In an age of crisis and uncertainty, dilemmas and paradoxes are especially evident and prevalent. The fascination and the promise of paradox is that there is also a sense that there is a hidden truth entwined within the opposites. This we contend is a challenge for leaders. The ultimate responsibility of leadership is to make sense of these and to handle them in a competent manner. This demands a new mode of leadership. The management of dilemma and paradox it is contended, the essence of leadership today. Paradoxical forces provide a dynamism which, although often experienced as potentially threatening, discomforting and negative can also be exciting, promising and positive.
"The assumption that organizations are rational entities is challenged every day in the work environment by a rich reality of asymmetries between conflicting forces, complexity, hidden intentions and paradoxes. Anyone wanting to understand the real forces that govern organizations should read this book. A must read for modern leaders who have the intellectual honesty to lead organisations with open eyes and not with the over simplifications and clichés of the past"––Giovanni Ghisetti, Director Business Transformation, Coca Cola Enterprises Europe
"Storey and Salaman s description of the paradoxes which characterise leadership today is hauntingly accurate. Their intelligent optimism that those dilemmas can be met is as encouraging as it is challenging for those of us who have to do just that. Having read the insights in this book I now understand how their business advice was always so pertinent".––Andy Street, Managing Director of John Lewis
Table of Contents
Preface xiii
List of case organizations xvii
About the authors xix
PART 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1 Exploiting dilemmas and paradoxes through a new mode of leadership 3
Meanings of dilemmas and paradox 12
The exploitation of paradox 12
Types 14
Dilemma/paradox 1: strategy and business models 17
Dilemma/paradox 2: organizational structuring 18
Dilemma/paradox 3: performance and control 19
Dilemma/paradox 4: innovation dilemmas 19
Dilemma/paradox 5: managers knowledge 20
Dilemma/paradox 6: organizational change 20
The role of leadership 21
Conclusions 23
Organization of the book 27
2 The nature of dilemma and paradox 29
Dilemma and paradox 29
Experiencing dilemma and paradox 31
The organizational level 33
Visualizing dilemmas 35
The subjectivity of dilemma and paradox 39
Exploiting dilemmas and paradoxes 40
Managing paradoxes 43
Conclusions 44
PART 2 THE SIX DILEMMAS AND PARADOXES 47
3 Dilemmas and paradoxes of strategy 49
Strategy and capability 50
Business and organizational models 53
Strategy and organizational design 56
Two case studies: EngCon and contract cleaning services 58
Case 1: The engineering consultancy company 60
Case 2: Commercial and industrial cleaning and support services contractors 69
Discussion 77
4 Dilemmas and paradoxes of organizational form and structuring 81
From bureaucracy to market 87
Project management 91
Process management 93
Joint ventures and alliances 97
Strategic outsourcing 98
Supply chain management 101
Networks and virtual organizations 102
Conclusions 105
5 Dilemmas and paradoxes of performance management 109
The meaning and implications of performance management 113
The paradox of control 115
The performance control process 116
The social complexity of the process 118
Types of control 119
Direct supervision 119
Technical controls 121
Administrative controls 122
Quality and Just–in–Time manufacturing 124
Incentive payments as a form of performance management 125
Self controls and social controls 126
Control and resistance 128
The vicious circle of control 129
Positive responses to controls 130
Reconciling control and autonomy 131
Performance and management systems 131
The wider context 133
Conclusions 135
6 Dilemmas and paradoxes of innovation 137
Introduction 138
Innovation issues 139
Business strategy and the management of innovation 140
Barriers and enablers 141
Exploration versus exploitation 143
The role of established cognitive structures and recipes 144
Our findings about managers use of theory and the choice between two divergent models 146
Managers interpretations of the nature and priority of innovation 150
Different interpretations and their consequences 152
The moral and affective dimensions 153
The illegitimacy of innovation? 154
Analyses of the source of the problem 155
Formal and informal systems 157
Informal systems 158
Organizational cultures 159
Mindsets and values 162
Approaches to innovation: a danger to be controlled or energy to be tapped? 163
Loose/tight 164
The value of searching 165
The role of leadership 165
Conclusions 166
7 Dilemmas and paradoxes of managers knowledge 171
Fads, fashions and prevailing assumptions 174
Developing strategy: the role of executives knowledge and thinking 177
Why are executives ideas powerful? 179
Tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge; consensual knowledge and differentiated knowledge 180
Findings about executive managers strategic knowledge 183
Type 1: common unexplored understandings 184
Type 2: divergent, submerged/unexplored confl icts 187
Type 3: negotiated action 189
Type 4: manifest confl ict 191
Conclusions 192
8 Dilemmas and paradoxes of organizational change 195
Introduction 195
The nature and sources of change paradoxes 198
The knowledge and role of managers 199
The nature of organizations 200
The objectives of organizational change projects 201
The paradoxes of change processes 204
Why change? The relationship between organizational capacity and organizational strategy 205
Why change? Basic systems 208
Why change? Core competences 209
Why change? The adaptive organization 211
Why change? Strategic capacity 214
Key change problems and solutions 215
Key change problems: organizational capacity to change 215
Key change problems: symptoms and sources 216
Key change problems: changing how we change 218
Key change problems: changing the organization or helping it learn to change? 219
Conclusions 220
PART 3 CONCLUSIONS 223
9 Implications for leaders of organizations 225
Dilemmas and paradoxes of strategy and of business models 229
Dilemmas and paradoxes of organizing 233
Dilemmas and paradoxes of performance management 233
Dilemmas of innovation 234
The paradoxes of change 236
Cross–cutting applications and a summary of lessons for leaders 237
References 243
Index 253
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