responses behavioral

discussion topic 1

Jennifer

8/27/2014 7:53:47 PM

According to Robbins and Judge (2013) managers spend most of their time engaged in the POLC functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. I have been part of these functions in the following ways.

I planned a cold calling push for the state of Pennsylvania that is part of the region I cover in my current position as a marketing representative with our business development team. Robbins and Judge (2013) state a process of defining goals, establishing strategies, and developing plans to coordinate activities is planning. We set a goal of replacing contracts that we were terminating twenty contracts in the targeted market. I organized support with updating the data sheets and making mailing list with our administrative assistant. I asked for feedback from our operation team in leads of facilities that they believe would be good targets for new business. I led the development team by delegating tasks to contact opportunities in our market by mail, email and phone calls. I kept all the information organized and share it with the whole development team. I let everyone on the team know the progress on each attempt any information that was gathered in the process. My manager kept control of both the individual actions and team efforts by compiling reports together to give to upper management.

I think the control element was the most important part of this process by keeping everyone accountable for their part in the process. I believe everyone having to report their progress and respond back on the results of the contacts made on leads held everyone to a higher standard. I did not like the panic and random way some of the upper management went about trying to get everyone on the same page. The Regional VP of Operations waited to the last minute to get involved in the process and went into a panic sending multiple people the same information to follow up on. She waited until a month before the accounts were terminating before becoming involved. It was frustrating and I was able to show her we were in front of the problem. Everyone on our team was motivated to succeed.

Reference

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2013). Organizational behavior (15th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

unit 1

Nicole

8/30/2014 7:26:05 AM

Working in the warehouse I am always using the POLC model. It is extremely important to effectively get things done to use this model. When neither managers are working it is up to me to take over as supervisor to efficiently and effectively get the day to day projects done and take care of customers. It says in chapter one of the Organizational Behavior book that “Planning function encompasses defining an organization’s goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals, and developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities (Robbins, 2013).” At the warehouse I establish a plan by sitting down with my coworkers, brainstorm, and write up a list of assignments that need to get done that day. I used organizing in the warehouse by getting together the co workers who would be working on the assignments and organized each one to each coworker. I used leading at the warehouse by directing my coworkers to each assignment and monitored each coworker’s performance. I use controlling in the warehouse to make sure the assignments are being accomplished as planned. I think everything went pretty well with this. There was good communication between myself as acting supervisor and the coworkers who were assigned their assignments for the day. What could have been done better would probably be the planning because it’s hard to account for unexpected customer issues.

I think the function that manager’s use most often is controlling. Out of experience, managers are so quick to make sure things are being accomplished before coming up with a plan or organizing anything.

Works Cited

Robbins, S. (2013). What is Organizational Behavior. In T. Judge, Organizational Behavior.