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Week 2 Discussion Responses - For Organizational Behavior
Two Responses Needed:
1pg each, please be nice, but challenging, and make a point to comlpliment, but also provide some though provoking challenge.
Works with Week2 Discussion (Pertaining to 3-3 Self Fulfilling Prophecy)
Discussion 1:
Week 2 Discussion: Self Fulfilling Prophecy
When field sales representatives exhibited exceptional leadership ability and wanted to be promoted into management roles in sales or marketing at AstraZeneca, LLP, the company shrewdly required that they first work in a developmental role to ensure their readiness for managing direct reports. The best place in our organization to gain this experience was the Sales Training Department at AstraZeneca headquarters in Wilmington, DE. This was a small group of 40 or so trainers and 5 managers responsible for training scores of new hires, and developing and executing new product training to the existing sales force of 5,000 in cooperation with the brand marketing teams, senior sales leadership, and medical information science teams. Trainers often competed in pools of 25 or more internal applicants from across the country for a single position. It was an ideal high-expectancy team; high-performing employees promoted onto a department lauded as an unmatched, baptism-with-fire developmental experience. It was an exhilarating place to be in the organization.
Sales training was also extremely challenging emotionally and otherwise, as trainers competed with one another for responsibility and recognition, worked long hours, and faced new challenges each week in a competitive, high-exposure, high-risk and reward setting. Our managers were in a similar position: highly talented and on their way to senior leadership posts, but often stretched thin. However rewarding, the all-consuming nature of sales training motivated trainers and managers alike to move up as soon as they were able. Two to three years was the maximum amount of time people hoped to spend in the department. The goal was clear: get into sales training, focus on development, make an impact and get promoted.
When I began working in Sales Training, there was a veteran trainer on our team named Dominick. He was affable, humble, kind, and obviously very committed to our team and to the success of those we served. Dominick particularly loved teaching and training new hires, and would often step in when a rep was falling behind to help make sure they had the support needed to succeed. Everyone liked him. The challenge Dominick faced was that he had been in Sales Training for almost 5 years; two years longer than anyone else had ever been in the role.
During my first week there, I heard rumblings that Dominick was "unpromotable." Since the whole point of working in Sales Training was to get promoted, this seemed ominous. Fighting the primacy effect, where I may have quickly formed an opinion about Dominick based on this initial information about him, I resolved to get to know him. (McShane and Von Glinnow, 2015, p. 80)
I learned that, by his own admission, Dominick initially tried to leave Sales Training too soon, and didn’t demonstrate strong enough leadership proficiency in interviews for the first 2 management jobs he applied for, so stopped applying after that. He felt like those Regional Sales Directors remembered his early, poor interview performances, and weren’t interested in giving him a second look. He had also made errors in communicating with one of the brand teams early on, and thought he had been branded a poor project manager by some inside the organization. But these incidents had occurred years earlier, and he had clearly been working on his self-awareness and leadership skills since then. He’d had a new manager almost every year, and felt like the constant flux worked against him. Managers had been kind to Dominick, but did not allow him to lead critical initiatives for the team, sending a continued signal of low-confidence.
McShane and VonGlinow state that the contingencies of self-fulfilling prophesy effect are that it is more common among people with a history of low achievement, as those folks may have lower self-esteem, and is more likely to occur when multiple people in an organization hold a similar opinion of that person’s performance (2015, p. 79). Dominick had become a low-expectancy employee on a high-expectancy team, and it was obviously a painful predicament for him.
For better or worse, our beliefs about others can impact their performance (McShane and Von Glinnow, 2015, p. 78). Our manager, Jerry, was a very competitive leader by nature, and our intense work setting fueled that spirit. He and the rest of the organization generally held to the positive organizational behavior philosophy, focusing on each person’s strengths while trying to minimize negative behaviors (Shane & Von Glinow, 2015, p. 79). But stakes felt high, and anyone perceived to be underperforming was well aware of their standing. Jerry focused most of his attention on a handful of us who received most of the responsibility, and Dominick was given less and less responsibility over the 20 month I worked in Sales Training until he finally resigned.
Dominick had spent almost seven years working in an intense leadership development environment from which he could not emerge successful, and the company lost a highly engaged employee who could have either benefitted from high-expectation coaching to become a strong leader, or been coached with confidence to find a role within our organization which would be a better job fit.
It has been documented that a leader’s ability to express optimism, hope and confidence directly correlates with employees’ performance (Fransen et al., March 2015). One must own OB for one’s own professional growth and development, particularly at the management level. However, as I look back on Dominick’s long decline as a low-expectancy employee on a high-expectancy team, I wonder how his story could have changed had he had leaders who communicated sincere optimism and belief in him; who had communicated strong confidence in his ability, regardless of his early, past errors.
References:
Discussion 2:
While one may not be quick to admit to stereotyping employees within the workplace, it is a prevalent conceptual framework driving organizational behavior within all companies; the ways in which we perceive others’ realities are driven through a series of internal and external factors that tie into the ways in which personal values are manifested within the workplace (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). Self-fulfilling prophecy, bias, and the halo effect occur interchangeably and ultimately impact the ways in which businesses function (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). Throughout my own personal experience, I have witnessed these factors at play to varying degrees.
In my current role as an Account Manager, the structure of our team and the Benefits department is unique. In entry-level roles within the company are Account Coordinators that prepare the materials, complete plan analysis reporting, and benchmarking for clients; next is Client Service Representatives that work directly with Account Managers to prepare renewal materials, attend meetings to discuss coverage issues/initiatives, and work as a wing-man to the Account Manager to support; next is the Sales Producer, who is the main individual that is in charge solely of recruiting new business, closing sales, and maintaining a strong book of business. Within this realm of structure, there is a strong progression. For new, out-of-college graduates, the Account Coordinator role poses an opportunity to learn the insurance field, dabble in Benefits, and determine an appropriate career progression within the company. Unfortunately, while this role does pose significant growth opportunities, it also is an immense hindrance to employees considering that management scrutinizes these employees to determine whether in the first few weeks their perceptions will work within their own framework for the company’s vision. Stereotyping employees based on their first several weeks of working, especially negatively based on one sole event, demonstrates the Halo effect at play, displaying the distortion of perception (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). Once Account Coordinators are labeled as under-performers by managers within their first few weeks in their role, it is often visible at the ways in which they make more mistakes and display less confidence than their peers labeled as high-performers; this directly portrays a case of self-fulfilling prophecy in relation to the ways in which their behavior reflects what they have been told they can and/or cannot achieve (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015).
References:
McShane, S. L. & Von Glinow, M. (2015). Organizational Behavior (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
