A631.6.4.RB_HansardCarey

I enjoyed watching the videos and considering the different approaches to change outlined in each. In the case of Gallery Furniture, the company was on the verge of going under due to outside forces beyond their control. The company was forced to take drastic measures to stay alive in the economy at the time. This approach included involving an outside practitioner. In my opinion, when radical change is needed, having an outsider step in to facilitate is a good idea. I relate this situation to having trouble with your children. I cannot tell you how many parents I had conferences with who told me that their child was rude and distant at home; but in the classroom, I did not see any of these behaviors. In fact, I was often able to communicate with their children more effectively about school related issues than their parents were at times. In a corporation, the manager is like the parent. The information they have to share about the need for change may be easier to hear from an outsider. The manager still needs to be actively involved but bad news might be better received from someone outside the company. When employees know that there is going to be radical change, they are often no longer trusting of management…especially if layoffs are involved. An outside practitioner has no emotional attachment to the management or employees and is able to deal with conflict in a different manner than those experiencing the change. It is still vital that the leader of the organization head the overall change movement and that employees understand he/she is invested in making the organization successful.

In the case of Gallery furniture, their main strategy was to change the culture. Cultural change can be risky. According to Brown (2011), Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy have identified one of the reasons for mitigating large-scale change as “mediocre or worse” performance of the organization (p. 409). Brown (2011) asserts that, “An organization. . .may need to change its culture in order to adapt to a changing environment or to perform at higher levels of effectiveness” (p. 409).  In a culture where customers were able to walk out and it was okay, it was difficult to encourage employees to move away from that behavior and begin to follow up by phone or email with their customers. However, their old practices were not very effective and needed to change and through the efforts of management and the outside practitioner, employees began to see that. More changes to the culture involved an effort to help employees be healthier, the addition of incentive pay for performance, and displaying sales statistics. All of these efforts encouraged employees to adapt to the new norms. By instituting a wellness program, the organization was communicating to the employees that their health and wellbeing was important.

On the other hand, Stanley McChrystal comes from a totally different environment. In his position in the military, he was the individual that people looked to for guidance. Most of these people are not empowered to make drastic decisions on their own and the commander does not have the luxury of bringing in an outside practitioner to redesign anything. He struck me as a very self-aware and humble leader who understands that sometimes, the answers are not available outside the organization but rather from your subordinates. He relied on those around him to be lead him through change. He refers to the challenges of keeping up with changes in technology and leading people who are doing things you have never done. McChrystal describes a strong culture in the military and Brown (2011) refers to many aspects of culture that apply to the one McChrystal was dealing with. Even though soldiers are unable to make their own strategic decisions, individual autonomy is still possible in the heat of battle. He and his direct reports were understanding of the needs of one another through the constant rapid changes they were experiencing and he was able to manage around the organizational culture (Brown, 2011). The geographic distance of his troops required methods of communication that he was not necessarily familiar with but that those around him were able to help him learn. The ability to quickly and easily communicate with the troops that were thousands of miles away from him encouraged open communication in his battalion (Brown, 2011).

McChrystal touts the importance of having a shared purpose despite different life experiences. As a leader, he understands that it is his job to create that common vision. According to Brown’s relative strength of corporate culture (2011), the military falls into the quadrant where members have a strong commitment to values and a high number of members sharing those values. The vision shared by McChrystal is a catalyst for the values shared by his soldiers.

References:

Brown , D. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development. (8th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

McChrystal, S. (Performer). (2011, April ). Stanley McChrystal: Listen, Learn.. then Lead [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/stanley_mcchrystal.html

(2012, September 17). Influencer: Gallery Furniture Case Study [Web Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20RW75Fhu4

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Becoming the kind of leader who can successfully promote and lead systematic change takes time and commitment by the leader and a certain amount of charisma. The first step to becoming such a leader is creating a vision for people that they can believe in and follow. Yukl (2011) says that, “Charisma is more likely to be attributed to leaders who advocate a vision that is highly discrepant from the status quo, but still within the latitude of acceptance by followers” (p. 262). Leaders whose ideas are too far out in left field are not likely to have buy in by followers. Charismatic leaders, in general, are also more willing to make sacrifices themselves to accomplish their goals and followers appreciate that (Yukl, 2011). As a matter of fact, the best leaders have, at one time, been good followers themselves and understand what followers want out of a great leader. In my opinion, a likable leader is one that I, as a follower, am willing to make my own sacrifices for to promote change.

The leader of my department is a visionary and very charismatic. However, many times, because she does not have great interpersonal skills, her followers do not trust her and become intimidated by her. In addition to having charisma, leaders need knowledgeable and trusting followers to lead system wide change. If the followers do not understand or agree with the vision of the leader, or do not trust this person, system wide change is almost impossible to achieve. The leader cannot be an expert in all areas of the organization and relies on the knowledge and trust of followers to make the right changes and decisions for all systems in the business.  The best followers and leaders develop a trusting relationship and understand that they are not always there to agree with each other. Followers should be able to let the leader know when bad decisions are being made and the leader should be able to take that information and learn from it. I think if the leader of my department had a better relationship with her followers, she would be incredibly dangerous (in a good way!).

We are currently in the process of trying to implement change within the colleges with the implementation of the multi-modality template. This template is one that has essentially been created for the online environment and been adapted for use in other modalities. This project has been in the works for several months now and was initially under the leadership of my direct supervisor. Within the past 2 months, he was removed as head of the project for several reasons. Among them was the fact that he was new to the university and did not know many of the stakeholders in the project. He did not have their trust and when he attempted to make decisions that were not popular, some of the other team members went to his supervisor to complain. I do not think he had a good concept of the big picture and he was not doing a good job brining all of the parties together to work out the concerns and determine the needs of the stakeholders. To make matters worse for him, instead of helping him and providing mentorship, his boss simply took over the project with very little explanation to others on the project. In my opinion, this leaves a negative impression on those who still do not know him very well and does not set him up for success when he works with these people in the future.

Although I can think of many times when leaders have been successful, I think the most recent is the transition to Campus Solutions from Datatel, the previous student management system. While the project was technically led by University IT, on the Worldwide side, there was a leader who called the shots and stood up for our needs. This person also happens to be a long-time friend of mine but I had never seen her in a work environment before. She was able to coordinate teams of subject matter experts and representatives from Campus Solutions to design the product to meet Worldwide’s needs. There was a lot of doubt surrounding the launch date of CS but she was able to allay everyone’s fears and lead everyone through the change successfully. The speed bumps that happened afterward were handled as they came along and, although I am sure it was stressful and frustrating for her at times, she was able to keep the confidence of all of her subordinates and complete the project.

As I have been reading about system-wide change, I have been wondering if I have what it takes to lead such change myself. I have been involved in a change project in a smaller context earlier this year when we upgraded EagleVision. I had the help of many colleagues and did not consider myself the lead, even though many important decisions were made by me in relation to the retraining of hundreds of certified faculty. It was a group effort and could not have been accomplished by any single one of us. So, reflecting on that experience, I think that the most important aspect of leading change is forming a great team that guides the change, like my friend did. The leader is important in the role of visionary and mentor but those who are really responsible for making the change happen are the followers. Putting them together in teams and utilizing their strengths is a vital part of instituting change. "Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success” (unknown author).

References:

http://www.teampedia.net/wiki/index.php?title=Team_Building_and_Teamwork_Quotes

Yukl, G. (2011). Leadership in organizations. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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The idea of self-managed teams really intrigues me. In theory, it makes total sense. Who knows their job and what it takes to do it right than those who do it every day? Although my team is not currently self-managed, I feel as though we could be if given the chance. We are all subject matter experts and with training, I feel as though we can also successfully manage our budget and identify new academic technologies for use by our faculty and staff. My current supervisor leaves the day-to-day decisions to us anyway (on the training team) and is a facilitator who helps us focus on the ultimate goal, much like the external supervisor would be for a self managed team.  

Because the employees are the experts at what they do, I think putting them into self-managed teams demonstrates that the organization has faith in their ability to make the business successful. This confidence motivates employees to continue to find better ways to do their jobs. Another advantage to these teams is the reward system that is associated with them. We all like to feel appreciated for the work that we do and knowing that an individual reward is based on the success of our team makes us a better team member. I believe that I would like working in a self-managed team. Working in a group of people who know what their job entails and who are willing to work with you to achieve a goal would be a pleasure. It would remove from the equation interference from a leader who is making suggestion only on a superficial knowledge of the job and the employee’s responsibilities.

One of the drawbacks is that management has to be on board and that can be hard to do. In organizations with self-managed teams the hierarchy is typically flatter (Brown, 2011).  It is difficult for managers to let this happen and it is even more difficult for them to step back and not be so involved in decision-making.  A related drawback is that when you flatten the hierarchy of an organization, employees have little chance for advancement (Brown, 2011). I know that one of my aspirations is to move up the totem pole at some point in my life and working on a self-manage team would make that goal harder to realize.

Becoming the external leader of one of these teams would be a challenge initially. Learning to be a different kind of leader takes some getting used to and having a mentor show me the ropes would be helpful. One aspect of being the leader of a self-managed team that I find intriguing is the interpersonal aspect of it. Leaders of these teams help employees focus on the ultimate organizational and team goals. They can step in when there is a situation that is out of the ordinary to help the team navigate through the issue. The rest of the time, managers have the opportunity to develop relationships with team members. I enjoy having positive working relationships with my teammates. I look for ways to compromise when there is friction and attempt to ensure that all sides are heard and understood. I see this as being an asset to a leader managing these teams. I think that as for technical competencies like communication skills and conflict resolution, I do a good job but there is always room for improvement. I know that more work needs to be done on the behavioral competencies like inspiring my team and time management. I have always struggled with time management and hard fast deadlines stress me out even though I work best when I have a specific deadline identified. For this reason, I think mentorship would be necessary for anyone leading a self-managed team.

Brown , D. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development. (8th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

(2008, Sept 28). Self-managing teams: debunking the leadership paradox [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBnR00qgGgM&feature=youtu.be

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The conscience development of goals is not something that we may do frequently, but there is obviously a lot of research indicating the importance of doing so. The setting of goals alone is not enough, though. They have to challenge us and be accompanied by feedback in order to be most effective. When setting goals, actions to reach the goal should be considered as well. If we set goals for ourselves that are too hard, we will certainly give up. The same goes for making broad statements and not having actions in mind (Wooten & Burroughs, 1991). I think this is why many people’s New Year’s resolutions fail. It is common to say things like, “I am going to work out more” and “I am going to lose weight”. However, both of these goals are extremely difficult for people to achieve and they require self-discipline which many of us lack, too. A better way to handle these situations is to partner losing weight with a specific action like joining Weight Watchers. The addition of Weight Watcher then makes this goal more likely to be achieved because now you have added the elements of feedback and support. Encouragement goes a long way toward helping people achieve their personal and professional goals. 

Professionally, I have begun to learn the importance of goals more than ever. When I was teaching high school, my goals were related to what I wanted my students to do more so than what I wanted for myself. I had very few personal goals but one of those professional goals was to earn National Board Certification in foreign language. I had heard it was the equivalent of earning a master’s. It was very challenging for me. There were several components to the process and I did not earn enough points to pass the first time. They provide the opportunity to retake only the portions that you need to and I believe that is the reason I tried again. If I had to endure the entire process, it would have proven to be too much for me and I would have abandoned the idea (Brown, 2011). What I did not like about earning this certification was that there is no feedback process. Your submissions are sent off for grading and you receive the results…without comments added. It is very difficult to alter your goals or processes when you do not understand where you went wrong. This translates into the job I have now, too. After each training session that I do, I push a survey to my “students”. Two of the sections ask for feedback about the presenters and about the content of the session. I rely heavily on this feedback to make adjustments to my trainings and my style. If I am not meeting the needs of my customers, I have to know. I think this anonymous method of collecting feedback really provides for honest answers.

As for providing feedback, this comes naturally to me now from my teacher days, I think. My philosophy there is that if someone is doing something ineffectively and nobody tells them about it, they cannot improve. My colleague is a perfect example. She has proven to be a great EagleVision trainer; however, she only wants to train on EagleVision and has (jokingly) made her feelings known. The university has many academic technologies though, and we need to be proficient in all of them and be able to train faculty on their use. So, even though I am not her supervisor, I have provided this feedback to her. I have offered to mentor her and I have even pushed her out of her comfort zone by assigning the Blackboard upgrade training to her. She spent hours familiarizing herself with the new features and assembling the training. Once she had a goal, she chose specific actions to take to accomplish it (like research and practice), delivered the training, received feedback from the survey and her coworkers, and felt a great sense of pride that she had accomplished her goal. When not faced with a specific goal, her performance level was low and she did not engage with the technology. Setting the goal with her definitely provided her with an avenue to be successful.

I find that I perform better when I have specific goals as well. In my current position, I have several projects (which equate to goals) in the works right now. It helps me to understand exactly what the end result will be so that I can outline activities to reach the goal. In my case, targeted feedback is not necessary. I do well with generic feedback, too. My supervisor or a faculty member telling me that I did a good job or really helped them is a motivating factor for me. As a leader, knowing that goal-setting and relevant feedback is important to motivation, I will make an effort to include this process when working with my employees. And when I decide to put NBCT next to my name, it reminds me to set challenging goals for myself, too!

References:

Brown , D. (2011). An experential approach to organizational development. (8th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Wooten, W., & Burroughs, W. A. (1991). Setting measurable goals for better performance. Supervisory Management, 36(12), 3. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/214224727?accountid=27203