Management of the People’s Business Gets Complicated

If Eupsychian Management is your philosophy of management, consider how it will affect the techniques you use for both management and leadership. That is, should motivation be from the “inside-out or self-motivation,” or is motivation from the “outside-in.”  Theory X style of motivation and leadership is from the outside-in and Theory Y is from the inside-out.

Presented here are two lists dealing comparatively with the advantages and disadvantages of using the Eupsychian or Interpolis Model. 

Advantages: 

Flexibility; increased work-life balance; employees valued as people and assets; reduction of employee turnover; increased trust and workplace integrity; lower turnover rate; higher level of self-motivation; increased worker productivity; lower need for direct supervision; promotion of personal growth and development; human element of joy is put back into work arrangements; attractive to Type A personalities; micromanagement goes out the door;  flexibility is a major attraction driver; retention rate is improved; engagement drivers are better realized; The built environment becomes more compatible with the nature of work and human beings; reduction of costs associated with required office spaces utilities, infrastructure, etc.; encourages self-direction and personal accountability; collaborate work is encouraged; focus is on getting the work done; organizational environment is congruent with organizational goals and behavior (lighting, color, mega lettering; sustainable interiors); collaboration and personal interactions can be overcome by using Skype, Zoom, Team, etc. and group rapport, solidarity and cohesion can be effectively built (many examples from dealing with the pandemic); builds reciprocal trust between workers at all levels; personal autonomy is selected work space best suited for work; and, encourages mutual loyalty between workers and management.

In any restructuring and redesigning of an organization, the type of work and organizational culture must be taken into account, as well as whether the workplace is a redistributed one or not.

Disadvantages: 

Sunk costs—difficult and expensive to implement; hard to maintain a high level of motivation and productivity with a tele place orientation; difficult to implement a successful onboarding process for new employees; split locations may negatively impact successful team interactions; emphasis on efficiency may impact overall quality and productivity; negative impact on mental health must be ascertained; problem of free-riders; change must be carefully studied and implemented to avoid “bureaucratic procedures and partisan brinkmanship;” employees must be able to self-direct and self-manage; and, depending on type of organizations , such as health care, fast food restaurants, assembly line work, manufacturing, etc., scheduling difficulties must be considered. 

A note on leadership considerations: Leadership and management! Are they separate or joint enterprises? The leadership literature often treats these dual concepts as having a symbiotic relationship, or, alternatively, as autonomous concepts, theories or processes. If Warren Bennis’ frequently quoted, admonition is correct, that “…managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing,” then organizations need those in key positions who are capable of doing both leadership and management successfully and at the same time. 

In our desire to prepare people for 2lst Century public, private and plural (nonprofit) organizations, are leadership or management skills and notions being emphasized? If these twin concepts are inextricably connected, then one of them should not be given more attention at the expense of short-changing the other. In their own spheres, what are the key leadership concepts or the key management concepts that need to be understood and practiced? In brief, are we facilitating the development of people who will lead or manage organizations or who have successfully integrated the needed skills and concepts to do both simultaneously?

Management of the People’s Business Gets Complicated

The "drivers" of government modernization need to be considered at this time in our discussion. Much of the group’s discussion centered on the advantages and limitations of the Interpolis experiment.

The IBM Center for The Business of Government, in its effort to assist public sector leaders and modernize governmental processes, procedures and structures in the 2lst Century, has sponsored many research projects that inform us on the major policies that confront us and some of the tools that may be used in public sector modernization. They approached the transformation of government with several major values in hand: Innovativeness, Efficiency, Effectiveness and Equity

The IBM Center does not stand alone in identification of these major challenges, some regional, most national and global: Pandemic Diseases, Homelessness, Opioid Addiction, Poverty, Food Insecurity, Climate Change, Healthcare, Nuclear proliferation, Immigration and Migration, Changing Demographics, Changing Nature of Work, Cybersecurity, Human Rights, and a litany of other challenges. The IBM Center identified, in capsulated form, seven transformative drivers and how they impact people, process and culture:

1. Insight — “Using data, evidence and analytics to create insight that influences decision making, actions and results”

2. Agility — “Adopting new ways for government to operate, using agile principles and putting user experiences and program results at the forefront”

3.  Effectiveness — “Applying enterprise approaches to achieve better outcomes, operational efficiency and a leaner government”

4. Risk -– “Mitigating risk, managing cybersecurity and building resiliency to meet the mission of government”

5. People — “Cultivating people; reforming processes for hiring, developing, and retaining workers; and leveraging data and technologies to build the workforce of the future”

6. Engagement — “ Fostering a citizen-driven government through real-time, interactive feedback to engage, co-create, and co-produce services and programs”

7. Digital — ”Optimizing new technology and infrastructure models, focusing on the user experience and incentivizing innovators to modernize how government does business”

Conventionally, many of the key words, concepts and terms used in contemporary management thought and analysis end with the letters…ate: Motivate, Delegate, Terminate, Integrate, Stimulate, Participate, Communicate, Coordinate, Cooperate, Collaborate, Co-Create, Orchestrate, Automate, and Evaluate and so on. This listing is often joined with the concepts of jointness, partnering, team building, coaching, mentoring, digital, analytical, metrics, and many more traditional items in the theory and practice of public administration. The central question is: Does Eupsychian Management and innovations actually address what the IBM Center has recommended? Think About it!