Page 321 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes Work units are empowered to perform about 30 functions for which all team members are
responsible. Each Saturn team will:
1. Design its own jobs

2. Plan and assign work.
3. Control its own material and inventory.
4. Perform maintenance on its equipment.
5. Make hiring decisions.

All Saturn members have the power to “stop the line” if they see a quality problem.
Although this is not uncommon in other plants, at Saturn, if you stop the line, you are
responsible for fixing the problem. You can’t pass it off to a manager or to another
department. This means that all team members must keep in constant contact with suppliers,
engineers, customers, and end users.
Empowerment without ability doesn’t work, so Saturn gives all new team members 320
hours of training their first year, and at least 92 hours of training per year thereafter.
Workers are trained in conflict management, problem solving, and interviewing – subjects
that in other companies are often reserved only for managers. The aim of Saturn’s approach
is to broaden the employees’ skills and help each one maximize his or her potential.
Although making decisions by team consensus is not the fastest method, it has paid off for
Saturn. Once a decision is made, Saturn members are strongly committed to it because
they were directly involved in the process. Most important, all Saturn employees feel that
they are, to some degree, in control of the operation of the company.
Questions
1. Do you think that Saturn has taken a right step by empowering it's employees to
stop the line whenever they see a problem?
2. Think of a situation in which an employee sees a quality problem but doesn't have
an idea to improve it. Should he pass it on without getting it checked to should he
stop the line and bear the brunt of seniors for not having a solution?
Sources: “Enriching and Empowering Employees – The Saturn Way”, Personnel Journal (September
1995): Page 32.

15.3 Political Behaviour in Organisations

When people get together in groups, power will be exerted. People want to carve out a niche
from which to exert influence, to earn awards, and to advance their careers. Power is tightly
linked to the concept of politics: Activities aimed at acquiring power and using it to advance
interests, which may be personal or organisational. D. Farrell and J.C. Petersen define political
behaviour in organisations as "those activities that are not required as part of one's formal role
in the organisation, but that influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of advantages
and disadvantages within the organisation". Table 15.1 below summarizes basic ways people
use political behaviour.

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