Method and Learning in Action - Assignment Example

Method: Activity As outlined by Green (2000) I will be making use of a structured discussion format to elicit what lies at the root of a certain workgroup member’s unsatisfactory performance. I will be asking him specific questions in an in-depth interview like format. These would range from: What makes you happy? What is your biggest failure that you can recall? How did you deal with it? What is your most prized possession? Why? Where do you see yourself in the next ten years? What are your feelings about working in this syndicate? Do you think the work is easy or difficult? How would these activities help you become better at both personal and professional levels? Would you rather work in this group or alone? Why? What can you say about your performance in this syndicate? Are you satisfied? I will try this technique with 2 underperformers in my syndicate. These in-depth interviews are meant to help me reach conclusions about the reasons for these members’ underperformance. I will first prepare a list of reasons as to why I believe these people are not performing up to the mark and then compare these with the actual results. This will help me understand and correct my previous knowledge of the group members. To judge the effectiveness of this method and to cross-check the results of the in-depth interview I will prepare a questionnaire with close ended questions based on the findings of the in-depth interview and get it filled by the syndicate members in question. Activity 2: According to Locke and Latham (1990) I will need to find out what one of the above underperformers’ goals are. This will require asking him to list his short-term, intermediate and long term goals in his learning journal and how he intends to achieve them. This information must be passed on to me so that I can better understand the desires and aspirations of my syndicate member, in order to motivate him. This will be a one time activity, the effectiveness of which can be judged by comparing the results with actual behavior of the specific member. Activity 3: In keeping with Vroom (1965) I will conduct short motivational games with my syndicate. They will include having a goal and putting in certain effort to reach that goal. Feedback will be taken from each participant as to what their expectations and beliefs are about their efforts translating into performance, which in turn results in outcomes that may or may not be satisfying. This feedback can be used to test the effectiveness of the activity. The participants’ feedback must correspond to the results of the activity. This activity will be conduct once every week with different targets and goals. Learning in Action Activity 1: The whole activity went better than expected. I was expecting that things would not turn out as desired and that participants maybe hesitant in sharing their ideas. However, by making the environment comfortable and congenial I managed to elicit the right response from my team members. An hour long in-depth interview/discussion was conducted with each of the members. The initial format was changed from that of an interview to slightly more of a discussion because I felt that more of my input was required to get specific answers from the participants. However, the format was still more interview based than discussion. I was pleased with the answers. Since, I had made people comfortable before answering questions; the answers were true, unpretentious and very real. I found out that of the two participants one was undergoing a lack of trust. He felt that the outcome will not be tied to his individual performance and would in-effect get diluted among the group members. In short, he felt that he will not get credit for his efforts at all. The second participant suffered from a lack of confidence. He felt that his performance will not be worthy enough of being a part of the group effort. Therefore, he just did not bother working. He suffered from a low self esteem and a low sense of self worth. A couple of problems were encountered during the process. For example; the second participant was a little hesitant in giving personal information and had to be assured of confidentiality again and again to be put at ease. Secondly, sometimes I felt that I was not only giving lead for the discussion but what I said was molding the participant’s point of view. To prevent this from happening, I was very careful. I refrained from adding any personal perspective to the discussion. Instead I talked about very general things to keep the continuity going. I had to constantly switch between being an interrogator and a listener. This is because sometimes being interrogative left the second participant harassed. Therefore I had to take on a more congenial approach. On the other hand too much of being a listener resulted in the discussion being swayed from the core idea. Secondly, often participants would say things to make me happy. I had to constrain this by keeping a straight face at all times and displaying no form of emotion. The main idea for conducting this discussion was to discover the goals, problems and personality of the underperforming group members. I wanted to discover the individual as much as I can. Therefore the above corrective and preventive measures were necessary. Otherwise the exercise would have been useless. Activity 2: To make sure my efforts do not go to waste, I gave the member a time of one week to come up with the goals. Before he articulated the goals for the Learning Journal, I explained what goals are and what each type of goal actually means. I gave him examples so that he has a better idea of how to pen down his targets. He was excited about thinking through and putting down his ideas on paper. I was informed that his short term goal was to get a good grade in this course, his intermediate goal was to complete his degree in the stipulated time and his long-term goal was to become the best business man around. I thought that these goals were highly generalized and not specific. Therefore I requested him to write these statements again, bringing more specificity into the picture. He responded by giving me a slightly modified version of the statements. He wanted an A in this course and he wanted to own a fast food franchise as his long term goal. I found a gap in his goals and his performance. As mentioned above this was due to a lack of confidence in his abilities. The articulation of his goals worked both ways; it made me aware of what he wanted in life and secondly it was inspirational for him because it opened his eyes to what he wanted and therefore made him realize that he must work for it. Initially I felt that he would just be providing lip service to his goals, however I discovered that putting them down helped him sort out his thoughts and made him come face to face with reality. Activity 3: This method turned out to be slightly confusing even though it was the most entertaining! Members of the team were asked to choose an object of desire. These included cash, a promotion to become team leader and the ticket to learn some skill. They are then taught how to shoot. After the training, they are asked to shoot and are given scores. These scores should match the score required for the object of desire. Their feedback on their beliefs and expectations about their performance, efforts and outcomes are recorded. They are later matched to their actual performance, efforts and outcomes. The results were interesting. People’s feedback before they started with the activity turned out to be a self fulfilling prophecy. People with low expectations rarely worked hard at training to do well. And those who thought that even if they do well they would not get the reward never did get the reward because they never did well. Since the activity was fun, people were generally enthusiastic about it. Some I felt lacked the candor that such feedbacks required but still served the purpose. The problems that arose revolved around the concept of the activity and the execution. It was confusing how the object of desire impacted performance. However, I decided that the role of the object of desire was limited to making the goal acceptable for people. Motivation can only be towards an owned and acceptable goal. It brought uniformity into the activity. However, a limitation of the activity was this that goals other than the three selected ones were not considered. References 1. Greenberg.J and R. Baron. 1999. Behavior in Organizations. New Jersey. Prentice Hall 2. Green.T. 2000. Motivation Management: Fueling Performance by Discovering What People Believe About Themselves and Their Organizations. Davies-Black Publishing 3. Bryce.D. 2000. Motivation by the Book - management theory and techniques for employee motivation. [Online]. [20-09-07]. Available from World Wide Web : Read More