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The video “Steve Jobs Brainstorms with neXT Team” is about Steve Jobs starting up a new company with the help of experts who helped him start up Apple (Steve Jobs…, 2985). The video starts with the team going on a work retreat with Jobs to begin brainstorming ideas, structure, deadlines, and much more of the new soon to be developed company, neXT. As the video continues I noticed the environment that surrounds the team is one of technology innovation, experience, desires of starting the new company on the right track, achievement driven, creativity and much more. Something that is very noticeable within the team is how Steve Jobs is visionary, communicative, responsible, outgoing, outspoken and overall, an extrovert leader. Steve Jobs was basically the mastermind of the whole operation and he made sure to get everyone’s opinion on the entire process. Jobs made the team feel valued by guiding them through the ideas discussed. Jobs also made sure to have everyone’s buy-in of the company’s direction, what should be their main focus, vision, mission, and so on. In my opinion, starting up a brand new company is no easy task and it takes time, motivation, patience, hard work, teamwork, focus, monetary backing and much more.

            Reflecting on the results of my Management Assessment test, I can say with certainty that I will be very uncomfortable and unproductive in the video’s type of business environment, start up environment where everyone is highly involved, rules and structures are not set yet. My current characteristics and skills would not match to the ones seen in the video. According to the results of the test, I am driven to and will be more successful in a large dynamic organization where I can thrive as an introverted logistical leader. My strengths are in independence, achievement, risk, recognition, and financial. These are strengths that will not be visible or important during the start or beginning of any company. I am the type of person who likes structure, organization, communication, rules to use them as guidance, and the need of complete information in order to make decisions (incomplete information seems to lead to indecision and frustration).

After understanding the results of the MA test and the type of environment in a start-up company, the difference between the characteristics and skills needed in each environment are almost a difference of night and day. I like to believe that someday I will be able to participate and be as active and outgoing in an environment similar to the one in the video but until then, I believe that professionally I will be unhappy, dissatisfied, and even feel extremely challenged to the point that I will be unproductive in the workplace. But in the future, once the organization grows, has rules, structure, and is organized, I will be able to join that type of work environment and find job fulfillment. Until then, the limited skills, experience, and knowledge will make me feel irrelevant in the environment shown on the video.

Reference:

Steve Jobs brainstorms with the NeXT team. (1985). Retrieved December 17, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNeXlJW70KQ

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The Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most famous test that can access your personality type by just answering 15-20 questions. Although the test can give everyone an understanding of his or her own personality, it can miscalculate your actual personality. In other words, the test is not 100% accurate to accessing and understanding your actual personality but it does give you an idea of who you are based on the answered questions. MBIT relates to the person’s personal preference for how people interact in the world. The results of the MBTI test can determine your preference of: your favorite world, information, decision-making style, and your form of structure.

In the aspect of your favorite world, the test takes a look at if you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world, which determines if you have an extrovert or introvert personality. Under information, the test seeks to understand on whether you would rather focus on basic information or interpret and add meaning to the information in front of you, which determines if you sense or use your intuition to seek out patterns and possibilities. In the decision-making aspect, the test seeks to understand if you prefer to use logic/reasoning and consistency or if you would rather look at the people and the special circumstances encountered to make the decision, which determines if you make choices based on rational thought process or use your emotions and feelings to make a decision. Lastly, in the structure part of the test it determines if you prefer to get things done decidedly or if you rather stay open to new information and options, which determines if you judge or perceive information.

The results of my personality test are: Introvert (67%), Sensing (38%), Thinking (12%), and Judging (11%) or ISTJ for short. Reflecting on the results of this type of personality test, I would have to agree with the results of the test. As an introvert I do prefer to stay in and when I go to social gatherings I’m more of the quiet person in the group who rarely interacts with complete strangers. In my development of leadership capacity this affects me because I need to be able to be outgoing with employees. Meaning, I need to be able to stand up and interact with others in order to explore other unforeseen possibilities, have better innovation instead of basing all my decisions on the side of caution. This will affect me as a leader in an organization because it can cause me to react to situations instead of proactively seeking ways to improve, make decisions, and so on. This will also affect me because as an introvert I do not have the courage, ability, or capability to go up to others to interact, gain information, form teams, and seek help when needed.

As a person sensing information, I do use my five senses to pay more attention to the information rather than wait and see patterns and possibilities that the new information may bring. As a leader this does have its benefits such as making quick, careful decisions on a time sensitive task, and for managing employees and customers. According to Myers-Briggs, I “pay more attention to the physical reality of things by being concern with what is actual, present, current, and real; I like to see the practical use of things, I remember the details important to me, and experience speaks to me louder when making decisions” (The Myers & Briggs…, n.d.). In other words, I care more about the now than I care about the future and I let my hands-on experience guide my decision-making. Unfortunately, this does hinder my leadership ability: to see the big picture at times to care about the future; my way of working through a problem, of not allowing new information to affect my decision by not exploring new ways, and overall my ability to innovate and be creative.

As a “Thinking” personality type, I tend to base my decisions on the basic information received by finding the basic truth or principle that is applied. In other words, I think more of the pros and cons of my decisions by using reasoning and logic to guide my decision-making process and by not letting emotions or personal desires influence my decision. Unfortunately, this can hinder my leadership skills as I can be seen as task-oriented instead of goal-oriented; seen as uncaring or indifferent in certain situation; and it affects my ability to openly communicate with other individuals. Lastly, being a “Judging” personality type does mean that I prefer to made decisions decidedly. In other words, I make the final decision without further input of additional new information when it comes to making decisions in the workplace. In the contrary, in my personal life I am open to new information, feedback, and remain flexible to change my mind as the information comes in. This is very true of me and can also affect the way I lead others in the workplace because I close myself to the possibility of new information affecting my decisions and I may be seen as inflexible. One good thing about this is that I would rather work than play but it does become a problem in the long run as it can cause exhaustion and eventually job dissatisfaction. It also affects the way I can adapt to new information, events, and situations because I like to be organized and decisive.

Overall, the information above helps me understand which areas I need to work on to be a better and effective leader. By using the results of the personality type test, I can work on balancing more all the traits needed to be an effective leader. These include being more of an extrovert leader, using my intuition more to make decisions, letting my feelings guide certain parts of my leadership style, and perceiving or being opened to new information as to help me adapt better in the workplace. Being aware of this information will help become more self-aware of my leadership style, on who I am, who I can become, and how I can make the changes necessary to meet and be my ideal self. This also helps me understand how I am viewed by others and whether or not the view of myself reflects the actions I take and who I want to be as a leader. Reflecting on this, I can firmly say that I am not satisfied as the view of myself does not reflect how others view and it shows that I have more work to do to become the best person and leader I can be.

Reference:

The Myers & Briggs Foundation - Sensing or Intuition. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2014, from http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/sensing-or-intuition.htm

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Given what I have learned during the past two courses of Organizational Development (OD), I don’t see OD as a fad. I mainly see it as a rapid changing field that adapts with the current times and future challenges, which is essentially what OD teaches. OD has been around since the 1970s, so it is not a new practice per se. The practice may sound new as organizations are now noticing and feeling the strong need to change due to the rapid change of the business environment. In the past, leaders did not always count with real-time information of the market. There had to be someone dedicated to watching the market trends, which would then test the market, verify the information, and if proven correct, it would then pass the information to the next chain of command. Now, with so many organizations in the market and information being so rapidly available, organizations are seeing the need to quickly adapt and become proactive instead of reactive in the market place. This is now the new norm and if the organization plans on being around for the next few years it must find ways to quickly adapt in order to stay ahead of the competition.

            According to Garrow (2009), mergers are already happening between HR and OD, as OD is more of a field practice than as a functional discipline of the organization. Meaning, instead of developing a department in which its sole focus is OD, OD practices are being taught to employees of the HR department to ensure continuous and long-term success of the organization. As a result, Brown teaches us that everyone should be part of the OD system when implementing it and this will include the HR department. The HR department is mainly there to help individuals learn new skills among many other things and roles that the HR department has. But, since OD is more of a practice, by teaching HR employees about OD techniques the organization can continue to develop its employees even after the OD practitioner is no longer active with the organization.

Reflecting on what I have learned in this course and throughout the MSLD program, I see the future of the OD discipline as the new way of organizations ensuring their place in the long-term race of market competition. Many major corporations and organizations are beginning to change their old habits and practices for ones that will ensure the quick responsiveness, adaptation, and success of the organization. In the recent years, organizations that have refused to change have faced bankruptcy, the closure of its business, or had to merge with other big companies to survive. In the other hand, other organizations are reengineering, restructuring, and flattening the hierarchy to meet market pressures (Brown, 2011). Overall, I see the OD discipline as one that will continue to stick around for the next 10 years or so. Eventually, technology will change (we may get replaced in the workplace with robots) and a new practice will emerge. But for the time being and for the current generation, the OD discipline is the answer for organizations facing the need to change.

Reference:

Brown, D. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall.

Garrow, V. (2009). OD: Past, present and future. Retrieved December 5, 2014, from http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/pdflibrary/wp22.pdf

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After watching the “Gallery Furniture Video Case Study” by Jim “Mattress Mack" McIngvale and the “Listen, learn ... then lead” video by Stanley McChrystal, it really does help tie-in the lessons from this chapter to actual experiences from the leaders currently going through organizational change. Reflecting on the information gained from the videos, I know gained a better understanding of the importance of leadership during times of transformational change in an organization. Leaders help influence and begin the transformation needed for an organization to succeed but, employees carry out those strategies, they are the ones who actually change the culture. In other words, top management can demand practices, tell employees what to do but without the employees buy-in and understanding, that type of change or strategy will only be successful in the short term.

A good example of this is Jim’s video on leadership during organizational change/transformation. In the Gallery Furniture video, Jim explains that the furniture business drastically declined in late 2007 during the house market crash (Gallery Furniture, 2012). Later on, Gallery Furniture suffered a huge fire accident in one of its warehouses, which caused further financial damage to the entire organization. During such hard times Jim realized that it was time for a change, but in order for the change to be successful Jim needed to change organization’s culture. This meant changing 30 year-old practices, implementing new technologies, training employees, implementing new practices, and much more.

Reflecting on Jim’s video, I would say that Jim’s approach to change and transformation applies to both the strategy-culture matrix (figure 15.5) and to the relative strength of corporate culture (figure 15.4). In the strategy-culture matrix, Jim’s approach to change seems to fit more with quadrant 1, manage the change. In other words, instead of talking about change and asking employees to change, Jim involved everyone including himself. Jim shared the new organizational vision, reshuffled power (although not explicitly mentioned in the video), and reinforced the new value system by creating incentives and rewards to those making the effort to change. Jim didn’t force the change into the organization; he influenced it and explained to employees the benefit to changing.  In respect to the relative strength of corporate culture, by what Jim explains, it seems that member commitment to the organization’s values is high and by Jim influencing the organization’s culture with the values already respected, he was able to gain the buy-in, respect and trust from employees to transform the organization into one more technological, well-respected in the industry, and so on.

In the second video “Listen, learn ... then lead” video by Stanley McChrystal, an Army leader, McChrystal explains how technology required him to change his leadership style. In the video, he talks about how it became difficult for him to lead, influence, and motivate other fellow army members who were far from his reach. Meaning, as technology has increased its presence in organization, it has become a challenge for old leaders to adapt to this new form of leading through the use of technology. Instead of talking to employees who were under the same roof as him, McChrystal now needed to lead Army members over video conference because they were all spread out throughout the globe. To me, it does seem challenging because it isn’t easy to say inspiring or motivational words without using hand gestures, giving a hug to a fellow team member, and so on. Technology has come a long way and it does help us communicate faster, but it does limit the amount of contact we have with those we are communicating with and this is where a new form of leadership is needed.

Applying my understanding of the video, I believe McChrystal’s form of leadership applies to both the relative strength of corporate culture and the strategy-culture matrix. Brown mentions, “Implementing strategic changes can be done more effectively when the culture of the organization is taken into consideration” (Brown, 2011). This is very true and applies to McChrystal as he took into consideration (the mission, different backgrounds but the same learning, and the different location of each member) the culture of the organization when he sought out a different form of leading through the use of technology. My main understanding from this video is leading by example. McChrystal mentions that every Army member receives the same type of training, they all rely on what has been taught to them by their superiors but this isn’t what makes a good leader; what makes a good leader is their willingness to trust, communicate, and learn from those around them (McChrystal, 2011). It is evident throughout the video that the Army’s culture is a strong culture where members are committed to the values of the organization and there are a high number of members sharing the same values. It is also evident that McChrystal reinforces the culture due to the high compatibility of change with the existing culture while there is little need to change the strategy of the organization.

           

Reference:

Brown, D. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall.

Gallery Furniture. (2012). Retrieved November 30, 2014, from https://www.vitalsmarts.com/casestudies/gallery-furniture/

McChrystal, S. (2011). Transcript of "Listen, learn ... then lead" Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.ted.com/talks/stanley_mcchrystal/transcript?language=en#t-78245

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Reflecting on what I have learned thus far, there is a change on what is required from a person, as a leader, in order for him or her to get to the top management level. About 5 years ago employees who had powerful personalities, a strong vision, strong technical skills, and a strong work ethic would rise to the top management level within a few years of being in the organization. These types of traits and characteristics where thought out of as unique, strong and powerful which were needed to lead an entire organization to success in a tough business environment.

But in the recent years, due to technology and environmental changes, we have seen organizations move more towards seeking a leading personality; a personality that consists of teamwork, strong work ethic, visionary, a creative person who has different technical skills, and is all-around knowledgeable of the complexity of the organization. He or she does not need to know every detail of the organization but he or she must know how each department interacts, works together, how one department depends on the other for success, the importance of teamwork, the importance of good communication, great decision-making, employee empowerment, and so on. In other words we are now asking for more than just a typical strong leadership trait. Organizations want someone who understands the complexity of the organization, is knowledgeable, can think on his/her feet even when he or she doesn’t have all the answers/information, is flexible and can quickly adapt to the ever-changing business environment. Organizations like Google, Cisco, Facebook among many others, have these types of leaders; leaders who don’t just see a running engine but also see how each part interacts with another part to make the engine run. When an engine part is missing (communication isn’t clear in an organization), the engine begins to malfunction or continues to function with various hiccups, that when ignored for long enough it would, eventually, break down and mess up the engine.

Overall, it is difficult for a leader to grow into a person who can lead a system-wide change effectively because it is a big responsibility and you need to have everyone’s buy-in for the system-wide change to remain and be effective. If the leader cannot or does not communicate effectively his or her vision to the rest of the organization, the employees who do not understand it or see the benefits and how the change would affect them will resist the change. Employees may also resist change when someone who isn’t liked or respected implements it. Part of the reason why it is difficult for a leader to grow into the type of leader needed to implement a system-wide intervention effectively is because the leader no longer only does his or her own work alone or repetitively. The leader must be able to communicate to managers, supervisors, employees the vision of the organization, must be able to make effective decisions, delegate, recognize others’ success, give rewards/incentives/punishments, give yearly reviews, set expectations, be resourceful, honest, have confidence, be committed, coach employees, “have a positive attitude, have intuition, be able to inspire change, inspire others, have good ambition, interpersonal skills” and many more skills (Javitch, 2009).

Unfortunately, I have not experienced working for a leader who has tried to implement a system-wide intervention or change, nor have I worked for an organization that has implemented a system-wide change. But from the material I have read throughout the course I have been able to form my own opinion about this subject, being a leader now is no easy job but it is rewarding and do-able when you have the right attitude, support, confidence, cooperation, and commitment.

Reference:

Javitch, D. (2009). 10 Qualities of Superior Leaders. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/204248