Do one of the following: 1) Describe a deliberative or decision-making process you have witnessed in an organization. Discuss this process making uses of some of the models and concepts that you read about in Graber and/or Spee and Jarzabkowski (eg. phases of decision-making, decision-making errors, strategic planning). Either make a recommendation for improving the process or explain why the status quo worked well. 2) Read this article about the history of decentralization and re-centralization of the NYC school system. Comment on how these restructurings have affected decision-making within the system and whether this has been for the best or not.
62 thoughts on “Deliberation in Organizations”
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I wrote about my organization undergoing a change management process in last week’s session. I will expand on that as it aptly relates to some of the models and concepts discussed in Graber and/or Spee and Jarzabkowski. The rapidly growing demand for humanitarian aid globally causing huge budget cuts internally has forced the organization to take action to reevaluate its priorities, resources, and systems to ensure it continues to effectively deliver its mandate and meet donor expectations. Executive management used an Error Avoidance Strategy – Delphi Technique by hiring an expert in change management to lead the change process in consultations and discussions in the headquarters and in the field offices for strategic planning. A temporary change management unit (CMU) was also formed to support admin/logistic tasks. I think hiring an expert is necessary in this case. Given the strict timeframe imposed, the change expert would ably provide expert advice in accomplishing key objectives more competently and efficiently given his experience/expertise in the field. The expert may raise issues executive management may not have considered and ask tough questions, including subjects they have divergent views on.
As I was watching the video lecture on the Strategic Planning Template Pyramid, I immediately recalled a similar structure presented to us on the first town hall – mission, problem and SWOT analysis, future of the organization, success factors, implementation plan and timeframe. Discussions, in the headquarters and field offices, are ongoing to consult with executive management, middle management, and staff members on priorities for change around mission/vision, identity, operational/functional silos, administrative services, leadership and management process, and people strategy (what works, what doesn’t work, what changes need to be implemented etc.) breaking down major problems into details. As part of executive management’s goals to ensure everyone understands the plan and need for change, staff from all levels with varying views are given various opportunities to participate through different discussion formats and platforms from the beginning of the process.
I related to the phases of decision making as well during our last Vision Statement exercise in determining its relevance and proposing options for improvement. In a recursive manner, inputs were gathered, then shared with the ASG and USG for shortlisting, then back to staff members for further feedback/discussion. Ultimately, it will be decided based on a majority vote done via survey to ensure the vision statement strongly represents the organization. So far in the process (halfway through), there’s a clear move to strike a balance in gathering inputs from all levels of the organization. Overall, I think it’s heading the right direction. My recommendation for improvement is increasing accountability among middle management to enforce staff members and themselves to participate and own the process. I voluntarily engaged with little motivation from my direct supervisor and others who may not care enough would have chosen to disengage.
Very interesting that a major decision at the UN will be made by voting. Surprisingly democratic.
Well there’s an unfortunate chain of events that preceded that strongly motivated the initiative. A new leadership in OCHA may have had some influence to the overall approach as well – from a less archaic and more inclusive, needs-driven, democratic process in its efforts to be more efficient, agile, and unified. A newly appointed SG who supports the change initiative can also can do wonders.
At my former job, we decided we needed to overhaul our recruitment messaging for the following year. The communications team, which I was a part of, worked with organizational leadership (executive director, head of public affairs, chief marketing officer, head of diversity, and a few others) to decide on what the final messaging should be.
The problem analysis part of the decision-making process was productive and efficient. After studies and analysis by the program team, the communications team was able to fairly easily identify what the problems in our current messaging were and how and why they needed to change to improve recruitment going forward.
The options exploration part of the process was more complicated. We worked with marketing research firms to test a bunch of different messages in various groups in different parts of the country to get a sense of how each message would resonate with people from different backgrounds in different geographic locations. We tested close to 100 different messages – many of which were the same version of one message with a couple of words changed – over the course of close to six months.
When it came time to make the actual decision, the communications team used the incremental bargaining model to make the final call. We gathered feedback from the other stakeholders on what they felt was absolutely necessary to include in the messaging from their perspective, and did our best to satisfy all their preferences in the final product. There was a lot of back-and-forth with various stakeholders, but overall after the process was everyone was content with the final product. I am no longer at that organization, but I’m sure they’re monitoring the recruitment numbers from this past year to determine how successful the messaging actually was.
I think this decision-making process worked fairly well. We carefully researched our options, included lots of stakeholders in the process, and worked hard to come up with a final decision that everyone who had a stake in the messaging liked. But the process was extremely time-consuming and expensive. It took about nine months from start to finish and required lots of manpower, contracting with outside research firms, and late nights for a lot of different staff members.
To cut back on some of the time, resources, and energy the process required, I would recommend spending less time on the options exploration part of the process – even cutting the process in half from six months to three and only testing options that truly seemed potentially viable. That would have kept the process from feeling like it was dragging and still would have likely yielded strong messaging.
Great recommendations! I agree that the organization spent way too much time on options exploration. While it’s extremely important to way options, it is not always necessary to have every single option available to make a good decision. However, I can understand why an organization might spend a significant amount of time on improving their recruitment strategy – hiring the right people is crucial to an organizations future success. If this is something that does not happen frequently, perhaps it was worthwhile. It would be helpful to understand why the organization felt the recruitment process needed to be overhauled on such a large scale.
Yes, I understand and agree that sometimes the real message or value of a situation gets lost in translation. The author did condense a vast amount of research and information on centralization and decentralization together and made it difficult to follow. There seems to be a sentiment amongst the blogs on the article that the real issues are eclipsed by politics and personal progress for the adults. I strongly feel that the community, parents and local elected officials would have a stronger bond for the children and schools in their districts, where they serve or live. You have stated that you like the combination of both styles which could be good also since some of the best research can be both quantitative and qualitative. The American school system could benefit by observing other countries such as China, Belgium or Korea who place high value on student performance. It’s not that America doesn’t but we could use assistance in getting closer to the solution than we have been since 1902 when the Board of education first started as a centralized system. Unions have played a large part of this equation also. They advocate for wage increases and benefits for their members but I ‘m not sure if this translates into professional, educated teachers. We do agree that the problem is multi-faceted.
I have to comment on your comment. I think that the size of the New York City School system always makes it an anomaly no matter what the educational issue. The size of the system and serving so many students (roughly one million) will always complicate finding the simpler solution that may have been effective in a much smaller city. I have observed teachers in both New York and Boston and have seen very great talent in both places, so I bristle when I hear about comparisons to other countries or cities. Despite what we may read, or how certain mayors may feel, the problem is not the teachers. The majority of our teachers are the best educated members of the community and have themselves gone to excellent schools. I do think that their level of education may not be appreciated by parents who rightly advocate for their kids, but, at the same time, don’t want to be embarrassed by their kids’ poor performance in the school setting.
This is so interesting! I’m curious to know the outcome and how successful the final messaging is. I’m sure analytics would provide some answers and even bring valuable insight into the return of investment. While I understand the importance of messaging, extending the exploration process close to 6 months is a tad too long. I wonder if assessing the needs of the target audience, which can vary from one location to the other, of the messaging first prior to any consultation with stakeholders would have cut the process shorter – so a bottom-top then top-bottom approach. Perhaps inclusion of the target audience from the beginning of the process would have narrowed down the options instead of having to test close to 100 different messages.
Your previous job seemed like a reputable organization. I am abbot surprised that it took that long to make a decision and the fact that all those, what seems as pointless ideas now, was placed in the table. I agree with your recommendation they should have spent time on exploring options they knew from the start would not be logical. An organization should have set standards and what they want and expect from this communication project should have been just as clear and straight to the point . I am currently working on a project and every Thursday in our weekly meeting it seems like something different is required to fulfill this project. I believe time is of the essence and it should not be wasted in such manner and my current project seems to be heading in that direction even though they forecast a completion date of 6 months I have yet to believe this.
Hi
Really nice example of decision making process. I agree that your organization did pretty good good in reaching to a decision and I like the ides of gathering feedback in order to choose the best option. I also agree with you regarding the time and the cost of this process. I think that having good research is key to come to a accurate decision. But 6 months seems a little too long to text options. Your recommendation of three months I think is a great idea and it will cut on cost too.
To start this article has changed my outlook about decentralizing NYC’s public schools. Centralizing nor decentralizing public schools policy is the ultimate solution but a solution that better balances teachers, parents and community support for the benefit of the student. Much of education policy is influenced by business or corporate decision rather than educator’s who accurately knows the needs of students. The policy changes including mixed methods, have only lead to moderate improvement in student performance over the years.
The greatest common factors of the methods mentioned in this article is the placement of power. With centralization the central office would act as the pacifier between schools and state. The state is more involved in the decision making process concerning curriculum, teacher evaluation and budgeting, to name a few. Decentralization on the other hand gave more authority of its schools to the community boards. The increased collaboration between schools and parents led to different approaches and school administrators having more power. I agree with the author, less focus should be placed on organizational structure and more focus on what occurs in the class room.
There should not be one answer from either side. Each side presents valuable attributes that could be used together for a greater solution. The student’s learning should be priority. Also the policies that govern education should remain current and not support the endeavors of big business.
Ian the article changed my outlook regarding the executive board at the Department of Education. As parents and citizens, we entrust people that we believe have a degree of expertise in the field of education to make the best decision for the pupils. After reading the article I am suspect to whether this goal has been fully accomplished. In all fairness as a parent, I have not lived up to my full potential either to promote education. I take full responsibility. I agree that the bulk of the actual business has been blurred by corruption, fraud and other forms of self-gratification on behalf of the adults. I just learned a new word from my Research Methods class that Ian describes, “the policy changes including mixed methods leading to mixed improvement in student performance.” The new word is triangulation. The administrators have not found any real solutions between centralization, decentralization and charter schools and are using mixed methods to further complicate the structure of the system. A major part of the equation, which I agree with Ian, is where to put the power so that there are not abuses. The answer may lie in the Board of Education modeling after the Madisonian Model of checks and balances to restructure the system. It has worked for the government for over 100 years I believe it should be given some thought.
I agree that more attention should be placed in the classroom instead of the power structure, and that there are elements of both centralization and decentralization that ultimately benefit students and the community. Decentralization can lead to increased parent involvement in administrative affairs of the school, which seems like a benefit to me, however I can imagine instances where it could go awry. Centralization, which gives the State more power in the affairs of the school could also be beneficial to the efficiency of schools and school districts, but at the cost of spending a lot of class time preparing for standardized exams. The education industry and entities/individuals involved are constantly at odds with the balance of power. I think Katherine’s mention of a Madisonian model for the education system is a very compelling idea. It could lead to increased participation from parents and teachers and give them a voice against the State when the system becomes too centralized.
Reading the article, it takes a while to know exactly what is meant by de-centralization and centralization exactly, beyond the general idea of at what level are decisions made. It is also not very clear what have been the arguments for the changes.
One example suggest that perhaps the arguments haven’t been common sensical: “researchers have found no direct link between school-based management and improved student performance. The research suggests that school restructuring should not be an end in itself, but “a means to improving student performance through bringing about improvements in the quality of schooling”.” It is probably not the first time policy has been about solutions looking for problems, but the quote together with the logic that communities at local level have strong focus on educational outcomes, would suggest that decentralization would be supported by common sense.
The two quotes below summarize for me the key findings of the article:
1) “Important to high achievement is the support and services that the central office provides for the schools, according to the report. The ability to provide a higher level of resources to professional development is another key area in which central offices can raise the level of instruction and achievement in schools (Mac Iver and Farley, 29).”
2) “it is not a matter of community control versus centralization, which originally was the question this paper set out to answer, but how large is the community that has control. If the community is school based, then there is probably a better opportunity for involvement by parents and community representatives”
The quotes echo the Theory Y model where people are given resources and supported to reach goals, with the underlying assumption being that the people will know what to do.
I do think there should be limits\checks to the power of local-decisionmaking over schools. For example, I don’t think topics such as creationism should ever be taught as anything remotely serious by publicly funded schools. Central authorities are also needed to in terms of accountability regarding issues like discrimination.
The article also alludes to how interest groups, such as teachers unions or charter schools (private schools probably as well), factor themselves into decision-making, which is concerning from a democractic perspective. It would have been interesting to know more about why exactly were the decisions made that parted from the logic represented in above quotes.
I agree that the article was a bit frustrating with its jargon. The words centralized and decentralized were used so frequently that it difficult to follow. In reference to your other points, it does seem like the battle between the restructuring of schools is less about improving the quality of education and more about politics. Politicians seem more focused on defending a particular school of thought rather than finding meaningful solutions that will ultimately change children’s lives. I personally feel that our school system should be structured with a combination of both styles as the article indicates that some issues are better handled centrally while others locally. In your example, certain things simply should not be taught in public schools and there should be some consistency in an American education system (centralization). However, there are certain issues that would be better served through local decision-making (decentralized), such as classroom size, allocation of resources, extracurricular activities, etc. There is no one-solution.
I agree that this is not a one-solution case. Decentralization and centralization on their own is ineffective so I think it’s about finding a good mix and coordination between the two. Decentralization would encourage members of the community to be more involved in the decision-making process – principals, teachers, parents, giving them more authority to effect policies that address problems and issues faced by children within the school. Because they understand and relate more to the problems at the local level, they would be more assertive and committed to pushing those initiatives further. Decentralization would also offer them more flexibility in the day to day operations from procurement, recruitment, and budget, which centralization would likely stall and drag due to bureaucratic systems, inhibiting their ability respond quickly to their needs. Centralization would serve as an establishment that holds them accountable to the standards (imposed by city/state) of curriculum content and credentials of teachers and principals. Centralization would also provide some organization and control that decentralization typically lack focus on.
In 2013, the City passed Local Law 146, which requires certain businesses to separate their organic waste (food scraps/plant trimmings/compostable products) from garbage and recycling materials. On an annual basis, the commissioner of the Department of Sanitation designates which businesses will be covered under the law’s parameters. The businesses that are currently covered under the most recent designation are stadiums/arenas, food manufacturers and food wholesalers of a certain size, and restaurants in hotels with a certain number of rooms. In order to expand that designation to more businesses, the commissioner has to determine that there is enough capacity. In other words, are there enough facilities with enough processing ability to put this organic waste to beneficial use? Therefore, a comprehensive study must be carried out each year to determine if there has been an increase in capacity. That study also has to examine which businesses generate enough organic waste to warrant including them in the designation. Once that information has been collected, the commissioner must then decide which options make the most sense based on those studies; usually through a cost/benefit analysis. Once the commissioner makes the annual designation, the Department then tracks the industries’ progress in getting into compliance and the level at which organic waste is being put to beneficial use. This decision-making process follows Graber’s Four Phases of Decision-making very closely. This decision-making strategy is very rational and relatively efficient. However, the challenge lies in acquiring the data necessary in making annual determinations as no one entity has this information compiled. As a result, it is often difficult to make the decision on solely a cost/benefit analysis. Sometimes, the decision also has to incorporate aspects of incremental bargaining and the option that will meet the least resistance. My recommendation would be to include more industry insiders and consultants as early as possible. Additionally, conducting observational studies of the various businesses that produce food waste would give the Department better information on the various challenges.
Wow thank you for bringing the organic waste processing to light. I feel like many residents in New York City would want to be educated about and be interested in participating in food scrap programs via various venues. There’s a big capacity for recycling programs to be implemented. I’m a loyal donor of food scraps for the NYC Compost Project at Queens Botanical Garden. Every Tuesday morning, there’s a pick up truck waiting in front of the Queens Library on my way to work so it’s really convenient for residents to drop off household food wastes they’ve collected. It is not only a great environmental cause, encourages residents to be responsible citizens, but the habit of separating wastes can also improve household hygiene and health. In terms of the decision making phases from Dept of Sanitation, I can’t agree with you more on the need of perfecting the data through expertise in order to generate more accurate conclusions and make more sound decisions. As a matter of fact, observational studies often don’t necessarily require industry expertise to conduct. Perhaps hiring more interns for the Dept would alleviate the cost benefit concern.
I really enjoyed reading your post. I learned a lot about process and the intricacies that go into decisions such as this one. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with you. An organization such as this would need more individuals who are equip to handle decision making in these matters. It is at this time I believe this city agency would seek the advice and recommendation of a procurement analyst, a procurement analysts can also be known as purchasing analysts, agents or managers. They are employed by companies and organizations to purchase goods or services from wholesale distributors, manufacturers or other product or service providers, they are well equip to make the best business deals and in waste processing business they can make the most cost effective decisions when it comes to vendors.
Your example is very educational and you clearly explained the process used in decision making. I agree that Graber’s four phases of decision making is rational and easy to implement and follow. I do think as you mentioned that they needed to spent more time on the solutions stage gather more accurate information that actually helps in developing an educated conclusion.
Historically the article states that “the Department of Education started out as a centralized agency in 1902.” Most of the time in life how we start out will be how we end up, things usually return in a full circle. Centralization supports an attempt at a uniform, homogenous and structured school system with supports in place. Decentralization disburses the power and ownership to geographical neighborhoods, communities and local politics. Neither centralization nor decentralization has been exempt of flaws such as fraud, corruption or cronyism.
Administrative tasks and human resource management seems to have overshadowed the goal of the best method to deliver education, learning and knowledge to the pupils. There doesn’t appear to be any clear definitive decision making in the Department of education which is why Bloomberg was able to fill the void supporting Joel Klein. There was uproar from Bloomberg actions but others are slow to take ownership and be responsible for restructuring the education system. Local communities, parents, local elected officials have an obligation to families to be a dedicated stakeholder in the decisions that affect their children. Indecisiveness has led to the new suggestion of charter schools as the solution. This choice has opened the dialogue for new experimentation on the direction and focus of pupil’s education quality. Currently charter schools are not the solution either their performance indicators rate along the same as regular public schools. Charter schools are a new place where major power and control was delegated under the “No Child Left behind Act” under George W. Bush. Eventually the trend or our new presidential administration may move towards the pupil’s with the adults asking them to centralize or not to decentralize that will be the question.
Describe a deliberative or decision-making process you have witnessed in an organization. Discuss this process making uses of some of the models and concepts that you read about in Graber and/or Spee and Jarzabkowski (eg. phases of decision-making, decision-making errors, strategic planning). Either make a recommendation for improving the process or explain why the status quo worked well.
Well in my organization there is always decisions been made in every aspect specially since last year that we our management team was changed completely. As a staff nurse in my organization we are part of most of the decision that are made in our unit but not so much in the entire organization unless we are proactive and become a union delegate or part of a committee. As of last year my manager picked me to be part of a committee that was aimed at solving the problems that we have we are crash car which is the code car used when a patient goes into cardiac arrest.
When i was listening to the lecture the decision making process that i could relate to was of Graber. First our group was composed on staff nurses, manager, clinical educators, doctors, respiratory therapist, pharmacy and the manager of central supply. All the members of the group had a part in what we needed inside the crash car since we are the ones that actually use it in a daily bases. We needed the manager of central/sterile supple to be there since she is the one that puts the car crash together.
We got together once a month. The first meeting we had we were able to define the problem, which was what was needed in the code car that was not there, also we touch on how we as nurses were documenting a cardiac arrest event in our EMR. We concluded that those two were the problems that needed to be fixed. Also we divided our group into subgroups. For example I was part of the supply/equipment group we were in charge on finding what was missing in the code car it could had been medicine, IV fluids, needle, any needed in time of a code. We also had a group responsible for the updating the policy of the code car, another group in simplifying the documentation of a code.
The next meeting we had we explore our options and identified potential solutions. All of the subgroups came up with solutions to their specific task that was assigned and then we will discuss as a group to see if it was viable to do what each group came with. Fo example my group realized that we did not have enough IV Flushes we had to discuss wether we had enough space in the code car to put more.
After we all came up with the solutions we decided to put everything in paper and fixed our policy so on the next meeting we can come up with the best decision. Some research was made specially on the EMR process and the policy making. We put our solutions together and we used the method of rational choice to decided on the changes made in the code car, the policy and the EMR documentation.
Finally we realize the new code car to the units, as well as the updated policy and we educated the staff on the new EMR documentation. Now we are in the process of feedback from the staff whether the changes were helpful or not.
One of the problems that i think our group suffered from is premature termination of information search. I think we could have use more information on the documentation on a code in the EMR from other facilities to make more user friendly. I think that was the part we lack the most. From the lecture the strategy that we could have used to fix this problem could had been multiple advocacy strategy to have more discussion about it in order to come up to a better solution.
I agree that often times when hospitals want to implement something new the timeline for implementation is pretty short causing issues to arise after the implementation. I do think that leadership try to involve staff in the decision making process since the frontline staff tend to know more about the workflow to ensure a smooth implementation plan.
Interesting testimony. Personal examples are sometimes the best ways to understand methods of improvement and efficiency. I am glad your group was able to monitor your feedback and not skip over it like many organizations do. You were able to identify some of the shortcomings. Premature termination of information search can impede progress. As a possible result more time is spent fixing something that could have been taken care of already and the would-be “new progress” is delayed. As you alluded to, more deliberative discussion is always a better choice.
One common organizational level decision-making error at my program, according to Doris A. Graber, is the tendency to keep information to oneself and to solve problems internally. It’s also tied to the other common error of “group think”–the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. The staff at our Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS), myself included, are guilty of the charge of both errors. There seems to be a consensus of the fundamental reason for the disconnect of our program operation. The systematic defects of our decision making process are often ascribed to leadership’s failure in delivering consistent results and clarifying expectations of and to the staff whom likely have longer tenure within the program. We follow Graber’s four phases of decision making for the most part: problem analysis, options exploration, making the decision, and monitor feedback. But depending on the issue of focus, each phase is usually driven by different parties. The HPD FSS Program has undergone dramatic changes throughout the years. After our former director retired, our program hired a new coordinator before a new director was hired subsequently. Last year, we lost one project manager and a policy analyst at the same time, whereas both of whose positions are not filled to date. During this high turnover period, knowledge was not passed on to the succeeding party, which makes access to information and staff adjustment difficult. On small operational decisions, staff are sometimes called into meetings to discuss issues and collect feedback. However, these small decisions are dependent upon the bigger policy and procedural changes which only the senior-level leadership have direct influence of. When in group meetings or situations where individual responsibility and participation are required the most, staff may be discouraged to speak up, propose, or take the lead. On the contrary, when certain staff (usually the productive ones) are appointed for tasks that others are not, fairness is in question. My recommendation is, because the senior-level management is relatively new and inexperienced, the aggregative model of decision making should be implemented. In other words, we should satisfy the largest possible number of individual preferences in the workplace by voting and debates through staff meetings. The downside of that is it will be more time consuming. But I believe it will at least be time-efficient and generate more harmony within the program.
discourages creativity or individual responsibility
Group-think is definitely a huge problem that I’ve witnessed in the organizations where I’ve worked. I think sometimes people really do fall into the trap of thinking like their coworkers, and other times they do it, whether intentionally or not, to absolve themselves of individual responsibility. A lot of times it can mean things go wrong and processes to prevent them never truly get fixed.
Your recommendation makes a lot of sense and sounds like, even though it would be more time consuming, would help the organization make better decisions and keep employees happier. Good leaders acknowledge what they don’t know, and the aggregatative model could help them learn faster and make better decisions.
I think your points about turnover are really important. The flow of information often stops or isn’t properly documented from employee to employee. This can really hinder the decision making process and make it especially difficult for members of the team who stay on.
It is unfortunate that there was so much turnover in your organization making it difficult to do your job. Voting may be easier in organizations with a small number of employees. In larger groups voting may be difficult because the more people you have the harder it is to get a consensus.
I think you’re right, a voting and debate process seems like it would be very useful in this case. It would help overcome the inexperience of the senior-level staff and give a voice to everyone. Even if it is somewhat more time-consuming, it seems like the trade-off of obtaining a better working environment would be worth it.
The problem you described is something I’ve experienced at a prior internship and your recommendation could definitely help to fill communication gaps. Low level staff was rarely consulted on issues that pertained not only to the organization, but to the staff themselves. I cannot place the blame on only the managers as none of the staffers really took the initiative to share their expertise and knowledge with the managers. There was also a small age gap between management and staff, which only served to aggravate the staff more. Even if senior-level managers are experienced, they can always learn something from their staff.
At my last job I witnessed a management style that is incredibly similar to McGregor’s Theory X. The senior management, and more specifically the CEO, used an authoritarian and repressive style. This made for a hostile work environment and prevented major internal progress. This was specifically evident when the CEO attempted to close two of our branches and open a new, brand in a more “centralized” location.
The CEO made several individual decision making errors outlined in our readings. She wanted the new branch to be in a specific area and pre-maturely terminated my information search when she got results that closely resembled what she was looking for. She never consulted any of the staff who were actually from the area about where the new branch should be.
Then she developed a theory that the new landlord was going to be difficult and told the Board as such. It turned out that the new landlord was wonderful, however, she had already told the Board that the landlord was negotiating us into a bad deal. This relates to the point of “persisting in a bad course to prove oneself right.” She ended up asking the new landlord for ridiculous accommodations and the addition of clauses into the lease that no landlord would ever agree to. She essentially sabotaged her own deal.
All of this was done essentially in secret and without staff buy in. My main recommendation, besides the replacement of the CEO, would be to engage in the nominal group technique. She should have consulted the rest of the staff, who are experts on the geography and clients, and engaged thoughtful focus groups and working groups about where the new location would have been. This could have helped the relocation become a success.
This sounds like a nightmare, I’m not surprised that it is a job you left. I once read somewhere that “people don’t leave organizations, they leave bosses.” In my experience with leaders and managers that fall within Theory X, they have high staff turnover and rarely learn that their authoritative style may not be the best for employees. Hopefully other employees that witnessed what she did is that situation and learned from it and are able to not repeat those kinds of mistakes when planning and making decisions of their own.
That sounds like a rough organization to work for! I get the impression that if that CEO had asked for advice from people in the organization who were familiar with the area she would try to listen to people who supported her decision and discounted any alternatives. Considering Graber it sounds like that CEO did the typical strategy of making a choice as an individual and then following it through to prove herself right. She might have better benefited from converting the decision to a group-making model and following a more aggregate type of making a decision, which would have allowed her to get input from her coworkers.
Wow, this sounds awful, but I can definitely relate! I’ve had previous bosses with the same attitude: I’m right, and I’m plowing forward no matter what. There is always a fine line to walk with senior leadership between accepting their ultimate direction and steering them to more accurate or smart decisions. In your case, it seems like the CEO was using “bolstering” in almost every decision and squashing or downplaying any option or information that didn’t go along with their preconceived outcome. It seems very dangerous for an organization’s health to have an executive who wants to completely reshape a place in their own image–especially if it’s a well established organization.
Its hard to imagine that someone could hit some of the obvious “don’t do’s”. At times I question is it emotion (arrogance) or they genuinely do not know. The CEO is a trusted position that assumes the individual would exhaust all avenues of assistance for the best decision. It also assumes they know to sit back and “learn the ropes” when necessary. The collegial decision structure would have been a better approach for the new CEO. She would have had more pertinent information in the least amount of time through her relationship with upper and lower employee. This would help avoid obvious and latent misjudgment.
Experiences like these strengthen you throughout your career and edify your deliberative talk.
I was an elementary school student at the time of the school strike in 1968, and I was also a New York City Board of Education employee when Mayor Bloomberg got control of NYC Schools. As an adult, I can look back at the time of the strike in 1968 with a bit of awe. The strike, apparently singular in the annals of the labor movement, pitted the wishes of the community against the rights of workers at a turbulent time in history. Both groups had clearly deliberated about what they wanted. Both groups may have gotten it a little wrong as far as education was concerned.
My school was not part of the Brownsville action that precipitated the strike. It is interesting that Johnson’s article discusses school centralization and decentralization because the in-class instruction I received every day of the strike was very much decentralized. It was an oddly enjoyable mix. My lead teacher, Mrs. Violette, an African American, was a strict but gifted educator. It is ironic that she ended up as my interim teacher given the racial circumstances leading to the strike. (I should note that my white teachers were excellent too, and race was not an issue in my early school experiences.) She probably made up the lessons daily as she went along, outside of any deliberative process that was driven by a curriculum. What she taught was meaningful and memorable.
In 2001 I was hired to work at the Board of Education in the Division of Assessment and Accountability. I can summarize Johnson’s explanation of mayor Bloomberg’s “re-centralization” of New York’s public schools very succinctly: It was a disaster. Those who understand the value of thoughtful planning and deliberation would have sensed that education was not the goal of this change. The goal was control. The mayor fired much of the mid-level and senior-level staff. I lost my job but was rehired in a new title with no support staff, and no procedural road map. It was clear that the new, re-centralized schools model had little or no input from educators. There was no room for teachers to customize instruction to the needs of their students. It is little surprise that test score data sets and graduation rates were found to be flawed under this administration, with a generation of students losing ground during Bloomberg’s three terms.
Great point Paul. Teachers unfortunately do not hold much power–in both traditional public schools, charter and even private. They are at mercy of the system. Teacher involvement and development is important, but I think that we cannot expect from teachers what we do not prepare them for. From what my teacher friends told me, the Department of Education representatives may come in to train them on a new style of teaching without having provided any input. Then the following year the system mandates something new. They are at the mercy of a coercive power so they voice grievances to their unions. I think this reflects that the agenda is set from the top while it is unclear why things are changing so swiftly. We should prepare our teachers, preserve the best ones, respect them to be involved in the creation and implementation of programs and policies, and then trust them to evaluate their students.
I believe equality of opportunity and the long-term impact of teachers also go hand-in-hand on students’ performance. As the strikes you’ve mentioned regardless of racial reasons, it is hardly a new idea that growing up in a poor neighborhood isn’t the best launching ground for economic success. However, there are mixed views on desegregation programs in the country. In order to really see the effect of better neighborhoods to students, we would need years of exposure to that better neighborhood.
I highly recommend these podcasts if anyone is interested in this topic: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/american-dream-really-dead/ https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with
Great post Paul. It is so interested to hear your perspective especially since you were so closely involved. I especially liked how you pointed out that it was clear that education was not the goal of the change. It is important to note “ulterior motives” or other incentives that decision makers may have.
thank you for the post Paul. It gives a lot of useful background to the article.
Thank you for this post, Paul. I think from today’s viewpoint it’s difficult to imagine the conflict in schools being between the community and teachers. When I think of conflict in education administration I tend to think of administration vs. teachers, or administration vs. community.
Just two comments: One, your first-hand experience under Bloomberg’s administration shapes your response from others. Two you make a strong point about education not being the focus of change. It incites the next question, was it done on purpose (and if so why)?
Ian, the answer is power and control. Someone with more experience than me in the New York Schools said that there was much more going on politically than just control of the school system, and its budget. “School boards” parent councils, PTAs, whatever they may be called often serve as an on-ramp to political careers. My personal and unscientific study of low level elected officials, district leaders, etc., confirms this is so. It has been suggested that the re-centralization changes that occurred under the Bloomberg administration were designed to block this access to the greater political power, and for certain demographic groups in particular. If you shrink the number of school districts from forty-plus, down to ten, there are now roughly 25% of the opportunities for this type of political access and cultivation.
The organization I currently work at is international in scope and has field offices in seven countries around the world. Every year, each program goes through a strategic planning process to focus their work, identifying funding gaps, etc. for the next five years. Within the past year, a new CEO came on board and as a result, there was a more comprehensive evaluation and planning process for the organization as a whole. This organizational strategy process was also more inclusive of all staff members and their input. At issue was which programs we would officially adopt and which we would prioritize. To do this, we adopted something like a rational-choice model, with separate committees based on expertise and interest-level.
When it came to the decision-making, however, several of the errors laid out by Graber popped up. In particular, our process seemed prone to “bolstering”, or exaggerating one option while deflating another. This came into play when higher level staff were predisposed to focus on certain program areas, and so talked down or glazed over the information and concerns of other committees. I also witnessed some issues at the group level, where such a cohesive unit and consensus had formed within a committee it made them less willing to be flexible.
To improve the process, I like the idea of the collegial model. In this case, the committees would be drawn from various programs, rather than from those already most loyal to the program. I also think the idea of information spreading horizontally, rather than simply intragroup or straight to management would have been helpful in the decision-making process.
I have also been part of planning and decision-making processes where individuals from all levels of the organization are included in the meetings but higher level staff do not seriously consider their ideas as valid; the ideas from lower level staff are deflated and it leads to organizational dissatisfaction. I like the idea of Quality Circles combined with the Collegial Model so that members from many parts of the organization can regularly meet with each other and become better familiarized with the goals of the others.
The constant struggle between centralization and decentralization is, at its core, about equality versus equity. The education system in the Unites States began as a centralized institution with the goal of offering a homogenous curriculum across the nation. Decision-making came from the top down. Eventually school systems began to decentralize. In the 1960s and 1970s decentralization played an important role in providing minority communities a say over their children’s education. Under a decentralized model, parents had more control in decisions of hiring and curriculum. Moreover, decentralization lead to higher instances of minority principals and administrators. Decentralization has its drawbacks, like corruption, and in the 1990s school systems around the nation began to (re)centralize. In New York City, the school system would go through phases of centralizing one aspect while decentralizing another. The State enforced school-based management, while also giving the chancellor more control of performance standards. A focus on education is what is lacking in many modern debates on centralization. State-based metrics will not solve the problems many students face. My personal view tends towards decentralization. While I believe it is important that we educate our youth in the same basic skills and knowledge across the nation, current efforts at centralization stifle development.
Decentralization shifts the power and responsibility to the community. The state has the great responsibility to create processes to make sure the local districts are meeting their benchmarks. This means having enough resources, time and improved collaboration. The state need to ensure those who have the power are not abusing them. Unfortunately, decentralization led to fraud and corruption in the community. Recentralization was then an effort to clean the education system of its failures. Centralization required schools to follow rigid rules and standards that created obstacles for local communities to make greater positive impact.
This past year my hospital had decided to enforce a new policy that mandated every employee get the flu vaccine in order to continue to work for the organization. As part of my nursing master’s program clinical rotation, I was fortunate enough to attend the decision making meeting with a group of high level administrators of the organization regarding the roll out of this new mandate.
In analyzing the decision making process that took place during this meeting it appears that the decision making process did go through most of Gerber’s model.
1. They discussed and analyzed the problem: there has been incidences where unvaccinated employees in other organization have transmitted the flu to patients causing death. The flu can be deadly for infants/children and elderly patients who are immunocompromised. Therefore in order to decrease the risk of that happening, this new policy was the best decision to make.
2. The explored the options: Some questions raised included: Should we continue to allow employees to decline the vaccine due to personal reasons and make them wear masks during flu season? Or should the declination only be allowed for medical or religious reasons? And if we made it mandatory for all employees to get the vaccine then would they be fired if they do not get it? What about the employees who received an approved medical/religious declination? Would they then be removed from their current patient care role and placed somewhere else until flu season is over?
3. After they reviewed all the options they then made a decision by weighing the cost vs benefits of an organization wide mandatory flu vaccination policy and decided that the benefits of keeping patients safe out weighted any cost associated with this new mandate.
4. Once the decision was made, many employees expressed their feedback on the new policy, however the feedback had no affect on changing the policy. This was the new policy, and if you didn’t want to get the flu vaccine due to personal reasons, then this organization was not a place for you to continue employment.
In my opinion, although the group did go through the decision making model, the decision was already made prior to this meeting by the President. So the meeting was more of a discussion on how to implement this new policy and talk out any barriers that may stand in the way of implementing this new policy.
I agree with you even though this organization may have seemed like they went though all four phases of Gerber’ s model. The final decision was made long before they requested feedback from their employees. They goal of any organization is to always look at what is more beneficial to that organization and having the trust and confidence of its patients is what’s valued most by hospitals. At the end of the day they paid attention to their profit margins and loosing one or two employee because of their refusal to be vaccinated would not cost nearly as much in finding a replacement vs loosing a patient.
You make a really good point about decision-making processes – sometimes leaders go through the motions of including others in the decision when really they have no influence over the decision and it’s already been made. Sometimes decisions do need to be made unilaterally or with just a few people involved, but on a policy like this that impacts everyone at the organization, it sounds like more input would have not only been the right thing to do, but potentially could have helped retention or employee satisfaction. I think those are factors leaders sometimes fail to consider when making decisions that can end up having huge ripple effects on organizations.
The article discusses centralization vs. decentralization. The author makes a good point about the pendulum seeming to swing with changing political winds – towards decentralization in the 1960s and towards centralization in the 1990s and 2000s. The author concludes that the decentralization into school-based management didn’t have much of an effect on performance, and adds “If there had been more and smaller community districts in New York, perhaps there would have been greater community participation and less fraud and corruption, because there would have been more oversight on the community level and less opportunity for local superintendents to turn those districts into their own personal fiefdoms.”
Centralization vs. decentralization seems to fit with MacGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y: Centralized schools would fall into Theory X – an authoritative (authoritarian?) central office or individual herds noncompliant teachers and administrators and others into doing what they need to do. Theory Y would cover decentralized schools: teachers and community members and administrators working together for the common good. Although she cites many examples where this decentralization did not live up to its ideal, or produced only modest results.
Decentralization requires that those local school districts are capable of addressing community problems and able to meet certain standards or benchmarks. It fails when school districts lack the resources, clear defined goals, and adequate coordination of information. The city needs to provide resources as the cost of decentralization is higher because it requires more time and coordination. It also requires talent to perform the work needed to meet the standards set. As the the article stated, fraud and corruption in the position of power led to its failure.
I am currently working on a project, where New York State had decided to enforce a new policy that mandated every recipient who is deemed aged, blind or disable and is in current receipt of social security disability benefits for more than two years are now required to enroll in Medicare Part B. Since the beginning of the project we have had to attend the decision making and progress meetings weekly with a group of high level administrators and directors of the the organization regarding the processing of this new mandate.In analyzing the decision making process that takes place during this weekly meeting I can see the implementation of most of Gerber’s model.
They discussed and analyzed the problem: there are too many individuals who are entitled to receive benefits from Medicare in which 80% of their Medical bills would be covered along with other benefits and are not receiving this. Social security administration should automatically have enrolled these clients after two years of receiving social security benefits but somehow they managed to slip through the cracks. The state of New York have now created this project in which we are enrolling clients for the first time into Medicare plans and accreting them according to Their entitlement span. Therefore in order to exhaust all possible benefits for our recipients I believe ,this new policy to implement the part B was a good decision to make.
They explored the options: on a daily basis we are faced with different scenarios, in which we bring to our weekly meeting. Some clients may not qualify for a state run program where we pay the Medicare part B premium for them should they still be enrolled and they incur the expense, some clients are already set on our system to start the part B in July of 2017 should we change this period, some clients are disabled adult children who have special budgeting do we still enroll them in these benefits, could a client still qualify for Medicaid benefits even though they are not eligible for this program. We are given different scenarios on a weekly basis all of which is explored and addressed by our directors in charge.
After they reviewed all the options they then made a decision by weighing the cost vs benefits to the client and also a major cost factor to state funds being allocated to other individuals who may be in need of it. When these clients take advantage of the Medicare benefits Medicaid will only at that time be responsible for 20% of the cost vs the previous 100%. Medicare picks up the 80% which will be a huge cost reduction for the state having to cover some individuals.
Being that the decision was made, and some clients are beginning to receive notices informing them of the changes, they are expressing their feedback on the new policy and the many changes of health care professionals whom they will have to change, however the feedback had no affect on changing the policy. The state is trying to reduce cost as much as possible.
In my opinion, although the group did go through the decision making model, the decision was already made prior to assigning this project. The State’s budget had a major role in this decision. I would also have had the social security administration going forward to inform clients of this process and automatically set up the accretion process two years from their initial application period so the entire process would not be a shock to many as it is now.
Centralization refers to when the administrative authority of schools is concentrated into one central body, with no influence from the local community. The central body is responsible for budget, hiring, curriculum, educational facilities and policies. On the other hand Decentralization decision making is solely the school responsibility, an example of this is Site-base Management. What this mean is that schools make their own decision when it comes’ curriculum, hiring of new staff and budget appropriation with “locus of power remains in the central body”
The purpose of Decentralization is to get better result within the school system; student performing better in school, resources are used more efficiently and an increase in skills and satisfaction for school administrators and teachers. Decentralized is getting the community and parents more involved in the decision making to acquire certain goals. According to the article decentralized is believed to bring about “better relations between school and community , provides more efficient maintenance and support for local schools, provide more resources for local school needs and it responds more effectively to the widely varying needs of local schools and communities,”(Johnson), but opponents to decentralized disagree. Opponents are more concerned about accountability and fraud and the need for a central office to act as an intermediary in their relationship with the state. The question is; which is more beneficial to todays’ youth, centralization or decentralization?
Over the years going from centralize to decentralize it has shown negative outcome when schools are decentralize despite the few positives outcomes with an increase in minority teachers, more parental involvement and community boards implementing innovative curricula, but the negative outweigh the positive. Being that the changes were made to help students do better, decentralized schools have shown little improvement in standardized test scores and the students show a consistency in performing at levels way below the national norm. According to the article decentralized was not as successful as advocates had hope for many reasons:
• Teacher hiring remained largely centralized, and the tenured appointment of principals through merit tests was protected.
• Because the school districts were large and remote, turnout at school board elections was low, only about 7 percent in most instances.
• Ironically, decentralization gained in support from those who first opposed it—predominantly white districts, who learned how to work the system to their advantage, and the teachers’ union, who was able to get its slates elected to the boards (Berger).
https://patricedj.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/decentralization-vs-centralization-in-new-york-city-public-schools/
It has also state that decentralized schools that are school-base manage tend to do better than school that are community control, but there is no study to show the correlation that school-base management in fact lead to “higher student achievement”
With the great debate surrounding whether or not schools should be centralized or decentralize, arise another option for parents to choose from, Charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded that form a contract with public entity, eg. a state or university in which greater autonomy is given than public schools. The difference with charter schools is that they are held accountable for results.
The article discusses centralization and decentralization of new York City public schools and it’s impact on the general education system. Most studies on the issue advocates for school decentralization with the believe that it brings better relationship between schools and community and provides more efficient maintenance and support for local schools. Mayor Bloomberg in his administration started to move or recentralize new York public schools with request to move offices to a centralized office seen by proponents of decentralization as the mayor seeking to micromanaged the system. The school principals also reported greater parental involvement and the community boards were able to implement innovative curricula that best fit the needs of the students in this contemporary era. They undertook internal hiring where the have first hand encounter with applicants. But According to the times, personnel cut backs and questions about the quality of some of the teachers hired by the schools boards wiped out some of the gains. Moreover, for several reasons, decentralization hadn’t worked as advocates for community control had hoped. Nonetheless, the proponents of the centralized school system sees the need for a central office to act as an intermediary in third relationship with the state. They often accuse the decentralized system as lacking the accountability on the part of the people who head the decentralized units. Centralization is sometimes imposed to stamp out corrupt practices and improve accountability. The effect is that 53% of graduation rate in public schools in New York City has stalled. This was one of the reason Mayor Bloomberg sought to recentralize the school by creating charter schools but funded by the public with a choice to form a contract or charter with a public entity. The issue of school system or how it should be run must be left in the hands of experts to decide and not politicians. The moment politicians who are the appointing authority don’t cede power that’s when the center breaks loose.
Administrators make many of my Hospital’s major decisions with minimal input from bedside nursing staff. In our most recent review by a Magnet preparatory group, it was discussed that the institution was over saturated with administrators, which has lead to minor changes in decision-making processes. I will focus on a unit issue as it directly involved nursing staff. I work on a Burn unit, over the past two years, our Medical Director retired and another Attending took over. He chose to change the means by which we round on our patients and view their burns. After implementing ‘wound rounds’ in which new patients, those with clinical changes and pre-op patients were visualized by the team it was witnessed that different temporary dressings were being applied with no structure or consistency.
becoming too dry or changing in appearance.
1. Discussed and analyzed the problem: burns are drying prematurely or changing in appearance prior to MD assessment. Changing of burn appearance can give false expectations of the wound leading to premature surgical intervention. In order to prevent this, a unit policy had to be established for best care.
2. The explored the options: creating a consistent standard of care for temporary wound dressing. Questions included: Is one dressing appropriate for all burns? How do we implement and streamline this practice? Why is this a new problem?
3. Despite nursing input, our Attending made an initial plan to implement wet-to-wet dressings for morning rounds.
4. After two weeks of assessing this plan, it was note that these dressings were becoming too dry over the two-hour waiting period. Many nurses responded to the new policy, and changes were made to the type of temporary dressing being applied.
I believe that this change could have come about faster had nursing staff been asked for input. Although some steps of the decision making model were followed, the critical decision and implantation step were single handled decided by our Attending.
For my program, we had to develop 3 different MOU’s (Memorandums of Understanding). It is a documents that lists activities/tasks both parties agree to but is not as formally binding as a contract. We needed MOUS’ for our two partner organizations and a MOU for our partnership with the Department of Corrections. These MOU’s were open to grueling revision processes very similar to the processes that occur with Strategic Planning discussed in Spee and Jarzabkowski. Drafts were created by my supervisor and I. Then sent to a committees assigned to looking at these documents. Then that committee would review the documents, make revisions and send them back to my supervisor and I and then we would look at the revisions made and through compromise in our decision making process, keep some things and reject others and also add a few more items. Then it would be sent back to the committee. This went on for months but the finished project had a MOU that was widely accepted and easy to execute making our partnerships smoother and stronger.
Decentralization vs Centralization shed light on the chaos that many of my friends who are teachers complain about. Most who currently work in public schools have principals that dictate curriculum and even hoe their bulletin boards should be decorated. Restructuring in this article never seemed actually be compromising for all parties involved. Teacher unions within certain states went on strike because they felt continuously left out of the conversation. The restructuring within education needs to be a political priority how it is led and who should lead the restructuring really needed to come from the majority of parents, teachers, principals and other involved in the education system for students. The pendulum will always switch when it comes to decentralization and centralization with whomever comes into political power and their agenda like Patricia said in her article . I think its up to the actual involved parties to find compromise within the political agenda that may be set.
Just as the article states in its conclusion, I feel like the back and forth between centralization and decentralization is more politically-oriented than education-oriented. When looking at student performance measures, data showed only a “slight improvement” in standardized test scores after ten years of decentralization. Alongside the negative outcomes, there were some positives, like: increase of minority teachers, greater parent involvement, and greater reading comprehension among students.
What I took from the article is that most responses to issues in the school system that need to be addressed are reactive and messy. For instance, to address fraud and corruption in the early twentieth century, the city restructured with centralization. To appease the teachers’ union in the late 60s, the city decentralized all but the high schools. In the 90s, Giuliani starts to centralize and the State Legislature restructured to prevent that. I think that all the restructuring has led to messiness in the education system and complicated further deliberation moving forward. One hopes that the purpose is the same for each restructuring advocate: Provide students with the best education. Perhaps using error avoidance strategies like the multiple advocacy strategy or the nominal group technique would bring different representative perspectives together and utilize them to strengthen the education system and stay true to their purpose.
The repeated restructuring of the education system in New York City is symptomatic of poor deliberation and independent decision-making errors.
Very recently, a preservation organization I volunteer in began the process of organizing a day long conference featuring historic walking tours of the area as well as panel discussions aimed to address several concerns within a rapidly changing community. The organization is very small and has traditionally been run by a singular person for many years prior to this.
I was brought on board to assist with public engagement surrounding the event and the organization as a whole. Through this involvement, I had the chance to attend a meeting concerning the process of selecting panel members for the discussion. In this case, the prevalence of the personal schemas Graber referred to in her article were very present. The chief organizer rallied around her traditional way of composing talks even though new members of the committee presented various new approaches to addressing the polarizing topics of the community. It was much easier to fall back on rehashed topics, associations and relationships irregardless of the new resources available.
In complex hospital systems, organization structure is based on decentralization. The power of decision-making is distributed among different disciplines with greater emphasis on lateral coordination. Management is allocating clear roles to appropriate disciplines but each discipline have governance and flexibility over their practice. When it comes to deliberation, there is emphasis on collaboration when deciding what is the best outcome for patients. Management’s role is to create time and processes that facilitate better communication between disciplines. There are specific line of command established to ensure there is accountability. Management also provide an overarching mission and values for the organization. Management have power over strategic planning that is future oriented and concerned with long-term direction.
Centralization plays a role in providing the resources (staffing, supplies, budgeting) needed to keep the operation functioning on the daily basis.
Graber’s phases of decision is evident in the nursing councils in charge of providing pediatric care. Nurses are invited to identify problems of importance in the specific nursing units. But often times, problems arise from proposals directed by administration. Once a problem is identified, nurses from different units deliberate the options to solve the problem. The hospital administration solution is more focused on rational course and determine the cost vs benefit of the new practice. On the other hand, nurses tend to seek solutions that have worked previously and are easier to implement as it takes less time. Nurses lack the time to gather, analyze and disseminate information.
Organization restructuring is a response to a critical event that sees the current structure unfit to the goals of the organization. School centralization is an effort to standardize public education with a clear goal of improving the quality of education throughout the city. However, it undermines the critical work done by local school districts to the community. Negative impact of centralization is rigidity and inflexibility. Rigid rules create obstacles to those who are experts in their field and make it difficult to achieve a goal. More educated and professional workers need and want greater autonomy and discretion. Community needs are difficult to standardize especially in a city so diverse.
In my work with the NYC Office of Labor Policy and Standards, I see a lot of strategic planning. The labor standards office is only a few months old and is established in a way that models the ideals of similar labor offices in the USA. For example, San Fransisco and Seattle both have labor offices that utilize a very diverse work plan to help usher in a new generation of labor standards in major cities. After the establishment of the office and laws that the office would enforce the team determined that there needed to be a plan established for the outreach and pubic education department.
Since everyone was able to agree on outreach being the first area of focus the group did not go through Tuckman’s process of forming, storming, norming and performing. Instead the group agreed to hire an outreach director and go from there.
Once the director of outreach and public education was hired the decision making process followed a model that closely resembles Graber’s rational choice process. The decision to hire the director is an example of the Delphi model where a consultant is hired. The director of outreach and public education was to have expert knowledge and experience in public campaigns. This is a skill that was lacking in senior management. The director has the freedom to propose any plan for outreach they deem most effective. For example, in November of 2015 the director felt that is was best to begin was with a large advertisement campaign that would included utilizing various marketing tools. From there the director proposed that the outreach team would focus on deeper public education by borough beginning with the Bronx. From there the director proposed a list of options on how this deeper public education would operate to the the senior management team. The director’s overall process resembles a formal option strategy as it allows for many different tactics to be considered and allows room for senior management to make edit and suggestions.
Overall this process of decision making proved successful for this course of work. The team only ran into trouble when they haphazardly attempted to adapt this model to other departments of the office (such as legal and external affairs). My one suggestion for improving this model would be to establish a clear timeline or deadline. There was too much room for things to carry on for the sack of sharing ideas. There needed to be at least one head focused of meeting goals at certain times.
Each time there is a new mayor, chancellor or superintendent, they make it their first priority to improve public school which is great in theory, but the improvements that they consider seem to have more to do with bureaucratic structure than the learning environment and experience of pupils and teachers.
It seems to me that for a long time they were missing the obvious, which is to address the different types of learning styles in each classroom and school and finding out from educators what works and what doesn’t work. I think that New York City’s educational system’s leadership should have surrendered some power and authority to the top educators within each school. Considering that New York City is such a large, diverse and unique city, I think decentralization of New York City public schools is the best because each school has it’s own culture and environment that can vary greatly from another.
When this was previously attempted, the governance and decision-making authority were unclear, and the New York State Legislature got involved which further complicated things. When any issue becomes politicized, it becomes more about which politician is right, than about what the best plan of action is for citizens, and I think this what has happened with the New York City public education system.