Week 7.3 Communicative Characteristics of Effective Supervisors

In Chapter 6 Page 153, authors talk about Charles Redding's studies. Redding Concluded that more competent supervisors are:
1. Communications Minded.
2. Empathic Listeners
3. Persuasive
4. Sensitive
5. Open

I think the above are very important, and from my personal experiences I have a supervisor who is normally very silent and man of few words but in meetings and discussions he is very involved. He is very patient in listening and I feel people who talk while others are talking or cannot wait to put their point across are not good listeners. They are more interested in sharing their own opinion rather than trying to be part of discussion. I clearly observe this in class discussions when people repeat the same point that some one else already mentioned and was discussed in length. They concentrate all their energies in getting their point out and do not concentrate on the discussion. People who listen have a lot of questions and normally are clearly understood when they ask something.

Week 7.2 Relational Dialectics

In Chapter 6 page 146 discusses relational dialectics and types of it like connection-autonomy,
openness-closeness, novelty-predictability, equality-inequality, instrumentality-affection and impartiality-favoritism.

The authors explained openness-closeness as the desire to allow information to be disclosed or free flowing versus the desire to maintain privacy. Sometimes at work we get requests for information that are very cryptic and raises a lot of questions in the minds of the team members. Recently, we are asked to provide the list of tasks we own and we work on regularly, describing our duties and responsibilities. This raised a lot of rumors in the team about a possible reorganization etc., The reason for this was when we were asked for such information last time there was a reorganization that followed it soon. To clear the issue after a week we asked the manager in the team meeting why he requested that information. The reason was so that he can enter the tasks in the new time sheet portal we have, he was planning to enter them so that we can enter time cards easily. If he mentioned this in the email when he requested information there would have been no unnecessary discussions about it. I think openness in communication is very important when there are chances for assumptions.

Week 7.1 Work Place Relationships

In Chapter 6 authors present a scenario of a relationship being build between a customer and the store manager. They talk about "moment of truth" which creates a lasting impression of the Organization.

The way the store manager interacted with the customer is very nice and definitely helped her make the sale. But from my personal experience the more important thing is to make sure the lasting impression is not a negative one. I normally do not remember the stores where I had good experience and service, there everything was good so normally I do not make a conscious effort to go back to the same store but they have equal chance of me buying at the store like any other store. But if had bad experience with service in a particular store I tend to remember that avoid those stores in future. I normally do not go back. I think negative things have more impact on us than positives.

Week 6.5 Socialization

In Chapter 4 authors talk about socialization in organizations and how new members socialize. They break down work-specific socialization into three stages. The anticipatory stage which happens before we join the organization, the encounter stage in which newcomers learn from their day-to-day tasks and experiences and finally the metamorphosis stage in which the newcomer seeks to become an accepted and participating member of the organization by learning and adapting to the organization's expectations.

In our company whenever someone new joins the managers normally send out an email to all the extended team members. (In my case people who work in engineering side of IT) This makes everyone aware that there is a new person and they normally look his photo etc on the internal site. This helps that person in communicating with others and become part of the group. Most people will introduce themselves when they run into him.

I think this is very important thing to follow. When I Joined my manager then did not send the e-mail and I had a very difficult time knowing people in the group. As most people do not know who i was and in my culture in India people do not introduce themselves to somebody, but is done normally by someone who knows both the persons.

When i changed the group, the person that was hired in my place who i used to work with a transitioning work was facing a similar situation as the manager again did not send that introduction e-mail. I took the initiative and introduced him to most people in person and i can clearly see that it helped him.

Managers should try to help the newcomers by introducing them to at least the people with whom they work routinely.

Week 6.4 Struggling Just to be Heard

In Chapter 5 authors talk about Struggling Just to be Heard. That talk about how Avis positioned itself by saying " We're #2. We try harder". This marketing strategy acknowledges that they are not the best and clearly communicates the message they are trying to be better. For a lot of companies today when I see their advertisements, I get confused whether they are trying to promote their product or just compare and talk badly about their competitor. In my opinion the slogans we pick or advertisements we do should more about our company or product and should be unique rather than being imitations or modifications of our competitors strategies.

Week 6.3 Organizational Identification

In Chapter 5 authors talk about Organizational identification. I think Organizational identification becomes our personal identification if we really are attached to the organization and are proud of the place. This also becomes much easier when the organizations are big and easily recognized by others. A lot of people who work for IBM or Google normally would answer to a question like what do you do by saying they work Google, not mentioning much details about what they do at Google etc., Some people would say something like i was as "something" at some company. For them may be they identify themselves with the work or the work they do rather than the Organization.

Week 6.2 Work Ethic and Being Busy

In Chapter 4 the authors say that the work ethic also shapes our very idea of what it means to be busy. Few years back one of co-workers gave me a book about "Time Management for System Administrators" by Thomas A. Limoncelli. This book helped me understand how as a System Administrator I can manage time. As System Admins, we get interrupted by phone calls from customers, someone looking for information, an important ticket, or unexpected outages etc., and it is very difficult to have 3-4 hours of continuous uninterrupted time. I used to write post notes and paste them all over my desk to remember things, my thinking was by doing that I will not get distracted from the task i am doing then. Now I categorize things, I look at the task and if it takes less than 10 minutes i will do that then itself as I am already distracted and posting a note will keep distracting me until it is done. For tasks that take longer i look at my schedule and make an appointment so that at that time i can get it finished. This helped me get more organized.