ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607270016
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Working It Out
SOURCE: CAMILLE WRIGHT MILLER
Q: Our "mom-and-pop" company has grown. We're ready to add full-time employees. We're concerned we'll alter our work environment. We like the way we work now. Is there any way to protect our work style?
A: No matter how small a company, it has a culture. While the culture will inevitably change some with additional personnel, the core culture can be retained. It takes active involvement, beginning before you make any hiring decisions.
Protecting the culture up front ensures its continuation as you grow.
Analyze exactly what components make your workday pleasurable. What's important to you in terms of the company? For example, what's your mission? What's your work style? What level of formality or informality do you want? Be as comprehensive as possible in your analysis.
Honest answers to these and other questions form the philosophy of an organization's founders.
When interviewing prospective employees, include questions that will reveal their philosophy. Their work habits? Work preferences? Clear selection criteria, based on your own philosophy, aid in getting a good match - individuals with ethics, habits and philosophies similar to your company's.
Once hired, guide your employees through the phases of adjustment, paying close attention to your socialization of new employees.
New employees arrive with their own values and expectations. They experience an "encounter stage" in which they confront differences between their expectations and reality.
Most employees work out these differences and adopt the culture of the organization. For employees to successfully become supportive members of any organizational culture, the leaders must demonstrate - through word and action - adherence to the organization's philosophy.
Every working individual participates in an organizational culture. Good organizational leaders not only know what makes up that culture, they also ensure others learn and internalize those essential elements.
No matter how diligent you are in the socialization process, there will be some differences in your organization. Welcome those differences that strengthen your organization; change those that cause you difficulties.
Q: How does "country-club management," a term I just heard, differ from other styles?
A: The term comes from Robert R. Blake and Jane Srygley Mouton's "The Managerial Grid III: The Key to Leadership Excellence." The grid evaluates managerial concern for people and for production.
Country-club management gives attention to the needs of employees for satisfying relationships. It's believed that those relationships lead to a comfortable, friendly atmosphere and work tempo. Country-club management demonstrates a high concern for people and a lower level of concern for production.
Blake and Mouton identified four other management styles:
* ``Team management" demonstrates high concern for both people and productivity. Interdependence and a shared interest in the organization's purpose creates relationships of trust and respect; work is accomplished by people committed to one another and the organization's mission.
* Managers with little concern for people and high concern for production demonstrate "authority-obedience" style. Work is organized and supervised to minimize disruption of production by people.
* The "organization-man management" philosophy is that adequate performance is possible through balancing the necessity of production with maintenance of satisfactory morale.
* The final style identified is "impoverished management," which demonstrates little regard for people or production.
Dozens of terms and methods are used to categorize managerial styles. The value in such exercises is in reflecting on our abilities to deal with people and the desired level of productivity.
Styles result from our values, experiences, education and work situations. The styles can be changed, but successful change requires knowledge, commitment and practice.
Q: When attending lunch meetings or having lunch with a colleague, I pay attention to the tips everyone leaves. When a lunch partner leaves less than 15 percent, I increase my tip to offset the difference. A co-worker says this is wrong.
A: When given separate checks, each individual at the table has a separate relationship with the server. Whatever the reason for a low tip - perception of poor service, tight budget or lack of awareness - the decision belongs to the one paying the check.
Unless you're jointly paying one check, the size of the tip is the personal business of each check payer. You are, in effect, minding someone else's business when you review and correct tipping.
Ease your mind and improve colleague relationships by focusing only on your own tipping habits.
Camille Wright Miller, an organizational behavior sociologist who works in Lexington, answers questions from our readers about workplace issues. Please send them to her in care of The Roanoke Times, Business News Department, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010.
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