5.2 Leaders and authority Achieving an appropriate balance between autocratic and democratic leadership is no easy task, as this quote by McGregor illustrates: I believed, for example, that a leader could operate successfully as a kind of advisor to his organisation. I thought I could avoid being a ‘boss’ … I thought that maybe I could operate so that everyone would like me – that ‘good human relations’ would eliminate all disco 5.1 The leader's role This reading is concerned with the relationship between the leader and his or her subordinates and the effectiveness of different approaches to this relationship. First I will examine the leader's role, in an attempt to answer the question of why we need leaders. Then I will examine the issue of authority, and the tensions and potential conflicts that relate to this issue. Next, I will consider some of the theories that have been put forward about leadership. What makes a leader? What m 4.4.2 Relationship-oriented behaviours
Managing and coordinating work
Once the project work begins, the project manager's job is to manage the work, and coordinate the efforts of different team members and different bodies within the organisation, in order to achieve the project's objectives.
Managing change
Few projects, if any, work out exactly as they were initially planned. Problems arise that require changes to plans. These may be short term (e.g. delaying a particular task because a necess 4.4.1 Task-oriented behaviours
Estimating and planning
The project manager, or someone under his or her direction, has to collect information about what exactly needs to be done and how it is to be organised; how much it will cost and how long it will take; and the interdependencies of various tasks, skills and other resources. The results are a project plan and a project budget.
Assembling a team
A project team can make or break a project. Often the project manager has little say in who 3.2.7 Ways that groups go wrong Before leaving Reading 2, it is worth mentioning some of the characteristic ways that groups ‘go wrong’. Why should a group, asked to design a camel, produce a horse? You might expect that when we pool the talents, experience and knowledge of a group, the result would be better, not worse, than that of any individual member. But as groups design ‘horses’ so frequently there must be some fairly familiar decision-making processes at work. Probably the most common problems are those that Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this block: 6.4.2 Manufacturing the boat Filling the mould is a serious problem in injection moulding: the lower the MFI, the more difficult it is to push molten polymer down narrow tubes into a metal mould. The engineers at Rolinx, the trade moulders who initiated the thermoplastic project, were working at the limits of their machinery in moulding such large objects in one operation. In the event, they were forced to blend the low MFI copolymer grade with a higher MFI grade material (GY702M) in order to achieve their objective ( 4.4 Step growth polymerization 3.2 Petrochemical processing Following distillation of petroleum into the major fractions (gasoline C5 up to 95 °C, naphtha 75–175 °C, kerosine 175–225 °C), the naphtha cut is subjected to cracking to yield smaller, double bonded molecules. The reaction is conducted at high temperatures (400–800 °C), but under low pressure using steam for cracking. This process can yield monomers directly, such as ethylene (C2), propylene (C3) and butadiene (C4), but often further rea 2.1 Understanding the polymer state It was the pioneering scientific work of Hermann Staudinger in the early part of the twentieth century which led to an understanding of the polymer state at an atomic and molecular level. Until then, plastics and rubbers had been developed from naturally occurring substances or discovered during routine synthesis. His research laid the basis for all subsequent discoveries and their commercial development. In essence, he realised that polymers were large molecules built up by the repetition of 2.5 A model of systems modelling Much, if not most quantitative modelling is carried out in the context of engineering, business and financial studies. These uses of quantitative models are usually not part of a systems approach. Furthermore much of the modelling carried out in systems studies is not quantitative, since issues can often be resolved by using diagrammatic or conceptual models. It is therefore important to clarify the systems context in which modelling in general, and quantitative modelling in particular, will 6 Summary This unit has covered the background to systems engineering. It began by addressing the question ‘Why is systems engineering important?’ Two reasons were discussed: projects go wrong, and the increasing incorporation of software means that they go wrong more often now than in the past complication, complexity and risk are all increasing and need to be managed. In the second section I examined the development of en 4.4 The use of systems engineering in organisations: different organisational arrangements Hall identified three different organisational arrangements that might provide a framework within which systems engineering work could take place within the organisation. The first of these, which he termed the departmental form and regarded as the lowest level of arrangement, was essentially a temporary team of specialists brought together, under the management of a team leader, to undertake a specific project. The team consisted of members of each of the specialist development departments a 4.3 The use of systems engineering in organisations The development of systems engineering was contemporaneous with that of systems analysis in public policy. Though its origins can be traced back to the 1930s and 1940s (Hall, 1962, p. 7), its more widespread application can be dated from the early 1950s. The earliest formal teaching of systems engineering was a course presented in 1950 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by G.W. Gilman, who was then Director of Systems Engineering at Bell Laboratories. Gilman was a strong promoter of Introduction This unit is from our archive and it is an adapted extract from Digital Communications (T305) which is no longer in presentation. If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area. By using optical fibre, very high data rates (gigabits per second and higher) can be transmitted over long d 6.4 Choosing to distinguish between complex situations and complex systems Within some of the lineages of systems thinking and practice (Figure 7), the idea that system complexity is a property of what is observed about some ‘real-world’ system, is known as classical or type 1 complexity. Exploring type 1 complexity, Russell Ackoff (1981, pp.26–33) claimed for a set 2.2 Taking responsibility for your own learning Not much of this unit conforms to the traditional pattern I mentioned earlier – the theory-example-exercise pattern. In particular, you will find you are expected to discover much of it for yourself. Why is this? This is a legitimate question and deserves a full answer. One year, a student at a residential summer school complained I had not taught him properly. I was, he told me, an expert and so why did I not demonstrate how to tackle the problem he was working on and pass my expertise on 5.13 The final Act In Act 3, Dan and Ned are back in Ned's flat and Ned is showing extreme signs of neurosis and paranoia. Dan can no longer bear Ned's rather dark and erratic behaviour, and he grabs the conversation by suddenly pouring out all the overwhelmingly negative aspects of his life as a dentist, father and lover. Some people might say that ethics is about how to live a ‘good’ life and, clearly, Dan needs a change. He recognises he is not leading a ‘good’ life. He knows all the things that are 5.12 Interests There is quite a lot to be said about the play, but in this unit I need to be selective. In the conversations that take place, one of the things that happens is that all sorts of interests unfold. There is a catalogue of benefits that could each potentially accrue to a long list of individuals and groups. We have the government that could gain benefits through ownership which would allow it to develop the device, understand threats, prevent development, protect the indigenous industry and ret 5.11 Promises Having tried various devices to persuade Ned, Ros resorts to her other ‘technical’ approach. She reminds him of his employment contract, which requires him to do his best to exploit his work. A contract, of course, is a form of promise you endorse when you sign it. Signing the contract is performative, it changes the relationships. In this case, it clearly is a promise, it is a promise to do his ‘best’, and that is clearly an ethical matter. This move obviously has a strong influence
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