COMM 615 Book Review - Company by Max Barry

Book Analysis

Supervisor/Subordinate Relationships in Company

Liz Horgan

COMM 615 Spring Semester 2010

Dr. Leanne Pupchek

February 16, 2010

Book Analysis: Company 1

The book jacket touted it as “a bitingly funny take on corporate life” (Barry, 2006, book

jacket) and the first few pages began with the theft of a donut. Humor engages me and satire

entertains and makes me think. I found the book full of examples of organizational stereotypes

and extremism, with a focus on people and the interpersonal relationships that were instrumental

in the co-creation of their environment. The novel Company by Max Barry (2006) illustrates the

function of feedback and appraisal in supervisor/subordinate relationships.

Literature Review

I will be looking at supervisor/subordinate relationships from a theoretical standpoint.

Our textbook routinely uses the social construction, critical and structuration theories as lenses in

an effort to broaden understanding of relational dynamics. Also, supervisor/subordinate

relationships are influenced by the “leader-member exchange” (LMX) theory that “emphasizes

the negotiated nature of supervisor/subordinate relationships” (Sias, 2009, p. 23). Both parties

play an active role in the creation and maintenance of their dynamic relationship.

Gender and gender roles affect supervisor/subordinate relationships. Men and women

tend to have different management styles and subordinate behaviors; this affects the selection,

formation and workings of relationships between a supervisor and a subordinate (Sias, 2009).

I will also look at this relationship from a functional point of view. As outlined in our

textbook (Sias, 2009), supervisor/subordinate relationships function in five major ways.

Leadership is provided by the “boss”, but guidance and direction can come from either party in a

dynamic view, and is both interactive and reciprocal. Mutual exchange of information is a


critical feature of this relationship. Feedback and appraisal communication is used between the

supervisor and subordinate to assess job performance. Mentoring can occur within this

relationship. Issues of power and influence are both integral parts of the relationship between

subordinates and supervisors because of the innate hierarchical structure of most organizations.

Issues like impression management, in-group employees and the power distance between

the parties affect communications and supervisor/subordinate relationships as a whole. Abuse of

power and resistance to it play a part as well. (Sias, 2009).

Method

I chose Company by Max Barry because of the teasers in the book jacket.

The novel…answers the big questions: What are the relative merits of sleeping with your

boss versus someone at the same level? Which causes the more spectacular career

implosion? When is physical violence an appropriate response to management policy?

(Barry, 2006, book jacket)

The book follows a new employee who discovers the secret behind the big company he joined:

the company Zephyr Holdings is “fake”, it produces and does nothing substantive, and exists

solely as a laboratory to test management theories on unknowing employees. Results from

various test scenarios are analyzed and ultimately used in the creation and furthering of the best

selling “Omega Management System”. The overarching theme of the book is a commentary on

corporate management and the obsession for reorganization in the hopes of finding a perfect

system within which to operate for maximum profit.


Company highlights interpersonal relationships in a dysfunctional working world. The

insanity of daily work where there is no end product and where measurement is king (budgets

and other managerial benchmarks are rigorously employed) plays out on the workers and

supervisors in interesting ways. The human choices made in this environment can be instructive

and useful in providing how-to and how-not-to guides for real workplace identity and

functioning.

The Scene

The scene deals with a performance review given by Sydney (the boss) to Megan (her

administrative assistant). Megan “suspects her reviews are mandatory but unimportant” (Barry,

2006, p. 140) and goes in expecting the casual, nothing-type of review that she’s had in the past.

Instead her boss begins with “I’m managing you out.” (p. 140) Stunned, Meghan finally gathers

herself to ask why. Sydney ticks off that she has failed in key areas (the measurement criteria

has never been mentioned to Megan): she has not achieved her goals (she did not have any), her

desk should be free of clutter (a concept that had never been communicated to her before; she

has a prized bear knick-knack collection that she points out to Sydney had never been mentioned

or complained about as a problem), and she is not a team player (she works alone due to the way

Sydney has structured the department). When Megan asks “how can you sack me for goals I

never had”, Sydney counters with “you don’t want me to say you accomplished goals when you

didn’t, do you?”(p. 141). As Megan cries, she has a feeling that her boss is smirking, and looks

up to see that she is. When her boss realizes she’s been caught, she calls Security and has Megan

escorted out.


Analysis

Sydney, the supervisor, has internalized the confusion of an organization constantly going

through reorganizations and crises. She has created herself as a cold, removed, autocratic leader

focused solely on the bottom line. She has very little to do in her job and is therefore insecure in

her position and ultimately her abilities. She reacts to directives from higher up, and in the lack

of any substance in the organization adheres to the hierarchy as if it is a life preserver. At Zephyr

Holdings, power is wielded from above, and seems based on nothing other than title and

position. Sydney is treated exactly as she, in turn, treats her subordinates. LMX theory focuses

on the supervisor/subordinate relationship as a duality that can work for both the individuals

involved and the organization (Sias, 2009). However, in Company there is no concern for the

personal, human element – interpersonal communication and information sharing rarely occur,

and certainly trust, emotional connection, and any interest in personal life and issues outside of

the organization does not exist in Sydney’s world. As a result, Sydney has no special

relationship with Megan, and Megan does not strive or thrive in part because of this. All of

Sydney’s relationships are superficial, Information Peer Relationships and deal only with work

related tasks (Sias, 2009). Because of these factors, Sydney is isolated and unable to share

information; she has no real reciprocity in communication.

Megan, as Sydney’s personal assistant, is a meek person who focuses more time on her

bear collection, which serves to personalize and metaphorically empower her isolated

surroundings, than on people or work. She regularly re-arranges the various bears on her desk

and talks to them as a substitute for real interpersonal relationships. From a social construction

and structurational point of view, the supervisor/subordinate communication pattern between the


two characters was co-constructed. Megan had never questioned the one-way dictatorial

communications, and as a result they became the status quo. Megan, in her acceptance and

acquiescence, allowed these patterns to evolve, to reify. When Megan attempted to alter the

structure, to question, it was too late.

Megan, too, is stuck in Information Peer Relationships, though she longs for connections

with her fellow workers. She has internalized the structures within the Company which

encourage only work-related interaction and finds her only outlets in her thoughts and bear

fixation. Structuration theory shows how these patterns of action, in this case of relational

boundaries and the lack of information sharing (Sias, 2009). This is due to the fact that nothing

of any substance is happening within Zephyr Holdings -- the company operates in such a random

and unpredictable way so that even rumor and gossip offer nothing meaningful in this

disconnected environment.

Critical theory suggests that this system of power, uni-directional and unquestioning, is

co-created by Sydney and fostered because of her insecurities (Sias, 2009). The only emotion

she was able to show was a smirk after firing Megan, a sign I took to be a small pleasure at

power wielded by her instead of to her as was typical in this organization. When Megan

objected to Sydney’s attitude and finally exerted her personal power, Sydney refused to accept

this challenge and called for Security in an attempt to reaffirm her own dominance. Megan was

forced to accept the hierarchical control over her, and was helpless in her belated fight against

the system.


Functional aspects of the supervisor/subordinate relationship are visible in Company.

While the scene I chose was where Megan was fired, it occurred during a performance review.

Feedback is one of the key functions of the supervisors/subordinate relationship; feedback can be

“downward”, from the supervisor to the subordinate where it can be used to motivate, reward or

affect change, or it can flow “upward” (Sias, 2009). In this example, the feedback was used as a

weapon, a reason to fire Megan; there was no consideration to make this information useful or

constructive with a goal of improved performance. Leadership and mentoring, key functions of

a supervisor/subordinate relationship, were missing: Sydney led through fear, and she was not

even open to mentoring or forming networks.

Conclusion

The corporate culture and its adherence to rigid uni-directional hierarchy colored and

informed the supervisor/subordinate relationship in Company. The quality of the communication

between Sydney and Megan was very low, creating an atmosphere of mistrust, uncertainty, and

questionable work performance that ultimately led to dissolution of the relationship. The

extreme examples shown in this book were funny, ludicrous even, yet they carried force by

illustrating what can occur when interpersonal communications are problematic.


References

Barry, M. (2006). Company. New York, Doubleday.

Sias, P. M. (2009). Organizing relationships: Traditional and emerging perspectives on

workplace relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.


Documents

COMM 615 Book Review - Company by Max Barry