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While helpful in the short run, the cause-and-effect relationships are not very helpful in explaining past events or predicting future ones in a moderate to long-run time frames.
Over moderate periods of time – let us say, from six months to six years – organizations can obviously change much more than in the short run. These changes can take almost an infinite number of paths and can appear more difficult to understand and predict.
Nevertheless, moderate-run dynamics display patterns that are just as comprehensive as short-run dynamics. They are simply different kinds or patterns.
While the patterns of short-run dynamics are about interaction between elements and processes, the patterns of moderate-run dynamics are about relationships and interactions between elements.
1. Alignment, Nonalignment, and Coalignment
Numerous researches offer evidence that when an organization’s formal arrangements, employees and other tangible assets, external environment, methods and approaches, internal social system, and dominant coalition have characteristics that fit together, that are consistent and congruent, that are “coaligned”, it is also obvious to find efficient matter/energy processes, effective information processes, and stability within a moderate time-frame.
If, however, the relationships between any of six elements are non-aligned, it is obvious to find some inefficient matter/energy processes and ineffective decision-making processes emerging within a few months or a few years, and the situation tends to be unstable.
Examples of the Important Relationships
1. External Environment – Dominant Coalition
If the goals and strategies of the dominant coalition are based on the inaccurate assumptions about the task environment, then the dominant coalition and the external environment are obviously non-aligned.
Inefficiencies will emerge and the situation will be unstable in the moderate run (and thus will probably change).
2. Techniques – Employees and Other Tangible Assets
If the number of employees of the amount of tangible assets is much too small to take advantage of the economies of scale inherent in the organization’s methodologies, efficiencies will emerge and the situation will be unstable in the moderate run.
3. Dominant Coalition - Techniques
If the dominant coalition does not have members who are skilled in understanding the organization’s main methods and approaches, efficiencies will emerge and the situation will be unstable in the moderate run.
4. Formal Arrangements – Employees and Other Tangible Assets
If the specialization called for in formal organizational arrangements is inconsistent with either employee skills or the number of employees, efficiencies will emerge and the situation will be unstable in the moderate run.
5. Formal Arrangements – Social System
If the relationships, rules, and goals established by the organization’s formal arrangements are significantly different from the relationships, norms, and values in its social system, efficiencies will emerge and the situation will be unstable in the moderate run.
2. Patterns in the Creation and Correction of Nonalignment
The examples above share one common pattern. Which tends to be a characteristic of moderate-run organizational dynamics: something causes a change that creates a significant non-alignment between two or more of the structural elements in our model.
After a period of months or years, the states of those non-aligned elements change so that their relationships are aligned again (or almost aligned).
During that period of time, problems tend to emerge and then go away, and rather complex series of specific events (short-run cause-and-effect dynamics) occur, which is related to ultimate changes.
A variety of factors lead to non-alignments. Perhaps the most common is a change of some sort in an organization’s external environment, which then creates a non-alignment between that element and one or more the other structural elements.
A second common cause of non-alignment is growth. Most organizations attempt to grow. They do so by expanding their task environment, developing new methodologies, adding new employees.
Changes in the dominant coalition also often induce non-alignment. A new company president, for example, might have aspirations for growth that are not aligned with the firm’s current task environment.
Finally, non-alignments are also often created by actions designed to correct non-alignments.
Once created, non-alignments tend to correct themselves by taking the path of least resistance. They generally do so by realigning around that element or those elements that are most difficult and expensive to change.
For example, even though a college vice-rector may be right in his management practices to overcome inefficiencies in the college’s formal arrangements and social culture of reluctance, it is reasonable to assume that forcing that individual to resign would require a smaller energy expenditure than making changes in the college’s culture.
While non-alignments all tend to correct themselves by means of the path of least resistance, the time they take to do so can vary widely – a number of factors can combine to correct a non-alignment in less than a month, or in more that a decade.
First of all, the more energy that is needed to correct a non-alignment, the more time it tends to take.
Non-alignments lead to inefficiencies and waste of matter/energy processes.
The speed of non-alignment correction is also usually very much a function of how much energy waste the dominant coalition and the external environment are willing to tolerate.
For example, if a company is in a very favorable position with its external environment, non-alignments will probably correct themselves slowly. Simply because the matter/energy surplus wasted on non-alignments is compensated by high input/output ratio.
3. Summary
With an understanding only of short-run cause-and-effect dynamics, a manager could not anticipate the occurrence of the pattern described above, or predict exactly where it will take the organization.
But with an understanding of what constitutes aligned versus non-aligned relationships, what needs to create non-alignments, and how they tend to correct themselves, a manager can both understand and predict the dynamics of an organization over a period of six months to six years.
System dynamics in a moderate-run time frame are significantly shaped by relationships between the six structural elements.
An understanding of these aligned and non-aligned relationships, in conjunction with knowledge of what tends to create non-alignments and how non-alignments tend to correct themselves, can help managers both explain and predict organizational dynamics over a period of six months to six years.
However, it is important to recognize that it is not sufficient for predicting organization’s specific actions in the short-run.
Questions for Understanding Moderate-Run Dynamics
1. Are any of the following relationships our of alignment:
a. External environment – Dominant coalition?
b. External environment – Formal arrangements?
c. External environment – Employees and other tangible assets?
d. External environment – Internal social system?
e. External environment – Methods and approaches?
f. Dominant coalition - Formal arrangements?
g. Dominant coalition – Employees and other tangible assets?
h. Dominant coalition – Internal social system?
i. Dominant coalition - Methods and approaches?
j. Formal arrangements – Employees and other tangible assets?
k. Formal arrangements – Internal social system?
l. Formal arrangements - Methods and approaches?
m. Employees and other tangible assets - Internal social system?
n. Employees and other tangible assets – Methods and approaches?
o. Internal social system - Methods and approaches?
2. What type of change created any identified non-alignments?
3. What might be the path of least resistance for correcting any identified non-alignments?
4. Given your understanding of the following, how long will it probably take for the non-alignments to correct themselves:
a. The energy needed to correct any identified non-alignments?
b. The dominant coalition’s willingness to allow waste?
c. The favorableness of the organization’s position vis-à-vis its external environment?
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