Coordinating Neglect - COORDINATION NEGLECT: HOW LAY...

COORDINATION NEGLECT: HOW LAY
THEORIES OF ORGANIZING
COMPLICATE COORDINATION IN
ORGANIZATIONS
Chip Heath and Nancy Staudenmayer
ABSTRACT
We argue that organizations often fail to organize effectively because
individuals have lay theories about organizing that lead to coordination
neglect . We unpack the notion of coordination neglect and describe
specific cognitive phenomena that underlie it. To solve the coordination
problem, organizations must divide a task and then integrate the
components. Individuals display shortcomings that may create problems
at both stages. First, lay theories often focus more on division of labor
than on integration. We discuss evidence that individuals display partition
focus (i.e. they focus on partitioning the task more than on integration)
and component focus (i.e. they tend to focus on single components of a
tightly interrelated set of capabilities, particularly by investing to create
highly specialized components). Second, when individuals attempt to
integrate components of a task, they often fail to use a key mechanism for
integration: ongoing communication. Individuals exhibit inadequate
communication because the ‘curse of knowledge’ makes it difficult to take
the perspective of another and communicate effectively. More importantly,
because specialists find it especially difficult to communicate with
specialists in other areas, the general problem of communication will
often be compounded by insufficient translation.
Research in Organizational Behaviour, Volume 22, pages 153–191.
2000 by Elsevier Science Inc.
ISBN: 0–7623–0641–6
153

THE IMPORTANCE OF COORDINATION
Highly motivated individuals often fail in their attempts at organizing. At
Xerox during the 1970s, top managers feared that Xerox might falter when
business transactions shifted from paper to electronic forms. They were savvy
enough to create the group of researchers that invented the first desktop PCs
(complete with mouse graphical interface) and easy means of networking them
(complete with networked laser printers and e-mail). Then top managers failed
continually to organize a structure that could bring the new technologies to the
marketplace (Smith & Alexander, 1988). Why? Software developers who are
urgently trying to finish a major piece of software frequently organize
themselves in ways that actually slow themselves down (Brooks, 1979;
DeMarco, 1995). Top managers at the best firms of the era systematically
complicated their own jobs by diversifying into other lines of businesses, then
floundered when they tried to design organizational structures to repair the
complications they created (Chandler, 1962). Front-line workers who are
earnestly trying to communicate with each other choose methods of
communication that make it even more difficult to organize their efforts
(Dougherty, 1992; Bechky, 1999). Even when motivations far exceed the
typical range of motivations available in a business setting, highly motivated
individuals still fail to organize effectively. During World War II the American