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To start, I thought that it was interesting to hear Paul Tesluk talk about leading teams that essentially lead themselves. He touched on the importance of the external manger coming and trying to lead a team and how beneficial a tool that is to have. Personally, I like how the team makes the decisions on how they will be formatted and how they’ll adhere to the norms. This allows the members to form conclusions and ideas based on their experiences and not precedents set by their organization. They can utilize tools and strategies they’re comfortable using and tools that have been successful for them in the past. That allows a better working environment for that specific team.

What do you see as some of the major benefits and drawbacks of self-managed teams?

I see a major benefit being that each team member is an expert in their field. Brown states “self managed work teams have autonomy when they have freedom to set goals, make work schedules, discipline, and reward team members and decide on work methods” (Brown, 2011). I see that being a huge advantage in any group setting. Let the majority set the boundaries of what works for them and what they’re comfortable doing. You don’t want to push past standards on them, they are there to fix issues not be bound by restrictions.

Would you like to work within such a team?

I think that I would want to work with such a team. I’ve never had the opportunity to share my insights and thoughts about organizational procedures and I think that being in a team would allow me to voice my opinion and to hear feedback from other team members. I’d like to “compare notes” with other experts within our organization and see what is going on in other facilities. It would be a pleasure to be involved with any directed change our group might come up with. One source says it well when they said “this means the majority of key decisions about activities are made by people with direct knowledge of, and who are most affected by those choices” (Boundless, 2014). It would be good to be part of the change when it will affect me also.

What competencies would you need to develop to be an effective external manager of a self-managed work team?

I think to be effective; you need to be able to gain meaningful insight to the problem and the team in a timely manner. You also need to be able to understand the purpose of the team and understand why they set the guidelines the way they did. I think to be effective here, you want to lead the group but make sure they still feel as though they are in the conversation when it comes to solving whatever issues they may be working on. In our class discussion this week, Tracy Michael stated “Although Xerox reached its peak of performance in Leadership through Quality, the company continued to strive for better quality through training its employees on what quality and customer satisfaction truly means” (Michael, 2015). I took that interpretation to mean that even though that company was succeeding, they still took time to identify needs. An external manager could help understand the future needs and push a team toward not only addressing the current needs, but potential market shifts and future needs.

Brown, D. (2011).  An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development, 8th Ed.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Self-Managing Teams - Boundless Open Textbook. (2014, January 1). Retrieved April 16, 2015, from https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/groups-teams-and-teamwork-6/types-of-teams-52/self-managing-teams-265-3934/

Michael, T. (2015, April 15). ERAU Discussion [Discussion Board].

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Personally, I've never thought of how important feedback might be to an organization. The reading this week states, “frequent, relevant, and specific feedback is important for goal setting to be a success” (Brown, 2011). I reference that because in my career field, feedback and long term goals are essential to being successful. When I was training to become an air traffic controller, we had to set a map of how we were going to complete our training and qualification programs and we set long term goals for ourselves. Once training commenced, we would receive feedback about our performance immediately after we were done. This allowed us to know how we did that day and what steps could be taken to be more effective the next time. Initially, some of the older controllers were not on board with giving all of this feedback, they wanted the younger group to learn my trial and error and learn for themselves “the hard way”.  I link that into the observation that “generation Y” wants feedback faster. I feel as though if we know what we are doing, either right or wrong, when it happens, we can mentally take a note of what to improve upon for next time.

I look at goals as a very positive tool in any leadership role. Where do you want to go from here? How can I help others succeed? Feedback is a form of constrictive communication between employees. One source states “poor communication can disrupt a team’s performance and sometimes these disruptions are caused by personality clashes between members” (Boundless, 2012). I draw a direct relation to the reading in that the younger members want the feedback and feel it necessary but the older generations do not. This could create friction in the workplace about the direction of the organizational and its goal setting objectives.

In our discussion from class this week, I took note of another classmates comment. Julia Cannell mentioned “goals are not simply a stated desire to achieve an outcome but are a choice of behavior that is impacted by who we are, what we really want, and what we are willing to do to reach them (Cannell, 2015). This is a good observation of how people perceive goals setting and how important it can be.  Long term goal setting paired with feedback in my personal career has paid huge dividends for me because I was able to adjust and move past in deficiencies I had in the learning process. As a general observation, not all the people I worked with liked the feedback. I generally feel they felt that way because the feedback wasn't always positive but it cannot be. Feedback has to be constructive and meaningful otherwise it is pointless.

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (Eighth ed.). Prentice Hall

Cannell, J. (2015, April 6). Discussion Forum - Julia Cannell [Personal interview].

Setting Team Goals and Providing Team Feedback - Boundless Open Textbook. (2012, January 1). Retrieved April 8, 2015, from https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/groups-teams-and-teamwork-6/building-successful-teams-53/setting-team-goals-and-providing-team-feedback-266-7085/

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What behaviors seemed to help your team successfully complete its task?

In our group, we were able to work together rather quickly to get ahead of task. As team members we showed dedication, motivation and willingness to overcome obstacles in order to be successful. The reading this week states "teamwork implies that all the members are contributing to an overall objective even if doing so means subordinating their personal prominence' (Brown, 2011). I think this week we all showed that we are team players and politely interactive.

What factors inhibited decision-making or problem-solving?

The main factor that lead us to making decisions faster was the motivation to get things set up for the sake of time and the group. We all felt that as long as we were proactive in getting things set up, we could foster an environment for success. One team member, Mark, said it best this way this week, "I think its important to have clear roles and designate task with estimated completion dates, especially when building a project". Getting the jump start on the project was important to us and we took time to communicate and understand each person's goals.

 

How much time was spent on decision-making and problem-solving?

I don't think we spent a lot of time actually deciding what we were going to do. As team members, we through out some initial ideas and we were able to get a consensus of what other members thought pretty quickly. We determined early on that to avoid any problem areas, we should set up clear expectations that everyone is okay with. That allowed us to move past problem solving into task completion. 

How was information shared among team members?

We used our discussion board to share most of our ideas and thoughts. In a few cases, we all communicated via school email to make sure we have secondary communication lines open as well. When the inputs from team members needed to be shared, we used the file exchange in out group forum area.

How did issues of authority or power affect the team?

I don't know that we had any authority issues in the group. it was determined that we would need a group leader each week and that all of us would get the chance to be that team lead. We took time to discuss how each of us fit into the team and a couple of members volunteered to either submit each project and or to proofread it. We worked those ideas out quickly and efficiently.  

How did collaboration and competition influence the outcome?

Our team did a great job of collaborating with one another from the very start. We did have some small conflict but the reading this week states "if conflict is managed properly, it can actually enhance working relationships and build a positive climate" (Brown, 2011). Personally, I believe that is exactly what happened in our group. Any disagreement was addressed and we all now know that we can share ideas and thoughts constructively with one another.

Did team members make process interventions?

I think in a small way we did. We all shared our input on what has to be accomplished and what needs to be done each week. In a sense we used our own knowledge to determine the best course of action for our group. In our class discussion this week, Phillip Petrazio shared a great example of how he experienced group familiarization. He stated " Initially our assignment was to collaborate as a group over a fictitious problem then do a CI Change Event from the start to the end.  The best team would receive a special prize, and would also be excused from one of the three follow-on CI events we were required to complete for our certification process". (Petrazio, 2015). In his case, he was offered a special incentive to complete the task. In our group, our special incentive is to complete the tasks at hand and to get the best grade possible. As a group we determined that we would all participate to the best of our ability and communicate with one another as much as we can.

Reference

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experimental Approach to Organizational Development (8th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Petrazio, P. (2015, April 2). ERAU Discussion Board [Online interview].

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Do you see value in the EcoSeagate team development process?

I see a ton of value in that program/process. What I find the most interesting is the willingness of the employees to actually apply and attend the event. When people are signing up to encounter that process, you can assume they are doing it to have a hands on learning opportunity that will give value to them and the company. I personally feel that if even one person is more motivated about their job when you finish, you've done something worth while. The downside to EcoSeagate is, they are so large that the actually have people apply from all over the world. I feel as though the program is effective accept for the fact that people that are participating may never actually work together again in a real time setting. After you have a development opportunity like that, you want to know that team members are going to have some sort of bond created, a bond that actually will be used in a daily setting. I feel like if they brought team members from the same areas, that work together often, they may see more results in the long run. People will learn about their coworkers and learn what their needs and motivations are.

Why would something like this be necessary in a high-preforming organization?

When you have a high-performance team, you want to keep them motivated with the opportunity to participate in something like this. Brown states "team development is an educational process of continually reviewing and evaluating team functioning in order to identify and establish new and more effective ways of operating" (Brown, 2011). High preforming teams need the motivation and incentives to want to preform at peak form constantly. This activity is actually something that can inspire people to reach outside their comfort zone and try things they've never tried before. If managers want to be successful, they have to offer new and innovating ways for employees to bond.

Could your organization benefit from a similar activity?

I personally feel like our organization could benefit from something like this. I recently found out that the corporate level employees actually have a retreat but the lower level, every day air traffic controllers do not. From my knowledge, there is not any type of program in place to engage everyone. Each year there is a managers conference and the opportunity to get managers together and share successes and new ideas. There is no acknowledgement of the controllers themselves. I think that my company could try and invite people to participate in something like this and make controllers feel like they're important to the success of the company. I feel like there is a slight break down in that perspective. If employees knew that they were just as important as managers, they might feel more inclined to stay with the company. As it is right now, we have a very high turn over rate. Either people are waiting to get a government job or they are retired from the government and just working for what ever motivations they have. There are a very limited amount of people who are actually choosing to make this company a career path like I am. I would like to see more care for the actual controllers.



Reference

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (Eighth ed.). Prentice Hall.

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Does Schmidt’s description of the Google culture make sense to you?

I think that the information he spoke on does make sense to me. I personally like how there is always a 20% personal venture time. He mentioned that it protects against blow ups. I think what it does is, it actually makes the employees feel as though their ideas are welcome and that we are not just hiring you to do one thing, we want you ideas to flow through the organization. I think that there are real merits to his comments. Google has discussions where they welcome feedback that might be against their objectives. He said he asks for someone to speak against what he wants. That way productive things get accomplished.

Is this a reasonable way to view the work that most people are doing in your workplace?

This is not comparable or the way things are done here. Whenever there is a decisions made, it normally comes from a corporate level and then the managers are left to implement the change to the controllers. The controllers are just expected to adhere to whatever changes are made. The issue with that is that there is not two way communication throughout the entire organization. At this particular time, anything we say or come up with, basically will fall on deaf ears unless you're very, very persistent

As a leader, does it take courage to have and to implement this point of view?

 I think it does. I can't think of a lot of leaders that I've worked for in the past that actually like to have open discussions where they want you to find errors in their ideas/work. I personally feel that there are huge advantages to letting people have their own time to brainstorm and even bigger advantages to having people tell you where your shortcomings might be. how else can YOU learn?

Could this approach backfire?

Yes. I think what could actually happen is that someone down the line is going to think that because their idea was better than yours, they should be making the bigger decisions. You're actually opening the door for people to empowerment.You want there to be a line drawn as to each person's role and then let them know that you're the boss but you're not always right. Just because the boss is not right all the time does not mean they shouldn't be the boss.

What can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career?

I'm not sure how i could personally implement something like this at a controller level. I think it would take some persuading from multiple mangers to better open the communication lines and accept that people at the controller level have some unique ideas that could really benefit the company. What I'll try to do is see what kind of communication lines are in place and what our actual recruiting guidelines are. That may lead me to my next step.

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Do you agree with Tom Wujec's analysis of why kindergarteners perform better on the Spaghetti Challenge than MBA students?

Interesting enough, I actually do agree with analysis. I find his comment about the kids not wanting to be the CEO to be very explanatory as to why there is little success among other participants. I have heard similar examples in the past that were more directed at how investors should actually allocate their money. I want to say that the school age kids out preformed trained investors most of the time.

 Can you think of any other reasons why kids might perform better?

I feel like the kids don't have any outside pressure to preform well on them. When he mentioned that in created a reward of $10,000 for participants, the success rate was zero. I feel as though if that were the children, they would still preform well because they just want to be successful in their work. The children don't have anyone to impress or answer to when the task is complete; whether they were successful or not. 

In your view, why do CEOs with an executive assistant perform better than a group of CEOs alone?

I think it goes back to what he said, there is someone there giving them direction. If there is a group of people who are use to being the number one in charge, I'd assume it would take awhile before you could determine who was going to lead and so on. With the assistant there, they can take control and lead the group of leaders and get them on track as soon as possible. There would be no trying to be number one.

If you were asked to facilitate a process intervention, how could you relate the video to the process intervention skills?

I think the video points out some flaws in people in a rather quick manner. You can get immediate results as to how people react to this challenge and I think you can apply that directly back to the workplace. One of the process intervention processes I like is clarifying and summarizing. Sometimes people leave a meeting and they have no idea what someone is talking about or what point they were actually trying to make. This video actually allows you to see what points are trying to be made and you can identify some things that apply to you and your business. Clarity in a matter can lead to better success then just having uncertain direction.

What can you take away from this for your immediate career?

What this video has taught me is that sometimes team building exercises can actually help you learn a lot about someone. In our job, you don't ever really have an opportunity to have a "do-over" and you always wonder what could have happened if you handled something differently. I think if we all took some time to make sure there is clarity on our part and took time to make sure we all understood what we should, that there would be better reaction times and outcomes more often. 

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I personally think that he has his work cut out for him. I say that because when you're talking about taking two successful companies and then try to get a culture that only focuses on the positives of those companies, you're being misleading and misunderstanding of the culture. What I mean is, I think that you have to be cautious moving forward. Although you always want to focus on the positives, you need to acknowledge the negatives in order to be more successful and to guide the cultural changes away from those wrongs. I think if he was to really push the punishment side of things, he could weed out the people who are not improving cultural influences and unhappiness.

In the video he talks about things being easier when people trust you and are happy with you. I think he's going to have a barrier there. There are going to be people who don't trust you, who don't know enough about you or people that don't just plain like you. Although he wants a culture that is positive, its very hard to get everyone on board and to be trusting of your vision. He goes onto talk about letting employees know that you appreciate them and that they're part of the success of the organization. I find a large hurtle he'll have to overcome is getting over past cultural impacts and any negatives that people perceive of him or the future of the company. It all goes back to trust, how can people trust you when they haven't worked under you long enough?

What I think applies the most from what he was saying to my career today is, he talked about making the best use out of the systems that he knew to be already successful. He was talking about getting next generation technologies moving along and to make things more efficient and acceptable to consumers and commuters. My particular field is focused on making sure everyone has access to next generation technology and protecting the flying public. Additionally, making a safe and friendly culture where trust and happiness is first, is another exceptional task that my company has to undertake to stay relevant and up to date.