A631.1.5.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

    EcoSeagate is an annual teambuilding retreat where employees within a company called Seagate learn to work under uncertain circumstances in unknown territories to come out better, stronger and more unified as a team. Although this teambuilding challenge costs around two million dollars the CEO of Seagate, Bill Watkins believes it “ helps build a more collaborative, team-oriented company” which is critical to the company’s success. After watching the videos and learning more about the team development process I can see the value of organizing such an event because Watkins is creating a team that learns to trust and depend on one another in the hardest obstacles most have ever faced in their lives.

    As I was watching the video and reading an article regarding this event, the first thing that came to mind was Seagate employees become a family when they leave this event. Watkins creates a Seagate family where each member is becomes more engaged and connected with one another so that they can continue to foster a strong relationship on trust and accountability moving forward. On this trek they bike, hike and climb mountains relying on one another and at each level of the development the group builds trust, over comes conflicts, becomes more committed and this leads to accountability which are all necessary traits of a highly functioning team. A family is similar to the type of team Watkins creates because they see each other at their worst, they struggle together, and provide support to accomplish the impossible, which is what it appears the EcoSeagate does for the company Seagate.

    Something like this is necessary in a high-performing organization because these employees are not your typical employees it appears that they are the cream of the crop. In order to get them out of their daily routines their CEO has to literally take them across the world putting them in a world none of them are familiar with in order to make them step outside their comfort zone, and critically think about everything. Stepping out of the everyday grind into an ah inspiring life changing experiences not only changes each person individually but it also allows them to recognize that they can do anything they out their minds to. Watkins asks the employees "Are you doing what you want to do in your life? Or are you just blowing through?" He then continues to empower employees by saying “this week is about you doing what you want to do for every week of the rest of your life." (O’Brian, 2008)

    Every team no matter the size is going to have issues they need to work on and develop in order to become stronger and using this kind of experience creates a team with a solid foundation to grow on. This retreat works to develop better problem solvers by putting them in life or death situations. This experience also allows everyone to recognize each member’s needs. For example if one of the employees struggles to read a map they work to teach them to read it, or if one has an injury the group forms a support system to get their member to the end. In Organizations Development Brown points out the importance of avoiding groupthink because it creates a need for “unanimity and overrides motivation to realistically appraise alternative course actions” (Brown, 2010). Basically groupthink prevents people from critically approaching each situation and narrows the thinking involved in problem solving. Creating a teambuilding exercise at any organization should focus on breaking the groupthink cycle to foster innovation and creativity through conflict and healthy problem solving.

   

    My organization would definitely benefit from a similar activity if given the opportunity. Recently my organization has gone through reorganization and everyone and everything has been affected by the aftermath. My director changed in this process because he was promoted for his abilities to lead a highly effective functioning team. Since our new leader has taken over I feel the cohesiveness has shifted and we have become more independent of one another. Prior to the change our old director empowered us to step outside the box and work as a team no matter what circumstances presented to us, but now we are partnered up. We have new rules that we have a partner and we are to cover our partner when they are out such, where in the past we all supported each other. The reason we were advised for the partners was to make sure everyone was participating and one person was not doing all the work for the entire team. I saw her point so we embraced the new roles with open arms; however since the change we have become more territorial.

    For example one partner is out more often then any others and his partner has to cover his work load as well as her own. One would think we would recognize her struggling and jump in to assist but we have a new mentality in which we are advised the partner does the covering so we are not really accountable. Having this freedom has created resentment, tension and hostility among all members of the team, which I feel is a combination of the entire reorganization. I have asked if we could have a retreat to try to get us together for the first time since the changes outside the office to work on teambuilding. I was assigned the task to work on this retreat and after long hours creating a fun filled team bonding retreat I was recently informed it might be delayed or even canceled to do uncontrollable circumstances. I am sadden by the news because I know that the more time we spend growing apart the longer it will take to get us back to the high function team we once were.

An inside look at extreme corporate bonding - May. 21, 2008. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/20/technology/obrien_seagate.fortune/

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

A630.9.4.RB_McNerneyLeighAnn

Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Google for ten years and within this time he expanded

Google globally. Schmidt’s ability to play an influential role in shaping Google’s culture is based on his concept that “You need to develop a culture where people actually are going to do what they’re going to do, and you’re trying to assist them.” Schmidt's description of the Google’s Culture make sense to me because at Google their culture is about the people working there, and their ability to be innovative, diverse and creative because this is what sets Google a part from everyone else. Schmidt touches on in his presentation that when “recruiting you need to look at whether they’re sort of compatible with the other people” and this was a very important point I feel because above skills comes the need to work as a team. If people are incapable of working with others then there is unnecessary drama within the atmosphere, which in my opinion leads to a lack of trust and dedication. For example, I have a coworker that is always stabbing others in the back. She has even gone as far as reaching top management to make claims that were off the wall ridiculous. This coworker is someone no one wants to work with or be around and it is so bad that an upcoming conference the entire department chose a different day then she did just so no one was stuck with her all day. This employee is not dumb but she is very difficult and spiteful which is why she always has an agenda of how she will use experiences to her favor. With Google’s strategy to analyze potential employees to determine if they not only are capable of their job responsibilities but also to perform well with others is extremely important in creating a healthy functioning culture.

    In Schmidt’s presentation he described how Google uses this the 70–20–10. The 70 percent is devoted to Google’s core business, 20 percent is focused on adjacent business, and then 10 percent is concentrated on others. Schmidt advises that this type of ‘allocation principle” is always adjusting to meet the percentages. I believe this is a reasonable way to view the work that most people are doing in your workplace because personally I know that I cannot give 100 percent of my time to my core responsibilities because of the other businesses and interests I have.  This is an honest outlook on how people perform and what they do and by putting this out in the open people will most likely be more honest with their time in my opinion because they will not have to hide or feel guilty. Allowing 10 percent of people’s time at work to focus whatever they are interested in also fosters creativity and innovation, which will be beneficial for Google. I know personally when I am at work there are times where I wonder why something is a certain way so I start digging deeper to find some resolution. This is not something I tell people, but it makes me more educated to perform my job duties when I can better understand why something is a certain way. I think this is a brilliant strategy using the 70-20-10 model and I would only hope more organizations become aware of the benefits.

In the presentation Schmidt also encourages that companies to add discord and deadlines to their meetings in order to develop better conversations and a consensus. He feels strongly that this is the key to success because it opens the door for others that are more likely to shy away rom speaking up to give their point of views and this opens a critically thought conversation. I agree this would promote a healthy argument and a diverse perspective on a solution; however I would be cautious as to who adopts this concept because unless the organization followed his prior concept of hiring only compatible individuals this could backfire. Personally I know that in the Financial Aid Department we are always arguing and this makes the environment very uncomfortable for other employees and management within the same meeting. Instead of coming to a healthy consensus the meeting turns into yelling and fighting and everyone wants to win even if they are wrong because it was such a public event. There is a lot of prideful employees that I feel cannot handle this kind of conversation because they become too defensive to listen to what others are saying. Walls come up and information doesn’t penetrate through. As a future leader I feel that this could be beneficial but you would first have to hand pick types of personalities in which you as the leader feel you and others could work with through challenging issues.

    What I plan to take away from this exercise to immediately use in my career is that it is important to recognize different personality traits at all levels of my organization to better understand some of the decisions that are made. I also want to look at each individual in my department and try to recognize their qualities and if they are doing their job without being told to do it and if they are able to function with minimal help form our director. Personally I believe we are a very independent department and I think we function very well because we are not micro managed, I reflected a lot during this exercise and I see the departments within my organization that are constantly micro managed are the ones full of deceitful employees. I believe they are this way because they feel they have to hide from their management because of the repercussions that would follow. If they adapted the 70-20-10 model within these departments I feel they would increase productivity and some of the unwanted behaviors would decrease simply because these employees would be free to explore and investigate things that interest them without facing any penalties. I know that during the day I need to just check my email to break away from the day-to-day grind and after I return to work I feel refreshed and more motivated to keep doing what I need to do. That is why I choose to devote my day around the 70 percent of my core responsibilities, 20 percent investigating regulations and working on bettering the way in which my reports are organized and 10 percent to freeing my mind to become more focused.

References

Eric Schmidt on business culture, technology, and social issues | McKinsey & Company [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/eric_schmidt_on_business_culture_technology_and_social_issues

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    After watching Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team I have to agree with Wujec’s analysis of why kindergarteners perform better on the Spaghetti Challenge than MBA students. I feel this way because the kindergarteners don’t seem to have the same mentality going into the project. They are focused on the goal of building a tower using their imagination and work well as a team. I know that the MBA students are intelligent adults, but I feel there is a significant difference in how they approach the challenge and how the kinds did. As adults the MBA students have been educated and shaped into what they are told they should be by professors; however kindergarteners are told to play nice with one another, share, take turns and use their imagination. For me this is the main difference kindergarteners have the ability to use their imagination freely and collaborate with one another building off one another’s thoughts because they have not been educated to follow a specific way to approach most situations.

    MBA, CEO and any other adult struggles with this because in my opinion they have gone through the education system or their careers learning how to approach situations the way they are expected to, the “right way”. For example when put into groups they began orientating themselves then from there they developed who was who. After the adults had defined member roles they talked and sketched their plan of action out waiting until the last minute to finally build it the tower. The final touch adding the marshmallow ended with the expected “ta da” but soon became an “uh oh”. None of these people expected their towers to fail and they were faced with a crisis that led to the failure to build the tower in the allotted time frame. How embarrassing for these highly intelligent educated adults to be out shined by a bunch of little kids! This highlighted many flaws in their ability to build a successful team. The kindergarteners however were excellent team builders because in the beginning they did not care who was in charge they just went for it. Wujec explains in the presentation that they developed many prototypes that led to their success. These kids remained motivated and collaborated so well they remained the most successful group when researched compared to many other trials of this team-building project.

    Many times MBA programs focus on managing and not collaborating. MBA programs are very traditional and this is why they fail, they fail to recognize the benefits of collaborating over assigning roles. I suspect the kindergarteners were better at this project simply because they weren’t focused on their orientation in their group, they weren’t concerned with being recognized, or even worried if they failed because they were just having fun.  Wujec noted that when adding an executive assistant into the group of CEOs when working on the project they performed better than when it were just CEOs. This is similar to the kids they added a different way to approach the situation they were not trying to be the chief in charge they were just there to help which probably balanced out the power struggles within. Somehow when kids grow up and become successful adults the focus goes from achieving goals to achieving personal success it seems.

    I have reflected on myself throughout this entire Leadership Program and reflecting back has made it apparent that the more educated I have become the more trained my thinking process became. I have trained myself to use patterns, habits and past experiences in order to decide on a situation. I have narrowed my thinking process without even realizing it; however now that I have identified this inability to critical think back in the beginning of the Leadership Program I have started to focus on developing my critical thinking skills. As a kid thinking about anything it was as if the sky was the limit I had a very vivid imagination and tried everything. Now that I am an adult I worry about everything. I worry about getting hurt, what others may think, and when creating something I worry I will fail, do it wrong, or it wont be the best it could be. This is what happened to the MBA students, they are much like me; meaning that they have spent most of their life worrying about being the best and making sure whatever they do is the best it could be instead of just trying and failing. Kids don’t care about this as much because they have nothing to lose because they are just doing it because its fun.

    If I were asked to facilitate a process intervention workshop, I would relate the video to process intervention skills in a staff meeting. My department has just undergone a complete change in management and the new manager’s style of managing is completely different than the old one. The new manager does not like confrontation at all so some coworkers of mine have began to capitalize this and use it to their advantage which has created a lot of tension. One coworker continues to break the rules and go against what she is told to do. There have been complaints form other departments about her, complaints form coworkers and many other issues that need to be confronted; however she remains the same. I think this has created a wedge and our teamwork that was once very strong has started to dwindle.

    I want to suggest to our manger to call a staff meeting to try and bring us back together and use this challenge of an example of how we lack collaboration because I am very positive we would perform much like the MBA and CEOs. The idea that this may shed some light on a much bigger underlying issue would hopefully improve our department and bring our morale back to where it used to be. We used to remind one another “one team, one dream” but this focus is no longer a priority since the change in management. Everyone has an agenda and I feel like eventually we are going to tear each other apart. I am very happy to have watched this video because it brought to light many assumptions and from these assumptions I have become more aware of the importance of collaborating as a team. Throughout this program there has been a lot of focus on team building, team work, team atmospheres and from this comes diversity, learning, growth, interpersonal skills and exposure to better ways of operating and becoming successful.

References

Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team | Video on TED.com [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html