An Organization Development Intervention

Rajesh Pandey

In the room there were about 20 senior-most managers and two facilitators. The atmosphere was charged with excitement. A team of these senior managers was busy performing a task; one manager, who was blindfolded, picked up a small wooden square. His hand was shaking, it reached the top of the tower, and every member almost held his breath collapsed the square, with a loud thud the whole tower collapsed and suddenly the group burst out laughing. “It seems failures in this company are laughed at.” said the facilitator. That was a very critical comment. There were voices of protest, but then one member of the group said, ‘Let us not get off the hook so soon.’ People started reflecting on the comment of both the facilitators and the member.

The group was undergoing a one-day orientation on the process of empowerment in an organization.

The Organization: Members of the above workshop form the top management team of a leading I.T. company. The company was formed in 1982, has a total strength of about 2,000 people, with a turnover of about 160 crores. It has the unique distinction of being the most profitable I.T. Company in the country. It has grown at an average rate of 65-70 percent annually.

The background: The success so far has not made the organization become complacent; rather, it keeps thinking about ‘how to grow in future’. The mission says ‘Our growth is the derivate of the growth of each one of us.’ The organization believes that it has very good people who can become entrepreneurs and fuel the growth. However, the question for the organization was how to put this into practice.

This organization believes that in order to become entrepreneurs people need to have two things apart from a dream: a set of skills, and the ability to take risk. It was felt that despite having high skill, the managers might be lacking the ‘ability to take risk.’ Hence, the question was how the organization could play a role in helping people to go ahead and ‘take risks.’ But, before dealing with this question, it was necessary to find out whether the people had any dreams or not. Hence in July 1994 a workshop was organized to find out what dreams the people had, and how they responded to the idea of trying out these dreams, if supported by the organization. In the workshop, the people welcomed the idea but raised a question about the preparedness of the organization to allow them to experiment, take decisions, etc. it was felt that the necessary conditions to foster ‘entrepreneurial efforts’ did not exists in the organization. Hence, it was important as a first step to understand a way to empower people. At the end of this workshop, the group came up with a slogan ‘quantum growth through empowerment.’

This workshop gave a mandate to move on the path of empowerment. However, the organization had to learn about empowerment. To initiate this learning process, a one-day workshop for the top leadership was organized in November 1994.

Empowerment: The Concept
The last decade has witnessed the emergence of the concept of ‘empowerment’ both in the field of business and in social action. The term has no fixed or authoritative definitions, but is frequently used to describe a process wherein the powerless or disempowered gain greater share of control over resources and decision making.

Among NGOs and other social action groups, empowerment is more of a value, almost an ideology with a world- view of a society where power is equally distributed, where people have a right to control their own lives. Social action groups look at empowerment primarily as a political process. In this framework, empowerment is a process aimed at changing the nature and direction of systematic forces that marginalize the powerless and disadvantaged section in a given context (Batliwala, 1994). This leads to a realization that those who traditionally enjoyed such power, will have to give up at least some of it. Thus the goal of empowerment is (a) to challenge subordination and subjugation; and (b) transform the structures, systems and institutions that have supported inequality.

The process of empowerment therefore is all encompassing, because it must address all structures of power.

In the corporate world, empowerment is seen only as one of the strategies to deal with increasing competitiveness in the global marketplace. Corporations are forced by market reality to reduce cost, improve productivity, speed, and customer service as the market dynamics demand that decision be taken by those who interact with customers and not pushed upward in the hierarchy. The assumption behind lack of empowerment has been that those on the front line are either not competent or do not have the complete picture of the work to be able to take the decision. As a result, the organizational systems and structures were designed, based on this assumption and these structures and systems in turn perpetuated the assumption. However, the main issue is whether the frontlines can be trusted.

This is where the main trouble starts; on the one hand, the managers and decision makers of the corporate world realize the inevitability of moving on the path of empowerment; on the other hand, they do not want to let their traditional control go. If we scan the literature on empowerment in recent journals and periodicals, almost all of them deal with the same issue of ‘how to control, while letting it go.’

Historically, in the corporate world, various efforts have been initiated towards humanizing the systems. In many western industrial societies, a series of political initiatives relevant to organizational democracy followed the increase in industrial and social conflict of the late 1960s. In part, these initiatives were the demands of the new militancy itself, the call for participation at the ‘grass roots’ having been an important element in the initial mobilization. In part, however, they were a response to militancy, an attempt to channel and contain it, - a response that can be seen as concession to and compromise with the protests or as a skillful strategy for heading them off and suborning them (inducing them to commit perjury). For example, in French industrial relations, employees now have the right to hold meetings at their place of work during working hours in order to make known their views on working conditions. By working conditions is meant, not pay or hours of work, but work organization, safety, jobs, shift allocation, etc. these various efforts can be classified in two categories (SEE Clarke et al. 1972 for this distinction), “ task centered” approach to participation. Task centered participation involves developing ‘an organizational pattern in which workers are permitted to exercise a greater degree of control over their work environment and performance, this is usually achieved through a range of methods such as job design job restructuring, self managing groups, works committees and joint committees. The function of this task-centered participation is typically seen to be one of raising the productivity and reducing the alienation of employees. It appears to solve the problem of how to give workers more discretion in the performance of their work without weakening management control over the broad objectives of the enterprises. On the other hand, power-centered participation attempts to extend the bargaining power of workers over decision-making (Crouch and Heller, 1983).

Empowerment seems to be the latest step towards encouraging task centered participation. As a result, the basic belief system is not being addressed. The question is, ‘Is it possible to empower people without really addressing the central issue of the belief system of the organization?’ Or rather, ‘Is it realistic to expect a manager, who looks at empowerment merely as a strategy and not as a new philosophy of management based on radically different, set of beliefs and values, to really empower his/her subordinate?’ Is it really possible to empower people without really addressing the core issues related to power, i.e., control over resources, control over critical decision making positions, etc.?

The study
Keeping in mind the above framework, this company from the very beginning has been trying to promote participation of people in the decision making process. In this effort to move in the direction of empowerment, the idea may have occurred to some top person(s), but the final sanction came from the people, when they came up with the slogan ‘quantum growth through empowerment’. The next logical step was to initiate a study to find out people’s perceptions about various management practices in the framework of empowerment. As a result, at the end of the workshop (organized for top management to develop understanding about empowerment), it was decided that a systematic study of empowerment should be carried out. Dr. Udai Pareek agreed to be the guide for this study. One hundred and fifty managers were selected to be part of this study.

The following instruments were selected to collect data. All these instruments are contained in Pareek (1996) and the chapter numbers (of the book) containing the instruments are mentioned against them.

1. Motivational Analysis of Organizational- Atmosphere (MAO-A) (Chapter 56)
2. Power Bases (CPP Scale) (Chapter 18)
3. Power Enhancer (PE Scale) (Chapter 52)
4. Senior Management Functions Schedule (SMFS) (Chapter 51)
5. Delegation Assessment Questionnaire (DAQ) (Chapter 53)
6. Life Orientation Inventory (LOI) (Chapter 21)
7. OCTAPACE Profile (Chapter 57)
8. Organization Survey (Chapter 59)

The instruments were sent to the managers at the beginning of May and collected by the end of the month. The statistical analysis was done, and the report presented June 1995. The above instruments measure the following dimensions:

Bases of Power
Use of power, defined as the capacity to impact things and people, is an important function of managers, especially at the senior level. We derive power from various sources. This can be grouped into two categories of controlling (coercive power) or empowering (persuasive power).

The data were collected from 53 people who were either part of the top management team or were directly reporting to the top management team. The instrument (CPP Scale), has 12 items. The instrument focuses on coercive and persuasive bases of power. In the former (coercive) are included authority, proximity to powerful role, punishment, charisma defined as the ability to arouse and use emotions, control of information and emotional appeal. In the latter (persuasive) are included competence, expertise, information, role modeling, reward and helping/caring.

Responses of 53 managers showed power sufficiency (contrasted with deficiency). Although they value both coercive and persuasive power (the mean being 21 and 25 respectively in the range of 6 to 30), they thought that they had sufficient power (both types, the mean being 12 and 13 respectively). The effectiveness indexes for both the value and need for coercive and persuasive powers are also in the positive direction (56 and 57 per cent respectively). This shows high potential for empowerment in the company, although the gap in the value and need for persuasive and coercive power was not much (50 is the cut-off point, both being equal).

Power Enhancers
The top management team expressed its views about the usefulness or importance of 13 power enhancers, and how much importance is actually being given to each in the company. An instrument, PE Survey, was used for this purpose. The instrument has 13 questions. The seven top managers expressed their views about the usefulness or importance of 13 powers enhances and how much importance is actually being given to each in the company. One power enhancer being seen as less useful than the importance given is spatial distance of key functionaries. Power enhancers are important for empowerment. The perceived largest gap (maximum could be 4) between its usefulness to and practice in the company was for reward for creativity (2.2), feedback system (1.57), and intrinsically satisfying tasks (1). Gap of more than 0.5 existed in objective rewards by a team (0.71), self-governing teams (0.71), professional orientation (0.71) and strong and cohesive teams (0.57). There was no gap for well defined tasks, and very little for clear rules and procedures. On the whole, power enhancers were being given due importance, on indicators of empowerment.

Senior Managers Functions
The functions performed by the senior managers can be classified into transactional (managerial) and transformational (leadership) functions. Generally, the latter are empowering functions. While both types of functions are important, in a future-oriented organization, the proportion of the transformational to the transactional functions should be higher. The instrument (Senior Manager’s Functions Schedule); lists 14 functions (7 transformational and 7 transactional functions). All the managers reporting to the top management team used this instrument to provide feedback to their bosses. The feedback given to individual members of the top management team by their subordinates was compared with their own perception. There were some very interesting differences in perception. In the company, the perception of the persons working with the 14 top managers (N=54) was that ratio of transformational to transactional functions was 0.86 (46:54). The perception was that the functions getting the highest attention of the senior managers were (percentages appear in parentheses): monitoring performance (12), coordinating (11), planning (10), and policy making (10); only the last one is a transformational function. Two important transactional functions getting the least attention were rewarding (4) and coaching (4.5). The five most important transformational functions got moderate attention; visioning (7), modeling/inspiring (7), culture building (6), synergizing (6), and boundary management (5.5).

Delegation
Delegation is an important tool of empowerment. For effective delegation, besides the amount of delegation in different areas, attention needs to be given to the process of delegation and the facilitating forces of delegation. In order to understand the delegation related practices on the organization, an instrument ‘Delegation Assessment Questionnaire’ (DAQ), was used. The instrument focuses on (1) areas of delegation, (2) process of delegation, and (3) facilitating factors of delegation. Delegation in the company seems to be quite satisfactory. On a 4- point scale, 3 would be a cut-off point for effective delegation. The mean scores for amount, process and facilitation of delegation for the whole company are 2.79, 3.17 and 2.90 respectively.

Organizational Ethos
Organizational ethos, characterized by the values of openness, confrontation, trust, authenticity, pro-action, autonomy, collaboration and experimentation (OCTAPACE), promote the empowering process. The instrument ‘OCTAPACE profile’ was used. The instrument has 40 questions.

The profile of the company is positive, as reflected in the mean scores on the eight aspects (range is from 5 to 2 on each).

Compared with other effective organizations, this company had higher mean values for confrontation and experimentation. On other aspects, the mean scores are similar to those of the high- ranking companies. However, it is lower on authority, pro-action and autonomy.

Organizational Atmosphere
Organizational atmosphere is the effectiveness of the climate that is measured in terms of promoting six motives, those of excellence, expert influence, control (in the sense of monitoring), affiliation (personal relationship), conformity, and helping/caring. In order to map the organizational atmosphere, the instrument ‘Motivational Analysis of Organizational Atmosphere (Mao-A),’ was used. It has 120 questions. The profile of this company, based on the total scores on each motivational aspect showed a combination of achievement as the dominant and affiliation as the back-up climate. In such an organization, while employees work on challenging goals, they also form strong groups, based on common interests or other factors. The organization pays a lot of attention to maintaining good relations amongst these ‘cliques’.

The index of effectiveness of promoting functional rather than dysfunctional concerns or motives (called atmosphere) is given in percentages. A score of 50 being the cut-off point, those above it are in the positive direction. The company profile is as follows:

While on achievement, extension, control and dependency the scores are more or less the same as norms (based on data from other Indian manufacturing industries) the company is slightly lower on expert power (a difference of 7 points) and extension (a difference of 10 points).

Life Orientation
This instrument (life Orientation Inventory-II) has 20 sets of statements, measuring two life orientations, called enlarging and enfolding. They have been studied for the entire sample of 153. Enlargers are more career and profession-oriented, whereas enfolders are more family and relationship-oriented. These are conceived as opposite poles on a continuum. The scores range from 0 to 20. The mean score of the entire sample for enlarging orientation is 11.4, a tilt towards enlarging orientation. The difference between the mean for level 3 (10.98) and Level 2 (11.87) is statistically significant. The mean for level 1 is 11.43.

Organizational culture
Responses from the 153 managers on the perception of the desired and current company culture were analyzed from their responses to the instrument ‘Organizational Survey.’ The instrument focuses on 15 aspects of organizational culture: internal ambiguity tolerance, context sensitive, narcissistic (-), future orientation, individualistic, inner directed, universal, role bound, androgynous, power parity, expressive, conserving, assertive and expanding. The instrument has 36 questions. The profile emerged as follows.

The company’s culture encouraged diverse views and thinking, taking personal responsibility, concern for the total organization and power parity. The company culture emphasized business achievement, but not as much development of systems and institutional building. The culture was context sensitive, i.e. quickly responded to diverse realities.

The company culture encouraged conformity (rather than developing internalized norms of working). Its entrepreneurial orientation is strong (in terms of sense of control over events- although the gap between the desired and the current culture is 2.6), it is weak in future-orientation (mean 8, and the gap is 3.95) it encourages competition and achievement, under stressing human values (empathy, concern and support).

The largest gaps between the desired and current cultures were in taking responsibility (2.64), concern for the organization (3.38), future orientation (3.95), managerial responsibilities (1.78), and institution building (1.0).

Process of Analysis
A total number of 153 persons participated in the study. It was a representative sample of 8 per cent. Responses were analyzed on the ‘SPSS’ package. For each of the questionnaires mean, standard deviation, one- way analysis of variance, factor analysis, reliability test and analysis of correlations were done. The analysis was done at various levels, specifically at the corporate level, the Business unit level, the Regional level, the Divisional level and lastly at individual level (in order to provide feedback to individual members of the top team on their own styles).

Feedback
The first report was presented to the board members of the company. This report focused on overall findings, both the strengths and the issues of concern. After the first presentation, a number of presentations were made to this group focusing on various dimensions.

The second round of presentations was to the Business Unit Heads. These presentations were more focused on unit level analysis and regional and divisional analysis. The company also circulated a brief report to all those people who participated in the study.

Action Plan
The company then moved towards crystallizing an action plan that would focus on brining about change at the individual level resulting in change in the organizational management style. Learning’s from the study got incorporated in their in- house ‘Management Development Program.’ The new program focused on reflective skills and participatory management. The company also worked out details to undertake an organizational systems audit to diagnose whether these systems reflect the values the organization wanted to practice.

Some issues in relation to empowerment in organizations need attention. Increasingly the efforts towards empowerment are being rejected by powerless people, particularly in western countries. One of the reasons for this rejection could be that people see it as charity. They find themselves being reduced to passive subjects of a decision made by the powerful sections of society.

This situation points towards the paradox inherent in all the efforts of empowerment initiated by the powerful segments. Any effort towards empowerment may face active or passive resistance from people. May be the only way to resolve this contradiction is to facilitate active involvement of powerless people in the process of decision- making and to encourage them to control the whole process of empowerment.

References

1. Bartlett C.A. and S. Ghoshal (1995). Changing The Role of Top Management: Beyond Systems to People. Harvard Business Review.
2. Batlivala S. (1994). Women’s Empowerment. New Delhi: PRIA.
3. Crouch Colin and Frank A. Heller (1983). International Year Book of Organizational Democracy.
4. Mcclelland, David C. (1975) Power: The inner experience. New York: Irwington.
5. Pareek U. (1994). Beyond management. New Delhi: Oxford & IBH.
6. Pareek U.(1996). Instruments for HRD. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.
7. Sharma K. (1992). Grassroots organization and women’s empowerment: Some issues in the contemporary debate. New Delhi:PRIA
8. Simons R. (1995). Control in an age of empowerment. Harvard Buisness Review.