Cabinets in an organisation

When you gets into a new organisation, in any hierarchy, You could see a cabinet or the core members of the syndicate which rules the organisation . Your survival in that organisation heavily depends on how you well u understands the syndicate. You have to quickly identify them and must make sure you wont fight them until your base on the firm is Solid .You can be a part of them or be a silent spectator. Never fight them first, Do it only after you estimate their powers. You may require greater power for yourself or have to get the blessings of a god Father who got greater power than the syndicate.

Introduction

In any organisation -organisation wide as well as team wide- there will be a crowd that decides the groups policies and action. Every action the organisation makes are in tented to satisfy the groups mission and purpose than the organisation goals and mission statements. The group make sure that the needs of the groups needs and priorities are fulfilled before the organisations needs are fulfilled.

The pillars of organisation success like amazing wealth,customer satisfaction,Return of investments to Shareholders( ROI),employee satisfaction and retention will be only satisfactorily followed if it matches with the core teams happiness and value. The core teams value thus becomes the organisation's value. It works well if the organisation goes well -with the core teams values exactly matches with the organisation goals.

If the values diverges , its the duty of the organisation to find a 'transformer' (Read New CEO,MD)who aligns the core teams values with the organisation's value. The primary goal of a 'Transformer' thus drill down to shaken the groups without breaking the heart.


Core syndicates of an organisation

There are no formal invitation to the group. They wont be there in any formal organisation chart showing the group. It comprises of a cluster of people whose perceived interests and needs are taken into account while decisions are taken .All organisation have this group, but depending on the organisation maturity and the culture -the core group defers. In small start up the cabinet consists of founders and their confidants. In larger organisations having higher verticals, there can be hundreds of interlocking cabinets in each verticals- with horizontals of divisions,department or region.

The cabinet doesn't necessarily include the bosses in each vertical. It also include people who are popular, respected by their technical,financial or problem solving abilities, success full . They must have control to the critical bottle necks and gained the attention of the higher management and major stake holder in the organisation.

Awareness about the cabinet

Any new entrant (Any level) to the organisation has to understand the cabinet and their powers. The Cabinet become invisible for the new guys and its the duty of them to identify the cabinet crowd. Any changes proposed or advocated by the new entrants which is inconsistent with the perceived attitudes and interests will be resisted upon - Even if the group members say otherwise. Understanding the heavy weights will be termed as 'Understanding the culture" of the organisation.

Executives who fail to take the core group's priorities into account risk not only their organisation performance but their own goals and in some cases, their careers.If you didn't find the the core members and their attitudes and act according to their behest - As a leader your survival change is very remote- Unless you have greater power yourself as well as backing of one or some of the power groups which hold an equal or more strength of that of the Cabinet or a subset of them.

Behind every successfull company there is a success full cabinet

The cabinet members know the organisation goals and its history. They will have well wishers in various networks in the organisation, its counterparts, its vendors and in the industry. They represent the unique values and knowledge that distinguish their companies from the rest.They knows the business and its implications. They know how to deal with the industry -Auctions, law suits, Govt transitions and even whom to bribe from their history.

The core groups are inevitable part of the organisation and its a fact that the business wont run without them.

Bad cabinets

Direct Bad cabinet

The core members more or less objective is survival of themselves than the organisation itself. Examples like ENRON clearly shows what a direct influence of a bad cabinet. Whistle blowers are systematically kept out of the cabinet and even out of the organisation before they could blew the whistle. The bad cabinet can exploit the company for their benefits generating corruption and abuse.

Any reforms or changes proposed by anyone outside will be seriously resisted and nullified first , and later will be introduced as the cabinet members ideas. They thus make sure that the employee lack initiatives as well as send a unwritten law to others in the organisation that cabinet members are the only idea generators among the lot.

Bad Influence- Indirect

• cabinets can influence the employees creative output:- The employees are influenced by the powerful influence at work that can skyjack the ordinary employees creativity to unspoken true interests of the cabinet member.

• Organisation looses employees who lacks initiatives :- The ordinary employee who got an general initiatives looses them after finding that he couldn't influence the cabinet member- who didn't understood the concept at all.

• Clones of Cabinet members are formed out of their stereotypes : Cabinet members remarks,action, body language,moral, attitudes and culture are cloned to his/her subordinates. This can include the members professionalism ( or lack of it), Efficiency (or inefficiency) and general (un)accountability.

• Conflicts within the organisation: The cabinet or the core team invariable make a set of employees who are less power full, usually unorganised. They believes that the core group members are self centered,arbitrary and indeed harsh to criticism. Both the sides looses trust and direct communication decreases and thus emerges politics.
  

Getting the Bad cabinet right


When you as a organisation head finds that the cabinet is getting bigger than the shoes, has to act and cut them to shape. Invariable the bad influences on the organisation has to be taken care as well as the organisation values. If you want to move the organisation to new heights and new direction we may have to do some kind of a restructuring. It will be indeed a different challenge for you afterall
Any kind of organisational engineering conducted for the cabinet group dynamics needs a delicate touch and a deliberate design. You cannot do anything which make the entire cabinet unhappy.

The first thing you can do is to understand the situation and access and estimate the core teams capabilities and think of alternatives. You may have to think of future orientation .

It is always suicidal to think of dismantling the cabinet because the team contains the best past and the best present employees . As a business leader you can send signal to the group- Both direct, Indirect as well as intent-ed and unintended. The unconscious message is simply to not make the cabinet uncomfortable and disturbed. The slightest hesitation of the cabinet member can give a tremendous impact on his subordinates.Some senior executives try to act comfortable and happy for compensating this.

Second thing you can do is to explicitly challenge the core team , perhaps by removing some of the key members and change their portfolios or persuading them to publicly and consistently embrace the values which you advocate. It can both way send a signal to the core team as well as others that a change is inevitable. But you have to do with a specific design.

Third thing which you can do is to dilute the cabinet by introducing more members which you think can be in the group. This can be a quite challenging as the cabinet hierarchy is not charted anywhere. The cabinet members can be resistive in introducing more members as they feel they are more sound than the new members.

Fourth idea is to divide and rule. Create your own Trojans inside the cabinet.

Conclution >> LATER....