Organizational Culture and Managing People

It was very interesting to look at the organizational culture of my company.  Perception is always a difficult thing.  I have only worked there for a little over a year and could easily see when I started there the problems and the unhappiness in some of my co-workers.  However, there has been a change in management recently and even during this short week of absence, our new manager has taken significant strides in correcting the issues that we were experiencing especially in the arena of socialization.  He replaced HP with another outsourcing company, but the scope and framework will be totally different from what had been implemented in the past.
 

My most favorite discussion or class was in regards to motivation. The story about the climb to Mt. Everest will probably be one of things that I will actually remember and talk about for years to come outside of GA Tech. I think that it was a strong piece in how to motivate someone, think of the entire team, to have one common goal, and most important to be selfless.  It is key to understand also what we as managers or team players are doing to be motivating.  I found some important things about flaws in how I can communicate, which is something  that will help me to grow going forward because I was failing to fully articulate my ideas.

Effective Communication

We did an exercise in class where we had to tell someone something that I liked about their outfit.  Then do it again and reword it with the word “but”.  The word “but” almost immediately puts you on the defensive.  However, in your day to day conversations, one would never think about it because it seems such a small and inconsequential thing, but it has a tremendous effect.  I have struggled all semester with getting my MOT team to side with my view on a couple of projects.  Even in our desert survival class exercise, I scored the least of everyone in our team with a 47, but our team average was a 76.  I failed to adequately communicate my position on some of the items as well as I was not as outspoken as some of the others.  There was actually someone on our team who said that the salt tablets were needed to produce water.  He was very adamant and seemed quite believable so we ranked it higher (9) when I had ranked it as at 14.  It was how he presented it that got us on his side.  Now when I think back to my team struggles, it was more because of how I was trying to get my ideas across. 

                This week alone I caught myself several times stating something positive and countering it with something negative; and I instantly noticed the mannerisms and facial expressions of the person I was speaking with change.  Small things - (1) word makes a big impact or difference for a conversation that was meant to be positive to in seconds be considered negative, thus putting then on the defensive.  At the end of the day, it looks like I have been the key to my own problems.

One Common Goal

Can teams work effectively together? If not, can you pin point the problem?  The answer to both - not always.  There are a lot of things that go into making a team effective.  For example, structure (Does everyone know their role and responsibilities?) and communication (Can everyone share their ideas and give and, most importantly, receive feedback?)

These are all great things, but mean absolutely nothing when everyone is not on the same page.  This past weekend we discussed in class two great examples of a team that did not work so well together (The Army Crew Team) and one that did (Everest).

The JV team was expected to not be the strongest team and felt they had “Nothing To Lose” so they gave their very best every time.  The Varsity team, on the other hand, thought they were strong individually and collectively they should have been the stronger team.  However, they were not.  There wasn’t any team cohesiveness.  They blamed each other.

In the Mount Everest film, I remember one of the team members saying something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter which side you fall off of.  You are in it every step of the way.”   They all as a team accomplished their goal versus individually.  They were able to sacrifice, endure uncertainty, and, unbelievably, to assist a blind man to climb to the top of Mount Everest.

At the end of the day, you may not personally like the people you work with or even share some of their day to day interests, but when you come together as a team, collectively the team should have a target in mind.  The Varsity team had to learn to have a common respect for each other.  Communication and structure are two to name a few in helping to build an effective team, but you have to have a common goal.

Is It Motivation Or Bribe?!????

Ever since my son has been in school, and he is now 14 years of age in the 9th grade, we have basically operated under the Expectancy Theory. He was rewarded based upon certain criteria of his grades:


• whether or not the grade was achieved on a test, a report card, or a progress report

• were the grades consistent across all classes or a few

• was he balancing a sport or extracurricular activity

• did he reach out for help when he needed it

Over time or as he has gotten older, the reward or benefits of his good grades have increased as well either monetarily or via something more tangible like tickets to a Falcons game or a new game for his PlayStation. Of course, he learned quickly that the more A’s he made, the happier his parents were and better the reward.

Interestingly enough, now that he has entered high school, he is in more advanced classes and feels like it is something he “has” to do. I am “making” him do it. All of his other friends aren’t in the advanced classes. Why does he have to be in the advanced classes? It’s consuming his free time to hang out with them. Self-Determination Theory definitely!

What motivated me 20 years ago definitely is not the same as what motivates me today. People change. Environments change. Just like I need to adapt and figure out what motivates my son at home, organizations need to do the same for their employees.

Is It Their Personality Or My Perception ?!?!

If you are placed in a group with a couple of INTJs (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging) who think they are ENTPs (Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving), and you personally are an ESTJ (Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging) AKA organizer, does that equate to a dysfunctional group? Let’s look at it another way, imagine being in a room where no one agrees; everyone has their own ideas and theories and absolutely fails to be able to convince the others to agree with their views or anything else for that matter. Some would say “Oh, she is a female and therefore, highly emotional. “ Others might say “He’s from India, and he has trouble articulating his ideas. “ On the other hand, my view may be “He’s just plain overbearing and stubborn. It’s his way or no way.” Well is that perception or personality?


I think that it is both. From a personality perspective, I am very organized, sociable, and confident. I am not aggressive, argumentative, and inflexible. I tend to have a hard time communicating with people that are exactly those – aggressive and argumentative, and when that happens I tend to project inwardly my anger and eventually explode if it continues. People tend to perceive that as a weakness or that I do not care, but it is the exact opposite. I don’t believe that meetings or conversations have to be reduced to arguments which at the end of the day are quite unproductive. I have learned to ask questions first to try to understand their point of view, promoting “group think”, and assigning proper roles before making decisions which makes it easier to deal with the personalities. However, impacting other’s perceptions is far more difficult and something that I struggle with daily even though we may have common goals.  Hence, the irony in the title.

Perspectives

Meeting after meeting, have you ever wondered how people can walk away with a different understanding of what the team goal is?  Or ever been to a training class where people walked away with a different understanding of the material presented?  It happens every day, every hour, if not every minute, and it’s called having a “perspective”.

Perspectives can be derived from a myriad of exposures (i.e. how and where we were raised, our religious beliefs, our political beliefs, and something as simple as our gender or race).  Because everyone has their own perspective, particularly in an organizational or team setting, it can either be exceptionally easy to work with others or exceptionally difficult if the members of the team do not see eye to eye.  What are others trying to get out of a meeting or a goal?  Are we all looking for the same thing?  Do we see all of the details or are we missing something?  A great example was the video of the basketball players.  The question at the beginning of the movie was to count the number of times the players in white passed the basketball.  So immediately my focus was on counting how many times they passed the basketball.  However, I missed an important detail – the dancing bear. 

When in meetings, conversations, trainings, and more, we as individuals focus on our perspectives and goals, and fail to try to even understand the needs and / or initiatives of others.  Another way to look at this is as a manager, I should seek to understand my employees’ strengths and weaknesses so that I can put them in positions where they can excel and develop.  Without this I am doing a disservice to my company as well as my team because I am not maximizing the potential of my group which in turn would potentially maximize profits for the company. 

Who Am I

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but raised for the majority of my life in Nesbit, Mississippi.  We did not have much, but we grew up with a strong sense of family and values.  I spent my undergraduate years at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame (South Bend), IN.  It was quite a culture shock being from Mississippi attending a school in Indiana, primarily because of the weather.  The first major adjustment was to the Winter!!!!  My freshman year was the first time ND had closed school due to the weather in over 10 years.  However, being there forced me to grow up and to gain more independence and responsibility.

Quentin and I

I have a 14 year old son named Quentin Champion, who is in the 9th grade at Riverwood International Charter School.   He is my most relished accomplishment and consumes a large portion of my free time with his activities!!  He plays a sport for every season (football, basketball, baseball, and track), and somehow seems to always find time for other activities along with the sports.

My favorite hobby / stress reliever is tennis.  It not only helps to clear my mind from a hectic day, but it also is great exercise, especially since I seem to avoid the gym like the plague.  I am also a people person, and tennis cultivates not only a team atmosphere, but also opportunities for networking.  I play ALTA, T2, LeagueTennis, and Ultimate Tennis.  I also like to play mixed as well as doubles tennis, but find that my joints are a little old / out of shape to play singles.   My women's ALTA team makes it to the play-offs every year.  However, we always lose in the second round of the play-offs.  Needless to say, we are looking to break that curse this season.

In the next 5 years, I am looking to grow my consulting company.  I currently have three clients, but due to time constraints, availability of resources, and lack of the entrepreneurial know-how, I have not reached the volume that I would like to have.  I am not looking to own the largest consulting company, but I want to establish a brand that speaks quality and customer service, which seems to be lacking from several existing vendors.  With that being said, I would like to become one of Microsoft's key female / minority owned consulting services firms in the Southeast within that time frame.