Men Who Manage

By Melville Dalton

By close examining the operation in Milo, Dalton discovered that, although the formal organizational authority displaces the rule and responsibility of each role of individual, it is the informal or unofficial cliques decides certain business operation to be carried out or to be resisted.

One of examples he illustrated was FWD issue. To solve the operation struggles to keep cost low on operation and maintenance level, a new system Field Work Department was introduced with all available knowledge and experienced personnels. However, such effort was eroded by masked human relationship from different cliques. FWD was designed to reduce costs, speed repair work, and prevent politics, finally was undone and officially rejected.

In this article, clique refers to a small exclusive group of person with a common interest. It often connotes a group concerned with questionable activities. Though often with negative tone, without cliques, the organization will soon be fall apart. The formation of clique is chiefly on he basis of the relation to the formal chart and the services they give to members. There are three types of cliques:

1. Vertical:
Vertical symbiotic clique: in this relation, the top office is connected to aid and protect his subordinate. Subordinate, in return, exercises the full loyalty to him. Thus, this kind of clique forms the power centers.

Vertical parasitic clique: this is a negative approach which assumes that collusive behavior is inevitable among persons with kinship ties who are in certain job relations. Parasitic is used because the exchange of services between lower and higher clique members is unequal.

2. Horizontal
Defensive clique, cutting across departments and including officers, nearly in the same rank, this clique is usually brought on by what its members regard as crises such as threatened reorganization, introduction of new method such as FWD. This clique usually is strong and only for the limited time to defeat threat.

Aggressive clique: This clique has clear goal and direction. Their action is a cross departmental drive to effect changes rather than resist them, to redefine responsibility or even directly shit it. The inter-departmental fiction subsides as the clique becomes a mutual support bloc.

3. Random, members of the random clique are not solidly in any of the more functional cliques.

Dalton argues that the cliques are indispensable and essential to both cement the organization and to accelerate action. They become the bridge between official and unofficial purposes intertwining the corporate goals and individuals and groups ends. They preserve the formalities vital for achieving organizational goals and controlling the turmoil and adjustment.