A633.4.3.RB_DiazBrian

More organizations are beginning to consider the ideas and suggestions from the lower levels of their hierarchy.  The reason is simple.  The players that actively deal with the issues and concerns of the organization on a daily basis are the ones that generally have the best ideas on how to solve those issues.  The higher up the organizational chart, the more likely removed from what is transpiring at the lower level.  The level responsible for either the organization’s failures or its successes.  “Complexity looks messy, and control seems absent.  The typical response to a dynamic and complex situation id for leaders to ‘get a grip’ and try to exert more control – but that is not what should be done!  Such an effort, more often than not, results in waste and the opposite effect of what is desired” (Obolensky, 2014, pg. 47). 

In my organization strategy is in play to achieve a vision many years removed.  While the destination has been identified the methodology and means by which to get there must be redefined in order to meet this objective.  More so than ever there has been an increasing demand to produce above and beyond our measured goals.  While goals should be used as a measuring device to track progress, they should not be dangled over employees on a daily basis like a carrot on a stick backed with ultimatums.  It sends the wrong message and demotivates employees.  If employees are unhappy of course their work will suffer and a “butterfly effect” can take shape.  If an organization is going to look for answers from the bottom-up then it has to be sincere about taking those ideas and suggestions and implementing them to make the organization better.

Upper levels of leadership I believe are so inundated with mandates and directives that judgements can become clouded and one dimensional.  To counteract the consequences of top-down strategy more trust should be given to lower levels of our organization in an attempt to right-side things.  This can only be achieved with trust!  Often we are told that we are responsible for innovating ideas that will make a difference.  If those ideas are ignored however sooner or later participation will cease and it can negatively impact the members involved.  “Effective followers temper their loyalties to satisfy organizational needs—or they find new organizations. Effective leaders know how to channel the energies of strong commitment in ways that will satisfy corporate goals as well as a follower’s personal needs” (Kelley, 1988).  When organizations enter a cross roads they have to evaluate whether or not the pieces they have in place are the one that will suit their needs.   However, they are not the only ones making that same evaluation.  Disrupting organizational harmony can lead to employees seeking opportunities elsewhere.

 

ERAU has an opportunity to reach the destination it has envisioned but it will not do it without the assistance of those at the bottom of the organization.  The organization must rely on those in the lower levels of the organization in order to reach their destination.  This is where innovation lies.  This is where passion and emotion live.  By nurturing and fostering an environment of support to those at the lower levels ERAU has the potential to reach their future goals.  They have to trust us to get there.  Hopefully I will get the opportunity to play a larger role in the organizations future.  I believe in the culture and in what we do.  In return I hope that the organization believes in me.  I am willing to go along for the ride.

Kelley, R. (1988). In Praise of Followers. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1988/11/in-praise-of-followers

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd. Ed.). Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing Company

A633.3.3.RB_DiazBrian

The sheer notion of working for an organization that employs the principles of self-management is intriguing.  A system of self-managed employees seems to have both advantages and disadvantages.  Eliminating managers can be a cost saving measure for an organization.  However this model is not for every organization.  “Assuming that each manager earns three times the average salary of a first-level employee, direct management costs would account for 33% of the payroll. Any way you cut it, management is expensive” (Hamel, 2011, para. 1).  In a self-managed organization employee salaries are based on seniority and task level/difficulty.  In a self-managed organization there is no boss directing others.  Employees share their responsibilities, communicate openly, and in the case of Morning Star, are contractually obligated to perform at a high level.   At Morning Star, “its organizational vision, is to create a company in which all team members ‘will be self-managing professionals, initiating communications and the coordination of their activities with fellow colleagues, customers, suppliers, and fellow industry participants, absent directives from others.’” (Hamel, 2011, para. 17).  At Morning Star disagreements or resolutions take place among staff members in an interesting manner.  If employees cannot resolve an issue one on one they can request that a colleague act as mediator in order to reach a resolution.  If one party does not agree with the mediator’s decision then a “jury” of employees presides over the issue much like our in our judicial system.  It is an interesting approach to conflict resolution.  Some of the challenges a self-managed organization might face are employees finding it difficult to adjust to this type of environment, complex hiring system, and accountability challenges.

 St. Luke’s Communications is another organization that is self-managed and has experienced tremendous success due to its company’s structure.  Coutu (2000) wrote “the firm requires employees to publicly evaluate their work once a month—that’s scary. But the agency rarely fires people—that’s safe. Indeed, it invites all employees to share their personal stories in the supportive environments of company get-togethers and outings. When employees sign on, they contractually agree to do the job at St. Luke’s that best suits them—often as determined in reviews by other employees” (para. 5).  Turnover at this organization is low and that speaks volumes of how their employees feel about the company.  Most organizations are so focused on meeting objectives, identifying opportunities, strategizing, and implementing change that I think it is very common for one important ingredient to be lost in the shuffle.  Happy employees.  When employees are happy they perform better.  Positivity can counter stress and result in a harmonious workplace which in turn can boost morale, motivation, and even health.  In my organization I have seen my share of stress and unhappiness with my team.  I have also had several members of my team confide in me their displeasure of our leadership.  These emotions do not foster productivity.  They foster resentment, significantly reduced productivity, and can cause relationships to sour.  My team and I share passion.  Our values and beliefs mirror one another.  However, due to the hierarchical makeup of our organization we sometimes feel under appreciated, undervalued, and ultimately unhappy.  Hamel (2011) wrote “the typical management hierarchy increases the risk of large, calamitous decisions. As decisions get bigger, the ranks of those able to challenge the decision maker get smaller. Hubris, myopia, and naïveté can lead to bad judgment at any level, but the danger is greatest when the decision maker’s power is, for all purposes, uncontestable. Give someone monarchlike authority, and sooner or later there will be a royal screwup. A related problem is that the most powerful managers are the ones furthest from frontline realities” (para. 3).

A company that reflects the model of self-management seen at Morning Star and St. Luke’s is W.L. Gore and Associates.  It is a privately held company that creates products for fabric laminates, medical implants, and fiber technologies.  They are a team based organization.  Their culture states that the organization has “no traditional organizational charts, no chains of command, nor predetermined channels of communication.  Instead, we communicate directly with each other and are accountable to fellow members of our multi-disciplined teams. We encourage hands-on innovation, involving those closest to a project in decision making. Teams organize around opportunities and leaders emerge. This unique kind of corporate structure has proven to be a significant contributor to associate satisfaction and retention” (“Our Culture,” 2015).  This organization empowers its employees drive projects through collaboration, communication, and creativity.  Quite the opposite of how my own organization is structured.  My organization could benefit by having a simpler hierarchical structure.  Currently if you view our organizational chart you will be looking at a 10 page document.  10 pages!  http://www.erau.edu/Assets/university/data/org-chart-2015.pdf#search=organizational%20chart.  How can an organization effectively make decisions when there are that many levels?  This creates immense challenges for an organization such as sub-cultures which can create further challenges for departments that are supposed to be working together.  It was refreshing to hear one of our new Directors recently acknowledge that this was a concern he was addressing.  As he moved up the ladder he experienced firsthand the disconnect in his own department.  Now that he is in a position of leadership he is changing that culture.  He is fostering an environment that is more collaborative, less stressful, and more involved in the decision making process.  If other department heads would do the same I feel a lot of concerns can be overcome and improvements can be made.  Changes such as the ones he has made will move our organization forward in the future.  At some point our company structure needs to be redacted and simplified.  If it can work for the three companies above, there must be something to flat organizations worth looking in to.

Coutu, D. L. (2000). Creating the Most Frightening Company on Earth. Harvard Business Review, 78(5), 142-150.

An Overview of Gore (2015). Retrieved from http://www.gore.com/en_xx/index.html

Hamel, G. (2011). First, Let's Fire all the Managers. Harvard Business Review, 89(12), 48-60.

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The butterfly effect or chaos theory as its known, is when small changes can drastically and unknowingly alter the effects based on the change or variance.  “Essentially, the theory looks at something called sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This means that even a very minute change in the initial conditions of a system can have dramatic effects on that system over time. Weather is a system that is studied widely so as to be better able to predict what conditions will be like” (“Chaos Theory,” n.d.).  In my organization we made a change about a year ago to help our students visualize their degree programs.  For each individual student we mapped out their entire degree program based on the five term offerings per year with a one course per term model.  The idea was to give the students a better indication of what would be required of them from a term to term basis.  It was also implemented in an effort to keep students guessing about which classes to take next.  But this small change for my department sent ripples throughout the organization.  First in order to be able to determine what classes would be available the scheduling department had to create a master course schedule two years out.  In order to offer these future terms the university needed to hire faculty to teach all of these course offerings, have them trained, and ready to go once the terms launched.  This involved the Director of Online Faculty and his staff to contract instructors.  With the need for all of these courses it was necessary to get funding in place for these future terms.  This brought our Financial Aid office and Veteran’s Affairs office into the mix.  One small seemingly insignificant change in how advisors were advising students had a complex and considerable impact on several systems within our organization.  The butterfly effect at work.

Complexity science or complex systems have four common features: self-organization; inter-relatedness; adaptive nature; and emergence.  Obolensky (2010) wrote “Self-organization emerged as an area of study through various scientific disciplines in the mid-twentieth century” (pgs. 89-90).  In my team we exhibit this trait.  We are basically self-managed.  There is no one checking on me during the day to verify if my individual reports are being complete, if I have returned my calls, or even answered my emails.  We are given the freedom to manage our day how we see fit.  “Complex systems have a high degree of inter-relatedness between their constituent parts” (Obolensky, 2010).  This causes complexity to grow.  There is a high degree of complexity in my organization that I feel can be simplified if the members of leadership considered it as much of a priority as their subordinates.  Obolensky (2010) wrote “Complex systems are highly adaptive to the environment within which they exist” (p. 92).  I have to admit in my near three years with the university I have seen my share of adaptability in response to the external environment in which we compete against.  Online learning has increased in popularity as the preferred learning method of students.  There has been increasing competition from other schools looking for a “slice of the pie”.  In order to remain relevant my organization has adapted to remain ahead of the curve.  They have increased degree program offerings, invested heavily in new technology, and expanded their physical campuses to offer students what they want.  This has been the university’s emergence in response to what other schools are trying to do.  The stakes are very high and success hinges on communication on behalf of the universities key stakeholders in order to advance their vision.

 

These efforts on behalf of my organization are made in order to provide the best possible collegiate experience for our students.  Another way in which we have attempted to set ourselves apart is by creating a webpage specifically for our advisors where students could go to and see who we are/what we look like.  Sounds easy enough right?  A webpage with an advisors bio.  However, there are (at last count I believe) 18 undergraduate advisors and eight graduate advisors.  We made videos for each one of us.  We had to prepare scripts, film our videos, make adjustments to our schedules, and devote a considerable amount of time to a task that at first seemed simple.  It took a lot of help from many different departments to accomplish this goal.  First, there had to be a budget in place.  Then locations were scouted.  We had to get approval to film in certain locations.  It took IT technicians, our web developers, our leadership, all the advisors, film crew, lighting department to all bring this to life.  On the surface what seemed so simple was extremely difficult and took about two years to plan and about six months to complete once it was started.  The result was a way for students to find out information about their degree programs, how to contact us, what we offer, and a multitude of other tools to assist in their success.  Here is what our hard work resulted in… http://worldwide.erau.edu/online/advisors/

Students always seemed to be confused once admitted to the university.  There were many questions.  This advisor bio-webpage was an attempt to make things simpler for students and to feel connected to us.  I am pretty proud of how it turned out.  Under all of the complexity was an underlining simplicity.

Chaos Theory Simplified. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.physicsplanet.com/articles/chaos-theory-simplified

Obolensky, N. (2010). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Burlington, VT; Gower Publishing Company