Tom Parker, 43, is now a field technician and coordinator for Arctic Mining Consultants. In the past he’s held various positions in non-technical aspects of mineral exploration. His past experiences include claim staking, line cutting, grid installation, soil sampling, prospecting, and trenching. For this project Parker will be acting as project manger though this is not his normal role. His responsibilities include hiring, training, and supervising a team of field assistants. Tom has hired 3 gentlemen who have worked for him on a past project at Eagle Lake, John Talbot, Greg Boyce, and Brian Millar. The project stipulates that within a seven day window the team stakes 15 claims, 60 miles in total, which would be an average of 7.5 lengths per day between the four team members. These stipulations also include mobilization and demobilization. Mr. Parker also informed the team members that each man would receive a $300 bonus, in addition to their wages, should the project be completed on time.
Mr. Parker was angry with two of the team members, Millar and Boyce, who only completed six lengths a piece on the first day, while Parker and Talbot completed 7 lengths each. One the evening of the first day verbally expressed his anger and disappointment with Millar and Boyce. As the days went on the verbal abuse continued as Millar and Boyce continued to under produce compared to Parker and Talbot. Boyce improved his performance and Parker focused his anger on Millar. Millar continued to produce less than the rest of the team throughout the project. This often left Millar feeling mistreated and undervalued and that, no matter how hard he tried, Parker always seemed to focus on him as the bad employee.
The Essay on Project Team Selection
As a project manager you acquire a project team in most instances, therefore selecting the skills that each member on the team possess is not possible. You must make the most out of the team that you have been afforded and determine what skills you require to ensure project success. This paper will discuss the importance of team members and ways to utilize the skills on a project team ...
Millar often went in early, stayed at work as long as possible, and skipped meals in hopes of producing more. In the eyes of Parker this meant nothing, as Millar’s performance was still far less than the rest of the team’s. Parker often questioned Millar’s level of dedication and work ethic. Regardless of the reasoning Millar gave on why he produced less Parker was always displaying disappointment with his performance. This type of behavior by Parker seemed to be motivated by the potential end result and the $300 bonus. Parker’s treatment of Millar by singling him out fosters an unhealthy, mismanaged, and a hostile work environment for the team as a whole.
There are several organizational problems with this case. Parker is displaying four behaviors towards Millar: self-fulfilling prophecy, selective attention, confirmation bias, and halo-effect. In turn, this is causing Millar to have low job satisfaction/dissatisfaction and EVLN. Lastly, Arctic Mining and Parker use goal setting as an incentive to have the project completed in a timely manner, which proves devastating to the team’s overall success in the end.
A self-fulfilling prophecy 1 is “the perceptual process in which our expectations about another person cause that person to act more consistently with those expectations.” This behavior can be damaging in a workplace environment where management may treat employees who perform better with more autonomy. Workers believed to not meet the standard may be treated with more scrutiny, criticism, or micromanagement of their work. Parker, from the first day when Millar missed his quota, began to form a negative expectation of Millar’s performance. This expectation continued on day three when Parker starts feeling that Millar has a poor work ethic and voices his opinion by saying, “I thought I told you I wanted 7.5 lengths a day.“ Finally, on day seven after being continually harassed, Millar gave into his frustration and lack of job satisfaction and gave up on his job duties all together.
The Essay on Volunteer Work Time First Day
English ENG 2000 Spring Semester 1997 The first agency I volunteered to work for is a program called Summer Quest. Summer Quest is designed to help students that are in the sixth through twelfth grade experience a "positive summer experience." What this actually means is that it provides students an opportunity to do fun and exciting things, in a positive atmosphere. Instead of the students ...
Millar’s behavior confirms Parker’s self-fulfilling prophecy that Millar had a poor work ethic. These types of behavior in the workplace have detrimental effects to both the productivity of the persons involved and can have a negative ripple effect throughout a team. This behavior can lead to an employee having little to no care in what they do and to have very little job satisfaction. Witnessing this behavior in a team environment can intimidate employees into doing only what they know and discouraging them from stepping outside their comfort zone. It didn’t matter to Parker how Millar improved his performance in latter days. He had already formed an opinion of Millar and projected his own failures onto Millar, therefore forming a halo-effect. A halo-effect 2 is “a perceptual error whereby our general impression of a person usually based on one prominent characteristic of that person.” Parker displays confirmation bias when he shifts his attention on day five to focus solely on Millar even though he performed at the same pace as Boyce. Confirmation bias 3 is “the process of screening out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions and to more readily accept confirming information.”
As the project furthers and the rest of the team’s production declines Parker continues to focus only on Millar’s performance. This type of behavior displayed by Parker is known as selective attention. Selective attention 4 is “the process of attending to some information received by our senses and ignoring other information.” Employees want to be led and receive positive feedback from their managers. This fosters employee satisfaction by setting realistic goals, career paths, and constructive criticism in order to perform better. Being dissatisfied in your job as a result of poor management can lead to overall job dissatisfaction. Job dissatisfaction can lead an employee to engage in bad work habits such as a lack of quality work, team degradation, and absenteeism.
The Research paper on Case Study In Organizational Behavior Employee Motivation part 1
Case Study in Organizational Behavior, Employee Motivation (1) Nowadays, it is practically impossible to guarantee commercial institution staying competitive, on the part of those who are responsible for designing employment policies, unless they understand how to motivate workers. Long gone are the times when good salary alone served as the best incentive, when it would come to increasing ...
On the fifth day Parker said to Millar “why don’t you do what you say you’re going to do?” Later that evening Millar also voiced that “he was tired of being dumped” on by Parker. This type of outspoken opinion of the treatment he was receiving from Parker exhibits how Millar was feeling about his performance and the way in which Parker was addressing it. Finally, on day seven, Millar gave into his frustration and lack of job satisfaction and quit caring about his duties and declined additional job assignments offered by Parker and Arctic Mining. These behaviors are all examples of how Millar is exhibiting the five categories of the EVLN model.
Job satisfaction/dissatisfaction 5 is “a persons evaluation of his or her job and work context.” This behavior is also known as the EVLN6 (Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect) model. Exit- dissatisfaction gaining over time, leaving an organization. Voice- engaging in dissatisfaction by verbalizing your emotions to other employees. Loyalty- choosing to voice or exit and organization. Neglect- reduction in work effort, paying less attention to the quality of work being done. Goal setting 7 is “the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions by establishing performance goals.” By improperly using goal setting an organization can shift focus from the end result being done correctly and efficiently to just getting it done as quickly as possible in order to receive the incentive. If a team is only focused on the incentive as the goal then a manger may be tempted to instruct his or her employees to take shortcuts in order to receive the incentive.
This can also lead to mismanagement and unfavorable treatment of an employee because the manger may only be focused on the bonus and not on having a correct division of labor in order to accomplish said goal. This was exemplified by Parker’s behavior and his adamant focus on getting the bonus and not taking a good look at how and what his employees were doing based on their abilities. In coming up with a hasty plan of attack I think Parker shifted the focus from himself onto Millar. There are many solutions to this problem. The first is that, from the start, Parker could have evaluated his workers and their abilities. By assuming he could give everyone the same task on different pieces of land, each with different challenges, he was setting himself and his team up for failure. By assessing his team’s individual abilities and aligning their strengths with the appropriate geographical challenges he could have had a better plan to achieve the common goal. Had he created a division of labor that rotated each team to a different tract, instead of just dividing and conquering, they might have reached the goal.
The Essay on Goal Life Work Made
In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. Henry Miller {1891-1980 American Author} Goal setting has been a vital element in my life that has made me a strong and determined individual. It has made my educational career more life-like and desirable. My attendance at the ...
By rotating teams it could have created some confusion and unfamiliarity, but it would have shared the different challenges more equally thus creating more team cohesion and empathy. Better team integration would have helped foster a good working relationship as well. This could have been a little time consuming initially, but knowledge sharing and increasing communication within the team could have proven very useful. Hiring an outside source to evaluate the terrain could have proven to be a time killer once again, but at least he could have saved himself and the team some agony and distress by just being monetarily driven by the $300 per man bonus. He could have also hired an outside source to be the project manager since it was obvious his management skills were not that effective. Once again this approach could have been time consuming, but in the end having an effective project manager would have alleviated a lot of stress amongst the group.
In the end good communication, team cohesion, and effective managerial skills all prove invaluable in team dynamics. Without these basic skills assuming a team will be successful could prove to be a disaster. Overall, Parker should have taken into consideration the geographical challenges each tract possessed. He should have had a group brainstorming session after visiting the area with the whole team in order to come up with the division of labor and to inspire group cohesion. Lashing out and attacking Millar on a daily basis does nothing but destroy the team’s cohesion and their confidence in Parker as their leader. His aggressive behavior causes the rest of the team to be unlikely to approach him if they encountered any problems or needed help.
Parker should have also had daily meetings at the end of the day in order for the team to express concerns about their work and share advice with each other or offer help. Had Parker offered some one-on-one counseling with each individual offering constructive feedback and small goal planning this may have helped in reaching the common goals of completing the task and receiving the bonus. Some of these tactics may have taken more time out of each team member’s day, and they still may not have met their goal, but at least there would have been a healthy work environment and a chance for all of them to be a more successful team when working together in the future.
The Essay on Learning Team Time Member Members
Team Behavior and Processes There are many important elements that effect how a learning team behaves and the processes that a learning team chooses to complete tasks and reach desired goals. The current learning team has established roles and responsibilities, time management skills, and decision making strategies that allow the team to work up to it's full potential. The learning team has ...
Works Cited
McShane, Steven Lattimore., and Von Glinow Mary Ann Young.Organizational Behavior: Emerging Knowledge, Global Reality. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2013. Print.
