Building Successful Organizations That Endure need in 9 hours

Please provide at least 150-word response to each student response below to continue conversation and provide new information/content. Be sure to research/cite/reference sources in each discussion.

1st Post: Through the many examples this week, stewardship is more than outdoing everyone or being in the right place at the right time as a leader. You do not have to be a manager or CEO to practice stewardship because stewardship can come from various individuals from various backgrounds and walks of life. Stewardship encompasses all three triple crown elements: excellence, endurance, and ethicalness. In leadership or within an organization, stewardship is modeling the desired behavior while reinforcing the organization's purpose, vision, and values. When there is stewardship, it is bigger than the individual themselves because they are not just in it. According to Vanourek and Vanourek (2012), they are helping the organization be its best and doing the right thing even when no one is looking. Stewardship must be present within organizations when striving for success and effectiveness. 

            One example of how high levels of performance in this area can have an impact on an organization is the example given to us when Jerry, who was a vice president, reminded Bob that he did not treat Phil with the company's shared values (Vanourek & Vanourek, 2012). Jerry had a conversation with Bob after Bob asked him for his input on the conversation. Yes, Jerry was the vice president, but he held Bob accountable for his actions. He wanted to ensure that the essential elements were being followed for the organization. Everyone must do their part, including being stewards, to fit the puzzle pieces. Jerry did the right thing that day, and after being apologized to, Phil returned and did what he needed to do (Vanourek & Vanourek, 2012).

How stewards carry themselves, speak up when things go far, if in leadership communicating when necessary, and developing the triple crown contribute to how it can impact the organization. For organizations to expand, grow, and develop, stewardship and how it operates within is imperative to understand. Because when everyone is doing their role and practicing being stewards while upholding the company's values, missions, purpose, visions, ethics, etc., high performance will follow leading to a likelihood of success and/or effectiveness. 

2nd Post: Stewardship in business is the responsible planning, management, and use of resources with the aim of ensuring their sustainability, including environmental, social, and economic factors to help ensure future generations can also benefit from these resources. Good stewardship can enhance the reputation of an organization and can be a factor in improving customer trust and loyalty (Oboloo, 2023). The textbook identifies the board of directors as vital stewards, responsible for ensuring that triple crown principles are followed to safeguard the long-term viability and health of the organization for the benefit of the current and future generations (Vanourek & Vanourek, 2012). Both views of stewardship emphasize protecting the organization and resources for the long-term. The Oboloo perspective is based on sustainability and green technologies, and this view is shared by many organizations and communities.

The board should collaborate with the C-suite and management on stewardship and model triple crown principles. The board should also be from outside of the organization and avoid having the CEO as the chairman of the board. Hiring practices should be reviewed to ensure that head and heart skills are being emphasized (Vanourek & Vanourek, 2012). On the sustainability front, organizations can implement a wide variety of changes to be greener, including reducing or eliminating physically printing out documents, having vehicles that are extended range with reduced emissions or are hybrid or possibly fully electric, and reducing or eliminating the use of toxic chemicals that take a long time to breakdown.

3rd Post:  Growing up, I was always told that teamwork could make the dream work. When looking at effective teamwork, it takes every individual to contribute for the impact to occur. No one can do everything independently, so teamwork is essential within an organization because everyone contributes to fulfilling a shared goal, purpose, value, or mission (Vanourek & Vanourek, 2012). When high-performing teams are in a pattern of delivering shared purpose, values, and visions, the impacts can be seen. For example, decisions can be made a lot faster, execution can occur, and productivity increases (Taylor, 2020). When everyone in the team functions with alignment in mind, it creates a beneficial organizational culture that contributes to the desired effectiveness. 

Within the dynamic of a high-performing team, there are many variables to consider, like communication, engagement, and operations. It is imperative to understand that many organizations create opportunities for participative intervention to occur. (Liberto, 1998). Team building can serve as training points and the opportunity to get to know one another as individuals. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study found that high-performing teams had more communication than other teams that were not considered high performing (Taylor, 2020). The previous module discussed the gap that can be caused when no congruence exists among individuals within a collaborative environment. If there is no shared purpose, individuals are less likely to work toward the goals and objectives of the organization (Orechwa, 2022). 

Let us think of it as a puzzle. With individual dynamics, everyone is their own puzzle piece. Different traits, strengths, and experiences of the individual allow them to fulfill their role for the organization. It is its own puzzle piece, not really connecting or collaborating with others.  They are there to complete the task while keeping the purpose, values, and vision in mind. However, with high team dynamics, you are working towards the shared goal but bringing the different puzzle pieces (individuals) together to create the puzzle successfully. Although there is self-fulfillment within a group, it is more than self-interest. The team dynamic utilizes a collaborative framework as a group rather than individually. There is empowerment that occurs and that contributes to the trust that is built, fostered relationships, and a flourishing environment (Libato, 1998). Organizations can create high performing teams when there are tools and resources in place that create a healthy organizational workplace and culture while working towards shared goals.  

 

4th Post: Effective teamwork requires aligned goals, coordination, and transparency. To gain alignment, the leadership team must communicate their shared goals, purpose, and values. As these are communicated, it causes a series of cascading steps throughout the organization. Each manager and team leader needs to align their shared goals, purpose, and values with the individuals in the organization. As each tier demonstrates that they are committed to the shared goals, purpose, and values, it becomes evident to each tier, changing the dynamic between the leaders, managers, and employees. Transparency promotes teamwork and trust (Vanourek & Vanourek, 2012). 

High-performance cross-functional teams achieve this by the commitment of each team member to the overall goals, vision, and purpose of the team, aligning their individual goals to that of the team. I was recently promoted to create and lead a team of strategy managers, global event producers, instructional designers, learning management system administrators, and data specialists. There are a dozen experienced individuals on the team, and we have spent the last two months converting their roles from country or regional specialists to global customer education specialists. As individuals, they were effective in their localized roles. 

It took pulling them together into a cross-functional team to be able to support the development of global digital learning experiences. My strategy managers work closely with each division’s division and area leaders, portfolio, and campaign managers to prioritize the most impactful opportunities and gather the information needed to complete the scope and need analysis documents. The design team evaluates these documents and determines the best approach to provide highly engaging and interactive experiences for external healthcare professionals. The global event producers also work with the strategy managers to promote and support events to support customer education and engagement. The data specialist builds marketing automation apps, sets up the data feeds, and maintains the Power BI dashboards. The team is already building several digital learning experiences.