In this episode (which took place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic), we explore the social and emotional impacts to the worker on having to work from home. For some workers, the concept of telework is hardly new. But many other vocations place great value on regular social contact with clients and customers. These include teachers, doctors, lawyers, public servants, and many others. The sudden thrust to teleworking for an unknown period of time has raised questions as to how these workers are coping with the new normal.
Crises and disasters are regular occurrences in organizational life, putting leaders into the spotlight and organizations under tremendous pressure to respond appropriately — whether it is to preserve life or salvage reputations. With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, we wanted to discuss some important texts on organizational crises and their management, and in this episode we present two. The first text is a classic case study — Karl Weick’s famous paper from 1990 titled “The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster,” published in the Journal of Management. The Tenerife air disaster (also referred to as ‘airport disaster’) occurred at Gran Canaria Airport in 1977 when fog and poor communications between the tower and the pilots of two Boeing 747s resulted in a collision that destroyed both planes and resulted in the death of 583 people. Weick’s retrospective analysis shows how several factors set conditions that “encouraged the occurrence and rapid diffusion of multiple small errors.”
The second article helps answer the question, “How does an organization rebound from crisis?” We explore an article from Edward Powley on activating organizational resilience — “Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis,” published in Human Relations in 2009. The article describes three different social mechanisms that are put into action according to Powley — liminal suspension, compassionate witnessing, and relational redundancy. Respectively, these mechanisms cause the organization to temporarily restructure itself to respond to the crisis, leverage interpersonal relationships within the organization more intensely, and leverage social connections across boundaries to reach out and help others outside the organization. Together these readings can help us understand what it takes to analyze an emerging crisis situation and mobilize to confront it.
Part 1: What happens to an organization under crisis?
Part 2: How can organizations become more proactive and prepare better for crisis?
Read With Us:
Powley, E. H. (2009). Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis. Human relations, 62(9), 1289-1326.
Weick, K. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster. Journal of management, 16(3), 571-593.
For this episode we discuss the history of a classic firm which exercised remote operations as a matter of course and faced multiple pandemics during its early existence. The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) was chartered in 1670 by King Charles II at a time when the French monopolized fur trading with Native Americans in modern-day Canada. From then, the English would establish its own robust fur trading industry, establishing hundreds of posts from the western shores of Hudson Bay all across modern western Canada. The case is exceptional in demonstrating the historical challenges of remote operations where communications were limited to letters sent annually with the fur shipments across the Atlantic. How could London possibly maintain oversight and exercise control under such conditions?
As we demonstrated in previous episodes about “Twelve Angry Men” and “Modern Times,” movies can be effective tools for discussing concepts, ideas, and experiences about organizations and management. Add to this the ‘instant’ classic film WALL-E, released in 2008 by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. WALL-E is the story of a robot who at one time was part of a massive clean-up effort on Earth while all the humans left to live on cruise ships in space. But the effort failed centuries earlier, and now WALL-E continued his duties all alone — accompanied only by a cockroach. When a probe returns to Earth searching for renewed signs of life, WALL-E follows the probe back to the lead cruise ship and learns how much the humans have devolved over the centuries. The story is about awakening, about recognizing how one is bounded and shut off from a wider world. The film was hailed as one of the best of the 2000s.
In this episode, we talk about the setting and the story for clues about organizational behavior and management. (Spoiler alert!) Through flashback images and other evidence, we learn of the backstory about how one corporation called “BuyNLarge” — came to dominate both public and private sectors of society, providing everything for the humans, and doing so in an indulgent fashion. Eventually, the humans kept buying and consuming until the garbage overtook everything. But on the cruise ship (Axiom), the vision of BuyNLarge is realized as the humans do indeed live in a paradise where they can buy and consume just about anything they want. Meanwhile, BuyNLarge’s CEO Shelby Forthright is portrayed only minimally, yet is a central figure in the film. His decision making centuries earlier set in motion the chain of events that led to the Axiom remaining in space far longer than originally planned. Organizational behavior, leadership, change, culture, automation and artificial intelligence — we discuss these topics and more! Listen in as Tom, Pedro, Maikel, and Ralph have a fun conversation discussing this wonderful film!
Part 1. Talking About Organizational Behavior and Leadership Through Film
Part 2. What We Can Learn from Dystopian Fiction?
Watch With Us:
WALL-E (film). (2008). Director: Andrew Stanton. Pixar Animation Studios.
Related Episodes of the Talking About Organizations Podcast:
Anteby, Michel. (2003) “The Moralities’ of Poaching: Manufacturing Personal Artifacts on the Factory Floor.” Ethnography, 4(2): 217-239.
Faraj, Samer, Stella Pachidi, and Karla Sayegh. (2018). “Working and organizing in the age of the learning algorithm.” Information and Organization, 28(1): 62-70.
Mintzberg, Henry. (1980). “Structure in 5’s: A Synthesis of the Research on Organization Design.” Management science26(3): 322-341.
List of Movies Relevant for Management — https://twitter.com/search?q=%23LeoMovieList&src=typd&f=live
Featured Image Credit: Lenin Estrada via Pexels.com, Creative Commons License 0
We discuss Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film "Modern Times" balances great physical comedy with powerful social commentary. Chaplin portrayed a hapless Worker on an assembly line who is tormented both by supervisors and the work itself. After being subjected to a humiliating experiment intended to improve the line's efficiency, the Worker runs through a series of rotating jobs, stints in jail, and other misadventures as he tries to find his purpose in life.
Haridimos Tsoukas‘ 1997 article “The Tyranny of Light” was a bold article that challenged conventional wisdom about the oncoming information society. The Internet, personal computers, and the dot-com boom were still new and exciting. With information technologies advancing at an incredible pace, the sky (and the capacity of silicon) was the limit. Internet start-ups were sprouting up everywhere as young entrepreneurs strove to become the next Bill Gates. Never mind that the vast majority failed and faded quickly away (see Episode 49 and the example of normative control in a tech company). The possibilities seemed endless.
But so too were the dangers. Hari Tsoukas foresaw the problems that an information dominated society might produce. Could greater access to information have undesirable consequences, such as the loss of understanding or the growth of distrust? Could an information society disrupt socio-political norms? If these became true, what would happen.
Bolstered by hindsight and knowledge of how the information society evolved, we (your intrepid podcasters) take a look back at 1997. To what extent Tsoukas got the future right, and what else transpired that Tsoukas could not have known or anticipated. What does this suggest for society and its leaders today?
You will also be able to download the audio files here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
The Federalist Papers was a series of writings from American history leading up to its current Constitution, completed in 1787. Formed as thirteen separate colonies, this newly independent nation tried to form a central government that granted maximum autonomy to the States to prevent the emergence of an American monarchy. We explore two in this episode and use them to host the first-ever TAOP debate where two of us argued for federalism and two argued for anti-federalism!
This episode takes us to ancient Greece and one of the great practical philosophers, Xenophon (pronounced ZEN-uh-phun), whose Oeconomicus may have been one of his "minor" works in the world of philosophy, but it is a fascinating work for those interested in management and organizational studies. The book is written as a dialogue, with Socrates playing a sort of narrator who engages with men and encourages them to become more virtuous, with varying success.
12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet, is one of the major milestones of film history. It dates back to 1957 and tells the story of a jury, the twelve angry men of the title, and how they decide on the innocence or guilt of a young boy accused of murder. The entire film takes place in the jury room, with the exception of a few scenes, namely those in the courthouse and in the bathroom. We use this story as a lens to discuss themes in organizational theory such as decision making and consensus building among groups.
62: Consumerism & Meaning at Work — WALL-E
As we demonstrated in previous episodes about “Twelve Angry Men” and “Modern Times,” movies can be effective tools for discussing concepts, ideas, and experiences about organizations and management. Add to this the ‘instant’ classic film WALL-E, released in 2008 by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. WALL-E is the story of a robot who at one time was part of a massive clean-up effort on Earth while all the humans left to live on cruise ships in space. But the effort failed centuries earlier, and now WALL-E continued his duties all alone — accompanied only by a cockroach. When a probe returns to Earth searching for renewed signs of life, WALL-E follows the probe back to the lead cruise ship and learns how much the humans have devolved over the centuries. The story is about awakening, about recognizing how one is bounded and shut off from a wider world. The film was hailed as one of the best of the 2000s.
In this episode, we talk about the setting and the story for clues about organizational behavior and management. (Spoiler alert!) Through flashback images and other evidence, we learn of the backstory about how one corporation called “BuyNLarge” — came to dominate both public and private sectors of society, providing everything for the humans, and doing so in an indulgent fashion. Eventually, the humans kept buying and consuming until the garbage overtook everything. But on the cruise ship (Axiom), the vision of BuyNLarge is realized as the humans do indeed live in a paradise where they can buy and consume just about anything they want. Meanwhile, BuyNLarge’s CEO Shelby Forthright is portrayed only minimally, yet is a central figure in the film. His decision making centuries earlier set in motion the chain of events that led to the Axiom remaining in space far longer than originally planned. Organizational behavior, leadership, change, culture, automation and artificial intelligence — we discuss these topics and more! Listen in as Tom, Pedro, Maikel, and Ralph have a fun conversation discussing this wonderful film!
Part 1. Talking About Organizational Behavior and Leadership Through Film
Part 2. What We Can Learn from Dystopian Fiction?
Watch With Us:
WALL-E (film). (2008). Director: Andrew Stanton. Pixar Animation Studios.
Related Episodes of the Talking About Organizations Podcast:
Episode 1: Principles of Scientific Management – F.W. Taylor’s One Best Way
Episode 3: Theory of Human Motivation – Abraham Maslow
Episode 6: Bureaucracy – Max Weber
Episode 13: Banana Time – Donald Roy
Episode 20: High Reliability in Practice – USN Rear Admiral Tom Mercer
To Know More:
Anteby, Michel. (2003) “The Moralities’ of Poaching: Manufacturing Personal Artifacts on the Factory Floor.” Ethnography, 4(2): 217-239.
Faraj, Samer, Stella Pachidi, and Karla Sayegh. (2018). “Working and organizing in the age of the learning algorithm.” Information and Organization, 28(1): 62-70.
Mintzberg, Henry. (1980). “Structure in 5’s: A Synthesis of the Research on Organization Design.” Management science 26(3): 322-341.
List of Movies Relevant for Management — https://twitter.com/search?q=%23LeoMovieList&src=typd&f=live
Featured Image Credit: Lenin Estrada via Pexels.com, Creative Commons License 0