#org comm

[craigengstrom]

A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved.

Thanks to Lacey Brown for sharing this. Lots of useful info.

[craigengstrom]

Simple Ideas, Complex Orgs (Chapt 2.1)

Here’s some notes from the first part of Reframing Organizations by Deal and Bolman (pp. 23-31)

Common Fallacies in Explaining Organizational Problems

People erroneously blame problems on the following:

Fallacy 1: Blaming people

Fallacy 2: Blaming the bureaucracy

Fallacy 3: Thirsting for for power

Hit Number 8: March and Simon’s Organizations (1958); follows Simon’s Organization Behavior (1947) (Both fit the Structural / HR frames)

Simon argues that human are not rationale, rather we “satisfice” (choose the first option that is good enough; that is satisfactory and sufficient)

Decision making is always made with a simplified model of the world.

Organizations are complex systems

Peculiarities of Organizations (Snake pit or rose garden?)

Organizations are complex

Organizations are surprising

Organizations are deceptive

Organizations are ambiguous

[craigengstrom]

A Lazy Employee is a Secret Weapon Employee

Inc. magazine has an article with an interesting twist on lazy employees: http://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/why-lazy-people-are-the-best-hire-for-your-company.html

Key points: 

1.  If an employee seems idle, a manager should not assume that the employee is lazy; rather, he or she may have found an easier way of doing his or her job through shortcuts, efficiencies, and highly developed skills.

2.  An employee who seems bored but meets performance standards is in need of more challenges.  

3.  A lazy employee has much to teach his or her peers about productiveness, effectiveness, and constructiveness.  

Connection to Organizational Communication class:

Managers often misunderstand employees who seem idle, seem bored, and seem distracted by framing them as “lazy.” However, with multiframe thinking, managers who use Theory Y are able to arrange conditions so “lazy” workers can have more challenging goals. Therefore, managers who use Theory Y are able to help “lazy” employees develop the path to their fullest and ultimate potentials.  

In short, managers need to reframe (or symbolically reinterpret) laziness.

Submitted by Natalie B. 

[wanderlust-jaf-blog]

Forgot I came here to study...

So obvs I've been great at updating you guys on my life...we've had a week of classes pass by and its been crazy stressful. Not only was it my first week of school but my first week of office work and rounds. I had an emotional break down due to the intensity of this PA job...I just think I came into it not realizing how much work it is but it is all good now :) 

I'm taking Italian, Org Comm and Comm Serv and hopefully marketing (wait list :( ) I really enjoy all my classes. Our italian professor is such an animated character that does not speak a word of english....

got to go to class :( will edit and continue this entry tonight... PROMISE

CIao. 

CONTINUED

Okay so now we're onto our third week of class. Recap...First week we did nothing other than just get to know our classes and such. Second week we had our first italian quiz...which i did really well on :) 

Party recap: we went to Space, 21, Twice, Central, Red Garter....and Naima a bar that we've gone to multiple times and became friends with. Our connection to Naima has also gotten us some free shots at a restaurant called Il gatto e volpe :)

So because i haven't been blogging I can't remember anything...next post will be of AMALFI :)

~A