The Secret to Managing Change

I have dealt with many different changes in the last three years even if they weren’t major changes I still had to adjust.  Having to move place to place because of the military is always a huge adjustment.  I learned that the only way to get through change is to take it day by day, accept the adjustment and move forward.  He mentioned in the video, “Change is something within us,” we must want to accept changes and adjust to whatever comes our way.  If we are able to transition then we will always be able to accept change.  Another way to impose change upon us would be to look at our values and see what really is important to us; we control our own change majority of the time.

Sometimes we can’t control change; things may happen that we are forced to accept even if we don’t approve of it.  But we can sometimes initiate change when we aren’t making the right choices in life or if our life isn’t going the way we planned.  We will have to make many changes and focus on activities that will lead me to the right path.  My mother recently got ill and I had to change my life and adjust my focus towards her needs.  The change did throw me off track but I had to accept the problems and keep my focus on what was ahead of us.

The entire video got my attention, he made me really think twice about my values and what is really acceptable and what isn’t.  I even wrote down some of my values to see if I could change or adjust anything that would make my life a little better.

Deborah Garrett VP of HR at Intuit

If I was looking towards an HR degree, this would be the perfect job to gain so much experience from. I would be able to work in a different work environment, help manage a team and encourage change among my fellow employees.  I would also get the chance to move around place to place and experience the different surroundings.  I will also gain a network of clients for my future and meet many different people from all over the world while traveling.  Intuit is one of the best companies to work for in the United States, and has a great reputation.  This does seem like a great company to work for, but this position wouldn’t fit my personnel preference.  My major is focused on Marketing, if this position was focused on marketing the company or promoting the products then I would apply.
HR policies play a major role in our behavior while at work.  HR policies make up the rules and regulations while and during any work function.  When people are giving a minimal amount of rules they are more likely to be laid back and stress free, because they aren’t worried about breaking one of the policies.  When our HR’s have strict policies it usually leads to higher stress levels at work, low performance scores and people always leaving the job due to their policies.
HR managers usually have the final say when choosing the right candidate for the job; I think managers should have more control on choosing who will be working side by side with the team.  It makes it easier for the manager to choose somebody that will be just right for the job since they are familiar with the position and familiar with the other workers.  It is always best to pick someone that will fit right in and the manager will have a better idea of who would be right.

Insights into Corporate Culture

The actors in the video are trying to encourage others to speak up if they feel something isn’t right in their work environment.  They don’t want people to keep ignoring behavioral that isn’t ethical in their work culture.  In the video it states, “The behaviors I accept are what I Condone and the behaviors ignored are what I sanction,” If we accept what people around us are doing wrong then it clearly means we follow their same beliefs.   
It’s hard to just go in and change corporate culture because people get so use to their normal policies and producers at work it soon becomes a norm to them.  If they were to change anything dealing with work many people would panic because of the adjustments to new policies.
If we had to change anything dealing with corporate culture we would include the employees on helping us suggest ideas and even making major changes to the company.  This will allow every employee to have some sort of say in the changes and will not freak everyone out when change does occur. 
When I worked with Lowes our floor manager would gather all cashiers together once a week.  Our manager would reward us with refreshments and snacks as we went over next week’s plan of action.  She would sit with us and have a face to face conversation wanting to know any concerns going on around us and would also gather ideas on how to improve sales for the upcoming week.  Each meeting allowed every cashier to suggest new policies and talk about different changes we could make at our local store.

Organization Structures

The organization chart that I drew out is the Division Organizational chart.  I previously worked for Lowes and this is how we were split up by zones and departments. These charts are very helpful in a variety of ways and useful on a daily basis.  The article states the advantage of this structure, “It allows the divisions to focus on producing the specialized products for that area while still using knowledge gained from different but related divisions.”   At this company we used the chart to organize the different departments and help us figure out who were the leaders of each zone/department.  It was useful to the customer service department, because if any customer needed help they were able to glance at the chart and know exactly who they needed to call.

One day I hope to open a day spa and salon these types of organizational charts will come in handy.  The Functional Organizational structure would be something I could use towards organizing each employee by their specific job/duty at the spa/salon.  This structure will help me control my management system by each section of the spa/salon.  Having an organization structure like this will help us all control our own conflicts within our teams and the decision making is centralized within your own area. We minimize conflict and everyone still feels some type of independence.

Lying

I think in certain situations it may be okay say some small fibs but if you are doing to internally harm someone then it’s wrong.  Also if you’re being deceitful towards people in order to gain success that is not okay and in most cases people lie in order to gain control.  Depending on the type of information that is being left out or falsely said will depend is the situation is unethical or legal.  If you want to bare your entire soul while negotiating, I doubt you will get the best deal, unless the other person feels completely sorry for you.  If you want to be naive and tell the whole truth then you do what you want, I would never give every detail when trying to negotiate something, I want to win and get the best offer.  I don’t think their our certain rules to negotiating, As long as you’re not breaking the law or harming anyone and the other person agrees with you then keep doing what your doing.

Aping

In my opinion Aping others does actual work, the area you can sway others to your opinion.

I recall a situation where I was put around  very successful people, where they were conversing about their fabulous weekends on their awesome boats and about the wonderful cars they drove, and all it made me want to do was be successful.  In my opinion i believe that it is very easy to sway a person perceptive on the way they look or believe in things, as long as no one is getting harm then I think it’s okay to use aping in order to gain customers.

 

Honestly I never noticed if someone did try to mimicry me, and if they were then it worked because I usually buy a majority of things that people try to sell to me.  If people are using good judgement then I don’t see any problem.

Whole Foods’ Rahodeb

If I was an employee for Whole Foods I would be embarrassed knowing our own CEO was bad mouthing another company just so Whole Foods could stay on top.  That makes the company as a whole look bad and these types of actions show the employees that it’s okay to be unethical and lie just to increase sales.

I would also lose a lot of trust for our CEO if they were to do something like this.  The CEO is willing to do anything to go as low as making false claims about certain competitors, only makes him look bad.

 My behavior would change dramatically I would not be so trust worthy in my company and I would start to wonder if he is willing to go that low and bash another company then I’m sure he wouldn’t care to bash his own employees.  This also affects my behavior because John is setting the example and it’s like he is saying its okay to bad mouth people to get what you want.  What would happen if we would start bad mouthing our co-workers just to make our way up in the company, that’s not an ethical way to run a company?

Defining the Boundaries of Technology

 I feel that the user of the computer would make ethical decisions while using his or hers work computer.  If the company chooses not to have any specific police regarding non-work related uses then that’s what the company wants.  But as the employee they should be making an ethical choice and not use the computer or internet for things that are unnecessary or non-work-related.

 As for the internet if a company wanted they could always pull the history, but as I mentioned already, if this is how the company runs things then they aren’t being unethical this is just the companies policy and they feel they can trust their employees with making the right choices and using the internet for work related material only.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         I I think if a company was monitoring calls just because then they are being unethical, but many jobs require the company to monitor certain devices in order to keep track of customers that are calling in or customers that they are calling out.  Also many companies will record conversation with the customer in order to use them for training.  I think it just depends on the situation and what exactly the company is monitoring.

Ethical Dilemma

After reading this article I felt that Zach was acting like a child, only because he didn’t want to work with people that aren’t as smart as him.  I understand that his pay raise and evolution is on the line, but he doesn’t have to be selfish.  Zach should have taking the group under his wing and help the other co-workers understand the project better.  Maybe if someone else was to explain what was going on than other members of the group would know exactly what to do.

In all my upper level classes we all knew who wouldn’t do the work and who would.  I have been lucky to always have people that do just as much work as I do.  But In High School I did have many classmates that would complain to the teacher to let them work alone, because the people in their team were lazy.

I think as the employer they need to let Zach know that this is his job and sometimes he has to work with others, unless it was stated in his contact that he would always work alone.  I feel like Zach is just trying to get his way because he doesn’t want to work with people that know less than him.  Has a team member Zach should put on a smile and try his best and teach his co-workers as much as he knows.

If I was Zach manager I would sit him down and go over his contract and his job duties and make him aware that sometimes even if we don’t want to work with others, we have to.   I would also let Zach know that we need someone with his strong abilities to help out the other co-workers.  Just because Zach thinks he is better then everyone doesn’t make him better.  If I worked alongside of Zach I would tell him that he needs to give everyone a chance and if he feels someone’s isn’t putting enough effort in, well he needs to let our manager know, that way our manage can do something to fix this problem.

Social Loafing

 The most recent situation was while having to design a PowerPoint presentation for class.  Our topic was simple and there wasn’t much work to be passed around.  After dividing the entire project in to sections so it would be equal, we expected everyone to go off and do their own personnel research on the side. Once we finally meet only a few of us had looked up any info about the project, the others just gave excuses about having other stuff to do.  Since my fellow group members didn’t want to fail we just deiced that we would manage the project and finish up ourselves, not wait for the other group members.

 After that every time we had a project we would assign one person as our main leader and that person would design the presentation and all the other members would have to send as much information about the project to that leader, we would all rotate throughout the semester.  We learned that sometimes not everyone can meet at the same time, but if we divided all the work equally throughout the semester then everything would be fair, that way if someone couldn’t make a group meeting this week, there would always be next time.

I personnel love working in groups because we can share all our different ideas and we can learn from each other.  Also sometimes it’s easier to understand the assignment or the project because we have others analyze it as well.  I feel that best approach would be to use the same approach we used to solve our own situation of social loafing.  Divide the project equally and meet as much as possible or even get together and do the research while everyone is together, that way everyone is spending the same amount of time on the project.

I would give my group members a survey to take at the end of the project, to let me know who did what, and how much effort each person put into their group project.  I would also assign a group leader to manage how much time everyone puts into it. As a manager I would as well monitor the group progress and make sure they are on track.