CHAPTER 1
The Problems of Coordination and Control in Womens Community Development Programs
Introduction
Increased complexity of functions of an organization necessitates the activity commonly referred to as coordination.
Coordination is a key word that helps an organization to survive. This is true of Women in Development (WID) organizations in our societies today. An organization becomes complex if its activities manifest into several programs that require specific but different areas of expertise and expert ideas to actualize. These different programs are regarded as part of a common whole, and their purpose is to achieve the general goal. It will then be foolhardy for the management of an organization to allow the different programs to pursue their different goals without cooperating with one another. Such an action is referred to as irrational because it lacks coordination, and surely, the central goal will be difficult to attain.
In some organizations, the various subgoals necessitate the division of the whole organization into departments, all of them working toward the attainment of the central goal of the organization. This results in what is called a complex organization because of the differentiation into departments that had occurred within the department. In such a case, there is a great need for coordination in the organization. In sum, the central ingredient for any organization's success is the effective coordination of the activities geared toward the central goal of the organization. The ability possessed by different managements of different organizations toward effective internal coordination marks the difference between the success and failure of organizations.
Coordination activities are particularly important in a women's development organization because its programs are geared toward women's enlightenment. One of the major aims is to make women become active participants in their own and their society's affairs so that their contributions to economic development will be understood and acknowledged.
This goal is central and unique, but the activities required to achieve the goal are numerous. First of all, the WID program needs to exist, and existence means that there must be adequate resources and investments to back it up. To achieve this goal, the WID program should generate funds. The program therefore needs to engage in fund-raising activities. Fund-raising activities also need coordination because there are different types of fund-raising exercises that can be achieved with different methods. The overall activities need to be coordinated effectively in order to produce results.
Apart from fund raising, WID goals include the emancipation of women from the shackles of ignorance and poverty. This means that women need to be educated and made aware of their problems through awareness campaigns and women's education programs. Women need to be trained to have skills to ensure their independence. Women need to develop leadership skills through training. It is through adaptation that energy is obtained from the environment for the upkeep of the organization. An organization usually lines up activities to aid it in its adaptation process, but these activities alone cannot keep organizations going. They need to be coordinated with other activities in the organization for the realization of the total goal of the organization. For WID programs, adaptation requires that fund raising has to be harmonized with other activities
The second problem a successful organization should confront is goal attainment. Parsons explains that adaptation is important, but it will only end up in the planning stage if there are no activities geared toward the achievement of the goal of the organization. In most organizations, this function is seen as political. It is political in the sense that it relates to the ability of the organization to effectively utilize power to get what it wants from the environment. In case of WID programs, the goal-attainment function relates to how the activities of the various women's institutional and noninstitutional organizations are coordinated in order to acquire the needed resources — how the various women's development organizations (such as Family Support, Women in Nigeria [WIN], and other organizations) coordinate and relate to the source of power to get what they want. Without a proper goal-attainment activity, the WID program will be adversely affected. But as the theme of this chapter says, no function can, by itself alone, achieve the goal of the WID without coordination with other functions.
The third function is integration, which is a system of rewards and punishments for the organization members. This function is based on the premise that all cannot always be smooth within activities and people in an organization. Some individuals are more zealous than others, while some are criminally minded, while some are really doing their work. There must then be a system of rewards and punishments to integrate the different elements. If there is no integration system in an organization, then there will be anarchy, and everybody will be doing what he likes. To achieve this function, rules and regulations — usually referred to as organizational formalization — are instituted to guide the behavior of members. This can be noticed in the WID program rules and regulations.
Lastly, the pattern must be maintained by settling new entrants into the system. This function refers to how members are recruited to the organization.
This is very crucial to the coordination of the WID program. It refers to how the program gets its new converts among women and even men, young and old, in society. If patterns are not maintained, then the organization may cease to exist in due course. This activity in WID requires various propaganda, awareness campaigns, and training (including workshops, conferences and seminars) to acquaint people with its programs. By doing so, the pattern will be maintained.
In discussing the theoretical explanations, it is discovered that each of the systemic problems is very important, but it cannot stand on its own. If the organization concentrates alone on anyone without adequately coordinating all of them together, it will be difficult for the organization to achieve its goal. This underscores the importance of coordination and control in the WID program in Nigeria. As explained in this paper, each of the systemic problems constitutes a project for the WID, but none should be given more attention than the others in order not to make it become the only focus of the organization. Fund raising is important from the adaptation side, but trainings and workshops to develop the women and make them come out of poverty is also very important. This necessitates the coordination of the activities for effective harmonization and goal attainment.
Ingredients of Coordinating Activities
The activities involved in coordination can be enumerated in order to understand the ingredients involved. In other words, what are the contents of a coordinating action, and what should a coordinator of the WID program be working for? The activities involved in coordination are the following:
An entity. Usually called the organization.
Goal. The purpose for which the organization is set up initially.
Strategy. The actual tactics, and activities involved in the achievement of the goal.
Planning. This precedes the strategy and is a major activity of the coordination that leads to the coordinating activity.
Human activities. Aimed at a strategy to achieve the goals.
The projects. Each of the specific objectives turned into action, which is observable at particular times.
Monitoring and evaluation. This is the activity of the coordinator or the coordinating body at a self-reevaluation of past activities to assure whether the activities are yielding results or a change of action and direction are necessary.
The Coordinating Agency
In the generic sense, agency refers to "the actor who causes the occurrence of an event or an action." In the language of statisticians, agency is referred to as the independent variable, while the event that was caused by the agency is a dependent variable. In the case of WID programs, the coordinating agents are the independent variables as they make the event — coordination — occur.
Two major kinds of coordination systems — an individual acting alone or a coordinating agency — have been identified. When coordination of activities in an organization is being done by an individual, the organization is said to be highly centralized. If it is in a committee comprising of people in the organization from all levels, then authority is decentralized. It is even more decentralized if coordination is done in stages according to the different hierarchies and levels of the organization.
Both of these systems can be analyzed in order to identify their usefulness or otherwise for women's development programs.
An individual as coordinating agent is useful when the activity to be coordinated is located in one place. The coordinator should be highly knowledgeable in the form of activity in question. This form of coordination must be surpassed by the kind of rules and regulations referred to as maximal formalization. Authority in such a situation is said to be highly centralized.
Coordination by a single individual has its advantages. First, decision making is very fast as there is no need for long meetings of policy makers. He makes his decision based on his expertise and his understanding of the cultural and political environment. Second, there will be no internal squabble and rancor among the policy makers since he is the only person. The enforcement is also fast, as he can supervise it himself.
This agency has its own disadvantage, especially in a complex organization. If diverse knowledge is necessary, the sole coordinator becomes a liability. His knowledge alone cannot carry the day. He may also make a lot of mistakes without advice. If the human variable is highly heterogeneous, his presence might bring trouble, as the people may allege an accusation of sectionalism, especially by those who are from his own section (race, class, or ethic group).
The committee agency is the second possibility. In this case, the coordination is a group of people who act together.
Each member of the committee may even have a special area to coordinate. This kind of agency has the advantage in the sense that a decision will itself be more accurate. There is the advantage of the minimization of errors in the sense that each contributes his knowledge and expertise.
In a heterogeneous organization, it may serve as mechanism of tension management as the groups might be able to identify their own members in the committee. The disadvantage is in the sense of very long processes of decision making, as there can be disagreement in the committee meeting. It is also vulnerable to committee internal conflict, which affects the coordination activity. In case of the WID, we believe that a committee system is desirable, as it will take care of the heterogeneous nature of Nigeria.
The Process of Coordination
There are three major processes of coordinating human activities leading to the effectiveness in organizations such as the WID. These are the autocratic, the supportive, and the laissez-faire approaches.
The approaches refer to how a human agent actually operates in the coordinating process.
Coordination is laissez-faire when the coordinator allows all the variables being coordinated to do what they, in their own opinion, consider as good and correct. He does not give orders and does not even show leadership by example. On their own, the people take shapes without a shepherd. This kind of agency has been criticized as inadequate. It has been concluded that the organization under him might not achieve the goal. More studies show that human beings need to be directed in order to work. Eric Fromm has also documented the danger involved when man is given what he calls "too much freedom." He will certainly misuse it.
The autocratic approach is the opposite of the laissez-fair. Such an agency believes that people must be forced to work. Coordination of activities are done without the ideas or advice of those that are being coordinated. The agency decides the projects, strategies, and actions without consulting the beneficiaries, which in case of WID programs are the Nigerian women.
This approach was referred to by Batten as the "directive approach." In criticizing such an approach, Batten said that the nondirective approach is better. This is a situation whereby the beneficiaries themselves are contacted before or on the coordinating activity.
The autocratic approach in coordination creates alienation and frustration in those being coordinated and also within the beneficiaries. Some schools of thought argue, however, that this approach is situational. In occasions where people are not enlightened and unaware of their rights, this approach seems to be the best.
The supportive approach is the one whereby coordination is participatory. The agent acts as a primus inter pares. He is a leader but not a boss. He has a love of his job and believes in the welfare of his workers and those being coordinated. The program to be designed is due in consultation with the beneficiaries and not for them but by them. Researches also showed that the supportive agent will achieve a goal result.
Conclusion and Recommendations
This chapter has looked at the issue of the coordination of the Women's Development Programs. It was concluded that coordination is very important, as it is through the activities that the goal of women's emancipation, empowerment, and poverty alleviation can be achieved. The goals strategy, and human activities involved in the WID programs need to be harmonized and coordinated. Similarly, the different projects are all geared toward the achievement of the central goal enumerated earlier. These different projects relating to poverty alleviation, fundraising training, and workshop and awareness campaigns also need to be coordinated.
It is also affirmed that coordination can be through the committee or individual system. The process can also be autocratic and supportive.
On the basis of all these, the following recommendations are put forward as a means to effective coordination of WID programs.
There must frequent monitoring and evaluation of the WID programs to ensure their being in the right direction. Obsolete ones should always be dropped.
There should always be researches so that programs will not be obsolete. In the end, I recommend that a department of research and development (R and D) should be established to help the process of coordination.
The committee system should be adopted in view of the diverse nature of Nigerian women. This will ensure a conflict-free atmosphere for effective coordination of WID programs in Nigeria.
There must be good publicity, and communication should be accorded a central place so that the objectives of the WID would not be misunderstood.
CHAPTER 2
Principles and Methods of Vocational Guidance and Selective Placement for the Disabled
Introduction
This chapter describes the principles on which vocational guidance is based and attempts an examination of the methods of selective placement in order to determine their efficiency and stimulate thought, which will generate ideas toward positive innovation.
In order to achieve this, the chapter will explain the major variables, take a look at the theoretical foundations, and examine the principles and methods involved in the issue of vocational guidance and selective placement of the disabled in our society. We will conclude with an attempt at an evaluation of innovations meant to improve the present methods and principles of vocational guidance and selective placement.
Definitions
This chapter is addressing management or organizations practitioners whose function is to help change the condition of the disabled to what is desired by helping them realize and accept the best vocation suitable for them and also who will place them in a type of job in which they best fit. The chapter is therefore meant for helping professionals who are engaged in the human services of helping humanity. One of the best imperatives of man in order to survive is adaptation to the environment. Adaptation, Talcott Parsons says, is the ability of organisms to acquire resources from the environment for their own use and survival. This process is called work (Ogunnika 1984, Hydebrand 1977). Work, however, is not just something out there ready to be done. To perform work meaningfully, one needs to possess a skill that will help the actor in the adaptation process. Work is not just a random process whereby a person just wakes up being able to do anything. It is a result of the interconnections of the society as everybody in society cannot be doing the same thing. If such a situation happens, adaptation will not be possible. To solve the problem of maladaptation of human beings in society, a process called division of labor emerged (Durkheim, Smith). This is a process that recognizes the special abilities of individuals and encourages each individual to develop to the fullest the areas where he is best. The process requires a man to develop that skill that his physical condition allows him to. Productivity will increase if everybody can perform the jobs for which they are fitted based upon their physical condition (Taylor).
