According to the Oxford
dictionary, organizations refer to an organized group of
people with a particular purpose, while management refers to the process of
dealing with or controlling things or people. Hence, simply put, a management plans, organizes,
leads, and controls the efforts of an organization to lead it to its purpose.
This week, part
of our introduction to organization and management required us to learn more
about team roles within a management, critical thinking, identifying the
different groups of organizations and understanding the various roles a manager
can hold in an organization.
According to
Belbin’s suggestion that organisations are made up of individuals undertaking
different roles, an organization can only be able to run well if there is a
good mix of people with different team roles.
Should an organization be made of only Resource Investigators, it
results in a management often being over ambitious or optimistic and losing
interest once the initial enthusiasm has passed. However, if a shaper was also
part of the team, he could drive the team on and ensure a constant effort is
put into realizing the purpose of the organization.
Although this
may be true, it would mean that the organization would require a minimum of 9
members for it to run smoothly. I believe that people can take up multiple
roles within an organization so that management teams are more concise as 2
opinions would be easier to work with compared to 9 different opinions. For
instance, my dad’s company is a family business run by himself and his 3
brothers. Due to their different personalities and working styles, they each
have taken up multiple roles on Belbin’s list to ensure a successful
organization. This is the same scenario for Fayol’s theory on the 6 managerial
activities as well as Mintzberg’s theories on managerial roles, where in the
context of my dad’s company, each brother could have been informational,
interpersonal or decisional depending on the scenario they have been put in.
Organizations
are a part of our lives as they are everywhere, from hospitals to charities to
banks to Multi National Corporations (MNCs). The reason they exist is because
we use the services provided by these organizations, in other words, their
output. Have they created an impact on us? MOST DEFINITELY! The idea of not
having pizza delivered to my doorstep, or the inability to call for taxi on a
rainy day, or texting a loved one are just few examples of how organizations have made life convenient
for us. However it is not always a good thing as we start becoming lazy and dependent on an organizer’s service, that when taken away, we feel lost. Hence,
for all the importance and simplicity an organization brings to us, one must
understand that being independent is important and too much of a good thing
always comes with repercussions.
