Critical Approach to Organization

Read this article and the New York Times,

The Smear This Time


What do you think of Anita Hill has to say in light of the feminist critique of organizations?

Presentations

We are going to look at how to do GOOD PowerPoint presentations rather than those boring slides with just bullet points that put us all to sleep. No one wants to see a presentation during which the presenters just reads the slides to the audience.

The PowerPoint slides need to help tell the story the presenter is attempting to relate to the audience. Presentations need to be dynamic and sell the ideas the presenter is attempting to communicate to the audience.

Here are some resources. Use them to help make your presentations better.

Presentation Zen

Beyond Bullet Points

Really Bad PowerPoint

Tell us about your experience with managers.

Much of management or organization theory still hearkens back to what Miller writes about in Chapters 1 & 2. The classical and human relations approaches both have merits but have become accepted as fact when as you found out in your readings both approaches lack a truly strong empirical basis.

Let's keep the conversation going that we started with the introductions. I would like each of you to give a description of both good and bad organizational settings you have experienced.

In addition to posting your experiences I would like to make this more of a conversation by having you post a comment about at least one other person's experiences.

Welcome to Fall 2007

Please read any of the blog entries from last spring there is some good stuff there. I will be adding more entries as the semester goes along.

What I would like each of you to do at this time is to post a comment to this item giving a brief introduction of yourself. I know we did it in class bu this is a more permanent record of such. In your postings use you real name (first and last) so we can get to know each other.

Let's work together to make this a great class and have a wonderful experience this semester.

Here is your chance to prove how good you are!

Silde Share a website for sharing Power Point slides is having a contest. The contest is for the World's Best Presentation. I certainly would be proud if one of my students won. Even if you don't win this is yet another web site for getting some ideas.

Presentations

This web site about how to do great presentations.

Go there. Read it. Learn from it.

Presentation Zen.

Be sure and check out: Top Ten Slide Tips.

Your conflict style

Here is an online inventory that helps you determine your conflict management style.

Personal Conflict Style Inventory

Take the inventory and report your results.

Playing Nice in the Workplace

In class I have often wondered why people don't just play nice with each other. When we talked about conflict on March 12th we all agreed that at times we loose our cool. This book takes a look at how to take control of your situation in the workplace and how to deal with those really nasty people. Check it out: The No Asshole Rule is by a professor at Stanford.

A podcast interview with Robert Sutton from Total Picture Radio with Peter Clayton.

Myers-Briggs

We discussed in class that the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator is frequently used in human resources approaches to organizations to help people figure out how they fit in to the organization. The results of the test are also used to help people work together more effectively.

The are several short forms of the test available free on the Internet. The longer form is more reliable and valid but the short form often gives a good idea of your tendencies. Have fun.

http://www.personalitytest.net/types/index.htm

Tell us what you are. I consistently score out an an INTP but I'm border line on the a couple of the factors.

Systems

The systems approach to organizations emphasizes the whole while still looking at the parts. Too often in our lives we become too concerned with one part of our lives while disregarding everything else. We can concentrate on problems we are having without thinking about the blessings.

Reflect for a few moments and think about how everything in your life fits together.

The International Society for Systems Science has an online primer which can help you understand general systems theory. While communications scholars use general systems theory to help describe organizations there has been comparatively little predictive work done using this paradigm. One of the earliest theories in communication Claude Shannon's Information Theory later discussed by Warren Weaver is a product of systems theory.

Blake and Mouton

Blake and Mouton devised a simple questionnaire for determining managerial style. Go to the leadership questionnaire and see what type of manager you are. Do you agree? Have you ever been a manager?

Maslow

Seems that in communication courses we are enamoured with Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Look in almost any textbook on communication whether the subject is an introductory fundamentals text, public speaking, persuasion, group discussion, mass communication, public relations, or organizational communication an Maslow is mentioned. In many of the text the theory is simply presented with no reference to its efficacy.

Rarely is there an adequate description of what is meant by self-actualization or how to motivate people to self-actualization. Motivation is subject to so many individual differences that theories of human needs like Maslow's just not seem to be very effective in predicting human behavior.

The entire human relations approach to motivation has come under question because the base theories are weak when it comes to predictive ability. Check out this brief article on Maslow by Huitt for some insight and additional references. Note this depiction of the hierarchy includes a level beyond self-actualization label transcendence.

Humans indeed have needs but has our conceptualization psychological needs helped or hindered our understanding of motivation?

Industrial Psychology

While doing some reading about the human relations approach to organizations I came across the term industrial psychology. I remember hearing this term when I was younger but I haven't heard it very often in recent years. I just find it interesting how terminology changes. I wonder what caused the change?

What is a bureaucracy?

Kathrine Miller's textbook Organizational Communication: Approaches and Process is the primary text for the class and begins with a chapter on classic approaches to organizational theory. When it comes to classic approaches to organizations it is difficult to get more classic than the bureaucracy.

We all just love a bureaucracy, why else would be associate them with such fun things as red tape, standing in line, uncaring bureaucrats, inefficiency, and waste. While there is a downside to bureaucracy there is also an upside. Max Weber wrote about both the good and bad found in bureaucracy. Karl Marx commented on the origins of bureaucracy found in religion and government.

To get a basic understanding of bureaucracy the article in the Wikipedia offers a starting place. Take note of the fact that I say starting place. While our concept of what is an authoritative source is undergoing change due to blogs and wikis that does not make the Wikipedia an authoritative source for purpose of scholarship. For any papers written for this class I expect primary sources whenever possible. The Wikipedia is so far from a primary source that you shouldn't even think about using it for written assignments except under very unusual circumstances. You should check with me to determine if I agree you situation constitutes an unusual circumstance. Compare the entry above on bureaucracy from the Wikipedia with an entry on bureaucracy from Encyclopaedia Britannica. note: this may require you to sign up for a free trial.

Welcome to Cubicle Land

I am creating this blog as a complement to the Organizational Communication class I teach at Austin Peay State University. The name of the blog Cubicle Land refers to the world of cubicles that so many workers live in these days. I have had to work in cubicles several different times during my career and I can't say that I'm very fond of that environment. Perhaps the best commentary on life is cubicles comes not from an organizational theorist but from the comic strip Dilbert by Scott Adams.

In beginning this blog I recalled my first class in Organizational Communication at Michigan State University which was taught by my undergraduate adviser Clyde D. J. Morris. Dr Morris (that sounds strange, everyone called him Clyde) was definitely a character but also a wonderful teacher. The main project for the class was a communication audit of the city of Grand Rapids. My particular part of the audit was to gather information at Calvin College. I took two other classes from Clyde as an undergraduate a class in research methods and a class in conflict resolution. Much of what I learned in all of Clyde's classes has stuck with me throughout my teaching career.