...climate that cared more about production rather than safety and environmental protective efforts, it was easier for drilling companies to make a great deal of flawed decisions in their business practices. If efforts to change the industry culture and implement better standards of operations do not come into play, the likelihood of such a similar event could happen again. As we look in to BP’s earlier years and identify their decision making pattern that were established while adapting to endless changes in their external environments, we will be able to better assess what the organizational culture was like at BP. Looking at the industry as a whole, we can assess how the actions of political parties and regulatory agencies influenced and shaped the culture for many firms operating in that industry. BP was always trying to cut costs wherever possible, worked hard to meet demands, and continuously exploring deeper water drilling opportunities. This type of behavior allowed BP to be an industry leader. With new environmental issues arising, new leaders, were influenced to adopt a greater sense of value in regard to work safety and environmental protection. BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, along with former BP leaders, had begun to put a little more value in to these safety and environmental issues, yet in times of critical decision making, it was easy to see that the company valued production and profit goal over safety. Hayward did not use...
Words: 2469 - Pages: 10
...analysis of the team’s performance and results and a critical analysis of the team’s communication interactions. Upon taking part in both the simulations, it was discovered that the team score was dramatically improved, from 46% to 83%. This improvement was attributed to the team’s enhanced performance, due to progressing through the team development stages, as our performance was superior in the ‘norming’ and ‘performing’ stages rather than the ‘forming’ and ‘storming’ stages. Another factor which enhanced the team’s performance and thus, team score was the alterations in group structure. By assigning roles to each team member, a defined structure was associated with a distinct change in direction. In addition, changing from directive decision-making to analytic as well as collaborating instead of forcing and accommodating to resolve conflict revealed improved team dynamics leading to an overall better result. Finally, through effective communication and the sharing of all knowledge, a superior outcome was reached as well as an improved team environment. It was noted that without effective and efficient communication, results of such a high standard would not have been achieved. 1. INTRODUCTION The Everest group simulation was an exercise which encouraged five students to play a unique and...
Words: 3665 - Pages: 15
...Building Synergies Charles Woodall August 9, 2010 Across the United States, state legislatures are responding to rising expectations in the workplace and the demands of a global economy by setting higher standards for schools. To enforce these standards, legislatures are creating high-stakes assessment systems that hold schools accountable for student achievement. In response to this initiative the president of the United States, Barack Obama, has created an initiative called “Race to the top”. This program was developed to give school districts financial incentives to improve failing schools and motivate educators about attaining these expectations. In addition, this “race to the top” initiative will increase the emphasis of accountability on teachers and school leaders. More than ever, in today’s climate of heightened expectations, principals are in the hot seat. They are being scrutinized on their ability to improve teaching and learning. They need to be educational visionaries, instructional and curriculum leaders, assessment experts, disciplinarians, community builders, public relations experts, budget analysts, facility managers, special programs administrators, and expert overseers of legal, contractual, and policy mandates and initiatives. They are expected to broker the often-conflicting interests of parents, teachers, students, district office...
Words: 3467 - Pages: 14
...Public Policy Scholars view decision-making as public participation and explore how various stakeholders (e.g., citizens, industry representatives, governmental agencies) can impact decision making processes, such as environmental issues (Depoe, Delicath, & Elsenbeer, 2004). This research examines how engagement in decision-making is impacted by the ways in which problems and solutions are communicatively defined and framed (Depoe et al., 2004). Health Communication Health communication research on decision-making focuses on the communication that occurs between patient-provider, patient-family, and among health professionals in making decisions. This research focuses on how decisions are made regarding treatment and prevention options (Marks, Ok, Joung, & Allegrante, 2010; Quillin, Tracy, Ancker, Mustian, Ellington, Viswanath, Miller, 2009), donor decisions (Brown et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2010), and health risk communication (Ozanne, Wittenberg, Garber, Weeks, 2010). This research tends to be both descriptive and prescriptive in approach, as the potential health outcomes studied are crucial and linked to illnesses such as cancer (Marks et al., 2010). In these contexts, decision-making is usually shared, defined as “a process in which the patient and providers consider outcome probabilities and patients’ preferences and reach a health care decision based on mutual agreement” (Orchard, King, Khalili, & Bezzina, 2012, p. 60). Embedded in this is an emphasis on the active...
Words: 1566 - Pages: 7
...December 16, 2015 There are several leadership theories, which can be observed throughout the educational setting. The level of input in the various leadership theories ranges from shared responsibility to the leader or another individual taking majority of the control. The school I have chosen for this assignment as well as the duration of this course is West Park Elementary in Ravenna City Schools. Frank Sciarabba is the principal of West Park currently. The time spent observing Mr. Sciarabba has allowed me to observe a few different leadership styles, which vary according to the situation at hand. The main leadership style observed by Mr. Sciarabba was the participative style. This style of leadership is when the people affected by the decision have the most feasible amount of input but the leader of the building makes the final decision. Lam, Huang, Chan (2015) define participative leadership style as shared influence and joint decisions being made between the leader and the followers. Mr, Sciarabba is always asking for input from staff members and when creating committees and teams of teachers he asks for teachers to volunteer to join a committee. He is open to suggestions and feels that the staff members have many ideas that should be shared but he ultimately makes the final decision after receiving input from the staff. This leadership style is occasionally a struggle because the staff members do not always participate. Lam, Huang, Chan (2015) state that there is...
Words: 1260 - Pages: 6
...achieve more than individuals acting alone. Organizations typically form groups in order to accomplish work related tasks; however, as a member of a work group you may unintentionally reap the numerous benefits independent of the original group construct. Defining characteristics of groups Groups can have varying numbers of members, communication styles, and structures. Research has identified a few common requirements contributing to the recognition of individuals working in a collaborative environment to be considered a “group” * Interdependence: In order for an individual of the collective to accomplish their part in the assigned task they depend, to some degree, on the outputs of other members of the collective. * Shared Identity * The shared identity of a group manifests in several ways. Groups may have official charters or mission and vision statements that lay out the identity of a group. For example, the Girl Scout mission states that “Girl...
Words: 1565 - Pages: 7
...generation A good product Good connections Passion and initiative EVALUATION OF THE TEAMS PROCESS • Ineffective decision making processes Focused more on generating alternative solutions rather than identifying and defining the problem Disagreement on who has the expertise about identifying relevant criteria • Unhealthy conflict Creative abrasion versus personal clashes Difference in conflict between Sasha and Dana and Henry and Igor Conflict avoidance by some members eg. Dav CAUSE OF PROCESS PROBLEMS • Team Composition: multiple differences among members combine to cause a fault line Functional diversity: different styles of thinking, methods of time management, approaches to problem solving and gender Demographic diversity: differences in age, nationality Personality Differences in prior relationships CAUSE OF PROCESS PROBLEMS • Unclear goals, roles and leadership Winning the business plan competition versus launching the business successfully Interns or business partners Who was the leader UNDERLYING ROOT CAUSE • Impression formation processes • Threats to identity • Lack of interpersonal congruence LEARNING OBJECTIVES • Launching a team Importance of kick-off meeting Establishing shared goals, clear roles, agreed on decision making procedures, ground rules, leadership etc • Managing diverse members Have a shared understanding of each other’s strengths and limitations Instill norms for respecting and learning from other’s...
Words: 278 - Pages: 2
...suffering from organizational mismanagement and numerous internal conflicts which have prohibited the group from making meaningful strides towards achieving its goal of submitting a viable proposal to the upcoming business plan competition. In order to address these shortcomings, the following proposals seek to address the structural problems within the group and attempt to get it back on track to achieve the shared goal the group members share. Managing Personal/Team Conflicts Given the differing educational and professional backgrounds of the team members, certain personality conflicts have arisen which are hurting team unity and practical discourse in the decision-making process. • Team members need to spend some time discussing each team member’s background and experience. From this, the team can use similarities between different team members to create a sort of bonding between the team. • Disagreement between members needs to be aired in the open and team members must work out differences. • What does success look like to each team member in terms of the group and for themselves? Establish what each member wants to get out of the project and what they feel they can be contribute. Identify and Commit to Team Norms Committing to developing and maintaining team norms will be essential to providing structure to meetings and ensuring that the group’s decisions are made with the best information available rather than allowing dominant personalities or separate agendas...
Words: 1181 - Pages: 5
...describes how members are accepted, how leadership is chosen, and how decisions are made. To have a satisfied, motivated, less stressed performing workforce an organization must have consistency amongst its structure, system, people, culture and good fit with the strategy. In this paper an attempt has been made to identify how ethics is affected by organizational structure and culture. Culture is what the majority of employees view as acceptable behavior at work, the ethics of the leaders and organization as a whole. A collection of actions and views that reinforces what a company truly values. Every company has different organizational culture, for me it is how the company is defined in its entirety; its integrity, shared goals and focus on building teams. A positive work environment also encourages ethical decision making where employees feel comfortable and have freedom to make honorable decisions. The structure of an organization (also called design) has a huge impact on the type of culture a company develops. Structure can be defined in several ways, Motan and Hu (2004) noted that commonly used structural dimensions include centralization, specialization, standardization, formalization, hierarchy levels, etc. All of these contingency factors or issues determine how collaborative, cooperative and supportive attitudes are promoted in an organization. It becomes difficult for employees to make ethical decisions in an unethical work environment. Good...
Words: 697 - Pages: 3
...Leaders aim to influence and guide others in pursuing particular objectives and visions of the future and to simulate them into wanting to follow (Ian Brooks, 2009). Therefore leadership is about managing people, and in managing people, team must be formed. A team can be a group of people coming together to collaborate to reach a shared goal or task for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. They are interdependently geared towards the achievement of a common goal or completion of a task. From the discussion question, among other things, I am require to ‘demonstrate my power of influence’ Ian Brooks (2009), over my team members in achieving this goal or completing this task. I can carry out this process by applying my leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, characters, knowledge and skills. Although, my position as a Technical Professional lead, gives me the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in my organization or team, this power does not make me a leader, it simply make me a boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around. SHARED MENTAL MODELS. This mental models or knowledge structures allows each teammate to generate predictions and expectations about their teammates roles and task demands which in turn, allow them to make adjustments in order to maintain effective team performance Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Converse (1993). To be successful, you need...
Words: 1107 - Pages: 5
...engagement, collaboration, information flow, shared decision making processes and trust. Below I will discuss four of the differentiators. Differentiator 1: Commitment and Engagement From the research, it shows that high performance virtual teams as being proactive, engaged and very initiative. They have a score of around 3.6 from a possible 4 points as compared to their counterparts that have a score of 3.06. These top performing teams always tend to go above and beyond so as to make sure they achieve their successes. Another reason for success would be the use of team leaders who help to motivate the others members and hence play a role in commitment and motivation. Most of the top performing teams had members that would take on leadership responsibilities and hence reduce the leader’s burden, but the low performing teams would not do so. It is crucial for virtual team members to help in sharing the official leader’s responsibilities this is because it means that they can work under less supervision and hence will be very effective in carrying out their other responsibilities than those members who cannot share the leader’s responsibilities. Teams that coordinate their day to day activities to the organization’s objective are able to stay committed and engaged for a long time. Differentiator 2: Shared Processes for Decision Making From this study, it was observed that high performing teams had formulated a decision making and problem solving program, unlike...
Words: 1336 - Pages: 6
...Executive Summery This report attempts to introduce and analyse an issue in the governance structure module that Octo has experienced. Octo is a company initially started in Italy, and then has successfully expanded globally. The CIO, Giuseppe, adopted several governance modules in order to reach s a stabilised alignment between IT and business, and his role has changed accordingly. Yet, issues still occurring, and the analysis suggests that the governance modules were in appropriate given the organisation’s situation. A recommendation is provided to adapt the federalism governance module as an approach to surmount the issues and effectively align IT and business. Pertinent organisational background Summary of organisation functions and market Octo Telematics, a multimillion value company specializing in providing telematics related services for automotive market. Octo, which was founded back in 2002 by Fabio Sbianchi and Giuseppe Zuco (the current CEO and CIO respectively), has enjoyed a great period of successful growth expanding from Italy its home country to global markets. Within five-year cycle from 2009 to 2013, the company’s financial value tremendously increased 500% attracting equity funds to invest in the promising telematics sector. The secret lays in the technology used by Octo, the core service is a device called On Board Unit (OBU), and the main functionality is to transmit data related to location, time and usage of vehicles in which it is installed....
Words: 1610 - Pages: 7
...The next few questions relate to "Resources". By resources, we mean the financial resources (money) needed to develop and use an innovation (or name of specific innovation). 1. How would you rate the availability of financial resources for implementing (an innovation) in (your organization)? How would you rate the availability of financial resources for implementing (an innovation) in (your organization)? HighAbove AverageAverageBelow AverageLowDon't know / Not Sure | 2. Do you think the financial resources in (your organization) related to (an innovation) are allocated in an appropriate way (i.e., fairly, wisely, in a timely manner)? Do you think the financial resources in (your organization) related to (an innovation) are allocated in an appropriate way (i.e., fairly, wisely, in a timely manner)? Extremely Appropriate - in need of no changesSomewhat Appropriate - in need of only a few minor changesAverage - not bad, but could use some changesNot Appropriate - in need of many changesExtremely Not Appropriate - in need of a complete overhaulDon't know / Not Sure | 3. Do you think the financial resources of (your organization) and the way those resources are allocated act as a barrier or an enabler to the use of (an innovation)? (A barrier makes an innovation harder to implement, an enabler makes an innovation easier to implement) Do you think the financial resources of (your organization) and the way those resources are allocated act as a barrier or an enabler to the...
Words: 2316 - Pages: 10
...During the Fall 2014 semester we worked to analyze how new media facilitates design communication using shared work environments. Previous studies on this topic laid a solid foundation for creative convergence network studies. However, prior research had no way of incorporating sketching as a communication into the collaborative process. Because of recent technologies, the department now has the ability to incorporate freehand sketching into the collaborative process. This adds a new facet to the process of collaborating. We also explored three different programs commonly used on collaborative team projects: Cintiq tablets, and either flash drives, Tidebreak’s TeamSpot, or TeamViewer. The goal of our research was to examine how technology changes the approach to team design and how technology will aid the creative decision-making process. We worked to compare how group decision-making processes change when in different environments and when different technologies are used. We analyzed use of shared workspace, freehand sketching, keystroke patterns and how well teams work with current technology and software. Thereby, tracking the group’s entire decision-making process. The benefit of our research was two-fold. We contributed to the existing research of team psychology and how collaborative work environments aid the design process. We were also the first research team to conduct how being able to sketch and communicate through sketches adds ease to the design process...
Words: 251 - Pages: 2
...Introduction Ethical decision-making refers to the process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a manner that are consistent with the principles of ethics and professional behavior (Blink, 2015). When making decisions, organizations often require commitment, consciousness, and competence. One interesting aspect of ethical decision-making is that they are not only morally “correct” but they are also effective. In other words, ethical decisions generate and maintain trust, demonstrate respect, responsibility, fairness, and caring, and are consistent with good citizenship. Ethics is effective in guiding the organizations objectives as they relate to the corporate strategy. The case study; is about the mercantile and ranching industry leader Babbitt Ranches for analyzes of the ethics within the family business as it relates to their corporate strategy. It was the challenge of President Bill Comdisco to lead the organization in new business opportunities that were inclusive of the companies long standing values. Mr. Cordasco recognized that the future of the organization was contingent upon meeting the needs of the multigenerational stakeholders. The article highlights several challenges that Babbitt Ranch experience in an attempt to align the organization's objectives with the organizational strategy through team decisions. Points of Agreement In 1988, the company was forced to debt finance stock buy from some of the third generation owners seeking liquation...
Words: 1210 - Pages: 5
