written under contract in 1970 by the University of Washington Academic Computer Center. As a theoretician, I knew where to go but didn't know how to get there; the computer programmer knew how to get there, but didn't know where to go. Between the two of us we designed the first computer program. Since then the program has been updated several times to take advantage of new theoretical insights. RJS]
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
As our understanding of these dynamics and administrative theories have matured, we have grown disenchanted with the words, manage, manager, and management. They simply do not adequately describe the profession. If a young administrator inexperienced in the field is told that he or she is to be the "manager" or is expected to "manage" the organization, the subliminal implication (and the "prophecy" toward which the young administrator will move in self-fulfillment) tends to move the young administrator toward the authoritarian administrative style and away from the more effective (and human) "helping role" and the group participative style as we have described earlier. Although we are not completely satisfied, the words administer, administrator, and administrative seem more neutral and thus more acceptable. Similarly, use of the term "Business Administration" (to define that discipline which is most concerned with accomplishing our purposes as a people through organizations) may also be a misnomer. We suggest that a better name might be the discipline of "Resource Administration" to connote that it is the discipline most concerned with administering the resources of mankind which are its physical resources and (most importantly) its human resources.
Louis Harris, commissioned by Congress a few years ago during the bicentennial, reported that the American people were highly alienated and felt they were not adequately involved in the decisions that affected their lives. This alienation has eroded the authority of our leaders in both our public and private organizations to a point where many leaders, especially in the public sector, feel it is no longer interesting and satisfying to serve in this capacity. Leaders too often are disdained rather than being respected. But changes are coming.
Today in business schools and other schools of administration, the administrators of tomorrow are being taught new administrative styles, are being taught ethics (the world of what ought to be) and the social responsibility of being a leader in our society and world. But these younger administrators imbued with new theories find themselves working for superiors who are still using the authoritarian management style and they bow to the pressure. But it is not likely they will be overcome in the long run. As the implications of organizational research become understood and new administrative techniques to achieve viable feedback communication are developed, natural dynamics will arise from the public itself, from stockholders, and from boards of directors in which the expectation will be that the chief executive will be imbued with the theories which place a premium on programming capable of bringing better diagnosis and understanding of actual organizational problems as the first step in solving them. That is, natural social dynamics in the future will increasingly move us toward the participative administrative style in both our public and private organizations and away from the authoritarian style which reduces the "authority" of leaders and creates tensions, alienation, and other human problems which are reflected in resistance and lack of cooperation by people at enormous social and economic costs.
Chief executives who do not learn this lesson, will be replaced; subordinates who do not learn it, will not be promoted. It is probable that the increasingly complex and interdependent future can be coped with successfully in a democratic culture of which we are a part only by administrators and professional planners who as diagnosticians and helpers are sensitive and open and nurture the participative administrative style. The organizational question of the century may well be, "How can we move from the authoritarian administrative style of the dominant past to the open-participative style of the emerging future?"
The contribution of a positive administrative style by those who govern (i.e., by those who administer and lead the organization) is a "creative climate" -- an organizational climate in which all the constituents of the organization are "helped" in their efforts to assist the organization to grow to full maturity and to its greatest capacity. The "harvest" of that positive, administrative style is action -- or perhaps conscious inaction -- nevertheless, action that is most compatible with those who are the administrators of the organization, with those professionals and staff who work within the bureaucratic structures of the organization, and most importantly, compatible with those who are constituents of the organization itself -- the people. In a word we are talking about the collaboration of people --i.e. administrative techniques to resolve conflicts and achieve better the spontaneous collaboration of people toward their organizational and societal objectives and "to substitute human responsibility for futile strife and hatreds." (Mayo, 1943)
Confrontation of ideas [within an open,democratic context] is the mortar which binds a creative organization or society, i.e., an organization or society which is actively searching for solutions to its problems. Any group, organization, institution, community, society, or world ideology which inhibits (innocently or not) the free flow of ideas among its constituents -- up, down, and across its organizational and societal structures, is depriving itself of its greatest asset -- human thought -- and is in grave danger of being buried in history by the avalanche of the creativity of others.
Barnard, C. The functions of the executive (Chapter 12). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.
Bronowski, J. The ascent of man. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1973.
Combs, A. Human relationships. Address delivered at DAS Conference, Washington Education Association, Pacific Science Center, Seattle, Wash., March 11, 1970.
Gardner, J. Godkin lectures. Christian Science Monitor, April 16, 1969, p. 9.
Leighton, A. The governing of men. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958.
Likert, R. The human organization. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
Mayo, E. Preface. In F. J. Roethlisberger & W. J. Dickson, Management and the worker. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943.
Prince Philip, Interview. U.S. News and World Report, November 22, 1976, pp. 40-41.
Schein, E. Organizational psychology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970.
[Spady, R. The Christian Forum (or Fast Forum) Why and What It Is! , Seattle, Wash., 1969.]
Spady, R. A case for Zeitgeist communication. Seattle, Wash., 1970.
Tarrant, J. J. Drucker: The man who invented the corporate society. New York, Warner, 1976.
Tofler, A. Closing address at the Second General Assembly, World Future Society, Washington, D.C., June 1975.
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