CULTURE DYSFUNCTIONS
From the article Communities of Commitment, by Kofman and Senge, three fundamental problems where addressed as the main reason behind organizations’ culture dysfunction:
The first fundamental problem is fragmentation, where problems are fragmented into pieces. Even though individuals perform better by doing what they know best, it is better to work as a team to solve the problem rather than working in isolations (Kofman & Senge, 1993).
The second fundamental problem is competition, so individual inside the organization should focus on achieving goals instead of becoming the best. And like they said, people should not become defensive and afraid to make mistakes (Kofman & Senge, 1993).
The third fundamental
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"We have a more experienced and talented executive team than any of our competitors. We have more cash than they do...We have better core technology. And we have a powerful board of directors. Yet in spite of all that, we are behind two of our competitors in terms of both revenue and customer growth. Can anyone here tell me why that is?" Kathryn opens her speech in the meeting of her direct reports with that, then she concluded with “There are five reasons why teams are dysfunctional.” (Lencioni, 2008).
The first was the absence of trust, and it accrues when members being unable to show their weaknesses; to be vulnerable and open with one another. That result in becoming defensive, which lead to huge waste of time and energy. Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, personal or professional, and when it’s broken, it is extremely hard to repair. When employees feel they can’t trust leaders they feel unsafe, which lead to spend more energy on self-defense and looking for a different job than performing at their job. And to overcome this dysfunction teams are encouraged to share experiences. One of the best ways to achieve this would be the Team Effectiveness Exercise, where members identify the most important contribution that each peer made to the team (Lencioni, 2008) (Gibson, 1979).
The second dysfunction happen to be the fear of conflict, where teams
Wooden’s believes that “the two qualities of friendship so important for a leader to possess and instill in team members are respect and camaraderie” (Wooden 25). In the
She is expected to build a system that demonstrates trust, understands conflict, commits to collective decision making, and have the ability to hold one another accountable for the betterment of the company. Furthermore, Lencioni incorporates his real life theory the five dysfunctions of a team, into the fable in hopes to persuade the reader to use his methods in real world scenarios. Moreover, Lencioni then describes the five levels of dysfunctions in depth supporting his stance that teamwork is the most important aspect of any successful business. “Teamwork comes down to the mastering of set behaviors that are once theoretically uncomplicated, trust.” (Lencioni, 2002, pg. 21) Furthermore, inspiring the first team dysfunction in absences of trust. The absence of trust ultimately stems from a team being unable to open up to one another about their strengths and weaknesses. “Trust is the foundation of real teamwork and failure also referring the failure on the part of the team members to open up to one another.” (Lencioni, 2002, pg. 42) Furthermore, supporting the authors purpose of the fable, in which is, success depends being committed to enforcing
Mending the communication systems in the individual and team levels is crucial to averting escalation of conflicts (McLaughlin, Pearce, & Trenoweth, 2013). Furthermore, an active, two-way communication rhythm is essential to building trust-worthy relationships, avoiding and resolving conflicts, and cultivating a sense of teamwork. In the case, when both teams decided that they are willing to actively listen and take note of each other’s apprehensions, the floodgates to therapeutic communication were opened, which facilitated for a respectful and productive exchange of ideas. According to Yoder-Wise (2011), “trust is the basis by which leaders/managers facilitate the activities and the progress of the team” (p. 357). Effective communication and mutual trust also generate a better working environment, which successively result in staff retention and satisfaction. Therefore, if there is a clear and substantial communication among team members, then building and maintaining trust will more feasible, which will consequently lead to the realization of the team’s mission and
In collaboration, all parts of the team are working together to achieve the same mission. Collaboration builds espirit de corps, which is directly connected to mutual trust. Research shows that teams with a higher sense of espirit de corps trust each other more. They have a sense of comradeship. These teams know that each individual is going to pull their own weight and do what they need to do in order to accomplish a mission. This heightens teamwork, as team members are more inclined to collaborate with each other. A leader must also get to know their subordinates individually. When each person feels like their leader has their best interest in mind, this fosters a climate that develops mutual trust and shared understanding. Through all these concepts, the leader may establish a climate which continues the development of trust and understanding between leaders and subordinates produced through the distributive and collaborative leadership process.
Due to this, the effort to identify and understand how trends and traits making up organizational culture have been a priority amongst most organizations seeking to improve the effectiveness of strategic leadership. According to Schein (2004), the reason why such issues as culture and leadership is important stems from one of the critical factors, that is the fact that certain trends and traits are shared among a group hence forming a shared culture. Schein also explains other critical elements of culture such as structural stability. The definition of culture within an organization creates some sense of stability as it defines the identity
All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.
Organization culture is the matter that holds a company intact. This is what makes each
Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).
Pierre Trudeau's speech at the Proclamation Ceremony on April 17, 1982 marks a significant historic event that took place in Canada at that time. Up until that point, the country had ruled under the British Parliament, and the Charter of Rights had not been added to the Canadian Constitution. His words appeal to his audience, Canadians of all backgrounds, and the British Monarchy, through logos, ethos and pathos to punctuate this monumental change for Canada. Through the use of figurative devices such as symbolism, personification, diction, imagery, repetition, metaphor, fiction, and conflict, Trudeau enhances the meaning of his speech to more deeply resonate with his audience as their leader.
Thirdly, our communication skills were better enhanced and we were able to build up on our synergy levels. In such an environment where communication is open and free-flowing, people were able to bring in new ideas, concepts and attitudes which benefitted the entire group. The problem with ineffective communication, especially where diverse groups are involved is that issues such as stereotyping are bound to crop up. This, in turn, caused team members to become increasingly self-conscious and often kept to themselves for fear of being judged. Much to it, the aspect of self-disclosure becomes almost elusive because no one is willing to step out of their comfort zone and steer a relevant discussion to the project at hand. In a scenario whereby team members are free to talk and express their ideas and feelings without being judged, the fear of revealing one’s true self is diminished tremendously (Peri et al., 2000). This is because such an environment fosters trust, values and ethics. Contrary to this, an environment that is characterized by prejudices and presumptions about others disintegrates this trust and often results to reduced productivity among the members. Cooperation and trust are two aspects that often determine the overall performance of a group. Where there is trust, team players become
Absence of trust (among team members) - this is where the team members is not open with one another and their unwillingness to be vulnerable. Not open with one another about mistakes and weaknesses makes it impossible to build trust in a team.
The core constraint of virtually every organization The Goldratt Institute has worked with over the past 16+ years is that organizations are structured, measured and managed in parts, rather than as a whole. The results of this are lower than expected overall performance results, difficulties securing or maintaining a strategic advantage in the marketplace, financial hardships, seemingly constant fire-fighting, customer service expectations being rarely met, the constraint constantly shifting from one place to another and chronic conflicts between people representing different parts of the organization, to name a
The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,
Existing culture can in times be very hard to continue with because of the change in the growth or in the strategic change in the organisation. At such appropriate web of culture is important to be identified or that can be a problem in the progress of the organisation. These identified elements will give organisation a bigger picture of what was going wrong and how can they change it towards betterment of the organisation.
According to our text, Deal and Kennedy identified four dimensions of culture. Values, Heroes, Rites and Rituals, and Culture Network reflect how in a large part an organization makes decisions (Lester & Parnell, 2006). An organization’s culture is impressed upon staff beginning at the hiring process and continues throughout their tenure. For example, a Healthcare organization may have a culture that stresses patient safety and satisfaction beyond anything else. In this culture, any decision regarding process improvement or introduction of a new service line would be tailored to either safety or satisfaction. If a hospital were to start a patient lift team, the project team would ask how this departmental addition would impact patient safety