MHRM 6801 Week 6 Six-Box Model Application Example

Sorting Five Weeks of Evidence Into Weisbord's Six Boxes: Which Boxes Bellamy's Findings Fill, Which They Leave Thin and Where the Formal and Informal Systems Part Company

Student Name

Walden University

MHRM 6801: Organizational Effectiveness and Leadership

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Sorting Five Weeks of Evidence Into Weisbord's Six Boxes: Which Boxes Bellamy's Findings Fill, Which They Leave Thin and Where the Formal and Informal Systems Part Company

Why a Model Now

Five weeks of evidence about Bellamy Moving & Storage arrived in the order it was found: a definition of effectiveness, one move followed end to end, eighteen months of records, a survey of uncertain reach and a test of how depot managers assign work. Evidence in that order cannot show what is missing or how findings relate. This paper sorts every finding into the six-box model of Weisbord (1976), which directs attention to six areas, from an organization's purposes and structure through its rewards, leadership and supporting mechanisms, and to the gap in each between the formal system, what is written down, and the informal system, what actually happens.

The Sorting

Table 1

Findings to Date Sorted Into Weisbord's Six Boxes

Composite organization. Evidence strength reflects the number and independence of sources.

Which Boxes Are Full and Which Are Thin

Three boxes are well filled: structure, leadership at the newer depots and helpful mechanisms. Each rests on records as well as observation. Two boxes, purposes and relationships, are moderately filled, mostly from interviews. One box, rewards, is nearly empty. The diagnosis so far has looked at how crews are paid and scheduled but not at how estimators are paid, even though estimators produce the number that every later step depends on. Weisbord (1976) argued that a box left unexamined is where diagnosticians most often miss the explanation, because people tend to look where they already suspect trouble.

Where Formal and Informal Part Company

Weisbord's model is most useful for showing where what is written and what happens diverge, and the table shows three places. In structure, the formal process has no step for checking an estimate once the crew sees the house, so the informal system fills that gap with a crew chief's on-the-spot judgment. In leadership, the formal policy of rotation coexists with an informal allocation through early-morning requests. In helpful mechanisms, the claims system records damage but does not connect it to the estimate, so the organization cannot learn from its own claims.

How the Boxes Connect

The boxes are not independent. Burke and Litwin (1992) distinguished transformational factors, such as leadership and culture, from transactional ones, such as structure, systems and rewards, and argued that changes in one affect the others. At Bellamy, a reward in one box, commission on booked revenue, may shape the structural problem in another, estimates that run low, which then shapes the leadership pattern in a third, as difficult jobs are passed along. These links are questions for next week, not conclusions.

What to Gather Next

The rewards box needs evidence: the estimators' commission plan, the share of their pay it represents and whether estimates by different estimators run short at different rates. The relationships box would benefit from a short facilitated conversation between estimators and crew chiefs.

What the Sorting Changes in the Plan

Before the sorting, the next step was going to be a deeper look at crew training, because the owners believe training explains the claims. The sorting argues for a different order. Training belongs in the leadership and helpful mechanisms boxes, which are already well filled and show every crew receiving the same training. The rewards box is empty, and it sits upstream of the estimate gap that appears in three other boxes. Examining the estimators' pay first offers the best chance of altering the diagnosis at the lowest cost, since the commission plan is a single document and the estimate records already exist.

Limits

The model organizes evidence but does not weigh it. Placing a finding in a box says where it belongs, not how much it matters, and Harrison (2005) warns that any model directs attention toward some features of an organization and away from others.

References

Burke, W. W., & Litwin, G. H. (1992). A causal model of organizational performance and change. Journal of Management, 18(3), 523-545. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639201800306

Harrison, M. I. (2005). Diagnosing organizations: Methods, models, and processes (3rd ed.). Sage.

Weisbord, M. R. (1976). Organizational diagnosis: Six places to look for trouble with or without a theory. Group & Organization Studies, 1(4), 430-447. https://doi.org/10.1177/105960117600100405