CMN 136 Final Study

Qualities of effective organizations (continuous improvement)

• Kaizen (change for good) promotes continuous improvements by gathering information, making comparisons, and innovating

• Benchmarking involves traditional (measuring against direct competitors) and creative (measuring against ALL successful orgs.)

• Giving feedback + forming a big picture view

• Job security + providing a slightly higher salary

• Contingent compensation + self-managing teams

• Reduction of status differences (symbolic = titles, substantive = pay)

• Developing a recognition culture, sharing information, and rigorous selection of employees

• Distributed leadership, team feels comfortable expressing concerns

Leader competencies

• Being decisive/impulsive

• Not following rules, being innovative

• Low on responsibility

• Flexible

• Being PR + brand/image experts

Manager competencies

• Being cautious/deliberate

• Following the rules

• High on responsibility

• Being organized

• Coordinating task-completion

What are the 8 roles of managers + what do they do?

• The leader thinks strategically about the organization’s future

• The director takes initiative and solves problems

• The coach teaches skills and helps the team

• The observer sees if people are meeting their goals

• The facilitator focuses on cohesion and teamwork

• The contributor is task-oriented and work-focused

• The innovator facilitates adaptation and change

• The organizer takes responsibility for planning work

What are Goleman’s 6 leadership styles + their qualities?

• Authoritative/visionary (+) is the best as it mobilizes people towards a vision

• Democratic style (+) forges consensus through participation

• Coaching (+) teaches skills to develop people for the future

• Affiliative style (+) builds harmony and emotional bonds

• Commanding (-) demands immediate compliance

• Pace-setting (-) sets very high standards for performance

Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid

• Accommodating management = high concern for people, low concern for production

• Sound management = high concern for people, high concern for production

• Indifferent management = low concern for people, low concern for production

• Dictatorial management = low concern for people, high concern for production

• Status quo management = the best (mixes both people & production)

Describe + list the theories of employee motivation

• McGregor’s Theory X sees managers as bosses who have to threaten (“stick”) or reward (“carrot”) their lazy employees

• Theory Y sees managers as leaders who help self-motivated employees

• Thorndike’s Law of Effect emphasizes the teaching of “good” behaviors, and that positive outcomes will be repeated

• Expectancy theory is concerned with the expectations of employees and how that influences performance (extra effort sometimes un-noticed —> less effort)

• New Science Systems Theory believes that employees may feel stagnant growth with too much stability

• Goal-setting theory emphasizes that productivity is enhanced when people have conscious goals

• Herzberg’s Two-Factory Theory asserts that hygiene factors (pay, job security, policies) can cause dissatisfaction, while motivation factors (recognition, achievement) can cause satisfaction

  • Dissatisfiers are extrinsic, motivators are intrinsic

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs involves physiological needs, safety needs, love + belonging, esteem, and self-actualization

• McClelland’s Needs Theory asserts that people have basic yet varying needs for achievement, affiliation, and power/control

• Hamilton’s Theory — only hire internally-motivated employees

What is work-life balance, and what makes it challenging for both employers and employees?

• Work-life balance involves a balance between one’s personal life and work-life

• Challenging for employees to appropriately balance personal + work situations

• Challenging for employers to give an appropriate amount of work

What are the three causes of work-life conflicts and how do they differ?

• Work factors includes type of work, work schedules, level of work autonoym, and work group relationships

• Life factors include a household’s nature, sources of household income, and status of family members

• Personal factors include emotional stability, adaptability, and other personality characteristics

What are the 3 types of work-life conflicts?

• Time-based conflicts occur when the pressures of one role occupy one’s time excessively

• Strain-based conflicts occur when the challenges of one role make it difficult to fulfill other roles

• Behavior-based conflicts occur when the behaviors within one role are not appropriate in another (person fails to adapt)

List the various social norms that make it difficult to achieve a comfortable work-life balance

• The motherhood norm emphasizes motherhood on women while also expecting them to thrive at work (working 2 jobs)

• The ideal worker norm emphasizes long hours + taking work home —> the worker prioritizes work over everything

• The consumerism norm pressures people to earn more and more money so they can purchase more material goods/activities

• The technology norm emphasizes 24/7 communication and availability (“white collar sweatshop”)

• The individualism norm (U.S.) asserts that an employee’s work-life issues are entirely their problem, and that an organization has no responsibility to help out

List commonly found family-friendly policies

• Paid leave

• Childcare

• Flexible work

• Anti-discrimination

What are the two types of procrastination?

• Deadline-driven projects

• Non-deadline driven projects (hard because less urgency)

What is Covey’s approach for prioritizing our work and life activities?

• Individuals have to take control and responsibility for the type of lives we want to lead

What are the 4 quadrants of the time-management matrix?

• 1 (important, urgent): stress - crises, deadline-driven projects

• 2 (important, not urgent): focus - planning, preparation, good stuff to plan our lives around

• 3 (not important, urgent): avoid - interruptions, random meetings, etc.

• 4 (not important, not urgent): limit - busywork, time wasters

What are the big rocks, and how can we prioritize them?

• “Big rocks” are urgent + important, but shouldn’t control our lives as it can get overwhelming

How does the author define leadership, and what does leadership involve?

• Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal

• Leadership involves influence, occurs within a group context, and involves goal attainment

Compare the differences between leadership and management

• Leadership (producing change and movement) — establishing direction, aligning people, motivating + inspiring

• Management (producing order and consistency — planning + budgeting, organizing + staffing, controlling + problem-solving

Describe the key leadership approaches

• The trait approach focuses entirely on leaders and their inherent traits — focuses on leaders’ personalities but doesn’t determine the precise traits that are needed

• The skills approach provides a structure to understand the nature of effective leadership — makes leadership accessible but doesn’t explain the connection between skills + effectiveness

• The style approach is based on the degree to which leaders show a concern for task and a concern for people — allows leaders to learn about themselves but doesn’t establish a “best” style

• The situational approach focuses on leaders adapting to different workers’ needs based on varying situations — the most flexible, but doesn’t account for specific demographics and relationships between leaders and subordinates

• The path-goal theory asserts that leaders must guide their subordinates to reach their goals — provides a practical model but can be difficult to implement as it is highly complex

• The LMX (Leader-Member Exchange) theory explains that organizations have in-groups + out-groups, and that the relationship between leaders and their subordinates is twofold — centers the dyadic relationship but inadvertently supports the development of privileged groups

• The transformational approach describes how leaders can initiate, develop, and carry out significant changes in organizations (role model)— provides a broad view but can be unclear as some parameters overlap w/ other theories

• The servant leadership approach prioritizes putting followers + outcomes first (leaders are altruistic) — emphasizes helping others but can conflict with other principles of leadership (ex: directing, production) —> the most different

Summarize the leadership chapter

• There are many approaches to leadership with varying research support and pros + cons (no single approach fits best)

• Leadership is multifaceted, with leadership theory continuously evolving

• Leaders should assess themselves, their followers, and situational dynamics to better understand what is best to achieve organizational goals

• The need for effective leadership grows exponentially as the world gets increasingly more complex

Describe Theory X, Theory Y, and Theory Z

• Theory X (classical perspective), pioneered by Frederick W. Taylor (scientific management) is pessimistic and views subordinates simply as workers w/ no other value

• Theory Y (behavioral perspective) is somewhat more optimistic, as managers realized employees could be useful if properly motivated

• Theory Z (human relations perspective), pioneered by William Ouchi, focused on increasing employee loyalty and benefits —> job stability + high productivity

What did Peter Drucker say about management, motivation, and communication?

• Peter Drucker argued that management was the effective use of motivation and communication, which is 1/5 basic tasks of a manager

• Drucker also said that employees are an organization’s most important resource

What are the 4 types of workplace communication?

• Organizational communication looks at organizations from a complex system-oriented perspective

• Business communication focuses on both written and oral skills

• Corporate communication focuses on the reputation and image of an organization

• Managerial communication merges business, organizational, and corporate communication to help managers function

What are the 4 managerial functions?

• Planning sets up a blueprint for future actions needed to achieve agreed-upon goals

• Organizing determines who will do what and why

• Leading occurs when top managers share their visions to then shape organizational culture to achieve that vision

• Controlling systematically gauges actual performance against the plans and goals of an organization

What are the 4 managerial resources?

• Material

• Financial

• Informational

• Human

What are the 3 tiers of management?

• Top management (strategic) deals with conceptual problems and direction-setting at a macro level —> facilitators

• Middle management (tactical) acts as “translators” from top management to subordinates —> human elements

• Frontline management (operational) communicates directly to employees using technical skills
  
  - strategic, tactical, operational decision-making

What is organizational climate?

• Organizational climate is the environmental quality that workers in an organization experience

• Can influence about 1/3 of financial performance

• Managers should address both tasks and people’s concerns to promote a positive climate

What is the team-based management approach?

The team-based management approach (late 1970s) moved firms from very formal to more informal communication

• teams participate more in decision-making + are highly involved with the coordination of different functional areas