2. "Organizing can only be thought of in connection with disorganization." Why do things appear disorganized and what are the ways in which people respond to this disorganization? Discuss with particular reference to one particular organizing effort in which you actively participated yourself.

Marcus Aurelius, one of the most successful leaders of the Roman Empire,

once said, “The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious”. His

meaning behind this was that in order to be successful we must not only maintain and

organize the important aspects of our lives, but also ensure that minor details and

fundamental issues are managed and organised effectively in advance. This idea

outlines the central point of the argument I wish to portray in this essay; while

organization is closely associated with disorganization, it doesn’t have to be a

reaction, but rather a pre-emptive effort to minimise any disorganization.

Fineman et. al argue that ‘You do not have to have had a leadership role to be

part of organizing, and already to know, through experience, what seems to operate

successfully and what seems to fail.’ As such, I will be drawing on various examples

of organizing efforts I have been involved in to elaborate or demonstrate specific

points regarding organizing and disorganization. The particular organizing effort I

will be focussing on concerns the time I have spent as a tennis coach and the various

tennis lessons I have had to supervise and lead.

Why do we feel the need to organize our files? Why do we need to plan ahead

for a trip? What reason is there for making a ‘to-do list’? All of these things are

answered by the same response: We want to avoid disorganization. Things appear

disorganized whenever their natural order is broken or put out of place and, as such,

disorganization can lead to extreme reductions in productivity and performance.

Disorganization results in a feeling of frustration and irritation, and this can escalate

to genuine anger directed at either the guilty party or anyone else taking part in the

task. It can also lead to tasks not being performed well, on time, or not even being

completed at all as the disorder and disorganization interrupts the flow of the task so

much as to cause participants to give up on it.

Clearly disorganization is something that we all wish to avoid to ensure tasks

are accomplished effectively and participants remain amicable throughout the task

itself. As a result of this I believe that the majority of people look to avoid

disorganisation from the outset rather than having to respond to it. For example, when

I first started tennis coaching I would look to have a vague outline and plan for each

lesson so that the sessions would run smoothly and everybody I was coaching got the

most out of the hour they had. I did this by having a list of all of the various exercises,

games and drills I could use and grouping them into lesson plans. These drills all

worked on the same aspect of a player’s game and so each lesson focused on one

specific aspect. I would then rotate these drills each week to ensure my clients had

variety whilst still learning (or improving) an aspect of their game. However, I still

wanted to leave room for improvisation and reaction to how the lessons were running

and so did not have a particularly rigid structure.

This strategy was particularly effective with adults because it provided fun but

structured sessions that allowed for development of each player’s game. However, it

was less effective when running the children’s sessions because they weren’t able to

decide for themselves which groups to be in or what drill to do. The lack of a formal

structure was also an issue because I had two assistants for these sessions and so I had

to make it clear to them what was happening at the start of each session. At first,

following the adult lessons’ structure often resulted in fairly high levels of

disorganization, with children not being sure which drill to go to next or who they

were supposed to be playing against. This disorganization resulted in the children

becoming confused and lots of questions being asked; meaning lots of time being

wasted on having to repeat myself and my instructions to various people. Another

problem with this disorganization was that some of the children would not get as

much one on one time and so were not able to improve as much as others. It would

also often result in petty squabbles between the children and a general feeling of

frustration and stress for all three members of staff running the session.

After having endured a few sessions with this disorganization and the

problems associated with it, I looked to improve my planning for each lesson. The

main aim was to make it extremely clear, to both staff and students, who would be

playing with whom and what drills were being done each day. By doing this I was

able to control the lessons better and ensure that all players were involved and

continued to improve.

The process of organizing in this example is twofold: pre-planning to

minimise disorganization, and reacting to further disorganization that occurs

unexpectedly. I feel that these are the two ways in which virtually everybody

approaches the concept of organization. It is very rare to see people organizing for the

sake of organizing, they are looking to minimise disorder. When I was planning my

gap year I had to plan where I was going to earn the money to pay for it, where I was

going to go, what I was going to do, etc. This organization was well in advance of the

actual date, but it was all in an effort to minimise any disorganisation that could occur

whilst I was travelling. I was not simply being organized for the sake of it, but trying

to minimise any stress, anxiety or worry that would be associated with being

disorganized.

The other way of dealing with disorganization is to react to it once it has

occurred; and this is demonstrated well by the simple example of tidying one’s room.

Although some people are able to maintain a tidy room constantly, a lot of people will

only decide to tidy and organise their room once the level of disorganization has

become too great, and there are many other situations in which reaction to

disorganization triggers organisation.

There have been many studies into the effect that disorganization has on

companies and firms and these effects are very similar to the effects felt by

individuals. McCroskey and Mehrley (1969) found that companies will see reduced

profits and productivity when their structure or industry suffers from a certain level of

disorganization. This point was also developed by Konings (1998) in a study of

Bulgarian and Estonian firms in which it was found that disorganization, measured by

complexity of a sector, has a negative effect on productivity growth in Bulgaria. So,

clearly, disorganization has a negative impact on all aspects of life and can effect both

companies and individuals.

To conclude, organising is generally associated with disorganisation but the

reaction to disorganisation generally falls into one of two approaches; either pre-

emptive planning, or post disorganization reaction. The two methods both look to

minimize the effect that disorganization can have as it generally is extremely

detrimental to whatever task is being carried out.

Word Count = 1200

Bibliography:

Fineman, S., Sims, D. & Gabriel, Y. (2010) Organizing and Organizations (Fourth Edition) London: Sage.

Konings, J, 1998. Firm Performance in Bulgaria and Estonia: The effects of competitive pressure and disorganization, The University of Michigan

McCroskey, J C, Mehrley, R S, 1969, Communication Monographs, The effects of disorganization and nonfluency on attitude change and source credibility, 36 (1) pp 13-21.