Organizational And Employee Culture Through The Great Game Of Life

In 1999, Charlie Eitel became CEO of Simmons, a leading mattress manufacturer with a long tradition of success. However, Simmons was experiencing a decline in sales, low morale issues and increased costs (Casciaro & Edmonson, 2007), and Eitel would need to institute organizational change throughout the company in order to revive the slumping sales and employee satisfaction. Eitel believed “no organization can survive over an extended period of time without the proper focus on people as its most important resource” (p. 1), so in order to redirect the company’s focus on its personnel, Eitel discovered the Great Game of Life, a program designed to foster personal growth through choosing growth over fear (Casciaro & Edmonson, 2007). The Great Game of Life resurrected Simmons by acclimating employees to a culture of change, motivating employees to overcome a stagnant organizational culture and utilizing the organizations most valued resource, human capital, in order to bring about change (Abrahamson, 2004).

Increasing productivity and sparking motivation in employees, are challenges that managers, businesses, and organizations have struggled with for centuries. While there are many beliefs about which method(s) yield the best results, and what is considered to be the desired result, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ management technique still does not exist. The current movement in psychology, called Positive Psychology, focuses on what is “right” in an individual, and not on their faults. This basic concept is starting to extend its influences into the workplace, making it seem that Positive Psychology may become the key ingredient corporate culture, and all places of employment alike, have needed to promote success and satisfaction in their lines of work.

To understand the organizational culture of a company, one needs to start by looking at the history. Lakeshore Learning Materials was born from a divorced mother of three named Ethelyn Kaplan, who took a dream and a chance by moving her family to California in 1954 to open a toy store. When she started noticing that teachers were interested in her material, Ethelyn realized that she needed to expand her business into educational materials. 60 years later, Lakeshore Learning Materials has grown into a company with over 2000 employees, 60 retail stores throughout the United States and growing. Lakeshore Learning Materials is currently headed by Ethelyn’s grandsons, Bo and Josh Kaplan. Under the supervision of Bo and Josh, Lakeshore continues to be a leader in the Educational Materials, yet still able to keep the family culture that their grandmother started. Highest quality customer service and hard work are the core values that shape Lakeshore’s Organizational Strategy. These high expectations aren’t hard for employees at Lakeshore because the company is so loved by everyone that works there, that they give nothing less than the best.

Workplace culture is often hard to describe, because it means something different in every organisation and many times employees feel it’s ‘just the way things are’. But so often it can define a company and when it’s not working well, everyone knows about it.

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,

She and Kareem became friends and helped each other if they were struggling with performance issues (WCM 620 Final Project Case Study, 2017). Kathy knew about Kareem 's religious requirements and was aware of his

Organisational Culture is defined as what the employees perceive and how this perception creates a pattern of beliefs, values and, expectations. Organisational culture differs from organizational climate. Climate refers to more temporary attitudes, feelings and perceptions of individuals (Schneider, 1990). Culture on the other hand is an enduring, slow to change, core characteristic of organisations which is an implicit often indiscernible aspects of organisations, climate refers to more overt, observable attributes of organisations.. Organisational culture is “the way things are” in the organisation rather that people’s transitory attitudes about them

Organizational culture is defined as a cognitive system of beliefs, attitudes, values, and behavioral norms that are shared by members of the organization. The documentary “The Smartest Guys in the Room” researched, chronicled, and explained the culture and collapse of Enron Corporation, an American energy, commodities, and services company. The organizational culture of Enron was extremely multifaceted and comprised of many aspects. According to Schein’s three levels of organizational culture, such aspects were expressed by means of manifest articles such as heroes and language, which were linked to espoused organizational values, and then connected to basic assumptions about the company and what was deemed important there. Manifest artifacts are things that are characteristic of the organizational structure and processes. Espoused values are the standards that define and are defined by culture, and by which organization members judge what is good and desirable. Basic assumptions are the deepest level, which include the beliefs, perception, and emotions of organization members that are often not expressed and unconscious. This paper will analyze the links and connections between artifacts at Enron, the values and standards they expressed, and what can be assumed about the cultural beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings at Enron.

Organizational culture at our place of employment can promote improved patient outcomes. How we feel about ourselves, our personal investment and our relationship to our work environment are additional factors that contribute to patient satisfaction and our sense of professionalism and accomplishment (Manojlovich & Ketefian, 2002). We will look at the role of our organizational structure and its impact and contribution to the issues involving Nurse A.

According to Robbins and Judge, organizational culture is, “a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations” (Robbins 249). A strong organizational culture is one whose organization’s core values are both intensely held and widely shared. After viewing Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, it is obvious that Enron had not only an organizational culture that was strong, but one that was extreme and aggressive. This aggressive and strong organizational culture discouraged both teamwork and ethical behavior and in the end it only plagued Enron until it eventually collapsed under its downfall.

Throughout our final semester of study at Maryville, our cohort has studied Peter Senge’s, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Rather than set of management practices, the book describes how organizations, especially those that are sustainably competitive, know how to learn. These “learning organizations” are continuously learning how to work together, where the norm is producing their best. In the book, Senge identifies five essential elements, that when practiced together, create perfect conditions for an effective learning organization. These five practices are Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision,

The novel, The Fifth Discipline, states the significance of learning organizations and the fundamental learning disabilities currently in companies. As the head of planning for Royal Dutch/Shell, Arie De Geus stated, the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage (“Discipline”). The world is becoming more interconnected and businesses are becoming more complex and dynamic, which is why it is significant for work to become more “learningful.” In more depth, organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to absorb at all levels in an organization will truly excel in the future, as it is no longer sufficient to have one person learning for a corporation (“Discipline”). Teams that are truly learning will result in individual members growing more rapidly than before, generating extraordinary outcomes.

The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be those that discover how to tap people’s commitment and develop the capacity to learn at all levels in an organization. Deep down, people are learners. No one has to teach an infant to learn. In fact, no one has to teach infants anything. They are intrinsically inquisitive, masterful learners. Learning organizations are possible because at heart we all love to learn. Through learning we re-create ourselves and are able to do something we were never able to do earlier. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be

It is very important in any professional organization that the values of workers are aligned with that of the organization. In this reference the values of nurses hold a specific importance since it serves humanity and therefore its alignment with its organization is crucial for patient outcomes. Usually the values of any firm depends on things such as networking, educational opportunities provided to its employees, professional and personal growth and so on. Similarly, the values of nursing depend on things such as its technical skills, scientific knowledge and specific human values.

Before I came to Boston College, I knew I wanted to start up my own company someday. After I finish Managing People & Organizations, I feel I know how to build my company from a more broadened perspective. It’s like that I used to look at the issue through a peep-hole and then this class suddenly broadens my view by looking through a three-store window. What would make my future company outstanding? The answer now is it will have LIFE: Leadership, Integrality, Fun and Efficient. LIFE not only is the written company core value, but also brings meaning to the company. Building a company, in some sense, is to create a new life with backbone (Core value), flesh (the right People fitting in the company’s value and culture), brain (Leadership) and nerve system (Communication).