Chapter 6
‘Instructor’s Name’
The chapter, ‘Maintaining responsible conduct in Public organizations’ from the book, ‘The Responsible administrator’ by Terry Cooper, talks about factors influencing legislative control. Cooper explores ways in which to commandeer responsibility and accountability among public administrators. She elucidates that administrators should not be guided by the constraints of institutional controls but by their moral values. Mary Parker Follett, in her article ‘The Giving of orders’ lays down certain ways in which control can be achieved in any organization, without individuals being given blind orders by their superiors. She says the best way to control any entity is to nurture an environment where the managers and people working under them, together find the best course of action to get their job done, and do it with willingness rather than just obedience.
Follett says that the best way to give an order to a subordinate is to decentralize the order. By this she means, that the job which is to be performed, should be studied and then a standard way to perform that job should be formulated. The workers should be involved in the research or they should be allowed to try-out the methods before implementation, so that the feedbacks are got and addressed. Thus now the orders become standard procedures and the workers are now asked to follow standard procedures rather than follow orders. This makes the entire process much smoother and cordial. Through this, ordering is replaced by educating the workers about the correct technique to perform the job.
While ordering offends many persons, educating does not draw such negative responses. Follett advocates that managers and administrators should work out the rules of the job and communicate it to the employees. She further adds, for effective execution, the rules of the job should be the outcome of a joint study by the foreman and the workers. Also instead of notifying the rules bluntly to the workers, the foremen should try to explain the reasons behind the rules, so that the worker understands that, it is the best way to do the job. She says that the ordering person should bring the ordered into the situation. That is, the person to whom the order is given should be aware of, the importance of the task, the consequences that might arise if he does not follow the order, and how that would impede the progress of the operation in hand.
The crucial point she makes in this article, is how when a job is not done according to the established standards, managers should not blame the person who disobeyed an order, but educate him on ways to do the job better, and the negative effects of not doing it in the correct manner. This should be done tactfully and by the use of appropriate language with the right choice of words. All this, according to Follett, can be achieved only if executives are trained in the process of giving orders. The important factor is that, the administrators should understand that the orders come from the work not work from orders.
Many organizations have a culture similar to the one advocated by Follett, the popular example being monasteries. For instance Buddhist monasteries have certain rules and regulations, and the lives of the monks are governed by certain conventions which are passed on from generations to generations, from the time of Buddha. But we cannot see an elderly monk ordering a new recruit to do something. Buddhist monks lead a life of celibacy, live out of donations and lead a life of deprivation.
But Buddha did not appoint a successor, nor did he lay down strict rules for the monks to follow in his monastery. He preached them that leading such a life will help them to remain simple, and focused on their pursuit of Dharma and preaching the divine wisdom to humanity. Many monasteries today have number of rules and practices. Though these rules are not imposed by force, the monks religiously follow them because they believe in the virtues of these rules. Every monk in a monastery knows why he/she is expected to follow the disciplinary rules and embraces them with willingness. The monasteries also does not ask the disciples to give special treatment to older monks, but the monastics offer their respect to the elders as an acknowledgement of their wisdom and not out of fear of breaking a rule. Thus, today we see that monasteries are some of the well regulated and orderly institutions of the world, and have remained so for centuries together. Hence, they are a perfect testimony to the type of administration and leadership, advocated by Follett and cooper.
