Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership (JOSSEY-BASS BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT SERIES)

• The Structural Frame: how to organize and structure groups and teams to get results
• The Human Resource Frame: how to tailor organizations to satisfy human needs, improve human resource management, and build positive interpersonal and group dynamics
• The Political Frame: how to cope with power and conflict, build coalitions, hone political skills, and deal with internal and external politics
• The Symbolic Frame: how to shape a culture that gives purpose and meaning to work, stage organizational drama for internal and external audiences, and build team spirit through ritual, ceremony, and story

In this context, Lee G.Bolman and Terrence E.Deal devote four parts of their book to detailed description and discussion of these frames. And they firstly determine basic assumptions behind each frame as following:

1. The Structural Frame: *Organizations exist to achieve established goals and objectives. *Organizations work best when rationality prevails over personal preferences and external pressures. *Structures must be designed to fit an organization's circumstances. *Organizations increase efficiency and enhance performance through specialization and division of labor. *Appropriate forms of coordination and control are essential to ensuring that individuals and units work together in the service of organizational goals. *Problems and performance gaps arise from structural deficiencies and can be remedied through restructuring.

2. The Human Resource Frame: *Organizations exist to serve human needs tarher than the reverse. *People and organizations need each other: organizations need ideas, energy, and talent; people need careers, salaries, and opportunities. *When the fit between individual and system is poor, one or both suffer: individuals will be exploited or will exploit the organization-or both will become victims. *A good fit benefits both: individuals find meaningful and satisfying work, and organizations get the talent and energy they need to succeed.

3. The Political Frame: *Organizations are coalitions of various individuals and interest groups. *There are enduring differences among coalition members in values, beliefs, information, interest, and perceptions of reality. *Most important decisions involve the allocation of scarce resources-who gets what. *Scarce resources and enduring differences give conflict a central role in organizational dynamics and make power the most important resource. *Goals and decisions emerge from bargaining, negotiation, and jockeying for position among different stakeholders.

4. The Symbolic Frame: *What is most important about any event is not what happened but what it means. *Activity and meaning are loosely coupled: events have multiple meanings because people interpret experience differently. *Most of life ambiguous or uncertain-what happened, why it happened, or what will happen next are all puzzles. *High levels of ambiguity and uncertainty undercut rational analysis, problem solving, and decision making. *In the face of uncertainty and ambiguity, people create symbols to resolve confusion, increase predictability, provide direction, and anchor hope and faith. *Many events and processes are more important for what is expressed than what is produced. They form a cultural tapestry of secular myths, rituals, ceremonies, and stories that help people find meaning, purpose, and passion.

Finally, in the last part of the book, they focus on the implications of these frames for central issues in managerial practice, including leadership, change, and ethics.

Highly recommended.


A life changer.   October 20, 1998
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

This text has enlightened me and has opened my eyes to the four frames: structural, human resource, political and symbolic. I now understand that without being cognizant of all four frames and planning appropriately, no plan of action will succeed. So many times we have made emerging, empowering decisions in the workplace only to see our ideas fail. More often than not we have missed addressing one of the frames. The text clues us in to the reasons for failure and through many very appropriate case studies, shows us how to act effectively in the future.

The authors take the ambiguity of effective leadership and sort it out, write it down and meld lasting principles to the reader.

A must read for anyone desiring to be effective in an organizational beast.


MBA 101 Under One Cover   October 16, 1998
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

The book looks at organizations and organizational performance/effectiveness using four frames (essentially tinted looking glasses)- structural, human resources, political and symbolic. We used the book in our first MBA course, with a primary focus on high performance teams.

The book provides a good cognitive idea base to observe and analyze any organization- your church, your family, your corporation or your favorite bar.


Best of the Best   January 18, 2000
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

I have been using "Reframing" for years to teach people how to look at the world from different perspectives. Hundreds of managers and leaders have read this book and I have never heard anyone say they didn't like it. It has a practical, useful approach that seems to appeal to everyone. It is, without doubt, one of the best books ever for anyone who needs to think about organizations from a big picture perspective (which is just about everyone)and who wants or needs a useful tool to do that.


Worth Re-reading   May 25, 2000
L. Lucas (Moscow, ID)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

Bolman and Deal have given us a well-researched, thorough study of the human dynamics unfolding in virtually all organizations. For those seeking to live considerately, i.e. understand and take into account, the aspirations and perspectives of others, this book will prove a great benefit. For those who just "don't quite get it" with people, but who need to (to survive), this book will reward study. I took issue with some of the conclusions reached, especially regarding the "symbolic" frame; but then that's how we SHOULD read.