EVALUATIVE CRITERIA:
1.
Individual Report – 10 points
The paper is required to be 4 pages: two pages of summary, one page of
personal reaction/relation, and a reference page. Cite research on the topic
being discussed; cite/embed at least three solid leadership/management
references from databases on https://jwupvd.on.worldcat.org/discovery(you
must research all databases from this link); no textbook sources; no Google
research; no plastic folders.
Complete any of the following choices: (you just need to choose one of the
following choices)
A report on a current event involving leadership in the workplace
A report on a leadership dilemma at work
A paper on a leadership concept
A humorous look at leadership/management (see grantland.net/index.htm;
dilbert.com; glasbergen.com; cartoonstock.com)
Individual Reports
Example 1
Summary
Many leaders and managers in business today are looking to have the innovative
advantage. These managers try to bring creativity and innovation into the workplace by
having their employees work together in teams hoping to create “flow”. The ideal goal
being that these teams function at a high level, that creativity and innovation abounds,
and that products or services are brought to market before the competition.
Flow is that energy most commonly described in sporting events where everyone
playing the game is playing at a level higher than they are normally capable of playing.
In order to have flow people need to have confidence in what they are doing and a
challenge. Team members begin to provide other members with information before it is
asked for. Members of a team that are in flow are anticipating the needs of other
members. These members are acting as one rather than as many, the seemingly
impossible becomes not only possible, it becomes reality.
Csikszentmilyalyi (2006) describes in his book, Creativity, that there are nine
main elements of flow. There are clear goals every step of the way. There is immediate
feedback to one’s actions. There is a balance between challenges and skills. Action and
awareness are merged. Distractions are excluded from consciousness. There is no worry
of failure. Self-consciousness disappears. The sense of time becomes distorted. The
activity becomes auto telic, which means that it becomes so enjoyable that the activity
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becomes an end unto itself. There are many ways to bring creativity into the workplace
and the concept of “flow” is just one of them.
Team energy can extend beyond a "flow" experience. There is a new attitude and
respect among the team members. The team has done what was once thought of as
impossible. Bonds are created that are similar to those that war veterans have. It is
because each has relied upon the others to do the seemingly impossible and have emerged
victorious. Members leave the experience with a very different perspective of one
another. These teams also have a very different perspective of what is possible when
stretched beyond the current boundaries.
Display thinking is a product of Mike Vance, former Creative Director for
Disney. It is a method of displaying, on the wall, thoughts during a creative session or
project. There are two forms that Mr. Vance talks of. The first is display thinking
format, the beauty about the concept is that team members are using more senses to
engage the subject matter. Teams are not just using their ears or reading, but putting
ideas and concepts up on the wall to get a big picture look at the entire project. It
changes the team’s perspective in terms of what is being done. It also allows everyone to
be part of the action of the group (Vance & Deacon, 2005).
Mr. Vance also has a tool that he calls a “Briefing Board”. This is displayed in
various work areas around the company. The briefing board has five areas. They are Do,
Doing, Done, Input and Hang-ups. This is a way of communicating with the rest of the
team members without having to physically get the team together. It is a way of having
an ongoing conversation with your team members without having to see one another face
to face.
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Joel Barker (2007) created the “possibilities cone” and the trap doors it holds to
help organizations to become more forward thinking and proactive in the pursuit of
creative ideas and innovative products. Think of a wave of water rolling towards the
beach. That wave is actually a wave of time with the past on the ocean side of the wave
and the future towards the beach. The surfer on the crest of the wave represents the team
and the company. The surfer is in the present, and carries a huge cornucopia-like funnel
with the opening stretching into the future looking for possibilities. Thousands of
possibilities are floating ahead of the cone. The most successful companies are the ones
that bring as many of these possibilities through the cone into today’s market.
Reaction
There is a story about the primate committee thinking experiment. It started with
a cage containing 5 apes. Inside the cage they hung a banana on a string and put stairs
under it. Before long an ape went to the stairs and started to climb towards the banana
(Brillhart, 2004). As soon as he touched the stairs, they sprayed all of the apes with cold
water. After a while, another ape made an attempt with the same results – all the apes
were sprayed with cold water. They then turned off the cold water. Each time an ape
tried to climb the stairs the other apes prevented him from doing it even though no water
was sprayed. They then removed one ape at a time from the cage and replaced it with a
new one. The new ape saw the banana and wanted to climb the stairs. To his horror, all
the other apes attacked him. After another attempt and attack, he knew that if he tried to
climb the stairs, he would be assaulted. Each time there was a beating even though many
of the apes had never experienced the water. No ape ever again approached the stairs.
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Why not? “Because that’s the way it’s always been done around here!” Sound
familiar?
Many people lose much of their creative talents because of similar experiences.
There are times and places, however, when we feel more creative than others times do.
There are many ways to begin to bring creativity and innovation into the workplace.
Creating a place for your employees and teams to allow the free flow of ideas is crucial to
long-term success. The first step in being a creative, innovative organization is to begin
to throw out the notion that if it has been tried in the past and failed, it can’t be done.
Some organizations start by pulling out those failures and learning from them and
beginning a creative process from the results.
In order to not only survive in today’s business climate, but to excel requires
companies to become more creative and innovative. Those who can create this
environment and sustain it live long prosperous lives.
REFERENCES
Barker, J.A. (2007). The new business of paradigms (Classic Edition). [Video-cassette].
St. Paul, MN: Star Thrower Distribution.
Brillhart, Peter E. (2004, September). Technostress in the workplace: Managing stress in
the electronic workplace. The Journal of the American Academy of Business,
Cambridge.
Csikszentmilyalyi, M. (2006 ). Creativity. Retrieved on April 6, 2006 from
www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/25/58/index.php
Vance, M., and Deacon, D (2005). Managing diversity in transnational project teams,
[Electronic Version]. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 12(2), 95-117.
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Individual Reports
Example 2
Summery
the fearful, change is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the
hopeful, change is encouraging because it means that things may get better. To the confident,
change is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.
Change in the workplace is even more difficult for many to handle. If the change isn’t
handled properly by management, it can cause long term chaos to exist, effecting profits,
employee turnover and even bankruptcy. “You must create a vision of the positive effects the
change will bring. This needs to be a compelling reason to change. You must then continually
communicate the new vision and new plans to those who will be affected by them”, (Clark, M.J.
& Heiny, P., Personal communication and internet radio broadcast, November 23, 2004). The
team leader will also need to provide extra support to your team members, understanding and
encouragement. The leader of that team will need to be a model of flexibility because things
won’t go as planned. You need to use humor to relieve the stress that will arise because of the
changes taking place.
Encourage plenty of discussion and questions, as this will reduce the fears and anxieties
that will arise from time to time as the change process progresses. You will need to be sensitive
to fears and not dismiss them. Dismissing them will only make them feel unappreciated and will
actually cause the fears to grow, not diminish. You should expect things to fall apart in the
middle of the process. You need to allow sufficient time for change to occur. It takes time to
internalize the process, but if you get people involved in creative ways to deal with change you
can often shorten the time it takes to complete the change process. Write in third person. Avoid
I, you, We, etc.
Often times change initiatives in an organization have been met with resistance and have
failed, Kotter (1996). APA (author, year). He has found that there are eight common errors that
many companies make. To summarize they are: allowing too much complacency; failing to
create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition; underestimating the power of vision; under
communicating the vision by a factor of 10++; permitting obstacles to block the new vision;
failing to create short-term wins; declaring victory too soon; and lastly, neglecting to anchor
changes firmly in corporate culture.
The consequences of allowing any of these common mistakes to take place are that the
new strategies will not be implemented well. Kotter (1996) does offer a solution and he outlines
it in his eight-stage process. The first is to establish a sense of urgency. The second phase is in
creating the guiding coalition. Major change is so difficult to achieve that it takes many
individuals working together in a guiding coalition to successfully transform an organization.
This guiding coalition needs to have the right composition, level of trust, and shared objective.
The third stage in the process is developing a vision and strategy. An effective vision and
detailed strategy to achieve the vision are very important to the process. Clarity of direction
allows resources to be freed to use for the change transformation.
The fourth stage is communicating the change vision. The guiding coalition should role
model the behavior expected of the employees. This is part of the communication.
The fifth stage in the process is empowering broad-based action. Environmental change
requires organizational change. The sixth stage is generating short-term wins. The seventh stage
is consolidating gains and producing more change.
The final stage is anchoring new approaches in the culture. Creating better performance
through customer- and productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more
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effective management will anchor this new behavior. Given that the report ends with a different
look at change (top down versus bottom up), it might be helpful to present an author in the twopage summary who espouses that theory. Then, your conclusion would be aligned with the
summary. You’ll have to be creative in deleting some of your explanation of Kotter
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The human mind has the capacity for many things that it dwells upon. If dwelt on, then
fear becomes our reality. If the positive is dwelt upon, then we have opened ourselves up to
making the seemingly impossible become very possible and almost inevitable.
Let me tell you about Rusty and his employees. Rusty wanted things to change at his
business so that he could realize his dream - to cater for the President of the United States.
With the help of WorkPlace Dynamics, he began initiating a change initiative at his
company. It was met with a lot of skepticism and fear. Their new vision was to be the premiere
caterer in New England. He refused to let anyone focus on the negative. If they did, they would
be put into a group working on one of the steps to their new vision. His consultants insisted that
everyone contribute and that all negatives must be restated in a positive way. Amazing things
happened. Rusty turned down a catering job for the President of the United States because he
would have had to disappoint some of his loyal customers and would not be able to guarantee the
quality of his food, because of the restrictions that the Secret Service placed on the job.
Change is not a destination, but an ongoing process. This is a difficult transition to make,
but the more we know about ourselves the more we trust we are going in the right direction (La
Chapelle, 2001). Involving others in the change is essential in a healthier experience.
Change in an organization needs to be a collaborative effort involving everyone (Clark &
Heiny, 2004). Kotter is still found to be a very top down thinker. To him change must be led
from the top and then communicated to the masses with a strong hand from the leadership. His
newest work begins to soften this belief, but it is still very top down. The writer believes and has
built her work on collaborative change that can start anywhere in the organization and should
include everyone in the process as early on as possible. Then you do not have a need to “sell” it
to the employees. They already “own” it and work hardest for its success.
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Good ending, although I can’t totally agree that Kotter’s theory is top down. Most of his
8 stages rely on a two-way communicative effort to work successfully.
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References
(author, year) to start November 23, 2004 http://www.wplaced.com/guests.shtml Leading
Change interview.
Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. Massachusetts, Harvard Business School Press.
Kotter, J. P. Rathgeber, H. & Mueller, P. (Illustrator) (2006). Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing
and Succeding Under Any Conditions. (books are in italics; indent each line after the first line of
the reference)
La Chapelle, D (2001). Navigating The Tides of Change. Canada: New Society Publishers.
Are you following the reference page in the APA Basics manual that I’ve posted on the public
folder?
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