Blake and Mouton: The Managerial Grid

The Managerial Grid

Blake and Mouton set out to apply the ideas of behavioural scientists such as Rensis Likert American educator and organizational psychologist Rensis Likert (pronounced 'Lick-urt') (1903–1981) is best known for his research on management styles.

He developed Likert Scales and the Linking pin model. to the practice of management. They built on studies conducted at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan in the 1940s which attempted to identify the behavioural characteristics of successful leaders. Blake and Mouton identified two fundamental drivers of managerial behaviour as concern for getting the job done, and concern for the people doing the work. They argued that, on the one hand, an exclusive concern for production at the expense of the needs of those engaged in production leads to dissatisfaction and conflict, thus adversely affecting performance; but that, on the other hand, an excessive concern to avoid conflict and maintain good relationships is also detrimental to the achievement of goals and objectives.

In order to provide a framework for describing management behaviours, the two variables of "concern for production" and "concern for people" were plotted on a grid showing nine degrees of concern for each, from 1 indicating a low level of concern, to 9 indicating a high level of concern. Five positions on the grid represent five differing managerial behaviour patterns.

The model is represented as a grid with concern for production as the X-axis and concern for people as the Y-axis; each axis ranges from 1 (Low) to 9 (High). The resulting leadership styles are as follows:

• The indifferent (previously called impoverished) style (1,1): evade and elude. In this style, managers have low concern for both people and production. Managers use this style to preserve job and job seniority, protecting themselves by avoiding getting into trouble. The main concern for the manager is not to be held responsible for any mistakes, which results in less innovative decisions.

• The accommodating (previously, country club) style (1,9): yield and comply. This style has a high concern for people and a low concern for production. Managers using this style pay much attention to the security and comfort of the employees, in hopes that this will increase -performance. The resulting atmosphere is usually friendly, but not necessarily very productive.

• The dictatorial (previously, produce or perish) style (9,1): control and dominate. With a high concern for production, and a low concern for people, managers using this style find employee needs unimportant; they provide their employees with money and expect performance in return. Managers using this style also pressure their employees through rules and punishments to achieve the company goals. This dictatorial style is based on Theory X of Douglas McGregor, and is commonly applied by companies on the edge of real or perceived failure. This style is often used in case of crisis management.

• The status quo (previously, middle-of-the-road) style (5,5): balance and compromise. Managers using this style try to balance between company goals and workers' needs. By giving some concern to both people and production, managers who use this style hope to achieve suitable performance but doing so gives away a bit of each concern so that neither production nor people needs are met.

• The sound (previously, team) style (9,9): contribute and commit. In this style, high concern is paid both to people and production. As suggested by the propositions of Theory Y, managers choosing to use this style encourage teamwork and commitment among employees. This method relies heavily on making employees feel themselves to be constructive parts of the company.

• The opportunistic style: exploit and manipulate. Individuals using this style, which was added to the grid theory before 1999, do not have a fixed location on the grid. They adopt whichever behaviour offers the greatest personal benefit.

• The paternalistic style: prescribe and guide. This style was added to the grid theory before 1999. In The Power to Change, it was redefined to alternate between the (1,9) and (9,1) locations on the grid. Managers using this style praise and support, but discourage challenges to their thinking.

Synergogy

Blake and Mouton also developed their own educational theories on how best to teach Grid theories and concepts in the work group context. These are described in the book Synergogy published in 1984. The term 'synergogy' was coined by Blake and Mouton, and describes a systematic approach to learning that leads team members to learn from each other in a co-operative and participative way. Synergogy, defined as "working together for shared teaching", was contrasted to pedagogy, where instruction is given by a teacher, and andragogy, where the teacher acts as a facilitator. Four synergogic learning designs were developed to provide a structure for the process of learning. The 'Team Effectiveness Design' and the 'Team Member Teaching Design' relate to the acquisition of knowledge. The 'Performance Judging Design' relates to the development of skills. Lastly, the 'Clarifying Attitudes Design' concerns awareness and development of appropriate attitudes. Techniques employed include individual preparation, presentations, multiple choice and true/false tests and team discussion. The role of the learning administrator is limited to making sure that the learning design is effectively implemented. These methods were first used by Blake and Mouton to teach university courses but were later adapted to workplace training sessions.

You can see disparate managing styles in a hospital and place your mangers accordingly .