Chapter 4 – The Systems Perspective on Organizations and Communication – Blog #3
The authors of our text discuss interdependence on pages 107 and 108. They suggest that organizations work best when employees/coworkers are interdependent and understand various aspects of each others’ work. A system is more likely to break-down if the individuals who make up the system are completely unaware of each others’ functions and importance.
Just recently, a coworker of mine left the company without adequate notice. Because we’ve developed a work environment that is more interdependent than not, this particular coworker’s responsibilities were able to be divided between myself and two other employees with little to no training. Fortunately, we had established an environment in which we were knowledgeable of each others' various contributions to the company and thus did not experience what Hardin refers to as the “Tragedy of Commons.”
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3 comments:
I have to agree that interdependence is important in an organization in order to effectively run. If you were to have departments doing their own thing and no one really working together, then the company in theory will fall apart. There needs to be communication between each department to run. Otherwise, you have several departments doing their own thing. For instance at Kia, if the finance department didnt work with each department (legal, activites, hr, parts etc) then the company would end up bankrupt. I know Legal would be spending money like crazy in litigation costs (I worked in the legal department). However, because finance and accounting keeps track of the expenses Legal monitors their outside counsels expenses to minimize overspending or charges that are not true costs.
Companies need to work together to watch out for each other, and to feed ideas off each other to become better, more efficient machines.
The topic of interdependence really resonates in my company as well. We try to learn as much about each other's roles on the project through team meetings and status calls. However, there are cases where we become so engulfed in our own tasks that we almost become stuck in our roles. When that happens and a key teammate leaves the project, we are often scrambling to fill their roles (which often takes a lot of work to balance their tasks and our own). It is impressive that in your situation, you were able to recover well!
It is interesting that typically as an outside contractor I never really have an interdependent work relationship. However, I think this concept also can translate to personal relations. When one is able to be both a part of a relationship and not rely or need that relationship I think it makes both parties stronger. They can work together and also stand on their own.
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