Task 1:

An organization is essentially formed by the interaction of people to achieve objectives within a

predetermined or formed structure. It is the management role to form and provide direction for this
interaction and create systems to control these activities. However the control methods used to
enforce systems within the various units of the organization are the key to achieve the goal of the
organization. There are various forms of controls that can be engaged, I will make an attempt to share
my views on two particular methods which I have personally witnessed in my career. I will first talk
about control through direct supervision followed by bureaucracy. We will first discuss their key
characteristics and their relevance in today’s management world we will also discuss some parallel
theories with examples from personal practice.

Control through direct supervision is a time tested model and has been in existence through the ages.
This method of control has been applied right from medieval times and has some kind of relevance
even today, to understand this better we must first understand what is control. “Control derives its
meaning from the French used meaning to check (Tannenbaum, 1962)”. It basically denotes influence,
power or authority, it can be vested within an individual or groups that have control over other groups.
Control can come from the position of an individual within the organization, this position can come
through various ways like it could come from being in a lineage of influential family (kings and rulers),
it could come through knowledge possessed by an individual or could be from individuals' skills etc.
Basically, it is the uniqueness of an individual or a group over the others that qualify him or them from
enjoying a position through which he or they can influence work or process flow. (Tannenbaum, 1962).

Direct supervision is a method wherein the individuals are expected to work within a specific
framework in which they have to perform specific tasks in a certain way and within a certain time
frame. The supervisors here are expected to ensure that the workers down below have to generate
output within a predetermined target level. In organizations that practice such methods the tasks
involved are mostly mundane or repetitive which require basic skills and yet manage to create huge
outputs that help the primary stakeholders to achieve profitability. However, this framework totally
ignores the fact that people in the organization have their own personal goals. The only goal they pay
heed to is monetary requirement of the individuals no effort is given towards the social development
of the individuals. In such type of organizations the culture is only to focus on output. Such
organizations face a lot of attrition issues and unsatisfied employees as the workers feel they don’t
have any power within the organization while the supervisors are caught up between the mangers
above. This gets more frustrating when the managers above were not entirely knowledgeable about
operations down below (Tannenbaum, 1962).

Another acclaimed and much followed method of control is Bureaucracy, which marks an
organizational structure which is primarily governed by set rules, standard operating procedures, with
in depth detailing of hierarchy, and division of labour. Every activity is already made a part of SOP
(standard operating procedure) and if anything out of regular emerges the problem solving is left to
upper management and the decision made becomes a precedent for future reference (Mulder,
2017).This method has suffered a lot of criticism, it is argued that authority gets delegated and hence
it gets diluted as all sub units starts pursuing their own goals that may or may not be in line with
organizational goals. Employees in such organizations become complacent after a while as they are
not motivated to innovate, rather are made to follow a fixed process and thus the employees prefer
this continuity (Temple, 2004). It has also been observed that past judgments are repeated without
gaining in-depth knowledge of current situations, also predefined rules provides an excuse for not
doing something probably relevant to the situation. Even though the method is criticized, it cannot be
ignored that this method has proved to be quite efficient in managing large organizations as a lot of
attention is given towards details of operations, labor is divided and responsibility is clearly defined,
employees are selected on the basis of proper technical know-how. The rules and regulations are
impersonal and tailor made for every aspect of work involved and uniformly applied. (Anonymous,
n.d.)

If we look at fourteen principles of management suggested by Fayol, three points were ideally part of
control mechanisms in place, these are Authority, discipline, Unity of command, Unity of direction.
Authority basically is power vested within an individual to give orders and assign tasks, Discipline came
from keeping effective managers at right place in hierarchy, Commands should be channelled from
one place only, since order from multiple places will create confusion and also dilute the authority of
the manager directly responsible. (Daniel Wern, 2009)

Though it has been known and accepted that if control is necessary to ensure effective working with
various groups of organization towards common goal, it is also necessary to understand its impact on
the organization. The success of control mechanism depends on many factors like how big the
organization is and how many employees report to the manager directly. Also, how are the job
responsibilities further divided among the employees based on their position in the hierarchy.
Managers who have to supervise large no of employees often are short of time to monitor all activities.
It is also seen that when the central pool of employees are reduced the managers might feel that they
have lesser control, moreover the employees would feel that they are under constant vigilance and in
situations when the team of employees under a manager are suddenly increased they might feel
stressed out and be inefficient in controlling the group. (Mulder, 2017)

I have worked in a food production industry for over 20 years, I would like to quote an example while
I worked on passenger cruise lines where an executive chef is the chief authority who designs a menu
to be served to customers which comprises of various types of delicacies ranging from starters to
desserts. There is a large no of customers to be fed for dinner where each and every plate has to look
the same even though all components on the plate are prepared by different departments as the
volume for each food product is large. Each and every department that makes different products have
their own department supervisor called as chef de cuisine who breaks down the job with his team for
further preparing the dish. The activity is time and quality bound and the cooks don’t have the liberty
to change any component. The job demands high precision, however the team involved, work for a
short contract and are often replaced by new cooks and also supervisors yet the quality and taste of
food is constant, the plate churned out for customers always look the same. This line of work is a
perfect mix of control by direct supervision and bureaucracy. The line cooks are governed within fixed
working hours, fixed recipes and have virtually no authority to make any changes, they are directly
supervised by their chef de cuisines. It is the job of chef de cuisine to ensure that each cook does his
part to prepare the final component that will be a part of the plate served in the dining room.

I have personally witnessed that the morale within the cooks is usually very low and the organization
sees an extremely high attrition rate. At times the organization has to resort to recruiting cooks who
have absolutely no previous experience in cooking. Such practices cause a burden on the department
supervisors (chef de cuisine) as they have to engage in basic training of the cooks to ensure that the
output is in line with the requirement. Since there is no gap between the switchover of cooks at times
the supervisor has to multitask ending up doing part of cooks job as well while training him. In such
instances there have been cases where the product is compromised and not up to the mark. There is
a drop in the satisfaction index of customers which reflects on the KRA of the executive chef.
Fluctuations in the performance index ratings are a cause of undue stress to the entire food production
team. We can clearly see the fault lines within the bureaucratic system along with its advantages of
being able to maintain system with a good and appropriate mix of direct supervision.
Conclusion: A well balanced mix of bureaucracy followed by direct control can help in the efficient
working of large organization, however there will always be issues whenever there is deviating from
the standards set for the organizations. They key is to ensure ways and methods to keep employee
morale high which can be achieved by imparting ways and means to help employees climb the ladder
of hierarchy and devising methods to identify gaps in the defined systems immediately and close these
gaps at earliest.

Task 2:

Motivation has been defined in various ways and scholars have presented theories in ways of
managing employees through appropriate motivation, So here is my attempt to present the views
and learnings based on the theories and practical experience.

Motivation is ideally an inner feeling which prompts an individual to do or refrain from doing a
particular activity. Most of the theories that have been presented usually present motivation as a state
towards a positive outcome and research is done towards identifying needs required to achieve those
results. Scholars have presented mostly two variations of theories, namely Content theories and
process theories. Content theories mostly focus towards satisfying physical needs and psychogenic
needs while process theories is directed towards ways and methods through which an individual’s
associates his/her growth.

In my own personal experience I have observed that motivation factors change with an individual’s
current state or position in the organization and definitely depends on mix of worldly possessions,
psychogenic needs and the path required to achieve these needs. For example, an employee who is
not well educated enough and comes from an economically challenged background will be content
with monetary remuneration that helps him to lead a decent life, but over a period of time he would
always strive to increase his remuneration, but if he lacks skills to help with further growth, then there
will be two possibilities, either the individual will stay content and accept his capability and stay within
the limited circle and accept organic growth or he would try to equip himself with further skills to
grow beyond his current stage in organization. The stage when one tries to push beyond the circle is
actually the individuals new state or position and is different from where he began.

So if we break this simple example and observe, we can notice the first part is based purely on content
theory where the individual was motivated to work so that he could support his basic physical needs
and also few psychogenic needs, for example daily living expense are taken care of by his earnings and
he probably also has earned a sense of pride of being able to support himself and his family who were
struggling for livelihood before. At this stage one can be content and spend his rest of life within this
limit, however there will be some who would want to look beyond the circle and such individuals are
motivated by many aspects like being able to lead a life like his neighbors who probably have someone
earning a little more than him, or someone in the family wants him to do more, or he himself has
belief that he can do better.
Conclusion:

My understanding of motivation is that an individual’s insatiable need to move or grow further out of
the current state or position, either in society or in an organization or both so as to satisfy ones never-
ending material and psychogenic needs which are influenced culturally, regionally, socially and most
important natural upbringing ( values instilled from birth).
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