LIMITATION OF DIALECTICS; DA AND DI

<< A DIALECTICAL APPROACH TO ORGANISATIONAL STRATEGY AND PLANNING

THEORIES OF CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS >>

Change Management MGMT625

LESSON #12

LIMITATION OF DIALECTICS; DA AND DI

Despite tremendous benefits, there is one such risk organization may run into for employing the above

technique or process. For instance the process may damage group members' feelings, feelings of

rejection, depression, jealousy and anger, and might even corrode morale and working relationship.

Therefore the dilemma for management is to choose among (trade-off) quality decision and group

harmony. In real life such type of trade off often exists. Hence, in overall analysis the dialectical design

in organisation is introduced to have better planning. The exercise leads to formulation of plan (thesis)

counter plan (anti-thesis) constructed on the same databank will lead to synthesis, that is the exposing

hidden assumptions and new conceptualisation of planning problem which the organisation faces.

Further there are following objections by way which the process can prove to be counter productive:

1. Dialectic inquiry does not identify the moving forces and causes behind the dialectical process

and its realisation in strategic policy planning.

2. Source of thesis (plan) and anti-thesis (counter plan) is not clear

3. It is not clear what governs the synthesis process and what determines the interpretation of

various assumptions and strategies. As happens in real life organization meetings are by its very

nature supposed to be dialectic. Like wise the danger is that the process may be politicised. This

may lead to manufacturing of consent or opposition may manifest for the sake of mere

opposition in a narrowed and rigid perspective.

4. It is self-purposeful, partial and incomplete: only deals with the decision-making process for

strategic planning and neither with antecedents (past history) of planning nor with planning

outcome

Therefore in order to overcome weakness of the process we ought to know the pre-requisites the

dialectical process.

Conditions for exercising dialectics

All theories and models have advantages and disadvantages and the applicability of theory is permitted

under certain conditions. Therefore certain conditions ought to exist before going for such kind of

activity, and these are:

1. Management is unaware of assumptions or in doubt or in disagreement) to choose appropriate

assumption and plan.

2. Multiple and alternative interpretations on the same data bank

3. In case of uncertainty (constantly changing world) management tend to rely on synthesised

set of assumptions or on synthesised view of reality

4. The cost of developing plan, counter-plan or management's involvement in the development

of synthesised world view is less than the cost of advisors' (error in assumption)

Overview of application of dialectics

Primarily this can be utilised as a decision making and environmental assessment technique for

generating alternative and scenarios. For e.g. A decision maker who is provided with conflicting policy

recommendations may be involved in a dialectical process.

Change Management MGMT625

It is used for the production of systematic knowledge for organization, and as such can have utility for

the following business and corporate functionalities:

Inquiry systemdialectical conflict lead dialectical inquiry

Business gaming and simulation

Dialect Problem-solving technology (DPST)

Nominal Group Training

Delphi Method & control groups

Quality circle

Cross-cultural training

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