Technique 4.1 Questions Around Organisational Relationships
In trying to understand organisational relationships, the following questions are helpful
1. How much emotionality is appropriate? Should the relationship be
- very aloof and professional as in a doctor-patient relationship, or
- very emotionally charged, as in a friendship
2. Should the relationship be
- very specific, dealing only with the exact reason for the relationship, such as in sales-customer relationship, or
- diffuse, as in most friendships?
3. Do the participants know each other
- in very general universalistic terms based on stereotypes, as in most sale relationships, or
- in a very particularistic way, as a whole person?
4. Are social rewards, such a status and rank, assigned on the basis of
- what the person is by birth or family membership - what is ascribed to him or her (mate-ocracy), or
- what the person has actually accomplished - his or her achievements (merit-ocracy)
(source: Edgar Schein, 2004)