Christy’s Reflections

Our meeting started out as expected. Everyone was excited about having pizza(their favorites were provided). We held the meeting in the place of business so we had windows open to  nature, the walls were covered with brightly colored posters, the overhead lights were turned on so we could all see and we chose not to use a table but to sit in a circle. We felt that the stage was set for a perfect meeting. Kristin prepared an agenda in the shape of an album to keep us on the business theme. We felt that the clients would appreciate an agenda so they could follow the course of the meeting. We also gave them a copy of our recommendations. Our meeting was ready to proceed but remember, you never know what to expect at a feedback meeting. We gave our clients support for all the many things that they had been well and then began to discuss the first recommendation which was the web site. After presenting research on how this venue would benefit their business the primary client spoke up. He informed us that the person that originally designed his web site had stopped by the store last week and informed him that he was working on a new web site for him and it should be ready in the near future. This news was great for the business but really surprised us. The primary client had not mentioned this information to us or we would not of put so much time into research trying to convince him that this was a good venue for him. Obviously, he agreed with us. This kinda made me sad that we did not have a great idea to offer him that he had not already decided on, but it was great that he had already decided on this venue.

Our biggest contribution to our client was the unveiling of the communication problem. The client was aware that he was not a great communicator but I do not think that he was aware of the need for increased communication between all the staff. They all seemed interested in starting regular meetings but needed to agree on how often. We suggested quarterly but they seemed to want them a little more often, which we were pleased with. You never know where all this communication might lead this business too.

Once you have had your feedback meeting ask yourself-did your meeting go as you planned?  Did the client accept any of your recommendations? one of them? Do you feel like you accomplished anything?

It was an honor and pleasure to have Robin present to our class. I did not know what to expect, young/older, tall/short, what color of hair, or loud and aggressive/ quiet and meek. I know that these characteristics have nothing to do with her qualifications as a professor but I like to have an idea of who to expect. So to sum it up I was impressed with Robin. She was an easy person to communicate with and interesting to listen to.

The article that we read, The Dynamics of Organizational Culture, was quite technical and heavy reading. I found areas of it to be repetitious and a little confusing. It was easier to understand and apply Schein’s Model of organizational culture (1985) which stated artifacts-values-assumptions. Ms. Hatch’s Cultural Dynamics Model of values-artifacts-symbols-assumptions was more difficult to apply to situations. Robin was fantastic at helping the class to better understand what Mary Jo Hatch was trying to say and gave us examples of how to apply her model. It was interesting to listen to her talk about her research and how she is trying to make it work with Ms. Hatch’s model.  Robin had us break into three groups for a class exercise. She broke the paper into three sections and then gave us and assignment. . My assignment was on the end of the paper which was dealing with the Figure 3 on page 683. Karen and I decided where you(the researcher) would be on the circle given certain circumstances. I found this exercise helpful in understanding Ms. Hatches work. Also, by listening to my classmates summarize their areas in the paper, this helped to clarify those areas of the paper. Overall, I thought the evening was a success and would enjoy having her lecture to us again.

I have chosen the group of people that I would like to use for my study on organizational culture. . . . and the winner is. . . the full time faculty in the dental hygiene department in the school of dentistry at VCU.  I have had the opportunity to work with this group of people for over 30 years but have never taken the time look at them as a culture or study them as a culture. Today I had the opportunity to observe the participants in the culture group interact in an office meeting and it was quite interesting.  I saw how personalities could clash and discussion pursue and then a mutual decision could be reached. Occasionally there was a personal attack and the director stepped and confronted  the person who made the attack and asked for explanation. Then the person making the attack had to defend herself and usually end up apologizing since she was in the wrong. It intrigued me that the director would not let the staff belittle each other and held them accountable on the spot before the meeting could move forward. I felt that this cleared the air and the group could move forward with a clean slate and make progress. The director appears to read people well and react appropriately.At the end of the day, all the participants are friends and socialize  together which leads me to believe they must work out their differences or leave work at the office.

Have you had the opportunity to observe the participants in your culture? How are they interacting? What methods are they using to solve problems between themselves?  Do they like each other at the end of the day?

The movie on  Enron was an eye opener. It was amazing to see how a company was started from nothing and became a billion dollar company with a respectable, shining reputation. It seemed that everything they touched came up smelling like roses. Enron was able to play the old game of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” in order to keep it’s finances afloat. They even created a marketing scheme  where they could show income on an idea even though it had not made a single penny. The whole concept was based on the “potential ” of making money on this idea. This allowed the company to appear more financially stable and a greater money maker than it really was.

Many of the employees were aware of the schemes that were going on in the company but chose to turn a blind eye . Why you ask? I suggest it was power and greed. The whole culture of Enron seemed to hold the idea that money was important. The methods to attain money were accepted even if they were conventional and sometimes illegal.  Some of the traders were so entrenched in the power and greed that in the end they were running the management.

Personally, I have not worked in an environment that behaved like Enron. My employment was with the Federal Government and there are many rules and regulations that would not let the shenanigans of Enron exist. Even if a sliver of an Enron idea got past the many rules, then usually someone would blow the whistle and turn the guilty party in. Most government employees are loyal to their government and to their country.  I wonder how many of my classmates have ever worked in an environment similar to Enron.

My previous employment was with a large institution and I was only involved in one example of “consultation”.  The type of discovery that was used was the 3rd party type. I did not find this type of discovery very fulfilling on my part or very successful. First, there was the distribution of rank which stifled the flow of ideas and creativity. Participants in the group were hesitant to volunteer ideas after they saw a few people get their ideas shot down without any rhyme or reason. Second,  the ideas that were suggested by the upper rank, did not make sense to the lower staff and did not have our support. This was going to make implementing the ideas difficult and the success rate slow. Third, the consultant was not from our institution and we did not feel like that he really knew what was going on and was taking the word of the higher up’s and we felt that they did not know what the problem was. Overall this consultation was not successful and no one was happy. I wonder if the whole-system discovery had been used if there would of been a different outcome. Have you ever had a consultation experience and if so which type of discovery was used and was it successful?

As a novice trying to carry out  my first visit with my client, I found it to be was both exciting and challenging. My partner, Kristin, and I met with our client after his shop closed one evening. We chose a coffee shop to meet at because we felt this might create a relaxing atmosphere for everyone. Other than a little noise I felt we accomplished our goal with the accommodations  for the meeting. Fortunately, Kristin and I had just taught the section on navigation the contract so the steps for this process were fresh in our mind. We moved smoothly through the contracting steps, collecting what we felt was necessary data. There was a time when we were doubtful that we had a problem and the client stated several times that he hoped there was enough of a problem for us to have project.  We concluded the meeting and it appeared that parties were satisfied.  It was not until I read Block’s chapters 7-9 about resistance that I realized that our meeting did not go as well as I thought. I now understand from Blocks readings that resistance can take many different forms. When the client  stated that he hoped that there was enough of a problem for us to  have a project that this was a form of resistance. Now Kristin and I must address this resistance and attempt to peel the onion a little further to see what lies underneath and how that will affect our consultation.

When we began to discuss clients, I thought this would be one of the easy parts of our consulting. How hard could it be to identify who your client is? Surely the person we were speaking to and dealing with would  be our client. After reading chapter 4 in Schein I discovered that there were many types of clients and I could be dealing with more that one client during the process consultation. This began to make me a little nervous. Now I needed to really understand  each type of client and decide if any of the types pertained to my process consultation.  Quickly I realized that my contact client was the owner of the business that I was dealing with. Upon studying the other categories I discover that the contact client is also my primary client. This is getting more complicated by the minute. During the pure inquiry process with the primary client I discover there are employees and I may need to interview them at some point during the consultation. I would call them intermediate clients. Finally, there is possibility that there may be a need to interview customers and I would call them the ultimate clients. It is interesting to see how many clients can be involved in a process consultation which seemed to start out on a small scale and quickly grow. Seeing that the consultation has just begun, I may really be surprised how large this experience can get before it is finished.  Now I pose a question to you, look at your process consultation and tell me how many clients do you have to deal with?

I  enjoyed the presentations in the organizational learning class. Every presentation discovered that each large organization had different set of problems within their organization which lead to utilization of different techniques to solving their problems. This introduced the class to an immense amount of new knowledge for us to digest. It was interesting how the history of the companies contributed to the problems and sometimes caused resistance.

The model of organizational learning that I personally might use is the model that the Army uses, After Action Review. This model could be used in any environment and in almost any situation such as after a class demonstration, practice clinical session, a community outreach program to name a few. The situations that I named are some of the situations that I personally could use this model in and may recommend it’s use in my office.  The school of dentistry is in charge of handling a community outreach program called the MOM program which offers free dental services to those who cannot afford it, especially in the poorer sections of Virginia. It is made up of all volunteers from all over the state of Virginia, including dentist, dental hygienist, dental assistants, and volunteers. The program supplies all the needed equipment and other supplies necessary to make this effort successful. After each completion of this program, a After Action Review would be valuable tool in learning  how they could improve their success and minimizing their failures.  My question to my classmates is. . . from what you have learned from these presentations, are there any organizational learning models that you might incorporate in you working environment?

Scott Cooper looks at organizational learning in a different perspective. He doesn’t consider the learning of the individuals within the group to be organizational learning. He feel that there are a few things that make learning in an organization unique and these ideas can be applied to the Powell flute company. One idea he feels important is that  the momentum for change  comes from inside the company. This is seen when the head of the Powell company considers putting the Cooper scale  on their flute. There is much discussion among the organization but ultimately they decide to offer this scale to their customers. Powell flutes were afraid that this would change their flute and would lose their status in the flute industry. Fortunately, their customers saw the change as making the best flute better. Another idea was that organizational learning is unique for each organization. The only other organizations that would benefit from Powell’s learning would be other flute companies and then they would have the come to the same decision to change their flutes to the Cooper scale.

Powell flutes can be seen as a community of practice. They are a group of individuals that have a common interest. They work together for the success of that common interest.  Their knowledge is seen as tacit. You can see this when they are training an apprentice. The teacher works with the apprentice until he learns the “feel” of a perfect  flute. This is something the teacher cannot put into writing.  Once the apprentice  learns this feel, he will be moved to  his own working bench. My question to you, can you think of an example of organizational learning where you can find community of practice and teaching of a skill as fine as the flute making?

A new tool that I have been introduced to this semester is CMapping. It is a graphical two-dimension display of concepts which are connected by arcs that display relationships between these concepts. In our class last week, we had the opportunity to use this new concept. We took  the reading assignment for that week which covered two ways to transfer knowledge, serial and near transfer and began to plot them on the Cmap. I could not of contributed to this process if I had not thoroughly read and comprehended the reading assignment. I did find that by doing the Cmap that it was easier to see the relationships between the concepts. All of this information was supporting the main topic of organizational learning.  By saving what we had accomplished, the class will be able to add  other concepts to the Cmap as we learn them.  CMapping could be a good learning tool for students who are visual learners. I can see where CMapping could be used with dental hygiene students with concepts of infection control, dental anatomy, radiology, instrumentation, periodontal disease and caries . My question to you is where can you use Cmapping ?