A630.1.4.RB_DellElceCamila

A630.1.4.RB – Board of Directors

            What entails an organization? Harry C. Carter, a municipal fire protection consultant defines organization as “the pattern of ways in which people, too numerous to have face-to-face contact at all times and engaged in a wide range of tasks, relate to one another in a conscious systematic manner; for the accomplishment of mutually acceptable goals” (2014, para. 2). Many times, it seems as if organizations are set up to fail when in reality, the answer to fix the problem is at anybody’s reach. In my experience, I have seen my organization go through the phase of loosing what matters, vision, power, and the crowd. When you are at that point, your crowd no longer feels the need to follow the organization. Instead, the organization suffers a lost of morale and that is when pessimism and pragmatism take place; they take over an entire organization.

            The medical facility I work for underwent significant problems. It all started when the office added a new practice manager for the medical assistants. Previously, there was only one manager who was in charge of the human resources and the personnel aspect of the organization but the owner of the practice noticed the personnel was suffering because it was too much work for one person. When the new practice manager started, as with any change, there was a lot of push back. The practice manager was a person with leadership skills who care about her employees compared to the other manager. She had a vision to where she wanted to take the organization. She started by creating a training manual for everyone as before training was done only when the time was available and employees could only count on their on notes. 

            My practice manager wanted to start an organization full of teamwork, where she did not have to tell everyone what to do and what to help with. Nevertheless, employees were very pessimistic about the entire change. And as it is expected, those who were pessimistic started to recruit others into following same behaviors and would do anything to make office practice manager look bad. Gary Yukl described leadership as, “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (2013, p. 7). When the practice manager started to notice how the organization was becoming apart, is when she started to be more pragmatic. A full staff meeting was setup and all the issues were discussed. She requested for everyone to be honest with her either with the group setting or in private in to make improvements to the office and create a “happy medium.”

           

            She was definitely a “go-getter,” and had the power to make others listen to her vision. After that meeting, more employees were able to understand where she came from and where she wanted to direct the team. The crowd started to follow her without hesitation and the changes started within the employees and simultaneously reflected on the organization. Although, our leader did the impossible to make others understand that “a better future is possible” (Kohn, 2007), there will always be a pessimistic crowd.

            When it comes to a healthy normally functioning company, some characters are needed. I believe, pessimistic agents are not necessary because completely put the organization’s morale down. On the other hand, a pragmatic agent is different. Pragmatic agents tend to be realistic and more often than not, will take into consideration all the possibilities and create a prognosis accordingly without directly rejecting an idea. Moreover, visionaries are the key to the success of an organization. Visionary agents are the bridge to the future as it is shown on the video “ A tale of power and vision.” In order to move forward, we need to know where are we heading and that is what a vision is good for. Power encourages others into doing the impossible and motivates those who have doubts. And lastly, the crowd is also important. A leader can be a leader to him or her self but an organization needs the crowd to make anything happen. The crowd is in charge of putting to work theories that leaders believe will work. They are the testers.

           

References

Carter, H. R. (2014). Do you know what an organization is? Firehouse.Com, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1573068517?accountid=27203

Kohn, S. (2007). A tale of power and vision. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZVIWZGheXY&feature=youtu.be

Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in organizations. (8^th ed.) Dorling Kindersley / Pearson Education, Inc.

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A521.5.4.RB – Aligning Values

            In chapter 6, Transmit Your Values Denning talks about three basic elements of ethics: trust, loyalty, and solidarity. Trust encourages the idea that we will engage and behave ethically towards each other. Loyalty is an extension of trust as the organization expects to be able to trust your commitment to not fail into doing what you are supposed to do. That is when loyalty takes place. And solidarity is the act of taking an interest and genuine concern for other people, in this your work community, and taking action on behalf of your fellow coworkers even if that means no personal gain is obtained. Stephen Denning (2011) asked, could organizations stick to ethical values and still survive the market place? And the answer is, yes it can. These components, I believe are important in any setting not just in the business industry but in a personal setting as well.  Who doesn’t want trust, loyalty and solidarity?  In today’s organizational world, it can be the glue that holds a business together and without it may well fall apart.

            When it comes to my organization, I believe that for the most part, they have these three basic but most important elements. We must trust our manager is going to do her best to get us the training we need to keep up with regulations, the space we need to be able to perform our tasks, and that she will support us in every way possible. On the other hand, she has to be able to trust that we will not take advantage of her generosity by constantly coming in late or leaving early, lying about our work, or not being truthful. But the fact is, she trusts our commitment to work and making the organization work. She does not micromanaged us by constantly checking if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing because she trusts us. Her trust is shows in the many opportunities we are afforded (being able to work overtime when needed, by letting us perform procedure for the first time, and by encouraging us to be the best we can) and upper management sees this as well. Usually, the doctors are not asking why we are doing what we do but instead, they praise her for how well and efficiently we do our work as a team.

            As explained before, trust leads us to loyalty because without trust there would not be any loyalty.  As the company continues to experience growth, we have had some trouble with turnover since I started but that does not necessarily demonstrate a lack of values. Instead, I have seen first hand that most people that decided to leave was because either they were not team player or they just did not have what it takes to be ethical. Additionally, the company offers career growth by allowing you to be the first one to apply into a new position opening rather than getting someone new from the outside.  All in all, we work closely together and the common goal is to provide the best service possible to our patients. It is this trust and loyalty that makes our company so unique and cohesive in many ways. 

            The third component mentioned is solidarity. Solidarity is defined as the “unity (as a group or class) that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, n.d.). Although this area is still a work in progress, I believe the company is heading the right direction. Sometimes the problem comes more from the different personalities we encounter while at work more so than just not wanting to help other coworkers. In occasions, some of us truly care about the interests of others however there are a few that are only looking out for themselves and they will make a point of letting you know that they are helping you out just in case you forget. It is not about trying to crush others to get ahead in the organization. We are all in this together. This is not what solidarity is all about but thankfully, the company is already taking some course of action to terminate with the negativity. Something I would do to eliminate the problem would be creating more duties that require teamwork and that way build trust across the company.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Roger Martin suggests that the era in which the purpose of every firm is to maximize shareholders’ value is coming to a close. Martin notes that pursuing the maximization of shareholder value as a goal suffers from inherent internal contradictions. The harder the firm pushes to increase shareholder value, the more likely it will make moves that actually hurt the shareholders. Martin argues we are now entering an era of customer capitalism. (Denning, 2011, p. 134).

            Therefore, we need to be ready so that when our opportunity arises to become leaders, we become good leaders. The kind that care for their employees and community and the kind that seeks appreciating and equality.

References

Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (n.d.). An encyclopedia Britannica Company. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/solidarity

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A521.6.3.RB – High Performance Teams

            There are many elements associated with high-performance teams.  Denning (2011) highlights six bullet points:

·      Carrying out their work with a passion.

·      Hastily adjusting their performance to the shifting needs of the organization.

·      Actively shaping the expectations of those who use their output-and then exceed the resulting expectations.

·      Interpersonal commitments that allow them to become nobler and more powerful.

·      Mutual concern for each other’s personal growth, which enables teams to develop interchangeable skills and greater flexibility.

·      Growing steadily stronger, eventually coming to know one another’s strengths and weaknesses, which enables them to anticipate each other’s next moves, and initiating appropriate responses as those moves are occurring.

            Teams focus on time constraints, predefined operational objectives, and subsequently are expected to have a product. The task requires a linkage between members who are pursuing a common goal. The team may be more formalized in its origin. The team focuses more on a transactional approach, necessitating goal clarity, effective leadership and followership, in addition to resources and needed support. Denning (2011) believes that these high performance teams impact the end users of their product by molding the potential expectations. He believes that high performing teams must be spontaneous, and flexible, since they must represent critical thinking. Monitoring output can result in adjustments along the way. Cohesiveness is what can make the team more successful. It is about learning more about the human resources that go into the thinking process. It is about encouraging self-reflective thinking that can be ultimately used to produce a more effective, and efficient, product.

            As the team functions together, Denning (2011) believes that the members grow in knowledge and strength. The process is then impacted, as the team and its members develop. In order for the team to function at the high performing level, there needs to be a sense of ownership in the outcome. When the members have a vested interest in the attaining the results, they have a reason to make it better. There is a sense of pride in what is being produced, and therefore, how it is being produced. A sense of commitment often results in a shared responsibility, and accountability, for an outcome. This focus can build a sense of trust in one another. The commitment that is used to be successful, also builds a sense of trust and pride in the accomplishments.

            When I was younger, I used to work for a pediatrician’s office. I used to work as a front office medical receptionist. My team consisted of a large group of individuals, about ten. We used to divide the work into equal parts and we never failed to each other. We trusted each other’s ethics to finish what we were responsible for. Every day, I was happy to go to work knowing that my team would be there and ready to accomplish anything. “Working together with other is necessary to achieve increased speed to market, faster product development, better customer service, lower costs, and the opening of new markets. Collaboration has become critical competency for achieving and sustaining high performance” (Denning, 2011, p. 160). This was for me the most positive experience I had while working with teams. 

            On the other hand, a negative experience I had was a couple of years ago, while working in my last year of my bachelor’s degree. The professor assigned a final into groups to precisely work together. We got together one afternoon and divided the work so that each participant, five of us, would work on their part and that way present our final with everything covered. Needless to say, that was the last time I saw three of them. For the next meetings it was only one classmate and I. We never got any work from the other team members and we ended up doing the entire work ourselves. While working in groups entails working toward the same subject, “each person has a defined responsibility, and each reports to a common supervisor” (Denning, 2011, p. 151). Sometimes, as Denning mentioned, collaboration is a matter of values, internal values. “When we’re in this sort of situation, we see that the other members of the group have different values, and this leaves us with the feeling that future collaboration would be horrible to contemplate” (Denning, 2011, p. 159).

References:

Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

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A521.9.4.RB – Reflections on Leadership

            In this chapter, Stephen Denning opens up about the different dimensions to leadership and how they work with some people and how they really do not work for others. The important question is, what makes them true leaders? “True leaders do not lead because they are expecting something in return. They lead because they have something to give. They may get something back, but this is a contingent event, not the goal. They give with a spirit of generosity. They are relatively ego free” (Denning, 2011, p. 281). What does he mean by “ego free”? Ego free is the individual who is not concern with his or her personal gain, on the contrary, he or she is concern about the organization’s well being and working as a team. He goes on into explaining the leadership that presents feeling. In other words, the kind of leader that demonstrate passion for what he does or what he believes on. Having passion for what you do changes everything, specially the way my leading skills would be in the near future. If I take this dimension into use for future leadership positions, I will enforce and ensure my followers feel what I feel. That is the power of influence and passion. If your audience can feel the passion, they know what they follow is truthful and genuine. They can trust me.

            Moreover, I can say I am guilty of trying to pursue order in my work place. Denning explains that the “Apollonian culture emerged as a result of the forces of bigness and consistency. In fact, the control mode sets out with the best intentions—that of establishing order out of the potential chaos into which large organizations would otherwise tumble” (2011, p. 286). Needless to say, extremes of this case can never be good. Pulling extreme remedies for order can very much weaken the very first priority, achieving harmony. Therefore, this does have a tremendous impact in my future leading skills. I will try to find a happy common ground, where order is important but maintaining harmony is the priority of the company.

            Additionally, another way to be “a different kind of leader,” is by learning about leadership as situational. This dimension does manifest in my own application of leadership since I am well aware that not everyone works the same way. “The basic premise of this approach is that different situations demand different kinds of leadership. To be effective, a leader needs to adapt to the demands of the situation” (Denning, 2011, p. 292). At this moment, I am training an individual that has background with been a Medical Assistant. When it comes to training, it is harder to teach someone who has already developed habits, whether they are good or bad. Sarah Pavey explains why are bad habits hard to break and she suggests, “the main reason that bad habits are hard to break is down to what researchers call our “cognitive script”—these are the unconscious, automatic thoughts that we have when we encounter a situation. These unconscious thoughts are based on previous experiences. So, if the situation is one that we’re encounter many times before, we engage in ingrained behaviors without thinking about what we’re doing” (2015, para. 7). Therefore, I try to adjust my training habit to their knowledge and seem to be working.

            Another good example of how Denning’s dimensions manifest in my daily application of leadership is by storytelling. When I go to work and I see some of my coworkers frustrated, I tried to tell them a similar story to reflect a positive outcome and that way avoid them reflecting their frustrations with patients. “The use of narrative opens up leadership capabilities that are not available to someone operating solely in the traditional management mode of command, control, regulation, and optimization” (Denning, 2011, p. 269). Lastly, using the leadership that fits the modern need is another dimension that I currently use. While it is hard to let go of what you already know, I welcome everyone’s ideas to supplement or implement into the work environment.

References

Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Pavey, S. (2015). Breaking bad habits: Overcoming negative behaviors. Mind Tools, Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/bad-habits.htm