"Up the Organisation" presentation by Mark Davis
Speaker Mark Davis with Rotarian Pat Reynolds from MKGU Rotary Club
Speaker Mike Davis from Milton Keynes Rotary
Club gave a presentation to a breakfast meeting of the Grand Union Club in May
2005 on a subject entitled "Up the organisation".
Mike has been involved with Rotary Clubs in both Britain and America and has extensive experience of ethnic and corporate culture and the apparent desire to create organisation charts which pigeon hole individuals into their respective positions in the hierarchy (if that exists).
In Mike's opinion, most organisations operate incorrectly and are based on 200 years of Caesar's legions. The tradition has been that orders are received from above and acted upon down through the structure. The Chinese still operate in this fashion, but organisations such as the United Nations have a circular structure with a chairman or executive director operating from the outer ring rather than the centre.
Many examples of types of organisation were given, including Arab organisations in which very little communication occurs between the members. In Albanian style organisations, the number two person can be the effective leader, and the Italians appear to have no identifiable leader (other than within the Vatican which is extremely hierarchical). The former Soviet Union had collective responsibility with no individual taking apparent responsibility.
Norwegian organisations are probably the most democratic and in Britain there is plenty of dialogue between peer groups, but very little opportunity for communication from below to the upper levels within the organisation. In the USA everybody appears to have a direct access line to the top. Being at the top of an organisation in Latin America is an extremely risky strategy and in French organisations there is often a very convoluted structure which makes it difficult to identify areas of responsibility. In this case decisions are often avoided and compromise solutions emerge.
Mike made it clear that the most effective organisation is the one that embraces team working. The example was given of the method introduced by Volvo cars in Sweden in which the production line approach was abandoned in favour of teams assembling the cars. Each group or team was responsible for the entire vehicle and individual tasks were rotated on a weekly basis. This lead to greater job satisfaction amongst the workforce and better quality products because of the personal responsibility that it engendered.
A lively debate followed in which controversial views were expressed to the effect that the emergence of the Women's Liberation movement had resulted in men becoming subordinates and with the possibility of the latter rebelling.