265. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 13 (Moorhead & Griffin, pt. 2)

We're moving on now to a new main chapter section: "Three Basic Approaches to Describing Organizational Culture." The first of these approaches is "The Parsons AGIL Model."

***

"Parsons developed the AGIL model to specify certain fuctions that any social system - whether a society, an economy, or an organization - must meet to survive and prosper. These functions are represented by the letters AGIL: A for adaptation, G for goal attainment, I for integration, and L for legitimacy. A social system, to survive and prosper, must be able to adapt, attain its goals, integrate its parts, and be considered legitimate to people and other organizations external to itself...

Adaptation and goal attainment are relatively clear concepts. To adapt successfully, a social system must be aware of its environment, understand how that environment is changing, and make the appropriate adjustments. To attain its goals, a social system must have processes that specify those goals, as well as specific strategies for reaching them." (p. 501)

I include the first paragraph here by way of introduction, but I'm going to comment on the second one. To start off, I want to make it clear that the mission as an emanation of the Church, the Body of Christ, should not necessarily operate on the basis of "earthly" principles, although I understand that I am undoubtedly a minority view here (see note below). That is, the church, if anything, is not supposed to respond to the environment by try to change it. Also, the continuance of the Church is the responsibility of its Head, Jesus Christ, which means that the church and Christians are just called to be faithful and leave the result to him. This necessarily involves an act of faith which the world might not understand and which might fly in the face of worldly reason.

Note: I would once again like to turn the reader's attention to Jacques Ellul.

Ellul, Jacques. (1986). The Subversion of Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans.

"At the same time the church felt it incumbent to absorb everything that seemed to be of intellectual or religious value in past societies. This explains the tendency toward syncretism that began in the third century and continues to this day in all the churches..." (p. 22)

"The scandal is that the church tries to use political power to ensure its own authority and to secure advantages. What was pure grace is thus radically subverted into a politics of give and take. The church buys the possibility of maintaining itself at the price of concessions (e.g., to the regimes of Hitler or of the Soviets). In so doing it disavows the martyrs. Martyrs are not agitators or obstinate people. They are primarily dedicated to God. Then want to obey God, not men." (p. 127)

Thus, if his church wants to be faithful to his revelation, it will be completely mobile, fluid, renascent, bubbling, creative, inventive, adventurous, and imaginative. It sill never be perennial, and can never be organized or institutionalized. If the gates of death are not going to prevail against it, this is not because it is a good, solid, well-organized fortress, but because it is alive; it is Life - that is, a mobile, changing, and surprising life. If it becomes a powerful fortified organization, it is because death has prevailed." (p. 157; emphasis in original)

***

Returning to our text:

"Parsons' concept of integration and legitimacy are perhaps somewhat less clear. Integration refers to the need that every social system has to keep its constituents parts together. The parts of a social system must be brought in contact with one another. Interdependencies understood and organized, and the need for coordinated action resolved. Legitimacy refers to the need that every social system has to be granted the right to survive by elements in its environment. A social system is said to be legitimate, in this sense, when society as a whole agrees that it is appropriate for that system to continue." (p. 501-502)

If I were to apply the AGIL model to a mission, a mission to a closed country, for example, here's how I might do it. I'm going to take the position of a consultant giving advice to a newly formed mission using this formula. Here is what I'd recommend:

The mission should have a system in place for recognizing changes in its environment and deciding on how to proceed based on those changes. The mission should have clearly stated goals and be able to determine how to best meet those objectives, taking into account such factors as the environment. To meet its goals it will undoubtedly need workers performing diverse tasks, and the workers and their functions will need to be integrated so that they together function smoothly to the end that the mission's goals may be met. The mission not only responds to its environment but also proactively asserts its place in society. The mission, then, needs to find ways to incorporate these various functions.

That's basically how the world would council the mission to proceed. Looked at in this light, the mission might well be right in taking the security precautions it did in order to ensure it's continuance in the face of opposition and adapt to its environment.

But is that a Christian approach? That is, is it a biblical one? Taken from the standpoint of the mission being, basically, an arm of the Church, it should function under the same guidelines as set forth in Scripture for how the Church should operate. Regarding adaptation, the mission should not adapt to its environment; rather, it is to be salt and light, but if it adapts to the world, it will lose its saltiness. Furthermore, the mission should operate more on faith, and less on its own determination, so goal setting should be contingent on God's will based on a trusting relationship with God. As to integration, this should be more an issue of honoring the Spirit-given gifts of the members of the mission, rather than trying to fit members into pre-ordained slots. The Spirit gave the gifts for use in ministry and this should take preeminence in determining how the collective can function as a whole. Finally, I don't think that the Bible says anything about the Church needing to be concerned about legitimacy, except to say that the world will persecute believers, which seems to me very similar to denying the legitimacy of the Church.

I hope you see the difference between this AGIL model and the biblical counterpart. Unfortunately, the AGIL model fits the Vienna mission better than the biblical mandate does.

***

I'm going to skip ahead next time and I think I'll be able to finish this book chapter next time too. But for now I need to get to bed.

264. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 12 (Moorhead & Griffin, pt. 1)

I got some address labels printed out for the mailing related to mom's death, but I need some larger ones for some of the addresses.

***

When I looked over the rest of that last text I realized there wasn't anything else I wanted to comment on, so I'm starting in on a new one now. This one is also a book chapter, but not of an edited book.

Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1989). Organizational Behavior, 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Chapter 16: Organizational Culture, p. 491-521.

There are several texts on organizational culture, so this is just the first of them.

***

The first section of this chapter is: "The Nature of Organizational Culture."

The sub-section is: "What is Organizational Culture?"

"A surprising aspect of the recent rise in interest in organizational culture is that the concept, unlike virtually any other concept in the field of organizational behavior, has no single widely accepted definition...

Despite the apparent diversity of these definitions, a few common attributes emerge. First, virtually all the definitions refer to some set of values held by individuals in a firm. The values define what is good or acceptable behavior and what is bad or unacceptable behavior." (p. 493)

In the case of the Vienna mission one would expect the values defining its culture to at least bear a resemblance to Scriptural mandate. However, my experience of it would argue against this having been the case, as I've said in many ways over the course of blog. I've shown how security concerns preempted Scripture, how deception was a sine qua non aspect of the organization, and how the mission treated its members in seemingly unChrist-like ways. My contention is that Scripture served essentially as a kind of facade behind which it functioned more like a spy agency than Christian mission, and its values mirrored those you'd expect to find in a front organization.

***

"A second attribute common to many of the definitions in Table 16.1 is that the values that make up an organization's culture are often taken for granted. That is, rather than being written down in a book or made explicit in a training program, they are basic assumptions made by employees of the firm. It may be as difficult for an organization to articulate these basic assumptions as it is for people to articulate their personal beliefs and values. Several authors have argued that organizational culture is a powerful influence on individuals in firms precisely because it is not explicit but rather becomes an implicit part of employees' values and beliefs." (p. 495)

I'm here to help the mission make explicit some of its implicit values, for which I expect to be thanked with rotten eggs. However, in the case of the mission, it is my contention that the mission leadership is actually quite aware of its values and intentionally tries to surreptitiously indoctrinate the newbie into its values through careful guidance and example, as well as socialization. The mission does this surreptitiously because it doesn't want those not very committed to the mission and its ways to realize consciously what is happening and how it actually operates. Once the mission is sure that the person is reliable, however, it might possibly let more of the organizational value structure become consciously known to a member.

At any step along the way the mission has carefully designed explanations and excuses for anything that might become known by an untrustworthy party. Sort of like my being sent back to the States for "culture shock," rather than the truth which was I was experiencing "reality shock" (i.e., mission-induced, not because of anything in the Austrian context) and the purpose was to get me to toe the line. The mission has lots of these slight of hand tricks up its sleeve to wheedle its way out of potentially discomfiting situations.

Meanwhile, I suspect that the vast majority of the theologians on staff, not to mention the other less educated staff, have not stepped back and tried to understand the mission's culture and if they did they'd probably be hit by too many blind spots because of their already having become part of the organization and having taken on its values and logic. I had the benefit of not having taken them on, but on the other hand my not ever having become a true insider meant there was a lot I did not know about the organization.

Also, I will just make another passing comment about values not "being written down in a book or made explicit in a training program." I've already discussed elsewhere how the mission followed the Soviet Union's legal nihilism example, so having something written down might not have meant a whole lot anyway, except to serve as a cover, like the Soviet Union's assertion that believers had the constitutional right to practice their faith (ignoring the fact, however, that only atheists had the constitutional right to propagate their views). Believers in the Soviet Union had about as much right to practice their faith as I had to study German upon my arrival in Austria (which right I was guaranteed in the organizational policy manual).

As to the "made explicit in a training program" issue, it's possible, I think that sometimes values might have been passed on forthrightly, probably mostly in a mentoring type situation or in one-on-one conversations with a more enlightened member. However, I think that more often it would be specific behavioral expectations that would be passed on like this, leaving the values awareness to be figured out by the individual, if s/he were so inclined to figure such things out. For example, over time the new recruit my learn that behaviors A, B and C were expected of him/her, leading to the possible conclusion that the mission valued x. The thing in the Vienna mission was that so much happened intentionally for security reasons that it's likely that someone in the heart of the mission not only understood the values but intended for the mission to have those values, perhaps in a social engineering way.

***

"The final attribute shared by many of the definitions... is an emphasis on the symbolic means through which the values in an organization's culture are communicated." (p. 496)

The mission did have stories and rituals. When these symbolic aspects of the culture received official sanction from the leadership these things became part of the accepted lore of the organization, which occasionally got passed down or repeated from time to time. Oral narrations of heroics in group settings often became fodder for prayer letters, and the knowledge that these stories presented a side of the mission that it wanted the outside world to see encouraged that process. In contrast, other seemingly benign stories might not make it through the prayer letter censoring process. Or, in my case, a not so benign but true story was intentionally suppressed by the mission.

***

"We can use the three common attributes of definitions of culture just discussed to develop a definition with which most authors could probably agree: Organizational culture is the set of values, often taken for granted, that help people in an organization understand which actions are considered acceptable and which are considered unacceptable. Often, these values are communicated through stories and other symbolic means." (p. 497)

If I am to understand correctly the mission's censoring my prayer letter in which I explained my return to the U.S. only a few months after being in Vienna, it would seem to be telling me that the mission's values were that it could do anything at all to make a member toe the line and that the member had absolutely no recourse nor right to even let others know what was really happening, let alone expect any rectification. That, at least in part, is how the mission viewed itself, it's member missionaries and security. At least that's how I read the unspoken values exhibited in that act of censorship. So it's no wonder there were no whistle blowers.

***

I finished my stimulator so I'm going to wrap up here and do some other things.

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.

262. Organizational Behavior, Pt. 10 (Zaleznik, pt. 4)

We're now continuing on in the section "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior," but moving to the next sub-section "Equilibrium."

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"The theory of equilibration asserts that a central tendency in interpersonal relations is toward a balanced system in which the interpersonal affinities, perceptions, ideas, and attitudes held by members of a system toward one another and toward impersonal objects are valued in consistent patterns. Take a simple dyad made up of Person and Other. A balanced system results when Person and Other feel and react to objects in ways that correspond to their attachment to each other." (p. 596)

It is clear that if one of the parties in this "Person and Other" dyad is me and the other is the mission, there was a great lack of equilibration in our relationship. Here are some issues in which our views differed (views on the left represent the mission, and views on the right represent me):

• philosophy (pragmatism vs. Christian idealism)
• political persuasion (staunch conservative views vs. relative apolitical concerns)
• view of communism (probable red scare mentality vs. relatively unemotional disagreement with it)
• belief about security (virtually anything is admissible vs. security limited by Scriptural guidelines)
• emotional attachment to security (obsession vs. rational precautions)
• ministry boundaries (limited by organizational mission statement vs. limited by Scripture)
• Church and State relations (church-state entanglement admissible vs. church-state entanglement unscriptural)
• etc.

As you can see, we had some quite substantial and heady disagreements which were unlikely to be surmounted short of my becoming brainwashed or otherwise forced into accepting their way of thinking. And, because of the power differences between me and the mission, the only way these differences could have been surmounted was by my changing, rather than through mutual change or them changing.

Also, some of these disagreements, as I've stated them here, indicate a different view of Scripture - either differing interpretations of it and/or differing understandings regarding the role it should play in these kinds of issues. This view of Scripture would have had to have been, I think, addressed for any satisfactory, unforced resolution of our differences to occur. The other major overriding issue was the place of emotions as guiding criterion.

***

This next lengthy discussion, in the same sub-section of the book chapter, describes the theory of social certitude in relation to group interactions. In a nutshell, what this theory says is that every individual has a social standing in the broader society based on that society's values. An organizational member has social certitude if his/her standing in the broader society is mirrored by his/her position in the organization. Thus, a person with relatively low social status but higher position in the organization will have less social certitude than would a person with a better matched social status and organizational position. A decrease in social certitude will result in increased role ambiguity within the organization. Then the author quotes Zaleznik, Christensen, & Roethlisberger (1958, pp. 355-361) regarding 4 implications for interpersional relations in organizations. I am just going to quote one of those implications here:

"The less status congruent an individual is (i.e., in a condition of ambiguity), the less certain and more anxious he will be of his standing and position in the eyes of others. This condition of anxiety may be relieved (a) by infrequent interactions, (b) by restricting activities to more structural social relationships in which the ambiguity is accepted, (c) by excelling in technical performance where skill, competence, and knowledge are important, (d) by the expression of more liberal social attitudes, and (e) by the assertion of the ideals over the norms of behavior as to what the determinants of behavior should be." (p. 599)

There is a lot to say about this, so this might be a longish comment.

First of all, I think I need to start with figuring out where I was in terms of "social certitude." In the broader society (of the USA) I was approximately on par with other members of the organization, so I don't think there was any great issue there. However, I think that it is both helpful and relevant to narrow the field a bit to consider my standing in the conservative Evangelical community. The one thing I had going against me here was that I was raised in a church that differed somewhat theologically from the mainstream conservative Evangelical church or denomination, because not only was it dispensational, but it took a mid-Acts position (regarding when the Church started and the dispensation of Law ended). As such, my church background was rather on the fringes of conservative Evangelical Christianity, which affected my social standing in the broader context of conservative Evangelical Christianity (in the USA). I think it affected my standing in at least a couple of ways. First of all, it put me in a minority theological position. Secondly, it resulted in me being less socially connected among groups the mission commonly associated with, including its member missions. Generally speaking, the theological issue would only have come up if I mentioned it or if a direct conflict occurred regarding a doctrinal issue, such as water baptism. I don't remember this ever happening, so it should have been a non-issue. We're left, then, with the social interconnectedness factor, and I think this could well have impacted my standing in the mission. The possible countering factor would have been where I went to Bible school which was well within the mainstream of conservative Evangelical Christianity, but this wasn't enough to make up the difference, because it didn't result in me having a Th.M. (the Bible school didn't offer that degree yet when I was there). Because of the theological differences and the fact that my supporters were virtually all from the same church background as I was raised in, my supporters, including supporting churches, were not motivated to develop interactions with the mission apart from their support of me. So these things all pointed to my having somewhat less social status among conservative Evangelical Christianity and the mission, lacking information to the contrary, didn't consider my abilities and standing developed and used within my home church context.

The other issue, however, is my educational background, which would in some contexts provide me with a certain amount of professional credibility. But this background did not have that affect in the Vienna mission, despite my sense that my background was incredibly relevant to the mission's work.

So it would seem that I experienced a great lack of social certitude at the mission, wherein my position never coincided with my knowledge, skills, education and experience, despite my education and social standing being otherwise similar to others' at the mission. That being said, however, I've already discussed elsewhere how my European Studies background did differ from others' educational background at the mission.

Since I had this lack of social certitude, then, it seems appropriate to consider my possible responses as provided in this text. The numbering corresponds to those in the above quoted text.

(a) I don't think I lessened my interactions with the group; to the contrary, I would say if anything the mission eventually limited its interactions with me.

(b) I also don't think I restricted my activities to more structured social relationships with mission members, which is evident by my social overtures, wherein I took initiative to invite people over, for example.

(c) It would have been difficult for me to excel in technical skill, because this was a moving target since I was moved around so much. And in any case, I don't remember making any concerted effort to excel any more than I would have with or without social certitude.

(d) It was only much later that I developed more social attitudes - about 5 years after leaving the mission when I started trying to make sense of my life such as what led to my having these articles I'm commenting on here. I think my friend in Minneapolis sort of got me started in thinking along these lines, but I gave it my own twists and we would disagree on some significant issues.

(e) I never was the "butt of jokes" that I can remember; I don't think the mission did that kind of thing in general, which does seem fitting for a Christian organization. Nevertheless, I think that this "mixture of respect and disdain" can be viewed as coping mechanisms and it's highly likely that I did use other coping mechanisms, if not this one in particular. I think this deserves more thought. I'll go through a list of coping mechanisms to see which ones I might or might not have used (and why or why not, how others might have viewed my actions, etc.)

• Acting out: not coping - giving in to the pressure to misbehave. I didn't do this, and if I had it would have been caught and dealt with right away.
  
• Aim inhibition: lowering sights to what seems more achievable. I might have done this, at least for the duration of my time with the mission, but not beyond that, which is part of why I couldn't have stayed with the mission and why I went on to get my Master's degree after leaving the mission.
  
• Altruism: Helping others to help self. I don't think I did this, that is, I didn't become any more altruistic than I otherwise normally was. This might have been something the mission would have wanted, though, as evidence of the individual putting the mission and its members above personal interest which would have been more of a security risk.
  
• Attack: trying to beat down that which is threatening you. I didn't do that at least partly because I was too scared to do so. It's possible that after I left the mission I had some of this. I don't think I'm doing it now, however, and I am trying to avoid things like this.
  
• Avoidance: mentally or physically avoiding something that causes distress. Eventually I did this in caving in to the mission's demands to have less contact with Austrians and attend the English-speaking church. But for about 18 months I was able to get by without resorting to this.
  
• Compartmentalization: separating conflicting thoughts into separated compartments. I think for the most part everything was so confusing that it was hard to do this, but this was probably part of my coping strategy for dealing with how the mission treated me starting about the 5th month of my tenure with it. That is, I think I was able to find enough I could agree to with the mission to allow me to function at a certain level within it, so I compartmentalized things that way - what I could agree with and what I couldn't go along with. Doing this helped with the horrendously stressful dissonance I was experiencing.
  
• Compensation: making up for a weakness in one area by gain [sic] strength in another. I don't think I did this. The main thing I would have been weak in is not having a Th.M., which couldn't have been compensated for as far as I know, other than actually getting the degree. In any case, my weakness was, as far as I know, noncompliance rather than skill or knowledge.
  
• Conversion: subconscious conversion of stress into physical symptoms. I didn't do this. (See "somatization.")
  
• Denial: refusing to acknowledge that an event has occurred. My denial was expressed in my irrational (I now believe) hope that the mission would ever want to hear me out as an equal. It was hard for me to believe that they didn't value my knowledge and skills and actually believed the things they seemed to believe (resulting in their means of operation).
  
• Displacement: shifting of intended action to a safer target. I don't know that I did this. At least I can't recall right now having done this.
  
• Dissociation: separating oneself from parts of your life. I don't think I did this, but I expect that the other missionaries had to have done this in order to accept the mission's normative structure and beliefs.
  
• Emotionality: Outbursts and extreme emotion. I didn't do this, although I think the mission would like for me to have done it, as it would have put me in a vulnerable position and provided a hook for them to catch me with.
  
• Fantasy: escaping reality into a world of possibility. I don't think I did this, although some might say that my belief structure was unrealistic and thus fantasy-like.
  
• Help-rejecting complaining: Ask for help then reject it. I don't ever remember rejecting help from the mission or complaining.
  
• Idealization: playing up the good points and ignoring limitations of things desired. I most likely did this in ignoring the risks involved in the type of ministry I wanted for myself.
  
• Identification: copying others to take on their characteristics. I did this, identifying with the other secretaries, to the extent I could without giving up my values and interest.
  
• Intellectualization: avoiding emotion by focusing on facts and logic. I probably did this as a way to get a handle on what was happening to me and what I was seeing in the mission in general, and I expect that this exercise (this blog) is a good example of my doing this.
  
• Introjection: Bringing things from the outer world into the inner world. I don't think I did this.
  
• Passive aggression: avoiding refusal by passive avoidance. I definitely did this and I think this has been something I've tended to do since my Vienna mission experience as well. Part of the reason was my fear of the mission, but I was also afraid of how my career was going to be affected by my experiences with the mission. Taking a stance other than passive aggression would mean either having to unilaterally capitulate or leave the mission.
  
• Performing rituals: Patterns that delay. I don't think I did this. This might be what elsewhere has been called "overconformity" which, as I've said before, would have been seen as nonconformity, maybe as a kind of parody of true conformity.
  
• Post-traumatic growth: Using the energy of trauma for good. I think I did this to a certain degree after leaving the mission, but how successful or healthy the "growth" was may well have been a mixed bag (i.e., some aspects of the "growth" quite healthy and others less so). I think that the mission might have intended this in how they treated me the 5th month of my tenure with them, and if I did have growth from that traumatic experience it wasn't the kind of growth they would have wanted, because it didn't lead to my internalization of their normative structure and beliefs.
  
• Projection: seeing your own unwanted feelings in other people. I don't think I did this.
  
• Provocation: Get others to act so you can retaliate. I didn't do this.
  
• Rationalization: creating logical reasons for bad behavior. I may have done this in as much as I had to convince myself that I was on solid ground if I was going to risk my profession to withstand the mission's apparent efforts to change me. So, for example, if the real reason I didn't go along with the mission was that I resented someone forcing their views on me, then I might have rationalized my behavior on moral and scriptural grounds. It might be foolhardy of me to out-of-hand deny such rationalization, but I don't think I did use this coping mechanism, because I did actually have strongly held and though-out convictions, knowledge and experience that the mission offended.
  
• Reaction Formation: avoiding something by taking a polar opposite position. I might have to think about this one a bit, although I don't think I did it. However, there may be some particular issue or the other regarding which I did use this coping mechanism. If I think of something later along these lines I'll come back and note it here.
  
• Regression: returning to a child state to avoid problems. I don't think I'd ever thought of this before, but I might have done this when, during my temporary return to the USA I ended out focusing on complaints against my parents, rather than addressing the real issues which would have put me in an even worse position than I was (who would have believed my complaints about the mission?). However, I don't think I ever really believed that my childhood experiences were the main issue, although I think I did believe that they weren't completely irrelevant, either though.
  
• Repression: subconsciously hiding uncomfortable thoughts. I probably did this and pretty much had to do it to continue with the mission without accepting their ways (or at least the ways I had serious issue with). After I left the mission I almost immediately stopped the repression, as is evident from my journal from that year.
  
• Self-harming: physically damaging the body. I did not do this.
  
• Somatization: psychological problems turned into physical symptoms. I did experience this, as my asthma became worse with the stress. I also took up running, a physical stress reliever. Also, it was during my time with the Vienna mission that I first began getting occasional stress-related migraine headaches.
• Sublimation: channeling psychic energy into acceptable activities. I don't think I did this. The closest thing I can think of would be taking up jogging as a stress release. If this is considered sublimation, then I did do it.
  
• Substitution: Replacing one thing with another. The mission's not providing me an outlet for my desire for personal ministry resulted in me substituting such a ministry with it for a ministry on the side external to the mission.
  
• Suppression: consciously holding back unwanted urges. I undoubtedly suppressed my great anger at the mission and my great sense of injustice as to how I was treated as well as my conviction that they were wrong (in the sense of unscriptural) in some of their ways and apparent beliefs, values and norms.
  
• Symbolization: turning unwanted thoughts into metaphoric symbols. I don't think I did this, mainly because I don't remember having "unwanted thoughts".
  
• Trivializing: Making small what is really something big. I don't think I did this because my valuation of issues like how my experiences with the mission would affect my career. If I had trivialized some of these kinds of things I might not have experienced the level of dissonance I did.
  
• Undoing: actions that psychologically 'undo' wrongdoings for the wrongdoer. I didn't do this because I never thought I had done anything to wrong the mission in any way, other than just not conforming, which I felt I was justified in doing because the issues in which I didn't conform in I disagreed with, and my opinion about these things has never changed.
  

***

There are a couple more interesting quotes in this sub-section, but I need to get on with my day, so I'll just have to finish it in the next post.

261. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 9 (Zaleznik, pt. 3)

I got the stationery for sending out notices and thank yous ordered and the CD of the memorial service for mom burned for mom's sister. Then I came home and took a nap.

***

"Deviant behavior arises when the individual fails to internalize the group norms. He does not believe, for example, that the norms are moral, fair, or just, such as the case of the worker of Protestant, rural background who disapproves of the practice of restriction of output found so generally among urban workers of Catholic religious background (White, 1955; Zaleznik, Christensen, & Roethlisberger, 1958). To uphold his convictions he forgoes group rewards. Or, another way of putting the matter, the guilt he would experience as a result of conformity acts as a cost to offset the rewards from group membership." (p. 594).

This clearly describes much of how I felt about the Vienna mission that kept me from conforming at a great cost to myself, which I don't think a lot of people would have been willing to pay. That is, considering the great cost of my nonconformity, there would have to have been a very great conviction to disallow me from relieving myself of that cost and conforming to the groups norms. One issue here is that when I took the stand at the beginning I had no idea, really, what cost I would have to pay for holding my ground. The other is, even if I had given in, there is no guarantee that I would have been rewarded with a career to my liking, because there was still the issue of my dad and how his work might have gotten in the way of me doing what I really wanted to do. If I had given in I might have been rewarded with a life of being a secretary, for example. I don't remember this being of any significance, however, as to whether or not I could go along with the mission and accept its norms and values. That is, even if they could have promised me work roughly fitting what I saw as my interests and gifts, it still wouldn't have been worth giving in to the things I disagreed with.

***

"Deviant behavior also contains its own rewards in the sense that the deviant may experience satisfaction in 'showing up,' or acting superior to, members of a group for whom he feels scorn and disapproval. Group members, on the other hand, seek to exact conformity by imposing punishments for deviant behavior. The effect is to increase the costs of behaving in violation of group norms. The acts of increasing costs explain why Schachter (1953) found in his experimental studies of conformity and deviation that a large proportion of interactions are directed toward the deviant in attempts to 'bring him into line.' But beyond a certain point, the attempts at direct punishment to coerce the deviant become costly to the group members, who may then seek to isolate the deviant or otherwise cast him out of the group." (p. 594).

It should be remembered that this text does not seem to be taking into account leadership or management influences and interventions, which might be separate issues to what is described here, but nonetheless there were some official responses to me, such as in moving me around so much.

Regarding the first issue in this text, about the deviant feeling satisfaction, I think early on I felt a certain amount of this, especially on the issue of involvement with Austrians. I thought the mission was too insular and should have been more all-inclusive in its ministry outreach, not limiting itself just to the "official" ministry it had to Eastern Europe. So in this regard, I think I did scorn them and continued to do so as long as I could hold out against them to continue my own efforts. It didn't take too long, however, to realize that this insularity was probably intentional as a security precaution; but, again, I didn't agree with them that they needed to be as insular as they were. I thought of this as a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water in rejecting virtually all types of Austrian ministry for security's sake. However, I did understand that having any such ministry would have been difficult for those, for example, who traveled to Eastern Europe a lot, just because of time constraints and the need to also spend time with family.

The rest of the text does describe pretty well, I think how the mission related to me, ending up by trying to isolate me and otherwise encourage my departure at the end of my two-year commitment. They started this process in earnest after my parents left, but after dad left but mom stayed on to teach health at the new English language Christian school they were already beginning to treat me this way.

***

The text goes on to describe "the superior-subordinate relationship," which would, in my case, be my relationship with my boss who I was secretary for (at least who I was supposed to be secretary for and was so maybe 2/5 of the time I was with the mission.

"The superordinate exercises control through the rewards he is able to provide in his behavior. He may secure reward-providing tasks for the subordinate as a result of his position in the larger social structure. He may teach the subordinate and in the process help the subordinate to enhance his competence and ultimate achievement. The superordinate may also act in ways that protect or buffer the subordinate from undue risks and too early exposure to tasks beyond the subordinate's level of experience and competence. Another way of describing the protective behavior is to point to the costs of exercising responsibility and to suggest that at times the superordinate seeks to limit these costs for his subordinates. The superordinate also provides rewards through seeking advancement for his subordinates. The subordinate, insofar as he experiences these and other rewards, reciprocates through task accomplishment, respect, and esteem for the supervisor." (p. 594-595)

I might as well be describing the moon here because this absolutely does most emphatically NOT describe my relationship with my boss! I don't remember him ever teaching me anything and he never, as far as I know, ever did anything to protect me or seek my advancement. In fact I'm not sure what he might have done at all in relation to me except give me letters to type. It was through my mentor-secretary (the director's secretary) - not through my boss - that I learned I should befriend his family and wife. The only things that could at all have been considered rewards were taking part in the English teaching in Bratislava and the one women's ministry trip. I'm not sure how those opportunities came about though, or whether my boss payed any roll in those things or not. In any case, at the time I didn't think about him as having any part in it.

On my part, I didn't really have that much esteem for my boss, although I don't think I ever disrespected him or that anyone else would have thought that I didn't particularly esteem him. Maybe the buggy eyes and crotch scratching made him lose esteem in my eyes.

***

"A successful superior-subordinate relationship results from an optimization of profit for each individual through the relationship. When one individual's rewards result from costs experienced by the other, the relationship is ripe for conflict.

Conflict in the relationship also results from inappropriate behavior." (p. 595)

There was no way the relationship between my boss and I, as it was set up, could have resulted in "optimization of profit for each individual through the relationship." That is, if the position had to involve spending inordinate attention on his wife and family and required me to leave off Austrian ministry while at the same time not replacing it with other people-contact ministry, then I could not have been satisfied with it no matter how good my relationship with my boss could have been. Since I wasn't committed to being a secretary and I was ambivalent about my boss it probably could not have been optimally profitable for my boss either.

Remember that conflict in the mission was virtually unpermissable, so any conflict would have been stifled, which isn't the same as saying there wasn't any conflict. It would likely have been more difficult to identify, however. That being said, I think there was conflict between my boss and I, but I can't speak with any certainty from his side of things. From my end, though, his behavior in our one-on-one meetings in his office (see above) turned me off and although he didn't appear to be involved in how the mission treated me I couldn't help but expect that he was nonetheless party to the decisions as to how the mission should deal with me. So after the mission sent me home during my 5th month with it there was little chance that I could have been realistically reunited with my boss, although it appears that the two wives that apparently got similar treatment managed to return to Vienna having succumbed and they probably accepted full blame for having been sent home, which meant that they made the requisite change to suit the mission. I, on the other hand, didn't see the problem so much in me as in the mission and I never could change my view on this. I saw the mission as having single-handedly pushed me past my limits, and saw them as being wrong in how they treated me. And if there is any doubt about this, I now have 30+ years after my Vienna years to prove that nothing else has ever led me to that point.

***

That's all for this subject and next time we'll move on to another section of this book chapter.

260. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 8 (Zaleznik, pt. 2)

I'm taking my lunch break now. Amazingly enough, the eggplant and celery I had in the fridge before going to Seattle are still in quite good shape. I have to figure out what to do with almost a quart of sour milk though; I don't like throwing out food if it can be avoided.

I decided to skip the rest of the sub-section I was discussion last time. I'll pick up on the "Exchange" sub-section of the same section as before: "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior."

***

"Deviant behavior exists when the individual acts in such a way as to indicate an intent to flout group norms or a failure to internalize the standards of behavior." (p. 593)

In my case I clearly was an example of "failure to internalize the standards of behavior," but in the Vienna mission the thing was you weren't really sure what the "standards of behavior" were until you began to internalize what you did know (or think you knew) of them, which would, I think, lead to more understanding of the norms and/or others revealing more of the norms. So, in effect, I failed to internalize the standards of behavior I thought I understood, mainly because I didn't like/agree with enough of what seemed to be the group's norms. I didn't like/agree with them for several reasons, including: 1) my understanding of the situation in Eastern Europe made me think that the mission took the security precautions farther than needed to work in that environment; 2) the security precautions the mission did seem to take looked like it entailed unscriptural aspects; and 3) they conflicted with my personal ministry interests (i.e., I wanted more personal ministry involvement than seemed to be allowed for me).

To a certain extent I think it could be said that I flouted the group norms, but to a large extent I wasn't always sure exactly what those norms were to flout, in which case my deviance would be more closely related to failure to internalize group norms rather than flouting them, because internalizing them would have led to greater understanding of the norms. In other words, I didn't know the norms to be able to flout them because I hadn't internalized them or the ones I was aware of.

In addition, some norms which, taken on their own, I might not otherwise have had an issue with, I did in the Vienna mission context because I saw the norms as a composite unit rather than as discrete elements from which I could pick and choose. So I extended my leeriness about specific elements of the mission to encompass the whole of the mission.

***

"Both conformity and deviation, when viewed as aspects of exchange, involve rewards, costs, and profit to the individual... The costs of conformity are implied in the rewards the individual forgoes in achieving interpersonal rewards. Instead of working hard on a task to realize the rewards of intrinsic job satisfaction, for example, the individual participates in group activities or interacts in ways not relevant to the task to achieve group-oriented rewards." (p. 593)

This is an interesting take on my relationship with the mission. What did (or do) I perceive to have been the possible rewards and costs of conformity? Since I didn't conform very well, my answer to this is somewhat speculative.

Ideally, the possible rewards might have been more extensive ministry in Eastern Europe. I think that is the primary thing for me that would have been a reward I would have valued. On the other hand, the costs might have been foregoing a lot of personal (i.e., people contact) ministry, limiting myself to the mission's narrow ministry interests (i.e., biblical instruction), taking on values and participating in actions that went against my conscious and/or which I thought were unbiblical.

I'm not sure what the chances might have been of my getting to have more people ministry, because there are several possible things arguing against that, including the fact that I was to be the secretary of the person who is now the head of the whole organization. So it's possible I might have ended out just following him around as his secretary all these years, perhaps with occasional ministry trips into closed countries. Also, there's the issue of my dad and the possibility that that might have precluded me having an intensive behind the iron curtain people ministry with the mission.

Looked at in this light, it doesn't seem surprising that I had trouble conforming to the mission's apparent demands of me. (I say "apparent" because they seemed to me to be the mission's demands, but the mission might say otherwise.)

***

"In group situations, an individual may seek to improve his social standing, which is another way of saying that he seeks to increase his reward-cost-profit outcome, but in doing so he may find that the behavior emitted toward increased conformity results in an immediate increase in costs and an unchanging level of reward. If the individual perceives few alternative channels for reward in his life setting, he may continue to reduce immediate profit in the hopes of achieving increased profits at some future time. This pattern is seen as vying for group rewards through heightened conformist behavior." (p. 594)

I could have taken this stance vis a vis the Vienna mission, and undoubtedly there were some there who had done this kind of thing. The thing that kept me from doing this, however, was, I think, primarily my Christian idealist values system. That is, the norms of the mission conflicted too greatly with my own to allow me to change. The fact that I thought that many of their demands were unnecessary, the possibility that there was extra-Christian involvement (e.g., via the military chaplains), and that some of the things seemed outright unbiblical all argued against my compliance with the mission. Nevertheless, I did "perceive few alternative channels for reward in [my] life setting" and this is at least part of the reason why I had so much stress and dissonance about my relationship with the mission. The other thing would be everything I had put into that being my career.

***

I have to break off here, but I think there is more about deviance that might be worth looking into in this article, so we'll continue with this thought in my next post. I've got to go run some errands now.

259. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 8 (Zaleznik, pt. 1)

This next article is another book chapter:

Zaleznik, Abraham. (1965). Interpersonal relations in organizations. In J. G. March. (Ed.). Handbook of Organizations. Chicago: Rand McNally, p. 574-613.

Since "organizational behavior" is a broad subject, I'm trying to mix it up by picking out articles on different topics.

In this particular article, I'll be skipping a lot of pages. Some of the things I'll be skipping at the beginning of the article include discussions of aspects of research on the topic and relevant "psychodynamic theories". I'll be picking up in the section "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior," and the sub-section "Performance." In this sub-section of the chapter, the author discusses Erving Goffman's theory of "likening interaction to a stage and play" (p. 586). One of the elements of this theory is that there are separate sets of behaviors for "on-stage" and "backstage" regions.

***

"On-stage activity, however, is sustained by the modes of behavior permitted only in the backstage region of the relevant group. We note, therefore, modes of behavior recurring in one region that are quite different from modes of behavior occurring in another region. A region is simply a situated time and space with its consensually established definition as to the purposes of interaction, the relevant individuals who are engaged in interchanged, modes of behavior that are expected within the situation, and ranges of deviation permitted within the expectations." (p. 587)

Following this discussion the author presents a quite lengthy hotel-context example directly quoted from one of Goffman's books. While that example is helpful, it is too long to quote here; nevertheless, I'll be keeping it in mind as I discuss the Vienna mission context.

First of all, I think it would be helpful to consider what might be "on-stage" and what might be "backstage" in the Vienna mission. On-stage might include: 1) relations and interactions with churches and supporters back home; 2) relations and interactions with Austrians; 3) relations and interactions with believers in Eastern Europe; 4) relations and interactions with officials and others in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, back-stage might include such interactions as: 1) relations in the office with other staff; 2) relations with other staff outside the office, but in Austria; 3) relations with other staff in Eastern Europe; 4) relations with other staff in North America or other home-country contexts. I'll take these one-by-one.

Regarding interactions with churches and supporters back home, the mission was very clear in wanting only a certain image presented to this class of people. It was rather direct with me in this regard when it demanded that all my circular prayer letters be censored by them first and also in demanding that I shorten my prayer letter list. They may have other ways of assuring this set of interactions meets their criteria, but, since I didn't serve a second term with them, I'm not aware of how they might have tried to control such things as furlough relations. Also, they tried to limit my in-person interactions in Austria with supporters by not allowing me time off to spend with visiting supporters (which I was guaranteed in writing by office policies) and by not wanting a friend/supporter to come and help out for a short time (contrary to the common practice of others coming in similar fashion). The mission wanted a certain image portrayed back home of their activities, which precluded mention of a lot of what happened "backstage" including things that would have been more embarrassing than security-risking. This might be compared to government administrations classifying embarrassing documents. In this way, supporters back home received a monolithic white-washed view of the mission. It was monolithic in the sense of being presented in unison by all mission workers.

Relations and interactions with Austrians were similarly "monolithic" in as much as there was a single definition of the mission that was presented to local outsiders; that is, that the mission was a "publisher". This might be sort of like witnesses to a crime corroborating their story of how a crime had unfolded. In addition, how much and what kind of contact with Austrians was also controlled by the mission, although this seemed to be more individualistic, so that certain individuals in the mission would be allowed more contact with Austrians than others. It seemed to me that those with long-term office-based ministries were often allowed more Austrian interaction. I'm thinking, for example, of someone in the design and layout group and a textbook writer especially. Both of these people had been with the mission for a number of years and did little travel into Eastern Europe. Even if I hadn't been "deviant" I still would not have fit the criteria for length of service (and thus proven trustworthiness) for extensive Austrian interactions.

There were, again, a whole different set of rules (spoken or otherwise) defining how the missionaries were to interact with believers in Eastern Europe, which would mostly be the students and their families. Mostly this would involve instruction as to cultural sensitivity, as these outside contacts would be astute enough to not press for details of the work not otherwise offered willingly by the visiting missionaries.

In contrast, deception was used vis a vis interactions with Austrian officials and others. The mission might balk at the suggestion of the use of deception, but the fact was that we pretended to be other than what we were. A very explicit example of this was that in the briefing for my trip to Romania I was instructed as to how to appear to be Romanian to others (such as on the train). We would, for example, pretend to be asleep to avoid others trying to talk with us, since speaking would be a dead give away. We also dressed the part to appear like a local. We couldn't hide our foreignness from authorities needing documentation from us (such as visas), but we could frame the purpose of our visit in terms other than what it really was.

Now I turn to "backstage" interactions:

As to relations in the office with other staff, there really was a whole microcosm of life invisible to the casual eye. I hope I have by this time gotten that message across, and that some of the behind the scenes goings on were other than what one would expect of a conservative Evangelical Christian mission. The overriding issue which would differentiate the mission from your average mission would have been their view on "security" and all that that entailed. I don't think that it would surprise anyone that there were security efforts going on, but the extent and type of security precautions might not be so expected or even acceptable, say, to other conservative Evangelical Christians, or even to supporters. Since I've dealt with this so much elsewhere (a good chunk of this blog to date), I won't belabor it here.

As to relations with other staff outside the office, but in Austria, there were different sets of rules governing some of these interactions. If the interactions took place in one of the staff's homes, interactions might be much like those in the office itself, but if it took place outside the home, such as in a restaurant, then some of the rules governing interactions with Austrians would also apply in such cases. Also, there were rules, I think, as to who one should socialize with, and these rules were primarily instrumental in nature. In my case, for example, interactions with other singles and the other secretaries, and social interactions with my boss and his family would have been expected to be pivotal extracurricular relationships and interactions for me, although I think that interactions with mission workers who lived nearest me would also have been condoned. My sense is that such interactions served to widen the control net, so that members of the mission were mutually accountable in wider spheres of their lives and that those one worked closest with and might have known the most about the particular demands of a position of issues regarding the individual would have been enabled to better define the mission's relationship to the individual member. I think that it is through such interactions that the mission might have learned more about the individual's personality, knowledge and insights, and abilities, especially in areas perhaps not readily evident in the office environment. On the other hand, the mission could also learn through such interactions of potential problem areas in the individual. These social interactions were also used as a means of social control which could, for example, confirm or sanction the individual.

Regarding relations with other staff in Eastern Europe, this would mean relations with workers one was traveling with or relations with workers living in Eastern Europe. These relations shared some similarity with relations with believers in Eastern Europe and with others in Eastern Europe. However, the "in-country" missionaries would be more privy to the mission workings and as such could also be related to in ways fitting of this fact, albeit with security precautions in place because of the relations taking place in the communist country. Also, the in-country worker would not know a lot of what was going on at the mission itself as part of the segmentation of knowledge, which was a protective barrier for the in-country workers as s/he could, to a certain extent, honestly hide behind this ignorance in his/her relations with nationals.

Relations with staff in North America (or other home-country contexts) was similar, I think, to relations with staff living in Eastern Europe, except that the consideration was not the immediate communist context, but rather the felt need to present a monolithic image in the West to protect the work in the East. In this context, there had to be a certain amount of openness about the work, but within bounds and couched in mission-defined terms. Also similar to relations with co-workers in Eastern Europe was the fact that state-side interactions with colleagues were also characterized by limited knowledge of what went on in the Vienna office, because of the segmentation of knowledge, especially for security's sake. The state-side workers, however, might not have been aware of the extent of their ignorance of what was going on in the Vienna office, while the Eastern European in-country workers would have been more likely to have had some awareness, even if only in general terms, of the types of activities they were ignorant of going on at the Vienna office.

I think this covers, at least in broad-stroke terms, the various on-stage and backstage normative behaviors of the Vienna mission.

***

I'm not done with this sub-section, but there's too much left to discuss in it, and I need to get going, so I'll pick up where I left off here in the next post.