Preparation and Execution of the Presentation Activities - Coursework Example

Critical Organisational Analysis and Sustainability Table of Contents Introduction 3 2. Critical Assessment of the Major Events 4 2 Attendance and Time Keeping 4 2.2 Critical Analysis 5 2.3 Group Management and Relationship with Others 5 2.4 Group Leadership 6 2.5 Skills at Collating Presentation Slides and Final Performance 7 3. Own Perspective and Drawing on Published Academic Work 8 4. How you think that you could contribute to your development in the future? 9 5. Critical Assessment of the Metaphors Associated with the Presentation 11 5.1 Culture Metaphor 11 5.2 Machine Metaphor 12 5.3 Organism Metaphor 13 5.4 Psychic Prison Metaphor 13 6. Conclusion 15 References 16 1. Introduction The notion of competitiveness within the modern business environment has accorded significant importance in order to attain long-term sustainability. Responsively, organisations are highly committed to establish long-term sustainability by improving their competitiveness. In this context, the critical assessment of the organisational performance enables the modern organisations to understand the competitive factors along with vital resources and capabilities leading to achieve long-term sustainability in any of the global business industry (Malik, 2012). With this regard, there are numbers of strategic approaches and tools which can be taken into consideration for critically assessing the current competitive position of the organisations to build or justify their level of sustainability. The implementation of metaphorical and empirical approach can be widely accepted to enable the organisation in critically understanding the performance of internal and external resources (Gerritsen, 2006). Emphasising the nature and role of metaphorical approach, the primary aim of this study is to prepare a reflective essay with regard to the experience gained from the group presentation activity associated with organisational analysis and sustainability. In this regard, the reflective nature of the assignment highly focuses on investigating major events associated with the preparation and execution of the presentation activities. The essay also tends to draw academic work relating to the key concerns within each event of the presentation. Correspondingly, the study further demonstrates future development initiatives through contributing personal perspectives associated with the notion of organisational sustainability analysis. 2. Critical Assessment of the Major Events With reference to the overall activities, numbers of major events has been observed during the process of preparation and execution of the presentation. Few of the major events identified during the activities have been critically assessed in the following section. 2.1 Attendance and Time Keeping In order to successfully accomplish the objective regarding any project, the effective planning associated with the attendance and time management of the members is an essential aspect of a group activity. The effective strategy of time management regarding different activities required to achieve project goals is an essential stage which enables the group or any individual to contribute adequate support to the group objectives (Rowan University, n.d.). With respect to the contribution of each individual, the effective management of time in terms of collecting relevant information regarding the goals of the project has played an essential role for the overall presentation activities. According to the preparation stage of the presentation, the planning of selecting key areas to be addressed in accordance with the predetermined objectives of the presentation activities were duly conducted. Therefore, the first meeting conducted on December 6th was highly focussed on discussing about the presentation topic and understanding the key areas to be addressed. However, the team was faced with certain issues associated with representing their own understanding towards the primary concern of the presentation. Thus, the decision of making Zainab as the group leader has helped the members to make effective arrangement of the presentation topic for each member within the group. The planning process of the presentation activities has played a major role for our presentation to identify and select key metaphors in accordance with the major goals of each presentation activity. During the process of selecting key metaphors of the organisations, an effective time management initiative was conducted to accomplish the roles, significance and limitations of various metaphorical factors that provide sustainability of the organisations. Correspondingly, the potential limitations of the metaphors have also been considered that might have negative influence on the organisations to achieve long-term sustainability in any respective business industry. 2.2 Critical Analysis According to my own understanding and experience, the concept of culture metaphor significantly refers to the notion of internal culture of a particular organisation. Organisational culture plays a leading role for the organisations to establish long-term sustainability (Schein, 1992). With respect to the overall strategy of the presentation, I have identified that effective culture within the organisational environment tends to promote continuous innovation and strong communication network among each individual and performing activities towards achieving the shared goals of the organisation. Moreover, I have also identified that the adequate compliance with the internal culture may also lead the organisation to face various types of difficulties especially while seeking to expand business subsidiaries beyond the national boundaries (Schein, 1992). 2.3 Group Management and Relationship with Others Managing performance of each individual along with building strong relation among the members was one of the major goals of our presentation activities. According to the second group meeting, which was conducted on December 9th, the group leader had announced that the presentation activity would be conducted in six parts. In this regard, Zainab, the group leader assigned parts to each individual in accordance with the skills and competencies of each group member. The collaborative approach of sharing individual knowledge and ideas has significantly enabled us to achieve the desired goals of the project. Moreover, the strong collaboration of each individual with the other group members have also provided major support to the team to achieve the desired goals within the specified time required for the overall presentation activities (London Metropolitan University, 2009). The participation of each member towards analysing different factors associated with the presentation topic has also been considered as a major successive factor to successfully achieve the desired goals of the project. The active participation of each member also enabled to maintain strong relationship and helped to critically analyse and demonstrate the major factors of an organisation to strengthen its sustainable position. Moreover, the communication and behavioural skill of the members has also reflected to conserve adequate collaboration to achieve the shared objectives of the overall presentation activities (Johnson, 2009). 2.4 Group Leadership Group leadership is one of the important factors, which enables to build effective plan of organising and implementing effective measures to achieve the desired goals of any project. In relation to our presentation activities, the group leader has played an important role to plan the required steps of each activity and obtain relevant result regarding the role of different factors on the organisations while aimed at achieving long-term sustainability (Kottler & Carlson, 2009). In the context of planning stage, the leader of our group was highly focused on setting goals and assigning roles to each individual in accordance with the presentation requirements. The leader was also observed to play an essential role in identifying the major attributes in analysing the key contributing factors of the organisations while seeking to strengthen their sustainability in a competitive market. Correspondingly, maintaining adequate integrity, communication and motivational skills of the group leader can also be considered to provide effective support to analyse and represent the key success factors of an organisation to build its long-term sustainability. 2.5 Skills at Collating Presentation Slides and Final Performance After the critical assessment of different information, it is essential for a group to effectively organise the analysed data in accordance with the required objectives of a presentation activity. In this regard, the third meeting which was conducted on January 13 was primarily focus on identifying the key factors of the organisation and collating information with respect to the desired strategy of the presentation activities. During this process, Ali and Hussnayn have successfully organised the presentation slides of each member. Therefore, the last meeting of our group on January 17 was successfully accomplished through outstanding performances of each individual member. In order to identify the key factors, the implementation metaphorical method has enabled each team members to critically identify the major influencing factors of an organisation to build its sustainable position in the competitive markets. Moreover, the presentation has also provided adequate relevance of information along with limitation of organisational metaphors in an effective collating process. The presentation of different essential factors of an organisation was also focused on assigning slides in accordance with the skill and competency level of the group members. The process of apportioning slides in accordance with the skill of individuals has significantly increased the performance of each member of the group and enabled to critically demonstrate the major factors that lead to strengthen organisational sustainability. 3. Own Perspective and Drawing on Published Academic Work With reference to the events conducted to define the major characteristics of an organisation leading to build strong sustainability, the presentation has encompassed numbers of essential organisational metaphors. In this context, the presentation tends to provide numbers of relevant factors and competitive factors that significantly enables to easily identify the sustainability level of an organisation in a particular market or industry. The presentation incorporated a mixture of different slide arranged in sequential format. In accordance with my own perspective, it is highly essential for an organisation to understand its critical success factors to build long-term sustainability. Moreover, the identification of effective organisational factors facilitates the organisation to achieve competitive advantage. Therefore, I would like to highly prioritise the process of implementing effective metaphor analysis to understand the key internal factors that enable organisations to build sustainable position in the competitive markets. With respect to the academic background, the formulation of organisational metaphor has long been witnessed to provide adequate support for the marketers to create strong understanding of human thoughts along with their functional capabilities (McCourt, 1997). It is a valuable and key invented tools to clearly demonstrate the complexities associated within a particular organisation. It considerably enables to learn about exceptional ways of insight with regard to the internal and external functional activities of an organisation. In relation to the critical observation, we have recognised that the effective use of metaphors tends to ensure the organisation to discover new business insights with respect to the understanding of the organisational situations and build strong position within a competitive market. The effective use of metaphors involves persuasive discourse, which enable the organisations to understand the strategic similarities and it also ensures to easily find out the competitive strategic measures to establish long-term sustainability (Suchman, n.d.). 4. How you think that you could contribute to your development in the future? According to the overall observation of the presentation activity, I have gained substantial knowledge and skills to effectively achieve the desired goals of a group presentation. In relation to the different stages of the presentation areas, I have gained relevant knowledge about setting goals, planning of activities, analysis of given topics along with allotting tasks and representing information with respect to the overall goals and objectives. In relation to the primary stage of our presentation, the selection of leader is an essential practice which can enable the group to control, organise and manage the performance of each individual member within a particular group. According to our presentation activities, the selection Zainad as the leader had enabled the group to effectively set relevant goals and objectives for each target area of the presentation. Moreover, the leader also played an important role in planning different activities of selecting key functional areas that entailed identifying the major factors of an organisation leading to ensure sustainability. Therefore, the process of setting relevant goals and planning of activities to obtain them can be considered as a set of major attributes, which can help me in future to successfully address the presentation objectives. Similarly, the experience gained through presentation exercise facilitated me to acquire know edge and enhance my skills related with managing group activities effectively along with sharpening my communication skills. In accordance with the managing skills of Zainab, she as a team leader had played an essential role by motivating the members and building collaborative environment through helping the performance of other within the team. The management and collaborative approach within the group enables to critically address each target area of a presentation activity. The management and collaboration among the team members enables to improve the communication process which essentially helped the team to achieve the desired goals of a presentation activity. Therefore, the adequate compliance with the management skills and collaborative approach would help me to improve my future presentation performance. Moreover, the attributes would also develop my communication skills with the team members and provide adequate support to other members within the group. In the context of collation of different information associated with the presentation objectives can also be considered as one of the major activities which can enable each group member to perform their preferred topic. According to our presentation activities, the organising and arrangement of the collected information associated with the presentation topic has played an important role for the members to perform in accordance with their assigned topics. Therefore, the collation of slides or topics in accordance with the presentation requirement would also help me to improve my future presentation performance. 5. Critical Assessment of the Metaphors Associated with the Presentation 5.1 Culture Metaphor With respect to the major focus areas of the presentation, I believe culture metaphor would be an ideal paradigm to describe our experience in the group presentation exercise. Culture metaphor has been considered to be ideal due to the reason that our team was composed of people belonging to diverse backgrounds and cultures. It is worth mentioning that culture is primarily dominated by two major values including male and female. Since our group was composed of female members only the major driving factor was organic value that resulted in the generation of intuitive form of behaviour. While preparing the presentation, a considerable level of information sharing amid the group members was conducted. It would be worth to be mentioned that culture metaphor often states that there exists operating norms and rituals associated with meetings and briefings. Concerning our project initially, we had conducted meetings but later on it was recognised that such meetings are not fruitful rather it is only the wastage of time as only few members attended it. Thus, we focused on communicating through social media over the internet which saved our considerable time. It has been comprehended that culture metaphor is essential for acquiring insights regarding human aspects as other metaphors hardly address the human aspect. It has been learnt that culture metaphor is essential for understanding relations between the organisation and the environment. Moreover, culture metaphor appreciates diversity within the organisation and also enables to understand the importance of diversity within an organisation. At the same time, it has been observed that culture metaphor often results in manipulation and thereby brings about a deviation from the actual objectives of the organisation. Moreover, it has been ascertained that decision making although is influenced by culture but culture cannot be assumed to solve all the problems faced by an organisation (Morgan, 2006; Morgan, 1986). 5.2 Machine Metaphor Machine metaphor or machine organisations can be referred to imbibe the process through which the organisational operations are performed in a uniform culture complying with the set of standardised regulations. Alike the bureaucratic organisational structure, an organisation with machine metaphor tends to offer key authority to the top level management with regard to the different functional areas of the organisation (Morgan, 1986). The management individuals in the machine metaphor are taught to maintain effective control of each individual and divide the organisation in different functional departments with specifically defined different types of roles and responsibilities. It is highly effective for an organisation if the environment is stable and there is relatively a repetitive type of operations to be performed by the employees. The metaphor fosters bureaucracy which can also convey various types of risks to the organisation as it restricts change or innovation within the operational environment (Morgan, 2006). 5.3 Organism Metaphor With reference to the Morgan’s metaphorical study, it has been identified that the organismic metaphor is also regarded as a set of metaphors that involves “Morgans flux and transformation metaphor.” These metaphors often consider organisations as a living organismic system that is specifically reformed in accordance with the organisational environment. In relation to this metaphorical approach, organisations cannot be ascertained as a machine, rather it is an effective set of organisms which is likely to develop and change in keeping with the varying scenarios. For instance, similar to a living organism, the individual members within a particular organisation have complex requirements that are needed to be addressed to perform effectively. The organism metaphor significantly concentrates on various types of social aspects to successfully perform different activities (McKenna, 2000). In relation to our presentation, we have also complied with an effective organismic culture through considering thinking, beliefs and feelings of each individual. In this regard, all the members of our team were highly accredited with equal rights of sharing their personal feelings, ideas and information to effectively deal with the presentation goals as well as objectives. 5.4 Psychic Prison Metaphor Psychic prison metaphor can also be employed as another metaphor for describing our experience while performing group presentation. This metaphor has been employed as it states that people and organisation often get preoccupied by a certain set of perceptions. Consequently, the individual and organisation capability to perform actions tends to get restricted. Subsequently, all the team members belonging to different cultural backgrounds had preconceptions regarding their ways of doing things. Based on this metaphor, it has been recognised that most of the organisations failed to attain long-term sustainability primarily due to their inability to acquire changes in their policies and strategies. In this regard, organisations failed to perceive reality and are likely to follow rigid set of policies that eventually result in curtailing flexibility within the working environment (Morgan, 2006). Although the use of this metaphor to describe the skills and capabilities of the group members has positive influence but it also shared certain limitations. In this regard, one of the potential advantages of psychic prison metaphor is that the metaphor facilitated us to explore unconscious procedures which have occupied our thinking. Furthermore, the metaphor also enabled us to derive considerable understanding regarding organisation in a rational manner. Besides, this metaphor overlooks the aspects of ideologies that govern an organisation. In this regard, the two group members were unwilling to comprise displaying clear imprisonment which resulted in creation of clash amid the team members (Morgan, 2006). Moreover, it has been observed that this metaphor places greater focus on cognitive processes for sustaining and achieving changes in organisations and society. 6. Conclusion With regard to the overall presentation activities, we have conducted numbers of essential steps in order to ensure that group objective is achieved effectively. During the steps of the presentation, we have critically identified that culture as organisation plays a pivotal role, in strengthening the sustainable position of a particular organisation. An effective organisational culture tends to encompass a wide range of factors that determine not only to improve performance, it also enables organisations to achieve competitive advantage and build long-term sustainability. In this regard, the reflective statement tends to represent the key steps that critically assess the major contribution metaphors towards organisational long-term sustainability. References Gerritsen, L., 2006. Metaphors of the Organization: Discourse in Public and Private Worlds. Metaphors and the Organizing Process. [Online] Available at: http://www.taosinstitute.net/Websites/taos/Images/ProgramsTaosTilburgDissertations/LGerritsenDissert.pdf [Accessed February 15, 2014]. Johnson, J., 2009. Health Organizations: Theory, Behavior, and Development. Jones & Bartlett Learning Kottler, J. A. & Carlson, M. E., 2009. Learning Group Leadership: An Experiential Approach. SAGE Publication Inc. London Metropolitan University, 2009. Relationships and Group Presentations. 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Organizational Culture and Leadership. 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass Publishers. Suchman, A. L., No Date. Organizations as Machines, Organizations as Conversations: Two Core Metaphors and their Consequences. Core Metaphors for Organizations, pp. 1-24. Read More