Organizational Psychology

Final Paper:

–   Format: Times New Roman, size 12, 1.5 space between lines, standard margins.

– THE PAPER SHOULD BE IN TOTAL 2 PAGES 1.5 SPACE BETWEEN LINES 

– For the topics/theories to apply I will upload here all the class powerpoints with all the material covered 

– IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO READ ALL THE POWERPOINTS TO PICK THE MOST RELEVANT THEORY, ALSO VERY IMPORTANT TO GO THROUGH POWERPOINT LESSON 6 ABOUT WRITING, THERE YOU CAN SEE HOW THE PROFESSORS WANT THE TYPE OF WRITING (THEY REQUIRE A VERY SPECIFIC WRITING)

– I AM UPLOADING A PAPER OF A STUDENT OF LAST YEAR THAT DID THE SAME PAPER TO UNDERSTAND HOW IT SHOULD BE. THE GRADE SHE GOT WAS NOT SO HIGH SO PLEASE TAKE IT ONLY AS A WAY TO UNDERSTOOD DO NOT COPY IT

The paper has 2 chapters:

Chapter I has 1 case study 60% of the grade.

Chapter II has 4 open question, from which you need to choose 2 questions to answer 40% of the grade.

Term A

Chapter I

Bob and Beverlys Case Study

Background Information

Beverly Wyman took her job as supervisor very seriously. Though only 33 years old and somewhat new to the company, she liked her work and believed she did a good job. Beverly was in charge of the Consumer Credit Sales Group of the First Union National Bank. She was in charge of seven credit sales representatives (CSRs). Her sales group was formed six months ago to aggressively sell and market the banks various car, boat, and other personal loans. Beverly was promoted and became group supervisor shortly after the group was started, moving up from an assistant managers job in the nearby Credit Analysis Section. Some problems in the Analysis Section kept her there longer than was anticipated, and she joined her sales group after it had already started operating.

Even though she was generally pleased with the progress her sales group was making, she did have a problem: Bob Watson. As she thought back, she knew why this was so painful now.

Back to the Beginning: Bob Watson

 Three years ago, when Beverly joined First Unions Credit Analysis Section, Bob Watson was the chief credit analyst and her boss. He was then 41 and had been a First Union employee for 18 years. In this position, Bob was responsible for training all new junior analysts. Bob had long been a top credit analyst: he earned almost twice the net income as the next most productive employee in Credit Analysis. It was his exceptionally high level of productivity that allowed the division manager to look the other way whenever Bob had one of his occasional ts of moodiness. Indeed, although Bob was widely respected for his consumer credit talents, he was just as widely avoided for his unpredictable temperament and erratic work habits.

Beverly learned a lot about credit from Bob, and they got along well togetherat least until Beverly started to equal Bobs record in Credit Analysis. That was about 18 months ago. It was around this same time that Bob seemed to undergo a change. There was a subtle but distinctive difference in how he worked: he maintained an adequate analytic volume, but he seemed drained of energy. Some employees thought the change was due to divorce.

Whatever the cause, Bobs idiosyncrasies now became a real problem and the change in his work became increasingly less subtle. He was absent from his desk frequently and for long periods. He would put in a couple of good hours of work a day and then spend the rest of the time listlessly wandering around. An exasperated department manager, Tony Lanelli, nally had to act, giving Bob a written disciplinary notice. Bobs wandering seemed to subside, but his underlying attitudeapathy, indifference, hostilitybecame even stronger.

Beverly Becomes Supervisor

All these problems with Bob occurred before Beverly was made supervisor. Tony explained the situation to Beverly before he hired her, because Bob had now been transferred a second time to the newly formed Consumer Credit Sales group as senior representative. He was given the temporary duty of running the sales group until the permanent supervisorsoon revealed as being Beverlyarrived. Bobs job was the same kind of position he had lled in Credit Analysis: to train the sales reps in Beverlys sales group. But now, he was working for Beverly instead of Beverly for him.

During the job interview, Tony told Beverly, We considered Bob for the credit sales managers job, but decided we just didnt think he would work out as a supervisor at this time. We did think that more responsibility might be what he needs, though, so we made him senior representative.

Tony told Beverly that as senior representative, Bob would have the three newest sales reps work directly for him as trainees. Thus, Beverly would supervise Bob and the other three CSRs directly; she would supervise the three trainee reps indirectly through Bob.

The chart below shows the organization of First Unions Consumer Credit Sales Division.

Four months after Beverly moved into the supervisory position, she was facing a number of problems with Bob Watson. She believed that Bob could consistently be a top performer if only he could get over his attitude problem. She thought that although Bob realized he blew his chance for a management job because of his erratic performance, he still felt cheated. He applied for other jobs in the bank at every opportunity. He still did an average job, although his sales performance had been falling for the past few months. Beverly was also concerned about his work method: he seemed to do the easiest sales jobs rst and then give up too quickly on the more demanding and challenging opportunities. So while he still performed fairly well, his work was just not up to his potential.

Beverly was experiencing other difculties with Bob, too. She was alarmed at the way his attitude was affecting the three trainees who worked under him. She sensed their resentment of her. A recent incident was still troubling her. She had asked Bob to explain to the trainees a new procedure that all the CSRs had to follow. Beverly felt it was a good system and hoped that Bob would introduce it well. However, she was distressed to hear one of the trainees complain about the crappy, stupid new procedure they had to complete. Beverly could only imagine how Bob must have explained it.

Another of Beverlys concerns was Bobs almost total indifference to her. She could remember a number of times that Bob had gone over her head to talk with Tony directly about some questions or concerns. The rest of the time, he seemed to ignore the plans she and Tony made. When asked for his input, he usually complained that the idea would never work.

In particular, he seemed totally resistant to changing some of his practices and bringing them into accord with the newly revised Consumer Credit Protection Laws. Potentially this was Beverlys biggest problem because mistakes under this new law could cost the bank a lot of money in lawsuits and penalties. She had circulated a ier announcing the changes to all employees, but it appeared that Bob had not even read it. With his experience and ability, Bob was able to work in the gray area between superselling and regulatory violation fairly easily. He did not, however, seem to appreciate the danger in which he was putting the bank, and his trainees were picking up his questionable tactics.

Altogether, Bob was consuming an enormous amount of Beverlys time and energy. Her productivity was being hampered by Bobs continual problems. Even worse, Tony Ianelli seemed unwilling to take any drastic action, and Beverly felt her ability to act was limited by Tonys sensitivity to front-ofce pressure to keep Bob around. Even though she had not yet broached the subject with Tony, ring Bob did not seem possible.

As her fourth month as a supervisor drew to a close, Beverly sat at her desk, looking at one of Bobs recent sales reports. She shook her head slowly, noticing more of the same errors. Beverly knew that although the problem was not an emergency, it needed correcting. Beverly wondered to herself, What can I do?

You are here to help first Beverly and then Bob.

Describe the problems in this case, connecting it to relevant theory, and develop 2-4 strategies to handle this challenge.

Your answer needs to be not more than one page.

Chapter 2

Open Questions (choose 2 out of 4):

1.     Amit is a high level manager in an engineering group. He is very appreciated for his technical skills, learning curve and his positive can-do approach. He is also very committed and knows how to make things happen.

Amit is extremely busy with day2day tasks and lately his group is so focused on current engineering problems and customer issues that they dont promote long term projects and dont promote the products next generation (which puts them at risk with some strong competition).

This is due to Amits lack of delegation capabilities, over extending himself across many activities, and lack of order.   

Using gallup strengths model What are Amits strengths? What are his weaknesses? And how could he use his strengths to overcome his weaknesses and build the products next generation?

2.     As we mentioned in our first lesson, there is a mismatch between what science knows and what organizations do.

And it so happens that as OD professionals we need to convince leadership teams to implement a model or framework that will help the organization.

Choose one theory you loved the most in our class and write one paragraph of how you would present it to a CEO of an organization and try to convince him to implement it.

3.     Think of our course together as an organization in itself with norms, rules, communities, authority, etc..

Using the DDO approach (Kegan & Lahey) analyze our course; What was the courses Groove, Home and Edge?

4.     Many OBD students are Job seekers (either as external or internal OBD professionals). Create an ITC map for a job seeker; That includes the imposed goal of Finding a Job I Love in column 1. From there continue to create columns 2-4, and then add 1 small experiment that job seeker can do.

You can create this map either by your own experience or your imagination.

Your answer needs to be not more than one page (max half a page for each question).