Edgar H. Schein enunciates with clear understanding of what individual development means to an organization. Often organization perceives employees come to organization where they are on free will to explore options. In accordance with that individual development plan focuses on work oriented development activities.
But unknowingly employees are whole person where personal factors affect the productivity of an employee in an organization. Here Edgar H. Schein focuses on categorizing the problem one faces in his (her) life.He links each categories of problem in relevance with organizational needs. 1.
Biological and social aging process 2. Family relationships 3. Work and building the career Post categorizing all the categories was framed into scenario analysis for better understanding of interactivity among each. Various stages in a person’s life are taken as a factor. “Life is seen as a continuously unfolding process in which each person has at least the opportunity to continue to develop unused potentials” Upon delving deeper into various stages of biosocial life cycle Edgar H. Schein divides biosocial issues age wise with respective issues to be confronted and task to be accomplished.
He also describes situations and conditions which lead to better or worse management of transitions. Moving into career cycle Edgar H. Schein postulates relationships with biosocial life cycle as there is subtle difference. Higher linkage is achieved through age and cultural norms which follows similar pattern as biosocial lifecycle. He also describes basic dimensions through external career movement and external reference point for internal career experience.With the help of “three dimensional model of an organization” Schein describes career cycle of various functions in a hierarchical organization.
At various age levels he describes issue one will prone to face and task one will stumble upon. In developmental analysis of family cycle analysis tends to be a bit tricky as family comprises several individuals with each one having their own personal and career cycle. Rather than taking age factor various stages or state one will go through is taken along with respective issues and specific tasks.Stages, states and tasks of a traditional family are described with radical model involving “self, work and family”.
Schein further explores dual career family in relevance to various work settings. After going through issues pertaining to various categories Schein digs deeper into constructive coping in which he takes “what the individual can do about life tasks”. He was not giving solutions to the issues which he described prior. It is all about how one can cope up with the issues and move along a progressive path.He follows a process oriented approach towards constructive coping 1.
Diagnosing what the problem is 2. Diagnosing oneself 3. Selecting a coping response 4. Diagnosing the effects of the coping response He is not implying that these steps are the mandatory steps which one needs to follow through. It acts as a guidance with which one can cope up with issues he is confronted to. One can attempt in his lifetime to achieve self-insight, gaining control over feelings and solving certain chronic problems of living.
But it tends to be more focused on adult psychology that coping and living is largely one and the same thing. Relationships play a critical role in coping with various sorts of issues one face through. After gathering all personal development issues and various cycles related to one’s life, Schein moves into organizational career where he reviewed key tasks of entry stage the issues likely to be encountered in selection process. The positive and negative impact of outcome from mismanagement of entry level processes.What an individual, organization, and educational institution can do about it to increase the positivity of it and diminishing the negative outcomes.
This stage also paves way for employee socialization which is very critical from an organization perspective where the investment and brand of an organization depends a lot. Employee socialization a key phase for an organization which has direct impact on retention rate, motivation and demotivation of employee, discovering competencies within fellow employees and learning’s about values of an individual and also the organization.It is a phase which transpires into a stage for an employee to decide whether he wants to be with the organization or not. This also sends the signal towards the external world how good the work environment in this organization is? This leads to better talent attraction whereby it can achieve maximum productivity. Schein postulates how this phase helps employee in establishing an identity within the organization to become a full-fledged member. A psychological contract with the employee gets established during this phase through various set of events and activities.
Mutual acceptance a do or die mission for both organization and the employee for their own benefits, Information shared with both the parties acts a crucial data for establishing the level of acceptance. For an employee earlier part of his career should involve challenging tasks. To accomplish this organization must develop sufficient opportunities for testing the competencies of employees. Schein also mentions dialogue and open discussion must be facilitated for accurate exchange of information.Passing the information to appropriate person at right time will solve most of the problems one can face through his or her career.
Bosses usually quote that sub-ordinate is not having the required capability to accomplish the task which leads to firing people. But giving proper reason at appropriate time intervals will help in dramatic reduction of employee turnover and increasing the employee morale in an organization. Managers must educate themselves as individual performers to do a better job of bringing new people on board and working well with others in an organization for creation better systems and processes.
