Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

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t h e i n c e st u o u s wo r k p lac e
closure needs to increase boundary transactions if it is to avoid the disastrous
consequences of prolonged closure described in earlier chapters.
A manager’s gatekeeping functions include regulating both external
and internal boundary transactions. In more complex organizations, for
example, a major part of a manager’s role may involve shaping the nature,
intensity, and frequency of interactions between his or her work
unit and other work units in the organization. Regulating such internal
boundary transactions can be as important for controlling the level of
worker distress as regulating external boundaries.
13.5 Preventing Dysfunctional Closure: An Overview
Chapters 4 through 8 described in detail the repercussions of chronic
closure on the health of an organization as a whole and on the physical
and emotional health of organizational members. The next few sections
of this chapter will outline strategies designed to prevent such closure.
Strategies aimed at preventing the professional, social, and sexual
closure of an organizational system must fit the unique characteristics of
that organization and its work force. Strategies developed for a manufacturing
firm will differ significantly from those developed for a police department
or an insurance company. Through most of this book, I have
covered a variety of organizational settings, but in this section, I will
narrow the focus to strategies I first used in my consultation work with
health and human services agencies. Though these approaches have
been adapted for use in manufacturing companies, financial institutions,
schools, police departments, prisons, sales organizations, and a variety
of governmental agencies, the problems generated by organizational closure,
and the abuses of power associated with such closure, present
unique problems in health and human services because of the particular
vulnerability of service consumers in that setting.
There are general principles common to all strategies used to prevent
sustained organizational closure. Such strategies seek to
• ensure the mutual boundary transactions of ideas and people
between an organization and its outside ecosystem
• influence the level of cohesion and intimacy among organizational
members
• enhance the access of organizational members to outside sources
of professional and social replenishment
• control and limit forces in the work environment (for example,