A631.9.4.RB_SienkiewiczRaymond

Taking into consideration the recent results of my management assessment and what the audience can see in this footage of the NeXT start up team, I would assess with high confidence that  I wouldn't necessarily be an ideal fit. Not so much because of the skill set involved, but mainly from having an idea of how I "tick", particularly with the added insight of my Management Assessment.

NeXT, to start off with, would have been week outside my preferred organizational environment. By the assessment, I would ideally thrive best in a dynamic large organization, that is, one that has a good amount of changing activity but already possesses considerable size, resources, and infrastructure. In short, I would have novelty but still have a much higher likelihood of underlying stability. A fledgling start-up such as NeXT would indeed by dynamic...very dynamic. As the documentary showed, in a relatively short time span the team had gone from dreaming up the grand vision to sorting out the details of engineering and revenue stream. But that small, scrappy team environment wouldn't have a great deal of stability. Indeed, later in the video the team could be seen discussing where they could make cuts in their spending, to include presenting an old tactic of having the workers bring in their own computers. They were clearly in something of a crisis situation, and from first hand experience I would say it's stressful enough to consider such things in a big organization. I couldn't even imagine doing the same thing in a company that was, for all intents and purposes, still building up momentum and stability.

There would also be the question of the work environment, to include the pacing and the type of people. Jobs, of course, presented a very constant commanding and directive presence unto himself, a very strong personality. There also seemed to be a vibe about the conversations in that members of the group looked highly driven and were reaching far for their goals. I didn't get the sense that anyone in these meetings were particularly relaxed or otherwise. I also got the sense they were dealing with a rather challenging environment and a short time table, given the metrics they were trying to meet for price and power delivered in time for the university buying season. Much of these environmental dynamics also run contrary to what the assessment considered to be my optimum environment. As debriefed to me, my goal setting style tends to be very conservative, and while I do have an inner drive I'm not at the extreme where I have a desire to be at the very top of things. Thus, being in a group full of driven or more Type A personalities would eventually become exhausting. Besides that, I was also assessed as the type of person who tends to be less assertive and I tend to seek out additional advice. Additionally, any goals and challenge for me would be best tackled over the long term rather than under the auspices of meeting a certain target on a compressed timetable, which I think is the kind of situation NeXT found themselves in.

This is not to say such an environment would be impossible for me to work with. My overall management style, while still leaning towards the introverted logistical style, was measured as being very close to the center of the four different styles that could be assessed, which I was told meant I could potentially communicate with people from all the other styles and better see things from their perspective than someone who was a polar opposite. Speaking from personal experience, I can certainly understand the trend where I only have a small circle of close friends but wherever I go I seem to get along with most everybody.

Overall though, given the assessment placed me closer to the extreme opposite of the optimum organization type spectrum from that of a start up company, and given that the mismatches outweigh any matches or potential workarounds, I'm inclined to leave the work of outfits like NeXT to the innovative types that are more likely to thrive in such environments.

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The idea of self-awareness as a tool for leadership development and leadership in general is a concept that has existed for quite sometime, and arguably is within the foundation of leadership studies. After all, one of the first courses in Embry-Riddle's leadership program touches on self-awareness, and the idea has been around since some of the earliest expanses of human history. Sun-Tzu wrote in The Art of War:

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."

Whether you're engaged with a nation state on the battlefield, or you're facing a major project in the boardroom, to go forth without at least some sense of who you are and what you're capable of reduces your ability to strive for the best outcome and opens up many more opportunities for unpleasant surprises and potential failure.

In my case, given the relatively high intensity of interpersonal interaction my work demands and the kind of feedback I've received on how I interact, it becomes very important to understand my "type". I took a Myers-Briggs test back in high school as part of an extracurricular academic program, and I vaguely recall I was classified as an ISTJ. Taking this online test as noted by the course, I was classified as an ISFJ. This would translate out as introverted, sensing, feeling, and judging. It's possible there were some variable in the question that explain the shift from sensing to intuitive as well as thinking to feeling, and the judging part is a comfortable constant. I was more drawn to the constant of the introvert categorization though, as this is something that has been brought to my attention multiple times. My current job demands frequent interaction with a wide variety of people, and the lifestyle of moving around every so often also demands I be able to make friends and acquaintances very quickly. Being a quiet type, neither of these come easy to me, and it doesn't help any I regularly have supervisors and people I work with (and even friends) opining on this apparent "shell" I have around me that seems to get in the way of people getting to know an otherwise good guy.

Reading over some descriptors of the personality type, I'm not especially surprised now that I was categorized as such...an overview by Kendra Cherry on About.com's psychology section describes ISFJ's as being quiet, dependable, hardworking individuals that prefer structure, and are perceptive of others, but they also can at times bottle up their feelings, have a problem with saying "no" to requests, or can be misread as being cold or aloof when they're just simply quiet. I certainly don't think I have the most orderly workspaces in the world, but for the most part I was nodding my head a great deal as I read the general characteristics. Just as I've encountered the "shell" comment on multiple occasions, I've also had to deal with being given a lot of tasks whilst also being lauded as a reliable individual to work with.

Knowing this, I can move forward in my leadership development knowing that I do have some good characteristics working for me that have already been recognized on multiple occasions. I'm also aware of possible weaknesses that I would like to stay cognizant of, for that may allow me to make the appropriate efforts to better connect with others and mitigate the "shell." On that note, now that I've been reintroduced to these personality types and temperaments, it may prove useful to study the different elements in greater depth and see if I can begin to make cursory examinations of the personalities of the people I work with, so I may tailor my interactions accordingly and hopefully realize greater synergy.

Although the stakes in office small talk and getting our projects done are not nearly as high as in all out warfare, I consider it prudent to apply Sun Tzu's philosophy, and gain a better understand for how I and others operate in our day to day lives.

Resources

Cherry, K. (n.d.). ISFJ - Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging. In About.com: Psychology. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from http://psychology.about.com/od/trait-theories-personality/a/isfj.htm
Sun Tzu (n.d.). In Wikiquote. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

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Having been through the full series of classes on organizational development, while the concepts that were presented may well prove helpful on the job as we look for ways to do more with what we have (or less), the irony of the relatively young OD field doesn't escape me: it aims to help organizations develop themselves, but the field itself is made up of multiple methodologies and frameworks that I think will likely undergo changes and development to meet the needs of those who call upon it. After all, even Brown states "OD is a growing, developing, and changing field of study...The field of OD is currently and will likely always in in transition if it is to remain relevant" (Brown, 2011). I would summarize the notion as, change is the very nature of the field.

While I foresee continued growth and changes, I also see in that a steady future for the field. Considering how lean management and continuous improvement seem to have taken root in most any conversation on how businesses can improve, and how often companies seem to be changing their posture based on the health of the economy or consumer demand, OD is not going away. For that matter, I don't believe that OD is so much a "thing" that can go away like an obsolete piece of technology, but rather it is something woven into the framework of any company or organization that succeeds or continues to succeed...it is that recognition and that call to action when leaders, subordinates, or anyone with the initiative to call out an impending hazard recognizes that something within their system is broken and needs to be fixed, or there's an opportunity on the horizon that demands pursuit and thus a course change for the organization. All that has really been done with the formal OD title, I think, is giving a name and something of a semi-tangible framework for the idea.

That isn't to say there are no issues with said framework. As Brown noted in his chapter on the future of OD, the current fluidity of the field presents the lack of accepted core professional knowledge, a lack of certification, and the inherent complications that come with an emphasis on human behavior factors. As it stands now, the current framework also doesn't necessarily lend itself well to situations that demand rapid change (Brown, 2011). OD may also be helped by the fact there are other established frameworks on management and team building that can be utilized, such as bearing in mind the principles of what characterizes a high performance team, as well as the principles of setting SMART goals and Everest goals (Cameron and Whetten, 2011), principles established enough that you can find some of them on the Human Resources page of institutes such as MIT, or see correlations in military training manuals.

Ultimately though, I cannot pretend to accurately forecast where OD may go. There is no telling where the global economy and the companies influenced by it will head, let alone if the organizations of tomorrow will fit into any framework similar to what exists now, nor can I tell how much our culture may change in a world that now seems to be constantly wired in, on the move, and seemingly striving to keep doing more. I doubt it is a passing fad, and it very well could be a field whose existence is constant yet what it is will always change. Particularly with the trend of a globalized marketplace floating around more then ever, I see a lot of ways in which macrosystem and interpersonal trends can become increasingly prevalent, and the ongoing press for empowered individuals and companies that do unusual things for the employee's good, such as Google or SAS, highlights where we could we a continuation of individual trends. Now being aware of these concepts of OD, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out beyond the pages of the text and within the context of the real world and its seemingly infinite variables...

Resources

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.  

Learning & Development -- Important Steps When Building a New Team (n.d.). In MIT Human Resources. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from http://hrweb.mit.edu/learning-development/learning-topics/teams/articles/new-team

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing Management Skills (8th ed.). Uppder Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

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Transformation and change within any context, but certainly in the context of an organization, is rarely ever a one size fits all process. When faced with the need to innovate in the wake of the collapsing housing market in 2007, Gallery Furniture took the approach of an organizational change model called Influencer Training. Owner Jim McIngvale applied these principles and Influencer Training to target six different sources of influence for his employees, to include: personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, and structural ability (VitalSmarts). This served, overall, to change the behavior of his salespeople which ultimately altered the shopping experience for customers and brought about more sales. Although this particular change model was based on a particular program, it does seem to follow some of the characteristics of charismatic transformation as there was a notable amount of change executed on a compressed timeframe, and the employees seem to have taken well to the changes. Considering the cultural strength of Gallery Furniture as well as the Strategy-Culture Matrix discussed in Brown's text, McIngvale seemed to have pursued a good strategy that yielded positive results. Given that employees stayed on throughout the changes, it is reasonable to assume there is a strong culture within the company, and combined with the high need for change McIngvale managed the change by researching, selecting, and executing what he considered a suitable strategy. It can also be argued he made some adjustments to the fundamental culture as well to move the sales folks to a culture of following up and being helpful, and his doing this through a small measure of "peer pressure" in the form of sales shoutouts suggests just a touch of gentle coercion (VitalSmarts).

In another set of circumstances, Army officer General McChrystal, although not discussing a planned change in processes, did recount his experience of a very rapid change in the operational posture of the Army. With his account of quite literally falling into a post-9/11 world, an instant turn between a peacetime Army and an Army that had to be ready to engage in sustained combat operations illustrates something of a dictatorial transformation, where there is no time for participation and the organization may not have much internal support (Brown, 2011). This isn't by fault of leadership though or a lack of subordinate willingness to do their job, but more by the sheer circumstances of having to stand up forces in the wake of an attack. But McChrystal was aware of what would need to be done to maintain the necessary buy in, and in his talk he touched upon upholding enduring organizational culture values of military people being there for one another, and the need to maintain relevance of a conflict that for some of his subordinates may have started when they were but grade-schoolers (TED). At the same time, he touched on personal anecdotes of his career to make the point that leaders needn't necessarily be larger than life, heroic figures, but be willing to listen and learn from any failures. Overall though, McChrystal seemed able to lean upon over 200 years of Army culture and tradition, as well as leadership ability, in managing the pivot from a military in a training/preparation posture to a high operations tempo culture. Not necessarily needing to change the organization itself, he seemed able to reinforce the strong organizational culture and maintained the commitment of subordinates towards accomplishing the mission.

In the circumstances presented, the leaders were able to effectively assess the type of change that was needed in their organizations to meet new requirements, and while benefiting from not having to make radical changes to the culture or procedures, they were able to work with their respective cultures to realize the end goals with just the right amount of strategic change.

Resources
Gallery Furniture Case Study (n.d.). In VitalSmarts. Retrieved December 1, 2013
Stanley McChrystal: Listen, learn.then lead (2011, April). In TED. Retrieved December 1, 2013

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To be what is broadly defined as a successful leader is, I think, one of those things where there really is not necessarily one correct answer, yet at the same time there are some general expectations and traits of a successful leader. Even within that one Apple advertisement, you could see a very broad diversity in those who have led change, with personalities ranging from more introverted to more extroverted, and a range of fields and occupations to include inventors, entertainers, businessmen, civic leaders, and artists. Going about every day life, one can see there are those that lead by strong outward displays, physically leading a crowd from the front or pontificating on their ideas. There are also those that quietly work in their workshops and studios designing the next big thing, or quietly releasing literature or smaller talks that grow into something much bigger.

At the same time, that's not to say there's certain things a leader should be doing in order to realize system wide change. In Cameron and Whetten's Developing Management Skill, they outline a framework of "leading positive change" that consists of the following aspects that repeat cyclically: Establishing a Positive Climate, Creating Readiness, Articulating a Vision, Generating Commitment, and Institutionalizing the Change (Cameron and Whetten, 2011). This set of ideas comes after an interesting statement they make that "Leadership is a temporary condition in which certain skills and competencies are displayed" (Cameron and Whetten, 2011). To expound, they need to make subordinates feel good about any oncoming change, they need to give them the training and resources to make change happen while also setting a target to work towards, they need to get buy-in from their subordinates, and they need to see it through and execute in order to effect the envisioned positive outcome and maintain the legitimacy of any change initiatives.

As for what I personally think a leader really needs to have? That's admittedly an amalgamation of what I've experienced and heard in the grind of learning and practicing leadership: Having expertise, legitimate authority, a vision and a measurable goal to work towards, buy in from your would-be followers, a working knowledge of emotional intelligence, and overall the necessary know how and discipline to recognize problems, analyze how to make fixes or improvements, select an appropriate course of action and stick with it. A leader also needs to be able to discern what style of change or organization development would be best suited for their organization, and to take on to that, to have the strength to change what they can control, patience to strive on through what they can't control, and the wisdom to know the difference.

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Considering what was presented in the INSEAD video on self-managed work teams, there are certainly some benefits to be considered. As the name immediately suggests, such teams enjoy an intrinsic level of autonomy and authority that a work unit within a traditional organization usually doesn't enjoy. They are able to, more or less, dictate how they conduct operations, sustain logistics, and run training. In doing this, it is generally expected and is usually the case that the team members take greater ownership in the team's efforts and in turn have increased motivation and higher performance.

Considering the Brown text, there are further characteristics, and potentially benefits, that can be reaped. The teams run on the small side, and have the interesting dynamic of strong information sharing, lack of status symbols, and a diversity among team members in background and knowledge. They also have a need to be trained and cross-trained, overall leading to a lean workforce that can draw from a highly flexible knowledge base (Brown, 2011).

Of course, as with most things there are certain drawbacks to be considered. Immediately there's the issue of the team members having the necessary interest in managing their own team, and the team needs to be able to work with the greater organization or other third parties that may apply to their situation. Within the context of the video, there's also the consideration of how an external leader will interact with a self-managed team and give any necessary vectors. The video gave some thoughts on how this would need to be done, including goal setting, talking with teams in a manner that gives them the objective without dictating the means, and having a good sense of when and when not to intervene. Brown also notes that such teams are not appropriate for all tasks, and if there is a lack of training or rewards there may be issues. Additionally, because of having fewer layers, there will be fewer opportunities for advancement which creates an additional challenge in motivation (Brown, 2011).

Personally, the choice on whether or not I would want to work on such a team would largely depend on the task at hand. If it was indeed a task where I had the necessary know how and abilities to form my own course of action towards achieving the objective, I wouldn't mind working on a self-managed team that didn't have external leadership checking in directly as often. However, for the most part I would just as soon prefer working within a more traditional hierarchy system that has relatively clear steps and procedures towards getting the necessary work done. While a self-managed team concept is highly empowering to those on the team, I am personally content with receiving additional guidance and having some of the decision load taken off of me, particularly if the task is not within an area in which I possess expertise.

To be an effective external manager of a team, I think I mainly would need to develop competency in goal setting. In my current duties, I am already well versed in the general idea of passing along an objective to your subordinates and letting them figure out the exact methodology whenever permissible. However, I believe I would have to make some major improvements in goal setting or espousing a vision, as well as the general tenets of motivating a team. While I would be effective at simply relaying a message from higher leadership, I'm of the opinion that there's more I could do with regards to giving the team an end to pursue and having some of the desirable leader-team relation traits at work. In my opinion, external leadership of a team really comes down to a good mastery of leadership skills, but applying them more indirectly and on an as needed basis, largely letting the team doing its thing. Knowing when or when not to intervene, maintaining trust, and building the necessary "...strong partnership between team members and management" would be key (Brown, 2011).

Resources

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBnR00qgGgM&feature=youtu.be

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For me, the importance of feedback to overall performance goes without saying, having been driven into me for the almost seven years of training and active duty experience. Indeed, Air Force regulation mandates at the very bare minimum three formal feedback sessions per annual reporting period, not to even include the countless occasions of informal verbal feedback that happens day to day. Goal setting, although not emphasized as frequently, still has its moments to be brought up in mentoring discussions and we're taught the idea of setting specific, challenging, attainable goals during our training.

Indeed, there are others out in the world of management and leadership that recognize the importance of goals and feedback, and continue to back the benefits. A study published in 2009 concluded that goal setting led to engaged employees, engaged employees exhibit higher optimism, and higher optimism improved performance (Medlin and Green, 2009). Another study focusing on athletes found showing them videos with positive feedback resulted in overall better performance (Hutchinson, 2012). Frankly, I'm inclined to agree with a lot of these findings in my personal philosophy. Goals give something of a target or endpoint to work towards, while feedback gives both encouragement when things are being done right and gives points for improvement to help maximize performance. I also very much see the point in Brown's point regarding the combination of feedback and goals. Feedback without a goal, or pursuing a goal without feedback, doesn't create improvements and could have detrimental effects if individuals become frustrated in their efforts by not having an end goal or lacking guidance on how to get there.

I'm inclined to agree with Brown's contention on generational differences on feedback, with younger people seeking frequent feedback at a greater rate compared to older counterparts (Brown, 2011). I've seen a mixed bag of my peers that desire feedback or don't care about it, but I do think that those who do want it would want to receive feedback more frequently. After all, contemporary society generally has a much faster flow of small pieces of information, and younger people tend to be very regularly "wired in" to media communications and often receive short updates on events, interests, or otherwise. It only stands to reason they might want the same pacing for receiving information about their job performance.

As for how much I give and receive, I find that I'm often seeking feedback from my leadership (true to Brown's assertion), although I don't give it out very regularly. I'd like to think this is partially due to the fact that the people I supervise have generally been in the Air Force notably longer than I have, in some cases almost as long as I've been alive. Often, I delegate much of the day to day mechanics unless there's something that absolutely requires the officer level authority, and more often than not my NCO corps excels with minimal input. Besides that, for the small handful of feedbacks I have given, I've been moved around the offices at such a pace that I have yet to bear witness of a full annual feedback cycle for a person I was rating. In my case though, I'm still relatively new and conscious of my performance metrics, and take to heart what we're told in the way of finding ways to improve and taking ownership of our careers where we can. Thus, I often keep an ear open for any feedback my leadership gives me, as well as occasional requests. I also frequently solicit my subordinates for thoughts and feedback, and I've found my senior NCO's will frequently give me useful pointers for the day to day execution of management duties.

I admittedly need to work on creating better refined goals beyond getting the day's projects done and making my milestones for training, but with the feedback I receive, I do think it helps to sustain a certain level of performance and certainly helps make improvements if I know what specifically needs work. More often than not, feedback helps me refine my short term goals, although it can also be a bit of a jarring experience as well. Lately I've been trying to hash things out with what direction to take my career now that I am unable to retrain as a pilot, and apparently my efforts at trying to dig up some motivation and find a path is something my leadership has picked up on, yielding a few talks and words of advice. Not an uncomfortable situation, but it was something of a reminder that I don't have as good a poker face as I thought.

Having thought about all this, I think I'm on the right track with getting feedback for myself, but as the leader of my workcenter, I feel I need to get more comfortable with dispensing feedback to my subordinates as there have been occasions where I've had an opinion of something and I would usually let things work out or discuss it with my senior NCOs who've noticed the same thing and let them run with any "course corrections." Perhaps being more proactive would remove a potential layer of ambiguity, and might even serve to increase my credibility as a leader if I communicate more directly. I also think I, and perhaps even my workcenter, would be well served by committing to some goals rather than simply "doing the job" on a regular basis, if not in specific metrics then at least in some tangible accomplishments to be performed by certain deadlines.

References

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

Hutchinson, A. (2012, October 29). Negative feedback, negative performance [Electronic version]. The Globe and Mail, p. L3

Medlin, B., & Green, Jr., K. W. (2009). Enhancing performance through goal setting, engagement, and optimism [Electronic version]. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 109(7), 943-956. doi:10.1108/02635570910982292

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In the creation of the charter for our learning team within this course, there is also opportunity to observe the initial development of our team. Given the circumstances of having to adjust teams shortly before the second weeks started and the given fact we were working remotely, we seem to have done rather well. Considering the team development process outlined in Dan Brown's An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development, we've accomplished much of the steps involved. By way of the initial assignment, we initiated something of a running development meeting. In creating our charter, we set our objectives, we collected data on our capabilities, aims, and thoughts, and we also did some initial planning on our way ahead all within the context of conducting this virtual meeting. About the only step left is evaluating our team development process, which I expect should be something of an ongoing task for us. We've also done some initial consideration of roles by defining who would take lead on certain weeks throughout the course, and laying out general expectations for members of the team (Brown, 2011).

As for factors that inhibited any decision making or problem solving, while we didn't encounter any issues that hindered the completion of our objectives, we did have to deal with the ever present specter of our geographic separation and the associated "turn around time" for any of our communications. There is also a higher need for implicit trust, as for the most part we can only go off of a name and what our team mate's the other end are typing. At least this early on, it is difficult to draw much about who they are and what makes them tick, but we have to trust that they're here for a common goal and will take part to get there. As of now, we haven't run into any issues of group think, or any issues with goal settings or team culture that were noted, among other things, as possible issues in the class text (Brown, 2011).

On the note of the time taken for decision making and problem solving, the consolidation of the teams took place earlier in the week on Sunday evening, and the finalized inputs were posted to our group file exchange on Thursday. Given that, one could say it took about four days to make a complete run of decision making and problem solving with regards to our team charter. In terms of consolidating the teams though, that arguably took a little longer from the initial team establishment on Monday of week one, and the need became apparent on the following Saturday or Sunday as the class roster became finalized. By that same token though, since the issue was recognized and acted upon over a weekend, one could also say that took only one or two days with intervention from a third party (the professor).

Information was, to the best of my knowledge, shared exclusively by means of the Group Discussion forum built into the online Blackboard learning environment. Given our relatively short time together, we also haven't really run into any issues of power or authority yet, although we do seem to have had at least one or two members demonstrate a higher level of initiative. At this time, there hasn't been any issues, and it is welcome to have someone help take the initial lead.

Collaboration was essential to the completion of the project, as the charter required all members to give some modicum of input in order to meet requirements and gather our necessary data. Ultimately, it yielded us what we needed and also helped lay down the initial foundations of communication and trust within the group. There is no evidence at this time of competition or any particular friction, nor was there any instances of process intervention by team members aside initiating the team merger once the decision was passed down. Rather, the overall process felt very natural and equitable, requiring so far little in the way of formalized intervention of use of processes.

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As far as team development processes go, EcoSeagate represents one of the more unique propositions I've seen or heard of, and based on the considerations of the text, I would say there is value. After all, the text also uses EcoSeagate as an example in one of their sidebar boxes.

To speak more analytically though, EcoSeagate is a form of team development very much in the spirit of outdoor experiential learning, that is, developing teams by taking groups of coworkers into outdoor settings to participate in learning exercises with the intent of using a varied environment that would in most cases be a situation where "With such a foreign and intimidating environment, everyone feels off balance and no one has an advantage over anyone else" (Brown, 2011).

I do believe there is certainly value to be had overall. Considering other means of team development, the process would force people to work outside their comfort zone and reconsider their roles in the organization, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Further, by working with a group of peers, especially if they're from other departments or backgrounds, they may gain further insight from discussions where team members are sharing their thoughts on a given situation or in figuring out where they can fit to help the team best succeed. Certainly, a weeks worth of training culminating in an adventure race is quite the way for one to find out what they're made of when put into an unfamiliar situation.

I think in the case of Seagate, the point is to really keep the organization on its toes. With great success, it can be easy for one to rest on their laurels and not push themselves. Combine that with people getting into a comfortable routine with their department and with certain people, and one may find themselves with a company that is slow to innovate, if it innovates at all, and it may subsequently lack some of the necessary hunger and vigor to maintain success. To borrow as well from the thoughts of Bill Watkins, by showing the value of teamwork to people outside of work, it might be something transferable, a notion demonstrated by his musing of how "...people put their lives on the line for the respect of their platoon mates" (Brown, 2011). For my own thoughts, an engineer or software developer that stays in their office will likely continue to think like an engineer or software developer. Now, take that same engineer that had to adventure through 40 kilometers of a foreign country with a younger factory worker and an older executive, they might be able to look at problems through slightly different colored lenses.

My organization kind of has these outdoor activities built into their normal routine through the occasional round of training for deployments or field work, but it could be beneficial in certain ways. We spend most of our days cooped up in an office working on computers, and I find at times there isn't what I would consider much of a fighting spark on hand. We do what we can though, occasionally having a paintball competition between flights or holding sporting events on a designated "Wingman Day" to promote esprit de corps throughout the unit. I think though, if there was some way to do a short weekend trip with a mixture of officers, as well as junior and senior enlisted, cycling through positions of responsibility and doing things that your average communications person wouldn't do on a daily basis, although it wouldn't directly relate to the IT realm it could spur something in how we think or at least how we relate to one another. I have to admit, it sounds like a fun way to take care of training and I may well chew on options for how we could do it as a squadron or within flights, particularly given the opportunities afforded by being located in Northern California.

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Erich Schmidt presents in his talk what might at first seem counter-intuitive for those seeking to improve leadership, but depending upon how one approaches what he says, it makes a great deal of sense. Certainly, in a military organization, what Schmidt describes about the company moving forward without a great deal of management intervention is the ideal state that is pursued. By having a chain of command and the backing of a couple hundred years of culture, there's this expectation for better or for worse that the boss said to do it, so it's up to the subordinates to try their best to make it work. On top of that, being an all volunteer service, people opt into the organization and choose to play by its rules. However, like Schmidt said, the manager is going to be trying to assist them if needed. The subordinates are resources for the leader to accomplish objectives given to them or created by them, and in turn the leader will be there to help get assistance from on high or to provide additional resources that their subordinates need to succeed such as tools, money, or additional political firepower.

I also think his thoughts on the idea of a discord and deadline make sense. While it might fly in the face of schools of thought that call for harmony and agreement, discord is what it takes to identify the best and worst of a given plan while also identifying ideas. Deadlines as well, while in some cases an artificial construct, ultimately acts as an excellent motivator to get things done. Like all things though, there needs to be a certain balance and moderation between these factors. Too much discord and there's nothing but unproductive discussion, bad feelings, and no solution offered. Be too soft or too hard on a deadline, and either things won't get done or your people will be set up for failure by not being given adequate time.

I might even argue that, although we don't do it explicitly, my organization practices the 20% rule on an ad hoc basis. While there is a set duty day, unless there's a critical tasking most people are left to their own devices so long as things are getting done. As long as projects or tasks are on track and one is good about generally being present for duty and available, one is free to go in and out of the office to  make any necessary appointments, get a haircut, or once in awhile leave for an extended period of the day to take care of a family issue. We also do tend to have lots of discussion about issues, often right up to the deadline, especially if the issue involves coordination and input from multiple units.

So, overall, this isn't an unreasonable way to view work as people do it in my workplace. Admittedly, there are numerous other regulations on how we actually conduct business and live our lives compared to most anyone in Silicon Valley, but much of the same basic principles apply. Given that, it doesn't take any particular courage for any leader in our organization implement, as that's just the way it is. However, there is a learning curve for younger officers to willingly back away from the work at hand and leave the better seasoned enlisted personnel to be the technical experts and do the job. It requires a measure of courage then to trust in this system of delegation and let it work. There is also a learning curve in accepting that something will come out of what initially seems like endless bickering and brinksmanship, until a solution seems to come out of nowhere at the eleventh hour.

Having said all that, this particular approach could backfire if too many individuals within the leadership structure don't allow the system to work. Rampant micromanagement at any level could cause the self driving machine to come to a halt, and overbearing leadership may create too much discord or time pressure. You may even have a case of too many subordinates that lack the personal drive and initiative to truly operate independently without a lot of intervention or hands on work by leadership, which in of itself creates a further drag on resources.

For me, I'm mainly taking away some perspective on my present situation. Yes, I work for a very large organization that's part of the federal government...that's an inherent recipe for a great deal of bureaucracy and the frustrating scenarios that fuel the likes of comics such as the Dilbert series. However, now that I stop and read Schmidt's thoughts on how Google runs their business, although my organization doesn't have quite the same reputation for employee freebies and the like, the basic operational theories seem to have a great deal of correlation, which is somehow heartening. I'm also taking away a reminder that discord is not necessarily a bad thing, and this serves as another one of a handful of examples I've heard about where its desirable. It is certainly an idea I hope will provide me with greater patience when facing disagreements and logjams at the office, and will keep me looking for the best solution with the end objective in mind.

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As humorous as Tom Wujec's analysis of the Marshmallow Challenge may sound, much of it makes sense. Granted, much of this sense could be argued to be from subjective sources, but it makes sense in its own way nonetheless. I agree with his analysis of what makes the team of kindergarten graduates more likely to succeed, and as cynical as it sounds I can understand where the team of MBA graduates are more likely to fail.

To dive in deeper, a recent MBA graduate is certainly going to be much more interested in the proposition of making their mark and getting ahead to get that nice corporate job than your average kindergarten graduate, and by way of training and the accumulated years of being taught to solve problems in a very systematic manner, an MBA graduate is much more likely to approach the challenge in an orderly step by step manner versus the more exploratory approach taken by the kindergarten graduate. In this specific scenario, although the marshmallow is logically the last step, its very mass and weight make it something of a central piece to be factored in. The kindergarten graduates, still being very young, are much more likely to be at a highly curious and exploratory of their lives and aren't as likely to see the marshmallow as a last step than they are to see it as something always there to be played with.

In the case of the CEOs versus CEOs with executive assistants, I think it has something to do with the diversity of perspective. While both sets of CEOs are likely cut from the same cloth of business minded people that want to get ahead, those paired with assistants have the benefit of a different perspective that ideally understand their bosses and what they're dealing with, yet come with a different  point of view and without the baggage of a fixed way of doing business.Thus, at least in the subtle way assistants do, they can inject their thoughts in something of an advisory role and lead from within the team.

In any of these scenarios, one could argue the influence of various group behaviors and process interventions. For instance, the MBA group might do well at testing for consensus and summarizing (task functions), but they may not be so good at harmonizing and encouraging, plus the members may be vying continuously for emerging into a leadership function full time rather than going in and out, per what Brown notes in his text on page 203. They may also be more inclined to carry out individual functions, still in something of a mentality to stand out above peers. Kindergarten graduates, although they may not be the most likely to elaborate, do seem like the type that would ask a great deal of questions, and assuming they get along well, there may be greater harmonizing and encouragement within the group. Some of these factors might apply as well to the scenarios of CEOs with or without assistants. I imagine the assistants might provide some of both task and maintenance functions by keeping the CEOs on track and cohesive, as well as undertaking process interventions on page 204 such as generalizing and probing. CEOs alone may also be conscious of how they compare to others, while the executive assistants may still be comfortable in their roles of providing support to the boss and not grandstanding.

In short, besides matters of experience or perspective biases, I believe that some group types can be more conducive than others towards having members that strike a balance between the task and maintenance functions, and may have more or less members that are inclined to work towards individual functions. Finally, there may also be varying balances in the implementation (or lack thereof) of process intervention techniques in challenges such as this.

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Listening to Michael Bonsignore's discussion and examining it in the lens of our readings on the impacts of organizational culture, I think he certainly has good intent in his decision to bring together the best practices of Honeywell and Allied Signal, and I like to think it will be a successful fusion of corporate cultures. Having said that, the video discusses mostly the general idea and as I recall it didn't mention any specific best practices they were looking at implementing. Without any specific examples in mind, it is difficult to make a specific judgment call on whether there will be any second order consequences or if particular initiatives will clash with other ones, which are potential issues highlighted in Donald R. Brown's An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development. Having said that, the fact that Bonsignore is considering a controlled creation of a new post merger culture rather than just running with the Honeywell culture he knows suggests to me an appreciation for different ways of doing business, and indicates to me he has the flexibility and know-how to make informed decisions that taps into the resources he has available.

That isn't to say I don't see potential barriers or challenges. Bonsignore discussed the fact that the company is very old and rather content with its place in the market when he came in, which suggests a challenging environment for enacting change and a great deal of inertia to overcome. Not only that, once the merger with Honeywell and Allied Signal did take place, he had to overcome the bad press generated by owning up to the fact that projected earnings were not going to be as high as the company thought it would be. Overall, Bonsignore came into a situation where he had to overcome change resistance, maintain the best of the characters of both companies, and sell the way ahead to his employees and Wall Street. He walked into something of a perfect storm with leading the company towards his vision, pressing them through a rough patch, and maintaining the success of his organization.

When it comes to crafting the culture of the new Honeywell, the critical success factors are very closely related to the task of overcoming the previously noted barriers. Mainly, Honeywell will have to work to consciously analyze what their former halves bring to the table, and find means to effectively integrate them. This may involve a long hard look at how they integrate any change strategies across the board for technology, behavior, and structure, and they may have to consider formalized organizational development efforts. Honeywell leadership will also have to be very conscious of the need to keep employees in the loop, as they make the company's mission happen and are in effect another stakeholder. Bonsignore noted that employees can be very resilient, so long as they're involved in what's happening and feel like the boss is communicating with them.

Having viewed this interview, I certainly enjoyed some greater perspective. Even at the highest echelons of America's biggest company, there are real people that are capable of making mistakes and have to own up to them. It was also interesting to get the perspective on creating something new rather than merely settling for an amalgamation of old cultures and standards. Finally, I appreciated hearing the thoughts on the need to be level. As for what I can take away immediately, I know my own organization is still in the middle of something of a transitional phase in standing up some new functions, and we're now doing that with some additional constraints on spending and manning. I'd certainly like to consider how we might start creating a new organizational culture out of our recent changes, and once again its refreshing in its own way to hear about even the business elite hitting harder times and overcoming obstacles.

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The list of 50 Reasons Not to Change proved to be rather comprehensive, and admittedly several of those have been heard coming out of the mouths of people I've worked with both at school and on the job. I'm certainly guilty of having said a few of those myself. However, the way I react initially strongly varies with the situation. Some of these reasons not to change just come as part of the military life, as there are always at least one or two policies that need to be followed that may defy common sense, the ever present question of manning and funding (particularly in these times as we're being called upon to do more with less), and of course considering the wishes and desires of our bosses and trying to either dance around said preferences or use them to our advantage. Having said that, while such concerns from the list of 50 reasons may be voiced, our office tends to be very good at making things work anyway. Rather than simply stopping at concerns on the funding, manning, or otherwise, we say "fair enough, how can we do this with what we have?" It's happened often enough that my initial reaction is more along the lines of "Ok, what trick are we going to pull off now?" or more often "What's the perspective of our more senior officers or senior enlisted that has more experience? What solutions do they see?"

As I've alluded to earlier, I've been guilty more than once of using these excuses myself when I hit a wall in a task or project. For all intents and purposes, I'm still a very new officer with less than three years of experience, almost half of which was used not in being an officer but being in training, then working a job that was inherently very reactionary rather than calling for action or new ideas. Frankly, I know that I tend to take policies and circumstances at face value, and creating a solution that isn't readily available or which goes outside some kind of established procedure is not my strong suit. I'm hoping that as time passes and I gain greater experience and confidence that I will be better able to seek first how I might work an issue rather than why it can't be done.

How to overcome these types of responses to change has varied some in my experience. A vast majority of the time, we're still being subject to the will of our commander or higher authority, and anytime we come back saying that something couldn't or shouldn't be done, we had to have a very good reason. In my case especially, I'd have to be able to answer not only to the commander but then at least one or two more levels of more senior officers, and that would be after trying to figure things out with at least one senior enlisted. So, admittedly it boils down to something of a "find a way or else" type of scenario, but to frame the task in a positive manner, our office generally maintains a very low tolerance of the 50 Reasons, with our organizational culture as a military unit calling for a "can do" attitude that finds or makes a way.

Regarding Seth Godin's talk tribes, I really think he's onto something with that idea. Most talks I've heard on leadership or change revolves around the idea of getting an idea out there or as some of my recent favorites have noted, stating with "why" as prescribed by author Simon Sinek, or another talk that discussed setting where things are now and where they can go. But they don't often talk about the people that follow an idea, which if I recall correctly was discussed in one of our early videos as an element of what makes change happen. When you get down to it, individuals can end up as the face of a movement but ideas only actually take flight when a significant number of people get on board to try and make it happen. Thinking from a historical perspective, the idea makes sense. The American Revolution, while largely attributed to the founding fathers, had a great deal of the footwork ride upon the common citizen that didn't care for the American Colonies being run by the British Empire. The Civil Rights movement, which did have some major figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., still had a great deal ride upon the people that took a stand to be heard. Within my own office environment, my last commander thought there was a better way to deal with the reporting and tracking of communications issues, and he rallied with his peers at our partner units that felt the same way and led them to adopt our new way of doing business. Those are examples where, as Godin put it, there was a group of people already looking for a change, and someone stood up to organize that group and make something happen. Definitely, while one person can get the idea to organize change, I think it takes a tribe to see the change through.

I can take away from this a couple of things. First and foremost, that there's actually a reasonably lengthy list of common excuses out there for why things can't change, many of which I've heard or used and all of which sound rather tacky when examined from a third party perspective. Knowing this, I would like to take this knowledge with me to be consciously aware of when one of these reasons is being used and to critically examine whether or not it's valid, and what can be done to overcome that reaction. Second though, I intend to be conscious of this idea of "tribes," and I'll see if there's any potential for application in my workplace or if there's any evidence of leveraging of tribes occurring that does in fact get change rolling.

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The talk by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe certainly made for some interesting observation of not only how the findings of the BST survey was conveyed to the rest of NASA, but also showed indications of how NASA leadership was taking the suggestions to heart.

O'Keefe's presentation to NASA employees seemed to be twofold in purpose. First and foremost, it very publicly brought to mind the issues that NASA was looking to fix in terms of their organizational culture based upon the BST findings, and it laid out some initial thoughts on what they intended to do about it by promoting communications and the like. Second, but still equally important, I think O'Keefe getting in front of his organization like that represented a sincere demonstration of his intent to break down the perceived communication barriers between different levels of the organization, as well as demonstrating that senior leadership was paying attention to the survey results and intended to act upon them.

Something else O'Keefe succeeded in where leaders of big organizations could just as easily fail was in how believable he was in his presentation. At the very least, his presentation style seemed very extemporaneous rather than tightly scripted, certainly somewhat more conversational in fashion. The fact that he also entertained a bit of self-deprecating humor on occasion by commenting on his age and referring to himself as an example of "managerial interference." O'Keefe came off as a reasonably genuine individual that was comfortable with his audience, and he seemed sincere in what he was saying.

As for why he discussed NASA's values, that seemed to be a major pillar of the entire conversation. Speaking strictly from the point of view of diagnostics, discussing these values did seem to set the target for where he wanted to take NASA as an organization, in effect setting a goal and giving people an idea for where NASA should be when they've undertaken full organizational development in their culture. If I recall correctly, I think O'Keefe also discussed where NASA stood at the time with relation to those values, effectively setting a baseline and then in effect stating where they were and were they could be.

Having seen this, I do think there are some takeaways to be had. Among other things, like it was alluded to in his talk, leaders need to be getting out there to get the on-the-ground perspective and see where things are going. I would say this is important not just for the stated reason of checking on the condition of the organization and the workforce, but also to demonstrate a visible display of the leader being interested in the lower echelons and putting themselves out there. I also think it might be worthwhile to at some point give pause during the day and give thought to where my actions out and about with the troops on a daily basis serve to build up the stated values of our organization, and maintain the line of communication between the lower echelons, the higher level leadership and myself.

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I think what Marcia Blenko touched upon with the idea of employee engagement makes a lot of sense, and frankly it seems to be one of those things that matches up with human nature. I wouldn't expect the average person in any circumstance to put their fullest effort into something they don't have at least some interest in. In the state of nature there is the overriding interest of survival that always ups the interest in effective decisions, but in the contemporary working environment there's a lot more potential for slack. For instance, I can say from personal observation that someone who isn't especially interested in client relations will make especially good decisions in how they interact, and someone who isn't all that interested in the movement of desks and equipment likely won't ask all the probing questions about timing, dates, and impacts that senior leadership might want to dig for. A lack of interest means that much more conscious effort being required for maximized performance or decision making.

Beyond that, Blenko made some additional notes on what could impeded effective decision making. Among these there are issues such as the complexity of contemporary organizations, which I imagine can complicate the picture of who's in charge and who needs to be kept in the loop or otherwise. There can also be some negative leadership behaviors at play that complicate matters, such as a lack of discussion or the receipt of inputs before making a decision and executing (the Air Force might categorize these types of scenarios as "Ready, Fire, Aim" situations). Blenko also noted a lack of clarity in communications, which in most any organizational environment will spell at best minor frustration, and at worst major failure.

Overall, I think Blenko had a fairly thorough list of good decision making elements in considering quality, speed, yield, and effort. These certainly cover the bare minimums towards making a decision and getting it off the ground. For decision making in my organization, we're often tasked to present Courses of Action (COAs) to the commander, where we have to list our assumptions, list our COAs with full pros and cons of each one, and we might add in any limiting factors that span across all the COAs. We might even throw in a table that weighs important factors (such as cost and effect) and provide a weighted score. So for us, Blenko's elements would cover some of the considerations, but by itself it likely wouldn't satisfy my boss as he'll likely still want to know more about additional considerations and expected impacts. Quality considerations though would likely be very welcome.

Having viewed this video, it provides yet another lens with which to examine problems that come down from my bosses or through my e-mail box. Certainly, while we want to make the best decision we can within the confines of our deadlines, but I don't think we necessarily always think about how far out we want to take our decisions other than second or third order effects, and we tend to have our effort switches stuck at maximum output unless we thoroughly prioritized taskings. Something I might try and do with myself at least is to pause and at the very least ask if the decision I'm about to make is a knee jerk reaction based on trying to get something out of my way, perhaps sticking to doctrine, or if I really did in fact make a "good" decision. The only issue I could see is that measuring the quality of a decision would require identifying measurable, objective factors and a set of standards. I'm almost inclined to say it's one thing to Monday Morning Quarterback, but it would require some practice to quickly and efficiently establish measurable factors at the outset of every decision.

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Southwest Airlines implementation of a specific "Culture Committee" is an interesting way for a company to manifest the implementation of its corporate culture and looking out for the morale and welfare of their employees. I suppose one might consider it, in some ways, a scaled up version of an organizational Booster Club or Sunshine Fund. It's difficult to quantify exactly where and how the Culture Committee comes into play in the establishment of cultural norms, but it certainly seems to make an effective impression. While it was attested that employees don't always know about things like Hokey Day, the Culture Committee does make a positive impression upon the surprised flight attendants and reinforces the company's well known culture of fun. It also seems to help establish the idea of the company as one unified team where each member is there for the other.

The purpose of the Culture Committee seems to be to act as something of a sub-organization within the company responsible for the morale and welfare of the employees. It also exists to reinforce Southwest's organizational values by acting upon them and setting the example through taking care of their teammates with a very pleasant and easy demeanor. With the fact that the committee is formed from a group of peers, I would think this serves to enhance the unifying aspect, and imparts a sense of "these are my friends and co-workers, and they've got my back." To draw more directly from the video he Hokey Day, as noted by one member, is about "employees taking care of employees", and fits well with the committee's stated mission of "...making Southwest Airlines a fun, exciting, and wonderful way to work. I took interest as well in that the Culture Committee wore their values as they worked, donning t-shirts that emphasized "Warrior Spirit," "Servant's Heart," and "Fun-Loving Attitude," right under the prominent wording of "Whatever It Takes."

In my own place of work, this type of committee would be there to look out for the morale and welfare needs of our unit and also act as part of a full spectrum solution towards monitoring the overall health of our unit, ensuring a relatively good level of happiness and productivity. Our own Booster Club accomplishes some of these functions and use similar methods by providing opportunities for fun and camaraderie, with the aim of promoting teamwork and our core values. This typically gets accomplished via the planning and execution of events such as burger burns, holiday themed parties, the annual picnic, and more recently a "Wingman Day" that held sports competitions in conjunction with talks on personal resiliency and safety. In short, the mission of our own Culture Committee would be much the same as Southwest's: take care of our personnel and make sure that within the midst of the controlled chaos of military life there is still some fun, excitement, and care from superiors and peers.

From considering Southwest's efforts, I might take some time to re-examine the ways in which we take care of our people, and give some greater consideration to the ways in which it ties into our organizational culture. It seems to be one of the most oft spoken adages is "mission first, people always," and only having been in service for a few years I'm conscious of the issue but haven't yet had opportunity to really see this idea be put to the test. As one of my friends at the office is current heading up our Booster Club and I'm sitting on a base council that represents the interests and development of junior officers, I might have to find opportunities for ad hoc "case studies" to see where and how these organizations touch the lives of the people they serve. In addition, I might give pause to consider the ways in which these small groups support and establish the Air Force's core values and cultural norms.

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Matthew Taylor's video on the idea of 21st Century Enlightenment is certainly one of the more substantive videos I've watched over the course of the MSLD program, and certainly one that's taken quite a bit of thought to chew over. Admittedly, I still have a 100% grasp on what makes 21st Century Enlightenment what it is, but it may well warrant further thinking and an examination of the last major Enlightenment.

As best as I can gather from Taylor's talk, what makes the idea, and hence the title, of 21st Century Enlightenment is taking the principals of the Great Enlightenment of delving into what shaped modern peoples values, norms, and principals, and reassessing what we have now based on the circumstances of an increasingly diverse and globalized 21st Century. It's been quite some time since our last Enlightenment, and I think Taylor is getting at the idea of our society as a whole taking some time to look around and reassess our direction as a society. He says in relation to this that "to live differently, you have to think differently," by which I think he means we have to see to see the word and ourselves in a new perspective, and exercise critical thinking processes.

Taylor made an interesting point in stating that people need to try and "...resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange." It brings to mind the argumentative fallacy of appealing to tradition, or perhaps even confirmation bias. To paraphrase what I thought he was taking from Robert Kegan, people would do well to be conscious of this tendency to accept the familiar and reject the unfamiliar. Within my office, I can see traditional communication types in cases rejecting the sense of urgency with their work as the idea of communications being critical for the military is still fairly new. In contrast, our clients don't always understand that we can't make absolute guarantees for fixing things by a certain time, or track with the idea that there are some things beyond our control either physically or administratively. In the span of greater society, take any national level debate on controversial issues such as gun control or foreign policy, and you're nearly guaranteed to see this concept at work. For the gun issue, there might be those unwilling to entertain any limitations on their magazines or otherwise, and there might be those that refuse to see a gun as anything but a great danger to society.

Taylor went on to discuss the idea of eschewing the elements of pop culture that degrade people, and encouraging the development of empathetic citizens. I think to some measure, this has already started. Pop culture fairly regularly makes fun of pop culture, and the rapid increase in global connectivity via the spread of web access services and the rise of social networks enables people the world over to be connect to the experiences of others across the globe. I think people are already taking major steps to putting themselves into other people's shoes. However, I still think that for the most part, society tends to hit a major logjam anytime there's a divisive argument, with many not putting into practice the idea of maintaining healthy disagreement, and with people often falling into the old habit of resisting ideas contrary to what they know. Any major shift towards this idea would likely require a massive paradigm shift across all of society.

I couldn't draw out an exact answer on the prompt about atomizing people from collaborative environments, but I can certainly understand how removing people from that can be detrimental. When individuals are broken off from a collaborative group, they lose the benefit of additional perspectives and the "force multiplier" effect of having additional minds considering an issue. If this becomes the case for organizational change efforts, it's likely that an organization might simply stagnate under the single perspective being worked with at the top, or that they will simply fail to innovate and possible become a non-competitor. There are some instances where sole individuals can be of more effect than a collaborative group, but more often than not collaboration brings rapid idea development and great power.

If nothing else, the notion that people are thinking about change at the societal level is somewhat heartening. My organization is currently undergoing multiple shifts in how they view the world and their role, and it seems a much more manageable task than all of society. Additionally, Taylor brought to bear a number of interesting points to bear in mind as I go through the working day, especially in his highlight of the "tendency of familiarity," and by sounding a call for conscientious thought.

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I'm hard pressed to think of any given situation in my office that had all of the video's elements present, but I can certainly get some thoughts going on how these different organizational agents come into play in a healthy organization.

The crowd is something I would consider both in a ways inevitable yet very necessary. Although the attitude of the crowd can be extremely fickle, because it is representative of the greater organizational population (and thus the primary source of manpower to drive most of anything), it is an agent that needs to be won over by the would be promoter of change. Without at the very least taking the crowd into consideration, or winning their all important buy-in for the envisioned change, making the change happen becomes very difficult if not impossible. The crowd is in a sense a constant of the organizational environment, but it must be won over and channeled.

The pessimist might be easily dismissed as an unnecessary drag upon the organization, but I argue they might serve their own purpose. If allowed to disseminate their view with nothing to compare it with, the pessimist's view may eventually become the view of the crowd, rendering the environment unwelcome to change. However, the pessimist shouldn't be completely silenced, for they may well see some major issues with the change or at least can act as a measure of what to prepare for with regards to the worst possible crowd reaction.

Along the same lines is the pragmatist. Although they'll at least look at the change or the obstacle, they're still (at least by the video's assertion) likely to maintain the status quo. But again, while they shouldn't be allowed to have complete run of the place they should also be given some heed as they may well have some reasonably level headed concerns that need to be considered or resolved before pressing forward with change.

Covering the other end of the dichotomy are the power players and the visionaries.The visionaries play an especially important role in that while they may not necessarily execute the change themselves or carry it across the finish line, they're the ones that can identify the way things are now and how they could be. They can look over the hill and see where they want the organization to go, perhaps even see the path to get there. The visionaries are the ones that will likely formulate the objective for any change or large scale effort for their organization.

But the visionary alone cannot reach out to the entire crowd, let alone the pragmatists and pessimists. This is where the power players fulfill their role. Arguably, for organizational health it might be one of the most important links as they'll go between the visionaries and everyone else. They don't carry the initial vision or stand among the crowd, but they have the power to carry the message and rally the masses through the influences they wield. One might even say they can act as a backbone for the organization.