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I've realized that I haven't been attaching dates to these blogs. These ones that pertain in general to my time in Vienna (not counting the pre-Vienna deputation) would be 1987-1989. I'll try to start adding these labels, but I'll have to go and retroactively add them to previous posts later on.
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This afternoon I have physical therapy. I'd like to start taking the Special Transit Services for trips of any distances (such as physical therapy, which is ca. 15 miles or more one way) but you have to call a day in advance to make arrangements so I can't do that for today and Friday I have an appointment with the pain doctor that works with the neurosurgeon and it's too close time-wise to my p/t appointment for STS, so I'm going to have to drive Friday too. I'll have to start next week then.At home I want to continue my thorough post-remodeling cleaning. Because I'm not feeling well this cleaning is going slowly, which I think I've mentioned before. So today I want to clean the guest shower. That finishes the guest bath except for the vanity top, which I'll leave for now because I'm using it as my central cleaning station for sponges and rags, etc. However, I offered to host a couple coming through from church Saturday night, so I'll clean it before then.
Then my next room will be the kitchen, so I'll start there next. I've generally tried to have all my knickknacks and things behind glass, but my canisters in the kitchen are all on open shelves, and so my plan is to take them all down and dust them, so I'm going to start with that in the kitchen.
But I also have cooking to do today. My next meal is going to be Russian. Being single I cook a meal and have left overs and also freeze some meals. Pork chops cooked in sour cream, baby potatoes poached in broth and just plain broccoli (the latter is not particularly Russian). I also need to make juice for my bedtime smoothies as I finished my last batch yesterday. This time it sill be ruby red grapefruit and yummy smelling peach juice. I hope it comes out a good combination. The peaches were on sale and smelled so yummy peachy I just couldn't resist them and the grapefruit were likewise hard to resist there I was with to fruit that I wasn't sure how they would go together, so we'll soon find out I guess. I have a feeling it depends on the sweetness of the grapefruit as to how well they'll go together.
Anyway, back to the text...
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This next section of the chapter is: "FUNCTIONS OF THE INFORMAL ORGANIZATION"The following quote is the introduction to this section.
"A better understanding of a phenomenon can be achieved if it is known what function it performs. If we analyze the reasons behind the existence of the informal organization, we can improve our understanding of how it can be managed. While all of the reasons (or functions) discussed below are interrelated, we treat them separately to sharpen our understanding of the behavior patterns operating in informal structures." (p. 431-432)
It sounds like the authors more or less equate reasons with functions, but we'll have to see if that fit the Vienna mission context as we read the text. In any case, understanding the function and understanding the reason does sound like it could be very helpful to know. Why did the Vienna leadership decide they needed to create an informal organization? Why did they make it serve the functions it did? Why did they make the informal organization in the particular form they made it in? Why? Why? Why? Let's see if we can find out...
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This section subheading is "Security."
"One of the major functions of the informal organization is to increase the feeling of security of its members... Deviant or abnormal behavior is not tolerated, and this assures members a reasonable degree of stability in their interpersonal relationships. The informal organization also increases member security by protecting members from outside influences such as management or other work groups...
"A major reason workers find security in the informal organization is that the rules for behavior are set by the workers, not by management." (p. 433)
... Unless of course you happen to in an organization where the management created the informal organization and established the rules for behavior in it. Well, maybe it's not right to really think of the mission in terms of workers and management, like in an ordinary workplace, but, on the other hand, should we consider the mission a spy agency? Would your average mission in, say, Bolivia or Thailand go out of their way to purposely and deliberately create an informal organization with all the bells and whistles that might accompany an informal organization? Probably not; they have other things to do... like ministry, for example.
Getting back to this quote, feelings of security in the Vienna mission, in my experience and observation, were acquired when one succumbed and gave in to whatever it is they wanted of you so that you and the mission lived in harmony. It had to be a relationship of complete mutual trust, no holds barred. Without that you didn't have security, plain and simple. People who were there shorter terms (a few months or visitors) would have been shielded from the cruel realities of this kind of thing.
In any case, the workers did not set any rules of any substance, and certainly no rules having to do with whether or not you felt secure or not. Example of rules workers might have been able to set would be rules involved in the women's monthly meeting, as long as the rules didn't involve things like security or the like, which would be management's sole prerogative to set.
By "workers" I mean anyone below the level of department heads.
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The next sub-section is titled "Social Satisfaction"
"We learned from the motivation chapter that people have social needs that are manifested in social contact (e.g., the formation of significant interpersonal relations and the striving to be accepted by other people). The informal organization facilitates satisfaction of those needs. For example, the interactions required by the formal organization tend to initiate the social contacts made, resulting in the formation of attitudes, feelings, and beliefs about other people. On the basis of these required interactions, individuals then form close-knit groups that provide maximum satisfaction and security...
Moreover, it is easier to develop a social identity in a small informal group than a large formal one. In many cases, employees become only numbers to the formal organization; they therefore seek personal identity, recognition, and acceptance in their informal groups." (p. 433)
I think what we have here is a case of Habermasian colonization of a lifeworld. That is, whereas individuals might want social satisfaction the administration imposed their view of that social satisfaction should look like by using their artificially created informal organizational structure to also dictate social mores and relations. All in the name of Christian love and the great commission.
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The next sub-section is "Communication Channel""As mentioned earlier, the informal organization provides an additional channel of communication for the organization, called the grapevine. Information that is deemed important by the informal organization is sought out and quickly communicated to interested group members. Because the information is seen as important (if it weren't the informal organization wouldn't bother with it), it tends to be transmitted rather quickly, the exact speed depending partly upon the degree of importance of the communication...
... But regardless of the accuracy of the information, the mere act of communicating necessary information tends to satisfy the needs of the informal organization... " (p. 433, 435)
Since the informal organization in the Vienna mission was a creation of the administration in the service of the administration, the communication channel was also part of this instrumentation, and such there was no room for error, at least as far as I'm aware, and I suspect that if error did come up it would be quickly corrected and an effort would be made to avoid it happening again in the future, because error could have catastrophic consequences in their work.
In my opinion, formal communication channels were largely fronts from the public view, part of the deception - the partial truths, like saying they were an international publisher. Communication really happened 1) in informal channels, or 2) behind closed doors (some of which might have been formal channels). So informal channels were actually pretty important and I think a lot of communication between upper management and department heads happened in informal social situations, whether it was out jogging together or a spur of the moment discussion on the fly.
The only communication channels that might have been of any importance and also formal would have been the board meetings and the regular management meetings. These had minutes which were available only on a need to know basis and there was otherwise no written formal communication that I would say was of any significance, other than symbolic and p.r. or fundraising.
Again, it should also be noted that the management had a monopoly on communication, including the informal organization communication. In fact, there were times I mentioned things to a couple of the secretaries that I (naively, it seems) thought was in confidence, but later on there wee things that happened / that were said that made me think that my confidence had been broken and they had passed on what I'd said. I suspect their bosses had asked them about out time together. So then it's clear that the informal communication channels were in the service of the management and these secretaries were, if you will, informants. An example of this was mentioning that I was feeling stressed and one secretary telling me about the Austrian herbs that some of the workers had tried. This was before I was sent back to the States.
One other things about this is that towards the end of my time in Vienna, I feel I was fed a lot of dis- or misinformation to confuse me about what was going on in the mission and where it was headed. So this was a use (or misuse?) of the grapevine. It seems it would be in the service of the management, but where exactly the dis- or misinformation originated I'll probably never know. That is, who thought up what to tell me and what who should tell me.
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This next sub-section is titled "Balancing Device.""The informal organization serves as a balancing device in several ways. First, it has the capacity (although not always the motivation) to overcome deficiencies built into the formal structure. Since it is impossible for formal systems to prescribe every type of decision and behavior that is necessary for effective work accomplishment, the formal organization often relies on the informal organization to take up any 'slack' that may be present or to compensate for important areas that are not specifically covered in job descriptions.
Second, the informal organization serves a balancing function by giving satisfaction to individual members that the formal structure cannot give. A production worker receiving little respect from management can derive considerable satisfaction from being an informal group leader, by being held in high esteem by coworkers, or by having workmates laugh at his or her jokes." (p. 435)
Although the Vienna mission leadership created and managed the informal organization, if an individual was in good standing in the organization s/he would be given some latitude in carrying out his/her job, although the mission wouldn't tolerate mavericks, so it was generally accepted that regular communication with relevant colleagues and/or superiors regarding innovations needed to take place to keep everyone affected on board (assuming it wasn't something ridiculously trivial like your method of washing the windows or something). This functioning might not be completely dissimilar to in a regular informal organization, except for the Big Daddy informal organization always looming in the background.
The second balancing device would be irrelevant in the Vienna mission because if the mission management was not pleased with you than no one would be and you wouldn't find anyone who'd cross the mission leadership because to do so would be professional suicide. So in this case the mission management made sure that their informal organization didn't function at all. Period. Explanation Mark. End of question. Time to move on...
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The final sub-section is titled "Source of Motivation.""The informal organization is often a source of motivation for individuals." (p. 436)
I decided that rather than cite the text, I'd summarize the ways an informal organization can motivate individuals, according to the text.
1. One can be motivated by being recognized by ones peers (as funny, as a good worker, etc.)
2. One can be motivated by having interesting / enjoyable coworkers.
3. One can be motivated by status or position held within the informal organization.
Numbers one and three are only going to happen if you are in good standing with the management, although being in good standing with the management does not guarantee these things. For example, you could be in good standing with the management, but not necessarily in a particularly high status.
Number two probably will also only happen when you are in good standing with management because if you are not in good standing with them your peers will use social pressure to get you to change (or oust you or whatever management wants to happen to you) and chances are that even if they are otherwise interesting and enjoyable people they won't seem so if you are not in good standing with management.
So if you are not in good standing with management, it seems that the informal organization, which is (s I've said many times already now) an instrument of the mission management, will lose it's motivational properties once you are on the outs with the mission management.
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In this case, then, the question is what is there to make you want to correct the problem between yourself and the mission management? The answer, clearly, is beyond the purview of this text, but it is one that seems relevant to me and my relationship (back then in the late 1980s) with the Vienna mission.
What then is the Mission? Stripped of a viable relationship with the pseudo informal organization (I think it's pseudo, because it's contrived rather than organic), then I'm left with a relationship with a relationship with the formal organization and, my sending organization. We already know that the formal organization is basically a front, a shell of an organization mainly for public relations and fundraising purposes (and minimally for financial and legal reasons). That's what my relationship is with after I'm stripped of a relationship with the pseudo informal organization.
How do you relate to a shell of an organization? How do you communicate with a p.r front? Excuse me for being paranoid. Who are you anyway, Vienna mission?
It's at times like these that one can start to believe that books like Alice in Wonderland may not be so fantastic after all.
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It is soooooo... late. I've got to go.
