The Tribes We Lead

Change, how easy is it to create change? It is not very easy at all, it takes a lot of mental strength and conditioning. There are many times in life where people are faced with an opportunity to change but not many people would jump on board. Creating change takes a special person to be able to not fear the consequences, take a stand, and create change. At work I am surrounded by many people who do not spark a change they merely follow what the majority of the people are doing. It is easy to follow or to be a “sheep walker” as Seth Godin calls it, but as I stated earlier it takes a special person to break free of what the norms are.

At work I will hear my fellow co-workers say different things like “it is too hard to create change, it’s impossible, it will not work, there is too much change, and this is not our problem”.  These are the people that until they reflect on who they want to be will never be able to create a change which might better their life or the life of others. I do not find myself commenting much when people say things of this matter, I just simply understand that many people are content in life as long as their immediate needs are satisfied.

I on the other hand am not content with where my life is at yet, this notion seems to drive my wife crazy. She sees that I have completed my bachelor’s degree and I have a well-paying job so she does not see why I am not satisfied. She does not understand why I am working on my Graduate degree and committing myself to this type of sacrifice. At times I will myself tell myself the same excuses which I hear around me and for a second I will believe it. Sometimes I have to force myself to snap out of the want to just conform to my surroundings, I have to fight the urge to follow and remind myself of the vision which I have. Another way for me to overcome the thoughts of conforming is to think back to where I started in my life and know that I can never go back to that point. There is no way that I would ever want to take steps back in life and I would feel like I have let down my family if this was the case. Knowing that I have to continue to better myself every day is what keeps me going strong and pushes me to continue to change myself for the better.

I feel like I have been working on myself for quite some time, I know that I am almost at the point where I close another chapter of my life and take a leap of faith towards the next portion of my vision. I know that I have to take this leap soon but I have not known exactly how I will do it, Seth Godin’s TED’s talk has given me an idea. In his talk Seth discusses how change is driven by tribes, I think that he makes many valid points. A tribe will connect people and ideas, it is up to me to start my own tribe; I need to find like-minded individuals who are also ready to make a change in the world.

It is difficult to make a movement on my own but with strength in numbers many things can be accomplished. I might have many ideas but with a tribe we can find the one thing that matters the most to us and create a movement. Rather it be trying to find a way to make more money or to change an injustice in the world which we have an issue with; having a group of people that will back you up is essential.

 At the end of the TED’s talk Seth tells us how to create change, he said that we have to “challenge everything, change the culture, and then commit. Once I have completed school and I am ready for that next step, I will make sure that I distance myself from those who say change is impossible, force myself to chase my vision, and surround myself with a tribe that believes in me and our goals. These are definitely key ideas which I can take from this exercise to better myself and push myself to someone who I do not yet know or recognize yet.      

Reference:

Godin, Seth (TED). (2009, February) The Tribes we Lead [Ted Talks]

            Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead#t-797175 

NASA Cultural Changes

Recently NASA has gone through a very traumatic situation which it is hard for any agency to cope with, on February 1^st 2003 space shuttle Columbia and the seven crew members were lost. Before that happened NASA had almost a magical presence and its reputation was flawless. No one could have ever seen something like this happening, everything was running so smooth and then before anyone working for NASA knew what hit them this accident occurred. NASA jumped into action after a short grieving period, they began to assess how something like this could happen and what they could do to prevent this from ever happening again.

Sean O’Keefe the leader of NASA needed to address his employees at of all of the proposed changes which would eventually be implemented. A diagnosis of NASA was done and there was a very obvious need for a change in the way they did work and the way their leadership handled the issues at hand. After carefully studying many of the surveys which were conducted the leadership at NASA was able to recognize certain problems with the culture that had been at NASA for a long time.

The results were that this study made it obvious that the general consensus is that employees do not have enough professional respect for one another. This was one of the major problems at NASA, behavior like this can have huge implications on an organization like NASA. If employees do not have enough respect for each other and their professional opinions, it might be harder for someone to come forward with a safety issue in fear of getting disrespected or mocked. Among some other big issues is that there is very little upward communication and perceived organization support, these issues also go along with my theory of employees being scared to speak their minds. I think that Mr. O’Keefe recognizes that this is an important issue and this is why he choose to speak publicly about it rather than just pass the new agenda on to his leadership.

I think Mr. O’Keefe was very believable in his address to the employees of NASA, he was very sincere about wanting to bring a change to the culture of NASA and recognized that in part this incident was also his fault. They always say that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, in this video Sean O’Keefe does just that. He tells the world that the leadership at NASA including himself had failed, he talked about an email which he received that day and said that it was suggested to him for leadership to just get out of their office and go interact with all of the employees. I think that since Mr. O’Keefe reflects on himself and his leadership at NASA so that they can improve; these statements make him sound very believable. He recognizes that no one is perfect including himself, this brings out a very human characteristic in him and it shows that he does want to change NASA’s culture for the better.

Mr. O’Keefe talks about NASA’s values because an organizations looking to improve needs to take into consideration their ethical, value, and goal considerations if they are to improve. By taking this into consideration Mr. O’Keefe can “understand the old culture, encourage change in employees, involve employees, and lead with a vision” (OD, pg. 70). Sean O’ Keefe recognizes that large-scale change takes time and this why I do feel that they are on the correct path.

There are many lessons to be learned from this whole ordeal, I know that I will definitely take a page out of Mr. O’Keefe’s book when I look to becoming a better leader. I see that it is imperative to not make anyone feel as though their opinion does not matter for this person could save a tragedy from happening. If we do not let our employees be free and respect each other’s professional opinions a lot of important information can be lost. It is important that every voice in an organization be heard and that every voice have a channel for them to be heard. I think that this incident at NASA could have been avoided had the culture been different. I will remember this exercise and use it to propel myself to ensure that my work place culture has a much more open atmosphere; I will also make it a point to “live in the new culture”(OD, pg. 70) and not regress back to the old way of doing things.     

Reference:

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (Eighth ed.). Prentice Hall.

C-SPAN (NASA). (2004). NASA Cultural Changes [Video]. Available from http://www.c-span.org/video/?181348-1/nasa-cultural-changes

Decide and Deliver

• Marcia Blenko argues that decision effectiveness correlates positively with employee engagement and organizational performance. How do you think that employee engagement relates to decision effectiveness?

This is an interesting concept and I think that I completely agree, I feel that this is why it is so important to focus on the employer to employee relationship. Employee engagement is what can make or break a company, I think we have to realize that an employee is a direct representation of management and the company itself. If the employee is not engaged in the well-being and growth of an organization it will show in the organizational performance; a company’s employees are on the front line and generally the first point of contact between a customer and an organization. If the employee is fully engaged and enthusiastic about the decisions being made for change in a company then the quality of their devotion will show in how effective a company’s progress is.

• What are some impediments to good decision making?

Some of the impediments which were mentioned by Marcia Blenko from Bain and Company were not having the right information, leadership behavior, and perhaps not having the right talent. Leadership behavior is essential when it comes to making all of the right decisions, without a strong and confident leader that makes good decisions it is hard for a company to excel. Certain leaders just might not have the right experience or open minded enough to take an organization to the next level; this is where not having the right talent can come into factor. A mixture of these impediments to good decision making can have a negative effect on an organization and it is up to management to seek the right people for the job.  

• Blenko suggests that there are four elements of good decisions: quality, speed, yield, and effort. In your opinion, is there anything missing from this list?

Experience, I think that having someone with a background that is filled with experience is essential when we think about what are key elements to good decision making. At the age of thirty I know that I am no longer the same person that I was a decade ago, I have learned so much and gained so much leadership experience. Without this experience I do not think that I can make the same decisions that I am able to make today, with age and different challenges I feel that so much has changed. I think that if a company is serious about good decision making they need to find someone that has been through a good amount of difficult situations, rather they have succeeded or failed I think that all experiences can be good.

• What can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career?

I can take away a better understanding of what goes into good decision making and what an organization might be looking for in a leader. I think that this exercise offers a good insight into what companies are looking for when they hire a leader. I also think that this exercise has helped me think about what does make a good leader and good decision making. Among those elements I do believe that quality and effort have to be at the top of that list. I have always been a firm believer that hard work and dedication can transform an organization or a person and help them reach the next level of success.  

Questions:

How can you measure how many good decisions an organization has made over the course of a year?

Is there a way to test someone’s leadership skills prior to hiring them?

If you were to bring in an organization to help you make better decisions how quickly would those results show? Is it worth the investment?