Organisational Consultancy: the Trip to the Everest

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Table of Contents

Reflection
Leadership styles
Alternative courses of action
Lessons learned from the group project
References

Based on the principles of management, impressive results of any undertaken project can be realized through proper coordination, cooperation, agreement and appreciation of everyone’s efforts in teamwork as demonstrated by Cunningham (1990). This paper will clearly elaborate how successfully and safely a well-managed team can reach to the planned destination with the aim of exploring any possible economic activities going on in the region. Having been a resource manager for quite some time coupled with strong economics knowledge and skills I was tasked with overall responsibilities by being made the team leader of a group of ten individuals. This means controlling, putting all things together and evaluation to achieve the overall goal of the group(Jacques, 2000).

The first issue to address in such a critical exercise is to ensure all the required resources are adequate. Secondly, evaluation of the team to be involved to ensure there is competent and trusted personnel to execute the mission more efficiently and less costly. Despite so many problems that seemed to lie ahead of us, I was very much convinced that given the leadership skills and organizational experience I had, we would eventually achieve our goal. Then the other most important thing in a team is sitting down and do the actual planning on how best the team can carry out the exercise which involved incorporating all the participants to give their views and opinions while I acted as a mere facilitator providing only support and empowerment needed (Cunningham (1990).

As pointed out by Lencioni (2002) creation of strong passion, interpersonal skills and public relations are crucial aspects for any aspired progress in any teamwork as these will enhance good communication amongst the team members and evade the dysfunctional team dynamics-absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results. Based on leadership and organizational behavior about application of knowledge and on how people or groups act in organizations, I applied systems approach in order to create strong relationships through achieving human objectives and the entire group’s objectives. Using my economics background and experience, I had to ensure that everything planned took into consideration the optimization principle and that minimal cost in time, finances and other materials involved were achieved.

As a leader in the group, I had to provide the most appropriate guidance and direction evaluating all the opinions to come up with a sound decision to accommodate the views of everyone. The role I undertook required that I instill task driven leadership in formulating the best decisions with the entire group. The fundamentality of this requirement could be linked to the elements of organizational behavior according to Jacques (2000) that include satisfaction and personal growth and development, which, combined, create the model that an organization or any group operates from. These models of organizational behavior are four namely, autocratic, custodial, supportive and collegial.

Autocratic: It is power-based with a managerial orientation of authority. The workers’ need that should be met is subsistence and the result is always minimum performance. Workers are assumed obedient and dependent on the boss.
Custodial: This stems out from the economic resources with money-oriented perspective. The employee has to be guaranteed security in return and the result is cooperation performance.
Supportive: It focuses on leadership and the management deserves support. Status and recognition is the employee need that ought to be met.
Collegial: This one emphasizes on cooperation of the management team to enjoy the benefits of teamwork. Self-actualization is the workers need that is met and the performance outcome is moderate enthusiasm (Kroll, 2004).

While in our initial stages of planning, we usually encountered some problems. We were faced by the challenges of considering the opinions of every group member since all the opinions seemed to be of great importance. At some point, we were even at a point of indifference in drawing up the conclusions about our decisions. This called for various problem-solving techniques for us to arrive at consensus. It should be remembered that there is always a direct link between problem solving and decision-making and all need creativity in identifying and developing options. The commonly used techniques are brainstorming, free SWOT analysis and PEST analysis but we relied heavily on free SWOT analysis to reach to an agreement (Gale & Chapman, 1994, p. 56).

Reflection

One of my roles as the leader of the group was to ensure we had a comprehensive budget to cover all the expenses we were about to incur. We had limited funds since we were relying on sponsored funds. It was a major hurdle and we had to prioritize every thing in order to accommodate the little funds available. We had to deliberate on major issues to put all things together in order to begin our three-day trip to the peak of Mt. Everest. I also ensured there were enough data collection tools and equipments since data had to be collected from the area of study and then subjected it to thorough analysis for final interpretation.

This was at aimed at determining the main economic activities carried out by the inhabitants of Mt. Everest considering that the area was considered not to be agriculturally potential. Pre- training was also necessary in order to equip the group members with adequate skills to collect the relevant data with an easy and utilize the little time we had. Delegation and assigning of duties to each participant, which took into consideration the principle of specialization, was done before the departure. Every group member knew exactly what he was going to do in the field. Being a leader, is a very challenging and demanding position. You have to understand very well principles of leadership and management (Newstrom & Davis, 1993).

According to Jackues (2000) a group leader should create a balance between authoritative (directing, assertive) and facilitative (supportive, empowering) styles of group leadership. Some authors have claimed that there is a direct link between leadership and the idea of management Cogner (1992) while others regard the two as synonymous. As the leader of the group, I was playing the role of a leader as well as that of manager. All the resources involved in the exercise both human and non-human were under my control and optimal allocation was very essential if at all, something was to be achieved. According to Knoster, Villa & Thousand (2000, p. 18) there are different types of leadership styles that can be applied by managers in achieving their goals and objectives.

Leadership styles

Directive leaders

They are very stubborn and they would want what they have directed to be strictly followed. They insist that the subordinates should follow what has been laid down and their independence is very limited. A directive leader will always monitor the behavior and performance of others.

Delegative leaders

They will delegate work to the subordinates. The non-democratic form of leadership does not require consultation.

Participative leaders

They are concerned with deriving the best out of the entire team. They do advocate for contributions from all members of the organization or group and build a consensus from the views.

Negotiative leader

This form of leader will motivate the lower level staff by incentives.

My performance and execution of duties were influenced by various factors. Firstly, excellent management skills at my disposal enabled me to put things in good order and ensure everything was carried out timely. Secondly, the strong economic background and business management skills helped me in planning, monitoring and implementation of the project. Thorough analysis of organizational behavior enabled me to determine factors influencing individual behavior in teams (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, p. 5). They are:

Abilities

The abilities can be either mental or physical. Mental abilities include memory, intelligence and analytical comprehension whereas physical abilities include things like muscular strength and body coordination.

Gender

Despite the fact that the recent researches have found out that men and women have equal mental abilities, society does emphasize some disparities. Gender can create disparities in the way people perceive things hence affecting the performance of teamwork (Horngren, Sundem & Stratton, 2002).

Perception

Stewart (1991) states that are very common to find that in an organization people do possess different perceptions concerning some issues. This might affect the performance and the ways things are performed in the organization unless people adopt a common perception according to the policies of the organization (Jacques, 2000).

Attribution

These might include personal traits like shyness, arrogance and intelligence.

When dealing with a team, individualization that is brought about by cultural diversity might arise. Schein (1968) puts it clearly that individualization occurs when workers influence the social system by challenging the cultures. As shown in the graph below, individualization can have effects in an organization or group.

individualization can have effects in an organization or group

It is evident from the above graph that when socialization and individualization are too little, isolation is created while less socialization and high individualization brings about rebellion. Moreover, a high socialization coupled with less individualization brings about conformity (Revans, 1982).

We left for Mt. Everest on a Sunday morning in order to reach our destination by the following day morning since it was a seven hundred kilometer journey. With everything in place, we had hired a fourteen-sitter matatu. Climbing the mountain was not an easy task and at times, we had even doubts whether we would reach at the peak (Davis1967). The murram road was hilly full of potholes and as a result, some of our equipments were spoiled.

After travelling for five hundred kilometers, we spent the night in a certain town to complete the remaining part of the journey the following day. On Monday morning at about ten in the morning, we arrived at our destined place and in no time, we had to begin what we had gone to do. Familiarizing ourselves with the place was the first thing to do and then we introduced ourselves to the residents of the area. The people were so friendly and there was an impression that they would cooperate which gave us hopes that our visit might be a success.

The questionnaires were administered and the relevant data was collected from the sample of one hundred respondents. Data collection was done simultaneously with data entry in our few laptops. We discovered that the area was extremely dry and only few agricultural activities were being undertaken and majority of the inhabitants were subsistence farmers. Very few trading activities took place in the region. Subsistence farmers occupied the area, primitivity was the dominant feature in the area, and many people seemed hopeless with their lives.

Despite the fact that many people showed maximum cooperation, we had some challenges as some respondents were rude and suspicious and this posed a major challenge. We were to convince them of the purpose of the mission in order to get the data we were aiming. The people were extremely poor and the people survived on a mere subsistence level. We spent two days in the area collecting data and feeding it into our machines. After two days, our mission was complete and as the manager of the group, I was entrusted with the overall responsibility of ensuring everything was done accordingly (Koch, 2006).

After two days, our mission was complete and we did the data analysis as well as the interpretation of the results. Due to spoilage of some of our equipments, we faced the problem of analyzing the data but finally we were able to come up with our results. It was later discovered that the majority of the occupants of Mt. Everest relied heavily on fishing as their main economic activity. Very little farming took place in the region since it was extremely dry. On our third day, we packed our things and got back with our mission fully accomplished.

Alternative courses of action

Though the mission was successful due to willingness participation and cooperation from all the group members, we encountered some loopholes. The spoilage of some of our materials on our way to the mountain could have been avoided if we used a more efficient mode of transport. The vehicle we used was not well maintained and we only used it because of the limited finances. It has always been said that cheap is sometimes expensive and I witnessed it myself (Schein 1968). Were it not for that vehicle we used we should have avoided some of the difficulties we experienced on our journey.

Also during the collection of data and analysis, we had some problems because I had not assigned the duties to the individual group members according to the areas of specialization. It could have been an easy task if the delegation of duties was done in accordance with professional qualifications and the results would have been more accurate than the ones we obtained. Finally, the time duration was too short and we did not get the required information exhaustively. This is the reason why few respondents were interviewed (Jacques, 2000).

Lessons learned from the group project

According to Davis (1967), the outcomes of teamwork are more significant and better than those of an individual person are. This is because teamwork incorporates ideas and opinions from different fields of professions. However, this outcome depends on how organized and committed the group is. The results of any work will be influenced by kind of work undertaken by the participants (David & Andrzej 2010, p. 67). In the context of this project, the group members sacrificed themselves and participated fully in the formulation and implementation of the decisions, which aided in the accomplishment of this mission. I was able to learn the importance of working in a team (Gordon, 1999, p. 76). Since results obtained in the project could not be realized if I was to undertake the project alone. The combined efforts of different individuals can bring out brilliant results.

References

Cunningham, J. & Eberle, T., (1990) A Guide to Job Enrichment and Redesign. Personnel, Feb 1990, p. 57 in Newstrom, J. & Davis, K. (1993). Organization Behavior: Human Behavior at Work. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

David, A. & Andrzej, (2010) Organizational Behaviour, Financial Times/ Prentice.

Davis, K. (1967) Human relations at work: The dynamics of organizational behavior. 9 Ed., New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Davis, K. (1993) Organization Behavior: Human Behavior at Work. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Gale, B. & Chapman, R., (1994) Managing Customer Value: Creating Quality and Service That Customers Can See, New York, NY: Free Press.

Gordon, I., (1999) Relationship Marketing: New Strategies, Techniques and Technologies to Win the Customers You Want and Keep Them Forever. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons Publishers. p. 336.

Hackman, J. & Oldham, G., (1975) Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, pp. 159-70.

Horngren, C.T., Sundem, G.L., & Stratton, W.O., (2002) Introduction to Management Accounting, New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Knoster, T., Villa, R. & Thousand, J., (2000) A framework for thinking about systems change. In R. Villa & J. Thousand (Eds.), Restructuring for caring and effective education: Piecing the puzzle together (pp. 93-128). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Koch, C., (2006) The New Science of Change. CIO Magazine, 2006 (pp 54-56). Web.

Kroll, K., (2004) The Lowdown on Lean Accounting: A New Way of Looking at the Numbers. Journal of Accountancy. 198(1), 69.

Lencioni, M., (2002) ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A leadership Fable’ Jossey Bass.

Newstrom, W. & Davis, K., (1993) Organizational Behavior: Human Behavior at Work. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Revans, R., (1982) The Origin and Growth of Action Learning. Hunt, England: Chatwell-Bratt, Bickley.

Schein, E., (1968) Organizational Socialization and the Profession of Management. Industrial Management Review, 1968 vol. 9 pp. 1-15 in Newstrom, J. & Davis, K. (1993). Organization Behavior: Human Behavior at Work. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

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