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509276
research-article2013
Article
Abstract
A parallel organization improves problem solving and decision making by liberating
creative, rigorous inquiry blocked or unavailable in the formal organization. This
article reports a study of a parallel organization unusual for its structure, size, and
duration. Its outputs significantly affected a wide range of organizational policies in
manufacturing, strategic planning, and human resources. Its structure, staffing, and
process improved organizational practices, relationships, learning, and communication.
The case provides a valuable extension and contrast to other cases and enlightens
views of theory and practice.
Keywords
parallel organization, collateral organization, strategic issues, organization learning,
organization change, strategic change
Zand (1974) proposed using a parallel organization (PO) as a system-wide, strategic
change intervention to define and solve complex, ill-defined strategic issues when
those issues have been poorly handled, suppressed, ignored, or missed by the formal
operating organization (OO). Formal OOs rely on authority, hierarchy, specialization,
and division of labor to produce goods and services by funneling activities into welldefined, predictable, repetitive routines. However, OOs often do not cope well with
unique, ill-defined, system-wide, complex, or strategic issues that require the knowledge, experience, and insight of people from many organizational levels and locations
working together in a collaborative, creative mode.
1Frostburg
2New
Corresponding Author:
Thomas F. Hawk, PhD, Professor of Management, Emeritus, College of Business, Frostburg State
University, Braddock Road, Frostburg, MD 21532, USA.
Email: thawk@frostburg.edu
308
Literature Review
Theory of Organization and Tasks
Management designs an organizations structure and systems to deliver a set of products and/or services in a competitive environment (Mintzberg, 1979; Thompson,
1967). To maintain effectiveness and efficiency, management continually strives to fit
activities into well-defined, routinely performed tasks and procedures, that is, to move
work from nonprogrammed to programmed tasks (March & Simon, 1958). For example, banks such as Citibank, automobile manufacturers such as Ford, and credit card
processors such as Visa continually organize work into routine, repetitive tasks, and
procedures to produce high-volume output.
Ill-defined, nonroutine, unpredictable, unique strategic issues, however, differ from
and are more challenging than well-defined, routine, predictable, repetitive issues
(Mintzberg, Raisinghani, & Theoret, 1976). Operating management tends to treat nonroutine, ambiguous issues as an impediment to high-volume production. Managements
motivation is to ignore, delay, or reshape those issues to fit existing operations and
minimally disrupt output. Often, they miss seeing those issues.
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units; (b) norms supporting inquiry, collaboration, and consensus in all elements of the PO; and (c) members transferring the inquiry and collaboration
skills learned in the PO and their new network relationships to the OO.
6. The SUN works with inquiry units to determine tasks and review progress. The
SUN may accept, reject, or ask for modification of proposed issues and recommended solutions from the inquiry units. The SUN and the inquiry units mutually
shape the inquiry process and the emerging substance through successive phases
of consensus. The parallel SUN determines what issues they will accept or reject
and may not give reasons for its decisions, although this rarely happens.
7. Inquiry units enable new combinations of people, new channels of communication,
and new ways of seeing old ideas. All channels are open and connected so managers and specialists can communicate freely without being confined to formal OO
channels. An inquiry unit can enlist others in and outside the organization as it
works on soliciting, investigating, analyzing, and recommending action on issues.
8. The PO process operates with exploratory-inquiry norms that differ from the
OOs directive-compliance norms. Parallel norms support careful questioning
and analysis of goals, assumptions, methods, alternatives, and evaluation criteria. Parallel norms blend collaborative action research with reasoned problem
definition and solving by encouraging new ideas, different perspectives, creative approaches to obstacles, and rapid exchange of relevant information. PO
members are encouraged to transfer inquiry and collaboration skills to the OO.
In this case study, management used these principles as the template for structuring
its PO and writing its guide manual. These eight principles are core PO dimensions
(see Table 1) that were common and essential to PO functioning in the empirical studies reviewed later in this article.
Table 1. Conceptual Dimensions of a Parallel Organization (Zand, 1974).
1.The purpose of the PO is to identify, define, and solve issues of a strategic nature (ill-defined, nonroutine,
unpredictable, and ambiguous).
2. The PO creatively complements the operating organization (OO); it does not displace the formal OO.
3. The PO consists of a steering unit (SUN) that guides one or more basic inquiry units (BINs).
4.The SUN communicates with the BINs in circular feedback loops to provide guidance, exchange information, and
collaboratively shape recommendations.
5. Outputs of the PO mode are the inputs to the OO mode.
6. The SUN works with the BINs to determine tasks and review progress.
7. BINs enable new combinations of people, new channels of communication, new ways of seeing old ideas.
8.The PO operates with exploratory-inquiry norms (questioning, collaboration, consensus) that differ from the OOs
directive-compliance norms.
Nomenclature and Theory. Since its introduction four decades ago, the PO has been
called various names. Also, authors have emphasized one or more aspects of theory
such as the PO structural relation to the OO, member learning, and focal purpose. For
example, it has been called a parallel learning structure (Boyle, 1984; Bushe, 1987,
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1988, 1989; Bushe & Shani, 1990, 1991; Doyle, Gelinas, & Kraus, 1984; Goodman &
Dean, 1982; Herrick, 1985; Kanter, 1983; Lawler & Mohrman, 1985; Miller, 1978;
Mohrman & Ledford, 1985; Moore, 1986, 1989; Moore & Miners, 1988; Shani, 1987;
Shani, Basuray, & Place, 1986; Shani & Docherty, 2003; Shani & Eberhardt, 1987;
Shani, Pasmore, & Mietus, 1982; Stein & Kanter, 1980). It has also been called a collateral organization (Kilmann, 1982; Rubinstein & Woodman, 1984; Zand, 1974,
1981, 1997), a dual organization (Duncan, 1976; Goldstein, 1978, 1985), and a fusion
organization (Ackerman & Whitney, 1984).
Some propose that total quality management (Juran & DeFeo, 2010), six-sigma
(Ternant, 2001), and quality-of-life programs (Danna & Griffin, 1999) have sufficient
characteristics to qualify as POs. There is also the term ambidextrous organization
(Andriopoulous & Lewis, 2009; Duncan, 1976; OReilly & Tushman, 2004; Raisch &
Bukinshaw, 2008; Tushman & OReilly, 1996) for organizations combining features of
effectively addressing both well-defined and ill-defined issues in exploitation and exploration (Andriopoulous & Lewis, 2009; March, 1991). Then there is the strategic fitness
process (Beer & Eisenstat, 2004; Fredberg, Norrgren, & Shani, 2011) for which a PO
may be a contributing component to the overall cognitive, structural, and procedural
foci. To move beyond the thicket of nomenclature and each labels selective emphasis on
one or another facet of PO theory, we will use the inclusive term parallel organization.
EmpiricalTheoretical Balance. Historically, OD interventions and theory have advanced
by relying on the interplay between empirical case studies and theoretical/conceptual
development (French, Bell, & Zawacki, 2000; Shani & Docherty, 2008). Empirical
case studies have provided descriptions of varying detail of an actual OD intervention,
generally from an action research or grounded theory perspective. The description is
usually longitudinal in character, providing sufficient empirical evidence to illustrate
the practical results and the theoretical dimensions of the intervention. In contrast, a
paper that is essentially theoretical/conceptual in character discusses theory underlying interventions and theoretical characteristics of interventions without empirical evidence to illustrate the theory.
Applying this empirical/theoretical distinction to the 29 parallel literature articles
we reviewed, we found that 15 were essentially theoretical/conceptual in character
with no empirical evidence or minimal anecdotal information to illustrate and support
the conceptual discussion (Ackerman & Whitney, 1984; Boyle, 1984; Bushe & Shani,
1990; Doyle et al., 1984; Duncan, 1976; Goldstein, 1985; Goodman & Dean, 1982;
Herrick, 1985; Kilmann, 1982; Lawler & Mohrman, 1985; Mohrman & Ledford,
1985; Moore, 1986, 1989; Rubinstein & Woodman, 1984; Shani et al., 1986). Theory
in these articles was congruent with Zand (1974) and Table 1.
Nine of the remaining 14 provided a moderate level of conceptual or theoretical
discussion, also congruent with Zand (1974), coupled with limited empirical information for practitioners (Bushe, 1987, 1988, 1989; Goldstein, 1978; Miller, 1978; Moore
& Miners, 1988; Shani, 1987; Shani & Docherty, 2003; Shani et al., 1982).
The final five were rich in both empirical description and theoretical/conceptual grounding (Bushe & Shani, 1991; Kanter, 1983; Shani & Eberhardt, 1987; Stein & Kanter, 1980;
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Zand, 1974). The case in Kanter (1983), however, presents in greater depth the same case
as in Stein and Kanter (1980). Also, Bushe and Shani (1991) present in greater depth the
same case presented in Shani and Eberhardt (1987). As a result, there are two cases in Zand
(1974, 1981), one case in Kanter (1983), and five cases in Bushe and Shani (1991) that
offer sufficient empirical information and conceptual discussion to compare with the
empirical and conceptual information in the case presented in this article.
Parallel Organization Dimensions. In an earlier review of 17 PO articles, Bushe and
Shani (1990) divided the parallel literature into three loosely defined but not mutually
exclusive groups, based on combinations of two features: (a) the purpose or focal concern of the PO and (b) the duration of the PO. The first group focused on solving
strategic, ill-defined, complex problems and issues with a PO of temporary duration
(e.g., Kilmann, 1982; Zand, 1974, 1981). The second group focused on increasing a
bureaucratic organizations adaptability to a changing environment with a PO of permanent duration (e.g., Goldstein, 1978, 1985; Stein & Kanter, 1980). The third group
focused on transforming the culture and leadership style of a bureaucratic organization
with a permanent PO of evolving structure and process, that is, the PO continues to
exist and function but evolves in both its configuration and processes as the OO transforms from a highly bureaucratic form to a less bureaucratic form (e.g., Bushe, 1988;
Rubinstein & Woodman, 1984; Shani & Eberhardt, 1987).
Emergent Dimensions. We reviewed dimensions in all 29 PO citations introduced earlier. In addition to the conceptual dimensions presented in Table 1, that are characteristic of essentially all five empirical pieces identified earlier, and the purpose and
duration dimensions used by Bushe and Shani (1990), we found eight other dimensions, in the case we present in this article, that are relevant to understanding the use
of the PO intervention in organizational development. We call these other dimensions
emergent dimensions, that is, implicit or barely mentioned facets that we make
explicit because of their relevance to PO functioning and theory. We present those
emergent dimensions, in addition to the purpose and duration dimensions, in Table 2.
Table 2. Emergent Dimensions From Review of Empirical Parallel Organization (PO)
Literature.
1. Purpose of the PO
2. Duration of the PO
3. Structural configuration of the PO
4. Size of the PO in members
5. Character of the support from top executive
6. Nature of the involvement of organizational development consultant(s)
7. Extent of training, if any, of PO members for the PO
8. Process for selecting members for the PO
9. Process for evaluating the PO performance of PO members
10. Output of the PO and degree of persistence of changes emerging from the PO
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Empirical evidence of the emergent dimensions was either totally absent in most
articles or lightly discussed in a small minority of the PO literature reviewed. The
dimension of the key executive role received the most coverage in seven of the articles. In the PO case presented in this article, the emergent dimensions are clearly present and significant.
We now describe the case of Simcors (disguised name) PO. After the case presentation, we discuss the research methodology which used documents and interviews as
the data base for describing Simcors PO structure, process, accomplishments and
developing implications, and conclusions.
Company Background
George Wilson (all names disguised), newly appointed CEO of Simcor, had spent his
entire career of more than 25 years in the company. Simcor, headquartered in the
United States, was a large, wholly owned subsidiary of a major, international firm.
Simcors four divisions, located in different cities, operated as independent profit centers. Each used its own costing methods, pricing policies, product abandonment criteria, and selling activities. More than 80% of Simcors production went to the parent
firm, which could buy products from Simcor competitors if quality, delivery, or pricing was advantageous. At the same time, Simcor could sell to competitors of the parent
firm. Simcor led its industry in production, sales, and process technology for several
decades. Its dominant position, however, depended heavily on parent firm sales, which
were growing but cyclical.
Simcor was primarily a manufacturing firm. Its divisions were hierarchically and
functionally structured with strong top-down, authoritarian management. To get a
sense of its size and structure we note that it employed about 7,500 unionized hourly
employees and 1,150 managerial employees organized in four levels. There were 50 at
headquarters and division top management (A level), 100 in upper-middle management (B level), 300 in lower-middle management (C level), and 700 at the entry management level (D level). A cadre of 400 secretarial and administrative assistants
supported management.
Manufacturing dominated the culture and treated all other functions as secondary
and subservient. Division Managers came up in manufacturing and historically were
the only candidates considered eligible for the CEO position. Manufacturing
technology changed slowly and investment was almost exclusively in plant and
equipment.
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There was little communication across functions within and across the divisions
and within company headquarters, which led to policy disparities between divisions, poor coordination, and increased costs.
There was little transfer of good practices or useful innovations across Simcor
divisions.
There was little strategic planning in Simcor and the parent firm, which
increased uncertainty in Simcors product and capital investment decisions.
Wilson recognized a need for transformative change to deal with these issues of policy
disparities, poor intra- and interdivision communication, and inadequate strategic
planning. Believing that the deep authoritarian culture and powerful independent divisions would strongly resist change, he consulted an OD specialist in the parent firm.
Their collaboration, during the 5 months before Wilson took office, used much of
Zands (1974) PO theory, structure and inquiry processaccording to the OD specialistin the design and installation of Simcors PO.
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The Parallel linked the inquiry units and the steering unit in an extended communication network through their respective chairmen. The 10 planning Council chairs were
observers in the SC. The two Support Council chairs observed their planning Council. The
two Support Team chairs observed their Support Council. Finally, each Support Team had
two participant/observer D-level managers. Thus, all inquiry units were linked through a
chain of participant/observers communicating across the four levels of management.
Division and Function Boundary Spanning Connections. To develop communication across
divisions, all members of a Council came from different divisions and headquarters.
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To foster communication across functional specialties, all members of a Council, Support Council, or Support Team came from a different functionmanufacturing, marketing, engineering, finance, and human resources. To support communication within
divisions, members of each Support Council and Support Team came from different
functions in the same division.
Parallel Process
Councils and their support groups were the inquiry units of the PO. Each Council was
completely free to investigate its assigned project(s) and develop its policy
recommendation(s).
Inquiry and Consensus. Wilson said, in his charge to the Councils, You have freedom to
inquire and independence. I want high qualityI expect you to understand everything
about a subject. Councils could interview and survey anyone in Simcor, its parent
firm, and any of its subsidiaries. Councils could visit and interview other corporations,
competitors, trade associations, and government agencies. They could attend seminars,
consult experts, employ trainers, buy books, and subscribe to journals.
Council member interviews reported they had tremendous flexibility and could go
anywhere and talk to anyonethere were never any questions. There was no cost
accumulation nor any accounting of time put into the SPO.
All Councils, Support Councils, and Support Teams operated by consensus. Typically
they commented we had to learn to listen and work participatively. This was a radical
departure from the directive, authoritarian culture of the formal organization.
Parallel Organization Guidance and Learning. Council chairs received guidance by periodically reviewing their investigation plan and progress with the Strategy Council. All
other Council Chairs were present as observers. Wilson believed that learning by
observing and working with peers (Bandura, 1986) was an important feature of the
Parallel: I wanted Council chairs to hear each others presentation. When they saw
better work than their own, they would go back to their Council and try to do even
better than what they heard.
Wilson, as Chair of the Strategy Council, also met with each Council twice a year
for a status report and progress review. Council members used these meetings to test
ideas on Wilson and get feedback on potential policy recommendations.
Councils also sought feedback from the line organization by floating ideas for possible policies. Council members
tested ideas on line managers. Wed say were thinking of doing such and such. What do you
think about it? Their comments helped us understand the situation better and warned us of
problems. Also, talking to them eased the way so the policy wouldnt come as a surprise.
Learning within the Councils, Support Councils, and Support Teams emerged in a
social learning process of experimentation, observation, and feedback. The PO
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communication and execution; (2) Cancelled Tacticalmeaning its a problem but its not
sufficiently strategic, its tactical, and the line should work on it; (3) Cancelled Duplicate
the proposal is, or can be, part of an already accepted proposal; (4) Acceptedit should go
to the Strategy Council for consideration.
Level A
Level B
Level C
Level D
Unknown
Total
131
93
38
29
62
60
2
1
149
136
13
3
5
5
0
0
38
30
8
7
385
324
61
40
319
proposals were not acceptable to the CEO and the SC. Furthermore, the SC noted that
Simcor was comfortably profitable, a leader in its industry and saw no significant
threats to its position.
The Council tested four different costing methods and recommended one the SC
accepted for implementation in all divisions. In summary, The financial department and
production planning people strongly supported it. Costing for Pricing changed the entire
approach to products, manufacturing, and pricing. It showed what the Parallel could do.
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Council members read books and journals and consulted experts. They examined
econometric models and consulted econometric modeling and scenario planning organizations. They reviewed strategic planning at the parent company and its subsidiaries
and investigated sophisticated planning processes at other firms.
The Council concluded,
First, no single model or source could provide all the information needed for effective future
planning. Second, external, uncontrollable factors will greatly affect Simcor. Third, there
should be continual monitoring and evaluation of events to provide early warning of critical
future conditions, even though a reliable, accurate long-term forecast was not feasible.
The Council recommended that the CEO and executive staff closely monitor the
parent companys strategic plans and establish a strategy mechanism in Simcor. A new
Support Council (Z-3) was formed to monitor strategic planning processes and develop
an integrated business outlook for Simcor. It became a key contributor to Simcors
strategic planning. The Councils study of positioning Simcor in the global market, for
example, determined there was high excess capacity world-wide. It presciently advised
that expansion would face strong rivalry and, if done, should be by acquiring costefficient facilities rather than building new plants that would add excess industry
capacity and pressure price declines.
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as CEO and John Randle, a CEO from a different business subsidiary of the parent,
was appointed CEO.
Randle queried division and headquarters staff top managers at a general meeting
about how to improve Simcor. They advised that the critical task was to absorb the
three, unfamiliar, low-performing business units while adjusting to declining volume
and recession. In their view, the Parallel had been successful and there were no major
issues that could not be handled in the line organization. The Parallel could be suspended and restarted if needed.
Randle suspended the Parallel and formed a Product Team task force, composed
largely of headquarters staff, to study Simcors products and organization. Based on
Product Team recommendations, Randle approved reorganizing Simcor into productcentered, strategic business units (SBUs). One staff team facilitated the transition by
orienting personnel to the SBUs and a second team communicated the changes to the
entire organization. Managers were ready for the change because an earlier PO proposal had recommended a shift to SBUs, which the Steering Council had not accepted
at that time.
After observing the staff teams and divisions work together to design and transition
to SBUs, Randle paid tribute to the learning and transformative effects he inherited
from the PO. He was impressed by managements analytic and presentation skills and
how well people collaborated across Divisions and functions.
Research Method
Method
This research used descriptive, narrative, qualitative methodology based on richly
detailed document and interview sources (Gephart, 2004; Kennedy, 1979; OConnor,
1999).
The research examined an extensive set of documents covering the entire 10-year
period of the Simcor PO. Documents included: (a) Simcors PO manual detailing the
PO structure, procedures, process, relationships among components, membership
composition of components, frequency of meetings, and relation to the line organization; (b) organization charts of Simcor divisions; (c) all final strategic policies with
complete Council reports containing all supporting data and analysis; (d) all of several
hundred project and strategic issue proposals submitted to the PO, identifying origin
and disposition; (e) minutes of all meetings of all elements of the PO.
To obtain information about the actual operation, process, benefits, and limitations
of the PO, 59 in-depth, semistructured, recorded, transcribed interviews were conducted. Fifty-six interviews covered a cross-section sample of the 360 PO participants
(15% of total), including all levels of management, all functions, all divisions, headquarters, and an administrative employee. In addition, three parent company OD staff
were interviewed. A sample of representative interview questions appears in Table 5.
All interviewees reviewed their transcript, and only two made minor revisions.
Transcripts were content analyzed for key phrases relevant to facets of PO theory and
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1.Describe your role in Simcors operating organization (OO). Describe your role in the parallel organization (PO).
What changes, if any, occurred in your role during the life of the PO?
2.Describe Simcors competition, strategy, performance, relation to its parent firm, culture before the PO. Describe
these elements after the PO?
3.Describe the process, methods, culture, relationships in the PO. Describe how that was similar to, or different
from, the line OO.
4.Describe the accomplishments of the PO. What criteria would you use to evaluate those accomplishments? Which
accomplishments would you rank highest? Which lowest? Explain.
5.Describe the POs benefits. Describe the POs limitations and difficulties. What, if anything, about the PO would
you change? Explain.
6. What do you think would not have been accomplished without the PO?
practice. Quotations, assertions, perceptions, and conclusions in the case are based on
triangulation (Jick, 1979), that is, confirming agreement among multiple interviewees
consistent with documentary evidence.
Simcors culture and operations were also observed by visits to all divisions and
company headquarters observing top management and staff interaction. Neither author
participated in the design or implementation of any aspect of Simcors PO.
We continually coded and analyzed the collected data using a grounded theory
process (Glaser, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967), to inductively generate concepts and
themes and triangulate across the data sources until we achieved saturation of each
theme. This constant comparative analysis confirmed the eight original theoretical
dimensions proposed in Zand (1974) and the eight emergent dimensions discussed
later in this article.
Limitations
This is a qualitative, descriptive, interpretive, and inductive research influenced by the
experience and interpretive lenses of the researchers. Generalization from this single
case study to other situations should be done cautiously. Kennedy (1979) addresses the
issue of generalizing from a single case study by suggesting that rich case description
allows readers to judge whether the context, circumstances, and details of the research
case are sufficiently similar to the readers situations to warrant generalization to the
their situations. This article captures some, but not all, of the deep, rich description
collected in this research.
The research was done after the phenomenon occurred and respondents may have
limited, biased recollections or rationalized reasons for their views and actions. Some
interviewees may have shaped responses to fit what they believed the interviewer
wanted to hear. We tried to minimize these limitations by triangulation (Jick, 1979)
with other interviews, documents, and observations.
From managements performance claims, the duration of the Parallel, and Simcors
continued dominant position in its industry, we infer that management was satisfied
with Parallel financial and operating contributions, although Simcor top management
would not release detailed financial information for the SPO period.
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Discussion
Benefits of the Parallel Organization
The PO was a major systemic change in Simcor. It introduced a lateral structure and
process for investigating important issues and operated in tandem with the formal
organization. Participants believed that Simcors deeply rooted, authoritarian, manufacturing culture and bureaucratic, line organization would not have uncovered the
range of issues or investigated them as thoroughly as the Parallel did.
As one representative participant said,
The Parallel broke down organizational barriers. Before the Parallel, people didnt know
each other. For a majority of us the discussions and working with people from all Divisions,
functions and headquarters led to a flow of information that changed the company.
The Parallel introduced important policy changes (Table 4) across operations, facilities, finances, personnel, markets, and strategy. Divisions benefited greatly from uniform policies where appropriate and none existed.
The Parallel helped managers see Simcors strategic position in its external environment. Managers developed a comprehensive perspective by visiting other subsidiaries, the parent firm, and other corporations. A participant said, The SPO let me see
the big picture. I could understand and take part in many areas of the business that
previously I would not know.
The Parallel developed participants skills in collaborating to solve problems across
functions and divisions. Participants called on their Parallel connections to consult
people in other functions and divisions in the line organization. A participant noted
that the SPO exposed people to different disciplines and views of problems. They took
that collaborative view into the line organization.
Participants praised the Parallel for improving their investigative, analytic, and presentation skills. They felt more confident discussing decisions in the line organization.
Participants said that the Parallel exposed them to consensus decision-making where
they had to listen to and discuss different views with people from different functions.
They carried that consensus experience into problem solving in the line organization
as well.
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Occasional participant disagreement with Simcors core strategy was another difficulty that reduced commitment to the Parallel. For example, some middle- and
lower-level managers, with a limited view of the organization, had difficulty accepting the premise that Simcor is, and would continue to be, a high-volume, low-cost
manufacturer using evolving technology to produce a limited line of products sold
primarily to its parent firm. Parallel proposals that fit that view will be studied,
departures will not.
The dichotomy of strategic and tactical was also a source of difficulty. Although
Simcors Parallel Manual and process authorized the Strategy Council to reject any
insufficiently strategic proposal, some middle and lower managers were disappointed
when their projects were judged tactical and rejected or turned back to be resolved in
the division, particularly without follow-up to confirm the issue had been addressed in
the division.
The apparent priority given to top-management interests reduced lower-management commitment to the Parallel. Top managers dominated as the source of project
proposals selected for development into policies (see Table 3). Their higher level in
Simcor, we believe, gave them a clearer perspective of what was and was not strategic.
In addition to feeling left out as a source of proposals, some lower managers who
implemented new policies expressed skepticism when they saw deficiencies in policies, despite the Parallels best efforts. Some became particularly cynical after discovering poor implementation of human resource policies at their level.
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Simcor case
No information offered
In Simcor, CEO Wilsons original purpose was to develop and implement beneficial policies and have managers work collaboratively across divisions and functions
by supplementing an authoritarian, silo organization with a temporary PO. In practical
terms, many managers felt that Simcors PO had accomplished most of its work by the
end of the third year and should have been temporarily dialed back or suspended while
Simcor implemented its new policies and digested two parent-imposed, failing divisions, particularly at a time of temporary recession. By that time, however, Wilson saw
the Parallel in a new light. He saw it as a semipermanent or permanent learning mechanism for communication, personnel development, and organizational integration.
Also, he did not want to end it as it had become his window into the organization and
his signature stamp on the company. It had become part of his management style and
process and projected his presence deep into the organization.
Thus, the initial motivation and purpose of the SPO fits the strategic, ill-defined
problem defining and solving category of the Bushe and Shani (1990) framework.
However, by the third year of its operation, when it would have been reasonable to
scale back the SPO, Wilsons perception moved the SPO into Bushe and Shanis
(1990) second and third categories of building adaptability into a bureaucratic organization and modifying its culture.
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the ongoing activity of the SPO and its modifications. He occasionally exchanged
ideas and perspectives with Wilson off-site, but he was not present or involved in the
POs diagnostic or problem search and solving activities, the training of PO members,
or modifications to the PO structure.
In contrast, the eight usable parallel cases showed extensive, continuing involvement of the OD consultant(s) in the design, implementation, and actual operation of
the POs. Their involvement included assisting in the diagnostic process, providing
feedback, designing and guiding procedures for operating the PO, and facilitating process training.
The Simcor PO was essentially a participant, self-directed operation. The idea that
a PO could be effective and self sustaining with only initial design input by the OD
consultant, stands in sharp contrast to the extensive and deep OD consultant involvement in the cases reported in the literature.
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Conclusion
The Simcor case confirms that, despite the challenge of context, size, and dependence on
a parent firm, management can use a PO to operate bimodally, that is, in two different
modes, at the same time. Furthermore, the policy outputs of Simcors Parallel support
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the proposition that a PO intervention can diagnose a wide range of ill-structured situations and solve significant problems not identified or solved in the formal organization.
The parallel, inquiry mode works on ill-defined, complex tasks to supplement the line,
production mode which works on routine, well-defined tasks. The norms of the parallel
inquiry mode promote open, well-reasoned, consensus problem solving in contrast to the
constraining, authoritarian, directive norms of the compliance, production mode.
The Simcor case reminds us that a Parallel is a demanding intervention with serious
potential limitations and conflicts, which is a good reason for OD specialists to appreciate and support a Parallels courageous sponsors and participants. As CEO, Wilson
could have led Simcor without a PO. He had the knowledge, intelligence, and drive to
manage autocratically, like his predecessors. However, he recognized a need to deal
with ill-structured issues in a complex environment and opted for collaborative inquiry
across Simcors divisions and functions. He risked engaging in a high-involvement,
participative inquiry process that generated transformative change over an extended
period of time.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
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