A630.3.3.RB_SchreterPaul

            To make things interesting at Southwest, they have what’s called the Culture Committee. The purpose of this committee is to make Southwest a fun, exciting, and wonderful place to work. ( NutsAboutSouthwest, 2008) In this blog I’ll review the goals of Southwest’s Culture Committee, what it could do for organizations in general, and a quick tidbit on what I can take from it.

            Determining whether or not this committee is effective at establishing cultural norms is pretty hard to measure, however that doesn’t mean their efforts aren’t being recognized in published articles. Dr. Noelle Nelson, a psychologist and business trial consultant, gives credit to Southwest by stating “companies such as Southwest Airlines and See’s Candies have embraced the appreciation approach. The result? Southwest Airlines is making money while its competitors are filing for bankruptcy.” (Nelson, 2006) So by taking advantage of the appreciation approach, Southwest has been able to stay in and excel in their domain. But what does it mean to have an appreciation approach?

            Showing appreciation for your employees is one of the best ways to gain their loyalty. It has been said “appreciation has a real and measurable impact on your bottom line. Studies reveal that the degree to which people feel their company recognizes employee excellence results in dramatic differences to the company’s bottom line. Businesses effectively valuing their employees enjoy triple the returns on equity, returns on assets, and higher operating margins.” (Nelson, 2006) This shows that a direct return will come from showing employee appreciation. However one manager or leader in a large company won’t be able to show valuable appreciation for everyone, and so Southwest created the Culture Committee to go around the company and show others how much they’re valued. By having employees show appreciation for other employees, overall attitudes and moods are better off within the company.

            When everyone feels appreciated, motivation increases. Brown talks about multiple dimensions that affect organizational performance, one of which is motivational climate. Brown defines motivation climate as something that “consists of the set of employee attitudes and morale that influences the level of performance.” (Brown, 2011) Employee appreciation is something that has been shown to have a direct correlation to overall organizational motivation.

            Something that I can immediately take away from this is to show more appreciation towards my coworkers, supervisors, and subordinates. Making them feel better about themselves in an already difficult deployment environment would have nothing but positive benefits. They say that happiness spreads, so perhaps by spreading happiness onto others, I too can benefits and live a happier life myself.

References

NutsAboutSouthwest. (2008). Southwest Airlines "A Day in the Life of Culture Committee". Retrieved from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7P0T9IbYKU&feature=player_embedded

Brown, D. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development. New Jersey: Pearson.

Nelson, N. (2006). Culture of Appreciation. Leadership Excellence , 11.

A630.2.4.RB_SchreterPaul

After watching Matthew Tayler’s video on 21st Century Enlightenment, I can say that it brings up some interesting points about how we think and how it could potentially inhibit us from reaching out maximum potential. Given this week’s theme around organizational renewal, I’ll talk about two quotes from Matthew and how they could potentially tie into our text by Donald Brown. The first quote I’ll comment on is “to live differently, involves thinking differently” and the second quote is “to resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange.” (The RSA, 2010)

Matthew Tayler goes on in his video to say that “to live differently, involves thinking differently.” (The RSA, 2010) Leaders need to remove the blindfolds which hold them back and to take on the challenges that require change, commitment, and a new way of thinking. Brown’s Model of Adaptive Orientation explains that in an environment which offers such little stability, only the most adaptive can survive. (Brown, 2011) This type of subset of the model is what’s known as the Renewing/Transformational Management. Organizations and leaders not only need to adapt to change, but they need to embrace and be prepared for new opportunities and innovation.

"To resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange” means to learn to try new things and new ideas. (The RSA, 2010) Google for example makes public their efforts for trying new ideas and establish new boundaries of innovation. In a short excerpt in Brown’s test it is said that at Google, “engineers are also encouraged to spend 20 percent of their time working on their own research projects, no matter how esoteric and offbeat.” (Brown, 2011) This gets rid of biased ideas and narrow mindedness of middle management who could potentially shoot down perfectly legitimate prospects.

These two quotes are what hold the most meaning from the video I watched, in terms of organizational renewal and trying to adjust to an ever changing environment. The ways of the old need to get thrown out as technological advancement is made and ways of the new need to be invented and adapted into today’s culture. There is no “one size fits all” with this subject and no simple answer, but being self-consciously aware of one’s own decision making is the first step towards enlightenment.

References

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development. New Jersey: Pearson.

The RSA. (2010). RSA Animate - 21st Century Enlightenment. Retrieved from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=youtu.be

A630.1.4.RB_SchreterPaul

                After reviewing the YouTube video, Board of Directors: A Tale of Power and Vision, there are a number of positive and negative aspects with the different agents of the organization. The agents discussed will be those of pessimists, pragmatists, visionaries, power players, and the crowd.

                The major difference between the pragmatist and pessimist is that a pragmatist will make enough effort to consider change but not enough effort to evoke it, thus the two are portrayed in similar light in the video and I will compare the two as a similar single agent. One potential benefit is that these agents will act as a devil’s advocate for change in an organization. For example “change is likely to be rejected if there is no clear evidence of a serious problem or opportunity that would justify major change.” (Yukl, 2013) The most common type of resistance to be expected is, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” What this means is that before coming up with a solution, an obvious problem needs to be identified first. A potential negative for these agents is that if they have a high amount of influence of others, it’ll be more difficult to get the rest of the crowd to follow.

                Another agent is that of the visionary. Gary Yukl mentions in his book, Leadership in Organizations, is that “when it is necessary to make major changes in an organization, a vision of what the changes will do to achieve shared objectives and values is very helpful in gaining commitment for the change.” (Yukl, 2013) The positive of such a visionary is that they can create the momentum required to get the change going. A potential negative is open to interpretation, but it also possible for a visionary to commit to negative change (take Hitler for example).

                A forth agent is one of the power players. Change is usually too big a task to be handled by a single leader, thus the identification and allegiance of power players is absolutely crucial. It is said that “it is essential to build a coalition of supporters, both inside and outside the organization.” (Yukl, 2013) By having the support of power players throughout multiple layers of an organization can change be implemented to its full effect. A potential negative is if these power players abuse their powers for personal gain and derail any change.

                The final change agent is that of the crowd. The positive of the crowd as an agent is that their behavior can be predicted. In comparison to Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm analogy, it can be said that if the innovators and early adopters (e.g. the visionaries and power players) take advantage of the change and can see its success, then the rest of the crowd (early majority/late majority) will follow. (Moore, 1991) The potential negative is that if the crowd doesn’t see the benefit of the change, then it may be hard to gain their support.

                All five agents in the video, Board of Directors: A Tale of Power and Vision, have been compared with their potential positives and negatives. Based on the video it can be said that first a vision must be made by a visionary followed by an allegiance with power players. Once the two have developed and implemented change, will the rest of the crowd follow. Then when the majority of the crowds have embraced the change, will the laggards (pessimists and pragmatists) follow.

References

Moore, G. (1991). Crossing the Chasm.

Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in Organizations. New Jersey: Pearson.