Executive Summary
Within the entire semester, our team has been proactive in tackling several assignments within the goal of scoring optimal points. The team consisted of five members. The team consisted of four locals and one international student, who was me. Upon completion of the SPCA project and the entire unit, I have to confirm that all the above objectives were addressed and met effectively. The team managed to integrate teamwork, hard work, and proactive research to ensure that the assignments were well done. Among the key projects which team carried out was offering a comprehensive research for the SPCA to boost its organizational image as a strategy for restoring the confidence of its sponsors in San Francisco. Through survey approach via social media and email, the recommendations to the SPCA proposed benefits such as efficiency and resource saving for the SPCA organization in order to win the confidence of its sponsors.
Introduction
The team carried out a comprehensive research on the need for proactive organizational behavior modification, in terms of the available skills and ease managing different operational processes. The research included the perception of different respondents on the level of activities and performance of the SPCA as perceived by potential clients. Besides, team carried out research on the current operations processes situation at the SPCA in order to offer relevant solutions that support its short term and long term goals on efficiency in pet service provision. The team achieved the intended results since we unanimously agreed to present the proposed recommendation of enhancing efficiency, thus, better performance to the SPCA organization. Among the issues the team noted as requiring improvement in as the meetings commenced included creation of a systematic organization performance module to accommodate the different roles assigned to each member. Besides, the team noted that organization improvement recommendations should be aligned to requirements of efficiency in performance processes at the SPCA.
Individual impact
In the process of developing the recommendations for organization improvement for the SPCA, I was very effective in presenting the immediate needs that the team could present during the first meeting with organization to table the proposals. Specifically, I presented a compressive report on the benefits of the proposed recommendations for the SPCA. Among the benefits I discussed included efficiency in the pet service processes, time saving, and cost saving since improved efficiency would substantially reduced the current imbalance in service delivery. I went further to mark the magnitude of skills that the SPCA enjoys in terms of operation processes. I was careful to present the demographics of the required skills that will make the SPCA successful in its operations processes, as a leading centre of pet services in San Francisco. I was very confident and interested since the nature of services within the scope of the research was related to my career interests. Since I had done a comprehensive research before the meeting, I was very certain in the responses to different questions raised by the team. The certainty was also as a result of past training in the art of public speaking besides personal mastery of the subject of discussion.
Despite the confidence and deep interest, I realized that I needed to improve on my intra and inter communication skills since I noticed that some of the members, especially the secretary and the training and personnel directors, were finding it difficult to keep up with my presentation. The disagreement was whether I carried out a micro or macro organizational behavior analysis when creating the overview plan. I made a lot of assumptions that other members were conversant with the different demographics and evidences I was presenting. I am certain that the level of research, intrinsic communication skills, and career interests in team very successful in the project presentation.
I am convinced that my leadership skills and deep interest in research easily created a healthy team working relationship with the other team members. In order to create the health and sustainable relationship with the team members, I demonstrated my knowledge and understanding of the research demands by developing a proactive and consultative approach to different challenges that the SPCA was facing, especially in the operations processes management. Besides, my reports were supported by practical examples from leading pet organizations, which operate in the same environment as the SPCA.
Personal experiences are based on three aspects. First, past reality that people have experienced influence people to be aware of which human acts have a positive outcome. Secondly, personal attitude usually influences people on how to interact with other people. Lastly, self esteem enables people to develop inner strength in carrying out various actions. In relation to our group activity, we were able to apply the principle of self assessment when making general statements to minimize ideological variances. As the weeks progressed, my leadership skills in the group project improved tremendously as a result of being given an opportunity to proactively contribute.
Benefits of the project
Benefits to the SPCA
The entire process of organizational development encompasses a comprehensive research action model that endeavors to identify the immediate and future requirements for change. The process commence with identification of the need to solve a particular problem after which the situation is assessed. After assessment, the problem is clearly defined and an intervention plan is hatched. The process of implementation involves collection of relevant data which is later used in authenticating intervention effectiveness. The first step involves realization that a challenge exists in the organization. The second step involves transformation of this challenge into a development goal after which implementation step concludes by developing a solution for the challenge. The conditions for success of organizational development plan include creation of a healthy working culture, structuring of communication channels, and existence of quantifiable monitoring procedures as presented in my recommendations to the SPCA. As a result, the work environment will become holistic, soft and socially friendly to the staff. In relation to above argument, the SPCA organization will strive to develop good culture by fostering a strong alignment on the monitored path of achieving its goals, missions and vision.
Organizations function best when the intra and inter communication systems are perfect. Therefore, successful organizations manage information continuously. The practice of information management involves the science of processing information to facilitate informed decision making among managers. However, the channels of this information should be protected to ensure protection of the organization’s private information that may lead to the unwanted third party interference. In information system implementation planning strategy, culture defines all aspects of a business, both internal and external relationships. In encoding and decoding information, it is critical to balance the wanted and unwanted grapevine. Thus, in reviewing performance based on feedback received, it is important to handle the voluntary information with care to boost trust and confidentiality which form the pinnacle of organizational behavior. Therefore, it is critical to balance the feedback with the goals as proposed by the project recommendations for the SPCA organization as a remedy towards inclusiveness and active participation which translates into desirable performance.
Personal Benefits
After reviewing and understanding different explanations of the elements that interact during the group formation process, I discovered that the elements of dependency within conscious and unconscious tenets are directed towards a leader of a formal or informal group. In fact, in the first interaction during the group formation process, little eye contact may be witnessed since persons meeting for the first time may face difficulties in building instant affinity. This is what happened to me during our first meeting as a small group.
I realized that everyone was looking up to me despite being as new as everyone else. Being in a position to offer personal authority is often motivated by past and present experiences, situational factors, and skills within the structure of a group. Using simple words such as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ have great impact to inspire the team. Maintaining eye contact, having relaxed body and using a warm tone of voice does have immense impact on the team members. Specifically, I felt sidelined because of my slow English speech as a result of being an international student. However, the intervention of the class supervisor saved the day as the other team members committed to including my challenges in all discussions.
In order to improve as a team in the meetings, it was necessary for the members to understand personal motivation and self targets, the need for aggressiveness in discussion, and development of proper personal etiquette since organization behavior modification recommendations in big organization, such as the local SPCA, require a dynamic team. Besides, it was essential for the team to limit the scope of activities to contain only relevant discussions since some members were involved in irrelevant discussions about personal issues. I learned the importance of team work in successful group project research.
As a remedy for addressing the challenge of time management during the meetings, it was important to develop a disciplinary module that acted as a guide during presentation by each member of the team. The module incorporated the variables such as personal discipline, teamwork, and systematic contribution. Any rising matter was then pushed to the next meeting. Besides, the team created a convenient venue for the meetings to avoid instances of lateness. After this, I recoded an improvement on time management and professionalism, which are significant elements of effective transformational leadership skills.
Significant lessons
Each member became part of the team due to the fact that they share same interests and have a common view, characterized by consultative approach in addressing problems through creation of proactive solutions. Besides, the team was inspired by the need to create viable organization behavior solutions which can be applied in the SPCA to reduce the current inefficiencies in service delivery. However, the team could not agree on the scope of the recommendations since each member had his or her own thoughts on the requirements. Besides, some members of the team could not honor the commitment to keep time and address each issue within thirty minutes. Besides, despite having signed a memorandum of understanding on the need to participate and contribute equally during the meeting, some members were more active than others.
During the first meeting, I noticed that uncontrolled discussion might limit the seriousness and professionalism in constructing and presenting individual views to a team. For instance, our team became a victim unregulated discussion and had to spend a lot of time on irrelevant issues. Besides, lack of personal disciple and etiquette might distort the efforts of a team meeting. In order to prevent problems that might arise, it was essential for the team to embrace teamwork, personal discipline, and need for proactive contributions. Besides, each member was made to feel appreciated and instrumental in the discussions.
Impact of the service learning from a professional standpoint
The process of feedback tracking was the most interesting part of the group assignments. This was an eye opener for me since I have keen interest in pursuing performance management career in the future. All the completed assignments were graded by the university tutor as exemplary and meeting all the requirements. I realized that teamwork makes a very big difference since as an international student; I was able to overcome personal challenge of low self-confidence as a result of using English as the second language. Specifically, the whole experience of working within the team was life changing. It has left a positive impact in my research skills, leadership skills, and analysis ability.
Conclusion
In order to understand the impacts of productive and counterproductive leadership on performance and productivity of each group member, my strength has been the ability to establish the scope and characteristic of each behavior module associate with leadership huddles during the SPCA project.