Project 6
-Company is Amazon-
You will research the pertinent issues of the case and provide an analysis of the leadership decisions and effects of group dynamics on the outcome, positive and/or negative. From your research, you will produce a white paper on the case, a one-page executive summary for your boss to share with other executives, and a short narrated presentation that succinctly covers the case.
In this step, take some time to read about teamwork and leadership (see below). Think about the challenges members must overcome to work together effectively, and how they can do this to achieve a positive outcome for the organization. Bad experiences have their own lessons for individuals and groups. In your own group, you will experience some practical challenges of schedules, resistance to group work, and perhaps failure of some members to contribute fully. Consider this an incubator of sorts, in which you may encounter experiences similar to the case you are studying. As you grapple with logistic, technical, and other team issues, you are experiencing normal team challenges. So, relax a bit and consider this a useful journey!
In the next step, you will choose your case.
Teamwork and Leadership
The concepts of teamwork and leadership both refer to particular ways people relate to one another, often in the workplace but also in academic or volunteer settings. People can make work an exciting, fun, and productive place to be, or they can make it a routine, boring, and ineffective place where everyone dreads to go. Steve Jobs, cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. attributes the innovations at Apple, which include the iPod, MacBook, and iPhone, to people, noting, “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have.…It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it” (Kirkpatrick, 1998, p. 90).
While there is much research on how to help teams perform well and how leaders can be more effective, the people in many organizations do not put this knowledge into practice. This research provides answers for the following questions any leader or teammember should be thinking about. As a member of a team, what does it mean to cooperate and communicate openly? As a leader, how does one motivate their people? When should leaders empower workers and when should they dictate? After all, the teams and leaders must have a shared vision that they are working towards. But how can leaders effectively share their vision? Or how do they adapt their vision when faced with new data, particularly from within the organization?
Reference
Kirkpatrick, D. (1998). The second coming of Apple. Fortune, 138: 90. Retrieved from http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/11/09/250834/index.htm
Step 3: Choose a Case to Analyze
Now that you have a better understanding of various aspects of organizational behavior from the reading in the previous step, take a look at these case studies. Your team can choose one of these cases or look for other options.
In response to the case study, your team will write an instructive white paper (8-10 pages excluding cover sheet and References) that analyzes a company’s management and leadership environment in a particularly challenging period. Your paper should
• review the issues of the case study as background for the events relating to the role of the leadership and teams
• analyze the leadership practices of the organization in the case study, and define the practices that leaders used to create collaborative and successful teams, or failed to effect successful working relations resulting in negative conditions
• propose remedial principles and practices that the organization might adopt to enable a better outcome
After the paper is written, you will create a one-page executive summary of the paper and an asynchronous presentation of 12 slides, excluding the references slide and cover slide.
You will have three weeks to complete the following:
• create a team project plan by the end of Week 8
• conduct research, develop an analysis of the issues of the case, determine your argument, provide supporting facts, and identify recommendations with an explanation of your rationale
• draft and finalize your paper and executive summary, and create a narrated presentation
In the next step, you will come up with a project plan.
Now it is time to choose a particular case that will help you understand the keys to successful, high-performing organizations as you continue your journey toward your master’s degree. Here are some ideas to get your team thinking:
CASE STUDIES
You could study high-performance organizations such as Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, Costco, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Marriott, Southwest Airlines, FedEx, Salesforce.com, Intuit, USAA, NetApp, Cisco Systems, or Zappos.com, to name just a few organizations.
You could also select an organization that has dealt (successfully or not) with a particular crisis or issue such as
● Genentech’s lawsuits over kickbacks and circumventing Medicare guidelines on co-pays,
● Theranos’ fraud case over claims of ground-breaking blood sampling technology that doesn’t exist,
● Adobe’s move from annual performance reviews to more flexible check-ins,
● Silicon Valley’s employee diversity problem, or
● find a case study at Harvard Business Review (select “Search within this publication” to get started).
These ideas should get your team started in selecting a case study. If you have another case in mind, make sure to get your instructor’s approval. Then you can dive in!
White Paper
A white paper is a form of persuasive writing that advocates a certain product, service, or belief. There is no defined standard for white papers. Anyone can call anything a white paper. Generally, however, they are usually 5-8 pages long, function as a stand-alone document, propose a solution to a problem, and are targeted at a larger audience outside of the organization that authored the paper. White papers are often written to convince potential customers to buy a product or service although better white papers will be genuinely educational and useful to decision makers and not simply a commercial in essay form.
Executive Summary
An executive summary, as described by the Writing Center at UMGC, “summarizes or reviews the main points of a longer document or report for a reader that does not have time to read the entire report. An effective executive summary analyzes and summarizes the most important points in the paper or report, and will often make a recommendation based on the analysis. Executive summaries are ‘stand-alone’ documents that are almost always read independently of the reports they summarize” (UMGC, n.d.).
In a workplace setting, an executive summary is the mechanism by which you will attract an executive’s attention and should concisely summarize the materials that you are presenting.
While there isn’t a single acceptable format for an executive summary, an executive summary typically very briefly (one to two pages) includes the following:
• a first paragraph that attracts attention and gets the executive to read the rest of your summary
• bullet points and concise language to articulate ideas
• establishment of what is unique about your summary that makes it compelling for an executive to review
• a recommended basic structure:
o introduction (grabs the executive’s attention)
o statement of the problem
o recommended solution
o explanation of why this is important to do now (conveys a sense of urgency)
Use appropriate language for executives; avoid technical jargon unless you define it in your summary and avoid using personal pronouns such as we, our, my, and us. Instead, use a more general “the company.” Also be careful not to make claims that you can’t back up (e.g., “cutting-edge,” “world-class,” “innovative”).
Reference
UMGC Writing Center. (n.d.). Writing executive summaries. Retrieved from http://www.umgc.edu/writingcenter/writingresources/exec_summaries.cfm
Asynchronous Presentations
An asynchronous presentation is a prerecorded presentation for a specific audience to whom you would ideally present in person or online in real time, but cannot for practical reasons. While MS PowerPoint is considered the default presentation tool for presentations, you may consider using other presentation platforms or tools. Be sure the tool supports prerecorded narration. Dedicate enough time to the narrated presentation to get the timing for transitions right, and ensure that the sound is clear and the narration at the right volume. A good asynchronous presentation shares most of the same traits as a good live presentation. Your presentation should not be your academic paper cut into text-filled slides. Rather, consider how you might identify themes to discuss that are supported by pertinent facts from your paper. You are giving a talk to an audience, so your narrative should provide most of your ideas and argumentation. Be sure the themes either flow or transition appropriately from slide to slide. Use images and data visualization (tables, charts, or graphs, for example) where possible.
Step: Conduct Research
In previous steps, you studied organizational behavior, and then the team chose a case and agreed to a project plan. Now it is time to do a closer read of the chosen case and do any additional research. Revisit guidelines on conducting research, if needed. Then look at the list below, which provides some topics for your search strategies. In your search, you should consult scholarly resources as well as online resources, newspapers, and business blogs and sites for similar contemporary cases.
- 1. Principles of teamwork within an organization: What were the practices of this organization, and how did these practices influence the issue and challenges the project team and leader confronted?
2. Best practices for leaders: What practices did the team (or leadership) employ that influenced the outcome, leading to resolution of the crisis, or further exacerbating the situation?
3. How the composition of leadership influences outcomes: What were the unique characteristics of the project team and leaders?
4. Judging the success of project teams, immediate and longer term: What unique issues, challenges, or practices are relevant to the leaders, industry, or company?
This step might be completed well before your paper is finished, or you may continue to do research as the paper is developed. Ideally, much of this step should be complete by the end of Week 9 to ensure time for writing. Move on to the next step when you feel you are ready to begin whatever writing component the team’s project plan has allocated to you.
Step: Writing the Paper
Using the research from the previous step, you and your teammates will write the white paper and executive summary as determined in the project plan. Your team paper and contribution to the team project will be graded using the team project rubric, so be sure the team reviews that document. The white paper and executive summary must be completed by the end of Week 10.
After your paper and summary are been completed, the team should move on to the next step, in which your team will create the narrated presentation. This next step must also be completed by the end of Week 10.
