Interview with Brandon ChiapaSocial Science and History Teacher at Alta Vista School
I chose to interview Brandon Chiapa a teacher at a local K-8 school district. With the many changes hitting schools and teachers I wanted to delve deeper into whether he felt his organization was well designed and equipped to meet the needs of the students and changes ahead.
Which organizational structure issue affects your organization most? Why?
The political structure, because politics are tied to our division of labor: how we’re paid, what we’re paid and our benefits. In addition our output is measured based on political initiatives.
Who in the political structure directs those measures?
The local school board, the county, state and federal regulators as well as the teachers union both local and national chapters.
Which organizational structure (Functional, Divisional, Matrix, Network) best defines your organization? Why?
Functional, because of the vertical hierarchy and structure. It has multiple managerial structures founded in heavy mid-level management. Despite that in times of crisis no one knows who to go to. “When the shit hits the fan, no one wants to be the boss.”
What do you see as the strengths of your current organizational structure?
Goals are directed and departments and teachers can easily share and put together common goals for the students.
What do you see as the weaknesses of your current organizational structure?
Since some job functions are not clearly defined, things go undone and employees argue, “that’s not my job.” Also due to the top down structure or the organization sometimes links in the communication chain fail to filter down information. This results in cut or fragmented communication altogether. e Unfortunately, when communication does work, the quality of the communication fails to describe the actions that need to take place, leaving staff unsure of expectations.
Which organizational structure (Functional, Divisional, Matrix, Network) provides the best solutions for your organizations design? Why?
The Network Structure seems to be the best solution because within our organization certain work has to be done in order to produce or function. If left to a network structure, labor development would be key and would result in firing those who couldn’t produce.
Interview Analysis
After analyzing Chiapa’s responses to my questions, I agree that a Network Structure could be a great fit for his organization. It would provide the adaptability needed for education’s ever changing environment. However would place teachers as opposed to administrators at the helm of decision making enabling more rapid and relevant change. It appears that in the current organizational structure decision makers are so far removed from the students that I would question some of the relevance of their policies in relation to the students needs. Chiapa was presented with the “Lattice Structure” (Townsend & Harder, 2000), but he felt that it was not necessary to remove management altogether yet find ways in which the two can work collaboratively which does take place through the use of “functional teams” in the Network Structure (Nohria, 1995).
In evaluating the organization based on Gould and Campbell’s tests (2002), the organization failed in several regards. In particular based on Chiapa’s responses the organization fell short in terms of the difficult link test collaboration is not taking place when it should to spark increased. Yet as Chiapa stated when collaboration does take place there is no “defined authority” (2002, pg. 8) so things continue to go undone. Additionally the organization fails in the accountability test, “shared responsibility” (2002, pg. 9) is lacking amongst all staff. I think the most egregious failure is that of the “flexibility test” (2002, pg.10). Change is rampant in education, the state, county and federal government continue to pass legislation that dictates changes that must be implemented. With the current functional and stringent hierarchical structure the school district will be inherently slow to change held back by the constraints of its structure. I would recommend that the next steps for Alta Vista School be to determine the feasibility to change their structure to improve their adaptability and staff functionality.
References
Gould, M. & Campbell, A. (2002). Do you have a well designed organization? Harvard Business School.
Nohria, N. (1995). Note on organizational structure. Harvard Business School
Townsend, D.R. & Harder, J. (2000). W.L. Gore & Associates [Case no. UVA-OB-0700]. Charlottesville: Darden Business Publishing.
Ramona,
ReplyDeleteGood diagnosis. What's the cure? What would an altrnative structure look like? Are there constraints that make change difficult/impossible?
Brad,
ReplyDeleteI think an alternative design truly could be the network structure. It could give more freedom, creativity and power to the teachers while still maintaining the management required to mitigate pressures/regulations stemming from the state and federal government. However, implementing such a structure would be difficult and near impossible with education in general's current design. Most schools operate under governing boards and a superintendent, who operates like a CEO but lacks much of the power that a business CEO would have. The limitations of the superintendent would prevent and hinder such change. In addition with the focus for schools to be test and standards based, I fear that schools would be unwilling to take the time to enact a new system. Additionally, since schools do not operate under the traditional business calendar which is 7 days a week 24 hours a day 365 days a year with their summers off, they lose opportunities to put these types of changes in place. I also feel that because of the ways schools are funded it would be prohibitive for a school to come up with the assets required to fund this type of a structural change as they all do come with a cost.
I also thought the the lattice structure was a viable alternative for the school. This could create leaders based on experience and shared knowledge among staff. This could promote rapid change and perhaps innovate the way students are taught. Sadly again, with testing and standards being the focus I just don't know if this is something that could be feasibly done.
Unions further compound this issue through the classic statement "that's not in my contract" therefore there are multiple stakeholder groups that would need to be engaged, and with so many big ticket stakeholders I believe the school would be at an impasse if they attempted to push structural change through.
Is it apparent that I come from a family of educator's and probably discuss this too often at the dinner table? I often complain that schools do not operate more like businesses I think it could do quite a bit for productivity.
Ramona