List The Key Ideas You Have Extracted From The Prescribed e-learning Activity.
Question
you should address the following two sections:
1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organization you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.
Activity 1: Solomon Asch and Group Conformity
URL:
(1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA;
(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvGh_n3I_M
Questions to consider:
1. Does your own personal decision-making always reflect an objective process?
2. Does the desire to be accepted as a part of a group leave one susceptible to conforming to the group’s norms?
3. Identify and discuss situational factors that can enable a group to exert pressure strong enough to change a member’s attitude and behavior.
Activity 2: Holacracy
URL: Zappos just abolished bosses. Inside tech’s latest management craze. http://www.vox.com/2014/7/11/5876235/silicon-valleys-latest-management-craze-holacracy-explained
Questions to consider:
1. What’s your understanding of holacracy? How would you describe it compared to bureaucracy and team-based structure?
2. Discuss how Contingency Factors of Organizational Design are at work in the case of Zappos?
3. In what ways do you think innovative culture is related to (agile) organizational structure?
Answer ( 1 )
Activity 1
1. From the perspective of an individual it can be said that the personal decision making always have a significant impact or influence on the respective objective processes. In order to fulfil certain specific organizational objectives and goals, personal decision making process plays a significant role. In this specific context, it can be said that the decision making process facilitates an individual in the context of formulation and implementation of well managed, structured and well informed decisions that can have a larger impact or influence upon the processes and procedures that are needed to be implemented for the purpose of achieving the specific set of goals and objectives the achievement of which can lead towards individual career success, growth or development to a larger extent (Hayes, 2014). However, in this specific context, it can be said that the decision making process of an individual needs to be properly aligned and in line with the key objectives and goals. This can lead to better realization of the goals and objectives thereby leading towards better and improved success in the context of fulfilling the specific goals and objectives.
2. When an individual desires to be accepted in a specific group of team, the individual can be said to be well susceptible towards accepting and confirming to the group dynamics, objectives and norms. When wanting to be an active part or member of a group, the individual may be forced towards accepting the overall group norms and policies, even though the individual don’t want to abide by such policies or regulations. However, the overall selection of the individual in the group is well dependent upon the acceptance and obligation of the groups norms and policies. Thus it can be significantly said that for the purpose of getting selected or accepted within a group, an individual needs to comply with the group standards, norms or regulations that largely governs the selection of the individual into the respective group.
3. There exist some key situational factors that influences or enables a group in exerting pressure on specific group members for changing their specific attitudes or behaviors. A group can only function properly and achieve a high performance level only if the group members work as per the group objectives, norms, regulations or protocols. On the grounds of an individual member refusing to oblige the group’s protocols, the respective group can exert pressure on the member and forcing him or her to comply with the group standards and norms. In addition, on grounds of a member failing to collaborate with other members for working with a coherent vision for fulfilment of the group objectives, the respective group can exert high pressure on the member and force the member into participating in active collaboration within the group that is needed for fulfilment of the group goals and objectives. Pressure can also be exerted on a group member on grounds of misconduct or misbehavior that can lead to conflicts and disputes within a group, thereby resulting in low group performance or efficiency.
Activity 2
1. The term holacracy can be considered to be a specific management approach that is aimed at emphasizing on experimentation. Under such a specific approach, the respective management or CEO of an organization is seen to be focused upon relinquishing of authority along with reorganization of the employees into specific decentralized team or groups who have the power of choosing or implementing their own sets of goals, objectives, roles and responsibilities. Now considering from the perspective of an organization such as Zappos, the aim of implementation of holacracy is to facilitate the growth and establishment if highly innovative and creative ideas within the organization that is needed for better organizational performance, efficiency and productivity (Burns, 2011.).
Unlike, team based structure and bureaucracy, the approach of holacracy grants specialized protection to the employees for experimenting with innovative concepts and ideas rather than following and obliging to strict organizational regime, policies and procedures. Thus, unlike the aspects of team based structure and bureaucracy, the management approach of holacracy can be said to offer high flexibility to the employees for experimenting with innovation and creativity thereby resulting in generation of new ideas, concepts and theories that can help the organization in obtaining of a competitive advantage in the market industry of their business operations.
2. From analysis of the case scenario, it is evident that Zappos has focused upon implementing the management approach of holacracy. From the perspectives of organizational design or approach, the approach of holacracy enables the individual employees to experiment with their innovative and creative ideas and come up with new concepts that can prove to add to the sustainability of the organization over longer term. Therefore, holacracy is said to introduce a specific traditional hierarchy within the organization of Zappos, having one specific exception. Under this specific exception the respective staffs and employees of the organization can act as subordinate as well as superior towards the exact same individual person or employee. Although this specific approach is said to enable idea generation, on grounds of mistakes and screw ups the employees are subjected to questioning and show causes for their mistakes or failures.
3. The overall structure of an organization is highly dependent on the innovative culture or environment within the organization. With high levels of innovation and creativity within an organization such as Zappos, the top level management significantly enjoys the capability of using such innovative and creative ideas to enhance the performance or efficiency of the organization highly. However, innovative culture in an organization is driven by agile or flexible organizational structure (Tidd, 2010). Unless the policies, norms and environment of an organization is flexible, it fails to drive high innovation and creativity among different organizational departments or levels, thereby resulting in high organizational profitability, growth and sustainability concerning their key operations in the concerned industry market sector.