24/11/2008

In class the exercise was to get as many points as possible from other members of your group by using influence. I feel as if one of the group leaders by buying their points for more than the value of the prize in no way demonstrated power or influence. Instead this demonstrated the exact opposite of power and influence. 

I have always believed that I am power hungry, in the sense that I want to have some influence of my environment, and the decisions that are being made in organizations that I belong too. When managers try to influence me the best way for them to go about it is to exercise either legitimate or reward power as I would rarely respond well to coercive power. All someone being coercive would lead me to do is the minimal not to get in trouble, where as legitimate, and to a lesser extent rewards power, might encourage me to go above and beyond the minimum required effort.

I have seen leaders in volunteer groups simply state at the end of the day others contributions wont matter as they will make the final decision on the matter. This gives members of the team the impression that their contributions are worthless, which results in less contributions and fewer ideas for that leader to work from. When organizing frosh week I found that showing confidence in an individual to perform a task would empower them to take ownership for the role they were filling and do a better job than they would if they had merely been told what to do. 

Understanding the effects of different personalities in the workplace is on thing I will take away from this course. The big five personality types and their effect on success has made me take a good look at what factors I need to work on in order to be more successful in the future. For example, I am not a very conscientious person and I realize that this is one of my shortcomings that need to be addressed as a move forward in school and eventually into a career. On the other hand I have learnt that my lack neuroticism and extroversion are both very good qualities that will assist in my future successes. I also gained a lot from a greater understanding of communication. The realization that I have to be a better listener in order to better communicate is other thing I have taken away from this class. I have also used the communication model in other endeavours such as soliciting comments on a music blog I started with a friend. http://salacioussound.com/2008/11/three-house-remixes-of-three-pop-divas/ (see the picture @ the bottom of the post). 

17/11/2008

Conflicts with friends and family tend to be resolved a lot less civilly than those with co-workers. Generally I resolve conflict by trying to engage in an open discussion about the issues related to that conflict. At times i try to ignore the conflict...this is not such a good idea.

Resolving conflict through an open dialogue in which both individuals are attempting to be civil generally tends to work. This approach is limited in cases where the conflict is caused by an emotional issues.

The one thing I could do to improve my conflict resolution skills would be addressing conflicts openly rather than harboring grudges towards others without engaging in a dialogue about.
I would address the situation by stating who in fact had lead responsibility for the project and clearly discuss exact what my expectations of both of them with respect to the project are. I would take this approach because it would reduce ambiguities and address the situation head on. One potential negative would be upsetting the person who was wrong, which may affect the quality of their work. The main positive would be that there would no longer be any ambiguity and hopefully they would be more able to complete their respective jobs.

10/11/2008

The receiving component is definitely the most difficult. I tend to be more focused on sending messages. When I should be listening I am often thinking of my rebuttal rather than synthesizing the information that the person is communicating with me. I would argue that the majority of communication issues I have faced tend to be as a result of a lack of communication rather than a flaw in the communication itself. There have been times where a lack of communication has lead to a high degree of confusion and created conflicts that didn't have to happen.

I would say that I am about 5 on the active listening scale. Mostly because I tend to be on both extremes at different times so I would argue that I average out to about a 5. Depending on the situation, and generally the level at which I am emotionally involved in the conversation, I can be a very good or horrible listener. If I have a strong opinion on the matter my active listening skills bottom out, when I am having a rational conversation that is not a discussion of differing opinions I tend to be a much more active listener. This variance remains constant with both family and friends.

Actually communicating would probably be the first step because as I mentioned a lack of communication can be a problem for me. Furthermore getting feedback is an aspect of the communication model that I am not very good with.

As far as the assignment goes, the feedback I received was along the lines of what I expected, the effort I put in resulted in a grade that I believed was indicative of the level of effort I put in. Starting earlier would be the first step in improving my final draft. There was also a few leadership theories that I could have, and should have, considered in my questions.

3/11/2008

Working in teams generally helps to produce better results because of multiple sources of input. There are two major benefits to working in teams - different methods of thinking result in different ideas and different skill sets allow members of the team to compensate for one another's shortcomings. I find it difficult to accept it when my ideas are not used in favorably of something I disagree with. Often I have trouble taking a back seat to others and tend to dominate the discussion. This is something I have been consciously trying to change.


As I tend to be argumentative, outgoing, and creative my personality affects my contributions in various ways. The outgoing and argumentative aspect of my personality leads me to dominate discussion and make sure my ideas and opinions are heard. The creative aspect of my personality can be either very productive, it allows me to come up with unique perspectives and ideas, or tremendously distracting, I can easily get off track. I have had a lot of experience giving presentations, therefore I perceive myself to be good at it. Generally I will be the most willing to speak on behalf of a group. Three things I could work on in order to enhance my effectiveness as a team member would be: being more attentive to others contributions/ideas, staying on track, and not thinking I am always right.


The most disturbing aspect of the experiment was that it demonstrated that our perceptions of a culture can create it, even if there is no true basis for the culture to emerge other than those perceptions.


Norms such as timeliness, mutual respect, and open communication could help to contribute to a teams success. The negative team norms I have experienced have mostly been at various jobs. Generally the jobs I have had have involved two distinct cultures. That of when the boss is there and that of then they aren't. The norms without the boss are that everyone is a lot less effective than they would be if they were under supervision. This had a negative impact because laziness would beget more laziness and at times I even recognized that what we were doing had a negative impact on our performance.

5 Questions on Leadership

1. Are leaders born or made?
2. How does a good leader address the weakness of those they are leading?
3. Does a leader lead need to lead by example?
4. In a difficult situation does the leader address it themselves or instruct others on how to address the situation?
5. Should a leader be authoritative or democratic?
6. Is a leader a part of the team or the coach/overseer?

27/10/2008

The organizational culture of my ideal work environment would involve freedom of expression and a great amount of interaction and communication between workers. The freedom to be creative is integral to me and I often enjoy working when I am allowed to create solutions and develop concepts on my own with the feedback of others. One thing I would dislike in an organizational culture would be similar to that which the VP mentioned in class was faced with. People not being willing to discuss ideas honestly with one another, not to correct the person and opting to fix the problem in smaller groups behind one another's back. Open communication is integral to a good work environment.

This class made me reflect on my own working situation. I recently stoped working at a place where the environment was great and i trully miss it. The culture was strong and developed as a very slack and laid back atmosphere. This was mostly due to the fact that very few people took it seriously other than the owner/manager. It is a shame that certain issues with her management style made it difficult for me to keep working there as I really did appreciate the culture outside of when she was working as it was friendly and a good social atmosphere.

I would foster an organizational culture in which hierarchy was a mere formality and the entire company worked together filling in wherever need be in order to accomplish tasks as efficiently as possible. Open workspaces that allow easy communication between all members of the organization in order to improve both the efficacy and speed of communication between group members. The culture would certainly foster a sense of "fun-loving" hopefully resulting in a good social dynamic that involved socializing on a regular basis with co-workers, ideas can flow freely and developments can be made. Essential my organizational culture would be goal oriented, open communication, informal, and creative.

The second assignment was a lot better as far as my grade was concerned. I found that this assignment helped reveal a lot of the underlying issues which affect my satisfaction at work. In my brief discussion of my last blog I mentioned that I did not use the textbooks theories as well as I could have, i definately improved on that. The place that i could have improved would have been tying in the themes of this assignment with the themes of past sections of the course to better discuss how my personality type affected my needs and vice versa. On my next assignment I hope to be inclusive of all of the theories I have at my disposal for the best result possible.

20/10/2008