The Eco Seagate Experiance

1. Do you see value in the Eco Seagate team development process?

Let me start by asking the questions, Can I work for Seagate technology! This is an amazing teamwork experience which is provided by the Seagate Company, not only is it a great tool to help employees but it is also a great recruiting tool. This experience has so many benefits I do not even know where to start.

When I think about all of the things that matter to a company and teamwork I think about subjects like accountability, conflict, trust, respect, and commitment. All of these different subjects truly matter when we talk about work being done by colleagues, it is essential to the success of any team yet we so often see it missing. What most impressed me about this EcoSegate experience which is done annually by this company is also the results which you see throughout this video. There is proof of positive results in every portion of this program, I saw people putting their heads together and coming up with solutions, employees helping each other out in a powerful river, and a bunch of middle aged men and women half naked chanting because of the pride which they felt for their team and newly established relationships.

There is so much value which people have to see in this whole experience, I find it hard to believe that shareholders would even critique the importance of an experience like this. It seems that the Company had a very rough start and eventually people were calling the Seagate Company “Slavegate”. For a company to have this type of nickname it is obvious to see that some major changes needed to be made. I believe that these employees which attend Eco Seagate will come back to the office as strong leaders with a lot more guts and tenacity to tackle any situation which they might be faced with. I believe that pushing employees and their leadership skills to the next level can have major benefits for any company which wants to improve productivity and profits.

2. Why would something like this be necessary in a high-performing organization?

When I think about high-performance organizations I think about high performance systems. High performance systems consist of forces in the environment, goals and values, technology and structure, culture, and the outputs produced (OD 2011, pg.41). An experience such as the ones which are produced at Eco Seagate will bring out the quality which we are looking for from our teams which go through this experience. Employees will learn to conquer forces which they might encounter in a business situations, create business strategies by achieving goals and having a whole new outlook on culture. These are important elements which need to be in place in an organization which will be considered a high-performance organization. These types of organizations are looking for the max effort from these employees and I think that an experience such as Eco Seagate can unlock that potential.

  

3. Could your organization benefit from a similar activity?

I think that my organization would not only benefit from an experience such as Eco Seagate but they would thrive on so many different levels. We all know how important teamwork is in most organization but for my organization nothing can be done without team work. I work for the railroad, this type of organization is dependent on so many different departments which have to work as one. We have operations, mechanical, maintenance, marketing, and many more departments; one cannot operate with the other. In my organization many of the things which can be improved at an event like Eco Seagate can lift my organization to the next level.

If we could improve things like accountability, know how to deal with conflict amongst each other, build trust and respect I feel that we would be a force to be reckoned with. My railroad is efficient but they are still working on improving themselves, activities such as this one are important so that our future leaders can learn how to deal with all of these different subjects. I think that many organizations need to take a look at what makes their employees tick and what goes on within each department, I think that they would definitely find room for improvement. I think that two million dollars is a small price to pay for a multi-billion dollar company if they would like to take their biggest assets which is their employees to the next level.

References:

Brown, Donald R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.