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.

300. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 26 (Gray & Starke, pt. 5)

I'm almost ready for church, but one thing I want to write before I forget is that the "Stateside" (U.S.) offices/branches/representatives of the mission and member missions did have bona fide standard formal organizations.  So it was just the Vienna office (and the "in-country" - i.e., East European - resident missionaries) that didn't have what you'd expect in a normal formal organization.  However, that being said, if a mission specialized in "closed countries" chances are even their "home offices" had some of this going on, but not to the level found in Vienna.  That is because they would have to have at least a certain amount of transparency for government tax purposed (I.R.S.) and they couldn't get away in the USA with the measures they used in Vienna even if they wanted to maintain strict security there too; social mores wouldn't accept it and it would raise too many eyebrows in society at large (if word got out) if not in the Christian community.

***

Okay, I'm writing this now after church (the preceding was written before church).  Unfortunately, I lost my sermon notes, but I asked pastor for his notes.  But in the meantime I think I can remember at least a primary issue regarding tentmaking, and then I'll revisit it when he sends me his notes.

I've written about tentmaking before and there's a keyword for it, so you can pull up the previous discussions on it.

The main text today was Jeremiah 29:4-14.  The the primary take-away from that text is that we are supposed to pray for and work for the success of the land we are strangers/pilgrims in, although we are to live according to the values of our heavenly citizenship and not the values of our earthly residence.

I could say this better if I had my notes in front of me, but the issue just hit me as he was saying all this that tentmakers - what modern missions call tentmakers, I mean - generally would not be living according to this principle.  That is they would not be praying for and working for the success of the land they go to work in.  Not hardly!  Rather, they are more likely to pray for the demise of the country or regime or country.  So this is another issue I could add to my tentmaking article.

For the reader who is not aware of this, "tentmaking" in the last 100 years or so has come to mean someone who uses a profession to get into a country that otherwise won't let religious workers in.  So these missionary-tentmakers use deception in hiding their missionary intentions even when they might have an intricate and even sizable mission agency backing them, even if only very surruptitiously.  So it can be quite an underworld of these missionaries and more or less invisable organizations - at least they're invisible within the country, or have some other persona in the country.  In this kind of a setup they're more or less an antithesis to the government, something contrary to the government, even illegal.  How hidden this all might be would depend on the country, of course, but the very fact that it exists like this at all really irks me as being not a biblical way of doing things at all.

I spoke with pastor about this after the service and at least he did seem in agreement about the tentmaking application of his sermon, although he was thinking more in terms of local outreach.  If I were healthier it would be easier to be more involved in ministry, but then I'd be working too.  Maybe we'll figure out some way I can do something reasonably within my limitations.  My faith in Christianity is gaining a glimmer of hope through this church.  So often I've felt like I'm just a oddball or a voice in the wilderness where all these churches are wilderness to me.  I don't think pastor thinks that way though.  He's not disillusioned like I am.  I'd really like to meet Jacques Ellul though.  I should read more of him, I think.

***

The next sub-heading in our text under the main heading "CONCEPTS OF THE INFORMAL ORGANIZATION" is "Communication Systems." 

I have become convinced that communication is super critical and the first job where I'm living now is a fantastic example of that.  When I was brought here for an interview (I'm a librarian) and during a group interview with the entire cataloging department I directed a question to the department head about her approach to departmental communications.  She said she didn't really have one that it wasn't really that important and she just made sure everyone knew what they needed to.  Whoa!! Red lights went off big time in my head and when I got back home I mulled that one over big time.  No communication system?  C'mon! You can't be serious!  Well, let's see what this text has to say about that, before I go on and on about my job here... basically I think that informal communication leaves the door open for more manipulation and formal communication, and that's exactly how she operated.  When she did call meetings it was ad hoc and unpredictable.

***

"We have previously described the informal communication system known as the grapevine.  It is important to view this system within the context of power and status systems, as the three together constitute the major social processes that are characteristic of informal organizations.


The general principles of informal communication systems closely parallel the concepts discussed in power and status systems.  In other words, interpersonal communication tends to follow established status hierarchies, and communication content is influenced by power relationships." (p. 443)

I decided to break this section up because it would be too much to discuss at once.  So, just to reiterate what is stated in the text, the grapevine, power and status systems are what comprise the informal organization.

Status:  how the group values the individual, based on such things as demographics, skills, knowledge, congeniality, or whatever the group values (or disdains, for a lower status)

Power: the ability of a person to influence others in the group; there are different kinds of power

Grapevine: status affects flow, but power relationships affect content of communication.

So going back to Vienna, when I first arrived there I was (as I've said before) overwhelmed by the welcome I received, so I felt valued, but I don't think I let it get to my head, especially since there soon came to be glaring inconsistencies in my treatment.  Since I wasn't given any work to do, and only computer manuals to read, I felt my skills were underappreciated and that this was intentional (even then I thought it was intentional because I'd offered to take a computer class and the North American office of my sending mission had passed my offer on to Vienna, who had responded that it wasn't necessary, that I could learn on the job.)  So I felt of moderate status as the secretary of the vice president, but of very low status based on the work itself.

Regarding power, I had no idea I'd come to Vienna being so powerless because in other circles I was reasonably accepted as competent and versed in work in Eastern Europe so now to come there as a career missionary and be in a position where I felt like I had almost no power was difficult.  The main area I might have had some power was socially by initiating social events, but as far as anything in the office I felt powerless almost the whole time and certainly in the beginning, although in the beginning I was trying to watch and figure things out too.

So now on to the grapevine.  Where would I have fit in the grapevine?  The thing is that in Vienna the grapevine had another aspect to it and that was the issue of trust.  If you weren't a trusted member, (i.e., one of the initiated) than you probably weren't even part of the grapevine, or maybe just part of it for certain inconsequential or non-security issues.  But I also think that the grapevine could be used there for disinformation and misinformation as needed, and that would have to come from management, I'm sure and probably just travel down carefully guarded communication paths.  I think I was a victim of this kind of thing at the end of my time in Vienna though.  But than are we dealing with the formal or informal organization if it comes from management?

I think the status thing, now that I think of it, was part of what really killed me emotionally.  It was like they never really cared that I got a B.A. in European Studies with a minor in Russian, did a short-term ministry with Russian emigres in the States one summer, spent 2 years in Bible School, did a short-term ministry in Eastern Europe one summer, volunteered at a research center, studied German in West Berlin and did some things in Eastern Europe, visited a ministry team in Hamburg, etc.  They didn't care that I was serious about this work and ministry and they really didn't give a rip about it or about me.  I was a big 0 on their status rung and it didn't feel like there was anything I could do to change that.

But then if you go home people probably think that, oh well, she's a woman anyway and she'll just get married and settle down and forget this all happened and everything will be okay.

Didn't they understand that this was my life?  I gave everything for this and this is what I wanted to do and that's why after I returned home a year later I turned around home and I went back to school and I was able to go back to Russia (still the USSR then ) without any mission to tell me I'm a big 0.

So what happened then?  I met with politics.  Thanks, dad.  Star wars trumps missions any day, doesn't it, now?  My dad was a program planner & "controller" at Boeing.

That's my life in a nutshell.  Let's continue.

***

"Although power and status systems are first established through communication as the social system evolves, once the system is in operation, communication tends to be the result of status differences rather than the cause of them.  Subordinates, for example, communicate differently to managers than to peers, both because the manager is in a position to exercise authority and power and because the manager has higher status than the subordinate. " (p. 443-444)

I think that since I was never firmly established in a position in the mission they probably had to do a fair amount of the "establishing." Exceptions, however, to this would be when I was temporarily filling in for someone or in the position before I left the mission, in which cases they wouldn't really have needed to establish me per say although maybe what they would have done would have been something like pseudo-establishing or something.

Another thing is that I'm generally not very intimidated by authorities and if I really want to I'll come up and talk to someone even if they might otherwise be thought of as having great authority.  I mean, really, look at what I'm doing with this blog - I'm taking on some pretty great minds - so I can't be too timid, right?  (Although, that doesn't mean I might not be in person.)

Here are examples of my not being timid.

One time when I was living in northern Indiana a few years back I attended a church and I believe in the separation of church and state because I think it corrupts the church and biases the state to that it doesn't serve everyone equally as it should (that's a nutshell version of why I believe this).  So I sit down in the pew and open the bulletin and what should I see but an insert from the state version of the Moral Majority.  Other than that I liked the church, so after the service when everyone shakes the pastor's hands as they leave I asked him about this and we ended out having a bit of a talk about it and I think I maybe got him thinking more about it in ways he hadn't before.  It sounded like he just used the flyers because everyone else did too kind of thing.

Also, in Russia one time I was curious about the central office of the Znanie, the adult education organization.  I had finished my adult education master's degree while living in Russia and had attended and given a presentation in Moscow at a conference, so I wanted to see the headquarters.  When I got there I was actually invited to meet the director and had a chance to sit and chat with him about adult education in Russia.

Similarly, when I was living in Seoul, South Korea about 10 years ago now I was trying to find an adult education program there - that is where they trained professionals.  In my search I met some very interesting people.  I joined ASPBAE and had to have a local current member vouch for me so I met a director of a women's shelter, but her membership had lapsed, so then I met a woman who had created these literacy programs for women all over the country.  And so much more... I even went to the Seoul National University of Education, their top education school and spoke with some leadership there and got some leads.  Very fascinating, let me tell you.

So I'm just telling you that I'm not timid and I don't care whether you're President Obama or someone living on the street.  But, of course, if a communication system doesn't operate like that then I could be asking for trouble.

Ostensibly, communication was very open in the Vienna mission, the administration had open doors, etc.  But there was a limit to that and there were certain things what were communicated to certain people, and undoubtedly along certain channels.  Since I was never really an insider, however, I can't really say much, about how that operated.  Whenever I learned anything of substance I think it mainly came from my boss' boss' secretary, who I believe was supposed to be my mentor.  And I'm not talking just about work-related information but stuff like how it's hard for my boss's wife to be home all day and it would be nice if I became friends with her and things like that.   That could have come from my boss (maybe worded a little differently) or another secretary or even my boss' wife herself (say by taking the initiative to get to know me), but it didn't.  And I think that how it happened was generally the way things were planned and it was a test too as to how I would react, what I would do, etc.  My boss didn't give me that much new to do, other than letters to write or maybe preparing for something new he had coming up, so mostly it was him telling me he didn't know what to do with a secretary and his boss' boss' secretary telling me everything.  So that was the main communication channel, via the secretary, and communication with my boss was some work and some bonding (described elsewhere).

So although the social system was fully evolved (although it was constantly changing) when I arrived, I never really assimilated into it, so communication had to serve the purpose to assimilate me.

In addition, I'm not very status conscious and not liking some of the things I saw in Vienna I wasn't going to let myself be fully assimilated, although I did try to respect the aspects of status that I could reasonably respect.  But the fact that I made an independent determination about some aspects of the mission meant that I rejected aspects of their authority which would have been intolerable to them, I think.  However, I'm not sure they knew I was thinking like this, questioning their authority (in as much as I felt like they were asking for comprehensive trust that only God deserves).  If I had told them some of the things I've written in this blog (and that I was thinking at that time) I would have been sent home as soon as they found out about it or as soon as they could arrange a viable cause - insanity, most likely.  That's why I stayed quiet, since I didn't want to go through again what I went through some 5 months after I arrived in Vienna.

***

This is all for now and I think it's a lot.  We have about 10 pages left of this chapter.  My computer is jumping around a lot.  I think it's because of some tab(s) open, but I'm not sure which.  sometimes when I type it skips the typing and I try to catch it, so hopefully I've caught them all.

299. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 25 (Gray & Starke, pt. 4)

It's the pits having all these maladies, but some are worse than others and different ones are worse or better at different times too.  At least I got my concerns about my blood tests assuaged, but the hematologist did see enough credance in my concerns that she ordered the abnormal tests repeated in a few weeks.  So basically, nothing too serious, but worth keeping an eye on.

Meanwhile, my legs are most definitely not doing well and my combined with my head (headache) I'm not doing that great.  I sort of hobble around, but I have to rest a lot and am hampered in how much I can get done in a day.  It helps, though, that I have things to do that are seated, like write in this blog, because then I feel more productive.

As we speak split pea soup is cooking in the slow cooker for after church tomorrow (it's "souper bowl Sunday" at many churches in the USA where people stay after church and share meals of soup and also bring in cans and dried food for food pantries for the needy).

The grocery store had bone-in ham on sale so I had to cut up the ham too to get the right amount of meat and ham for the soup and then do something with the rest of the ham.  Some of it I'll freeze, but I haven't done so yet, but the rest of it I decided to use in a sort of savory steamed custard dish I found in an old Frugal Gourmet cookbook I have.  The recipe is for single servings and I made the first one tonight.  It's very nice and light, sort of Asian with the green onions and sesame oil in it.  So that's what I'll be having for dinner for the next week.

Back to the text...

***

This next sub-heading under the main heading "CONCEPTS OF THE INFORMAL ORGANIZATION" is "Influence Systems."

"In the comparison of informal and formal organization discussed earlier, it was mentioned that, whereas the formal organization describes formal rights and authority relationships, in the informal organization no formal authority exists.  Instead, individuals exert influence upon one another." (p. 440)

In general, that is in most organizations, I'm sure this is true, but I've already described how in the Vienna mission the formal rights and authority relationships were not consistently upheld, at least not in my case, and as such this is a false statement as pertains to the Vienna mission.  That is, the formal "rights" and "authority relationships" of the formal organization were not consistently upheld, and as such the very existence of these "rights" and the nature of these "authority relationships" should be brought into question.  I've discussed this too much elsewhere to go into great detail on it here, other than to just note that these issues existed.

It might be worth considering whether individuals exerted inflluence upon one another in all spheres - raising the question then of where and what role the formal organization did play if the informal organization was so all-pervasive.


***

"In other words, while the formal organization is concerned with the right to influence behavior, the informal organization involves the ability to influence behavior.  The distinction suggests that the holder of a formal position may not necessarily be able to influence others and also that individuals without authority may have influence." (p. 440)

Now if what I said in an earlier post is true that the mission leadership seemed to be the ones who created the informal organization, than this quote is not all that meaningful.  That is, the formal organization would have the right AND the ability to influence behavior because the formal organization leadership created the informal organization and they were part of the informal organization too and so whether they themselves directly or they had someone else indirectly the influencing, they were still in charge and had the ability to influence via the informal organization one way or the other (directly or indirectly).  So, for example, if they wanted to influence me but as a formal organization they were unable to, they might choose to try to indirectly influence me and it might be hard for me to pinpoint what was going on even if this was going on.

However, there may be a bit of truth in this quote as far as Vienna mission is concerned.  That is, the mission director, although at first he worked reasonably closely with me, being as he was my boss' boss, was somewhat limited in how he personally could influence me because there were certain social rules governing behavior that limited his ability to influence me. Even my boss and his family had some limitation, because it wasn't as if they were going to hobnob with me all the time.  So it was more likely that the singles and/or the secretaries were going to be the ones to influence me in any significant way.  Also, they needed to get to know me and they didn't really know me and there wasn't really anyone there to get to know me, who could be my peer, but these were the kinds of people who would be most likely to influence me.

So on one hand the mission leadership had both the ability and the right to influence, but in specific instances they might not necessarily have the the ability, or maybe not all leaders could influence just anyone.  Or perhaps they couldn't influence in all spheres.

The thing with me was that I wasn't yet an insider and I think that one a person was an insider then the leadership could influence virtually anyone.  I'm not sure if I might have been influenced by them, but not not based on the kind of logic they wanted, which was, if I understand correctly, blind trust.

***

"Influence as a Social Process.  To possess influence means to be able to determine or affect the behavior of others.  In contrast to authority, which is vested in the position an individual occupies, influence arises out of the social contract that exists between individuals." (p. 440)

Influence in this sense was very strong in the mission because of the strong bond that developed through the need to trust your colleagues, especially  on ministry trips in Eastern Europe (this was before the fall of the Iron Curtain, remember).  In this case members grew to trust each other and could influence each other as needed but those with more experience, knowledge, seniority, etc. would be deferred to more, especially when decisions needed to be made and in similar situations.  Usually this did follow the formal organizational plan, but the relations were generally as friend to friend, more akin to an informal organization.

Also, I think the mission leadership probably knew about this and worked to increase their influence over the workers.  They tried to be accessible, they pitched in and helped with everyday things and expressed interest in what everyone was doing, and things like that.  I think it was a genuine interest, but they also used it and similar techniques to increase their level of influence.  But they also wanted, I think, to make sure that security was tight, and they wanted to make sure that everyone was happy and that things were going well too.   These were all security-type concerns, but they probably also just wanted to make sure they were on top of things to be leading well.  But security was a big deal, so that would have been a major reason for this kind of activity on their part.

***

"Power and Influence Systems.  Influence in the informal organization is called power (as distinguished from authority). The exercise of power involves the exerting of influence over others without the formal right of authority.


... To understand how power operates in organizations, it is necessary to understand the potential sources of power.  What is it that allows one person to influence another, even though no formal right to do so exists?


1. Reward power exists when person A has the ability to control the rewards that person B receives...


2. Punishment power is the opposite of reward power in that person A can exert influence over person B if A has the ability to determine punishments for B...


3. Referent power exists when person B is influenced by person A because B admires A and wishes to be like A.  This form of power tends to be very effective since it involves a psychological commitment on B's part...


4. Expert power exists when person B is influenced by person A because A possesses some special or expert knowledge that B needs...


5. Legitimate power exists when person B believes that person A has the 'right' to influence him and that, because of shared norms and values, B  feels an obligation to accept this influence." (p. 440-441)

It's questionable whether there was not right to exert influential power in the Vienna mission since the informal organization was apparently put in place by the formal organization, so the formal organization could grant the right to its own brain child to exert whatsoever influential power it wanted.  Very convenient, if you ask me.  Sort of like playing God.

Be that as it may, when we go through these 5 types of power we should keep in mind that we're not talking about your average informal organization here, but an informal organization that has the blessing of the administration and is most likely at least in part a great puppet of the administration.

With this in mind, then, what kind of reward power would an individual have had in the Vienna mission?  Examples might have included, friendship, recognition, belongingness, etc.  But it should be noted that these could be perceived by the recipient as rewards, yet meant as tests or information gathering assignments (to try to figure you out).  In this case you might think this is an informal organization relationship, and the administration wants you to think it is, but it's not strictly speaking an unplanned, innocent example of reward power.

Punishment power.  Now if you have a party and "neglect" to invite the party gossip and the next thing you know you're being ostracized by everyone, you may be a victim of this punishment power.

However, at the end of my time in Vienna virtually everyone was ignoring me and I wasn't invited to anything and... well, I won't go into the details now.  There wasn't a single individual or even a few people that I can pinpoint that I maybe offended that might have led to my being treated like that, like the office gossip stated above, so I assume it was from the administration - from the formal organization.  So the formal organization was issuing an edict that was something usually along the lines of what wen in an informal organization - the ostracizing.   In fact, the authors give "ostracism from the group" as an example of "punishment power" in that paragraph.  See what I mean about the formal organization in the Vienna mission and the informal organization?  The formal organization wasn't more than a shell, really.  Maybe like a spy front organization.

3. Referent power.  I think the mission leadership might have wanted me to have this kind of relationship with the secretaries, especially perhaps my boss' boss' secretary.  I've already written about that at length elsewhere.  I think she was a very good secretary - much better than I was for sure, but I wasn't a professional secretary, either.  But career-wise we didn't mesh and there probably wasn't really anyone there who could have had the kind of referent power with me that they seemed to want, if I understood things correctly, which I'm not at all sure I did.

4. Expert power.  There were certainly a lot of experts in Vienna, but the thing was that I had some expertise too and I had enough that I could stand on my own 2 feet and come to my own conclusions about some things and not just take someone else's word for it - such as what it was like in Eastern Europe, for example, and what ministry there required, and what some of the theological and biblical issues were.  I felt I was disrespected and I felt there were too many things that went against my values and beliefs, based just on what I could see and piece together.  I'm sure they never expected to have someone, especially someone without a Th.M. come and stand up to them, but then they never knew the depth of my disagreements with them either, because I was scared to verbalize my thoughts.

5. Legitimate power.  I think it's possible that I am the only one that has ever been a part of the mission that has ever doubted the legitimacy of their power.  It took a long time to come to that conclusion because I didn't want to admit to it,  but in the end when I couldn't get away from the fact that they seemed to just want total submission and I thought only God deserved that and so based on that I think their power is illegitimate.  I'm using the present tense, because I don't expect they've changed.

***

The other thing I will say in closing about this topic tonight is that at a regular job in the formal organization you have a lot of rewards and punishments like raises, bonuses, reprimends, warnings, etc.  However, in the mission, as with many  Christian missions, at least nondenominational missions, you don't have those kinds of things set up.   So control mechanisms are going to take place more through the informal organizational setting anyway, except for exceptional situations.  So that part of the Vienna mission can also be explained by virtue of it being a nondenomination mission (or, more accurately, a nondenominational collective effort of some 20 missions at that time).  However, the fact that the ministry was focused on "closed countries" added a different twist to it than might have been found in some other missions working in other parts of the world.

I text presents an interesting backdrop on understanding my experiences with the Vienna mission, but it will be interesting to go back and try to bring everything together eventually fronm the various texts.  Just to refresh everyone, I'm trying to make sense of my life, because I've had some pretty traumatic events and my experiences with the Vienna mission was actually one of the worst of these. 

273. Family-Related Reprieve

I believe I've discussed the issue of power in my family, but, as you can well imagine, the death of our last parent changes the dynamics. However, I don't think the rules have really changed. I may not like what I'm going to talk about here, but it's the way things are.

Mom's power was based on her financial resources.

One thing that I've had thrown at me from time to time since I returned to the States from Russia in 1997 is the idea that I'm selfish because I only have myself to worry about. Until now my brother in Seattle had one or both of our parents to care for, and my other brother has his two boys.

The options for me, as far as how things could acceptably be different, putting me in a position of having someone else to care for are basically limited to getting married and having a husband to care for. I can't have children at this point in my life, so that possibility is out. So how would the power distribution look if I got married? A lot, of course, depends on how I might marry, but if the power issues if I were to marry were to remain as they currently are in the family I would be under my husband and the family would be run by a cabal of men. My brothers would quickly latch on to my husband to ensure that the family values and modus operandi remain as they are, which is heavily biased in favor of men's superiority of position and power. Male manliness would be in question if anything but male domination were to play out in family relations.

The power of my brother in Seattle is also, however, also affected by mom's death. Now the same accusation of having only himself to care for can also be used against him too. So he has to now secure his power footing in the family in the new configuration sans mom. He has some power in his stability and also his not having so many problems as me and our other brother. That is, he is not very vulnerable in comparison to us. My vulnerability is based on my health and also my poverty as well as the basic vulnerability that comes with being female in this family. Our other brother's vulnerability is based on his familial problems, being divorced, his having a handicapped child, and his being on his ex-wife's turf in a semi-rural area where she and her birth family have some clout. The brother in Seattle also has power in the form of close contact with other family members, since he's living where we were raised, and also the church we were raised in. Church-related clout doesn't affect the other brother because he's settled enough in his church and also friends elsewhere he went to Bible school with.

My brother in Seattle will want to secure his standing in the family by confirming his manliness. This might be acted out in strengthening male bonding with the other brother and our nephews. It could also affect his relationship with me if he tries to take a male dominant relationship with me. To a certain extent I have some power to avoid this happening, but that depends on my health too, which I don't have so much control over. So if my health deteriorates and he steps in to help me and I accept his help, the price for accepting that help will be (tacitly) agreeing to his male dominance over me, with all the nuances that includes. He could also try to shore up his local relations, with family and church, to limit his vulnerability and provide a buffer against any weakness he might have vis a vis our other brother and me.

The brother in New England, on the other hand, has lost a grandmother to his two boys. And mom did cherish her grandsons and went to great lengths to send personalized gifts, including some heirloom and written things. This was a boon to my brother as a buffer against his ex-wife's family's influence on his sons. However because of our falling out that landed me back in Florida a year ago, he will be reticent to let me fill in any gap left by mom. If he were to allow me any contact with his boys it would be highly regulated by him and I would make myself quite vulnerable to him opening myself up to the same kind of thing that I witnessed and experienced living in his apartment (above his office).

As to myself, I have to decide whether any of the male scripting is going to change in the family. If not, should I open myself up to closer ties with my brothers I am putting myself at risk for falling into the same male dominated relations that existed before mom died. My cousin (the one who agreed that my family - and hers too - operate on a survival of the fittest basis) thinks I shouldn't have signed the document my brother with the two sons had me sign before I returned here to Miami. She said she thought my nephews acted like they were abused and she was concerned that I had agreed, by signing the document, to forego contact with my nephews. However, she doesn't appreciate how vulnerable I was, living in his apartment free of charge on his turf, and being sick myself. I'm not sure I am strong enough to be able to deal with any gaff from my brother and be any help to my nephews. Instead, I may actually strengthen my brother's hold on them by opening myself up to my brother to have contact with them. My brother's position vis a vis his boys could be strengthened because of his confirmation of his manliness through his relations with me, but also serve as an excuse to further tighten his control over his boys to protect them from such mal-intentioned individuals as myself (that is, that's how he would describe me, at least in part).

So what can or should I do under such circumstances? I don't think either of my brothers are malicious, but "just" want to maintain the power-holds that they think they "should" have and maintain the public image they want to have. But the potential end result of this is, I think, not dissimilar to what it would be if they were just plain malicious. Because of my health and poverty I don't think that I can expect to have much influence on my nephews, so I think that that's pretty much a moot issue. So then it just has to do with

1. whether I agree with my brothers on how things should be and what they want out of the relationship,
2. how much I disagree with them, and
   
3. what I'm willing to accept as consequences of holding my ground on areas we might disagree on.

The problem for me is that I find it hard to stick to convictions like this, which was more or less the kind of dilemmas I faced while living in Russia regarding relations with my parents and also with the USA (i.e., whether to return her either for a visit or for good, citizenship, etc.). So I end out being or at least appearing to be fickle. As an idealist I want to stick to my beliefs and values, but it's hard when I'm also so vulnerable and the alternate is not totally bereft of virtue. However, when I've caved in in the past doing so has generally been taken to mean that I'm accrediting those I have issue with with more virtue than I think is the case or is due them. So, for example, when I returned to the USA from living in Russia in 1997 my father, I think, thought I was doing so from the standpoint of believing that the fault in whatever political problems I may have experienced lies with Russia, not the USA. This interpretation of my return to the USA, however, does not fit my thoughts on the issue. Rather, I was just returning to the USA thinking that I was at a career dead-end in Russia and my chances of having a fulfilling career would be better in the USA. This thinking on my part turned out to be very erroneous, but I only returned here very reluctantly as more or less a last resort because nothing else seemed to be working out, so I saw it as sort of a last resort and with the ruble being practically worthless I didn't want to end out isolated in Siberia with things as they were going at the time. This isn't the same as believing that the USA was absolved of all guilt in my life experiences, which I never believed. But this, I think, is more or less what dad thought I was thinking when I returned to the USA. So this is how actions like this can be misinterpreted to be more of an acquiescence than is the case in reality.

These are some of the things I and my brothers have to deal with regarding our relations with one another as also in adjusting to our new lives without mom.

263. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 11 (Zaleznik, pt. 5)

It seems I've hardly taken a break and am back already because I have to take my lunch meds, which means I take lunch.

I'm continuing from the previous discussion...

***

"The main note we should sound in concluding this consideration of equilibration theories in the understanding of interpersonal relations is that imbalances or ambiguities always exist and are of many kinds. There are cognitive imbalances (where two pieces of contradictory information are learned about the same object), affective imbalances (where two persons who like each other have different feelings toward an object relevant to their relationship), perceptual imbalances (where behavior is perceived in different ways to individuals in a close affective tie)." (p. 600; emphasis added)

Before I begin in on this, I think it is appropriate to remind the reader that these interactions with the Vienna mission took place in a context in which deception was a valued skill, and there is a great likelihood that both the mission and I ended out deceiving each other in one way or another. Thus, in this type of situation, it will be difficult to determine true imbalances with any certainty, so it would probably be prudent to consider my discussion here as coming only from my perspective and perhaps being more limited in that way that in a lot of other circumstances where deception might not have played such a major role.

From my perspective, I think that there were cognitive imbalances in that my European Studies background was somewhat unique. That is, I had professional training explicitly in that field that others didn't have. Language skill would have played a part in that, but there were others who knew German, if not Russian or French, on staff. Also, while most of the other staff had more theological background, I had enough similar background that I think I understood what I needed to considering my position in the organization. So that difference was mainly a matter of my not having the academic degree; I did have 2 years of Bible school background and was also raised in a church where Bible study was highly regarded and practiced.

The affective imbalances came to play in such areas as attitudes about communism, where I took a more cognitive approach and the mission seemed to take more of an affective one towards communism. That is, I disagreed with it in principle, but they seemed to fear it more. I think that this was also affected by my attitude towards the Bible which leaned more towards being willing to suffer for sticking with what I believed it said, whereas the mission seemed more concerned with the avoidance of suffering over strict adherence to Scripture. I think this is affective in as much as it involves valuation of Scripture and attitude towards suffering.

There seemed to be perceptual differences also between me and the mission. For example, the mission viewed my lack of total submission to them as an act of deviance, whereas I viewed it as my biblical right and even duty to be able to determine for myself if something is Scriptural or not. This kind of thinking was anathema in the mission, however, and the mission would have responded to it, if it had known I was doing it, by correcting my understanding in a way that justified their own actions. Conversely, I viewed certain of the mission's demands on me and their norms as being unbiblical (as well as unjustified under the circumstances), whereas they would undoubtedly have seem them as necessary if not also biblical, or at least permissible within Scriptural mandates.

***

"But we should also stress that equilibration as a motivational force - tending to produce behavior to secure a balanced state - does not act with equal strength on all individuals or in all interpersonal settings. Imbalances are stressful in varying degrees. Among groups of workers in which social conditioning is in the lower socio-economic classes, tolerance for ambiguity or imbalance is extremely low. Among groups whose setting resembles a closed system (primitive societies are clear examples, but there are numerous literature societies that could serve equally well), the need for balanced states is also strong. Any culture of an authoritarian kind produces individuals who have little capacity to deal with the anxiety attendant upon imbalanced states." (p. 600).

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the Vienna mission functioned as an authoritarian, closed society. Or, as I said before, as an open society that wanted very much to be a closed one. That is, as a nondenominational Christian mission, it had to have a certain amount openness to garner support back home, but its security concerns because of the communist context of its work led them to desire to be more closed. The mission was authoritarian because its mandates were virtually nonnegotiable.

However, regarding the socio-economic class factor, I think the most relevant aspect of that variable would have been education. Since most of the workers were highly educated, they should have, therefore, had higher tolerance levels for ambiguity and imbalance. I think this probably worked in the mission's favor as a security strength as the educated workers should have been able to function better in the security system (which seemed to include a lot of ambiguity - especially to the unitiated) that the mission had developed. I had perhaps even more tolerance for ambiguity than most of the others because my background included language and area studies, including experience living in Europe, so that the European part of my experience was not as ambiguous as it would have been for many of the others, allowing me to tolerate more mission-based ambiguity.

The other notable thing here is that the mission seemed to lump me rather lock-stock-and-barrel in with the other secretaries, who would have had the least education of anyone on staff. If this is so, the mission probably didn't foresee my tolerance for ambiguity being as great as it was. They probably also didn't foresee that I might have such strongly held convictions, some of which were reasonably well thought out.

As the text indicates, in cases of poor social certitude there is motivation (however strong or weak) to rectify the imbalance. The mission probably, whether consciously or otherwise, took this into account in designing its socialization methods. That is, it wanted the imbalance seeking to be unilaterally on the part of the newcomer, not on the part of the mission. It then set up situations in which it calculated that the newcomer would become adequately motivated to rectify these imbalances and become open to the mission's leading. This would be the kind of thing that might happen in an authoritarian culture, for example. In my case, however, it is not clear if the mission's intentions were to socialize me or not, and if so what the end result was that they would have been happy with, if I had gone along with them, that is.

***

This ends this section, and I think that it has been a particularly useful one for my purposes of trying to figure out what happened during my time with the Vienna mission.

173. Socialization File, Pt. 56 (Senge, pt. 1)

I'd like to say a little more about my family. Again, my family is not a bad family, really. I discuss my family here because they have been a major part of my life in various ways. What I mean by family is birth family (parents, siblings) since I'm not married and don't have children.

It's only been in recent years that I have come to believe that there's a hierarchy in the family. When you're growing up it's pretty obvious that the parents are at the top of the family hierarchy, but when you grow up there are a lot of different configurations a family could take from there, so I don't think it's as predictable what form the relationships between family members will take. I'm saying this now as just casual observation and general information picked up here and there, not from having studied this issue.

So what kind of a hierarchy might my family have? And what might the hierarchy be based on? (i.e., What makes one person higher on it that another?). I'm not sure I can answer this question in any definitive way, in reference to my family, that is. I also don't know where this hierarchy came from - how it started. You'd think that there would be more of an egalitarian relationship among adult family members - at least I would. But that's probably naive of me to be surprised that a hierarchy exists.

I think there are a variety of possible factors contributing to the formation of hierarchy in my family, such as job/work position (prestige, etc.), money, possessions, travel, having children/grand children, etc. Spelling it out like this is actually a bit shocking to me - for a family that purports to be Christian these sure are worldly determinants of rank and influence in the family.

There's another aspect of this that I've just realized very recently and that is the tendency of some family members to sort of ride the coattails of those higher up in rank. I think this can serve to help the one "riding the coattails" or following in the footsteps of the other to rise a bit in rank, but it could also decrease the rank of the one being followed, because it makes that person's achievement less special and unique.

These are things that when I realized they might be operative in the family I thought back to past interactions and they seemed to fit. I'm not sure how conscious others are, though, of partaking in this process. I wasn't aware of it for a long time, I think, because I was the oldest child and didn't have anyone to compete against, so I just followed my own calling irregardless of what the others did. I don't know that the mechanisms and reasons for competitions early on are necessarily the same as they are now, and it's possible that once this set up was in place it became more or less self-perpetuating and took on a life of its own. Maybe it's sort of like doing something that you don't know why you're doing it or how it even started.

But at any rate, I think it's a big part of our family relations now and it's been affecting me more in the past few years, especially since I became sick in 2007 first with the thoracic stenosis and fibromyalgia, followed by supraventicular tachycardia and a cardiac ablation, then thoracic surgery, etc. up to the present. So I'm sort of in a needy position right now, but not desperately needy (since I do have a modest income at least and am not in agonizing pain, for example), which might make it difficult to think past basic physical needs. Therefore, I'm low on the totem pole, but in a position to observe and reflect on family relations.

I don't like this set up because I prefer more egalitarian relations, and this would also be reflected, for example in my management style. In the current context, however, having defined relationships probably helps my brothers, at least to a certain extent, manage their care-taking roles while in difficult situations apart from family relations. So in that regard it might be beneficial to have some clear boundaries regarding who does what and what to expect from different members, but I'm not sure even with that taken into account, that it needs to be as hierarchical as it is. And I don't think there's any good reason that mom and I should be in a hierarchical relationship, but we are and I think she wants it that way and probably always has wanted it that way (although she hasn't always been in a position where it affected me).

I know that mom told me once that dad was image-conscious, so it's possible that if he thought any of us kids, for example, could benefit him or the family image-wise maybe this thinking somehow got communicated in a way that led to competition for this affirmation from him. But I think mom has had a sort of female competition thing with me; at least that's how it feels to me. But, as I've discussed elsewhere, my family also has pretty traditional male-female role values, and I didn't follow the traditional female vocation (i.e., get married and have kids) which would have taken me out of the competition with my brothers. But since that didn't happen, they may have tried to compete with me at times.

I know I'm speaking in very general terms here, but maybe these things will make sense when from time to time I discuss specific situations and interactions involving my family.

***

I didn't realize last time (probably because there were so many pages left) that that was the last post on the Swann text. So we're starting another new one now:

Senge, Peter M. (1992, March/April). Mental models. Planning Review, 20(2), 4-10, 44.

Peter Senge is a well-known authority in the areas of learning organization and systems theory.

Also, I might mention that I'm using that APA (American Psychological Association) style for my notations because that's what is used mostly in the field of education (at least in the USA) and is also one of the more frequently used styles in the field of library studies, which fields account for most of my graduate education and work (other than graduate certificates in biblical studies and in teaching English to speakers of other languages).

***

"Individuals often become successful in part because of their abilities to debate forcefully and thus influence others." (p. 9)

This may be true in many contexts, but it's only very nominally true, I think, in the Vienna mission context. In order for this to be true in that context the person wanting to use this kind of skill would probably have to meet these criteria first for it to be effective (at least effective in the way intended, rather than disciplinary):

1. the person needed to be debating on a topic that was ithin the limits of what was allowed, which might be relative to the person's knowledge, power and rights in the organization or within more absolute rights (i.e., areas off-limits to virtually everyone);

2. the person needed to be debating a position that was within the limits of what was allowed, which might be relative to the person's knowledge, power and rights in the organization or within more absolute rights (i.e., areas off-limits to virtually everyone);

3. the person needed to be debating in a setting that was within the limits of what was allowed, which might be relative to the person's knowledge, power and rights in the organization or within more absolute rights (i.e., areas off-limits to virtually everyone);

4. the person needed to be debating in a manner that was within the limits of what was allowed, which might be relative to the person's knowledge, power and rights in the organization or within more absolute rights (i.e., areas off-limits to virtually everyone).

So for example, I probably would have been arguing within the realm of what was allowed for me if I gently suggested to my boss in his office that it might be better to type a specific letter in modified block style because it seemed to be what had been used in the past and what his boss' secretary used, and because it was the most versatile style, vis a vis formality.

In fact, in this situation I might well have been commended for 1) limiting my interests to that of secretarial concerns and 2) for taking initiative within that sphere. In this way I would be confirming their image of what I was supposed to be like and indicating concern regarding doing my job well, and also not, say, planning a slow-down strike or act of sabotage.

In any event, the things I was really concerned about would not have been open for debate and would probably have been responded to not unlike how they might have responded, for example, to an overly zealous East European border guard. (But my thoughts about the mission were not this clear while there, so I was going more on intuition as supported by my knowledge of things East European, for example.)

***

"As each side reasonably and calmly advocates his viewpoint just a bit more strongly, positions become more and more rigid. Advocacy without inquiry begets more advocacy. In fact, there is a systems archetype that describes what happens next. It's called 'escalation,' and it's exactly the same structure that fuels the arms race." (p. 9)

If things were only so simple... In the Vienna mission context, where disagreement outside of very narrowly specified boundaries, was disallowed, escalation took place by means of implicit action responses by the mission that could always be explained away in terms other than what it felt like. And since this sentence is so loaded, I'd better explain it and place some qualifiers on it before moving on.

1. I never explicitly disagreed with the mission in the manner used in this text. That is I never, for example, walked into my boss's office and said, "This exercise of having me read the software manuals is stupid, needless and a waste of time. Why didn't you guys let me take the software class I offered to take before coming here? And what is this not giving me any real work to do? What's going on here, anyway?" And it's just as well, as you might be able to imagine, that I didn't do that because I'm sure all the wrath of hell would have descended on me quicker than you can say "total institution." But since I never did this, I can't be 100% sure what would happen if I had.

2. Also, the part about how the mission would explain away its response in other terms might need to be fleshed out too. The only people, I'm pretty sure, who might be foolishly try to engage in unfettered debate with the mission would be those who weren't yet properly socialized into the mission. But such people also were the ones that would still be trying to understand how the mission operated, at least subconsciously if not also consciously, so as to know their place within it and how to act appropriately and what to expect from the organization in various circumstances. So if the mission responded to such an untimely attempt at debate instigation, it probably would have directly responded in a more or less friendly manner but indirectly in a more or less corrective manner. The new inductee might suspect that the indirect actions could be related to his or her attempt to engage the organization, but would probably have a tough time proving it. If this individual approached the mission directly about the suspected indirect results of his or her debate efforts the mission could pretty easily explain it away in some other terms and come out looking like a rose because the direct response was so other than the suspected indirect response. And besides, that individual was probably just experiencing culture shock and needed a rest, or some such other remedial treatment.

3. The very word "debate" as explained above in this post, needs to be understood in the context of the mission. In this setting, where debate in the normal sense of the word was all but nonexistence, "request for clarification" or "expressing trivial concerns" might be seen as "debate" while "debate", in the usual understanding of the word, would be seen as "all-out threat" or "challenging of total authority." In either case, while the nature and strength of organizational response would be quite different, both would most likely be seen as being contrary to group norms and in need of some kind of corrective response. Also, debate in the Vienna context could, I think, include more-or-less nonverbal flaunting or otherwise nonacceptance of group norms or mission directives (spoken or otherwise).

4. "Escalation" in the Vienna context could be either explicit or implicit, as described above, but the mission, of course, would have a lot more resources of various kinds at its command, putting the individual at a great disadvantage. In my experience, the mission was not only able but also willing to use some of these various resources, so it wasn't just hypothetical that they could use them; they actually did use them. So there was a certain amount of willingness to use various means at their employ in this process, although, as stated above, they would not admit to this happening - that they were intentionally doing these things in relationship to the individual's instigation (and persistence) of debate.

Here's a small example of how this escalation might have happened:

Mission: Secretaries provide a lot of opportunity for me to socialize with and learn from them.

Me: I don't limit myself sufficiently to interactions with the secretaries and don't respond properly to their (the secretaries') cues.

Mission: Begins to establish pressures on me that might be alleviated if I turned my attention more to the secretaries.

Me: I ignore the mission-induced stress as being 1) indirect and thus (I felt) manipulative; 2) contrary to my self-identity; and 3) proof that there are things going on in the mission that I didn't like nor agree with.

etc., etc.

***

"We often tape record meetings of management teams with whom we are working to develop learning skills. One indicator that a team is in trouble is when few, if any, questions emerge during the course of a several hour meeting." (p. 9)

I can't speak for what might have happened at mission leadership meetings, but my experience with the mission was that questions that might have been asked were not ones of any substance about the mission. Maybe the workers were so adept at deflecting outsiders' untoward questions that they just kept using it in their every day work; alternately, maybe these types of security concerns not only applied to outsiders of various kinds, but insiders too. The bounds of the permissible would just vary.

It would be interesting, though to see what Senge and company would find if they tape recorded a Vienna mission leadership meeting. It would be very interesting indeed.

***

"But pure inquiry is also limited. Questioning can be crucial for breaking the spiral of reinforcing advocacy, but until a team or an individual learns to combine and integrate both inquiry and advocacy skills, learning is very limited." (p. 9)

Since I'm not quoting the whole text, it might not be clear to you what Senge is advocating, so I'll give a descriptive example of how questions might break the gridlock of ever-increasing "advocacy" (adversarial?) responses.

The mission: You are a secretary. Period (i.e., You are a secretary, nor more, no less. End of story.).

Me: No I'm not.

The mission: What makes you think you are not just a secretary?

Me: Because that's not my profession, because I can do a lot more (by formal training and experience) than secretarial work, I don't see myself particularly as a secretary, and I aspire to more than being a secretary. I just see myself filling a secretarial role within the mission for now as a springboard to other roles more fitting to my training, experience and self-identity. Why do you insist on seeing me only as a secretary?

etc., etc. I think you get the picture. Of course, this didn't happen for many reasons, one of which was that we weren't interacting on a direct and explicit plane (because the mission, to a large degree, didn't operate in that manner) and two, because part of the issue was that I was supposed to understand my place in the power structure, which didn't allow for such questioning.

Senge, needless to say, would have had his hands full with remedial work at the Vienna mission, if he survived to tell about it, that is.

***

This paragraph continues...

"One reason that pure inquiry is limited is that we almost always do have a view, regardless of whether or not we believe that our view is the correct one. Thus, simply asking lots of questions can be a way of avoiding learning by hiding our own view behind a wall of incessant questioning." (p. 9)

Although this came nowhere close to being verbalized explicitly, probably both I and the mission were both guilty of "incessant questioning" (think: monkeys at the zoo ogling each other). The mission would, I think, not have wanted to state its position plainly and openly because some of these maneuverings and social engineering tactics might not have gone over well back home but also might have been useful to potential "enemies", much like how a CIA station being compromised by enemy agents learning of its structure and rules of engagement. But also, they might have not known what exactly I was questioning, since this whole process was mostly unspoken, and when it did reach the spoken realm was indirect. So they couldn't be sure what their position was vis a vis my questions because they didn't know for sure what they were. They did know, however, that I wasn't conforming appropriately or adequately and seemed to be (probably) alluding their efforts, which raised my risk potential even more.

I, on the other hand, also wasn't sure exactly what I was disagreeing with in as much as I wasn't sure what was going on. I probably had more information to go on, once I got to Vienna (but not before arriving), by virtue of me being only one person to watch and them being 60 people plus family members. But, on the other hand, there was more potential, I think for me receiving seemingly contradictory and confusing signals because of all the possible sources the signals would have been coming from and I was still in the early stages of developing a mental map, if you will, of the organization.

So, in effect, both of us, the mission and I, were probably most of the time in an "advocacy" (adversarial) and incessant questioning mode of relating to one another, where our positions and questions were all pretty much implied, rather than directly stated. This, as you might be able to imagine, left the door open for lots of misunderstanding, misinterpretation of signals and escalation.

The mission, on one hand, could see, at the very least, any indication of lack of submission or lack of internalization of group norms as being tantamount to personal insurrection and a challenge to their total authority. To see things this way it was not necessary for the mission to understand the particulars of my "advocacy" (adversarial position) and/or questioning; they could respond solely on the determination of whether or not such an adversarial position (and/or questioning) was held. In other words, the comprehension of the substance of my apparent position was not necessary to evoke a corrective response by the mission.

On my side of the relationship, the nature of their positions was important to me, but lacking such knowledge (with any certainty), I could respond to their tactics. So in some cases, I might disagree with the substance of a position (e.g., their defining me by my position alone), but often I had to revert more to responding to their actions (and my interpretation of them). This might play a role in how I take a stronger stand against their methods (modus operandi) than their ends (the mission work itself). It's possible that there could be something about their ends (objectives) I could find something disagreeable there too. But I am only aware of the plainly and openly stated objectives of the mission, which was to train church leaders in Eastern European countries.

Neither of us were willing to be direct and engage in "debate" about our positions and questions, certainly not in the way described here in this text. From my position, I was by far the weaker and most vulnerable and it would have been too risky for me to be direct, based on what I was learning about the mission. From the mission's perspective, I think it would have been impossible because that would have been inconsistent with how they operated and so it wouldn't have been acceptable. Besides, the point was, at least in part, to make me understand who was boss and who made the rules (of any consequence) around there. I might have been a little fly in the ointment, but flies weren't tolerated at all.

***

I hate to cut this off because these portions of text are so inter-related and I need to keep my train of thought, but I also have to get on with my day and I have a doctor's appointment in a while. So we'll just have to pick up on this in my next post.

148. Socialization File, Pt. 31 (Louis, pt. 2)

In saying that I was low on the totem pole at the moment in my family implied that there was a hierarchy, which indeed there is. Although it's possible that others might scoff at that statement, it's most likely that such apparent disbelief would come from that/those individual(s) currently with the most clout in the family. And it seems to me that to maintain full membership (with all the rights, responsibilities and privileges that come with that status) in the family, one needs to defer to those with the most power, who are the ones whose understandings of the family (and of the individuals that comprise it) hold sway. To disagree is to open the door to a degradation in family relations and/or in family standing (vis a vis the world outside the family), especially if such disagreements become known outside the family.

The hierarchy, as it seems to me, is based on a composite of many factors, of which I'll just name a few. These can include intelligence (but only as recognized by others), position (prestige factor), or money, to name a few. I think these standards were, in large, defined by my father, who still, it seems to me, even after death holds a sort of patron saint of the family position. This is exemplified by such thoughts or statements along the lines of: "You know that dad didn't like a lot of your cooking...", "According to dad...", etc.

In this view of the family, my impression is that the family will take advantage of positive and influential aspects (qualities, experiences, outside rewards, etc.) of an individual while trying to deflect how individual member's negative aspects (qualities, experiences, outside retributions, etc.) affect the family as a whole. This is done, at least in part, by increasing or decreasing that person's status in the family. Thus, the family, as a collective unit, would try to bolster its standing in the world by maximizing on the perceived strengths of its members while minimizing the weaknesses. It is in this way that the family demonstrates a "survival of the fittest" mentality vis a vis its members.

This whole set up is contrary to my way of thinking, at least in recent years. I pride myself that in one of my earliest classes, which was comprised of mostly middle management factory workers, in Siberia individual students on different occasions expressed amazement that I didn't favor the one higher management student in the class, but treated everyone the same. This was a novel experience for them, but exemplifies my values regarding how to treat people. That isn't to say that I expect others to necessarily treat me that way because, according to my world view and understanding of biblical teaching, I live in a fallen world. However, I can choose to opt out of the world's usual ways and act otherwise, and I do try to do that - and this is one instance that I think my actions mirror my beliefs fairly well. (Incidentally, I hope you can see how this perspective could also be a problem in my work in the Vienna mission.)

So far we have seen that the family is hierarchical and has entrenched views (frames) of me and my history, and how these tend to be contrary to my own understandings and values.

***

The next section in this article is titled "Content of Socialization."

"In order to perform adequately in a new role, an individual needs ability, motivation, and an understanding of what others expect..." (p. 231).

Seems reasonable... I think I had ability, even my secretarial skills were probably adequate, let alone other skills I brought to the table. I was definitely motivated, considering all I'd done and gone through to get there - 6 years of college and various related experiences (short-term mission work, volunteering, etc.), not to mention deputation.

But in the end I didn't understand what the mission really expected (the third need mentioned in this text) beyond the step of submission. I mean, it never was clear what I was committing to, and it didn't look like after succumbing there would be any room for independent consideration of further demands put on me, which I assumed there would be (further demands, I mean). It felt like they wanted me to submit. Stop. No questions asked. This is the way we do it around here. Take it or leave it. Period.

Maybe, if you can imagine wondering what was behind the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (by C.S. Lewis). In this analogy, it would be like the mission telling me to take the step into that other world, but not really knowing what it was like there or if you could even come back. But if you didn't take that step (which, I assume, would indicate you could trust the mission blindly, which I couldn't do), then you enter the magical kingdom. But if you don't take that step, you can't enter it. Socialization was impossible without that step.

It could be said that I wasn't motivated to take that step, to trust the mission blindly. But it could also be said that it wasn't clear what was expected of me. There was never any concern (that I could tell) about me doing the work they gave me well and responsibly. So that, clearly, wasn't what was really expected. Otherwise, things would have turned out quite otherwise from how they did turn out for me there. What was expected of me was not the literal job description but something under the radar, insinuated or implied or hinted at. Since I did everything I was given straight up to do and that wasn't the issue, it had to be those other under-the-radar things. Things, I suppose, that since I couldn't fathom, neither could Communists.

***

"...[B]oth organizations and newcomers seem to appreciate the need for role learnings.

In contrast, there is usually very little understanding by either organization or newcomer of the need to learn the 'culture' of the organization (Van Maanen, 1977a)." (p. 232)

Huh? Isn't this backwards? Or was the Vienna mission backwards? Or am I totally confused.

Here's how I remember it: The mission didn't give much of a hoot for the "role learnings" but gave über alle importance to culture... which culture was sure to shock anyone who was an idealist and believed in absolutes and in free will. Will someone please tell the mission they have this all backwards? Maybe they need a course in organizational management... or human resources development (my adult education colleagues will be only too happy, I'm sure, to oblige).

***

We'll move on to the next section, now that we've determined that the Vienna mission had the content of socialization all screwed up. On second thought, the next section, "Surprise and Sense Making," mainly provides possible paradigms researchers could use in flushing out this incipient aspect of socialization.

Whoa, Nellie! This sounds like a pretty important part of socialization! If you don't know how people actually get socialized, how are you going to know how to help them along? However, that being said, I don't think this explains why the Vienna mission was so screwed up in their socialization content. I doubt it would have mattered one iota if this aspect of socialization theory had been well-developed, fine-tuned and corroborated by double-blind studies, thorough triangulation and significance to the .000001 degree. They still would have held to their same practices, unless, of course, it was to make it even worse than it already was.

***

I'm going to skip over several other sections that likewise aren't very helpful in understanding my Vienna experience, in regards to socialization in it.

This next quote is from the section "A MODEL OF THE NEWCOMER EXPERIENCE", sub-section "Entry Experiences," sub-sub-section "Contrast."

"A special case of contrast is associated with the process of letting go of old roles, which often seems to continue well into the socialization process. The prolonged letting go in organizational entry seems to differ markedly from the situation in tribal rites of passage and total institution inductions, as described earlier." (p. 236)

In other words, in these total institutions letting go is just short of instantaneous. In the Vienna experience, I expect that the letting go happens the minute you go through the wardrobe door (drawing on my earlier analogy), which happens when you trust the mission to help you deal with your transitions struggles (debasement, etc.). However, you might not realize right away the significance and implications of what you've done by merely taking that simple step, but in essence you've opened the door to allowing them, at least in part, to help you manage your personal identity and the persona you take on in various settings. So it's quick in the sense that that first step is quick, although the lead-up to it, depends a lot on your willingness to take that step. I think this is the way it was.

***

The next sub-sub-section is called "Surprise."

"The subject of anticipation and, therefore, surprise may be the job, the organization, or self." (p. 237)

I think the biggest surprise for me was the organization, and this was especially a surprise because I thought my understanding of missions to Eastern Europe would prepare me better for the Vienna mission experience. I knew that some missions in that part of the world had issues, but I didn't think it was that all-pervasive and I also thought I had been careful enough in my selection to not end up in one of those types of missions.

To a lesser extent, however, the job was also a surprise. I didn't expect the mission to play games with my actual work responsibilities. My supporters had helped me get there to hold a specific job position. I'm sure they would have understood if there were changes along the way, but it was pure manipulation the way I was moved around from position to position. And I'd never experienced anything like it before or after my Vienna mission days.

***

The next sub-section has several insightful sections in it, but I'll wait till tomorrow to discuss them.