Organization X – Consultant Report
Krystal Gray
Department of Applied Psychology; Adler University
Lifespan Development 504
Professor John Blattner
December 5, 2021
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Defining The Problem
Organization X is facing cultural and profitability issues. Their dynamic and diverse workforce is not acting as a unified entity which is causing problems in communication, understanding, collaboration, and production impacting corporate culture and profitability. In professional environments, social interactions develop and lead to the formation of “…unacknowledged rituals, tacit understandings, covert symbolic exchanges, impression management techniques, and calculated strategic manoeuvrings” (Hunt et al., 2018, n.d) and in this case, it’s leading to the creation of a negative culture and demoralized workforce. Identifying the issues to be assessed and addressed is key in order to resolve, align, and create an organization that values diversity and achieves great things.
Issues to be address include:
Age diversity – we currently see a differential in ages from older adults to millennials
Social Interactions including communication preferences – we currently observe less than ideal social interactions including complaints regarding communication
Biases – a number of biases would be present in this organization that would cause issues
Definitions of social responsibility – there is a misalignment with respect to actions associated with social responsibility given differing causes are being supported and cited as an issue
Decrease in production – profitability is being impacted due to a decrease in production looking at items such as work habits and technology usage
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Culture – given the number of complaints currently occurring, culture would be an issue that requires addressing
Leadership – given the issues being presented, leadership must be addressed and aligned to design action plans
Assessment
The creation of an ethical, high functioning, socially responsible, and profitable organization is no small feat. Elements such as social interactions, leadership, values, policies, processes, communication preferences, and more must be considered and balanced with profitability, effectiveness, and outcomes to ensure sustainability and growth. Organization X needs help to change the culture, behaviour, and actions currently occurring within their space as it is impacting business operations.
As a primary step in the assessment process, a culture and behaviour audit would be conducted. All employees (including management) will be given an online survey to fill out. Email addresses will be attached to the survey in order to categorize and analyze needed trends. This audit would provide sightlines into the organizational culture including biases, representations, stereotypes, and attitudes of the current workforce and culture. This data will be used to compile a report outlining, in the team’s own words, the current behaviours and beliefs motivating the corporate culture.
Once the audit is complete, as assessment will be conducted on the leadership practices and style currently in place as leadership is the guidepost that influences culture, change, growth,
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and achievement of results within any organization. Effective leadership is needed, especially in times of conflict to provide stability, guidance, and cohesion to overcome the presented obstacles. A report will be developed on the current leadership style and behaviours that result from that defined style for according to Rost, leadership “…enlists employee participation in a way that marries individual needs and interests to the group’s purpose” (1991, p. 51).
Both assessments will be used to fully understand the culture and practices guiding the organization. The next stage will be a separate town hall meeting with each of the affected parties (older adults and millennials), facilitated by our consulting group with management present in order to provide an opportunity for each individual to feel involved, heard, and validated with the process. This would also be used to identify key individuals within each group who are leading the negative charge and voicing their dissatisfaction the loudest.
A last step in the assessment process would be conducting 1-1 stakeholder interviews with the key identified individuals from the town hall sessions. This is meant to provide them extra attention as well as an opportunity to create a supported relationship with our consulting firm.
Starting The Conversation
Once the assessments and interviews have been completed, it’s time to start bridging the gap and initiating supervised conversations within the organization. We would begin with a training session for the entire group outlining positive and negative social interactions. We
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would provide tips and knowledge (such as listen, pause, respond) in this session to facilitate more functional conversations between the groups.
We would proceed to break the employees into mixed teams and run them through some difficult “staged” conversations based upon the issues identified above and have them develop solutions for each of the problems faced. For example, you have to teach your grandpa how to text on his new iPhone, role play how you would go about doing this. At the end of the session,
we would get everyone to communicate something they learned, a new relationship they feel they formed and how they can see using this in the workplace.
Recommendations
Once we have completed the assessment and training session, we would provide the following recommendations to Organization X in order to assist with addressing the issues above.
Buddy Program
We would recommend the creation of a program which would consist of pairing up individuals within the organization to institute a buddy system. Each week the “buddies” must have one lunch together. The idea behind this tactic is provide a mechanism for individuals to connect and grow communication skills in person. You can provide a list of questions or topic to discuss if needed. The list is to be posted in a communal place and emailed out to the entire team first thing Monday morning. The buddies must communicate and agree on what day to meet and
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share lunch. Management must be included in this initiate to model the desired behaviour and connect with the team.
Shared Objective and Goal Setting
“The ability to visualize and articulate a possible future state for an organization has always been a vital component of sustainability” (Mayo, T. 2007). Involve cross pollinated groups of people
into quarterly objective and goal setting workshops. This not only facilitates buy in into the goals but increases employee morale and loyalty. Set up strategic teams and place them in charge of an individual goal and outlining the action steps needed to achieve success. Have them communicate and institute the needed plans and report on progress.
Weekly Meetings
Host a weekly meeting with the entire organization to outline progress towards goals and objectives, discuss issues in a collaborative and supportive manner, high light and review company values including providing examples of individuals who were seen exhibiting and living the company values. Ask for feedback and nominations from the team.
Emotional Intelligence Training
Emotional intelligence training would benefit everyone at Organization X. It would provide a knowledge base to integrate a new filter, to drive ideas, and performance as well as allow for increased empathy and support within the team. “Emotionally intelligent people were more
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likely to experience positive affect, which in turn might enhance their job satisfaction” (Adil & Kamal, 2016, p. 79).
Professional Development Opportunities
Ensure everyone in within Organization X has access to professional development opportunities. These can be ideas or knowledge the employee wants to advance in or a recommendation from a
manager to assist with growth in a needed area (for example a technology class for older adults or cross training opportunities in other divisions). Promoting intellectual stimulation is needed in any organization. Bringing in speakers or trainers to help grow knowledge in a needed area is another way to promote professional development.
One – One Meetings with Management
Ensuring employees have one on one time with managers and leaders is key to a positive corporate culture. Schedule regular meetings with team members to give them undivided and focused attention. This will also help to foster positive relationships, open lines of communication, and provide a mechanism for individualized considerations. This will also allow for the leadership team to serve as role models by instilling trust and respect within the organization through idealized influence (Bass & Avolio, 1993).
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Leadership Training
Ensuring the leadership team is prepared and modelling needed behaviours is key for any organization’s success. Focusing on a democratic leadership style will encourage participative decision making, sharing of activities and responsibilities, as well as designing robust solutions. In this instance, ensuring leadership walks the talk is key to sustaining a positive corporate culture.
Alignment on Mission/Vision/Values
An organization’s culture is actualized through a unique mission, vision, and set of values which determine how people are treated, the ethical practices, expectations, attitude, and what success looks like. Ensuring Organization X has a well-defined mission/vision/values are key. Values are stem from moral development guiding what we believe to be essential, or morally worthy, and we operate under the assumption that values motivate us to act especially in our business endeavours (Ciulla, 1995).
Piece of Cake Walk
Bringing in a process to deal with conflict is key for any environment with more than one individual. Having a well-articulated process and a structure in place that fosters communication when conflict arises is a needed element in any organization. In this case we are recommending that any disagreement/conflict that cannot be resolved through typical channels will require involved parties to take a “piece of cake walk”. The involved parties will take a walk together
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outside, away from the office, to discuss the present issue in a respectful way. This will work to untie people and maintain compliance in a way that promotes social change, leading to increased organizational sustainability (Juneja, 2015).
Continued Role Playing (Experiential Training)
Another recommendation is for Organization X to incorporate experiential training exercises that integrate Adlerian principles into their meetings and professional development. This will
help everyone expand their interpersonal competencies and increase leadership effectiveness. Roll playing, weekly meetings, and creation of action teams for projects success are a few of the ways experiential training can occur in a continued fashion.
Conduct an Annual Behaviour and Culture Audit
In order to stay on top of all the great and positive changes occurring within Organization X, we are also recommending repeating the behaviour and cultural audit on an annual basis. This will provide everyone within Organization X and opportunity to comment on growth, biases, and their view of the culture to identify areas that require continued growth and action.
Company Charity Focus
Create a task force of diverse individuals within the organization to recommend a company charity to focus efforts towards. Have the task force come up with three viable recommendations and make a presentation during one of the weekly meetings. Get everyone in the organization to
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vote on the desired charity to focus efforts on. The intent behind this is to create a united front for social interest, communicate effectively with the organization and institute a singular effort that everyone can be involved with and support. This is the allow for personal platforms and associations to remain outside and a collaborative effort to created internally.
Conclusions
The recommendations provided in this document are meant to provide training, increase knowledge, empathy, respect, and collaboration with Organization X’s culture and workforce. Continued monitoring and soliciting of feedback is needed in order to see if change is occurring and in the appropriate direction. Fostering opportunities for positive social interaction and alignment on company values will ensure a workforce that is happy, positive, and loyal which will be able to address production and process issues in an effective and collaborative manner.
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References
Adil, A. & Kamal, A. (2016). Workplace Affect as Mediator Between Emotional Intelligence
and Job Satisfaction Among Customer Service Representatives. Journal of Behavioural Sciences, 26(2), 79-94. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/workplace-affect-as-mediator-between-emotional/docview/1864042015/se-2?accountid=26166
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1993). Transformational leadership: A response to critiques. In M.
M. Chemers & R. Ayman (Eds.), Leadership theory and research: Perspectives and directions (p. 49–80). Academic Press.
Ciulla, J.B.: Leadership Ethics. Mapping the Territory. Business Ethics Quarterly. January 1995,
25-34.
Hunt, E., Mi, B., Fernandez, C., Wong BM, Pruitt JN, Pinter-Wollman N. (2018) Social
interactions shape individual and collective personality. Proc. R. Soc. B 285(1886).
Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1366
Juneja, P. (2015). Importance of Ethics. Management Study Guide. Retrieved from:
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/importance-of-ethics.htm
Mayo, T. The Importance of Vision. Harvard Business Review. October 29, 2007. Retrieved
from https://hbr.org/2007/10/the-importance-of-vision
Rost, J. Leadership for the Twenty-First Century. New York 1991.
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