Introduction to Managing and Organising
2022/2023 TEW
,Lecture 1, Part 1 – Managing People in Organizations
Managing & Managerialism
Making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices
that constitute a way of viewing reality
Managing entails sensemaking and framing
Managerialism – a claim to special expertise premised on managerial rationality
characterizing organizations
Making sense of Managing (p. 6 ff)
We can differentiate managing as a practice, as something that we do, from organizations as
goal-oriented collectives, entities in which we are organized
Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing action in the
pursuit of organizational objectives
Managing collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other artefacts,
both within as well as between organizations and managing more or less considerate
relationships with those employed as well as with those encountered as suppliers, customers,
communities, and so on
Management is not a neutral activity !
Management cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective gains
in productivity/efficiency
It is also a socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal, political and
ethical responsibilities
This is called sensemaking
For the past 40 years, the predominant sense of what an organization should be has been
modelled on lean and efficient private sector organizations that are profit oriented
In such organizations, top management teams strive to set a common frame so that
organizational members, customers, suppliers, investors, and so on, can make common sense of
the organization – what it is and what it does
Sense-making
Sensemaking is the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to something,
especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events
, Sense-making in a capitalist system
Making sense of profit orientation?
Does it make sense to you?
The art of making sense of your work (proud to working for Apple, Google or another ‘hip’
company
Dare to challenge the narrative of selling company! (Projection of an image that may not be
reality)
Dare to challenge the narrative of your manager!
We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new
information, knowledge and events not previously available
Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the present
(Maitlis and Christianson, 2014).
Managing in a complex world
A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work. Contemporary managers can no
longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to manage people
Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political and challenging endeavour
People work in complex organizations that are embedded in contexts inscribed by complex
networks
Managers should have understanding of (human) complexity
Sensemaking and framing
Managers manage through processes of:
o Sense making
o Sense giving
o Sense breaking
A key part of the managers’ role is to ‘frame’ the sense that others have of the roles that
they play in the organization
As social realities of business and organizations change, the different sense and framing is
required
Much of managing is discursive: issuing orders, making suggestions, framing actions in order
to accomplish objectives
Managing & Framing
While the sense you make is always your sense it is never made in isolation. Not only is sense
made through the language and concepts you use but also through the many cues that prompt
you to make sense: experience, what others say they think is happening, likely stories that you
are familiar with that seem to fit the pattern that appears to be forming
People will not use these cues in a uniform way, because they are individuals and, as a
result, people can make wildly different sense of the same set of cues
Framing ½
Framing is a term that comes from film making: a director frames a shot by including some
detail and omitting other elements
A frame defines what is relevant. All managing involves framing: separating that which
deserves focus from that which does not. One thing that managers do all the time is to
differentiate between the relevant and the irrelevant
