The Social Psychology of Organizing

This is a summary and response to the book "The Social Psychology of Organizing" by K. E. Weick

The Social Psychology of Organizing
Organizing is like grammar, it is a systematic account of rules wherein interlocked behaviors form social processes. It is a way of getting things done when one person cannot do all that needs to be done. Organizations operate with subjectivity, guesses, abstractions, and arbitrary actions. These organizations are inventions of people superimposed on flows of experience with temporary imposed order. It is possible that the more self-determination allowed for the worker the higher the workers productivity and satisfaction. The actions, which precede goal definition, are a more accurate picture of organizational function than the goals.
In thinking about organizing facts, do not speak for themselves though they may make up the raw materials. Inquiry needs to be deeper than the facts. In exploring organizing ambivalent answers, allow for more flexibility and accuracy. There are different tactics for thinking about organizing in trying to grasp the flows, rivers, and streams of organizations. Metaphors facilitate this understanding and knowing that understanding about organizations can come from the perspective of thinking outside the norms. Here the considerations of cause and effect possibly work in reverse, in that what is normally seen as cause is really the effect and vice versa.
Though normally the thinking is that structures and things make up organizations, it is important to see that a large part of organizations involves relations and processes. In these processes causation and thinking is circular or at least curvilinear. This is true because the causation is not unidirectional; the stimuli affect responses, end affect means, and desires affect actions. Therefore searching is circular, which develops answers with thick layers. This is not a simple process or set of processes that flows in one direction. Then the reality that some of the sacred ideas in these areas are fictions becomes clear.
Organizing is accomplished by processes and people live continually in streams of ongoing events. People do not have to agree on goals to act together in a group they agree on the issue of means before they agree on the issue of ends. It is not the goal that makes the organization, but it is the means; then the goals develop later. It is not people that constitute organizations, but the influences of people that create organizations. However, people coordinate the means, which in turn create complex organizations. These processes create equivocal situations and questions that can best receive solutions by ambivalent answers. These answers then form multiple worlds in which the organization can operate and thrive.
Organizing processes resemble the processes associated with the theories of natural selection. In researching organizations, preconceptions about order do not prevail in the understanding of the evolution of organizations. Instead of a linear logical model of organizational growth, that which emerges is that the group enacts equivocal raw talk. This talk then viewed retrospectively, sense is made of it, and that sense is retained. The idea is to reduce equivocality and get some idea of what occurred. This retrospective idea creates the environment then imposed on the organization. It is not a linear cause and effect as much as random selection. This is similar to the concept of natural selection. It exists because that is what happened.
Environments of organizations are multiple and exist in the perspective of the viewer. People must recognize that they create many of their own environments and therefore people in organizations should spend more time reflecting on the things they do. Selection in organizing is selecting some interpretation of the world and then using this interpretation for decisions on subsequent activity. In this selection process, the problem is not the loss of order but of imposing too much order. Retention is the memory of the organization, which creates identity but can hinder creative progress. Understanding organizations involves intuition and imagination since so much of the pieces are in disorder and there are no simple set of causes or answers.
_____________________________________________________________
Response -
I found his writing style difficult to follow at times and very dense in his explanations - though he did give practical applications. It seems that in his zeal to prove opposites like reversing ends and means he became so unorthodox that he had to spend a great amount of time explaining the details of how they fit together. I heartily endorse thinking outside the box and I think he has some good ideas for pushing outside the norms for answers. However, some of his ideas seemed almost reactive. In other words he took the unorthodox view just because it was opposite. While this stirs great discussions I hardly think the answers are found by this stance. His concept of the equivocal world needing ambivalet answers is a good place for discussion and research with good outside of the box answers in the process. His refrain in the book of "How can I know what I think until I see what I say" while pithy and innovative I think can be challenged on the grounds of psychological realities of the ways people process information. Also his concepts that he tied to evolution I thought neither helped the cause of evolution or organizations. Though I think there is something to be said for random activities developing certain realities. However, the difference is that I view it in the context of the Sovereignty of God and not the random acts of humanity. I think organizations exist because of certain creative and organizing tendencies put in humans by God at creation. Adam tilled the garden not because he had to work but because it was God's purpose for him. So I think organization though very thick and random appearing at times has to do with the human ability to organize, create and live out purpose given by God and affected by sin.

I am not saying the author did not understand organization more than I do - he is the expert. I am simply saying I think his premise may have caused him to miss the point at times. I think unorthodox answers are needed and that linear cause and effect logic needs to be questioned but based on Divine Sovereignty and not human randomness.