connecting the dots
A common theme behind most of my blog posts stem around
managers, and the way those below them react to their form of management.
Organizational economics gives insight onto how every little piece of an
organization determines the efficiency and production of such organization. In
my blog post about rowing back when I was in high school I talked about how the
inefficiency of my coaches led the rest of the team to do poorly while only a
few boats were exceling. I also talked about how a coworker of mine was leaving
early and coming in late to work almost every week. If those in charge had a
better outlook on management, and better control over the people below them
what would those organizations look like?
What I found interesting; however, looking back on my blogs
was the amount of blame I put on managers for failures. Many of the instances I
spoke about could have been resolved with more employee initiation. For example,
in one of my blogs I spoke about a summer camp my mother ran that is currently
being run into the ground due to poor succession. However, if there was more
employee initiative to take control of the situation and learn the ropes behind
managing such an organization the camp could still be successful. Consequently,
thinking about this connection has lead me to think beyond the who is at fault
and tie in what causes the fault. For one, when the goal and organization of a
company lacks inspiration managers and employees fail to keep motivated and
tend to lack enjoyment out of their work. Which leads me into my second point: selfishness.
If neither the managers or employees have a desire to watch their peers and the
company grow, and are focused on themselves, it leads to dysfunction in order. Disgruntled
employees could almost be described as their own transaction cost. The more a
person becomes aggravated in their work, the more this aggravation is
transcended into the finished product of a company.
What is interesting about these blog post and what makes
them sometimes a little difficult to write is how one must people to recognize
a theoretical idea and apply this to an occurrence through experience. These
connections I’m making spark an interest in my head to continue to make these
connections whether I am at work, in class, or just spending time with my
friends. Every part of our lives contains a social organization. For example, a
friend group generally has one person who leads the pack, and it is this person
who decides what the group may be doing for the weekend. A family is headed by
a mother and father, and the way they raise and treat their children most of
the time determines that child input into the world after they grow up.
My process for determining the content of my post has
definitely evolved since the first post. That meaning I try not to look at it
so straightforward, and I appreciate that this in a approach valued in this
class. Instead of going down a list of bullet points and trying to come up with
something that the Professor might like, I try and write about the way my mind
views a certain topic and how I interpret it. Therefore, going forward I think
a good approach to the prompts could maybe entail just a couple words that have
some sort of connection and see what the students make of it. Being able to
turn a few words into 800 words is what really sparks imagination.
Let me begin with a comment I might have put on your post about the summer camp run by your mother. An issue that many organizations struggle with is business continuity and succession planning. It is a challenge even in the best of circumstances, but it becomes particularly acute if the need is not realized in advance. When it is not handled well turnover of key personnel can cripple an organization. When it is well managed, the successor might still take some bumps in assuming the job, but then normalcy returns to the organization and its operations.
ReplyDeleteOn the part where you wrote about selfishness of employees and managers, ultimately I believe we are self-interested. So I prefer to consider this as being myopic and impatient, on the one hand, versus being farsighted and cooperative. Elsewhere, meaning not in our course, there is the expression - deferred gratification - and the people who learn that master the ability to work hard now for rewards that are down the road. Other people live in the present. This is often discussed with regard to personal saving behavior. Some people build up a nest egg. Others don't accumulate much at all, even if both have similar patterns of income. I think those ideas extend to the workplace. You don't have to be a saint to be collegial when interacting in groups and helping to make the group function well.
With regard to your suggestion about prompts, note that in many cases the blogging precedes our discussion of the topic in class. On Tuesday I will talk about modifying that, where some of what you write is a reflection on what came before. Then maybe even a few words is not necessary. You already have all the ammunition you need to write something interesting. But on a fundamentally new subject, I think some context is necessary to get people going.