preview

Analysis Of Barry 's ' Seeing Systems - Unlocking The Mysteries Of Organizational Life

Better Essays
More often than not, individuals in an organization display extremely predictable patterns of behavior that they need to break out of in order to achieve success. However, altering behaviors can be extremely challenging. Barry Oshry’s “Seeing Systems – Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life” (Oshry, 1995) shows how organizations are composed of ‘Tops”, ‘Middles’ and “Bottoms” and how each of these different hierarchical levels are accustomed to predictable and unhelpful behaviors leading to many issues that organizations face. The PSO organizational simulation conducted in the “Power and Politics in an Organization” course was extremely helpful in experiencing the system workings of an organization, especially, the predictable and unconstructive behaviors that are exhibited by the “Tops”, “Middles” and “Bottoms”. The conditions and the situations in the simulation reflected real organizational experiences and integrated a variety of organizational dynamics, particularly power (and powerlessness) and structure.
The PSO organization’s primary objective was to make greeting cards for its clients. There were several roles within three different hierarchical levels (top, middle and bottom) that created the structure of the organization. The tops were a small group consisting of 2 executives, the middles comprised of 5 managers (Production manager, HR manager, Finance Manager, General Manager and Food dept. Manager) and the bottoms consisted of around 18 workers. There
Get Access