Learning Organizations - Essay Example

Self Assessments Self Assessments 10: Self assessment This self assessment test is meant to evaluate various personal values and how important they are in an individual’s life. Furthermore, the test also assesses some of an individual’s mannerisms that require one to be indifferent. These values are neither very important nor less important. 1. 80 – An enjoyable satisfying job. 2. 90 – A high paying job. 3. 90 - A good marriage. 4. 50 – Meeting new people, social events. 5. 50 – Involvement in community activities. 6. 90 – My relationship with God/religion. 7. 60 – Exercising, playing sports. 8. 90 – Intellectual development. 9. 60 – A career with challenging opportunities. 10. 70 – Nice cars, clothes, home and so on. 11. 90 – Spending time with family. 12. 90 – Having several close friends. 13. 40 – Volunteer work for not-profit-making organizations like the cancer society. 14. 60 – Meditation, quite time to think, pray and so on. 15. 100 – A healthy, balanced diet. 16. 100 – Educational reading, self improvement programs, TV and so on. Evaluation Professional – 1 (80) and 9 (60) = 140 Financial – 2 (90) and 10 (70) = 160 Family – 3 (90) and 11 (90) = 180 Social – 4 (50) and 12 (90) =140 Community – 5 (50) and 13 (40) = 90 Spiritual – 6 (90) and 14 (60) = 150 Physical – 7 (60) and 15 (100) = 160 Intellectual 8 (90) and 16 (100) = 190 The higher the total in an area, the more value an individual places at that particular area (Lussier & Achua, 2010). If the totals are close in many areas, then the individual can be termed as all rounded. My top three values are family, physical and intellectual. I try to maintain these values and improve them when possible. The efforts are adequate to allow me to achieve a level of success I want in these areas. In my opinion, I am required to improve in the community area. I need to contribute more to the society by offering my services to the benefit of the people around me. Chapter 10: Self assessment 2. Personally, I would love to work in an organization with a strong culture. I have a high need for a success as an individual. This enables me to easily adapt to the attitudes and the behavior of the hardworking members of the organization. In addition, I can be comfortable with a strong-cultured organization. The high levels of need for success required me to have affiliations in order to achieve the needed success. Therefore, I have the agreeableness personality that enables me to get along well with people as we labor together to a common objective (Lussier & Achua, 2010). On the other hand, I am well accustomed to diversity at the workplace. My high need for affiliation leads to an open experience with variety of cultures from the people I relate with. As an individual, I enjoy working with a diversity of people because they offer different perspectives of ways through which things are to be done. This helps to broaden my approach with respect to diversity. Furthermore, the same people have different beliefs and customs. Therefore, I easily learn to respect them and work with them towards success of our individual tasks and those of the organization. Chapter 11: Self assessment 1 This self assessment test is meant to test my personality, leadership and change. That is, the ability of employing either the strategic leadership style or the change leadership style. The strategic leadership is normally based on personality of an individual other than charismatic and transformational leadership. As an individual, I am a strategic thinker. With respect to my future business plans for the coming three years, I normally focus on long-term planning where I make choices based on the analysis of the contingencies of the immediate and prospective environments. In addition, I can analyze the given options available for me and make the best choice with respect to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing our organization. The choice I make would be the best among other strategic options. The above is evidence that I do not take things as they come without any future planning (Lussier & Achua, 2010). I am an open minded individual who accommodates different opinions from different people. In addition, I am open to changes that work to the best interests of the organization, the individuals or both. I have an ability to be receptive to change and also influence people to change or adapt various executed changes. Moreover, I can influence other people to be more creative and produce various suggestions that would cause significant changes in the organization towards the attainment of the main objectives. Chapter 12: Self assessment 1 This self assessment is meant to evaluate the degree to which the given characteristics either describes or does not describe the organization I have ever worked for. The scale given is 1 – 5 where 5 describe the organization while 1 does not. 1. 5 - The organization has a flat structure, few layers of management, and makes decisions quickly. 2. 1 – Decision making is decentralized; lower-level managers make important decisions. 3. 1 – There are no job descriptions, or they are very general and focused on getting the job done. 4. 5 – There is a focus on continuous improvement and change. 5. 1 – Everyone has easy access to communicate with anyone. 6. 4 – Managers encourage creative thinking. 7. 3 – Managers listen to and implement employee ideas for improvement. 8. 4 – The climate encourages experimentation of new ideas. 9. 2 – There are incentives for learning new things. 10. 5 – There are incentives for contributing new ideas and innovations. 11. 4 – Employees are encouraged to identify and solve problems. 12. 1 – There are no departmental boundaries; people don’t focus on developing departmental power. 13. 2 – When new methods are developed, they are shared for everyone throughout the organization to use. 14. 3 – The focus is on teamwork, not individual accomplishments. 15. 5 - When employees implement new ideas that fail, they are encouraged to keep truing rather than being punished. The total score is = 46. The score shows that ours is not a learning organization. This is because the value 46 falls in the middle of the continuum (Lussier & Achua, 2010). Chapter 11: Self assessment 2 This self assessment is meant to test the ability to handle a crisis in an organization and a choice between the traditional and the learning organizations. Whenever a crisis erupts in an organization, the managements’ reaction determines a lot about the situation and the possible consequences. When I am faced with a crisis, I make myself accessible to the relevant departments and employees in order to enable communication. I also take an immediate action to analyze the situation and come up with the main causes and perspectives of the crisis. From this point onwards, I begin to solve the crisis systematically until success is attained. I need to improve on communication to all the departments and individuals during a crisis. This would help in gaining information regarding such a crisis. Learning organizations are known to be dynamic in their activities. In contrast, the learning organization is always open to new experiences and changes while the traditional organization is more preservative and slow to changes. I am more comfortable in a learning organization. This is because this organization accommodates changes as it adjusts itself to avoid some the possibilities of some assets’ becoming obsolete. Furthermore, a learning organization enables me and other employees to be more creative in ways that would benefit all the individuals and the organization as a whole (Lussier & Achua, 2010). Reference Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development (4th ed.). Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning. Read More