Organizational Development-Toys R Us

When it comes to Toys r us going out of business I am happy, and I am sad, now coming from someone with a Masters in OD (Organizational Development) that must sound fairly “simple” and I admit it is. I am sad because a big part of my childhood and Americana is gone from the retail landscape. I still remember begging my mom to take 25 minutes into the suburbs to get the newest Universal Monsters action figures and playset. It was a place of wonder and imagination, in fact I still have one of those figures still.

But over the years a lot of the wonder and imagination Toys R US created faded, not because kids got involved in video games and the toy industry suffered. No, they sold video games at various Toys R US locations, and at any location you could find various adults spending their paychecks on not only video games but action (the collector’s type) figures as well.  The problems were more than that from expensive prices, lack of sales and advertisement, to even a lack of energy within the stores. Now these are off the top of my head, and I would not get into the condition of the packaging of anything I bought at (or nearly bought) Toys R US. Most of the items looked like they were used as footballs by store staff and with the attitudes they exhibited they truly must have.

I could say only there were only few other big chains that had as many disgruntled employees as Toys R US, but only a few. So, I am fairly happy that they have gone out of business because the company that went out of business in 2018 was destroying my recollections of the company that gave me and a lot of other children hours of fun with the products they sold years ago. Going by a model like Amazon the company could have rebounded if they would have made their stores “must see locations of wonder” they would have gotten bodies into their stores, along with their dollars. But none of that happened the company seemly filed bankruptcy and went about business as usual, then they had to close, duh.

I was not pleased with Toys R US when it closed but I was still happy. Much like that always-failing ex that you hear stories about how bad they are doing after you dumped them, you wonder where it all went wrong, or maybe it was always there and no one saw it coming. With Toys R US the “writing was on the wall” and the chain could not have ended their time in the retail marker any sooner. My hope is that all those employees can find jobs doing something that pays the bills or that they love to do. Meanwhile I also hope this opens up customers to those smaller online and mom and pop stores that did not get noticed before, with the shadows of the combined might of Toys R US, Walmart, Target and Amazon looming over them. With at least one of these mammoths gone there can be a chance for the little guys (smaller stores) to break through and take Toys R US’s place in the hearts of Americana.

Organizational Development: Challenging Questions about Interventions

When an intervention fails the consultant can use this opportunity to just reexamine the situation and use that data to reconstruct a better intervention or an entirely new one that is better suited or the client’s organization. I believe that an intervention although can have negative effects if it is one of multiple failed interventions that have been implemented in a short amount of time, thereby ruining the credibility of the consultant and possibly lowering the percentage of engagement of the stakeholders.

Also, if the employees of the organization feel that the intervention does not have a positive impact on their professional development it may cause resistance or an increase in the organization’s turnover rate.

Were there any interventions or changes in procedures in the organization that you are presently with that occurred for only a short amount of time, only to go back to the “way thing was”? In your professional experience, have you seen coworkers become disgruntled by organizational changes that they simply resisted the change until it was repealed, or they left the organization because of it?

Organizational Development Article: Intervention Round Up-Sensitivity Training

During an Organizational Development class, it was asked about our take on models that seeks to engage stakeholders within a corporate environment and during the class we needed to interact via an online discussion. Every once in a while, we have to pose questions to one another, in this post I have posted the question and my response to that question. I hope the interactions below assist in research, or even understanding the concepts of the different models that engage stakeholders in a positive manner and what from some academic sense future practitioners think of these concepts and the arenas it can be used in.

Sensitivity Training is one of those interventions that is great (like my choice 360 Feedback) if properly used and everyone bought into the use of the intervention. However, I can see it be used in a negative connation to gauge where employees stand on certain organizational issues, or how employees feel about the current structure and policies of an organization only to have management use that information against the employee. In my experience when management asks “how do you feel...” about a certain issue, the current direction of or the leadership in the organization, they are usually mining for data to find the” trouble makers” in a department and make their time with the organization uncomfortable as possible.

With a lot of this depending on the emotional intelligence and egos of those participating how would you ensure that when this intervention is used, that participants do not act negatively in and out of group sessions?  How would you ensure that the original focus of this intervention stays on point for future usage after the OD Practitioner is gone?

http://www.citeman.com/979-sensitivity-training.html

Organizational Development Article: Intervention Round Up-Mentoring

During an Organizational Development class, it was asked about our take on models that seeks to engage stakeholders within a corporate environment and during the class we needed to interact via an online discussion. Every once in a while, we have to pose questions to one another, in this post I have posted the question and my response to that question. I hope the interactions below assist in research, or even understanding the concepts of the different models that engage stakeholders in a positive manner and what from some academic sense future practitioners think of these concepts and the arenas it can be used in.

Mentoring is an interesting intervention because much like other intervention like 360 Feedback (my choice) it can be used in a positive manner or with a negative connation for corrective action purposes. Through my professional experiences I have had great mentors and terrible ones, usually the latter I had to deal with supervisors or management that were busy trying to teach me how to disregard procedures to complete activities in order to raise overall productivity percentages.

However, it made them look good to upper management, this type of mentoring caused issues with the task completion when the completed activities were quality checked or needed to be replicated.
Keeping this in mind, in your experiences with mentoring have you encountered any ineffective mentors that simply stunted your professional development? Were there times in the mentoring process that you received duplicate training for two different individuals to the point it seemed repetitive?

Organizational Development Article: Intervention Round Up-360 Feedback

During an Organizational Development class, it was asked about our take on models that seeks to engage stakeholders within a corporate environment and during the class we needed to interact via an online discussion. Every once in a while, we have to pose questions to one another, in this post I have posted the question and my response to that question. I hope the interactions below assist in research, or even understanding the concepts of the different models that engage stakeholders in a positive manner and what from some academic sense future practitioners think of these concepts and the arenas it can be used in.

Question: The 360 Feedback tool which I think is overused and overcommitted to as a tool to provide feedback. The problem often comes from misperceptions as to what 360 is and how it can be effectively used to advance employee effectiveness.
Not to take a reductionist stance, but in essence evaluation must have a clear and focused context and a process that is consistent and valuable for everyone, not just a supervisor. Also, consider the variance between a transformational 360 feedback session versus a transactional session.

Most of my experiences with 360 Feedback as a process comes from supervisors using the process as a corrective actions tool, emphasizing more of the negative aspects of my performance than including the feedback from myself or my peers.

Most of my coworkers and I would joke that it is called 360 Feedback because the process just runs the employee around in circles (360 degrees) without having any point to it. The only person who could make sense of this process was maybe the supervisor, who had an opportunity created by the one-way feedback session a scape goat.

Usually when I experienced or heard (from other employees) about this one-way feedback process, the purpose it seemed was to find the easiest person to blame for the team not meeting productivity goals. This process was filled, non- transformational sessions that caused more division and chaos than necessary and creates the misperception that the process is not for advancing employee effectiveness as you stated, but to punish.

I hope to be able to use resources such as my schoolwork, textbooks and the interactions with you and my fellow classmates to find ways to enlighten and teach organizational management in the future on the proper way to use the 360 Feedback process.

Organizational Development Article: Intervention Round Up

During an Organizational Development class, it was asked about our take on models that seeks to engage stakeholders within a corporate environment and during the class we needed to interact via an online discussion. Every once in a while, we have to pose questions to one another, in this post I have posted the question and my response to that question. I hope the interactions below assist in research, or even understanding the concepts of the different model that engage stakeholders in a positive manner and what from some academic sense future practitioners think of these concepts and the arenas it can be used in.

Question: I especially liked how you included self-concept or self-delusion of oneself. It is important to understand how we are viewed by others, especially if there are conflicts within a group/team/department. As you mentioned too often, I have too, 360-degree feedback is used incorrectly, and the focus is only on the negative versus the positive aspects. In this module, reading on 'Positive Organizational Scholarship and Appreciative Inquiry' it explains by focusing on the positive you can correct negative behavior without all the negative connotations.
Do you believe the 360 Degree Feedback can tied with POS or AI? Or that there would be benefits of realigning it so that it can be used more frequently as a way to improve an employee’s development?

Actually, I would use neither with the 360 Feedback. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that the individuals implementing the Feedback have no training whatsoever in the process and that is why it is done incorrectly, adding something extra to me is asking for more trouble.
For example, with Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) I can see management telling the individual how to be motivated as it benefits the organization not the individual leading to all types of conflict. With Appreciative Inquiry, again I also see organizational management taking control of this process in a negative manner and telling the individual employee again what should motivate them also that it is beneficial to them (management) or the organization but not upon the professional development of the employee.

It has been my experience that many individuals in management have no idea about these concepts and would rather practice aspects of each that would benefit their agenda. I would hate to take the chance and subject employees with management that can add extra ways to torment their employees due to my additional training, even I would hate me! I would rather keep it simple with one concept (the 360 Feedback intervention) train the management on how to properly use it and monitor them excessively to make sure the entire concept is being practiced and the training of how to use the 360-feedback process is permanent.

Organizational Development related post: MTBI and possible usage in the workplace.

During an Organizational Development class, it was asked about our take on the Meyer Briggs test within a corporate environment and during the class we needed to interact via an online discussion. Every once in a while, we have to pose questions to one another, in this post I have posted the question and my response to that question. I hope the interactions below assist in research, or even understanding the concepts of MTBI and what from some academic sense future practitioners think of these concepts and the arenas it can be used in.

Question: I have been an avid reader and fan of Carl Jung 's work. Over the years I have taken the Meyers-Briggs Test to satisfy my own personal curiosity and consistently I have been typed as INFJ.  I took the test recently and my result was personality type ENFJ. I attribute the change to work experiences that have forced me to be more extroverted. Do you think that an individual's personality type can change? Do you think the personalities of individuals can be adaptable to a workplace environment? How does the MBTI compare to other personality assessment tests administered to employees in the workplace?

It has been my experience that people do change aspects of their individual personality that they exhibit in the workplace. It is what I like to call a “workplace mask” in which individuals adapt (as you stated) or change their attitudes and responses to match certain instances or events. Usually I see this change in attitude is evident when managers or onsite directors are visited by out-of-town CEOs or COOs, they become positive and outgoing trying to interact with their employees, when otherwise they try to avoid those same employees at all costs.

To answer your question about administering personality tests at an organization, it has also been my experience that the organizations are not interested, whatsoever for understanding employee personality types. Organizations are more concerned for conformity to the culture that is present within the workplace, and any personality traits one exhibits that run counter to that culture must be eliminated or suppressed. A personality assessment test like MTBI is unfortunately not even on the radar for organizations like this.