Self-Fulfillment Under Matrix Like Management

Self-Fulfillment Under Matrix Like Management

The matrix-like organization was developed through the 1970s in order to break the silo, to promote horizontal assignments in a more effective manner, to enable the organization to become more flexible and to provide answers to customers faster as well as for some other good and justified reasons.

In addition to all of its advantages, the matrix-like structure brings with it several challenges like: ambiguity regarding taking responsibility, vagueness reading the subject of role definitions and areas of responsibility, delay in decision making due to the involvement of many people in the process, too many meetings, an increase in the number of conflicts and so on.

The professional literature deals greatly with solutions to how to cope with the difficulties and challenges of the matrix-like structure. There are several explanations regarding the way to introduce clarity to the job, to manage conflicts, etc. In my opinion, there isn't enough reference to the subject of self-fulfillment under matrix-like management.

In this article, I will discuss the employee self-fulfillment issue under matrix management and try to provide some possible solutions that will help each employee to achieve self-fulfillment in the workplace.

But what is the matrix-like management all about?

This is how a worker under matrix-like management looks like:

The direct manager: the manager who "controls the money". The worker is included in his/her budget; he/she conducts job evaluation meetings, awards bonuses, gives a salary raise, etc. The direct manager and the worker, for the most part, operate from the same site.

The direct manager has a greater deal of control over the worker since he/she can use monetary rewards as punishment or a motivational factor. The question is whether this is an optimal situation or not can be discussed in another forum, but this is the truth.

The virtual manager: he/she is usually the person to whom we are expected to provide our services. For the most part, the virtual manager operates from a different location than the worker (though not always). If we are to make an analogy to the HR world, then HR, which is assigned to a certain department, is directly subordinated to the HR vice president and indirectly (virtually) has to report to the department head.

The virtual manager lacks the "traditional" tools to motivate the worker, to make him/her finish his/her task on time and in a proper manner. Thus, he/she has to use different kinds of authority in order to influence and motivate:

- The authority that stems from the norms - it is based on values and enables the treatment of dilemmas and conflicts in the organization based on the organization's values.

- The personal authority - respect which is based on the worker's personal traits. This is based on the worker's appearance and his/her image in the organization. It requires communicative abilities and good interpersonal relationships to be able to influence people based on this source of authority.

- Authority based on a set of relationships – this stems from trust, mutual goals and a sense of empathy.

- Authority based on partnership – we accumulate power due to the relationships we have with our partners in the organization.

- Any other way that enables us to influence a worker without having direct authority over him/her.

Due to the technics, the virtual manager is required to employ, in most cases, the workers get attached to him/her far more than to their manager. They are constantly in touch with him/her and they maintain a close relationship with him/her which is based on trust and mutual respect.

Then, the end of the year approaches and it is time to conduct the job evaluation meetings, salary negotiations, and bonuses.

Throughout the year we worked hard, invested in a relationship with the organization in general and with our virtual manager in particular. When the time comes to talk about our wages, we sit with our direct manager, with whom our relationships are more distant. He/she examines our performance, sometimes he/she even does a thorough job and collects different feedbacks about us, yet we feel that there isn't a match between our efforts and contribution throughout the year and the reward or promotion we get.

We feel that it will be more appropriate for our virtual manager to negotiate with us our wage, but that does not happen

What does happen? Usually, we leave this meeting highly disappointed and feel that no one really listened to us, we got the wrong evaluation and thus, we did not get the reward we deserved.

What kind of feeling is the feeling that we do not get what we really deserve?

It is a feeling of lack of appreciation, lack of justice, thoughts about "maybe I am not as good as they tell me? Am I really good at all?". All these "saboteurs" are awakened and start celebrating. For a while, our self-image deteriorates towards the zero points.

Even if we receive, throughout the year, good feedbacks and we feel that we get ahead and achieve things, at the end, there is no match between the feedback and the monetary reward. Our self-fulfillment crumbles like a house of cards.

Many articles that deal with the subject of self-fulfillment differentiate between self-fulfillment and monetary reward. There are those who claim that self-fulfillment at the workplace is more important than the monetary reward and the worker should continue to work at his/her workplace even if he/she is dissatisfied with the monetary reward as long as he/she fulfills oneself.

I do not claim that this assertion is baseless. However, I think that self-fulfillment is composed of two parts – the hard part and the soft part. The hard part is the wage, the bonuses, the office, the workplace, the car we get, the parking space we get and so on. The soft part is our achievements, our promotion, our status and receiving respect and appreciation at the workplace.

These two parts are mutually dependent and complement each other. Our self-image at work is influenced by the level of our satisfaction from the rewards we get as well as by our achievements or our status at the workplace.

In such a situation how can one reach self-fulfillment under matrix-like management?

As I mentioned above, the professional literature that deals with the subject of matrix-like management talks about dealing with existing dilemmas but there is no discussion on the subject of self-fulfillment of the worker. The worker should have a great deal of responsibility in solving dilemmas and challenges assuming that the worker, who is in a matrix-like "intersection", has the best point of view, thus solving most of his/her problems lies with him/her and depends on the way he/she acts.

Is reaching self-fulfillment lies in the worker's hands? The answer is not unequivocal and dealing with this subject may cause the worker to fall into complex complications.

Thus, when dealing with the subject of the worker's self-fulfillment one should negotiate it in the same way one negotiates the terms of one's employment.

Is It important to verify whether the virtual manager can influence personal and monetary advancement?

In my opinion, this is a critical subject and one should not ignore it altogether, or even worse, to assume that things will eventually work themselves out as time passes.

If you are a worker who finds him/herself in such a situation and you feel that the one who really knows what you do and is aware of your achievements is not the one who decides on your financial advancement, there is nothing much you can do about it.

If you ask to be transferred to work under your virtual manager, you may insult your direct manager's ego, and no one can guarantee that at the end things will be concluded in a positive way.

If you ask your virtual manager to participate in your salary/bonus discussions your direct manager may not allow it because he/she may assume that this is a breach of his/her areas of responsibilities.

Thus, before you, as a worker, begin to deal with this subject, you should examine all the options and figure out the cost of each one of them. A hasty move may lead to a dead-end or even termination.

In that case, I would suggest you all along to invest in your "PR", constantly investing in your visibility within the company. It is very important to "sell" to your direct (less involved) manager your successes and achievements. Even if it sometimes seems to you that it will not interest him/her, that it is not his/her field, etc., your visibility can have a decisive effect on your rewards and self-fulfillment.

If you are a direct manager or a virtual manager who manages such workers – there are many things you can do to enable the worker to reach self-fulfillment. You can ask the workers whether he/she prefers to have both managers involved in the process of determining the salary. You can also try and find out what are the worker's expectations.

If dealing with matrix-like challenges lies in the hands of the worker, the subject of self-fulfillment under matrix-like management lies in the hands of the manager.

The worker's real opportunity is part of the negotiations when one starts a new job.

There is no doubt that the subject of self-fulfillment is more challenging in a matrix-like organization but that does not mean that one should ignore it altogether.

Make yourself a priority!!

Daniela Haguel

HR & Co-active coach

0503013485

[email protected]

Sources:

Master the matrix, 2012 Susan Z. Finerty

Making the matrix work, 2013 Kevan Hall