Organization is a social arrangement

Organization and Organizing

Organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. We especially feel that organization are large, older, famous and those who have good management. But to construct such an organization we need to first think how to organize, as it could lead to organisation failure. We have seen larger companies who could not organize them self in delivering goods on time, computer failure, sending wrong products and bad financial auditing e.g. environ and Satyam (Bad auditing).

Organizing is the act of rearranging elements following one or more rules. People have different perceptions in different organizations. Let us see the example given in the reading material; it states that Bill, a manager describes his ‘typical day’ in office where he could decide which are his major priorities, whether to attain strategic committee meeting or to market the new truck. Secondly he didn’t put a time scale on his work and ended going up late in the meeting where he could find his chief executive was looking disapproving. Looking at those above key issues we assume that Bill is not organized a person and as a manager he has to know how to manage time for work, family and fun. Let me illustrate with my experience, I was working as a software professional in a small firm, we had a target to deliver a product (digital signage) to a costumer but couldn’t deliver it on time due to lack of unorganized management. As it is a very small firm it was not well organised with the hierarchical management. We had assigned a product (digital signage) to develop by our team leader within a week’s period; in the same week we had a call from CEO who gave us a task on imperative basis. Even the team leader couldn’t say anything to us because it was a CEO’s order. We finally failed to deliver our product (digital signage) on time. This shows how unorganised the company was and we happened to lose our contract with our client. If we could have managed with time and what work to be done, so that it would not be a failure.

In the reading author says that he had been to book tickets for a family holiday to a travel agent. Looking at the problem author’s mistrusted their services and had to search for another agent. Here in this case everyone would have different perception which must have creating bad customer service. The female should have not complained in front of customer, which shows that there is a crack in the organization when they have customer pressure. Instead she should have asked for an apology for being late to the author. We can see in the reading how different people had different opinion about what really happened and how people have their own perception. For example-

• The elderly gentleman’s story: ‘Customers are happy to queue for personal, caring service’;
• His daughter’s: ‘Customers were in a hurry, dear old dad all at sea’;
• The story-teller’s: ‘Customer pressure reveals cracks in the organization’;
• Other customers’: ‘Incompetent travel agents’; ‘rude young people’.

Eventually even I faced the similar problem, as I am working in Baskin Robin’s ice-cream parlour on busy Friday evening people had queued for ice-cream and one old lady screams and says ‘I am waiting since ages’. Then as a senior staff I had to apologise her for being late, knowing that it wasn’t our fault, but we have to keep our customers happy. If I wouldn’t apologise her, the other customers would think that the fault is at our side and they do not provide a good customer service. A better understanding of organizing can help improve our understanding of others’ meanings.

Organizing a social process is a very tough because everyone should work together. As we have seen the scenario how a rigidly plan event can fail because it does not allow people sufficient opportunity to improvise when things are not working out. Firstly the Area managers had difference in making the things happen. Secondly they were totally dependent on Linda and also continuously changing the plan. The food and wine should have reached in advanced instead of getting at that time this could help them and even they could have arranged that some transportation for the celebrity which couldn’t arrive due to fog on Milan airport. They even should have had a backup plan instead of creating such a mess out there. Successful organizing may depend on a sound plan but planning alone is no guarantee of success. We should be never depended upon on a machine, an animal, a person or the weather, on anything over which you have limited control may undermine your plan. Poor Communication, inadequate budgets, irreconcilable differences, personality clashes, unanticipated events and low motivation can frustrate any organizing. In my opinion i feel the managers should have worked together with Linda, they should have an adequate budget to organize this even to be a success. Even they could have given this event to an ‘Event management company’ to make it better which could create respect and value towards it. The award ceremony could be an annual event. So before organizing an event we should look at the outcome and have a backup plan to execute instead of a failure.

From the above discussion we see that organizing plays a vital role Organization. If we fail to do so then it could led to collapse of any organization. As we can see larger organizations like McDonald’s, Toyota, shell they look massive and well Organized, but the only effort they put to be organized is to maintain their organization culture. The bottom line for managers who want to create a culture of success is to start with creating a positive environment. Bring in people whose values are in line with the organization’s culture, and continue to acknowledge success and involve the whole organization in maintaining an environment that allows people to enjoy working hard to meet the company’s goals.