1. Analyze the organizational environment that Sonoco operates in. Given this context, what are the strengths and weaknesses of Sonoco’s organizational structure? 2. How successful has Hartley been in transforming Sonoco’s HR function to be strategic? What else should Hartley have done? Provide the rationale for your answers to these questions. 3. What is right HR structure for Sonoco – centralization or hybrid? Why? Evaluate the different options (pros and cons).

* the secretary of Homeland Security, tell reporters that he “ had no reports ” of things viewers had seen with their own eyes. It seemed he might have been better informed if he had relied on CNN Homeland

* Security, Enron, and Home Depot represent only a few examples of an endemic challenge: how to know if you ’ re getting the right picture or tuning in to the wrong channel. Managers often fail this test. Cluelessness is a fact of life, even for very smart people. Sometimes, the information they need is fuzzy or hard to get. Other times, they ignore or misinterpret information at hand. Decision makers too often lock themselves into fl awed ways of making sense of their circumstances.rather than his own agency. * Reframing requires an ability to think about situations in more than one way. We then introduce four distinct frames — structural, human resource, political, and symbolic — each logical and powerful in its own right. Together, they help us decipher the full array of signifi cant clues, capturing a more comprehensive picture of what ’ s going on and what to do * They argue that smart people act stupid because of personality fl aws — things like pride, arrogance, and unconscious desires to fail. * But if we don ’ t realize our image is incorrect, we won ’ t understand why we don ’ t get what we hoped for. So, like Bob
Nardelli, we insist we ’ re right even when we ’ re off track

* Managers are supposed to have the big picture and look out for their organization
’ s overall health and productivity. Unfortunately, they have not always been equal to the task, even when armed with computers, information systems, fl owcharts, quality programs, and a panoply of other tools and techniques. They go forth with this rational arsenal to try to tame our wild and primitive workplaces.
Yet in the end, irrational forces too often prevail.

* In describing frames, we deliberately mix metaphors, referring to them as windows, maps, tools, lenses, orientations, fi lters, prisms, and perspectives, because all these images capture part of the idea we want to convey

* A frame is a mental model — a set of ideas and assumptions — that you carry in your head to help you understand and negotiate a particular “ territory. ” A good frame makes it easier to know what you are up against and, ultimately, what you can do about it. Frames are vital because organizations don ’ t come with computerized navigation systems to guide you turn - by - turn to your destination. Instead, managers need to develop and carry accurate maps in their heads.
Such maps make it possible to register and assemble key bits of perceptual data into a coherent pattern — a picture of what ’ s happening. When it works fl uidly, the process takes the form of “ rapid cognition, ” the process that Gladwell
(2005) examines in his best - seller Blink. He describes it as a gift that makes it possible to read “ deeply into the narrowest slivers of experience. In basketball, the player who can take in and comprehend all that is happening around him or her is said to have ‘ court sense ’ ”

* characteristics of this intuitive
“ blink ” process:
It is nonconscious — you can do it without thinking about it and without knowing how you did it
.
It is very fast — the process often occurs almost instantly.

It is holistic — you see a coherent, meaningful pattern.

It results in “ affective judgments ” — thought and feeling work together so you feel confi dent that you know what is going on and what needs to be done.

* Good maps align with the terrain and provide enough detail to keep you on course. If you ’ re trying to fi nd your way around downtown
San Francisco, a map of Chicago won ’ t help, nor one of California ’ s freeways. In the same way, different circumstances require different approaches

* Even with the right map, getting around will be slow and awkward if you have to stop and study at every intersection. The ultimate goal is fl uid expertise, the sort of know - how that lets you think on the fl y and navigate organizations as easily as you drive home on a familiar route. You can make decisions quickly and automatically because you know at a glance where you are and what you need to do next.

* Like maps, frames are both windows on a territory and tools for navigation.
Every tool has distinctive strengths and limitations. The right tool makes a job easier, but the wrong one gets in the way. Tools thus become useful only when a situation is sized up accurately. Furthermore, one or two tools may suffi ce for simple jobs, but not for more complex undertakings. Managers who master the hammer and expect all problems to behave like nails fi nd life at work confusing and frustrating. The wise manager, like a skilled carpenter, wants at hand a diverse collection of high - quality implements.

* structural frame depicts a rational world and emphasizes organizational architecture, including goals, structure, technology, specialized roles, coordination, and formal relationships. Structures — commonly depicted by organization charts — are designed to fi t an organization ’ s environment and technology * They then create rules, policies, procedures, systems, and hierarchies to coordinate diverse activities into a unifi ed effort . Problems arise when structure doesn ’ t line up well with current circumstances. At that point, some form of reorganization or redesign is needed to remedy the mismatch.

* The human resource perspective, rooted in psychology, sees an organization as an extended family, made up of individuals with needs, feelings, prejudices, skills, and limitations. From a human resource view, the key challenge is to tailor organizations to individuals — fi nding ways for people to get the job done while feeling good about themselves and their work.

* the political frame, rooted in the work of political scientists. It sees organizations as arenas, contests, or jungles. Parochial interests compete for power and scarce resources. Confl ict is rampant because of enduring differences in needs, perspectives, and lifestyles among contending individuals and groups. Bargaining, negotiation, coercion, and compromise are a normal part of everyday life. Coalitions form around specifi c interests and change as issues come and go. Problems arise when power is concentrated in the wrong places or is so broadly dispersed that nothing gets done. Solutions arise from political skill and acumen

* The symbolic lens, drawing on social and cultural anthropology, treats organizations as temples, tribes, theaters, or carnivals. It abandons assumptions of rationality prominent in other frames and depicts organizations as cultures, propelled by rituals, ceremonies, stories, heroes, and myths rather than rules, policies, and managerial authority. Organization is also theater: actors play their roles in the drama while audiences form impressions from what they see on stage. Problems arise when actors don ’ t play their parts appropriately, symbols lose their meaning, or ceremonies and rituals lose their potency.
We rekindle the expressive or spiritual side of organizations through the use of symbol, myth, and magic.

* Multiframe thinking requires moving beyond narrow, mechanical approaches for understanding organizations. We cannot count the number of times managers have told us that they handled some problem the “ only way ” it could be done. Such statements betray a failure of both imagination and courage and reveal a paralyzing fear of uncertainty. It may be comforting to think that failure was unavoidable and we did all we could. But it can be liberating to realize there is always more than one way to respond to any problem or dilemma. Those who master reframing report a sense of choice and power. Managers are imprisoned only to the extent that their palette of ideas is impoverished.

* Imagination is our best chance for being ready when a black swan sails into view, and multiframe thinking is a powerful stimulus to the broad, creative mind - set imagination requires.

* When the world seems hopelessly confusing and nothing is working, reframing is a powerful tool for gaining clarity, regaining balance, generating new options, and fi nding strategies that make a difference.

* The nation had a web of procedures and agencies aimed at detecting and monitoring potential terrorists. Those systems failed, as did procedures designed to respond to aviation crises. Similar failures have marked other well - publicized disasters: nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, for example, and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in 2005. Each event illustrates a chain of error, miscommunication, and misguided actions.
Events like 9/11 and Katrina make headlines, but similar errors and failures happen every day. They rarely make front - page news, but they are all too familiar to people who work in organizations. The problem is that organizations are complicated, and communication among them adds another tangled layer.
Reading messy situations accurately is not easy.

* Albert Einstein once said that a thing should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. When we ask students and managers to analyze cases like 9/11 they often make things simpler than they really are. They do this by relying on one of three misleading, oversimplifi ed one- size- fi ts - all concepts.

* Assigning blame resolves ambiguity, explains mystery, and makes clear what must be done next: punish the guilty. Enron had its share of culpable individuals, some of whom eventually went to jail. But there is a larger story about the organizational and social context that set the stage for individual malfeasance.
Targeting individuals while ignoring larger system failures oversimplifi es the problem and does little to prevent its recurrence.

* They simplify by developing “ programs ” — standardized routines for performing repetitive tasks. Once a program is in place, the incentive is to stay with it as long as the results are marginally satisfactory. Otherwise, the organization is forced to expend time and energy to innovate. Routine tends to drive out innovation, because individuals fi nd it easier and less taxing to devote limited time and energy to programmed tasks (which are automatic, well practiced, and more certain of success). Thus, a student facing a term - paper deadline may fi nd it easier to “ fritter ” — make tea, rearrange the desk, check e - mail, and browse the
Web — than to fi gure out how to write a good opening paragraph. A manager may sacrifi ce quality to avoid changing a well - established routine.

* The problem is that piling on rules and regulations typically leads to bureaucratic rigidity. Rules inhibit freedom and fl exibility, stifl e initiative, and generate reams of red tape. Could Enron have achieved its status as America ’ s most innovative company if it had played by the old rules? When things become too tight, the solution is to “ free up ” the system so red tape and rigid rules don ’ t stifl e creativity and bog things down. But many organizations vacillate endlessly between being too loose and too tight.

* Second, organizations are surprising. What you expect is often not what you get. Paul Osborne saw his plan as a bold leap forward; Helen and her group considered it an expensive albatross. In their view, Osborne made matters worse by trying to improve them. He might have achieved better results by spending more time with his family and leaving things at work alone. And imagine the shock of Enron ’ s executives when things fell apart.

* Sophisticated managers know that what happened to
Paul Osborne happens all the time. When a quality initiative fails or a promising product tanks, subordinates often either clam up or cover up. They fear that the boss will not listen or will punish them for being insubordinate. Thus early warnings that terrorists might commandeer commercial airliners went unvoiced or unheeded.

* Ambiguity has many sources. Sometimes available information is incomplete or vague. Different people may interpret the same information in a variety of ways, depending on mind - sets and organizational doctrines. At other times, ambiguity is intentionally manufactured as a smoke screen to conceal problems or steer clear of confl ict. Much of the time, events and processes are so intricate, scattered, and uncoordinated that no one can fully understand — let alone control * The top tells them to take risks but then punishes mistakes. Their subordinates expect them to shape up the boss and improve working conditions. Top and bottom tug in opposite directions, causing those in between to feel pulled apart, confused, and weak.

* The fi ghter pilots were eager to get above the mountains as quickly as possible. An extensive postmortem confi rmed that the Black Hawks would have been diffi cult to identify. The pilots did the normal human thing in the face of ambiguous perceptual data: they fi lled in gaps based on what they knew, what they expected, and what they wanted to see. “ By the time Tiger 01 saw the helicopters, he already believed that they were enemy. All that remained was for him to selectively match up incoming scraps of visual data with a reasonable cognitive scheme of an enemy silhouette ” (p. 80).
Recall that in Chapter One , we described the “ blink ” process of rapid cognition.
The essence of this process is matching situational cues with a well - learned mental model— a “ deeply- held, nonconscious category or pattern ”

* “ Many experts lose the creativity and imagination of the less informed. They are so intimately familiar with known patterns that they may fail to recognize or respect the importance of a new wrinkle ” (1997, p. 30). In such cases, snap judgments work against, rather than for, the person who is trying to fi gure things out.
Managers regularly face an unending barrage of puzzles or “ messes. ”

* A better alternative is to think, to probe more deeply into what is really going on, and to develop an accurate diagnosis. The process is more intuitive than analytic:
“ [It] is in fact a cognitive process, faster than we recognize and far different from the step - by - step thinking we rely on so willingly. We think conscious thought is somehow better, when in fact, intuition is soaring fl ight compared to the plodding of logic ” (DeBecker, 1997, p. 28). The ability to size up a situation quickly is at the heart of leadership. Admiral Carlisle Trost, former chief of naval operations, once remarked, “ The fi rst responsibility of a leader is to fi gure out what is going on . . . . That is never easy to do because situations are rarely black or white, they are a pale shade of gray . . . they are seldom neatly packaged. ”

* Many of us recognize that our mental maps infl uence how we interpret the world. Less widely understood is that what we expect often determines what we get. * The four frames can play a similar role for managers in modern organizations. Rather than portraying the fi eld of organizational theory as fragmented, we present it as pluralistic. Seen this way, the fi eld offers a rich assortment of lenses for viewing organizations.

* Narrow, oversimplifi ed perspectives become fallacies that cloud rather than illuminate managerial action. The world of most managers and administrators is a world of messes: complexity, ambiguity, value dilemmas, political pressures, and multiple constituencies. For managers whose images blind them to important parts of this chaotic reality, it is a world of frustration and failure. For those with better theories and the intuitive capacity to use them with skill and grace, it is a world of excitement and possibility. A mess can be defi ned as both a troublesome situation and a group of people who eat together.
The core challenge of leadership is to move an organization from the former to something more like the latter.

* Six assumptions undergird the structural frame:
1. Organizations exist to achieve established goals and objectives.
2. Organizations increase effi ciency and enhance performance through specialization and appropriate division of labor.
3. Suitable forms of coordination and control ensure that diverse efforts of individuals and units mesh.
4. Organizations work best when rationality prevails over personal agendas and extraneous pressures.
5. Structures must be designed to fi t an organization ’ s current circumstances
(including its goals, technology, workforce, and environment).
6. Problems arise and performance suffers from structural defi ciencies, which can be remedied through analysis and restructuring. * Dramatic changes in technology and the business environment have rendered old structures obsolete at an unprecedented rate, spawning a new interest in organizational design (Nadler, Gerstein, and Shaw, 1992; Bryan and Joyce, 2007).
Pressures of globalization, competition, technology, customer expectations, and workforce dynamics have prompted organizations worldwide to rethink and redesign structural prototypes.

* Two issues are central to structural design: how to allocate work (differentiation) and how to coordinate diverse efforts once responsibilities have been parceled out (integration).

* Once an organization spells out positions or roles, managers face a second set of key decisions: how to group people into working units.

* Creating roles and units yields the benefi ts of specialization but creates problems of coordination and control — how to ensure that diverse efforts mesh.
Units tend to focus on their separate priorities and strike out on their own, as
New York ’ s police and fi re departments did on 9/11. The result is suboptimization, an emphasis on achieving unit goals rather than focusing on the overall mission. Efforts become fragmented, and performance suffers.

* Rules, policies, standards, and standard operating procedures limit individual discretion and help ensure that behavior is predictable and consistent. Rules and policies govern conditions of work and specify standard ways of completing tasks, handling personnel issues, and relating to customers and other key players in the outer environment. This helps ensure that similar situations are handled in comparable ways.

* People ’ s behavior is often remarkably untouched by commands, rules, and systems.
Lateral techniques — formal and informal meetings, task forces, coordinating roles, matrix structures, and networks — pop up to fi ll the void.

* employees are the fi rm ’ s most important asset.

* The opposing camp holds that the needs of individuals and organizations can be aligned, engaging people ’ s talent and energy while the enterprise profi ts.

* People and organizations need each other. Organizations need ideas, energy, and talent; people need careers, salaries, and opportunities.

* Individuals fi nd meaningful and satisfying work, and organizations get the talent and energy they need to succeed.

* fi t ” is a function of at least three different things: how well an organization responds to individual desires for useful work; how well jobs enable employees to express their skills and sense of self; and how well work fulfi lls individual fi nancial and life - style needs * We also believe that we can achieve our goal only if we fulfi ll the needs of our own people ” (Wegmans, n.d.). * Modern behavioral scientists such as Abraham Maslow . . . have shown that virtually every person has a hierarchy of emotional needs, from basic safety, shelter, and sustenance to the desire for respect, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment

* Theory X and Theory Y Douglas McGregor (1960) built on Maslow ’ s theory by adding another important idea: that managers ’ assumptions about people tend to become self - fulfi lling prophecies. McGregor argued that most managers harbor “ Theory X ” assumptions, believing that subordinates are passive and lazy, have little ambition, prefer to be led, and resist change. Most conventional management practices, in his view, had been built on either “ hard ” or “ soft ”
126 Reframing Organizations versions of Theory X. The hard version emphasizes coercion, tight controls, threats, and punishments. Over time, it generates low productivity, antagonism, militant unions, and subtle sabotage — conditions that were turning up in workplaces across the United States at the time. Soft versions of Theory X try to avoid confl ict and keep everyone happy. The usual result is superfi cial harmony with undercurrents of apathy and indifference

* The structural concept of task specialization defi nes jobs as narrowly as possible to improve effi ciency. But the rational logic often backfi res.

* Hamper held down a variety of jobs, each as mindless as the next: “ The one thing that was impossible to escape was the monotony. Every minute, every hour, every truck, and every movement was a plodding replica of the one that had gone before

* The confl ict worsens at lower levels of the hierarchy — narrower, more mechanized jobs, more directives, and tighter controls.

* He rarely sought union help and even less often got any. He appreciated wages and benefi ts earned at the bargaining table, but nothing in the labor agreement protected workers from boredom, frustration, or the feeling of powerlessness.

* demotivate even the most committed workforce unless management practices changed * Apart from their homes, people spend more time on the job than anywhere else. With that kind of personal stake, they want to be part of something that matters and contribute to a greater good.

* The frame ’ s infl uence has grown with the realization that misuse of human resources depresses profi ts as well as people. Legions of consultants, managers, and researchers now pursue answers to the vexing human problems of organizations

* Should an organization seek adaptability (through a downsized, outsourced, part - time workforce) or loyalty (through a long - term commitment to people)? Should it seek high skills (by hiring the best and training them well) or low costs (by hiring the cheapest and investing no more than necessary)?

* Many analysts have argued that U.S. competitive success in recent decades is directly related to corporate willingness to shed unnecessary staff (Lynch, 1996).

* The formula of cutting staff and investing heavily in computerized equipment has paid off particularly in manufacturing, which enjoys a much greater productivity growth rate — more than 3 percent a year on average in the 1990s — than business as a whole ”

* Downsizing works best when new technology and smart management combine to enable fewer people to do more. Yet even when downsizing works, it risks trading short - term gains for long - term decay. As mentioned in Chapter Two ,
“ Chainsaw Al ” Dunlap became a hero of the downsizing movement. As chief executive of Scott Paper, he more than doubled profi ts and market value. His strategy? Cut people — half of management, half of research and development, and a fi fth of blue - collar workers. Financial outcomes were impressive, but employee morale sank, and Scott lost market share in every major product line.

* In shedding staff, fi rms often found that they also sacrifi ced knowledge, skill, innovation, and loyalty (Reichheld,
1993, 1996). Recent research confi rms that cutting people hurts more often than it helps performance

* But Nardelli was a dyed - in - the - wool structural - frame manager who put heavy emphasis on measurement and control.
Where the founders had preached “ make love to the customers, ” Nardelli cut staff, including many veterans who knew their way around paint and power tools. Customer complaints mushroomed, and by 2005 Home Depot ’ s ratings of customer satisfaction were dead last among American retailers

* A skilled and motivated workforce is a powerful source of strategic advantage. Consistent with core human resource assumptions, high - performing companies do a better job of understanding and responding to the needs of both employees and customers. As a result, they attract better people who are motivated to do a superior job. * Owen tried to convince fellow capitalists that investing in people could produce a greater return than investments in machinery, but the business world dismissed him as a wild radical whose ideas would harm the people he wanted to help (O’Toole, 1995).

* The organization benefi ts from a talented, motivated, loyal, and free-spirited workforce. Employees in turn are more productive, innovative, and willing to go out of their way to get the job done. They are less likely to make costly blunders or to jump ship when someone offers them a better deal.

* If you pay the best wages, you get the highest productivity. By our industry standards, we think we’ve got the best people and the best productivity when we do that

* Software powerhouse SAS is an example: In the software industry, where turnover rates hover around 20 percent, SAS maintains a level below 4 percent, which results in about $50 million a year in HR-related savings, according to a recent Harvard Business School study.

* Japan’s Mazda, facing similar circumstances, had a parallel experience: “At the end of the year, when awards were presented to the best salespeople, the company discovered that the top ten were all former factory workers. They could explain the product effectively, and when business picked up, the fact that factory workers had experience talking to customers yielded useful ideas about product characteristics . * Many employees feel little responsibility for an organization’s performance. They expect gains in effi ciency and profi tability to benefi t only executives and shareholders.

* Evidence shows that, to be effective, ownership has to be combined with ground-fl oor efforts to involve employees in decisions through schemes such as work teams and quality-improvement groups. Many companies have been doing this, of course, including plenty without
ESOPs. But employee-owners often begin to expect rights that other groups of shareholders have: a voice in broad corporate decisions, board seats, and voting rights. And that’s where the trouble can start, since few executives are comfortable with this level of power-sharing
[Bernstein, 1996, p. 101]

* The organization needs to build an “ownership culture” (p. 34) by sharing fi nancial data, involving employees in decisions, breaking down the hierarchy, emphasizing teams and cross-training, and protecting jobs.

* Many organizations are reluctant to invest in developing human capital. The costs of training are immediate and easy to measure; the benefi ts are elusive and long-term. Training temporary or contract workers carries added disincentives.
Yet many companies report a sizable return on their training investment. An internal study at Motorola, for instance, found a gain of twenty-nine dollars for every dollar invested in sales training

* Learning in an organization takes place when three elements are in place: good mentors who teach others, a management system that lets people try new things as much as possible, and a very good exchange with the environment”

* Progressive organizations give power to employees as well as invest in their development.
Empowerment includes keeping employees informed, but it doesn’t stop there. It also involves encouraging autonomy and participation, redesigning work, fostering teams, promoting egalitarianism, and infusing work with meaning.

* In the name of efficiency, many organizations spent much of the twentieth century trying to oust the human element by designing jobs to be simple, repetitive, and low skill.

* He saw job enrichment as central to motivation, but distinguished it from simply adding more dull tasks to a tedious job. Enrichment meant giving workers more freedom and authority, more feedback, and greater challenges

* Promote Egalitarianism Egalitarianism implies a democratic workplace where employees participate in decision making. This idea goes beyond participation, often viewed as a matter of style and climate rather than sharing authority.
Managers—even in participative systems—still make key decisions. Broader, more egalitarian sharing of power is resisted worldwide

* controversial issue is the pay differential between workers and management. In the 1980s, Peter Drucker suggested that no leader should earn more than twenty times the pay of the lowest-paid worker. He reasoned that outsized gaps undermine trust and devalue workers.

* If human resource management strategies are implemented in a halfhearted, piecemeal fashion, they lead to predictable failure. Success requires a comprehensive strategy and long-term commitment that many organizations espouse but fewer deliver. One example of a comprehensive strategy that combines structural and human resource elements is total quality management (TQM), which swept across corporate America in the 1980s.

* T-Groups - Researchers recognized that they had discovered something important and developed a program of “human relations laboratories.” Trainers and participants joined in small groups, working together and learning from their work at the same time.

* Groups often improve communication and increase acceptance of decisions.
On the downside, groups may overrespond to social pressure or individual domination, bog down in ineffi ciency, or let personal agendas smother collective purposes * In groups, as in organizations, the fi t between the individual and the larger system is a central human resource concern. The structural frame emphasizes the importance of formal roles, traditionally defi ned by a title and a job description.
In groups and teams, individual roles are often much more informal and implicit on both task and personal dimensions. * Every work group needs a structure of task roles so members understand who is going to do what. The roles are often fl uid, evolving over time as the group moves through phases of its task. Groups do better when task roles align with individual differences. Group members bring different interests (some love research but hate writing), skills (some are better at writing, while others are better presenters), and varying degrees of enthusiasm (some may be highly committed to the project, while others drag their feet). It is risky, for example, to assign the writing of a fi nal report to a poor writer or to put the most insecure member on stage in front of a demanding group of senior executives.