Joyous Birth - THE ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR VIEWPOINT

Before I delve into the nitty gritty of my experiences with the cultish aspects of Joyous Birth, I thought it would be best to first examine the organisation from an organisational behaviour viewpoint.

 

Organisational culture

    Organisational culture is defined by Schien (2010) as a social aspect of organisations which influences behaviour and attitudes via multiple levels of collective values, beliefs and assumptions. Schien (2010) also states subcultures can arise to reflect “common experiences of given levels within a hierarchy” (p. 56), which is seen in Joyous Birth's two main subcultures.

    In the Joyous Birth subculture, also known as the 'inner-circle' by members, feminism dominates, with a belief all women should be feminists. This subculture heavily influences organisational culture as it is central to the management of Joyous Birth. Language is used to cultivate radical feminism, by having forum code automatically replace the word “guys” with “women”. It is also used to further birth politics by calling obstetricians “knOBs”,  and labelling non-consensual  intervention as “birthrape”. The other subculture consists of people who share in organisational values such as home-birth, but whom disagree with how the organisation is managed, and how the leadership's brand of feminism is forced on members.

    Under the surface of organisational culture, are the dormant assumptions that Joyous Birth belongs to a single entity, is synonymous with said entity, and that said entity has authority to override group decisions. Those assumptions also foster a belief in some that this single entity will always act in the organisation's best interest.

    A differentiation perspective of organisational culture where diverse groups come together with shared beliefs (Wood et al., 2010) best describes Joyous Birth's culture, where harmony and inconsistency co-exist, along with internal conflict.

    Change activated dormant assumptions, resulting in divided management on the decision of volunteer replacements. The change agent group disagreed with the leadership. The other group supported the leadership choices as they saw the leadership owning legitimate power - authority by status of position;  and were influenced by the leadership's referent power because of their desire to identify with said leadership (Wood et al., 2010).

    The change agents resigned en masse once they realised inner-circle behaviour prevented achievement of outcomes. Howard-Grenville (2006) reinforce this reasoning by acknowledging powerful subcultures such as ones central to workflow, have strategies which can trump other strategies when it comes to action. Given the powerful influence of Joyous Birth subculture, organisational culture soon settled back into old patterns after change.

Management and leadership

    Joyous Birth's management structure is based on a simple design where there is only one or two ways of organising employees, and is visually described as a pyramid hierarchy (Wood et al., 2010).  At the top of the hierarchy is one individual, with four administrators under, followed by 13 moderators, and 2000+ members. Members have no decision-making power, and their role is limited to mass-scale support in goals such as creating a Joyous Birth presence at rallies. Moderators carry out required tasks and play minor parts in decision-making. Decisions regarding how to manage tasks, conflict, and organisational events are shared among the administrators, with the leadership having final authority as chosen.

    Wood et al. (2010) state, the “simple design relies on the manager's personal leadership, so this configuration is only as effective as the senior manager” (p.305), and therein lies the problem for Joyous Birth. It appears the owner's modus operandi is to do minimal management work by delegating as much as possible to the other administrators and moderators, giving the impression of a large degree of decentralisation. In reality, there remains a high degree of centralisation as the senior manager often claims decision-making power to control situations in the organisation involving behavioural management, conflict, what should and should not go on the website, who is allowed power or status, and how moderators should be responding to forum situations. I think those situations show how important the cultivation of a 'Joyous Birth culture' where the leadership's self-interests are supported, is to said leadership.

    Given the varying centralisation, the management structure often swings back and forth between an organic design where there is expertise-based influence, lateral communication, decentralised control and flexibility; and a mechanic design where there is authority-based influence, vertical communication, centralised control and rigidity (Kondalkar, 2007, Wood et al., 2010).  

     The leadership style of the owner is one of charismatic authority, and as some members put it, 'charismatic manipulation', also likening the organisation to a cult. This is not surprising given the aspects of charismatic leadership where there is emotional attachment and bonding between the leader and followers (Avolio & Yammarino 2002), and a follower perspective that the leader and his/her vision are integral to their own identities and thus are willing to do what it takes to achieve the visions of the leader (Howell & Shamir, 2005).  Those aspects parallel cult leadership, as described in Lalich's (2004) book on cult leaders. Additionally, House's charismatic theory (as cited in Wood et al., 2010), outlines how charismatic leaders have high needs for power, with strong conviction in the rightness of their beliefs, and mentions a “dark-side” (p.413) to leadership where there is a focus on personal power rather than socialised power which empowers followers. House also uses David Koresh and Reverend Jim Jones, both cult leaders, as examples of dark-side leaders.

 

Motivation and performance

    Joyous Birth relies heavily on the concept that everyone within the organisation shares the values owned by the leadership, which closely parallel organisational values; and that those values are sufficient to internally motivate people to volunteer time, work efforts and funds to achieving Joyous Birth's goals. This is not enough as indicated by Aiken & Keller (2009), who warn what motivates a leader, doesn't motivate most employees.  Vroom's expectancy theory where perceptions of; 1) individual ability to achieve a certain performance level,  2) likelihood of desirable  rewards or outcomes resulting from said performance level, and 3) relevance and value of rewards or outcomes to the individual (Burke, 2011; Wood et al., 2010); also comes to mind when looking at the relationship between motivation and performance. For instance, the example of moderators not encouraging participation within their assigned sub-forums, could be explained by the perception there are no desirable rewards relevant to the moderator, linked to achieving increased participation.

    To actively motivate others, the leadership moralises about Joyous Birth's goals being larger than the individual, and thus important to everyone on the wider scale of feminism. This could be seen as a facet of charismatic leadership rather than a planned motivation strategy. Rowold & Laukamp (2009) found that charismatic leaders were able to invoke an inspirational motivation in their followers to achieve the leader's vision. The motivational efforts concentrate on the 2000+ members rather than management, as it is numbers which carry the weight necessary for political achievements. Unfortunately for the organisation, its leadership vision does not extend to the practicalities of managing an organisation, only to what could be achieved politically with a large group backing.

 

Change management

    As good management and leadership integrity is important in change (Bruckman, 2008; Oakland & Tanner, 2007),  and poor leadership inhibits change (Gilley, Godek & Gilley, 2009), it would appear the shared power strategy utilised was ineffective without a  leader guiding the process. Kotter & Schlesinger (2008) support this by pointing out a drawback of group participation is poor change design, especially if the process is not managed properly.  Furthermore, change requires visible involvement and commitment from top management (Oakland & Tanner, 2007), as without top support, there will only be minimal effect (Paton & Boddy, 2007).

      Resistance is also integral to change, yet the problem of resistance was never brought up in the discussions. Marsh (1995) poses a question to help identify resistance by asking “What keeps things the way they are?” (as cited in Price & Chahal, 2006, p.242).  Common reasons for resistance include a threat to status quo, current culture or self-interests, different situational assessments,  a mistrust of those making changes,  and low tolerance for change (Bruckman, 2008; Gilley, Godek & Gilley, 2009; Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008).  I think Joyous Birth's status quo, and culture cultivated under a dark-side leadership kept things the way they were, and when it came to change, these things became the force of resistance.

 

Conclusion

A strong central subculture seeped in parochial self-interest, coupled with a charismatic dark-side leadership (Wood et al., 2010), and the lack of motivational strategies, resulted in poor motivation and performance in management. Also, the varying management structure meant administrators and moderators faced the risk of overstepping the invisible boundaries limiting decision-making power in their management of tasks and responsibilities delegated to them by the leadership.  This prevented effective organisational management, and may have resulted in low performance levels due to unwillingness to take risks. It is unsurprising work distribution problems occurred in the context of those behavioural factors.

     The effects of change on organisational behaviour were compounded by a lack of managerial skill and knowledge and a poorly designed change process that did not take into account how organisational culture would be impacted, or how resistance would be handled. In addition, change was not supported properly by the senior manager which is a requirement for successful change (Bruckman, 2008; Oakland & Tanner, 2007), given the prevailing culture.

    It also seems to me the cultural assumption of Joyous Birth being synonymous with a single entity is an accurate one. It is my evaluation that as long as this single entity remains at the top of Joyous Birth's hierarchy, organisational changes will not happen without the leadership first realising the necessity of said changes for the organisation's sustained future.

 

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References

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