The Culture At Nickelodeon, Crafted Carefully By Taran

Swan formed an entrepreneurial culture that strives for competition, encourages to take risk and values for new ideas. The strong Nickelodeon identity (“orange blood”) and Swan’s business plan assisted building a clear vision and defining a key business strategy.

Walt Disney once said, “It’s not the magic that makes it work, it’s the work that makes the magic.” (Capodagli & Jackson, 2007). Walt Disney was truly a visionary and ethical leader that used his talents as a transformational leader and artist to dream up a world that has stood the test of time for nearly 90 years. In this paper I will explain why he was both a visionary and ethical leader. It will show that he used inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation to further his clear and easy to follow vision, inspire his personnel, and leverage their creativity. It will also show why I believe Walt Disney fit into the traits of an ethical leader by valuing his team members and creating an environment of mutual trust and respect. Then I will tell you how I have used the same transformational leadership behaviors to lead my people, have made sure not to fall into an ethical trap and take credit for the work others do. All leaders could learn something from Walt’s visionary leadership.

Walt Disney once said, “You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in

Within the pages of Disney U, a captivating story unfolds describing the development program designed for Disney employees. Many times reading a perfunctory book that is designed to improve one’s skills in leadership is, well, not a delight to read. However, Disney U is able to grab the reader’s attention and guide them through a thought provoking journey of ground breaking leadership tactics, inventive training methods, and creating an engaging environment for an employee.

In this “The Smile Factory: Work at Disney” case study, it clearly point out the power of organizational cultures that created by Disney itself. Organizational culture includes the values and assumptions that shared among whole organization. This culture is very important in improving employee motivation and company performance. It makes the companies operate smoothly and directs every employee toward “right” direction within organization. Every

1.1- Review the range of groups and individuals whose communication needs must be addressed in own job role:

Taran Swan served as launch director and general manager of Nickelodeon Latin America. She had written the business plan, compiled a team and brought it through its first 18 months in the air. She unexpectedly had to return to New York and was faced with the decision of whether to appoint an interim leader in her place, and if so, who among her team members should she select?

The culture that the executives wished to maintain is one of big ideas, large thinking, and a strong emphasis on creativity. It is one that opposes bureaucracy and rigidity without cause, and despises formality without passion. And it is one that strives to stay relevant, fresh,

They stressed further: “Aside from the leadership provided by CEOs and diversity officers, management of diversity should be embraced by the entire leadership team and not perceived as the exclusive domain of the HR function.”

Overall, through ‘Transformational Leadership’, Walt openly communicated his vision into the infrastructure of Disney and instilled values and a sense of purpose among his employees. With a wanted trust and respect for followers, he was able to encourage and challenge traditional methods to harness better, innovative ways to solutions (Flower 1991). Ruling by consensus, his consideration for the individual needs of his followers made him an ideal teacher and coach for his enterprise (Davis 2008).

As Schein (2010, p.32) himself had concluded, any group’s culture can be studied at the three levels. The three levels of culture allows for an analysis of Pixar’s organizational cultural from an observational level. Information can be readily drawn from business reviews, news articles on Pixar, interviews with Pixar’s employees and Pixar’s website, thus making Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture an ideal model for analysis of Pixar’s culture.

Assume, you are working in consultant capacity and must offer practical analysis and useful advice highlighting the core issues and problems that are contained in answering above questions. You can work in groups to brainstorm. Each participant, however, must write his or her response alone. So if you work together to brainstorm, you must separate and write your own answers alone without

Google’s human relations and human resource management styles have changed the way that companies will be managed in the years to come. Google’s model of motivation and leadership tears down the traditional scientific management theory which focuses on results rather than the employees who deliver those results. The Vice President of People Development at Google stated that the company’s strives “to create the happiest, most productive workplace in the world. It’s less about the aspiration to be No.1 in the world, and more that we want our employees and future employees to love it here, because that’s what’s going to make us successful” (Smith,2014). Google shows employees they are valued and constantly motivates them in the workplace by creating a culture that fulfills their needs in all aspects. The office design, the management style, policies, and perks/benefits all put the employee first.

Organizational culture has been described as shared values and beliefs that underline a company’s identity. A strong culture that encourages employees from the top to the bottom in adaptation and change can increase organizational performance by energizing and motivating employees, shape behaviors, unify personnel in the goals / objectives and align employee’s actions with the priorities of the company (Daft, R., 2013). Creating a constructive culture should be a manager’s top priority because the right culture will propel a company into a top performer in its industry.

Becoming culturally aware I was able to understand that the French and Chinese culture held a high degree of respect for authority figures. Therefore, my experience and expertise in healthcare led Adam and Grace to see me as the person who should lead. Though humbled by that, I began to discuss that in America teams are often built upon flat structures and rely on consensus minded discussions and decisions, not hierarchy. I hoped this would encourage them to interact and embrace shared leadership roles, but when asked to share their ideas with each other it seemed difficult. Upon talking with Grace, I realized that she was fearful of being humiliated if she were to continue her behavior in a egalitarian team. Suddenly I realized that I was trying to place a single culture approach on my multicultural team. Looking at all our cultures, I saw that we shared the concept of power differences in leading. Instead of imposing the american way on them, I adjusted my approach in instilling a difference in power and allowed them to see me as a leader. In becoming the leader, I noticed both Adam and Grace became much more comfortable and eager to work on the task. In hopes of overcoming future conflict I established norms in that meeting which encouraged the members to share knowledge together. This balance between hierarchy and egalitarian allowed us as a team to build success, while