Chapter 15 Related Article

Chapter 15: Organizational Change

This particular well written article focuses on the correct steps of going about change when leading a team, breaking down the concept of John P Kotter’s 8 steps to successful change. It also gives nice story line scenarios of how to give examples of the different kind of changes and hot to show case it.

http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm

Chapman, Alan. "Change Management Principles, Process, Tips and Change Theory and Models."Businessballs Free Online Learning for Careers, Work, Management, Business Training and Education: Find Materials, Articles, Ideas, People and Providers for Teaching, Career Training, Self-help, Ethical Business Education and Leadership; for Personal, Career and Organizational Development. A Fun Free Online College of Ethical Life and Work Education, for Self Help, Teaching, Career Development, Distance Learning, Organizational Development, with Team Building Games and Exercises, Free Self-help and Training Ideas, Free Management Theories, Free Diagrams, Templates, Samples, Examples, Materials and Tools, Free Child Development Activities and Adults Development Exercises Ideas. Web. 20 May 2010. .

Chapter 15-Organizational Change

Force field analysis:

-all systems have driving and restraining forces

-restraining forces: are manifested as employee resistance to change

-resistance to change should be viewed as a resource not an inherent obstacle to change

-organizational change requires driving forces

-action research is highly participative

-appreciative inquiry: tries to break out of the problem-solving mentality of traditional change management practices by reframing relationships around the positive and the possible

-large group interventions are highly participative

-significant concern: organizational change theories developed with a Western cultural orientation potentially conflict with cultural values in some other countries

Chapter 14 Related Article

Chapter 14: Organizational Culture
This article discusses a few of the different types of organizational cultures one could experience in the workplace. The one that resonated with me most was the “Baseball ball” culture where the employees are similar to that of free agents. He uses this metaphor because the employees are in high demand and can get jobs elsewhere and that’s quite particular in the tech industry.
http://managementhelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm
McNamara, Carter. "Organizational Culture." Free Management Library (SM). Authenticity Consulting. Web. 10 May 2010. .

Chapter 14-Organizational Culture

Organizational Culture:
-consists of the vales and assumptions shared within an organization
-shared assumptions are taken for granted and are nonconscious
-organizations differ from cultural content relative to ordering of values
Artifacts:
-the observable symbols and signs of an organizations culture
4 Broad Categories of Artifacts:
-organizational stories and legend
-rituals and ceremonies
-language
-physical structure and symbols
3 Main functions of Organizational Culture
-form of social control
-the “social glue” that bonds people together
-way to help employees make sense of the workplace
-organizational clashes occur when companies merge and I acquisitions
-problem can be minimized by bicultural audits
Attraction-selection-attrition theory:
-organizations have a natural tendency to attract, select, and retain people with values and personality characteristics that are consistent with the organization’s character resulting in a more homogeneous organization and stronger culture
3 Employee Socialization Stages
-pre-employment: learn about the organization and job also form employment relationship expectations
-encounter: test expectations against perceived realities
-role-management: strengthen work relationships practice new role behaviors and resolve work-nonwork conflicts

Chapter 13 Related Article

Chapter 13: Organizational Structure

This article gives an in-depth description of all the different types of organizational structures, giving a nice and accurate explanation of it is and how it works exactly.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/type-of-organizational-structures.html

Irani, Khushnuma. "Type of Organizational Structures." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 2 May 2010. .

Chapter 13-Organizational Structure

Organizational Structure:

-the division of labor as the patterns of coordination, communication, workflow, and formal power that direct organizational activities

4 Basic Elements of Organizational Structure

-span of control: number of people directly reporting to the next level in the hierarchy

-centralization: degree to which formal decision authority is held be a small group of people, typically those at the top of the organizational hierarchy

-formalization: degree to which organizations standardize behavior through rules, procedures, formal training, and related mechanisms

-departmentalization: organizational charts that specifies how employees and their activities are grouped together

-divisional structure groups employees around geographic areas, clients, or outputs

-accommodates growth and focuses employees attention on products or customers

-best organizational structure depends on the firm’s external environment, size, technology and strategy

Chapter 12 Related Article

Chapter 12: Leadership in Organizational Settings

This article give a brief synopsis on leadership in organizations focusing on defining the style in which one wants to lead and the dynamics of picking the right leadership techinique as well as choosing the proper steps on making these changes in the leadership roll.

http://businessmanagement.suite101.com/article.cfm/effective_leadership_through_organizational_chan

Jenkins, Lucia. "Effective Leadership and Organizational Change." Suite101.com. 19 Sept. 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. http://businessmanagement.suite101.com/article.cfm/effective_leadership_through_organizational_chan

Chapter 12-Leadership in Organizational Settings

Leadership defined as the ability to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members

Competency perspective:

-tries to identify the characteristics of effective leaders

-leaders have specific personality characteristics, positive self-concept, drive, integrity, leadership motivation, knowledge of the business cognitive and practical intelligence and are people-oriented and task-oriented

-leadership takes view of effective leaders as they diagnose the situation and adapt to their style

Situational leadership theory:

- commercially popular but poorly supported leadership model stating that effective leaders vary their style(telling, selling, participating, delegating), with the “readiness” of followers

Fiedler’s contingency theory:

-developed by Fred Feidler early contingency leadership model that suggests that leader effectiveness depends on whether the person’s natural leadership style is appropriately matched to the situation

Transformational leadership:

-leadership perspective that explains how leaders change teams or organizations by creating communicating and modeling a vision for the organization or work unit and inspiring employees to strive for that vision

Implicit leadership:

-people have leadership prototypes

-they evaluate the leader’s effectiveness to that prototype

-cultural values influence leader’s personal values

-women generally do not differ from men in the degree of people-oriented or task-oriented leadership

-women leaders more often adopt a participative style of leading

Chapter 11 Related Article

Chapter 11: Conflict and Negotiation in the Workplace

This article focuses on a few different ways one can try using conflict resolution and negotiating techniques between clashing parties within the work place. They cover many different techniques to give you a well rounded sense of how to attack just about any kind of conflicting problem within the workplace.

http://newsblaze.com/story/20060624232348nnnn.nb/topstory.html

Alan. "Ten Tips for Negotiating Workplace Conflicts." Daily News from the News Experts at NewsBlaze. 24 June 2006. Web. 16 Apr. 2010. .

Chapter 11-Conflict and Negotiation in the Workplace

Conflict: process in which on party perceives that his or her interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party

-Constructive conflict: type of conflict in which people focus their discussion on the issue while maintaining respect for people having other points of view

-Relationship conflict: type of conflict in which people focus on characteristics of other individuals, rather than on the issues, as the source of conflict

Conflict Process Model:

-incompatible goals: non agreeable goals one party wants one thing while the other wants something else

-differentiation (values and beliefs): differences among people, departments, and other entities regarding their training, values, beliefs, and experiences

-interdependence: exists when team members must share common inputs to their individual tasks, need to interact in the process of executing their work or receive outcomes that are partly determined by the performance of others

-scarce resources: when each person or unit requiring the same resource necessarily undermines others who also need that resource to fulfill their goals

-ambiguous rules: too general or lack of rules

-communication problems: conflict occurs when lack of opportunity, ability, or motivation to communicate effectively

-leads to one or more parties to conflict

Conflict-Handling Styles

-Problem solving: win-win orientation/ tries to find a mutually beneficial solution to a disagreement

-Forcing: win-lose orientation/tries to win the conflict at the other’s expense

-Avoiding: loose-loose orientation/tries to smooth over or avoid conflict situations altogether

-Yeilding: Loose-win orientation/giving in completely o the other side’s wishes or cooperating

with little to no attention to your own interests

-Compromising: draw orientation/involves looking for a position in which you make concessions to some extent

Structural approaches to conflict management

-emphasizing superordinate goals

-reducing differentiation

-improving communication and understanding

-reducing interdependence

-increasing resources

-clarifying rules and procedures

Negotiation: when two or more parties with conflicting views attempt to resolve their divergent goals by redefining the terms of their interdependence

Third-party Conflict Resolution: attempt by a relatively neutral person to help the parties resolve their differences

Chapter 10 Related Article

Chapter 10: Power and Influence in the Workplace

This particular article discusses the abuse of power within the workplace. Not only does this article focus on the different elements on abuse of power it gives an in-depth way of resolving issues with a person who is abusive within the work place.

http://www.thefabricator.com/article/shopmanagement/abuse-of-power-in-the-workplace

Bell, Vikki. "Abuse of Power in the Workplace." TheFabricator. 10 Apr. 2007. Web. 11 Apr. 2010. .

-Power is the capacity to influence others

4 Sources of Power:

-Legitimate power: an agreement among organizational members that people in certain roles can request certain behaviors of others

-Reward power: derived from the ability to control the allocation of rewards valued by others and to remove negative sanctions

-Coercive power: ability to apply punishment

-Expert power: is the capacity to influence others by possessing knowledge or skills that they value

4 Contingence

-individuals and work unit are powerful

-centrality: the number of people affected

-Discretion is the freedom to exercise judgment

-visibility: the idea that power increases to the extent that a person’s or work unit’s competencies are known to others

-social networking involves cultivating social relationships with others to accomplish goals

-influence alters someone’s attitudes and behavior

-“soft” influence tactics: friendly persuasion and subtle ingratiation

-“hard” influence tactics: upward appeal and assertiveness

-organizational politics: influence tactics that observes perceive to the self-serving behaviors at the expense of others

-organizational politics can be minimized by providing clear rules for resource allocation, establish a free flow of info, educate and involve people during organizational changes

Chapter 9 Related Article

Chapter 9: Communicating in Teams & Organizations

This article showcases the different ways one can improve the communication as a manger to their team. Giving examples of different channels one could use to reach out to the team they also focus on the “How” and “Why” these are important to keep one’s team informed of the goings on of the group.

http://www.bnet.com/2410-13056_23-68775.html

Editorial, Bnet. "Improving Communication with Your Team | BNET." BNET Today | Management, Strategy, Work Life Skills & Advice for Professionals. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. .

Chapter 9-Communicating in Teams and Organizations

-Communication: process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people

-supports work coordination/organizational learning/decision making/employee well being

Communication Process: forming, encoding, transmitting the intended message to a receiver, decoding message and provides feedback to sender

2 Types of Communication

-Verbal: Spoken communication

-Nonverbal: Body language, facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance, & silence

-Email isn’t always the most appropriate form of communication it’s just an easy outlet

-most appropriate medium partly depends on social acceptance factors, including organization and team norms

-individuals preference for specific communication channels

-barriers create noise in the communication process

-people misinterpret messages due to perceptual biases

-People screen out messages due to information overload

-problems amplified in cross-cultural settings w/ language barriers and difference in nonverbal cues

-to get message across empathize with the receiver w/ what the information is being presented

-Management by walking around: communication practice in which executives get out of their offices and learn from others in the organization through face-to-face dialogue

-Grapevine: an unstructured informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions

Team Dynamics Related Article

Chapter 8: team Dynamics

This article takes a look at the understanding of team dynamics and shows how you can use it to your advantage within the work place. They specifically focus on problem solving as a key skill for you to focus on.

http://www.helium.com/items/114532-understanding-team-dynamics-in-the-workplace

Armstrong, Teresa. "Understanding Team Dynamics in the Workplace." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Web. 30 March 2010. .

Chapter 8-Team Dynamics

Teams are groups of 2 or more people who interact and influence each other and are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organizational objectives

Why do people join teams?

-4 Reasons

-People have an innate drive to bond

-group membership is an inherent ingredient in a person’s self-concept

-personal goals are accomplished better in groups

-individuals are comforted in stressful situations by the mere presence of other people

-Teams make better decisions in most scenarios

-Teams are not always effective if people don’t pull their weight in the process

Team effectiveness

-team’s ability to achieve its objectives

-fulfill the needs of its members

-maintain itself

3 Team Design Elements

-Task Characteristics: when teams can be divided into specialized roles according to the task at hand

-Team Size: Depending on work load and the amount of people in the group size will dictate how work can be accomplished

-Team Composition: to pick people that have knowledge of the subject matter so each individual in the group can bring something to the table

Stages of Team Development:

-Storming: competing for team roles/influence goals and means/establish norms

-Norming: discovering expectations/setting up the value of team members/establish roles/agree on objectives/develop cohesion

-performing: task oriented/committed/efficient coordination/high cooperation and trust

-adjourning:ending the meeting

Team identity:

-identifying yourselves and what you are aimed at accomplishing

Team competence:

- are the people in your group the right people do they understand the group and what they are about.

Team Cohesion:

-the degree of attraction people feel toward the team and their motivation to remain members

Self-directed Teams (SDTs):

-cross functional work groups that are organized around work processes, complete an entire piece of work requiring several interdependent tasks, and have substantial autonomy over the execution of those tasks