Healthy organizations?

Describing her vision of the future organization, Hatches states that ideal organizations are flexible, adaptable to change, have relatively few levels of formal hierarchy, are responsive to the environment, have friendly relations with stakeholders and empower people working for them (Hatch, 1997, p.351). In the 1990s, I read the book Life and how to survive it by Robin Skynner and John Cleese. The book treated the concept of mental health, or particularly, the phenomenon of being exceptionally healthy. It focused on the mental health of individuals and groups operating from the smallest to the largest of scales: discussing healthy families, the behavior of business organizations and the conduct of the whole societies. The study of mental health has deeply resonated with me for a long time. Surprisingly enough, I encountered the same metaphor of an organization as a healthy family in a recent issue of Library Management. Maurice B. Line in writes in “Management musings: organizations as families, happy or otherwise” that comparing an organization with a family can be instructive (Line, 2005, p. 316).
1) Healthy families are as efficient as healthy organizations: they have friendly relations outside world, they are good at handling change and they empower their family members(p.317).
2)Another feature mentioned by Skynner, Cleese and Line is their tremendous respect for individuality and independence. Questions and ideas are encouraged and decision making entails a long mediation (p. 27).
3)Healthy organizations just as healthy families have rules concerning limits and responsibilities. Lines mentions that if a good family/organization is to be stress free, relations between Heads and Subjects, as she calls them, must be handled with care: there has to be a great deal of trust and some rules, explicit or implicit, to abide by (Line, 2005, p.316).
4)Similarly to good parents, the leadership in healthy organizations exercises very strict control over a small number of absolutely crucial issues—usually dealing with money—but gives as much freedom as possible apart from that. Thus decision making process is to a high degree de-centralized and implies a series of discussions with employees (Skynner & Cleese, 1994, p. 115).
5)The discussion of successful companies shows that their founders followed some religious and philosophical principles: they believe in ethics. The most successful individuals with high levels of mental health seem to be followers of a religious path (Skynner & Cleese, 1994, p.108).

The need for a change in management and, from the psychological perspective, towards a greater organizational health/effectiveness, has been observed in the West and particularly in the U.S.A. for awhile. I believe we have been facing a shift from modernist rational organizational management and decision-making towards symbolic-interpretative and postmodernist perspective in these areas. The mechanistic, hierarchical and “scientific” approach has been replaced by new methods that value social science and cultural anthropology tools of analysis. To a large extend, the cultural and historic analysis was also prompted by a growing competition from Japanese companies and products: Japanese products have been more popular and their ways of management more efficient. The need for cultural analysis and new ways of management became obvious.
When observed from the perspective of mental health, Japanese management seems to be “healthier” in several areas. While reading the article “Attitudes toward decision-making: North America and Japan” by Teruyuki Kume from the book Communication, culture and organizational process, I noticed that the described models of Japanese management actually resemble the features of healthy families/organizations. First, whereas the decision-making process in the West is a business of an individual making up his/her mind, usually based on an internal mental process, Japanese often are involved in information gathering, both horizontal and vertical, and consulting each other before arriving at any decision (Kume, 1985, p. 248). Japanese managers seem to be more egalitarian – just like caretakers. Second, Americans, whose major priorities are achievement and accomplishment, tend to make decisions impulsively and without regard to outcome. Japanese, similarly to good parents, are more patient (p.242). Third, Japanese handle conflict in a more harmonious way—an individual easily abandons his/her agenda for a general harmony within a group (p.240).
Skynner and Cleese state that psychology had experienced some kind of a stagnation due to the lack of recognition of what constitutes health and excessive focus on anomaly and then the study of health became a huge step forward (p.4). I believe that organizational theory could follow the same path. On a more basic level, we as managers should attempt to construct healthy environments, while having our cultural limitations in mind.
Elizabeth Nicol

Kume, T. (1985). Attitudes toward decision-making: North America and Japan. In W. Gudykunst, L. Stewart & S. Ting-Toomey (Eds.), Communication, culture, and organizational process. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hatch, M. J. (1997). Organization theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Line, M. B. (2005). Management musings: organisations as families, happy or otherwise. Library Management, 25, 316-317.
Skynner, R. & Cleese, J. (1994) Life and how to survive it. New York: Norton.