REPLY

A minimum of 100 words each question and References Response (#1 – 6) KEEP RESPONSE WITH ANSWER

Make sure the Responses includes the Following: (a) an understanding of the weekly content as supported by a scholarly resource, (b) the provision of a probing question. (c) stay on topic

1. While all of the planning tools and techniques are important, I would have to agree that forecasting is one that is very prevalent, a critical to the success of an organization. In your post, you discussed management making necessary changes to meet the needs of stakeholders and I agree. According to Schermerhorn (2014), “Forecasting is the process of predicting what will happen in the future” (p.81). By looking at the past, from a quantitative perspective, and monitoring current trends, as well as creating prediction, forecasting the future can be more than just a guess. I would have to argue is an educated guess. A corporation, department, or employee must always adjust to remain relevant, and keep from complacency setting in. Usually following complacency is failure. Planning is a great tool to keep complacency from setting in, and keeping an organization from becoming a group that says “this is how we have always done it”. Forecasting is a great tool, to constantly reconfigure the trajectory of that organization. Do you believe that forecasting is just a function of a manager, or can employees individually practice planning functions?

2. The six planning tools and techniques discussed in the text are forecasting, contingency planning, scenario planning, benchmarking, participatory planning, and goal setting.  I recently used the benchmarking technique to support planning for my groups future in the organization I work for.  To try to gain insight into best practices in our industry, I spent a week at another utilities power plant, gathering information that I wanted to consider utilizing in my organization.  In order to maximize the benefit of the , I chose a utility that was similar size, similar organizational structure, and that utilized processes that were the result of undergoing changes I anticipated being made in my organization.  I prepared for the visit by organizing specific questions and focus areas that I thought my own organization was weak in.  On top of this, I prepared questions to gain insight into some of the processes that were identified as best practices in the utility I was visiting.  Within my own organization, I could sense that business was being run under the belief that the past was a good indicator of the future, a hallmark of a complacent culture.  (Schererhorn, J., 2014, pg. 127)  Looking to industry peers for opportunities to improve from their experience and learning has been very beneficial.  I was able to gather useful information that included unique perspectives I otherwise would not have been exposed to, data that directly demonstrated the effect of change on their organization, and lessons learned from the organization regarding how they could have implemented their organization changes more effectively.  In my experience benchmarking has proved to be of great value to my organization.  The amount of information that can be gained in a short period from analyzing a similar business is unique and should be taken advantage of by any manager who has the opportunity to do so.

3. “General environment refers to the factors and conditions, such as economic, legal, political, and social circumstances that affect everyone in an industry or market in more or less similar manner. Specific environment is the part of the environment that is directly relevant to the achievement of an organization’s goals.” (Alcaide, 2013) The company I work for consider ourselves to be a team-oriented because we focus on cooperation and collaboration among our employees. For example, we facilitate a team-oriented culture by cross-training our employees so that they are capable of helping one another when needed. As a team-oriented organization, we have a more positive relationship with our employees and coworkers. We understand each other and know what each other’s job entail so that we can fall into place easily in the event of absenteeism or we have a big job on hand.

4. There are the specific environment and the general environment that can effect an organization. An organization's specific environment consists of people, groups, and any company that organization deals with. The general environment refers to political, economic, sociocultural, technological, environmental, and legal factors (PESTEL factors). It is important for a manager to know the environment around a company and make a plan according to it's environment. An environment that is stable will be slow to change. When an environment changes quickly there are many risk factors. Complexity of environment and rate of change make up the two parts of environmental uncertainty. Environmental risk is created when the person who is making the decisions have all of the information and know all of the possible outcomes but they are unsure of the outcome they will have. An uncertain environment is when the person making the decision does not have all of the information and the quality of their information is limited this will lead to and uncertain outcome. I work for a hospital and we have many things that change from day to day which can make risk factors. When never know what we will have to deal with on a daily basis. It can be the patients who come in, technology, or insurances. We are always working to keep up with the newest technology to best serve our patients. In some areas we may be behind. We have many updates to our computer systems and those can have glitches. We have just started doing video visit with some patients and this has been a challenge. There are certain factors that need to be in place for the video visit to work. We are still learning. The insurances have many changes and sometimes it feels like a daily change. It can be hard to keep up with all of the new policies to be able to help our patients.   

5. I would like to compare the United States with Thailand. If I were a manager doing business internationally, I can see that from the chart that we (the United States) are more likely to do things on our own. The United States is a highly individualistic culture while Thailand is more collective one. Based on this knowledge I would push team work with both sides so that everyone feels like they are involved with some part of the team and that the mission is accomplished together. This is close to the way I trained with a Spartan athletic team before and during a joint training operation. Based on the chart I also see that the United States is more of a masculine culture while Thailand is considered a more feminine one. With this knowledge, I would use the same policies that I use in the Spartan athletic team already, and that is to treat everyone as equals regardless of race, religion or culture. While Thailand maybe a little more feminine, the United States has great women in charge so to me as a manager, this would not be an obstacle.

6. I found it interesting that the United States is very different from other countries in many ways based on Hofstede's dimensions of culture it's easy to see how countries such as the US and the republic of India are so different. Hofstede’s five dimensions of national culture values are characterized by power distance, individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-femininity, and long –term/short term orientation (Uhl-Bien, Schermerhorn, Osborn, 2014). Hostage dimensions of culture engages us to understand that in an organization there must be a clear difference between the different cultures that could cause negative effects amongst high level management and executives , and that's a very important aspect that we should look at It also shows that in our society most of us are driven by competition, achievement and the end goal of success. (Hofstede Insights, 2019).

The country I would do a comparison with is India. In India there are many different tribes and even more different cultures that all have their own way of life and their own belief systems. It's much different in our nation we have a more relaxed perspective on how to better practice more so that on principle. Whereas India’s subcultures hold traditional methods. Those traditional methods have been methods that have never been changed for years very interesting. As a global manager understanding and having knowledge of the differences is a very important aspect in being able to manage the different cultures in your organizations the number one factor is communication in making it affective communication. I watch the video and it provided some very interesting information I was very glad that I watched it is there anyone else in the class that watched and can give me some interesting feedback.