School Work

Welcome all to the presentation on "5 Keys to Organizational Effectiveness". Tonight you are investing in yourself. You are looking to better yourself and your organization. Walking out of here tonight you will have a better understanding of these five things: Motivation, Leadership, Organizational Culture, Creativity and Innovation.

First, I want you to know why I have picked what I call the "5 Keys to Organizational Effectiveness". Motivation is something you can buy enough of. We have all seen the employee that wouldn't lift a finger unless you told them when and how to lift it. Leadership is essential to keep a business on track and moving forward. Vision and ability to communicate are key characteristics of leadership. Without good leadership even the Titanic stayed afloat longer. The atmosphere, the hours of operation, the dress code, and how we operate as an organization will also be looked at for the benefit of producing a well-rounded organization. Lastly, we will look at the impact of creativity and innovation in the organization to the degree of promoting and hiring quality individuals and how this fosters loyalty.

The concept of this workshop is how to hone in the quality, creativity, loyalty, and motivation of an organization. In doing so, you will effectively transform your organization, department or team into something truly awe inspiring that will attract and improve retention for some time to come.

It is said perception is fact. In the work place this often times seems to be the rule and justification for the individual on the receiving end of someone's perception to change behavior. When taken into account concerning the equity theory, one needs to see it for what it is. Usually that means a misunderstanding or not having all the information on the part of the one perceiving the inequity. While this is generally true. When we take this in the context of motivation, we open ourselves to understanding more about want makes a person tick. Restoring equity doesn't have to mean recognition or reward. It can take the shape of clear and understood duties, responsibilities, and expectation within pay scale or position.

You may have clicks at work. Clicks are groups of individuals that socialize together and often time's pair with one another in work related tasks. These clicks are comfortable, secure, and create group norms. The groups of individuals are easily identified and can be recognized by their group and individual performance. Let's say you have identified one group in particular with little to no productivity and daily monitoring and motivating is a constant drain on your time and energy. The group norms make it difficult to expect and even motivate higher performance. As the leader or manager, you need these groups of individuals isolated from one another and not allowed, as much as possible, to work in teams and paired with other higher preforming individuals. You must be weary of these individuals further affecting those they have been paired with and must only do so when projects are of short duration and tasks are easily done. To do otherwise, would only lead to frustration of a generally productivity and satisfied employee. You as management can only do so much when comes to motivation; however, you still need to be proactive in creating an atmosphere that leads to wanting to be motivated.

Let's take a moment and look at the primary differences between leadership and management. The primary difference is in the level of the information being communicated. Leadership is challenging the status quo, developing visions and setting direction, developing strategies for producing changes toward the new vision, communicating the new direction and getting people involved, and motivating and inspiring others. Management on the other hand in focused on carrying out traditional management functions like planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, problem solving, and control. Managers will at times assume certain roles such as functioning as the liaison with key people, supervisor of employees, disseminate and monitor information, and make decisions within their respective group.

The most prevalent leadership approach at many workplaces is situational leadership. It doesn't matter if it is a team lead, the program manager, or an individual. Problems or situations occur on a daily basis and need resolving to keep things moving along in the desired direction. The situation could be customer service related to problems with approval for funding regarding a new enhancement to the software. It varies from day to day and requires direct involvement of leadership.

While this approach has its benefits, I want to introduce you to a different approach to the leadership style. It is called the behavioral approach. Specifically, I would like to see more leaders showing consideration where leadership is open and willing to listen regarding important decisions impacting the department and teams. Assigning work and emphasis on accountability is strongly needed. Individuals are allowed to ignore their duties thus leaving it to others, already pulling their share, to pick up the slack ensuring time lines are meet. The behavioral leadership feature of initiating structure would greatly enhance accountability and moral.

Organizational culture is