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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.