Analysis of The Amazing World of Fun - Essay Example

Organisational Behaviour Organisational Behaviour: Analysis of "The Amazing World of Fun" Case Study You Scholastic Organisation Organisational Behaviour 2 Abstract The purpose of this work is to provide an analysis of a theme park located in the Florida Keys called "The Amazing World of Fun" or AWF. Founded in 1956, AWF theme park has been rethinking the dynamics of its management structure throughout its lifetime. This analysis will provide a direct identification of the organisational structure of the park, while pointing out specific difficulties in the management structure of its Wetland Wilderness habitat zone. Further analysis will illustrate differences in levels of motivation between the different groups in the park and how those differences serve to contribute to problems in AWF. A specific problem with a new habitat zone head, Krista Katz, will be highlighted and her relationship with AWFs Maintenance Crew. Suggestions for realistic improvements to the management hierarchy in the park will also be discussed in this project. Organisational Behaviour 3 Organisational Behaviour: Analysis of "The Amazing World of Fun" Case Study At "The Amazing World of Fun" theme park, most of the senior-level decision-making is carried out by Eric and George Pinter who act as the Vice Presidents of AWF. Eric Pinter is the Vice President of Wildlife and Conservation (W & C), with direct responsibility for directing the management of all W & C staff including Species Specialists and Animal Assistants. George Pinter is the Commercial Vice President and acts as director of five Habitat Zone Heads and deals with the Hospitality Crew, Maintenance Crew, and the Cast of AWF (who interact with the customers). Board member Amy Rockbridge, reporting to George, has management jurisdiction of the Maintenance Staff (part of Estates), a group made up primarily of skilled craftsmen who are responsible for the technical upkeep of the theme park. Among Eric Pinters responsibilities is ensuring the efficient operation of the Mammals, Birds, Marine, and Reptiles division of Wildlife and Conservation. Species specialists and senior animal scientists from the Wetland Zone report directly to the Zone Heads, but can call upon Eric for area conflicts needing senior-level advisement, since Wetland Wilderness is linked to W & C. The appointed Zone Head of Wetland Wilderness is Krista Katz, who reports directly to George Pinter. In July of 2000, problems began to erupt in the management structure of AWF in regards to the Zone Head of Wetland Wilderness, Krista Katz. Krista was appointed to her position by George, who had recently left Disneyland Paris to help make Wetland Wilderness a profitable business success. Kristas strategic goal was to Organisational Behaviour 4 improve the efficiency and operations of Wetland Wilderness and it appeared that she was stepping out of her acceptable authority level in order to achieve that goal. Commercial, the area that Krista reports to, has been making demands that animals be trained routinely to perform amazing stunts to generate customer-based income. Krista, attempting to woo her boss, George, into recognizing her potential to improve Wetland Wilderness, was seen as putting unrealistic demands on the Species Specialists to adopt ridiculous animal training methods that were unachievable. For example, Wetland Wilderness Senior Scientist, Dr. Clark Hopper, could not believe his ears when Krista proposed training to create performing lizards that would do tricks for the customers. To make matters worse, Krista was implicated by Amy Rockbridge to be utilising Maintenance Staff to perform upkeep on areas without Amys approval and allocating Maintenance Staff to specific Habitat Zones rather than allow them to remain a central resource for repairs and park improvement. Amy, of course, did not appreciate being undermined in her authority by Krista. One of the main difficulties, before continuing through the rest of the analysis, is to point out structural deficiencies in the AWF management structure. Firstly, it is apparent that AWF maintains the traditional vertical management hierarchy in which senior leadership makes the final decisions. The vertical dimension is the element of who has the authority to make decisions and who supervises which subordinates (Gomez-Mejia et al 2005, p.374). This is not necessarily a defective structure, but it is important to understand how information gets communicated in the organisation. The problem with AWF is that they allow certain areas to be vaguely represented by both Organisational Behaviour 5 Commercials interests and W & C. For example, the Zone Heads report directly to George Pinter and in an ideal structure every staff member involved in Zone operations should also report to Commercial. However, currently at AWF, Zone areas such as Wetland Wilderness are incorrectly linked to W & C, which is Eric Pinters area of authority. When an issue arises in Wetland Wilderness that directly impacts wildlife, instead of handling the issue through the hierarchy of Commercial, certain staff members in Wetland Wilderness move outside of the command structure to seek help from Eric. What this creates is a level of uncertainty as to who exerts final authority over conflict issues because the problem touches both W & C and Commercial. AWF has assigned Zone Head leadership responsibility to George, therefore ALL staff members of Wetland Wilderness should move through Commercials channels of authority. In this scenario where Krista Katz is concerned, Clark Hopper should be seeking guidance from George, who because of this authority confusion with Wetland Wilderness, is completely oblivious to Kristas negative influence on park operations. From his point of view, Kristas performance is exemplary as it is Eric who bears the brunt of the conflict. Georges Commercial responsibilities are quite high, therefore clearly indicating complete management control over each Zone should be formally considered. For instance, instead of George handling all five Zones, they should be split with Eric having authority over specific areas that are clearly identified among the entire staff of AWF. When Krista is called into the meeting for performance reviews, instead of Eric and George promoting a sense of senior-level unity, are publicly split Organisational Behaviour 6 on their views of Kristas management tactics. When silence falls on the meeting due to the levels of confusion about authority, there are significant structural problems that need to be dealt with. Amy Rockbridge should be entitled to complete ownership over the Maintenance Crew, with any request for their utilisation in the park being approved only by Amy. Krista Katz should not be able to blatantly pull Maintenance staff away from other projects in order to satisfy Wetland Wilderness. It seems clear that Krista is attempting to satisfy her bonus incentive for increased profitability and has lost sight of the larger picture of park operations. The main problem at AWF is in defining authority and distributing an acceptable chain of command and functional structure so that everyone in the park understands who they report to. In virtually every business, regardless of mission and function, people are frustrated by problems that seem unsolvable (Wheatley & Crinean, 2005, p.39). However, the problem of determining authority at AWF is quite solvable. From a motivational standpoint, there are a variety of issues at play in the AWF that drive employee productivity and relationships among the staff. First and most likely are the extrinsic factors, which are rewards given by someone else as recognition for good work including pay increases (Nickels et al 2005, p.300). The Zone Head who is most apparently affected by extrinsic reward is Krista Katz in her continuing effort to overstep authority to improve Wetland Wilderness. Krista has been promised a doubled salary and offered a hefty performance-related bonus if she can improve her Zones profitability. Few could argue that Kristas rewards are primarily extrinsic and it seems that the bulk of her decisions surround her goal of achieving success; even at the cost of alienating Estate and W & C leadership. Organisational Behaviour 7 As another attempt to improve Wetland Wilderness efficiency, Krista has determined that Dr. Hoppers research students should perform the work of her Zones idle Hospitality Crew (selling T-shirts, etc.) which was a dramatic change in standard policy for the AWF and has severely angered Clark Hopper. It has not been determined whether Dr. Hopper is aware of the bonus incentive programmes for Kristas efficiency, but it is relatively clear that Krista will step on any proverbial toes to satisfy her goal of high monetary compensation. If, however, Dr. Hopper has been made aware of Kristas objectives, some of his animosity towards Krista is likely resultant of hostility towards her substantial earnings potential superior to his own. Intrinsic motivation, motivation that comes from personal work satisfaction, likely drives the behaviours of the lower paid Animal Assistants, who report to Eric. They are paid minimum wage, but derive a great deal of satisfaction with their function at AWF. Krista, the most disruptive influence in Wetland Wilderness, hampers the Animal Assistants motivation by removing them from their beloved animals in order to handle Hospitality Staffs responsibilities. It is no wonder that the Assistants immediate supervisor, Dr. Hopper, is further negatively attracted to Krista. In fact, during Kristas performance review, she is reminded that a specific Animal Assistant who had been assigned to staff the Swamp Shop had generated a half million dollars of government funding. It seems likely that Krista is not aware of all of the facts at AWF. Under Commercial responsibility are the Cast members and Hospitality Crew. It has been suggested that the Animal Assistants look down on Commercial staff which is likely due to the unrealistic demands to train animals for performance. The Animal Assistants care deeply for their work and for the welfare of the animals and find those Organisational Behaviour 8 tricks to be "trivial and humiliating". Likely the motivation behind looking down on Cast and Hospitality lies simply in their affiliation with Commercials expectations for the Assistants perceptions of ridiculous animal tricks. As a commercially minded man, George Pinter has a firm goal to improve Wetland Wilderness and it is obvious that his motivation is driven by productivity and increased revenues. Perhaps George is actually turning a blind eye to the interpersonal relationships of the AWF staff in order to satisfy his goal of increased profitability. It would seem that both George and Krista, who reports directly to him, are driven by extrinsic reward; only for differing reasons. This tight-knit affiliation between Georges motivational goals being tied with Kristas might be an explanation for Erics increased hostility toward Krista during her performance review. Managing in a Zone that is riddled with conflict is a very difficult challenge and coupling conflict with brazen threats to Erics final authority is driving him to try to control Kristas management techniques. Krista has also attempted to establish meaningful relationships with the Cast and Hospitality Crew, especially those of Wetland Wilderness. It has been highlighted that the Hospitality staff "worships her" and much of the reason behind this is, likely, because Krista steps outside of her granted authority and uses the Animal Assistants to staff Hospitality functions. Since the Animal Assistants and Hospitality staff have negative opinions of one another, likely Hospitality sees Kristas unauthorised utilisation of this staff as a means to justify their opinion of Assistants. Krista has pointed out that she feels the Animal Assistants dont contribute much to AWF so her bias in this issue drives her to add more Hospitality responsibilities to the Assistants staffing agenda. It is logical to assume that Hospitalitys positive view of Krista is that Organisational Behaviour 9 she attempts to relieve Hospitality of their duties which, in a way, mocks the position of the Animal Assistants; which serves to enhance Hospitalitys bias against them. Reverting to Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, Krista generates her relationship-building with Cast and Hospitality by positively rewarding them for their contributions to AWF. Maslows hierarchy is composed of belonging needs (Mathis & Jackson 2003, p.69) which is a step in motivation that drives further job satisfaction. Krista has made attempts to allow Cast in Wetland Wilderness to rework the animal shows, indicating that she appreciates their contributions to AWF and shows faith in their abilities to enhance the shows productions. Ultimately, the attempt backfired due to electrical problems, however it serves to illustrate Kristas attempt at building a teamwork mechanism to enhance motivation in Wetland Wilderness. It would seem that traditional management practices at AWF did not over-utilise staff to perform functions in the park that were typically outside of the crews responsibilities. Even though her relationship-building tactics are creating employee satisfaction in her Zone, she is sacrificing the respect of her management colleagues in the process. Krista also poses a threat to AWFs traditional vertical management structure as she has been reported stepping outside of her authority in both Estates and W & C. Undermining anothers authority to serve Kristas own interests is not only causing conflict between staff members, but in the senior-level leadership as well. The motivation factor driving the Maintenance Crew is likely extrinsic reward as well, since they are paid highly due to continuous need for improvements to the aging infrastructure at AWF. Traditionally, Maintenance has been a universal resource, meaning that they can be called upon by any Zone Head to correct problems. Maintenance Crews do not seem to have any noticeable issues against any other Organisational Behaviour 10 department in AWF, except for the suggestion that Kristas Wetland Cast acts rudely to the repairmen. This might suggest that Kristas attempt at promoting staff unity amongst a crew that is biased against Commercial Staff is creating a sense of group think among the staff of Wetland Wilderness. Group think is often a negative method of thinking in which a group tends to believe in an "us against the world" philosophy. Since Krista has shown a disregard for the employment structure at AWF by utilising Animal Assistants for jobs that are not part of their work description, she is sending the message to her staff that the Cast and Hospitality Crew are one group that receives positive reward while others are, somewhat, humiliated by daunting tasks. This clique philosophy would serve to alienate any group who didnt fit into the Cast and Hospitality staff. Krista should, as the Zone Head, recognise where her tactics for relationship-building should extend beyond simply Wetland Wilderness. It is easily determined that the majority of conflict within AWF revolves around Krista and her unorthodox management tactics. However, she has made a valid point about restructuring the Maintenance Crews responsibilities. Krista has suggested that Maintenance be allocated specifically to each Zone Head to streamline maintenance and repair response times. Having completely analysed AWFs employment structure, and because of the aging infrastructure problems in the park, it makes much sense to have an allocated Maintenance member for each Habitat Zone. For example, in a situation where there is a breakdown of Hospitality outlets or power supply problems affecting Cast functions (which generate customer dollars), having a Maintenance Crew member standing by would guarantee rapid correction of the issue. Further, if the allocated Maintenance Crews were distributed properly based on Organisational Behaviour 11 historical problems within each Zone, Kristas suggestion is well within line of improving Maintenance within the entire park. For instance, if Tropical Rainforest Zone had a history of sewage back-ups (where other Zones did not), it would make sense to allocate a water and sewage crew to continuously monitor the Zones sewage systems. The problem with implementing Kristas suggestion, however, lies in undermining Estates authority to track Maintenance activities. It would severely limit Amy Rockbridges authority and grant some of her senior-level leadership to the Zone Heads. There are two specific effects that this might have on AWF. Firstly, since one of George Pinters biggest concerns with the park is in increasing profitability in Wetland Wilderness, this suggests a small cash flow problem. Now, it is relatively logical to assume that Amy Rockbridge is paid a high salary for her senior-level position at AWF considering she is a board member. Aligning the Maintenance responsibilities to be primarily directed by each Zone Head might actually eliminate Amys position entirely, possibly satisfying Georges Commercial expectations for increased profitability. Secondly, with the assumption that the theme park is quite large in acreage, having Maintenance Crews assigned to specific Zones might actually decrease response time if they are called upon to assist in an emergency on the opposite side of the park. Assuming that Maintenance is a central resource located in a single maintenance unit, the results of reallocating the Maintenance crew could potentially be disastrous. If a customers show is put on hold because a problem cannot be corrected, it is likely that the customer will not return to AWF in the future because of the interruption and a perceived "waste" of their ticket monies. Organisational Behaviour 12 Assuming that Amy Rockbridge still maintains authority over Maintenance if they were reorganised based on Kristas suggestion, then it would surely make Estates responsibilities more difficult to manage. If Eric and George decided that any additional requests for a maintenance project outside of the crews assigned Zones had to be routed through Amy for approval, this would keep Amys workload continuously shifting throughout her workday. For example, as Estate leader, Amy is assuredly continuously aware of Maintenances activities throughout the day at AWF. Having to deal with each individual Zone Head to discuss Maintenances daily activities would be a virtually impossible task and might entail Amy having to walk back and forth throughout the park trying to track down her Zone Head reports and Maintenance Crew. That makes no sense whatsoever in efficiency. So, it is likely that Amys position would be completely eliminated through the reorganisation or Kristas suggestion must be denied because of the unrealistic demands on Estates. Assuming that senior leadership agrees to Kristas suggestion about Maintenance structure, it would serve to reinforce that Kristas methods of over-stepping her granted authority level are tolerated and applauded. She has already created conflict among the Animal Assistants, Vice Presidential leadership, Senior Animal Specialists, and Estates leadership (virtually half of the entire business population). If Kristas proposal was accepted and implemented, it might send the message that senior leadership does not take the management structure and guidelines seriously, allowing others to step out of their authority as desired. Basically, the mentality of "Well, if Krista can get away with it, so can I!" might become prevalent among the entire staff of AWF. This would create a management conflict so vast in Organisational Behaviour 13 scope that resolving it using disciplinary tactics might become necessary; which would be a sure-fire way to decrease motivation. George, as Commercial director, would surely not tolerate this activity because the profit margin would likely be affected substantially as Cast performance and Zone Head productivity is negatively impacted by disciplinary measures. Krista has also demonstrated to Eric and George that she is thoroughly dissatisfied with staff capabilities all over AWF. Once again, her ambitions to receive substantial pay incentives for efficiency in Wetland Wilderness are probably driving her negative assessment of the entire population of the park. Feeling that her strategic objective lies in the best interest of Wetland Wilderness, Krista is likely biased against anyone who does not immediately serve the demands of her Zone. Krista states during her annual performance review, in response to Erics somewhat negative comments about her tactics, "Sure, but were all part of the Wetland Wilderness team, we must all pull together". Instead of recognising the entire AWF park, she focuses openly on Wetland Wilderness, indicating that her focus is primarily on that Zone and dismissing her effects on the rest of the park. Amy, who is sitting in on the review, would harbour substantial resentment against Krista should her suggestion about Maintenance restructure be agreed upon. Krista has already subliminally pinpointed Amys crew as being incompetent and board approval for her plan would seriously jeopardise Amy and Kristas future professional relationship. Kristas suggestion that Maintenance is slow in response indicates that Estates has a failure in leadership. From any business standpoint, that type of assessment is out of line for a Zone Head and should be addressed from senior leadership. Organisational Behaviour 14 Another issue that could arise from adopting Kristas suggestion about Maintenance reorganisation could be in allowing Cast and Hospitality to feel that they, too, can overstep their authority levels by feeling a sense of personal ownership over their Zones Maintenance man and attempting to personally direct their repair activities. This would create conflict with the entire staff and could possibly lead to a lowered retention level of the Maintenance Crew because of increased hostilities between employees. It has already been indicated that there are limited resources available for the Maintenance Crew, in conjunction with an aging infrastructure, so it is plausible to assume that it would be a difficult process to hire new Maintenance professionals for that reason. Training and developing during increased employee turnover in Estates would be costly and would likely cause George an increased headache in the increased expenditures and lost productivity. One last issue affecting group dynamics, should Krista be allocated her assigned Maintenance team, would be in the relationship between George and Eric; who make the bulk of all final decisions affecting AWF. Eric is already exasperated over his perception of Kristas troublesome management tactics and is shocked at Georges positive opinion of her disruptive activities. Should George agree to Kristas proposal, it might cause a rift between the Vice Presidents in which Eric comes to believe that Krista is considered to be the most valuable asset to AWF. Eventually, this attitude would trickle down among all W & C staff and create a zero participation level for any request made my Krista. Should that happen, Kristas position would have to be eliminated (termination) or a large portion of the staff would feel less-appreciated, constantly being subjected to Kristas influence, and seek other employment; a costly measure for AWF who needs well-trained professionals to maintain profitability. Organisational Behaviour 15 It is in the best interest of senior leadership at AWF to re-examine their management structure and re-determine best practice for delegation in the park. Clearly, Kristas influence is creating division between Estates, Commercial, and the W & C divisions. Eric, George, and Amy must privately discuss Kristas future with the company and determine whether her management tactics are deemed acceptable. Once this has been accomplished, they must openly discuss the conflicts Krista is causing and highlight her responsibilities and how far she can exert her influence on specific staff members. One this is done, they must communicate their leadership expectations to Krista and expect compliance to the standards. The performance review should be temporarily adjourned so as to discuss the issue so that all of senior leadership is in agreement. Secondly, as mentioned prior, perhaps a small training session, scheduled to interrupt AWF Zone operations minimally, would be beneficial to re-illustrate the teamwork methodology of the park. It should be pointed out that in order to remain a successful enterprise, all employees must pull together and become a part of the team framework. This is a relatively inexpensive way to reiterate (and re-establish) the harmonious business practices that had worked so well for AWF before Kristas inception into the company. In essence, for future conflict avoidance, senior leadership must be proactive by recognising conflicts before they happen. It has been suggested that Eric was aware of Kristas negative influence prior to specific groups hostility toward Krista, but waited until it got out of control before addressing the issue. In some respects, this is Erics failing as senior leadership to exert his influence proactively. Rather, he should have brought his concerns to Georges attention so that Organisational Behaviour 16 he was aware of the problem before entering into a rather publicised performance appraisal with Krista present for the discussions. George immediately opened the review meeting with an indication to Krista what a wonderful job she was doing at AWF, which seriously affected Eric and Amys position in trying to reinforce the vertical management structure at the park. If Krista feels that she has no support from two of the senior leaders, she will likely harbour resentment towards W & C and Estates. The disruption caused by Krista, regardless of her possible good intentions, is not impossible or costly to resolve. Reiterating company policies along with a short, but formal training session on hierarchy, could resolve most of the issues at AWF. Senior leadership, however, must attempt to retain their quality employees (especially the staff who generate government grant money) in the hopes of keeping their park afloat. A rather simple, senior level reassessment of AWFs staff expectations and activities will clearly indicate which policies work and which ones do not. From there, the key is for George, Amy, and Eric to remain a visible and unified force at AWF and make all of their decisions with the same unity. It will send the message that there is one specific method of operations expectations at AWF and can guarantee overall compliance with no staff misunderstandings as to who reports to whom at The Amazing World of Fun. It needs to be reinforced that any changes to directives must be given board approval or face consequences including formal reprimands. From that point, it should be reinforced to each member how their contributions to AWF are valued and each staff member should be congratulated for each and every success in making the park a magnificent customer attraction. The timeframe for completion of those tasks is relatively short and indicates minimal effort by senior leadership. Organisational Behaviour 17 References Gomez-Mejia, Luis R., Balkin, David B. & Cardy, Robert L. 2005, Management: People, Performance, Change. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill Irwin, p. 374. Wheatley, Margaret & Crinean, Geoff. Jan 27 2005, Virtuous Circle, People Management, London. Vol. 11, Iss. 2, p. 39. Nickels, Willam G., McHugh, James M. & McHugh, Susan M. 2005, Understanding Business. 10th ed. McGraw-Hill Irwin, p.300. Mathis, Robert L. & Jackson, John H. 2003, Human Resource Management. 10th ed. Thomson South-Western, p. 69. Read More