323. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 47 (Miner, pt. 5)

The cardiologist today agreed with the anesthesiologist regarding the migraine medicine, so that was good.  He said that my stress test was normal (but the EKG I'd had done in his office was abnormal), so he proposed having a halter.  They're supposed to call to set it up.

The migraine medicine change made a difference in my stationery bike heart rate in physical therapy as it didn't immediately spike like it had been doing recently.  Also, it looks like yesterday's lumbar epidural was also having some effect, although it's still early, as it can take a few days for the full effect of an epidural shot.

When I returned home from the cardiologist's I found a box from my brother - it looks like he was going through some more stuff in storage (from after mom's death) and he sent me and my other brother things he thought we should have.  Among the things in my box were some notes and letters from my time in Vienna!!  This should be a great boon to my narration of my time spent with the mission, since I got rid of a lot of my mission-related things when I moved to Russia.  I had given up on mom having any of these left any more, thinking she'd maybe "down-sized" at some point.  I haven't read any of it, though, just sort of flipped through it.

 ***

This will finish the discussion on the Miner text.  This section is titled "Putting Ideas to Work for Performance and Productivity."

"Although theory and research dealing with effective organizational structure and design have not produced as many hard facts as might be desired, some important insights have emerged.  First, research has increased our understanding of the factors that should be considered in organizational design...

Second, the domain into which the structure being used falls must be acknowledged.  A given domain may characterize either a whole organization or a single component of it, but once an organizatinal unit is defined as belonging in a particular domain, than its structures and processes should match the requirements of that domain very closely." (p. 539)

 Miner lists several examples of factors affecting organizational design for the first area of insight and for the second one he goes on to discuss how the various types of systems might fit different contexts.  In other words, there are clear ways of knowing whether a particular organizational structure is appropriate for a given context or not.

***

"Finally, in group or sociotechnical systems - the missionary form - ideology predominates, and structure may in fact be at a minimum (replaced by culture...).  Group norms in an expanded form run the system, and anything that interferes with this process can only create role conflict and ambiguity." (p. 539)

The informal culture in the Vienna mission could be described in these terms to a large extent.  This may explain, at least in part, why I experienced role conflict (stress, with my extracurricular activities) and had trouble understanding that the mission wanted at times.  I was experiencing the ambiguity in as much as I was interfering with the mission's apparent desires and plans for me (e.g., making the secretaries my reference group).

However, this can't describe the mission's functioning as a whole, I think; it can only describe the informal organization functioning, although the informal organization was a significant part of the organization.  And I'm not sure it can fully describe the informal organization either, because there were hierarchical aspects of the informal organization also.

***

That's it for tonight and tomorrow I'll start a new text.

322. Organizational Behavior, Pt., 46 (Miner, pt. 4)

I feel so much more refreshed this morning.  I see the cardiologist this afternoon and then on to physical therapy.  I have to do some cooking today too.  Right now I'm doing my morning stimulator session (electrical stimulation therapy for pain, 45 minutes twice a day).

***

Continuing with our text, I'm skipping over the "task or entrepreneurial sytem" because there really isn't anything helpful to glean from that section and I can't see it applying, even in part to the Vienna mission.  Basically, this system is not only a small system, but also has just two hierarchical levels: the owner(s) and everyone else.  The owner(s) work on their own and are their own critic, etc.  In the Vienna mission, no matter how powerful the top leadership was, they weren't going to do anything of substance without the go-ahead of the mission board, because the mission could not exist without them (since much of their personal and staff came from them and some of their external "contracted" work also came from them - such as textbook delivery).  So this system is a no-go.

The "group or sociotechnical" system likewise does not fit as it puts the onus of group management and guidance on the group itself (rather than, as in the task or entrepreneurial system, organizational owners).  This system couldn't work in the Vienna mission for the same reasons as for the "task or entrepreneurial system," but also because the mission could not tolerate divisiveness and anything smacking of an independent spirit.  Everything had to fit under the ospices of the mission writ large, and no department had anything like the kind of independent responsibility described in this text.  For example, departments only had minimal input into new member selection (and chances are the department head would be the only one with any input at all, I expect); conflicts within the group would have been a security risk for the whole mission and (depending on the specific conflict) would have been at the very least of interest to leadership higher up the mission hierarchy, etc.  That being said, however, if I were interested in going into greater details in the nature of the country teams, certain aspects of this type of system might have fit or born a semblance to fitting them.

***

Next I'm moving to a new sub-section of the chapter: "Mintzberg's Power Configurations."  These power configurations theorize how power is wielded and where it resides in an organizatinal system.  When systems change then politicking occurs, but that was discussed in an earlier chapter of the book.

***

The first power configuration is:

"The Autocracy.  An autocracy is a small, often newly founded organization; power resides entirely in the chief executive, who is usually owner and founder as well." (p. 547)

This is clearly not a good fit at all.  There was no room for individualism in the mission, even amongst the top leadership.  That being said, however, part of the security mindset might have wanted there to be an external appearance of independence of action.  That way, in the case of a security breach those higher up the chain (e.g., the board members and their respective missions) could be protected.  It was generally always good for those posing a threat (e.g., border guards) to think each individual was acting independent of an organization or anyone higher up.

But this doesn't mean that they woldn't have wanted to give the appearance of their being an autocracy either, depending on the situation and the particulars of the threat.  Giving the impression that everyone was equal and the organization was more or less an anarchic or socialistic organization might have allowed attention to be drawn from leader-individuals.

***

"The Instrument.  The instrument is hierarchically structured; it is a bureaucracy.  Its distinguishing characteristic is that the primary power over it is external - in the hands either of a single individual or of a group of people who think alike.  Often this power over the organization is mediated to the internal managers through the board of directors." (p. 547)

This description does seem to have some potential in describing the mission power configuration.  I would say, though, that the board of directors didn't, as I understood it, think as much alike as this text might suggest.  However, I know that for nonprofit boards it's often advised to try to seek out board members with different viewpoints, in which case boards aren't all of one perspective.  The mission wouldn't have sought out missions with differing views, though; rather, it just ended out with them by virture of the missions available that wanted to work together on the seminary project.  As I understood it, the differences were mainly around security issues or theological issues (although they agreed on the major theological points).

***

"The Missionary. In missionary organizations, a clear mission and an ideology or culture supporting it are accepted by all members as guiding principles.  Thus power really resides in the shared ideology.  People do not become or stay members unless they hold to the ideology.  There is a missionary zeal.  Many voluntary organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, have this form.  So too do certain political movements and religious groups.  Often the mission is to change society.  The structure of the organization is much like that of a group or sociotechnical system, which achieves linkage among groups through cultural rather than hierarchic means." (p. 547-548)

Despite the name, I don't think we can assume that this is necessarily the main power configuration of the mission (when I was with it in the late 1980s).  So let's check it out.

There definitely was a clear mission and ideology and culture that had to be accepted by all members as guiding principles.  The mission was clear and above board as far as I was ever aware and know of no reason to think otherwise: it was to bring theological education to those in countries where political restrictions made access to this kind of training very difficult if not impoossible.  So everyone agreed to that.

The ideology, in my mind is somewhat more troublesome.  Part of the ideology was the theology, the usual doctrinal statement theology, which everyone had to agree to to get there and that also should not have been a problem either, because if it was there was clear opportunity to deselect oneself or for the mission to not accept the candidate missionary into its ranks.  However, there was the surprise (to me at least) ideology element that I learned about only upon arrival in Vienna, the ideology that approved of deception, that mandated 24/7 control of my life and seemed to disallow any free thinking and action.  The ideology that you're not trusted until you can prove yourself trustworthy and to prove yourself trustworthy you have to sort of sell yourself to the devil - let them be your conscience and your whole life while with them.  At least that's how I felt.

Then the edges of ideology and culture sort of blurr together so that it's difficult to distinguish the one from the other.  Of course, culture also included the traditions and stories, the history and the other usual cultural accutrements.

But the issue here is what place did these things play in the mission?  Were they where the power resided?  I don't think so.

I studied social movement learning (a couple decades after leaving Vienna) and I would say that among the groups I studied that ideology was power in some of them, in a way it wasn't in Vienna.  That being said, however, in the Vienna mission you did have to pass the socialization and trust test and continue to grow in trust factor (that's the security-related ideology), but that wouldn't have been enough or central in the same way as for the social movement groups I studied.  So, looked at in this framework, I think the instrument power configuration is a better description of where power resided in the mission than does the missionary organization system. 

***

"The Closed System. Closed systems are bureaucracies, but of a more mature nature than instruments.  Missionaries may also move to the closed-system form as their dominant ideology is replaced by hierarchy.  In either case power is now in the hands of the line managerial hierarchy.  It is internal; management runs its own ship, and need not be invariably responsive to some external power source or idology.  The large corporate with widely diversified ownership is a prime example." (p. 548)

It's true that some activists opined that activist organizations grew to become more bureaucratic with age (and size).  Also, when I was with the Vienna mission it was just 10 or so years old, so maybe it did move on later to become a closed system as described here.

I've said in past posts that the mission tried to be a "closed system" but I used that term somewhat differently that it is used here; that is, I didn't use it in management terms.  I meant that the mission wanted to limit uncontrolled outside contacts by its members, which is quite diffeent than the way the term is used here.  Here it means that management operates on its own apart from outside controls, such as a more hand-on board of directors. 

In any case, when I was with the mission this is not how it operated and I do not particularly want to get into whether or not it later did operate like this.

***

"The Meritocracy. In a meritocracy, a group of experts or professionals with specialized knowledge have the power.  These experts may work as a federation of single individuals or in what amount to project teams." (p. 548)

The mission did not operate like this.  The professionals did not have authonomy to operate independently as federations and the departments and country teams were to interconnected to the whole to really be viewed in this way, I think.

***

Altogether, then, it appears that the Instrument system best described the power structure of the Vienna mission when I was with it.

In performing this exercise something came to mind from a research project I did in Russia that might be worth comparing to this process.

In my research I analyzed a wide variety of classroom criteria to determine on a sliding scale the level of focus on languae vs. communication in English instruction in higher education instruction in three provincial capitals in Russia.  Included among those criteria, for example were: testing, textbooks used, classroom time use, classroom objects on display (posters, etc.) and other such things.  One of the issues was that instructors could use a lot of communication focus, but if, in the end they tested on language (grammar, spelling, etc.) and graded on language, then language was actually where the focus was at the end of the day, at least in one way of looking at things.

So, if the real power in the mission was in the board, and the board was the one that had the final say in "hiring,", in mission direction, etc., then it's really necessary to look at the board and  some of the things coming from lower down need to be understood in the light that it's the board that really ran things and any semblance of democracy, or the importance of the individual was only as real as the board said it was or allowed it to be.  So this might be a significant issue to keep in mind regarding the mission.  Again, remember, I'm talking here about the Vienna mission of 1987-1989.

321. Organizatonal Behavior, Pt. 45 (Miner, pt. 3)

I'm very tired this morning because I didn't get to be until my usual time, about 1:15 a.m.  So I got about 4 hours sleep.  I have 3 appointments right away - two tests and then the doctor's appointment following that.  Then a 20 mile drive back to near where I live to my pain doctor to get an epidural shot.

The next sub-section of this "Organizational Structure and Design" chapter of the book is "Professional or Knowledge-Based Systems."

"Professional structures differ substantially from hierarchic.  Here role requirements come from the values, norms, ethical precepts, and codes of the profession, rather than from the hierarchy of the organization.  They are transmitted through early professional traning, by professional associations, and by colleagues... [T]he professional structure per se is most clearly evident in professional organizations such as law firms, accounting firms, and research organizations." (p. 543-544)

Since we determined that hierarchic and bureaucratic prototypes weren't a good fit for the organization we need to find something else and it seems, at least on the surface, that this might promise to be a likely candidate.

If we were to seriously consider this structural type, it seems that we'd have to identify a profession that the organization might get it's values from, and, again on the surface, it looks like we should have a likely candidate in the "conservative Evangelical Protestant theologian" profession.  In fact a good half to two-thirds of the office staff (not counting spouses and families) were theologians and when to seminary.  So it would seem plausible that the mission might possibly get its values from the theological profession.

The problem is that most of how the mission operated was not according to theological principles and norms, but was probably closer to the profession of espionage or "intelligence" in its security efforts.  Also, you might note that "intelligence" includes information, disinformation, misinformation, etc.  And you might remember that it was for the short wave radio work that the one mission I worked for (before I worked for the Vienna mission) received money from the CIA for its short wave radio work.  And the work of Christian missions, intentionally or not were enablers of the fall of Communism because religious groups were the main counter-government organization in many of the East Bloc countries in the lead up to the fall of Communism.  Even if this was a quite unintentional effect of the work of the Vienna mission, I think it was one they wouldn't have regretted, especially when you think of someof the politicization I experienced (most glaringly at candidate's course with my sending mission) and also the military ties (e.g., chaplians as the entire H.R. department).

So you have that, and you also have the incredible focus on security, some of which I can see was needed, but the extent to which it controlled the mission was, in my opinion, unscriptural.  So for such a major aspect of the mission to be apparently contrary to what one would expect to find in the theological profession, and the other reasons stated above, I think that the theological profession only had a surface sway over the organization.

You may remember from earlier discussions that the mission had a public and a private face, which is not , in general, anything unusual if that were all there were to it.  But the thing was that the private face was intentionally deceptive and glossed over what was really happening inside the mission.  By this I mean all the myriad of things that I've talked about already on this blog.  So the mission led a double life, and the external view of the mission did make it look like the mission might have been a "professional structure," but my experience of it was totally contrary to anything of the kind.  If they were a professional structure following the values and norms of the theological profession, they would not have treated me the way they did.  All the discussions I've had here where I point out things about them that were unscriptural back up this assertion that they weren't a professional structure following the theological profession.

On the other hand, if I had to try to find a profession that might have fit who they really were at the core - the part of them that they tried to hide from public view (for security reasons), I'd say if anything they might have been more like an intelligence or spy agency, except that no one there (as far as I knew) had ever trained to be a professional spy or member of the intelligence community.  I suppose the military chaplains on staff might have had some training in this, but I don't know that.

Another professional group might be the world of of (at that time) missions to East Bloc and otherwise closed countries.  But that's not a professiona that one trained for like a regular theologian or pastor or lawyer or whatever.  Rather I think it was somewhat of a hybrid type of organization.  My impression from what I knew of the world of East European missions, was that they all evolved more or less independently and developed their own ways of functioning and coping in Communist countries.  A lot of the groups preferred to lay low and keep to themselves to not draw attention to themselves and increase the risk of ruining their ministry, so missions could differ significantly because of this isolation and having evolved diffeently.  In the Vienna mission, however, a good number of these mission came together to work on this pastor training effort.  It was these missions - especially the ones that were members and sat on the board - that would have formed the professonal backdrop for the Vienna mission, moreso than, I think, the theological profession back home in the USA (most of the missionaries were from the USA, but not all).

***

"In organizations of this kind, many of the activities performed by managers in hierarchic systems are assumed by the professional component as a whole.  Professional organizations use committees and voting procedures extensively.  The structure is flat, with status differentiation based on expertise and professional experience." (p. 544)

Let's just say that even though the Vienna mission was a seminary, it did not have tenure - it wasn't necessarily "expertise and professional experience" that made one be recognized as the leader.  No, rather, it was most definitely a position in the hierarchic organization that got one recognized as a leader... and it wasn't voting nor a democratic committee that recognized one's expertise and professional experience to put one in a leadership position either.  In fact, there wasn't really anything democratic about the mission.

Also, I should say that since leaving the Vienna mission I have had professional memberships (i.e., in the fields of teaching English to speakers of other languages, adult education, library science) and various involvements in them, so I have an idea of what this author is talking about, and it did not exist in the Vienna mission.

The author goes on to describe how when professional organizations grow large (e.g., CPA firm) or are embedded within a larger organization (e.g., a research & development department in a factory) they can develop hierarchic structural elements.  However, I do not think that size or embeddedness were the issues in the case of the Vienna mission.  Rather, it was more an issue of the environment (and their attitude about the environment) and certain influential stakeholders that influenced the mission to not be a professional structure.  The mission was of moderate size as far as organizations as a whole go, although it was of large size compared to its piers, Eastern European missions.  Maybe it would have had some hierarchy based on size, but not as much as it did in fact have, if it weren't for 1) the stakeholders it selected to listen to; 2) it's attitude toward Scripture; and 3) it's attitude toward the target country and politics, all of which contributed towards its security beliefs, which argued for a tightly run ship to avoid security leaks and gaffs.  The tightly run ship goal, fits better with a hierarchical structure than with professional structure.

***

Sorry to interrupt this discussion (I'll get back to it in a moment).  I had a very long day today.  I started to write this this morning and couldn't finish it before I had to leave for doctors' appointments.

On my way out first thing this morning I registered with my oxymeter my heart rate going up as high as 188, but fluctuating, but it was early and doctor's offices mostly weren't open yet.  I spent the next few hours (between appointments trying to get ahold of doctors to deal with the migrain medication issue because the last change was to increase one that had cardiac side affects and I was trying to get a doctor to step up and say that that was unacceptable and then to figure out some other way to manage the migraines.  So my late morning appointment was for a spinal epidural - and that doctor is a pain specialist, an anesthesiologist.  So he agreed with me and stepped up to the plate and he decided to try one more increase of the medicine I was using before, and if that didn't work then we'd go the botox route.

Then I ran some errands after that and finally found a garlic press to replace the one that was stolen - it had to be the plumber/electrician because he was the only one around when I had all my kitchen things out.  It makes me mad that I've had to spend money to replace things that were stolen.  Of course, if I'd had homeowner's insurance these things might have been replaced, but I was wanting to wait till things settled and I could get more into a routine and budget.

I was wiped out when I got home and after having a late lunch I took a nap, but managed to get my letter to the condo association hand delivered to the condo office.  I decided to do it that way because it seemed that things were moving fast enough that the time factor was important, versus sending it through U.S. postal service with a signature receipt request.  So now we'll see what happens there, regarding the problem with my downstairs neighbor.

Back to the text...

***

This next section of the text is set apart as "Exhibit 15-12 Characteristics of Professional or Knowledge-based Systems."

"1. A large number of jobs are classified as professions...
 3. Learning how to do the job is based essentially on professional training.
4. On-the-job training is intended primarily for professional development....
6. Important day-to-day communicatioins are always with professionals and clients.
7. Individual efforts are devoted to professional goals.
8. The benefits of work go to work or to professional colleagues.
9. Relationships with clients are bassed on professional knowledge and trust.
10. Career development is oriented toward professional development.
11. Primary loyalty is to the profession.
12. Leaders are selected on the basis of professional competence.
13. The professional job is central to one's life and part of one's identity.
14. Professional knowlege is more important than any other type.
15. Status is based on professional and occupational competence." (p. 544)

 There's a lot here, so this could take a while.

1) True. Clearly, most of the positions in the Vienna mission were held by theologians, people with Th.M. degrees or higher, who would be considered "professionals".

3) True.  I'm understanding this statement as meaning learning to become qualified to do the job, learning prior to working with an organization.  In the case of the Vienna mission, the professionals would have primarily prepared professionally (i.e., in seminary) for the job they did with the mission.

4) False.  There was no professional development on-the-job training as far as I was ever aware.  The only on the job learning was related to socialization and initial learning how the mission did things.  It wasn't like they ever had a bibliology (or soteriology or....) seminar by some reknowned expert come to lead an in-service course or the like.

6) True.  I think this was largely true as they'd be teaching the students and hashing things out amongst themselves or coordinating various aspects of the work.

7) False.  I gave this a false because the mission wanted it's workers to be pretty focused on the work and not going off on some personal flight of fancy of where they might be wanting their next career move to be.  So once you were a professional with the mission I think for most of them it would be difficult to break out of that mold.  The one caveat, however, would be furlough.  If something could be worked out between the missionary's interest and the mission's needs then the mission might conceivably give its blessing on workers to use furlough time to advance their professional interests.

However, within the mission there were only so many opportunities, be they horizontal or vertical moves.  So if a missionary was interested in career advancement in the usual career way (i.e., moving up the tenure ladder, etc.) there may or may not have been support for such an interest, and, if you remember from earlier discussions, the mission was greatly interested in attitudes, so it would be difficult to hide aspirations for too long, I think, from them.  If it found out you were looking elsewhere your trust factor, which was so all-important on the security end of things, might have taken a hit. 

So it wasn't like in your usual seminary or university which might encourage professional development and pursuits on a much wider scope.  The mission only had a very narrow interest in the professionalism of its workers, and to step out of that might have been a bit of a risk.

8) Half true.  The benefits of work did go to clients, but not to colleagues in the sense I think it is meant here.  I think of benefit to colleagues happening when one contributes to a professional association (serving on a committee, running for office, etc.), contributes to the professional knowledge by publishing in journals or presenting at conferences, and carrying out original research in the field, for example.  I wasn't aware of any professional involement of this sort by any of the theologians nor any encouragement by the leadership for such involvement, so I can't say that it existed.


9) True.  I think this is true, although I hesitated a bit in answering this way.  I think this was true, although there was more to the relationship than the typical seminary professor-student relationship.  They would also have had to trust the instructors to not put their safety at risk, since they were working in clandestine situations.  And there also often grew to be more friendship-type relationships between them.  These things might be more common for the missionary context than the seminary context, however.

10) ?.  I am assuming this means career development within the mission.  If so, then the fact that there were only limited career options with the mission (there are probably more now).  However, I think that if a professional (i.e., theologian) wanted to think in terms of career development with the mission, that professional development probably would not be the way to go.  Professional development, in most cases, would most likely mean getting a doctorate and when I was with the mission I never sensed that a doctorate was particularly needed to teach the courses, although one new instructor came while I was there who did have a doctorate.  But I'm not sure where getting a doctorate would take someone in the organization, other than just feeling more equipped for what s/he was already doing and maybe becoming more eligible for a leadership position with the doctorate under his/her belt.  For most professionals, however, there didn't seem to be a great need for "career development" beyond what they already had and there certainly wasn't a push for it.

11) False.  The mission didn't like primary allegiance to anything other than itself because of the trust issue, for one.  I never heard of anyone while I was there interested in or concerned about professional loyalty.  I think if any of them had professional memberships it probably was mainly to get the professional journals to keep abreast of current literature and issues; in other worse, to be a recipient of professional information rather than be a contributing member to the profession.

12) False.  The director of the mission would have fit this description, although I'm not sure how he was selected.  But the assistant director (my boss) and the North American director most decidedly did not fit this description.  The North American director didn't have a theology dectree at all (although his office wasn't staffed by theologians either) and I don't think my boss did either, if I remember right (I think he "just" went to Bible school and had an undergraduate degree).  So these men were selected for other reasons, such as their ability to lead and manage, and similar considerations.  I'm surmising here, though, as to why they were selected.  I know my boss was being groomed for his position, which he now holds (director of the whole organization).


13) ? I think for the largest chunk of the theologians on staff their theologian identity was not primary, but rather their missionary identity was.  So, basically, it seemed that their theological training was just a stepping stone on the way to being a missionary, although their role in the mission was as theologian-instructor, theologian-textbook writer or theologian-administrator, for example.  So they acted out their training, but their identity was more as a missionary, which, I think, the mission wanted in order to be the central authority over what went on and make sure everyone was towing the "party" line.

I might say that the professional job is central to their life (if not so much to their identity) if you consider that the "job" uprooted them, put them on a different continent, and controled much of their life.  But a good part of that equation was not, strictly speaking so much theologian-related aspects of what they did as mission-related aspects (apart from the strictly theologian-related).  So the job was theologian-related, but I think it was all the other stuff and the mission itself that made them more mission-centric rather than profession-centric in their identity.  Besides, it was the mission that they had contact with all the time and they'd more or less forsaken their professional bonds, so the mission became their new professional family.

14) False.  I put false here because, as I found out the hard way, even if you had a lot of very good professional knowledge, if didn't meet the mission's security requirements, pass their socialization test (assuming it was possible for me to have done so, if not I'm a bad example), professional knowledge wasn't going to do you a whole lot of good.  So first and foremost was the need to agree to their terms of service, which could be pretty costly if you disagreed with them with any conviction on any of these nonnegotiable terms of service.  So I think that professional knowledge is only important AFTER, you've past these other trust and socialization tests.  And if thereafter you regressed, I suspect you might find your professional knowledge somehow lacking once more.

15) False.  Status was based on hierarchical position within the formal organization and also onces standing within the informal organization, through such things as level of trust achieved within the organization, whose wife one was, etc.  I don't think professional knowledge made a hill of beans difference in status.  The only way professional kowledge might have made a difference would have been indirectly if it was one of the considerations in the granting of one's position.  Otherwise, things like education were, I think, downplayed in many interrelationships, giving a sense of equality and "we're all in this together" collective mindset.  This mindset served to keep communication channels open at one level and make the leadership more approachable, but in actuality I think equality was pretty much a mirage or at best only a surface reality.  One didn't need to dig very deep to find inequalities and disparities of various sorts in action.

***

I think I've pretty much knocked the air out of the likelihood that the mission was a professional or knowledge-based system, although, once again, there were certain traits it did share with this organizational form.  Still, I don't think it's enough to warrant categorizing it in this way.  In the end, I suspect we'll find the mission was a hybrid of some sort, so we may come back to these earlier systems as a recap and attempt to determine if some combination of systems might work.  It seems to me, though, that one system would probably have to be sort of base, but we'll see.

That's it for now though, and I need to get a few other things done this evening.  This really does take a lot of time.

***

 Addendum, next day:
Another possible explanation, or part of the explanation, for the level of professional non-participation is that the theologians on staff knew that by deciding to work for the mission they would be giving up this kind of thing, and so the theologians on staff were those who were okay with that upfront.  I have trouble with that, because I think that that would have been discouraged similarly to how my outside contacts were, but also like myself, they weren't aware of this ahead of time.  In this case, they couldn't have intentionally deselected themselves on the basis of mission discouragement of external professional involvement because they wouldn't have known about it prior to their arrival in Vienna.

However, whether or not they knew about the mission's general discouragement of professional involvement (although there could have been certain exceptions on a case by case basis), they might have realized that in any event being a missionary, simply by virture of it's location would mean they wouldn't have access to the pastoral professional community involvement as back home.  And they would certainly be opting out of the kind of professional involvement inherent in the standard university or seminary setting, with its publish or perish value.  So whether or not the new missionary-theologians knew the attitude of the mission regarding professional involvement, they would have already made certain concessions in their thinking on their own before arriving in Vienna.

The problem would have been if any of these professionals arrived in Vienna thinking they could still keep up certain professional involvement while with the mission.  The problem would have dependent on the individual and the details of the situation and their desire for professional involvement.  For example, it is conceivable in my mind that if someone had come on staff already serving as revewer for a professional journal this might not have been too much of a problem, unless the new missionary persisted in placing professional values above mission norms.  In this case the mission might have tried to even end this kind of involvement,  (I'm saying this because it tried to interfere with my external contacts when it perceived that these were interfering with my being fully integrated into the mission, so I'm assuming that this was a typical reaction to outside involvement that proved troublesome in this way.)

320. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 44 (Miner, pt. 2)

Jumping right into discussion of the text, we're picking up with a look at "hierarchic systems."

"Hierarchic systems control behavior by means of rewards and punishments transmitted down the hierarchy... Hierarchic structures develop when the organization becomes so large that written, formal communication is reuired because direct, face-to-face communication will no longer do." (p. 543)

I've already discussed the nature of rewards and punishments in the mission.  However, I'm not sure I can say that the main means of behavior control was via rewards and punishments.  Rather, I think those were more last resorts, in my thinking and understanding of the mission.  I think that the internalization of the mission's values and norms would have been the primary means of behavior control and they just had to make sure these were internalized.

This is not to say that there weren't rewards and punishments, because I have shown how these were used on me.  The reason for their use on me was another issue, however, and I think that at different times in the process there were probably different reasons.  However, these were rewards and punishments for things that weren't written in policy manuals, so it was left to me to find a way to figure out why I was experiencing the things I was experiencing, or put another way, why I seemed to be punished (or rewarded, which was rarer in my case than being punished).  Let's just say that if they were my parents and they were raising me, they used very bad parenting skills according to most standards.  If I were a child I'd think they were just being very arbitrary and they'd have me scared spitless and the stat's Child and Family Services would probably determine that I was being abused and get me out of there.  But I wasn't a child and they werern't my parents and I had made a decision as an adult to join them, and although I made that decision with less than complete or accurate information, I did stay on even after I realized things weren't as I expected.

So if bureaucracy controls behavior primarily by management and hierarchy does so by rewards and punishments, neither of these models is a good fit for the Vienna mission on this count.

As to the reference in this portion of the text to the size of the organization, there is a bit of relevance there, but that's not really a great fit either.   For a mission working in Eastern Europe (when it was under Communism), it was a large mission, especially to have so many people in one place, working out of one building.  These kinds of missions preferred to remain small at least partly because of security reasons and they might have several small locations, but not one large one like the joint mission I was working at.  But it wasn't large as a coporation is large.

Actually, I think that face-to-face communication was preferred by the mission for the most part, but the issue would have been so many people in the mission traveling for the ministry, so they might not be there for staff meetings and other in-person communiques.  So they would have to be kept informed somehow also.  The other issue was the office inthe USA and keeping them abreast of things, but they'd only receive information they needed for their part of the work and also information that might be acceptable for public dissemination, such as newsletters with stories with recent human interest stories happening in the ministry or the like.  These kinds of things workers could take and use in their prayer letters.

In my mind, the bulk of the every day communications happened more in the informal organization, in impromptu small or one-on-one meetings to discuss a particular issue, or even in the hallways sometimes.

***

"Key concepts in large hierarchic structures are:


Formalization: The amount of written documentation related to procedures, job descriptions, regulations, and policies
Specialization: The degree to which organizational tasks are subdivided so as to yield division of labor
Standardization: The extent to which similar work activities are clearly described and performed in the same manner
Decentralization: The process of moving decision-making aurhotity down the hierarchy - in contrast to centralization, where decisions are made at the top." (p. 543)

When put this way it becomes very clear that the Vienna mission was not a hierarchy, at least not in the classic organizational typology sense.  My experience of the mission was that it did not meet the formalization criteria as there was precious little written, as far as I was aware.  So if there was a great amount of this kind of written documentation, 1) I wasn't privvy to it, and 2) it evidently mustn't have concerned me and/or applied to me.  The latter point opens a whole new can of worms: if there was such a plethora of documentation, some of which might have applied to me (such as a grievance policy), why wasn't I privvy to the documentation relevant to me?  But this is all hypothetical, because I do not know that there was a lot of this kind of documentation.  However, if sometime down the road it should become known that there was such documentation, then these questions (and others like them) would be pertinent.

The mission was definitely divided into specialized functions.  This is not that unusual in office settings, although in a lot of Christian missions there might not  necessarily be that much specialization.  However, the great uniter was the plethora of theologians, so many of them could work in other positions.  For example, an instructor on the German team maybe could teach in Poland, especially with the use of a translator, which was standard fare anyway.  There were other reasons, then, besides task uniqueness that separated many positions and some groups from others.  One was security, as there was a desire to limit how many people had detailed knowledge of what, so that the East German team might all have a detailed working knowledge of all the issues involved in their work, but they would be the only ones to have that detailed knowledge, outside of upper management, which might share some of it.  Everyone was on a need to know basis, so that you were only supposed to know what you needed to know to perform your job and what was common knowledge for everyone, of course.

The other issue involved in specialization at the mission, I think, was the desire for continuity, especially with external contacts to the mission.  The most obvious example would be for the instructors and their relationships with the groups of students.  The country teams had to develop trust with these groups, especially the leader(s), and then with each trip make or adjust plans for future lessons, delivery of textbooks, etc.  Since the relational aspect of this part of the ministry was so important, it resulted in specialization so that there would be some continuity of contact with the students.  This  could be true in other external relations too, such as where the mission got the ring binding done for printings, and having the same person or just one or two persons have that contact to limit that external contact as well; this harkens back to the security for specialization, but it's an example of external contact continuity, rather than keeping people on a 'need-to-know' basis.

As to standardization as a criteria for hierarchic systems, there were some things that were standardized, such as in the textbook publishing and student group  information management processes, or the usual accounting processes, but outside of those exceptions I think the mission was more people-centric than standardization-centric.   That could be a good thing, or a bad thing, but it meant you had to relate to it, in my mind, as a person rather than as a set of discrete and explicit values, standards and policies.  To be that way and also a total institution was not easy to deal with.

Finally, regarding decentralization, there was a certain amount of this, limited to one's mission-approved sphere of influence.  In this world, women were granted the role of social planning and initiation, but there was a hiearchy there, too, and you had to know where you stood in that hierarchy as to what you could and couldn't do.  I never had any problems regarding entertaining at home or elsewhere (e.g., picnic in the Wienerwald - Viennese Forest).  Also, taking ownership of one's job was encouraged, as far as my experience was, although some things would have to be run by one's superior's, probably like in any job.  And when out on the field or otherwise out of the office, one was expected to use one's best judgment in problem solving as issues came up, be it a too-curious member at church in Vienna or a last minute change in venue of a student group in Romania.  Since these were considered work-related issues, that might be considered a type of decentralization, where everyone had to be prepared to deal with issues they might realistically experience and have to respond to on their own (or maybe in tandem with another colleague with them at the moment).

This being said, I never felt much of the decentralization, which, I think, hearkens back to where I was in the socialization process.  So for me personally, it felt like everything was controlled by the administration - the top leadership.  However, I was supposed to work with the assistant director, and even in the USA office worked for that director a whole, so my work was generally close in proximity to mission leadership.  But although I felt like there was very little decentralization in my experience with the mission, I wouldn't try to generalize that to the whole mission because what I witnessed there indicates otherwise.  So, in other words, my experience (via a vis decentralization) was different from what seemed to be going on around me at the time.  I hadn't thought of this before, but this might also have contributed to my brokenness upon leaving the mission, my feeling like I really couldn't do anything - since next to nothing was decentralized to me, that would be how I would feel - like being spoon fed like a baby the whole time (or much of the time) I was with the mission.  In contrast, I was constantly made to feel like the mission did not trust me, by the way I was shuffled around, by the mixed signals I got at times, etc.  Of course, it doesn't help that I had such bottom of the totem pole positions, where perhaps no decentralization might have expected to have occur.  However, if my mentor, the director's secretary, is any clue, there could have been some decentralization to me.

319. Organizatinoal Behavior, Pt. 43 (Miner, pt. 1)

Yesterday my legs got much worse (spinal stenosis-related), so I'm glad I have the epidural scheduled for this week.  I've been feeling more stuffed up the last few days too and it's making me tired this morning.  The allergy doctor says this and the chest congestion has been going on too long to be a common cold and he has me using Nasonex, but I don't think it's helping much.   I see that doctor this week and have a couple more tests with him too.

My intention is to make it to church this morning, but I really don't feel up to it.  So we'll see.  I'm doing the stimulator now.

***

This next portion of text is a relatively short one:

Miner, J. B. (1988). Organizational Behavior: Performance and Productivity. New York, NY: Random House.

I'm just using two main sections from chapter 15, "Organizational Structure and Design."

***

The first Major chapter section I'm going to use is "Limited-Domain Approaches." It sounds to me like these approaches to management are more-or-less static ways of limiting the "domain" of managers/management.  The first sub-section presents a model or theory or limited-domain approaches, "Milner's Four Domain Types."   I"m just going to pick out the aspects of each type that I think might be worth commenting on.

"Hierarchic or Bureaucratic Systems....
1. A continuous rule-bound conduct of business...
3. An organization of positions that follows the principle of hierarchy, so that each lower position is under the control and supervision of a higher one
4. A system of rules regulating the managerial positions, which may be technical rules or norms
6. An understanding that managers do not have any long-standing rights to ownership of their positions
7. A practics of formulating and recording in writing managerial acts, decisions, and rules." (p. 541-542)

As to #1, I think that the mission was only rule-bound when it had to be for external purposes, such as legal or financial recordkeeping, reporting to the mission board, etc.  Otherwise, I think it was rather "weasel-y" and could slip out of rules that existed fairly easily because of it's deception-based security system.  I experienced this even in minor areas, such as the documented (written) right to take German lessons upon arrival in Austria, but being disallowed this right on the illogical basis that there was too much work for me to do (when I was spending my time at work - at their request - reading computer manuals).

Number 3 does conceivably describe the Vienna mission as I knew and experienced it.  Power was most decidedly a top-down affair and everyone was accountable to someone higher up in the chain.  The rank-and-file would be responsible to department heads, and department heads to upper management, generally speaking. 

When you include "norms" in number 4, then it does seem that maybe this could apply to the mission as I knew it.  The norms would include the unwritten security (and other) norms that would guide management as to how to act under certain circumstances, and if those are included under the rubric of "norms" than number 4 might fit the mission.

Regarding #6, I know from my own experience with the mission where I came to the understanding that everyone is expendable (generalizing from myself and the treatment I receive to others - that was how I was thinking, since I thought I had so much to offer by way of specific East European ministry skills and knowledge).  I can't be 100% certain that this is true of everyone, let alone of management personnel, however. 

The big issue in my case is whether I was "uniquely" expendable because of my dad.  If that's so, then I really can't speak at all towards the issue of whether or not managers had "any long-standing rights to ownership of their positions."

The other issue in that discussion is that managers should have come a long way in the trust & socialization process so they should have been deeply ingrained in the organization.  So, first of all, I think it would have been difficult for them to go astray in the first place (because the mission would know them very well and they would be well surrounded by mission personnel and leadership) and also they would have so well internalized the mission's values and norms and more of them than other staff, so that these two things would together make it very difficult for the manager to do something on their own apart from mission dictates.

As to whether the mission might let the missionary go for some other reason (such as, for the textbook writing manager, completion of the writing of the textbooks), this was possible, but not likely on a whim.  Most likely it would be well-known in advance, such as the textbook writing example above, or possibly due to external environment changes that might require organizational change, such as with the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe (which happened after I left, so I can't speak to, although I'm certain it must have affected the mission's operations).    Speaking hypothetically, but quite plausibly, after the break-up of Eastern Europe, the mission might have decided to wind down the East German segment of their work because people would then be able to study in the old West Germany.  So the East German team, including the team leader, might have been facing a change.  If the team leader wanted to continue working in East Germany he'd have to leave the mission to do so.

However, I think this #6 point is speaking not to the dismantling of the position but to the person having long-standing rights to their position as it is.  That is, I think it's speaking more to the expendability of the individual - that someone else could always be found to fill their shoes and the show would go on without them.  For the reasons given above, I think this is highly unlikely, but if a manager did manage to do something egregious, I suppose this statement would prove to be true.  I think that there was enough cross training and people filling in for others during mission trips and furloughs that someone from within the department or the mission could in many cases be found to fill the shoes of their old boss.  If that wasn't the case, at least the mission was used to running without any given staff due to ministry travel requirements, so it could function for a time while it looked for someone to replace the manager gone bad.  Another factor would be that the mission leadership and board members (not to mention some key funders) were well connected in Evangelical circles and if anyone could find a new manager they could, although there could be a steep learning curve to learn the ropes of the mission.

As to #7, I think this was only done in certain cases where it was deemed necessary for a specific reason, often external or for the board, or perhaps to protect themselves.  Otherwise, I think that this was done only very minimally so.  I did work as a secretary (part of the time!) for the assistant director and also the North American director (covering for his secretary on maternity leave), I had some access to these kinds of things, although, since I was never fully integrated into these positions, I can't speak for great certainty.   But in any case, I think I can safely say that they came nowhere close to the kind of documentation that you'd find in a bureaucracy.  As far as this is concerned I mainly remember keeping minutes of management meetings, and they did the same for board meetings.  But I think that's about the only thing along these lines I can remember management doing.

***

 Here's another take on bureaucratic systems:

"Stated somewhat differently, a bureaucracy is a set of jurisdictions operated according to rules... There are certain rights that go with a position, and these rights serve to protect a person against arbitrary actions on the part of a superior.  The climate is both rational and impersonal." (p. 542)

I think that on one level one could say that the Vienna mission probably (or at least might have) operated "according to rules," but those rules were ones not written down in policy manuals (although they did have at least one of those, which they only adhered to as it pleased them, as I experienced first hand).  There may have been some rules elsewhere that I wasn't aware of, but otherwise, I believe that the mission operated more on normative rules, although I've written elsewhere about how the mission seemed to me to have a "legal nihilist" view towards policies and rules, so my opinion any rules that existed (written or otherwise) were only adhered to as long as certain other necessary criteria were met (such as the ever-present concern that security wouldn't be compromised by following the rule).

Or, perhaps it's better to say that in the hierarchy of rules security (for example) was tops and that it was understood that everything else was contingent upon it.  If this were true, then, the policy manual I was given was only relevant in as much as security wasn't an issue, but I couldn't know when security was an issue because I was new, so I had to trust their judgment.  However, no one ever said that the policy manual rules were only actually valid if security weren't an issue, so it would have been left to me to deduce that.  And how was I to know that attending German classes upon arrival in Vienna would be a security risk anyway?  And if it was generally always a security risk, then why did they even have it in the policy manual?  Presumably it would have been a security risk because the new person didn't know how to behave his-/herself outside the mission yet and wasn't yet satisfactorily socialized into the organization.  However, the policy explicitly said it applied to newly arrived missionaries, and the studies allowee were one month for each year of pledged service, so that in my case I should have been granted 2 months.  In any case, I never knew anyone to utilize that rule and study German when they arrived in Vienna, so I wasn't singled out on that account, although I do not know whether anyone else requested it upon learning of the right.

The position this quote refers to is that of a manager post.  So managers have rights in bureaucratic systems.  I can't really speak for management positions specifically, but what I know of the mission as it was when I was there makes me doubt very strongly that managers in the mission had rights that protected them "against arbitrary actions on the part of a superior."  It's not as if they had a grievance system in place or a union with an ombudsman to represent you in difficult situations.  I think that that's the kind of thing the text is referring to.  Think of, for example, teachers in some public schools that get tenure after so many years and whether or not they continue to be good teachers their tenure protects them (to a large extent) from termination.   If a department head went sour, even after being with the mission 15, 20 years, say, s/he wouldn't have had that kind of protection with the mission.  Chances are, if the mission hadn't been able to work with the missionary to correct the situation before it affected the ministry detrimentally, they would either transfer the missionary to another position or ask the missionary to resign.

As far as arbitrariness of superiors vis a vis the manager, I know of a situation in one of the key member missions, which I have already described in this blog, where for some puzzling (to me) reason the mission rather suddenly realized that it was short of funds and within a week's time or so laid off something like a third of its home office staff (in the USA), and it had a reasonably large staff, as they not only oversaw missionary work, managed financies and h.r. functions, but also did some of the short wave radio work and Christian publishing (mainly for the USSR distribution).  To compensate for the lost staff, which were on salary from the mission budget, it took missionaries from the field, who were on faith support, and brought them home to work in the office.  Some of these missionaries had been there, mostly South America, for 20 years or even more, and some of them were really devastated by the move.  Now that's arbitrary, and they had absolutely no rights against "arbitrary actions" on the part of the mission. This is one of the reasons I didn't want to go with that mission, but they were one of the founding missions of the work in Vienna I was part of, and were very influential in East European ministry.

***

Here are some "Characteristics of Hierarchic or Bureaucratic Systems." (I'm skipping a few to highlight the most informative ones.)

"1. Work rules and regulations are established by management.
3. Organizational changes are carried out by management
6. Freedom of action is limited by organizational guidelines.
7. Organizational leaders are appointed by management.
8. Punishments are established by management.
13. Risk of failure is assumed by management.
15. Meetings are called and conducted by management." (p. 542)

1) Rules, etc., such as they were, were all established by management, although sometimes I think that some informal discussions with others might have led up to the establishment of rules, norms, etc.  The Vienna management was always (as far as I know and remember) quick to give credit where credit was do, so that if someone else came up with an idea they would point that out publicly as appropriate.  However, everything did have to go through management and it would have been a major crime against the culture to do anything that smacked of bypassing the leadership.  However, the place of rules, etc., in the organization should be understood as per the above discussion.

3) When I was with the mission there was talk of change - of growth to new countries, etc. - but I wasn't sure if they were being honest or not because I experienced enough from the mission to distrust them.  It turns out they probably did make many of the changes they were discussion, but the fall of Communism would have changed their plans for change too.  Plans for change in the mission did come from the top, from the top leadership and the board, which consissted of representatives from the member missions.  I don't think anyone lower down would have suggested change of any import.

6) "Organizational guidelines" would have to be understood as norms in the Vienna mission setting, but I think that freedom of action was also somewhat individual.  I think I had very little freedom of action, which I attribute to my not being trusted.  However, I should also explain that statement too.  On one hand it could look like I did have a significant amount of freedom of action because I did do a fair amount apart from the mission.  However, my doing so drove a wedge between me and the mission, so I wasn't really practicing freedom of action.  At first I faced a lot of extra work stressors, which I think was aggravated - if not caused - by my extracurricular activities.  Then I felt more social pressure and work demotion.  Finally, I think they sort of let me go and my doing things outside the mission ended out being like a first step of separation from the mission.   (The social isolation and then the physical departure from Vienna would have been the second and third steps of my separation from them.)

7)  It's not as if there was anything particularly democratic about the mission, and the appointment of leadership was indeed top down.  In fact, I'm sure that all the mission representatives on the board had to agree to each appointment, even if it was an internal move.  I don't know this for certain, but I'm pretty sure that's how it would have been.

8) Since knowledge was segmented and the higher up you went in the mission the more knowledge you had, and so many of the aspects of the functioning of the mission were unwritten, it was really only the management that would know enough to be able to discipline someone.  In my case, this is how it might have gone:

I think that the director of H.R., and mission director, assistant director and North American director probably knew about my dad.  The H.R. assistant might have also known, but I don't remember interactions with him that might confirm that.  The H.R. director and assistant were both U.S. military chaplains, although I'm not sure which armed force they were with (i.e., army, navy, etc.).  Since my dad had a military clearance and some kind of military intelligence responsibilities, the chaplains might been in a position to have been told about my dad.

No one else would have known about this aspect of my situation.  So the leadership, if they didn't want to make my dad an issue in my relationship with the mission, would have had to rig other things that would make me leave because of my own doing, apart from my dad, assuming they thought having me there was a security risk.

The other thing is that even if that weren't an issue, few would have known about the history with my having offered to take a course to learn the software they used before coming to Vienna.  So then my being made to sit and read software manuals for weeks on end wouldn't have had that context.  Same with the issue about the roommates where I had asked to not have a roommate and then I got a call from Alaska when I was on deputation in Colorado from another to-be secretary saying we were going to be roommates.  These aren't discipline, but if I respond in ways displeasing to the mission leadership, others wouldn't understand this anyway.  And the mission leadership might have had certain plans for me that others wouldn't have known (and I didn't even know!).  So discipline had to come from leadership and everyone else just learned to trust the leadership.  I don't know what everyone thought at my departure about what had happened during my stay, but everyone towed the "party-line" so to speak and stood with management in isolating me.  Whether or not they knew what horrible sin of commission (or ommission) I had committed is another matter.  Or maybe the mission leadership framed my departure in a light that suited their purposes, and they had a monopoly on framing things, so it's not like there was going to be a competing frame floating around somewhere in the organization.

13)  This one didn't really apply, I don't think.  The thing is that the biggest risk was really for the in-country Christian students (remember, these were in Communist countries).  After that was the risk to the missionary (-ies), mission and member missions.  A few missionaries lived in the countries and they were at a certain amount of risk there, but the missionaries travelling and teaching were also at risk and they needed to b e able to continue to travel and teach to continue the ministry, so they didn't want to botch that up.  Sometimes missionaries could get blacklisted from a country, like the USSR, when they became suspicious in the eyes of the local authorities.  The member missions could also be at risk and that was huge because it involved a major part of all the Evangelical missions working in that part of the world.  So in this case, the bureaucratic model definitely does not fit.

15)  As far as I can remember meetings were always called and led by management, and although portions of meetings might be turned over to others, the leadership was always in charge and clearly so, maybe in a benevolent father sort of way, jovial, but firm and wise.  There was a protocol as to who would lead meetings if the top leadership was gone (on a ministry trip, on furlough, etc.).  First was the director, then the assistant director (whose secretary I was supposed to be, and then thirdly the country coordinator (who managed all the country-focused teams).  I can't remember who came after that.

***

Looking back at all this discussion it seems that there are some aspects of bureacracy that more or less fit the Vienna mission, but I have a hard time considering it really bureaucratic.  The rules - systemic and concrete - just weren't a major enough part of the organization and I think that the informal organization was too strong there.  So I'll look at another system approach next time.

318. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 42 (Luthans, pt. 5)

It feels good to have a day with no appointments! 

I didn't realize last night that most of the rest of the Luthans text is irrelevant to this discussion.  I'd just like to end the discussion on the Luthans text with this one quote from the "Summary:"

"Organizational culture is a pattern of basic assumptions that are taught to new personnel as the correct way to perceive, think, and act on a day-to-day basis." (p. 68)

In the case of the Vienna mission, which was a total institution, these things were expected of the missionary pretty much 24/7 for the 2 year duration (or however long) the missionary was with the mission.  (The usual long-term assignment was 2 years, but one could keep extending that for longer.)  When the missionary left the mission office, their interactions with their neighbors, at church, with their kids' teachers, etc. were all supposed to reflect the mission's culture, because ingrained in that culture were security protocols and the like.

This is why it felt like brainwashing to me.  Really, perceiving, thinking and acting, if applied to one's whole life is a major overhaul, if you ask me.  So then I figure I should retain the right to hold any of these proposed changes in my make-up to Scripture to see if they are appropriate changes or not for a Christian.  (Of course, some would say you can prove anything with Scripture and if I'd said these things point blank to the mission leadership - assuming they didn't deny the existence of their socialization efforts - they very well might have found some way or the other, however obtuse, to support the cultural end-results they (apparently) wanted in me.)   Retaining this right puts Scripture above the mission authority, which is, I believe, how it should be.  To deny that right is to put the human mission leadership above Scripture, and they couldn't stomach anything being above them.

That is, as long as you agree with them it's okay to put Scripture above them, because they're not being challenged anyway.  But as soon as you disagree with them then it's not okay to put Scripture above their authority.  What good is that, though?  The point is you just can't disagree with them, even if there is a Scriptural justification for doing so.  Anyone at the mission who might disagree with them is made to reconcile that issue during the socialization process, so that the new recruit decides that (whatever the particular issue of concern is for that individual) the issue can be seen in a different light, the issue is not so important after all, the mission leadership has good reason for taking the position it does, etc., etc.  In other words, the person must somehow come to peace with the issue that initially s/he though conflicted with Scripture, because the mission wasn't going to let the person proceed in his/her socialization process knowing that there was a significant issue in which it's authority was being questioned and another authority stood in its place, because that was not acceptable to the mission.  (I should say though that I'm talking about the more significant theological issues that are more difficult to just gloss over.  Some issues might have different perspectives and might be more easily reconciled.  But individuals might place different values on different issues, also.)

Part of the problem with me too, was that the mission had trouble getting me to open up and so they probably never felt like they really knew me and they undoubtedly didn't like that.  That's part of why the initial testing was set up, I think, to get me (as with at least some others) to break down and sort of spill my guts to them.  But I never did that.  So they never got that reaction from me, but I did my work that they gave me as well as I could without complaining, even though some of the things I experienced with them were very stressfull.

So the thing is, how can you know that a new worker perceives, thinks and acts correctly?  "Acts" is pretty straight forward, so I won't address that one.  But the other two are mental constructs and cannot be known directly by observation, so the organization would have to find some way to deduce them, to indirectly conclude that the individual has satisfactorily met the thinking and perceiving criteria.

In the Vienna mission context, they would have wanted to know that the new worker met these criteria all the time 24/7 - not just while at the office or even not just while in the presence of other mision workers.  They might not even trust that you would act appropriately outside the office if you didn't have thinking and perception down.

So then it becomes a challenge to find out if the perceptions and thinking have evolved appropriately.  I think that this is one aspect of the mentor's responsibility (formal or otherwise).  The mentor if s/he is clicking well with the new recruit should be able to get to know him or her and be in a good position to determine at least much of these intangible cultural objectives.  In my case, since I didn't feel like my secretary colleagues were a good match for me it would have been hard for them to do this.  And since no one there seemed to have my background it would have been difficult for them to have found any one person who could have played that role with me.

But since I soon learned not to trust the mission, anyway, there wasn't much chance I might be eager to open up with someone there anyway.  So they would have had a bit of a difficult time determining whether I'd met the perceiving and thinking criteria to fit their organizational culture.  In the end, probably the main thing they had to go on was actions.  The problem with trying to ascertain thinking and perception based on actions alone (or even mostly on actions) is that you have to be pretty certain that you are attributing the correct thinking and perceptions to the actions being displayed.  In my case, I think they didn't get everything right on that score, even towards the end of my time with them.  That is, they still didn't really understand what I was thinking when I did what I did.   That's my opinion of them and how I left them.  And I have a feeling that if they'd understood me better I wouldn't have gotten a friendly post card some 6 months after I left the mission from the director and assistant director.

***

I didn't expect that I'd write so much about that one short text, but hopefully it helped eke out some more information about my time with the Vienna mission.  That's the end of this text.

317. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 41 (Luthans, pt. 4)

I finally got the Homestead Exemption taken care of.  I'm not sure how many states have this, but here where I live the place you live (if you own it) is eligible for a property tax break.  If you own other properties you'd pay full tax on those properties, but not on the one you live in.  You only need to apply for the Homestead Exemption for a particular property once, but the deadline every year for that year is March 1.

One of the things that had to be done prior to applying for the exemption, however, is changing your voter's registration address, which I hadn't done and only found out about that when I sat down to seriously prepare for the application, so I didn't get my voter's registration change of address change (with the necessary documentation included) mailed out until Feb. 13.  Needless to say I was on pins and needles waiting to get the new voter's registration card and when it didn't come and didn't come, I finally called a couple days ago.  I learned that they had received my application and eventually I could get the information online (but not right away).

So today I had my mammogram, drove to where I have my physical therapy, hopped on the train to the county office building and thankfully didn't have to wait long and even had time for lunch.  Then I took the train back and had physical therapy.

After physical therapy the freeway was a horrible mess.  I finally made it home and what should I find on my door but a notice that evidently had been place on everyone's door in the buidling about noise after 11:00.  That was almost enough to send me into a fibromyalgia flare, and I've already told you about the fiasco with the people downstairs, and  I just can't imagine what other people had been complaining.  Personally, I haven't noticed any noise at all, as this is a very quite complex.  Well, I went with my knee jerk reaction and called the condo office and left a voicemail message (it was 5:30 - after hours) telling them about the last incident with my neighbor downstairs regarding their calling when I was emptying the dishwasher.  I also cited the police case number  date and time too so that they could check on it if they want and understand that I am serious about not putting up with this B.S.

I guess I'd better look into legal assistance, but when?  I spend all my time at doctor's offices!  I hardly have time to keep up with the regular stuff I have to do, and I'm dealing with the mess with the interior decorator and contractors too!  Not to mention my family.  Which brings me to my next subject...

***

My family is a mess.  I'm really coming to the realization that my brother in the Northwest (where I'm from) might be the worst of the lot. I don't know though, that's just my latest theory in trying to sort things out.

I'm pretty sure that that brother came to sort of resent me through the years, although he wouldn't admit it like that.  I was the oldest and he ended out sort of having to follow in my shadow in school and then when I went off overseas and all then he probably ended out hearing about everything I did.

When he was in his 20s he was the last one to move out of mom and dad's house.  It was like he didn't have the self esteem to step out on his own.  So he's mostly sort of followed others, it seems, even though there is enough he could do on his own.  He always took the safe route, which isn't always bad, it's just that in his case the reason is that he didn't have the self esteem to do anything else.  (He did doe some oversees ministry, after having visited me in Russia - I feel like he used me in that trip, as most of his trips serve a purpose, it seems.  He never just goes on vacation and he would never just visit me - unless to "help" me, and thereby set himself up as the "parent" and me the "child" in transactional analysis terms.) Now he's sort of stuck where he is, so there's not much he can do I suppose.

The other thing is that my brothers both just sort of idolized our dad and they just sort of formed a band of guys in a way that mom and I were left out of.  And not just because we were female, but also because we were weaker, mom because of her emotional issues in particular, and me because they didn't understand my decisions regarding work and school so they labeled me according to what they thought fit me.  After dad died, my two brothers continued the male bond in juxtaposition to mom and I, because it was still the strong against the weak, in their minds.

Now that both parents are gone, however, my brothers don't seem to be so content playing the two alpha males against the weak female, or maybe they're just taking a different tack, I don't know.  But the thing is that I've pulled away from them, rather than them pulling away from me.  So that's not maybe how they like it either, but it's what I want.  

I think it's pretty disgusting to have this strong/weak relationship like that, especially for a family that claims to be Christian, because that is quite the antithesis of Christianity, and if anything, special attention should be given to the weak rather than taking an adversarial position or taking advantage of the differences.  And if mom was treated like that and I was lumped together with her, I don't see any reason to change now.  I haven't changed, so whatever reason I was being treated that way I guess still exists, right?

Anyway, I do want to get to the text... And I can't believe that notice on my door this evening... I need more problems like I need a hold in the head.

***

This next primary section is "Creating and Maintaing a Culture."

"Some organizational cultures may be the direct, or at least indirect, result of actions taken by the founders." (p. 53)

The Vienna mission was one such organizational culture.  I've said this in various ways on this blog already.  The culture (and also the informal organization) was a key component of the mission's security efforts, which were a very high priority.

***

"At other times a culture must be changed because the environment changes and the previous core cultural values are not in step with those needed for survival." (p. 55)

The main reason I include this quote is that just a few short years after I was with the mission the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe met their demise and the mission at that point probably underwent some changes and it appears that it has grown considerably since then, so the remarks I make about the mission only apply to the time I was with it.  If anything I say fits later situations that is coincidental because I don't know what happened after I left.  I will say, as I have before, however, that I suspect that their basic pragmatism and deceitfulness  is probably the same and they may still be friendly with government entities too (like military chaplians), although I don't know that.

***

I'm skipping a lot because there are a lot of corporate case studies and examples and some things aren't relevant anyway.  The sub-section we'll turn to now is "Maintaining Cultures through Steps of Socialization."

"Selection of Entry-Level Personnel.  The first step is the careful selection of entry-level candidates.  Using standardized procedures and seeking specific traits that tie to effective performance, trained recruiters interview candidates and attempt to screen out those whose personal styles and values do not make a 'fit' with the organization's culture." (p. 58-59)

The issue in my case was that the interviewers were like 3 steps away from the actual position.  This is what I mean:  I was interviewed by the North American office of my sending mission... who relayed the information to the International office of my sending mission... who relayed the information to the Easter European office of my sending mission... who relayed the information to the Vienna mission.  Each step along the way I had to be accepted, etc.

So, somewhere along the way the message got garbled... maybe. But that really doesn't completely make sense either, because most everyone at the Vienna mission got there through a process more or less like the one how I got there and no one else had so many problems (as far as I knew).  So did it get garbled?  Hmmmm... I doubt it.

I do think, however, that they maybe didn't really believe that I meant it when I said things like 1) I don't want a roommate, 2) I want to work with Austrians on my free time, etc.

You see, unlike them, I really was of the conviction that my "yeah" should be "yeah" and my "nay" should be "nay" and I wasn't joking around or something when I stated those intentions and I thought that everything was clear and settled on those accounts.

I think they needed to find someone a little more "pragmatic" than me.   In fact, if they still hold to that same philosophy, they might want to consider giving a test to potential recruits to determine whether they agree that the ends justifies the means or whether they can say "We're an international book publisher" without making a lie detector go off.

***

 "Placement on the Job.  The second step offucrs on the job itself, after the person with a fit is hired.  New personnel are subjected to a carefully orchestrated series of different experiences whose purpose is to cause them to question the organization's norms and values and to decide whether or not  they can accept them.  For example, many organizations with strong cultures make it a point to give newly hired personnel more work than they can handle.  Sometimes these assignments are beneath the individual's abilities.  At Procter & Gamble, for example, new personnel may be required to color in a sales territory map.  The experience is designed to convey the message, "While you're smart in some ways, you're in kindergarten as far as what you know about this organization."  The objective is also to teach the new entrant into the culture the importance of humility.  These experiences are designed to make newly hired personnel vulnerable and to cause them to move closer emotionally to their colleagues, thus intensivying group cohesiveness." (p. 59-60)

I clearly experienced the color in the sales territory map type work.  In fact, I would say a good 90% of my work with the mission was like that for me, which is part of why I left the mission so broken after all I'd done to prepare for that work.  I never really made it past this stage.  It was like, "Okay, you're here, but don't count on getting anywhere with us."  And I didn't.

The thing was, though, that I never complained, so I never broke.  I think I was supposed to break, as in break down in tear about how I wanted to be useful and sob, sob, ...  But I didn't.  I've written about this elsewhere too, that I just didn't complain and took everything in stride and word of watched and tried to figure out what was going on.

As far as the group cohesiveness is concerned, I've also said a lot about that, as the secretaries weren't a very good identity group for me.  I was friendly with them, but I didn't really feel like I could relate to them completely since I wasn't really a professional secretary and I never attended to be a career secretary.

***"

"Job Mastery.  Once the initial 'cultural shock' is over, the next step is mastery of one's job.  This is typically done via extensive and carefully reinforced field experience...." (p. 60)

I clearly didn't get to this stage.  I was supposed to be the secretary to the assistant director, but most of the time I wasn't in that position at all even.    Also, I'd just like to point out the use of the term "culture shock" in reference to organizations, this conflicts with what the Vienna mission human resources director diagnosed me with (culture shock vis a vis living in Austria).  I won't go into details here, but I was doing just fine in Vienna, including going to an Austrian church and getting around on my own, etc.  My problems were with the mission.

***

"Measuring and Rewarding Performance."  The next step of the socialization process consists of meticulous attention to measuring operational results and to rewarding individual performance... Anyone who commits a crime against the culture... is sent to the 'penalty box.' This typically involves a lateral move to a less desirous location.  For example, a branch manager in Chicago might be given a nebulous staff position at headquarters.  This individual is no off-track, which can slow his or her career progress." (p. 60)

Despite the fact that I never made it to job mastery, I managed to make it to the penalty box.  So my career went something like this (at least in part):


1) faulty selection process =>
2) unsuccessful transition to placement on the job [skip over job mastery] =>
3) crime committed against the culture via unsuccessful transition to placement on the job resulting in 'penalty box' assignments

So here the culture is king, in that it appears, based on my experience alone, that you couldn't have your job unless you mastered the culture.

***

"Adherence to Important Values. The next step involves careful adherence to the firm's important values.  Identification with these values helps employees reconcile personal sacrifices brought about by their membership in the organization.  They learn to accept these values and to trust the organization not to do anything that would hurt them.  As Pascale observes, 'Placing one's self 'at the mercy' of an organization imposes real costs..."... However, the organization attempts to overcome these costs by connecting the sacrifices to higher values such as serving society with better products and/or services." (p. 60-61)

Wow!  This is good and something new, too.  First of all, the mission would expect a certain amount of this early on in the socialization, but the new missionary would continue to for some time learning these things and the mission would be watching and helping to make sure s/he progressed well.

Another thing is that in the mission the sacrifices were greater than in your typical job because you'd left your homeland and your life mostly revolved around the mission, but the missionary would have known of the usual costs that missions entail.  Issues like ones that messed me up, involving philosophy in respect to ministry in "closed countries", etc. may or may not have bothered others at first, or maybe there were different issues others dealt with.  But if you're going to be traveling clandestinely into a country that is hostile to your work, you would want to trust your organization "not to do anything that would hurt" you.

Now let's get to the juicy stuff.  First of all, I'm thinking of this text in contrast to how I think the church is supposed to operate, and the mission was an extension of the church.  What is this accepting their values and trusting they won't hurt you?!  Would your pastor hurt you?  I don't think so!  How about the elders?  Evangelists?  Anyone in the church?  Why should it take some extra step of accepting their values and trusting them in order to know they won't hurt me? 

Well, and just in case you have a problem with these values that you need to accept in order to trust that they won't hurt you, it might be more persuasive to know that the mission is serving society...  How pragmatic can you get?  That is, the ends (serving society) justifies any possible values issues that might bother you.  And you want to be a part of this watershed project, don't you?  Of course, you do!  ... That's the mission cajoling the new recruit on to accept their values.

Furthermore, there may be costs to becoming a missionary and working with a mission, but "adhering to their important values" should not be among them.  Let me explain myself here.  If the mission has any important values that need adhering to, they should be Christocentric and true to the Bible.  If this is the case then it hardly seems that adherance to their values would be a cost to the new missionary.  That's not to say there wouldn't be some adjustments to make, but I don't think that in the values realm missions' appropriate expectations should be seen as costs; rather, these should be seen as opportunitis for spiritual growth.  (Although, that being said, some things in the Bible aren't cut and dry and sometimes there is room for divergent interpretations, so the missionary might come with one credible understanding and the mission another, and hopefully these would be in minor issues ans the larger doctrinal issues should already have been hashed out.

But in the case of the Vienna mission, I think their core values, the ones I had problems with, were categorically not biblical (and not a "gray area").  In this case, for me to have conceded would indeed have been a cost, and one I felt I couldn't afford, despite my desire for the same ends as the mission, I couldn't go along with the means, or at least significant parts of it.

The other thing is that when the mission sent me home in the 5th month I was in Vienna, it was at that point that I knew beyond a shadow of a dobut that they could hurt me.  I was shocked when it happened and after that I didn't know how far they'd go or what they could do, but at that point there was nothing anyone could do that would have convinced me that the mission might not (although not again not necessarily in the same way) hurt me.   So at that point it was doutbtless pretty futile to think of anything potentially good coming of my relationship with the mission.  But I didn't want to believe it.  I kept hoping something would change.

***

I'm skipping the paragraph on "Reinforcing the Stories and Folklore" because they're nothing new or helpful there.  Our last one is...

"Recognition and Promotion. The final step is the recognition and promotion of individuals who have done their jobs well and who can serve as role models to new people in the organization... Role models in strong-culture firms are regarded as the most powerful ongoing training program of all." (p. 61)

This and mentoring were the main ways I was socialized with the mission.  But I would also like to draw your attention to the way the role model status falls in the sequence of things and that's pretty much what I've been saying about the mentors too.  So once a person has reached a certain level of acceptedness with the group they might be potential mentors/role models, and seeing someone in that role is an indication that the person has reached that level, too.  (The mission was large enough that everyone didn't know exactly how everyone else was doing, so signs like this would be helpful.)

***

That's it for today.  I'm tired... It's been a long day and a little stressful too.  Goodnight.