Kim Woods Only (15 2.2 Response

Post #1

Quinn’s Competing Values Model reminds us to think about both the individual and organizational levels. We should not concentrate on only one, but both to ensure both needs are being met. This model categorizes organizations into four cultural types with matching roles and skills needed to effectively operate in each of the organizational cultures (Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols, 2016).

I am an Air Force retiree, with being fortunate to work with the Department of Defense, at Travis Air Force Base. I am a certified Green Dot Facilitator. The Green Dot safety program is a bystander intervention program that gives participants the tools and resources to measurably reduce interpersonal violence in the community. I specifically address the military community as there is unfortunately a problem with interpersonal violence, suicides and sexual assault. The Air Force policy is zero tolerance however, there are never ending headlines describing members of the United States Air Force, an institution that embraces integrity, service and excellence above all. Answer is that the individuals committing the violations put their own interests before the good of the service—violating the core values of “Integrity First” and “Service Before Self.” The more difficult and more critical question, however, is why are Airmen putting their own interests ahead of the Air Force in direct contravention of the Air Force

core values?

Quinn's Competing Values Model is a great tool that encourages change agents to think about the interaction between systems at an individual and organizational level. How the change agents think about these interactions will determine what they think needs changing (Cawsey, Deszca, and Ingols, 2016). As a Green Dot Facilitator, I am afforded the opportunity to play different roles to make a difference. At the heart of Quinn’s model is the observation that there are two key dimensions to effective management: a flexible ability dimension and an external-internal dimension.

Ethical and unethical decisions by service members are influenced by a large variety of factors at the individual and organizational levels.

- Use of Core Values (particularly Excellence) as Standards

- Mentorship and Feedback

- Lessons Learned from Previous Ethical Lapses

- Unified Group Vision

- Culture of Trust, Transparency, and Accountability

- Locus of Control

It should be noted that Air Force members of all ranks should take advantage of opportunities to learn from other’s positive and negative leadership experiences.

AFPD 1, the ethical conduct of the Air Force is prescribed as a "policy with regards to the professionalism and standards expected of all Airmen." It identifies how the Air Force will implement the directive about standards and professionalism, focusing on three key areas: 1) environment, 2) conduct, and 3)

appearance. Concerning environment, the Core Values of Integrity, Service, and Excellence are explicitly identified as "standards of conduct" (Toner, 2006).

An understanding of the meaning of a Core Value standard is crucial. The Air Force uses the Core Values as a standardized, functional tool to guide professional behavior to accomplish a mission. The military has the responsibility of providing defense for the nation. Air Force doctrine maintains, “Success hinges on the incorporation of these values” (Risen, 2014). Quinn uses the two dimensions to create a four quadrant model which expounds into eight operational roles for managers. Effective managers must be able to move proficiently among the roles based on the situation.

Personal accountability to the Air Force Core Values is paramount, and Airmen of all ranks are placed in positions of responsibility with the expectation that they can meet the challenges they face. Areas of interest regarding Quinn’s model should be applied to managers as facilitators, mentors, innovators, monitors, coordinators, and producers to generate an environment in which moral and ethical failures cease to occur because Airmen have mentors who are positive counterbalances for the moral gravity to take effect.

Air Force Policy Directive (AFPD) 1, Air Force Culture, 7 August 2012: 1.

Christopher Toner, "A Critique of Air Force Core Values," Air & Space Power Journal (Winter 2006): 99-108.

Cawsey, T.F., Deszca, G., and Ingols, C. (2016). Organizational Change - An Action-Oriented Toolkit. Los Angeles: Sage.

James Risen, “Air Force Leaders Testify on Culture That Led to Sexual Assaults of Recruits.” New York Times, 23. January 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/us/air-force-leaders-testify-on-culture-that-led-to-sexualassaults-of-recruits.html).

Post #2

Using Nadler and Tushman’s Congruence Model:

The organization that I am familiar with is the one I currently led. The P-8A Fleet Integration Team stationed in Whidbey Island to transition the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance community from the older P-3 Orion aircraft to the new Boeing P-8A aircraft.

1. describe the key input factors that influence your organization:

The external factors that influence my organization are moving all the Sailors and their families that were previously stationed in Hawaii to Whidbey Island. This not only crowded the small island and created an inflation in the real estate market, but additionally created a deficiency in work space both on and off the Flight line as the personnel number doubled and the new aircraft required more parking space. Another influence is the fast-paced changes in technology, as new software is constantly being released as we attempt to teach the Squadron on the latest release, making the West coast squadrons slightly behind the ones stationed on the East coast that have received the training first. Ecological factors in Whidbey Island are always a factor as this area is very conscious with the affects of the Aircraft and the surrounding environment.

The organization’s history (including its culture) and the resources it has access to.

The P-8 FIT team started in NAS Jacksonville as a set of Instructors from the Fleet Replacement Squadron, we still utilize these resources to train the Aircrewman on the new aircraft and they detach to Whidbey on a three-week rotation until the transition is complete. Additionally, the team has 7 hand selected personnel that are permanently stationed in Whidbey Island to coordinate and schedule all training, while ensuring the instructors have the resources required to make the change.

2. What is the strategy of the organization? The organizational strategy is to provide top notch training to P-3 squadrons on the new P-8 aircraft, enabling the aircrewman the skills needed to form tactical Combat Aircrews and the maintenance department the skills need to maintain the aircraft while forward deployed.

3. Are the components of the transformation processes well aligned with the input factors and the strategy? These elements include:

1. The work- composed of training Officer and enlisted aircrew and maintenance personal on the skills need to maintain, operate and deploy.

2. The formal organization is composed of a permanent part of 7 personnel, hand selected to handle the Day to Day logistics of organizing, scheduling and implementation of an effective training plan.

3. people- Are made of highly trained Maintenance, Aircrew and Civilian instructors dedicated solely to the transition process during their rotational time period.

4. The informal organization – Is made up of the different departments that make up the entire FIT team to include: Officer Instructors, Enlisted Aircrew Instructors, Maintenance ratings, Boeing Civilian Support Personnel, Squadron personnel, Wing Support Staff, NAS Whidbey Island support staff.

5. How do they interact with one another in ways that influence the outputs produced by the organization? It is essential that all of the informal organizations work together in accordance with the training plan in order to meet the allocated time to train of 100 days in order to stay within budget and to keep the squadrons on track with their deployment rotation schedules. When there is a break down in communication in any one of there areas, it creates a ripple effect that becomes a larger problem then necessary and could become a safety hazard.

4. What outputs are being achieved? Are these the desired outputs?

The outputs that come from this organization is Fully qualified P-8 squadron that can enter their yearlong training continuum to prepare them for upcoming deployments. To date all 9 squadrons have meet the training objectives and 7 of the 9 squadrons have successfully deployed.

5. When you evaluate your organization’s outputs at the individual, group, and organizational levels, what issues should the organization address?

The outputs are demanding on the individual level, the instructors/maintenance personnel must maintain a high OPTEMPO in order to meet training objectives on time. When the Fleet replacement squadron is unable to send us the minimum number of personnel, the instructors/maintenance personnel begin to experience burnout due to longer detachment times and work outs. Again, the organizational outputs are qualified squadrons, not one squadron has failed to meet training deadlines set by big Navy.

6. Are there any aspects of how your organization works that you have difficulty understanding

We are constantly being told that training these squadrons are the number one objective, but we are always competing with the Fleet Replacement Squadron to provide required instructors, since they must also maintain production to keep fleet squadrons manned with new accession operators. The Fleet Replacement Squadron is under manned and continues to take on more responsibilities without increasing manning numbers. It would increase the FIT Teams effectiveness if we had unlimited access to the instructor and maintenance personnel during the 6-month rotation to make transition more efficient, but this is not a realistic approach.

By using this model to analyze my organization, I can see that there are areas within the organization that need to be re-aligned in order to match the strategy and desire outcome such as the manning. Additionally, while I know that it takes a lot of people to make the organization successful, it isn’t until I laid all of the informal organizations out on paper that I truly see how this house of cards could collapse without the proper balance and care.

References

Cawsey, T. F., Deszca, G., & Ingols, C. (2016). Organizational change: An action-oriented toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Nadler, D. A., & Tushman, M. L. (1977). A diagnostic model for organizational behavior. In J. R. Hackman, E. E. Lawler, & L. W. Porter, Perspectives in behavior in organizations (pp. 85-100). New York, NY: Mcgrraw-Hill.

Post #3

The organization that I am going to diagnose is the current one I work for, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System, Army (IPPS-A), using the Congruence Model. The model is based on the premise that the performance of an organization is derived from certain elements such as: task, environment, strategy, structure, people and culture (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2016). The key factors that influence the IPPS-A are:

External factor - A government legislature mandating the Department of Defense to be auditable by end of fiscal year 2017. A congressional requirement included a requirement in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010 (Chappell, 2017). The Headquarters, Department of the Army, therefore established IPPS-A to design, develop and deploy a 21st century talent management system that integrates personnel and pay for Soldiers across all three Components.

Structure - There are three main key players within IPPS-A as well as other stakeholders. The key players are the Functional Management Division (FMD), The Program Management Office (PMO), and the Systems Integrator (SI), these three divisions together is referred to as the triad.

The strategy – the strategy of the IPPS-A is to modernize Total Army business processes, which are the related activities or tasks performed together to complete personnel, pay and talent management actions; to transform the Army's industrial age personnel system into a 21st century Commercial Over The Shelf (COTS) for all three Components; Active Component (USA), Army National Guard (ARNG) and Army Reserves (USAR).

The people - Human resource management has become more critical to an organization with current changes in the business environment. Human Resource Management is the function within an organization that focuses on the recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in an organization (Heathfield, 2017). The Integrated Personnel and Pay System, Army combines a couple of the human resource management strategies, notably amongst them are hiring the right people and empower employees. The leadership “hand pick” personnel from a pool after screening hundreds of records of Soldiers and civilian that meet the requirements to work in the organization.

The Culture - An organization’s culture is built over time as members develop beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that seem to work and are transmitted to new recruits. Defined as “the way we do things around here,” culture anchors an organization’s identity and sense of itself (Bolman & Deal, 2008). The essence of a visionary company comes in the translation of its core ideology and its own unique drive for progress into the very fabric of the organization” (Collins & Porras, 2005). IPPS-A just like most successful organizations has a vision. The vision is to be innovative, aggressively challenge the design and build of the program, do not replicate the old ways of doing business, ensure ease of use of the system for Soldiers, HR professionals and commanders. And finally focus on analytics and dashboards by eliminating reports. IPPS-A uses the Agile methodology in the building process, that means the design, development and deployment of the system is done on multiple releases, i.e. Release 1, 2, 3 and 4. As part of the agile methodology, there are Sprint and Stake holder reviews at the build stage and User Juries at the testing phase. Feed back to the organization. For example the program is currently at the testing phase of release 2 and the design phase of release 3.

Insights – (1) The ability to identify and know that factors that influence the performance of an organization gives an individual a better picture of the organization and provides a holistic picture. (2) Based on the nature of an organization that factors that influence its performance maybe unique to that particular organization and cannot be replicated for another organization.

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations artistry, choice, and leadership.

San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass

Cawsey, T. F., Deszca, G., & Ingols, C. (2016). Organizational change an action-oriented toolkit.

Los Angeles: Sage Publ.

Chappell, B. (2017, December 08). Pentagon Announces First-Ever Audit Of The Department Of

Defense. Retrieved June 24, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-

way/2017/12/08/569394885/pentagon-announces-first-ever-audit-of-the-department-of-

defense

Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (2005). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies.

London: Random House.

Heathfield, S. M. (n.d.). Beyond Hiring and Firing: What is HR Management? Retrieved July 4,

2018, from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-human-resource-management-

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