Timothy Wilken, MD
In 1983, the major success of Japan, Inc. was serving to focus
international attention on their ways of doing business. The Japanese
were employing organizing strategies that produced the highest
productivity and quality of work-life in the industrial world.
Their success appeared to threaten the viability of many
American corporations. This threat was leading to the careful
examination of the Japanese way by numerous individuals.
Their findings revealed the major focus of the Japanese was
long-term and wholistic. This was in striking contrast to most American
corporations where the focus was short-term and particulate.
As the world’s business corporations sought to compete and
survive in the late 70s and early 80s, they sought the most powerful
organizing strategies available. Who would be right — the Japanese, or
the Americans?
Should businesses have wholistic concerns or particulate
concerns? Did the recent major success of the Japanese prove they had
the right system?
What about innovation, creativity, and originality? How do they fare
under the Japanese way? Many American business leaders were forced to
decide without really being able to predict the effect of their
decisions.
William Ouchi is best known for his work, Theory Z,
which was published in 1981 when American businesses were still
scratching their collective heads in trying to understand the Japanese
advantage. Dr. Ouchi pointed out that advantage, which was revealed to
be a Japanese commitment to democratic leadership that resulted in
increased quality, increased productivity and decreased costs while
making workers at all levels full partners in business. He contrasted
the American and the Japanese ways in the following chart.
|
Japanese |
American |
| Wholistic Concern |
Particulate Concern |
| Collective Decision Making |
Individual Decision Making |
| Collective Responsibility |
Individual Responsibility |
| Implicit Control Mechanisms |
Explicit Control Mechanisms |
| Lifetime Employment |
Short-term Employment |
| Non-Specialized Career Paths |
Specialized Career Paths |
| Slow Evaluation & Promotion |
Rapid Evaluation & Promotion |
Economic Survival
And how long could American businesses afford to wait before
deciding? Ouchi said, “it takes a minimum of two years to convert to a type z company, and some companies might require four or six years to see effects.”
The success of the Japanese could be explained by synergic
system analysis. As I examined the two ways from the point of view of
synergy science, I discovered the American way was dominated by
hierarchy, while the Japanese way was heavily influenced by the
heterarchy.
Other-Directed Management
Nearly all of America’s businesses employed other-directed
management. Other-directed management is when “A” tells “B” what to do,
and often how to do it as well.
Recall that hierarchy is a vertical system with many levels of
organization. Those with greatest responsibility and authority occupy
the higher levels. Hierarchy creates a feeling of difference or
individuality. Individuals within the system see each other vertically,
“He is over me.” “I work under John.” “He is way up in the company”
“She is the lowest one on the totem pole.” All too often individuals
within a hierarchy experience feelings of inferiority. This is not
surprising in a system based on superior and inferior levels. In
humans, feelings of inferiority produce hostility. In the jungle, being
inferior was often synonymous with death.
This adversary reality was also experienced in the cave, and
the tribe, and the feudal state , and is experienced in nearly all the
corporations, institutions, governments, and militaries of earth.
Recent mind-brain science reveals that hostility produces a
‘down shift’ within the human mind to a very primitive mode of thinking
— the SURVIVE MODE. This “mode of thinking” originated in the jungle,
and is the master of fighting and fleeing.
Since the inception of hierarchy its constant companion has
always been conflict. This now seems to be its primary limitation. One
significant contributor to conflict is other-directed management.
Some corporations are seeking to move away from other-directed
management through use of “delegation of responsibility”. Here,
managers are still told what to do, but not how to do it. They have
more freedom to self-direct. But even within systems with “delegation
of responsibility”, the price of failure is usually termination or at
the very least stagnation of ones career. This produces fear of failure
with resultant conflict.
Conflict — Preparing to Fight or Flight
The SURVIVE MODE of the human mind is the real “king” of the
jungle. We humans are clearly the dominate form of life on this planet.
We have successfully fought and fled our way from the African savannah
to the top of the modern corporate board room.
The survive mode is quite effective for physical conflict,
with its extremes of rage and terror, but highly ineffective within
modern organizations. The survive mode is our most primitive way of
thinking. It was for survival emergencies in the jungle. Humans
thinking in this mode are highly inefficient and non-productive, they
lose access to almost all of what we call “human intelligence”. Any
conflict can produce hostility within a human, and hostility always
shifts humans into the survive mode.
Synergy science has identified conflict as the major obstacle
to efficiency, productivity, and quality of work-life within all
organizations. While Hierarchy clearly has some major strengths, its
problems with conflict create the greatest of liabilities. If human
organizations are to survive into the 21st century, it is crucial that
conflict be eliminated.
conflict
: friction
___________ _________
organizations : machinery
Synergic system analysis reveals that the major secret of the
Japanese way is the reduction of conflict they have achieved within
their organizations.
Synergy Increases Efficiency
Synergic system analysis reveals that efficiency within a system
is a direct variable of the type of relationship that exists between
the parts that make up the whole system.
In other words, it is how these parts relate with one another that will absolutely determine the success of the whole system.
Recall that adversary relationships are bad for me, bad for you,
or bad for both of us. Neutral relationships have no effect on you or
me. But synergic relationships are good for you and good for me —
WIN-WIN.
The synergic relationship maximizes efficiency. Neutral
relationships significantly limit efficiency, and adversary
relationships allow no possibility of efficiency.
Synergy science reveals that conflict is an indirect variable
of efficiency, productivity, and quality of work-life. Using win-win
relationships within organization is like applying grease to machinery.
It is by making win-win relationships that we will form systems
in which the sum of the whole system is much more than the sum of the
parts. This “much more” results in what Haskell called the cooperator’s
reward.
If we humans desire a share of the cooperator’s reward, then,
we must learn to create win-win relationships between all the
individuals within our organiztions and to reduce conflict where ever
we may find it.
Eliminating Conflict
I pause here to mention one apparently different point of view.
Recently some business writers have been singing the praises of
conflict. They advise “managers” to learn to creatively manage
conflict, rather than to try to eliminate it.
However a closer examination reveals that these business
writer’s define “managing conflict” as creating “win-win
relationships”. Whereas synergy science defines the creation of
“win-win relationships” as “eliminating conflict”. So whether we refer
to the creation of “win-win relationships” as “eliminating conflict” or
as simply “managing conflic”, we would all agree, it is good to create
win-win relationships.
The Japanese clearly have some cultural advantages in creating
win-win relationships. First of all, they are a very crowded people
with over a hundred million individuals living within a geographic area
no larger than a single one of our states. This crowding has produces a
strong force toward a cooperative life style, and the Japanese do
strongly seek consensus. They also are the only nation to have
experienced nuclear war, this resulted in a people deeply committed to
the cooperative way.
Some Americans seem to want to explain away the Japanese
success by pointing to obscure genetic and cultural differences, as if
in so doing they will somehow invalidate the Japanese success. Their
success will not be invalidated. The Japanese success results not from
obscure genetic and cultural traits, but from simply reducing the
conflict within their organizations.
And the most powerful strategy presently known for reducing conflict is heterarchy.
The Japanese Way
The Japanese reduce conflict by using heterarchy in their
systems. In many ways, the basic structure of Japanese business appears
no less hierarchical than our own. However, the Japanese have
introduced heterarchy into their systems in at least three significant
forms.
First of all, the Japanese use “quality circles”. Management
and workers all sit at the same level in advisory “heterarchies”. This
allows the managers to be very aware of the attitudes of those who will
be implementing decisions. Conflict can be discovered and eliminated
effectively within the heterarchy. All participants of “quality
circles” feel they are on a full and equal basis to discuss problems
and recommend changes.
Secondly, while much of the Japanese work day is spent in
hierarchical organization not unlike Americans, the Japanese business
day does not end at 5 pm. The mandatory socializing which occurs every
night after work is structured as heterarchy. This provides another
opportunity to reduce conflict and many business decisions are made in
this social setting.
And thirdly, while hierarchy prevails in terms of
organizational responsibility, the Japanese manager adopts a more open
heterarchical style. He welcomes his worker's inputs, and encourages
them to participate in the decision making process.
This is a move away from other-directed management towards
more self-directed management. This is accompanied by an almost
instantaneous decrease in conflict.
If we are to learn anything from the Japanese, it should be
that reduction of conflict always produces a significant increase in
efficiency, productivity, and quality of work-life.
My study of Japanese business opened my eyes to the power of
heterarchy. It is now obvious that all human organizations must master
the power of the heterarchy. However, hierarchy is not the villain in
this story. For American busnisesses to throw out hierarchy in a rush
to embrace the Japanese way could be a worse mistake than to make no
change at all. American busnesses are the masters at hierarchy, and
here the Japanese can learn something from them.
The discovery of the Organizational Tensegrity reveals that
human organizations require a system of organization that transcends
both heterarchy and hierarchy.
At one and the same time the Organizational Tensegrity is
neither a heterarchy nor a hierarchy, and simultaneously it is both a
heterarchy and a hierarchy. There is a third alternative to either
heterarchy or hierarchy.
The synergic way produces win-win relationships between all
members of the system by transcending both heterarchy and hierarchy.
This is the mechanism that allows the Organizational Tensegrity to
eliminate all internal conflict.
Both-And
The Organizational Tensegrity can then be defined as that
“complex organizational system that creates a balance of both
heterarchy and hierarchy to produce win-win relationships among all
members of the system and simultaneously eliminate all internal
conflict”.
Synergy science teaches us the both-and point of view. Systems
are not wholes. Systems are not parts. Systems are both wholes and
parts. A human organization is not just a community, it is not just the
individuals within the community. A human organization is both a
community and the individuals within that community. We humans are
usually misled by our great propensity to “either/or” thinking. This is
not a question of “either heterarchy or hierarchy”.
An Organizational Tensegrity is highly flexible being able to
move between heterarchy and hierarchy easily and frequently. This
ability of the organizational tensegrity, to instantly shift between
these two strategies, allows it to gain the strengths of both while
avoiding their weaknesses altogether.
Heterarchy is best able to provide the needs of the whole —
the needs of community, while hierarchy is best able to meet the goals
of the parts — the goals of the individuals. And the win-win
relationship serves as the binding that holds the system together.
Which way for Humanity? We humans find ourselves once again at the crossroads, which way shall we choose?
I believe our future does not lie in the Japanese way of
heterarchy, nor in the American way of hierarchy. I believe it lies in
the third alternative — the synergic way of the Organizational
Tensegrity. In the years that have passed since I first described the
organizational tensegrity, I have contracted the term to simply
Ortegrity.
.
When Japan's economy was booming in the 1950s, 60s and 70s,
Japan's leaders had the following philosophy:
That was the philosophy that made Japan Number 1, the philosophy
of the Japanese Miracle, the philosophy that created the greatest
economic growth (and social gains) in the history of this planet.
Most of those Japanese leaders, who received Confucian educations
prior to 1945, had retired by around 1980 and were succeeded by people
educated in the system imposed by General Douglas MacArthur's
Occupation after 1945. They have destroyed Japan's Miracle, and are
ruining Japan's economy, with the same philosophy that has knocked the
United States from its economic and social pinnacle down to
third-world status:
Japan's MacArthur-educated colonials have used this philosophy
since the early 1980s to plunder Japan's economy.
