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I given some thought to my actual perspective of organizational development in the workplace this week. After reading chapter sixteen, I can see how some people view it as a fad. I do not see this being a fad. There is a lot to gain from OD interventions and changes. So to answer quickly, yes, I do see the future of OD in the workplace. One source this week states “ OD interventions are inclusive methodologies and approaches to strategic planning, organization design, leadership development, change management, performance management, coaching, diversity, team building, and work/life balance" (ODN, 2015).

In our reading, Brown states that “there are increasing trends toward greater diversity of the workforce, including multinational corporations and a need for the integration of diverse cultures, values, and skills. I’d like to share how I encountered such integration in the U.S. Navy. Toward the middle of my service time, all of the base personnel were being informed that the Navy was going to be shifting toward a more informed, well rounded sailor. We were told that it was important for us to have more than one skill set, whether that is our primary job or a secondary one. The more we were able to show we knew, the better off our career paths would turn out to be. I now see that in some ways, the Navy was trying to make personnel changes along with streamlining the average worker. The more one worker can do, the less people they have to hire. In OD, “the course of change anticipated for OD will predominately surround the issues of a changing workforce, global competence, and transformation within the organization” (Brown, 2011). I would assume that if the U.S. Navy has taken on some OD techniques, that the government must see it as beneficial in some ways. Generally, things that work will be around for awhile longer.

In our class discussion this week, there were multiple accounts of how OD is already at work. Tracy Michael (a fellow student) stated, “Because the culture of our company is one that understands the need for organizational development and its criticality for implementing change, we are focused on our vision that is effective to our meeting the goals of air and space integration” (Michael, 2015). You can see that his company has narrowed down their agenda and how they use OD to be more successful. So if there is any doubt of OD techniques and the future of OD, I don’t see it in the near future.

  

Brown, D. (2011). An experimental approach to organizational development. Upper Saddle, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Michael, T. (2015, January 1). [Online].

ODN, What is Organization Development? - OD Network. (2015). Retrieved May 7, 2015, from http://www.odnetwork.org/?page=whatisod

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 The most important observation I made about both of the men was that they both were involved in and created a successful culture that was always changing. According to Brown, “A strong culture is characterized by the organization’s basic values being intensely help and widely shared” (Brown, 2011).  In figure 15.4 we see that the more people who are willing to commit to the values, the stronger the culture becomes. For Jim McIngvale, he has created a culture around making sure employees are well taken care of. He does this by providing endless education on products, techniques, and customer relations. I found it most interesting that he actually saves over one million dollars a year in health insurance because his employees engage in physical activities during company work time. I think he has found a way to engage employees both physically and intelligently. The employees seem to be responding more, creating a better culture, because their leader is taking the time and investing in them.

Stanley McCrystal was successful because he was able to take advice from people who worked under him who had more knowledge of the technologies he had to use. One source states “Revealing you are human is helpful; good leaders go and find the answers the team needs” (Brandon, 2014). I think Stanley lives that each day. He understood what it took to be successful; sometimes he doesn’t have all the answers and he needs to outsource the information gathering to someone more qualified. Often times leader are not successful because the do the opposite of that. They think they have all the answers and they implement things that are not successful like that of Napelli from our discussion about Home Depot. A classmate (Phillip), said it best in his discussion observing that “The negatives were apparent at Home Depot during his tenure due to index score fell from 75 to 67 while rival Lowes remained at 75” (Boylyard, 2015). In our discussion this week, it was obvious that the new CEO has made a number of huge errors that, in hindsight, must not make a lot of sense to Napelli. 

I think that there is a lot to learn from these two leaders. Each one of them admitted that they needed to look at the way they are doing business and reevaluate that technique in order to be more successful in the future. Stanley had a lot thrown at him in a short amount of time and was able to use his tools to his advantage. Jim knew that in order to keeps his business going, he would have to look outside the box and understand new management techniques. Those techniques are making him more profitable and successful now.

Brandon, J. (2014, August 29). 20 Ways to Become a Better Leader Right Now. Retrieved May 3, 2015, from http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/20-ways-to-become-a-better-leader-right-now.html

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

Boylyard, P. (2015, January 1). Class Discussion [Online].

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In your reflection blog, consider how difficult it must be for a leader to grow into a person who can lead a system-wide change effectively. Perhaps you remember leaders who attempted system wide interventions but failed because they were not capable of pulling it all together. On the other hand, you may know leaders who were able to do what you thought would be impossible. From your point of view now, what is required for a leader to be successful?

From a personal standpoint, a great example of this comes to mind quickly. At my first air traffic control facility (in the U.S. Navy), we had a very hands off, passive leader who in short, did not have any of the traits I would now look for in a good leader. His personal approach was to let things run themselves and to let people under him do all of the work. Not long after being there however, we got a new leader. He was the complete opposite of the first leader. He was very aggressive, hands on (although he did not micromanage), and he made sure things were done correctly. He was very intense and he wanted to make sure everything was corrected from the previous leader. He did have a hard time maintain certain relationships due to his role though. People began to fear him which in turn led to no one wanting to be around him or ask for his guidance. He had fixed the issues we were having but in turn he basically became ostracized for it.  Brown states “in solving problems in the learning organization, collaboration occurs between people throughout the organization: vertically, horizontally, and diagonally” (Brown, 2011). In the case of this leader, that communication failed to exist after a small amount of time there.

I thought a lot about what it takes to be a successful leader this week. I found that trust, hard work, caring about coworkers (regardless of up or down), and perspective are the most important factors when becoming a good leader. A good leader has to be able to understand the environment they’re in, figure out what changes need to happen and then apply their skill set to help fix any issues. In doing that, a good leader also needs to let other people shine, not just themselves. When you get other people involved in successful situations, they perform at a higher level. In this week’s class discussion, Deborah Burke stated “Some advantages of flat organizational structure include increased responsibility for the employee, removal of excess layers of management which results in more effective collaboration, communication, and an easier decision-making process among employees, eliminating middle managers’ salaries resulting in organizational cost savings, and innovation and creativity are encouraged in such structure” (Burke, 2015). I bring that observation up because I think that flat organizations are working now. To be a good leader, you need to keep communication lines open and you need to share knowledge and insight. Let you employees in on the leadership action while direction their course.

I find it interesting that people often times want to be the leader but they don’t to put in the time or hard work that comes with being the leader. What I’ve come to learn is that leaders have a hard job and they have a lot to think about everyday. Sometime leaders make mistakes but the good leaders will forget about the mistakes and move forward in a positive direction. People who work under someone who dwell on past mistakes cannot have a very optimistic vision of the organizational future. A good leader needs to be a leader while maintaining composure and perspective. My last source is from Richard Branson, he states “"A passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren't proud of what you're doing, why should anybody else be?" (Feloni, 2014). What a great way to look at things. A good leader will believe in their cause and believe in their subordinates.

Brown, D. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development (8^th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Burke, D. (2015, January 1). Class Discussion [Online].

Feloni, R. (2014, October 17). Richard Branson's 10 rules for being a great leader. Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-bransons-leadership-rules-2014-10

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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.