Abstract

During the Fall of 1998 I was a student at a South Texas branch of the University of Texas system, the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. I had the marvelous good fortune to find a course on organizational theory taught by a professor with an interesting approach to the teaching of the material. We were assigned several textbooks and asked to read at our own pace. The material was presented in a series of lectures accompanied by student presentations of the material. Each student was assigned a particular selection from a textbook and assigned a presentation date. The format and content was left up to the student with minimal oral and written guidelines from the instructor. Most students selected to use handouts and similar visual aids. For my part I presented the view and approach of Chester Bernard on how to manage and influence the organization by use of what Bernard called enticement and persuasion. It became my focus thereafter to examine the dynamics of the modern organization. I have come to the realization that across America, and in boardrooms around the globe, executives in pursuit of organizational excellence are yet pondering how best to manage their human resources. In this paper I presented my views of the time on what I could claim I had learned was essential to the organization of the future if it is to succeed in the new world of technocratic man, where global management at the macro and micro levels of organizational activity must incorporate a basic understanding of the psyche of the individual. It is a global truism that effective management addresses fundamental needs of the human organism while also abstract motivational factors such as idealism.

The Key to Success

Modern man has advanced technologically far beyond the days of the discovery of the wheel, yet his chemical composition has not evolved much further than that of his cave dwelling ancestors. It is no wonder then that sharp thorns will pierce his feet today as they did then, or that fire will burn his hands today the same as it ever has and ever will. Medical science is founded on this platform of shared human characteristics just as the Religions of the world are for the most part founded on an assumed rock of human nature, or similarly innate traits in all men. "Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" said the carpenter from Nazareth some 1,968 years ago, addressing a stubborn faith in a follower of his named Peter (whose name we are told also means rock). It was not the firmest rock in the world and within months of that declaration that rock was shaky and in denial of espoused principles. Espoused principles. The term, although popularized in this century by Peter Drucker, the noted American corporate consultant, alludes to a principle to which allegience has throughout history been referenced as vital to the success of men and their organized endeavors. Socrates is quoted as having declared "to thine own self be true", and the statement has been given lip service throughout western civilization. The fact is that human nature is as fickle as Peter and hypocrisy is a convenient shell within which a man's conscious mind can find shelter when faced with the dichotomy of the intent of his noble mind and the tug of his ignoble natural impulses. Civilization and the common law rest on the principle that we as a society must restrain the natural impulses of man for the sake of peaceful co-existence. When the Hebrew adopted son of Egypt, the biblical Moses, says that his God wants for the Hebrews to not kill each other and to not steal their neighbor's property, the voice we hear is not just the squeaky voice of guilt over his own murder of an Egyptian or his theft of the Egyptian's Hebrew slaves. Moses claims the State and society must restrain the individual from doing what he wants for the sake of group survival and peaceful cohabitation. The innate nature of Man today is the same as then. Thus, for any leader such as the Rev. Martin Luther King or the Indian leader Mahatmas Gandhi to don the mosaic mantle and organize and lead a group to fulfill its espoused principles it is vital that the common and shared nature of all men be recognized, addressed, and somehow appeased. The same need applies to the work of the micro-prophet of today's business world, the executive who would lead his enterprise to organizational success. Today's executive must be as statesmanlike as Moses of old and as determined to succeed as was Jesus of Nazareth when shaping the rock of human nature. The key to success is found by recognizing that there are managerial principles that will hold true in any setting and in any time where men's hearts beat with ambition, pride, shame, jealousy, hatred, and love.

An American author (Og Mandino, in The Greatest Salesman in the World) once referred to success as having a thousand different definitions but failure only one, and that is: the failure to achieve the goal. For an organization, to succeed is by any definition to achieve the goal, and within the scope of this discursion, that success will be no more clearly defined for the sake of focusing on principle. One of the most relevant forms of organizational structure is the American corporation, and numerous authorities have researched and published widely on the subject of corporate success. It is vital to the continued success of the United States as a world power that its citizens manage well, for every successful enterprise contributes to the economical foundation of the nation's emerging blueprint for better physical, social, and political infrastructure. When nations fail they go to war to force by the sword what cannot be gained by the pen, but when an American corporation whose driving force is to make a profit fails to meet its goals it will either find its way to bankruptcy court or like the mythical phoenix it must rise from its ashes in rejuvenated form. The key to success for any corporation is in finding and adhering to a flexible self-government that ensures that every individual has both the desire and wherewithal to accomplish a shared responsibility, the task to benefit the self and the group, the job, the assignment. Managers must be led well and they in turn must know how to motivate and get others to do what they are told to do whether they understand it or not. This is the age-old idea of success that begins on the premise that there is a problem to begin with. The reason people write books about it, are concerned over it, corporations hire management consultants such as Peter Drucker to deal with it, is that often our companies or we as individuals are at a level of minimal productive output and the organization is suffering a decline in sales or in some such measurable sphere of activity. There are, for example, as many diplomats right now wringing their hands in frustration in the corridors of the United Nations building and for the same reason as executives pacing around their desks in the corporate headquarters of the typical American world class corporate enterprise. What they all, we all, want is to increase productivity and efficiency no matter what organizational project is at hand.

How can it be accomplished that the student of managerial lore and corporate history can positively contribute to his organization and effectively help it to reach its goals? A careful review of significant research and concurrent authorities yields a wealth of information. It is often said that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it, which is a logical presumption, since when a company or a manager know not what has been done to deal with specific problems in time past the temptation to try to reinvent the wheel will, if succumbed to, result in a predictable loss of resources regardless of success. To this, this writer would add the sentiment of his mother, who once said that the lazy have to work twice as hard. Indeed, when a job is not done well or only half well done it is in danger of having to be redone, such as during the recent need to have to send a crew in the space shuttle to repair the orbiting Hubbell telescope because ground assembly personnel inserted a piece in backwards, a process that could have been corrected at minimal expense on terra firma had it been found, or better still prevented. So how then can anyone motivate a group or even just one more individual to do something that 1) they would not otherwise have done, and 2) do it with excellence? The need to do this in America here at the turn of the century and how to do it is the focus of this paper.

A corporation is a body, an artificial entity, one with separate identity before the law from that of the individuals that compose it, and there are specific laws that govern the conduct of such entities as well as, and in similar fashion to, those which govern the natural citizen. Usually one or more individuals will band together and write articles of incorporation, whereby they declare and register their intent to conduct business under the laws that govern a corporation. In Texas, where this work was written, the State of Texas Business Corporation Act is the authority (See Vernon's Civil Statutes by Westlaw Publishers, constantly amended in accordance with legislative proceedings). A corporation can legally conduct business by registering intent to conduct any legal business permitted of corporations, but the individuals that band in such an enterprise usually have a vision, a dream, a goal to fulfill. We here address the issue of how to take the existing enterprise that is not living up to its potential and improve its level of productivity.

Peter Drucker, the famous American corporate management consultant who now heads his own foundation calls for the necessary measure of success as being efficiency. In sheer economic terms one could say that efficiency of management yields a financial profile that returns more than it invests, or that makes a profit from the transformation of raw materials through labor into a more valuable finished product, often exportable on the global market. Drucker phrases it best when he says as follows:

The purpose of the corporation is to be economically efficient; it must therefore be measured by the yardstick of efficiency, which means objectively, impersonally, and independently of emotions or desires

The achievement of this goal requires that the organization constantly respond to its environment. In this sense, factories are like wildflowers dependent on the cliff soil from which they spring. The culture of in-house personnel will affect productivity as it creates little habits that may for better or for worse affect the ratio of energy and time spent per individual on company business. The statistics will reflect an increase in productivity as measured in sales when the culture of the company is one that rewards and encourages productivity. It is difficult to do just that without being having to also become receptive to innovation at every level, but then the danger is that a notion such as possessed the executives at Coca Cola to change the flavor of its now Classic soda might also land on our table and take root as truth. If the tendency is for all personnel to arrive late to work by a few minutes it will amount to thousands of man hours eventually that are clocked but not applied. When the numbers crunch at the end of each fiscal quarter it is clear that productivity is not up to par. According to R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., CEO of the consulting firm R. Thomas and Associates, "Achievement of essential diversity management competencies will require organizational cultures and systems that reinforce the competencies of the corporation's managers and employees. " Change does not occur spontaneously without the seed of change, however, and there is a natural demand for leadership in any group. It is the fittest ideas that survive and lead in the face of daily organizational challenges to such groups as diverse as the family unit or the international corporation. Jac Fitz-enz studied certain key practices of successful corporations and finds that

The evidence is clear that the single most powerful driving force behind successful culture change is competent leadership at the top of the organization.

In time the successful organization solves its leadership vacuum problem and then it is up to Management (by which we must mean efficient management) to plan the future. Change must be geared and attuned to respond to the changing marketplace and if necessary the face of the product may change or even the product itself may be replaced in a given fiscal year. The idea is to produce less Edsels and more Barbies—less of what does not sell and more of what does! But sometimes the resistance to change is so deeply ingrained as to pose a serious threat to progress. The legend of John Henry who fights against the jackhammer (homo sapiens contra maquina) that will take the jobs of men reflects just such a seemingly harmless attachment to traditional methods of doing things. It makes it noble. It takes much focusing of educational resources and enticements and rewards to modify the thinking of groups if there is an ingrained cultural resistance. At exactly three o'clock in the afternoon the English traditionally take tea while the Mexicans traditionally take a siesta. Of course the culture of the land will be the foundation for the intra-company culture. The charismatic and capable leader will effect change and wise counselors will preserve and enforce productive policies. He may apply Chester Bernard's enticement and persuasion techniques or he may take other routes, perhaps even new and untried routes, but he will accomplish his objective of re-educating the workforce to love productivity. The demand for leaders is high, says Peter Drucker, whose approach is to restructure the individual executive. Drucker seems to buttonhole the mind of the executive as he mesmerizes with the vision of the value of the executive. It is good propaganda, however, and we are converted to the faith because we know it is the truth. We have to agree that the responsibility for change falls on the shoulders of those who would and must and shall lead.

An approach that worked for one group seeking to turn a half billion dollars in cash in a direction to yield "quantum revenue growth" is recorded by Robert H. Miles in his work entitled Leading Corporate Transformation. In a revitalization plan a company designated a phase 1 and phase 2 series of actions. The guiding council decided to remove four behaviors from phase 1 to enable completion of phase 2, where the focus was on five behaviors that management would have to take to manifest more active leadership. The four behaviors to remove were exactly defined as follows:

1. Stop using micromanagement

2. Stop using punitive actions and negative reinforcement.

3. Stop using a short term tactical focus.

4. Stop trying to do everything. (hi-light by author for website publication)

Phase 2 has a different focus, and for it to succeed, along with removal of the abovelisted behaviors the five behaviors to now be adopted were thus exactly defined:

1. Motivating and empowering employees.

2. Fixing the business process

3. Communicating

4. Spending more time with customers

5. Coaching

In addition to the above they even suggested to the leader how he might improve his leadership style. These are effective methods because they deal with the rock of human nature. They appeal to men's need for dignity, pride, rewards, affection, ambition, and the opportunity to succeed. These needs are universal and must be addressed in any discussion on principles of management, for without addressing the basic human animal there can be no civilization. A good leader will address these needs even if he has to pound rocks for water. What exactly makes for a good leader? Perhaps it is not a definable or definite quality that makes a leader. Still, there are certain results that appear, at least according to the research done by Bass and Avolio for their book Improving Organizational Effectiveness, to hold up to the test of time. They cite nine qualities of the effective team leader, and these are they:

1. Knowledge of the group process

2. Ability to think and react decisively

3. Ability to articulate a position clearly and succinctly

4. Knowledge and competence in the subject area.

5. Sensitivity to group trends and needs.

6. Self-restraint and respect for others.

7. Ability to vocalize group sentiments.

8. Ability to clarify objectives again and again, and

9. Persistence in achieving difficult strategies

There is now only one goal: what Peter Drucker has called efficiency. A material goal may be to achieve maximum return for energy invested, which can translate to measurable results. It may be necessary to build up the organization as was done in the first example or it may be necessary to trim down the fat. Too many cooks do indeed spoil the brew in corporate management. An example of trimming corporate fat is the painful practice of downsizing, which can involve budget cuts and personnel layoffs. One authority in the field quotes Bart J. Mindszenthy as declaring about a successful downsizing:

"This was a 31 person empire when I arrived. Now we have a five person team advising the chairman. We've cut our budget by $2 million in the last two years and still do at least as much work. "

The Business International S.A group describes Bart J. Mindszenthy as "director of corporate public affairs at CLIL Inc.—a 73%-owned subsidiary of ICI (UK) which is one of Canada's largest chemical companies (1986 revenues C$1.7 billion)" and says that he with the above words "sums up the successful downsizing of CIL's corporate communications department." He is a fine example of how executives can do what executives learn they must do. Other than plant seeds for cordial personnel relations they need to know how to prune organizational practices and cast the chaff of outmoded methods of leadership or production into the fire. Along opposite lines, Peter Drucker in The Frontiers of Management describes five rules for successful merger or acquisition. Either or both of these widely disparate approaches can strengthen the organization. Each stresses a need for unity among the people of the organization as well as shared goals and projects for the strength and productivity of the group to materially show.

The recent technological developments in the information management industry have created a new set of challenges for the leaders of corporate America. This researcher concludes that it will become increasingly important for corporate America and active organizations to focus on how their personnel upgrade skills and equipment even while dealing with their temperament and idiosyncrasies. It is the contention of this researcher that the central need of management is for competent leaders who understand both the complexities of the corporate structure and how the organization interacts with the world as well as the dynamics of how the individual within the organization is creating the culture of the organization. Tunnel vision is fatal in a fast moving marketplace, where an action that was productive yesterday is today impractical. The challenge for everyone in and out of management is to ensure that fresh minds are at the helm so that the organization can weather any storm. Yet as surely as the tides change so will the marketplace. If we slack off as a nation another nation will overtake us in industrial productivity and growth. Corporate America must achieve maximum efficiency if maximum productivity is the goal. For the nation this is vital, since it is in America's best interest to remain a world power. We already saw how one Eastern country overtook the land of Henry Ford and Ioacoca in production, quality control, marketing, and sales of compact durable passenger sedans in the automobile industry at the exact moment in history that market conditions had soared fuel prices and diminished the desirabilty of large automobiles with a tendency to not last more than three years. We must not allow the nation to be so humiliated became the outcry across the nation as the Amercian automobile market reeled in indignation. People like Lee Iacoca, the longtime chairman of Chrysler, pressed for quality and a long term market strategy in the face of the challenge. The market has not yet recovered and maybe never will, though, since almost every third car on U. S. streets appears to be foreign. Nevertheless it has happened again in the electronics industry and is happening in the computer chip industry. American manufacturers seem content to piece together the widgets and sell them rather than be concerned with manufacturing the widget's pieces from scratch. It seems economical and sensible to save on the costs of production but the fact remains that somebody makes a profit on that process and the dollars are leaving the country. Clear-headed management will see that the enterprise must invest more and more in manufacturing, and this is where leadership and the subject of this paper are relevant. No manufacturing concern which demands a high level of co-operation among its employees and managerial team players will survive unless it is also efficient. The company must produce or it is all show and no dough, which in the global marketplace of individuals and nations is simple and tragic failure. The American corporation and the American worker can succeed at succeeding, however, if ever success is defined by high efficiency that leads to high output and a high yield return per energy invested. To self assess by internal procedures is always good and necessary, but it takes the more objective observer such as a consultant to provide the perspective with which the company can pass policies that are reasonable and that will IMMEDIATELY yield results. The short and long term results occur by persistence of method if the method is right, but this is a one time decision and no mistake can be made. Therefore the decision that the company is not at peak performance is the first step toward changing the situation, but it is in reaching for precisely the best custom-tailored route to efficiency that the specific enterprise finds its unique key to success.

Discussion

Corporate America, specifically Management, has learned many lessons in this century from authorities such as I have quoted and/or to whom I have made reference herein. One must conjecture that in face of the daily progress of the information management industry it will prove essential that we apply the knowledge and the skills that are yet to be acquired. We will either learn to manage with and by in dependence of computers and equipment, perhaps even personnel, from outside the country. Now, while international commerce and fraternization is both desirable and should continue, it should not be used as an excuse for not manufacturing essential materials such as computer processors to a greater degree than has been done until now in the United States.

Extra Extra Extra -- Thoughts for Further Development

At the time of this writing the nation is enjoying a time of prosperity due in great part to individual corporate success. The news media almost daily reports that stocks are at another record high. People are working harder, unemployment is at its lowest point in thirty years according to Slyvia Nassarin the New York Times of Saturday, December 5^th, 1998. In the same issue Jonathan Fuerbringer writes that the balance between the value of labor in the market place and the amount of hard currency available to the workforce, the shared assessment of the free market's stock investment and the mean coefficacy of the banking industry's rate of collections and defaults on outstanding capital loans, what in political newspeak and academic jargon is collectively but erroneously often referred to as Wall Street--- has been stabilized dramatically at a crucial time in the national fiscal year by the news that most Americans are gainfully employed to a greater degree than in the last thirty years. Seemingly casual news, but events that happen once in a generation are worthy of notice. The national consciousness has the depression of the 1930's seared into its memory and there is a national intent to avoid the mistakes of the past. In the midst of current prosperity, after a recently relatively quick about face in recent years away from a former national habit of spending more revenue than that collected by taxes, the nation remembers its hour of darkness. The country saw the dawn of a silver lining to the post WWII American economy in the prosperity brought on by the policies of the Kennedy administration in the early 1960's. The executive who is today both leader and visionary must accept that he is himself the key to success for the organization. The depression years were brushed away by the hand of industry and the clock must not be allowed to run backwards to such a time again. Thirty years after dealing with bootleggers in the dust bowl, America was dealing with a martini jetset Now, another thirty years after that we find that in the absence of any great unifying national challenge to stimulate the arts, sciences, and humanities since the recent taking of America literally and figuratively to the moon, the corporate executive must nevertheless come to grips with the basic challenges of personnel turnover and overall productivity as if the fate of the nation depends on it. And it does. We enter a new millennium in the space age and stand at the threshold of a starry universe, but how can we reach the stars? The quality of our leaders and personal leadership will determine if we should again attempt a tower to reach the heavens or if we shall witness the arrival of a New Jerusalem.

Vicente Reyes

December 9, 1998

A Selected Bibliography

Leading Corporate Transformation—A Blueprint for Business Renewal by Robert H. Miles � 1997 by Robert H. Miles Jossey-Bass Publisher (San Francisco)

Improving Organization Effectiveness—Through Transformational Leadership Edited by Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio � 1994 by Sage Publications Sage Publications (Thousand Oaks London New Delhi)

Organizational Design for the 1990s Edited by Frank Caropreso � 1989 by the Conference Board The Conference Board, Inc Research Report 927 (New York)

Reengineering the Corporation—A Manifesto for Business Revolution by Michael Hammer and James Champy Publisher � 1993 by Michael Hammer and James Champy Harper Business, A Division of Harper Collins (New York)

Surviving Merger and Acquisition by Michael L. McManus and Michael L. � 1988 by Scott Foresman and Company Hergert Scott Foresman and Company (Glenview, Illinois, and London)

The Management of Change by Douglas by C. Basil and Curtis W. Cook � 1974 by McGraw Hill Company McGraw Hill Company (London, New York)

The New York Times a daily publication of The New York Times (New York). The edition cited herein is the electronic version of even date on the America Online internet service of Dulles, Virginia.

The Creative Corporation Karl Albrecht with Steven Albrecht � 1987 by Dow-Jones Irwin Dow-Jones Irwin (Homewood, Illinois)

The Frontier of Management—Where Tomorrow's Decisions are Being Shaped Today by Peter F. Drucker � 1987 by Peter F. Drucker Truman Talley Books/ E. P. Dutton (New York)

Restructuring and Turnaround: Experiences in Corporate Renewal A Business International Report Business International S. A � 1987 by Business International S. A. Business International S. A(Geneva, Switzerland)

Concept of the Corporation, Second Revised Edition by Peter F. Drucker � 1946, 1964, 1983 by Peter F. Drucker New American Library (New York and Scarborough, Ontario, Canada)

The 8 Practices of Exceptional Companies—How Great Organizations Make the Most of their Human Assets by Jac Fitz-enz � 1997 by Jac Fitz-enz American Management Association (New York, Atlanta, Boston)

Rethinking the Corporation –The Architecture of Change by Robert M. Tomasko � 1993 by Robert M. Tomasko American Management Association (New York, Atlanta, Boston)

The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino � 1968 by Og Mandino. Bantam Books by arrangement with Frederick Fell, Inc. (New York)

The Organizations of the Future Edited by Frances Hesselbein, Marshal Goldsmith, and Richard Beckhard � 1997 by Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management Jossey-Bass Publisher (San Francisco)

The Function of the Executive by Chester Barnard � 1938 by Chester Barnard Harvard University Press, (Cambridge, Mass.)

�1998, 2001 by Vicente Reyes

Internet source: http://www.thepoetsdiary.com/

�2000, 2006, 2004 by Vicente Reyes All Rights Reserved

First North American Serial Rights Available

e-mail vicentereyes@yahoo.com

May be reprinted freely for personal review or academic discussion