Part IV: Project Portfolio – Using organizational Psychology to Mitigate Workplace Challenges

 

Assignment must build on prior weeks assignment that are attached

1. Use the needs assessment from your Week 1 organization, and the assessment tools created in Week 2.
   Create an 8- to 12-slide Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation on organizational culture.
   Include the following:
2. Include a slide with background information covering the prior assignments

   Describe one issue of diversity in the workplace you chose.
   Discuss how diversity impacts the organizational culture.
   Identify potential cultural impacts of change.
   Identify the government regulations and rules that apply to your workplace and the resulting effects on organizational culture.
   Explain why leaders and the organization must follow government and industry regulations when making decisions and demonstrating ethical behavior. Consider laws as outlined by Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Food and Drug Administration, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Communications Commission and National Labor Relations Board.
   Present the usefulness of IO/P principles, and the theories and techniques that could be applied in the assessment and creation of organizational culture. 
   You must support opinions and any facts by citing credible sources in the body of the assignment and listing the references including at least two scholarly references in APA 7 style. 
   Every slide needs at least 100 words of speaker notes in complete sentences.

Part 1:Project Portfolio Workplace Assessment
The Whole System

IOP/490

1

Introduction
Conduct a needs assessment
Identify
Analyze
Decide

Strategies for performance improvement

Image 1-needs assessment (https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/cfca-paper/needs-assessment/part-two-how-do-needs-assessment)

Good Afternoon, my name is J’neen Barker-Rice and we are going to talk about some strategies for improvement focusing on whole system approach. First, we conducted a needs assessment. A needs assessment identifies needs, or gaps within the organization. A needs assessment is conducted in order to determine priorities, make improvements, or allocate resources based on results of the assessment. This assessment will help determine the way forward. Determine where the organization is vs. where you want to be (Kaufman et al., 1993). The phases that a needs assessment encompasses are identify the problem, gather/analyze data, and then decide on the resolution. Once the decision for the resolution is final, implementation of performance, strategies are implemented. We will discuss strategies and how they relate to the following areas:
Leadership style
Organizational culture
Mission, vision, and values alignment
System of management
Decision making
Motivational techniques
Employee morale
Ethics
Communication and feedback
2

Needs Assessment
Identify-
Leadership changes leaving the organization in a state of confusion
Analyze
Compile data, and determine the area of most concern
Decide
How do we solve the problem of communication at all levels

Identify what is the issue within the organization. This has to be done first in order to develop the way forward. This is a government run task force that is funded to help with counter narcotic activity. The issue that has been identified is with the current leadership of the organization wanting to eliminate several positions, and repurpose other positions. In order to properly identify the issues, and gather data a survey was conducted at the headquarters level of the organization. The survey was completed anonymously in order to allow everyone to speak without fear of reprisal.
The survey covered areas such as: leadership, morale, motivation, training, and policy/procedures. Upon completion of the survey the data was analyzed in order to develop courses of action to address the found issues.
The next phase is to decide what to do next. We have identified the biggest issue as being communication, and specifically communication between leadership and subordinates. The next slides will outline strategies for improvement surrounding the issue of communication.

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Leadership Style
Communication from leadership is vital in motivating employees towards change (Men et al., 2020).
The cornerstone of patriarchal management is strong leadership (Block, 2011)
Authoritarian leadership style

When looking at the whole system approach we have to look at what leadership styles we have throughout the organization. Each style is unique, and for us to move forward with change we need to know where we are currently. In looking at the data that was gathered, it is evident that the organization as a whole has lost trust in the leadership. As we move forward it is important to remember that we are all on an equal playing field right now, and we all want to solve the communication issue. The top leadership has a authoritarian leadership style, and that impacts how much you all as a whole has input.
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Organizational Culture
Seek a collaborative relationship
Motivation is being hindered by the lack of communication
Individuals feel disconnected

The current organizational culture is one that focuses on taking care of “you” instead of improving the organization as a whole. This hinders production and motivation of everyone. When employees do not believe and have buy-in regarding the organization, you will also have a high turnover rate. This creates a hostile every person for themselves environment. In seeking a collaborative relationship, you allow everyone to have an opinion, and you gain buy-in from the employees. This in turn starts to increase motivation, and production. As the leadership starts to show they are willing to embrace a whole system approach, employees will be more open to change and their behaviors will change (Men et al., 2020).
5

Mission, Values, Ethics and Values Alignment
Breakdowns in communication show a lack of alignment with current mission and values
Ethics
Lack of clarity causes disengagement
Missing or not communicated mission or values creates chaos

Communication coming from the leadership must align with the given mission, and values. This organization has a set standard for conduct, discipline, mission and values. It is evident that some feel these policies and procedures are not being followed. The lack of importance put on the founding principles of the organization, are a leadership issue. This also aids in the communication breakdown at all levels. As people see that the values of an organization as being compromised the moral starts to diminish. Many times when people feel that the mission and values are not being followed they will disengage. This makes communication break down further because people stop talking. Most people want to have input, and support the organization, but when guidance is missing/not enforced, they may see chaos.
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System of Management and Decision Making
Systems are used in all parts of out lives
Hiring systems
Performance management systems
Decision Making
How are decisions made?
Is there collaboration? (use of whole system)

Systems of management must be involved in all aspects of an organization. This allows the decision makers to have a way to weight options based on the given set standards set forth in the systems of management. System management also includes the need to added communication in order to ensure everyone is on the same page. If everyone is operating under different influences, the organization becomes disjointed. This adds to low moral and a high turn over rate. To apply this with decision making practices, we have to look at who is asked for input with regards to decisions. Are the key stakeholders given an opportunity to provide input? Right now in this organization this piece is missing.
7

Employee Morale and Motivational Techniques
Morale is low as a whole across the organization
Low morale decreases productivity and wellness
This can be fixed!
Improve enforcement of policies and procedures
Include stakeholders in decision making
Validate good work

Morale being low in the organization is a direct reflection of the lack of communication and the feeling of not being valued. This is something that can be fixed overtime when you address some of the other issues. Morale will start to repair itself as communication increases, and people feel more valued. This will in turn increase productivity, and overall wellness of the organization. By showing that people are cared for you provide motivation and improve morale.
8

Communication and Feedback
Communication is why we are at the table now
Good communication must be achieved
Everyone has to be given a chance to be heard
Constructive feedback is essential to overall success
Given consistently
Feedback must be in a positive light

Communication is key to success. Once you have solid positive communication many other things fall into place. In this organization feedback is given quarterly in some cases, but it is not consistent throughout the organization. This falls into not following all policies and procedures which hurts the organization overall. Feedback is needed to validate what someone is supposed to be doing, what needs improvement, and ended with what the person is doing that is positive.
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Conclusion
Increase communication by adding people to decision making processes
Improve motivation and morale with the increased communication
Provide feedback to employees on a regular bases
Reevaluate policies and procedures with input from stakeholder

In conclusion, we discussed the findings and the data produced from the needs assessment. It has been identified that communication is a major hindering factor as of today. This influences many areas of the organization, but there are multiple ways to improve this aspect. I have been in many organizations that struggle with communication, and the good thing is it is fixable. We just have to start breaking down all the factors that hinder the positive communication.
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References
Block, P. (2011). Flawless consulting (3rd ed.). Wiley.
Image 1 Part two: How to do a needs assessment. (2020). https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/cfca-paper/needs-assessment/part-two-how-do- needs-assessment.
Kaufman, R. A., Rojas, A. M., & Mayer, H. (1993). Needs assessment: a user’s guide. Educational Technology Publications.
Luo, Y., & Jiang, H. (2014). Effective Public Relations Leadership in Organizational Change: A Study of Multinationals in Mainland China. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26(2), 134–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726x.2013.864241
Lusthaus, C., Adrien, M.-H., Anderson, G., Carden, F., & Montalvan, G. (2002). Organizational assessment: a framework for improving performance. Inter-American Development Bank.
Men, L. R., Yue, C. A., & Liu, Y. (2020). “Vision, passion, and care:” The impact of charismatic executive leadership communication on employee trust and support for organizational change. Public Relations Review, 46(3), 101927. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2020.101927

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9

Part II: Project Portfolio

University of Phoenix

IOP/490

Change Strategy

By evaluating the workplace needs assessment, completed previously, it is essential to establish change that reduces the performance gap in any organization. Like this, to achieve the target or the projections of an organization, change in leadership style to a more decentralized component indicates an effective way of achieving change and reducing the performance gap.

Strengths and challenges for the change adoption

Strengths

Managing change in any organization enables them to remain competitive and remain flexible in downtime. Thus, the adoption of a decentralized leadership style represents a productive change initiative for a successful organization. Decentralization in an organization brings people together and promotes cross-functional interaction (Ntale et al., 2020). It ensures inclusive decision-making where the staff at all points/levels in an organization have equal chances to influence change. Through collaborative decision-making, an organization can incorporate diverse ideas instead of sticking to a single group’s opinion. Collaborative decision-making, which decentralization advocates, would promote more complete and strong solutions through discussion, inquiries, and mutual participation for effective decision-making.

Adopting a decentralized form of leadership ensures a constant flow of information through uncontrolled communication across all levels. It reduces the power distance by providing more opportunities for relationship building and exchanging ideas. Therefore, through a decentralized system, employees and organizational leaders can collaboratively share ideas or opinions on the best alternative or strategy to minimize the performance gap through a consensus dialogue.

Decentralization distributes authority, resources, and responsibility and creates local autonomy and responsiveness within the organization. Essentially, decentralization increases the staff morale and motivation that empowers the workforce to work harder and become more innovative in the daily processes due to a sense of belonging. Decentralization allows for significant flexibility, which makes an organization more responsive to the changes in needs (Tam, 2017). Importantly, organizational operations are dynamic, and it is due to these changing elements that make the firm vulnerable to failure in achieving the performance goals.

Weaknesses

Decentralizing leadership can be challenging to the organizational change to close the performance gaps. Decentralization might result in organizational conflict related to the inter-divisional rivalry (Pick, 2015). This problem is impactful to the firm where a section of the workforce might build empires against others, expanding the gap further. Additionally, decentralization is costly due to the duplication of the staff effort. Lack of an organizational standardization is an essential weakness encompassing decentralization that can lead to unquantified or non-uniform decisions, which can compromise the organizational benefits and quality of a decision.

Issues relevant to leadership managing change

To implement a change, a leader must understand where the primary causes of change originate, sequence, and predict the impact of change. For a decentralized system, these change drivers can impose small problems related to decision-making. Therefore, the primary issue in managing leadership change is the difference between leaders’ influence that can distract the implementation of a successful change initiative. Diverse leaders tend to provide different directions regarding change if the organizational structure is decentralized.

Managing change requires optimal care, communication, and commitment from the organizational leaders. The organizational leaders bridge the company, and the envisioned change to transition it from the current state to the future level. One of the prevalent problems relating to leadership during change management is managing multiple teams and simultaneous changes. For instance, adopting a decentralized leadership style would distort the organizations standardized communication source that would hinder the fluent flow of information relevant to improve performance.

Change Leadership Development

Successful change leaders focus on process and people: attaining a successful change in the modern organization is critical. Effective change leadership is essential to alter the organizational operations for improved performance successfully. Developing change leadership entails communication, collaboration, and commitment (Center for Creative Leadership, 2020). Change leadership development would entail a successful leader communicates what the change is and why. Developing a successful change leadership, the corporate leader must explain the aim of change, connect it to the organizational values, and establish the benefits created by the urgency for change.

Collaboration in change leadership development entails bringing people on board to plan and execute change by working across boundaries and motivating employees (Center for Creative Leadership, 2020). Like this, the leadership shows its commitment to change, including the employees in decision-making. Successful leadership for change promotes commitment, where the leaders’ behaviors and beliefs aim to align with the change. Successful change leadership development entails devoting more time to negotiating resilience and persistence to eradicate negativity and adapt to challenges.

The DISC Assessment and How this Tool can be Integrated into Change Leadership

The DISC assessment is used by organizations to improve communication, teamwork, and productivity at the workplace. It provides an evaluation for people to understand themselves and those they interact with. The DISC acronym represents four personality profiles: “(D) Dominance, (I) Influence, (S) Steadiness, and (C) Conscientiousness” (“What is disc®,” n.d.). The persons with the (D) personalities are considered confident and emphasize the accomplishment of bottom-line results. Those of (I) personalities are more open; they value relationship and influence to persuade others. Those of (S) personalities are dependable, they are concerned with sincerity and corporation, and those of (C) personalities emphasize expertise, competency, accuracy, and quality.

Integrating the DISC tool into change leadership is essential to observe, learn, and lead organizational teams. DISC can be integrated into the change leadership by introducing Standard Individual Assessment to analyze what people are familiar with, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and place them correctly within the organization (Michigan State University, 2019). Additionally, incorporating manager’s assessment evaluates leadership’s daily aspects to ascertain what is needed for a successful change (Michigan State University, 2019). Incorporating the leadership assessment entails evaluating manager’s assessment and addressing the future objectives of the leadership. Therefore, the DISC elements can be integrated into the organization through commitment, collaboration, and communication.

References

How to Be a Successful Change Leader. Center for Creative Leadership. (2020, April). https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/successful-change-leader/.

Observe, learn and lead your team by following. michiganstateuniversityonline.com. (2019, September). https://www.michiganstateuniversityonline.com/resources/leadership/observe-learn-and-lead-your-team-by-following-disc/.

Ntale, P. D., Ssempebwa, J., Musisi, B., Musoke, G. G., Joseph, K., Mugimu, C. B., … Ntayi, J. (2020). Gaps in the structuring of organizations in the graduate employment context in Uganda. Journal of Organization Design, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41469-020-0066-5

Pick, R. A. (2015). Shepherd or servant: Centralization and decentralization in information technology governance. International Journal of Management & Information Systems (IJMIS), 19(2), 61-68.

Tam, M. (2017). Managing Change in a Decentralized Organizational Structure. Athabascau University – DTPR Home. 

https://dtpr.lib.athabascau.ca/action/download.php?filename=mba-17/open/tammargaretProject

What is disc®. (n.d.). Discprofile.com. 

https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc

Appendices

Organizational readiness survey: Appendix A

1. How does your company approach change in general?

a. The top executives and board members determine and direct change

b. Most staff are involved in designing and embracing change.

c. Some of the personnel resist and others adapt to change quickly

d. Change is unacceptable by the personnel

2. How well are you prepared to learn, think, and operate differently?

a. I take operations to improve the firm’s performance

b. I am ready to operate differently for the company’s benefit

c. I might be ready to do specific things

d. I am okay with the current situation

3. How well are your workforce and board members prepared to learn, think, and operate differently?

a. Staff and board members mostly take operations to improve the firm’s performance

b. Most are ready to operate differently for the company’s benefit

c. Some might be ready to do specific things

d. Most decline doing things differently

4. How do you feel about working with in a decentralized leadership environment?

a. I am already in a decentralized leadership environment

b. I am ready to work in a decentralized leadership environment

c. I would consider working in a decentralized leadership environment

d. I am not willing to work in a decentralized leadership environment

5. How do your staff and board members feel about working with in a decentralized leadership environment?

a. Most of the staff and board members have worked in a decentralized environment before

b. Most are willing to work in a decentralized leadership environment

c. Some might be willing to work in a decentralized leadership environment

d. Most of the board member and staff are against working in a decentralized leadership environment

6. Are you willing to re-design some of your priorities and create time for implementing new approaches for the organizational goals?

Yes No

7. Are you willing to interact freely with the top executive and subordinates in decision-making?

Yes No

8. Are the most of top executives and board members wiling to interact with the junior staff?

Yes No

9. Are there two or more features of your organization that facilitate or show signs of decentralization? If so, please state below.

10. What is your role in the organization?

Staff (job title)

Manager (job title)

Board member

Other (Please Specify)

Pulse Survey: Appendix B

1. Does your organization provide adequate opportunities for collaborative decision-making and employee improvement after implementing a decentralized structure?

Yes No

2. How would describe your current responsibilities and contribution to the organization compared to the previous structure?

3. Do you feel your feedback is valued in the organizational decision-making? If Yes, How? If No, why?

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Part III: Project Portfolio – Creating a Change Strategy

University of Phoenix

IOP/490

Change Plan

Change adoption within an organization depends on whether the company needs long-term or short-term change based on what is being sought for achievement. The needed change that is decentralized leadership has challenges in terms of managing. However, the crucial effort for the organization is necessary to meet the business needs. The measures include implementing effective communication that ensures continuous feedback to all leadership levels within the organization. As a result of the change, there will be a clear direction that becomes the planned change.

In the change plan, there are several activities to execute. The organization does not have the alignment required to gain the traction crucial to assist the organization in transforming, adapting, and shaping its leadership to be decentralized. Primarily, change action due to enhanced communication feedback brings an in-depth understanding of how the change fits the organization or its matters (Agrawal & Grupta, 2018). As a result, people under the decentralized leadership become complacent, content to show up, take care of daily business activities, and hope that leaders are steering the general performance under clear directions.

Change Objectives and Principles

The diagonal communication will ensure clear direction within the decentralized leadership whereby the information flows across employees and departments. By avoiding ranks or boundaries when communicating, employees feel engaged at all levels. They automatically view the change as inclusive and consultative since the direction for communicating and getting feedback is clearly outlined.

Motivational Theories in Engaging Employees for Change

Motivation in a change situation makes employees accept the change without resistance since the working atmosphere becomes favorable for everyone. Motivation drives workers to achieve a goal, and if the change motivates them, they automatically accept. An interest or enjoyment in the task itself helps an engaging worker who does not rely on any external pressure. If the change meets workers’ needs, then the acceptance is undisputable; thus, employees will desire to be engaged in such a change (Bernabé-Valero et al., 2019). Primarily, the engagement is evident from the prioritization and significance of the motivational needs that characterize their rejection or acceptance behavior.

Use of Ongoing Feedback to Enhance Change Adoption

Ongoing feedback makes a system that stabilizes workers’ differences in an organization during change adoption. As a tool, it discloses the role of such differences in behavior at work, which need to change to align with decentralized leadership. If aspects of changes are communicated regularly, workers’ “general mental ability” gets prepared to accept and adopt a new communication approach that gives clear direction (Schultz, 2015). Overall, ongoing feedback on the proposed change enriches an employee’s action to accept leadership change in a sense-making process.

The continuous feedback will help ensure that the adoption of diagonal communication in centralized leadership becomes effective and efficient. Change needs progress and forward move; thus, the proponents need to reliance on consistent feedback is inevitable. Through this feedback, the involved parties stay updated on occurring, restricting for implementing the change. As a tool, it instills trust among employees by assuring them the adoption remains the best strategy to enhance the effectiveness of the decentralized leadership where daily operations and decision-making responsibilities are delegated by top management to middle and lower-level managers.

Furthermore, in change adoption, constructive communication helps the change team to manage and convince employees to accept change in a productive way. Summarily, the feedback facilitates; continuous learning of the change, better communication about the change, and a review of the change process to determine its suitability. Continuous feedback enables continuous learning that teaches workers to reevaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the change consistently. What this tool does is creating a performance-driven culture that has no resistance to change. Overall, feedback as a tool for change adoption will help employees, and other stakeholders impacted by the change learn from mistakes, become self-aware, and improve, leading to an adaptable, high performing decentralized leadership.

360-Degree Feedback for Evaluating Employee Performance Post-Change

Employees submit their views and contribute to the organizational goal. A worker is rated by a colleague, supervisor, manager, client, or subordinate. The evaluation is from all sides, and there is a use of questionnaires containing aspects such as motivation levels, teamwork, adaptability, and leadership qualities (Agrawal & Grupta, 2018). The identification, collection, and analysis of the data for evaluation of post-change performance will involve determining the needed information, setting a timeframe for data collection, determining the collection method, collecting data, and analyzing data to facilitate the findings.

Presentation of Performance Findings

PowerPoint is used for presenting the performance findings to the relevant audience. During the presentation, there is a need for the presenter to interact with the audience and structure what questions to ask them and what the audience might want to ask based on the performance findings. Similarly, this PowerPoint presentation will be recorded to allow others to watch it after the main presentation. As a result, this PowerPoint presentation will communicate detailed information by engaging the audience since it sounds natural.

Conclusion

Creating change within an organization is always a challenge, but when you have buy in from the organization it can go smoothly. Communication was the biggest issue identified in the needs assessment, and by utilizing various concepts such as continuous feedback that allow the organization of consistently check the pulse of the environment.

References

Agrawal, A., & Grupta, S. (2018). 360 Degree Feedback and Behavior Of the Employees in an Organization. Aayushi International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, V(III).

Bernabé-Valero, G., Blasco-Magraner, J. S., & Moret-Tatay, C. (2019). Testing Motivational Theories in Music Education: The Role of Effort and Gratitude. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00172

Schultz, J. R. (2015). To Improve Performance, Replace Annual Assessment With Ongoing Feedback. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 34(5), 13–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/joe.21622