- Description
MGT/312T
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR FOR MANAGERS
The Latest Version A+ Study Guide
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MGT 312T Wk 1 – Practice Week 1 Knowledge Check
A problem is a gap between an actual and a desired situation.
True or False
_______ occurs when we hold others less accountable for unethical behavior when it’s carried out through third parties.
Multiple Choice
The slippery slope
Indirect blindness
Motivated blindness
Ill-conceived goals
Overvaluing outcomes
What kind of a response is a manager completing when he or she eliminates the situation in which the problem occurs?
Multiple Choice
solving
resolving
Ignoring
dissolving
avoiding
Our tendency to overlook the unethical behavior of another when it’s in our interest to remain ignorant is called “the slippery slope.”
True or False
The four skills most desired by employers are critical thinking, technical expertise, problem solving and financial management.
True or False
Which of the following is Step 1 in the three steps of the applied approach to problem solving?
Multiple Choice
find a systematic process for closing a gap in knowledge
determine whether the issue is a lack of hard versus soft skills
make recommendations and (if appropriate) take action
define the problem
identify potential causes using OB concepts and theories
The commonsense approach is about knowing which OB tools to use and under what circumstances.
True or False
The final step of the 3-Step Approach of the Organizing Framework is
Multiple Choice
build a consensus.
identify the OB concepts.
define the problem.
delegate the problem.
make recommendations.
Results published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities show business leaders generally find new employees to be deficiently prepared for their success in business.
True or False
Unethical behavior erodes trust, and also negatively affects cooperation in organizations.
True or False
MGT 312T Wk 1 – Apply To Tell or Not to Tell
Assume you are a nursing director for a nursing home. You’ve been working at your facility for a few short months when you learn the company that owns the home has been improperly overbilling Medicare for the care and services provided to your residents. You bring this to the attention of the company’s managers, but they do nothing. You then notify the appropriate authorities (becoming a whistle-blower) and, dismayed by the fraud and other problems, you quit.
Why are ethics considered so important when studying organizational behavior?
Multiple Choice
Unethical behavior makes it easy to influence others and conduct business.
Unethical behavior can ensure loyalty, which helps the performance of individuals and teams
You will be confronted with ethical challenges at all levels of organizations and throughout your career
Unethical acts are not illegal and can benefit the company
Some unethical acts are necessary to work around unfair governmental regulations.
The contingency approach suggests that
Multiple Choice
there is one best way to manage
OB theories apply to all situations
a manager needs to learn a set of hard-and-fast rules
the best answer depends on the situation
management practices from the past can be applied in today’s situations
Overcharging Medicare for care and services provided to patients is an example of ______ behavior
Multiple Choice
rational
unbiased
unethical
illegal
organizational
Ethics is primarily concerned with
Multiple Choice
right and wrong
legal and illegal
moral and immoral
religious and nonreligious
public and nonpublic
In an ethical dilemma such as the one presented above
Multiple Choice
there are two choices, neither of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable manner
there are two choices, either of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable manner
there are two choices, one of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable manner
there is only one choice
there are no choices
In the case above, this presents a(n) _____
Multiple Choice
ethical dilemma
desired outcome
systematic approach
goal
Problem
The case above represents an extreme example of unethical and illegal conduct. These are the exception in the business community. Which of the following statements about this behavior is false?
Multiple Choice
Very few unethical acts are also illegal
Most unethical acts are not punished in any way
Even if illegal, few of these acts are prosecuted
You can rely on the legal system to manage or assure ethical conduct at work
soft skills
Problem solving and critical thinking are ______ because they use logic and reasoning to develop and evaluate options
Multiple Choice
technical skills
soft skills
common sense
hard skills
organizational
MGT 312T Wk 2 – Apply Individual Differences
LeasePlan Effectively Manages Diversity
The term, glass ceiling, was used to represent an absolute barrier or solid roadblock that prevented women from advancing to higher-level positions. The ceiling resulted in women finding themselves stuck in lower-level jobs, ones that did not have profit and loss responsibility, and jobs with less visibility, power, and influence. This scenario is changing. This case illustrates the impact motivated leadership and changing company policies can have on gender diversity in the workplace. According to the United States Department of Labor, compared to women comprising 21 percent of the workforce in 1920, women comprised nearly half of the workforce in the United States in 2013, making gender diversity issues more and more important. This activity asks you to identify and apply your knowledge of such aspects of diversity.
Read the case below and answer the questions that follow.
In 2003, the representatives of LeasePlan USA’s top customers were mostly women, as was the majority of the company’s employees. However, men represented a large majority of top managers at the company, reflecting the old-boys network type culture that dominated the fleet industry. New leadership decided to change this and provided career counseling to women, revised reward systems to focus on performance instead of seniority, and replaced some existing managers. Two years ago, only one of seven top executives was a woman. Now, three of the top eight executives are women.
The company’s new chief executive claims that these changes are motivated by strategy rather than political correctness. He says, “LeasePlan doesn’t build anything…Our sustainable competitive advantages are people.” LeasePlan now also implements a development program catered specifically for female employees. The program includes skills assessments, career guidance, communications, brand building, and panel discussions with female executives from other companies.
LeasePlan’s efforts have yielded very positive results in a short period of time. For example, a 2006 survey showed that 35 percent of women agreed that “management supports my efforts to manage my career,” which was improved the following year to 47 percent. A growing percentage of women also feel that their opportunities are growing—increased to 30 percent from 22 percent.
Gerri Patton, Director of Client Activation, says the program helped her become more confident and outspoken. The 23-year LeasePlan veteran encourages her female subordinates to apply. “I wish I would have done that program 10 or 15 years ago,” she says. “There’s no telling where I would be…The sky would’ve been the limit.”
According to Eagly and Carli, and also supported by subsequent data analysis by the textbook authors, women have broken through the glass ceiling. Based on what you have read in the case, which of the following trends in gender diversity appears to be most supported by the outcomes of LeasePlan’s program changes?
Multiple Choice
Educational attainment—women earned the majority of bachelor’s and master’s degrees from 2006 through 2012.
Increases in seats on boards of directors—in Fortune 550 firms up to 16.6 percent in 2013 from only 9.6 percent in 1995.
Leadership positions—in educational institutions in 2010, women represented 18.7 percent of college presidents and 29.9 percent of board members.
Court Appointments—in federal court in 2013, women received 32 percent and 30 percent respectively of appointments to federal courts of appeals and US district court judge positions.
None of these
Which of Thomas’s generic action options for managing diversity is most illustrated in the case?
Multiple Choice
Suppress
Isolate
Deny
Include/exclude
Tolerate
Based on the information in the case, which of the following barriers and challenges to managing diversity that were identified in the text appear to have been present at LeasePlan?
Multiple Choice
An unsupportive or hostile work environment
Poor career planning
A negative diversity climate
Inaccurate stereotypes
Difficulty in balancing career and family issues
Todd McFarlane—Personality and Perception
Perceptions have both positive and negative implications at work. For example, our perceptions of groups of people (e.g., stereotypes) can be very problematic as generalizing the attributes of the group to any given individual, or vice versa, is often inaccurate. On the other hand, positive expectations of others can enhance their performance. And the attributions we make regarding the causes of people’s performance (good or bad) are often consequential for managers, employees, and employers. This exercise asks you to apply your knowledge of perceptions and attributions to the McFarlane Companies video.
This activity is important because as a manager, your perceptions of others and attributions for their behavior profoundly affect both your interactions with others and your decisions about others.
The goal of this exercise is to for you to identify how perceptions, stereotypes, and attributions affect business.
Click the ► button to watch the video. Then, answer the questions that follow.
Which type of stereotype is described in the beginning of the video?
Multiple Choice
- Gender
Age
- Race
- Occupational
- Ethnic
Todd McFarlane and others highlighted Todd’s business skills, his artistic abilities, and his success in various types of media. Which of the dimensions of behavior from Kelley’s Model of Attribution is reflected here?
Multiple Choice
- Distinctiveness
- Consistency
- Stereotype
- Diversity
- Consensus
Clearly Todd McFarlane has achieved a great deal of success both personally and in his company. However, it is also possible that he attributes all of his good fortune to his own efforts while placing the blame for any bad fortune on others. If this is accurate, then this would be an example of
Multiple Choice
- cognitive load.
- category-based knowledge.
- stereotyping.
- self-serving bias.
- fundamental attribution bias.
A banker who has done several deals with Todd McFarlane and the McFarlane Company and knew that the company tends to be fiscally conservative would be less likely to stereotype Todd McFarlane as a risky, artistic type. Which perceiver characteristic best explains this outcome?
Multiple Choice
- Direction of gaze
- Needs and goals
- Experience with target
- Gender and emotional status
White, Male, and Asian: The Diversity Profile of Technology Companies
Is setting diversity goals in hiring fair? This is an important question to explore, especially in industries dominated by a particular race, gender, or ethnic group. This activity is important because it shows how challenging managing diversity can be, especially in industries like technology.
The goal of this exercise is to examine what it means to “manage diversity,” and to explore which programs might actually decrease, rather than increase (or at the very least balance) workplace diversity.
Read the case about the typical diversity profile of technology companies. Then, using the three-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.
Managing diversity is a hot topic among technology companies, some of which have started to display transparency by publishing their diversity profiles.
Google’s diversity report showed its workforce is 70 percent male and 30 percent female. Ethnicity data for its U.S. workforce indicated 61 percent white, 30 percent Asian, 4 percent of two or more races, 3 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black, and 1 percent other. This pattern is similar to those of Apple (30 percent female and 55 percent white, and U.S. ethnicity data showing 15 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic, 7 percent black, 2 percent of two or more races, 1 percent other, and 9 percent undeclared) and Facebook (31 percent female, and U.S. ethnicity data of more than half white, 41 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent black).1
Executives within the technology industry have started to implement a variety of programs and policies to change the demographic profiles of their companies. For example, Intel established a 2015 hiring goal of 40 percent new hires from diverse backgrounds and 22.7 percent of technical employees who are female. Pinterest established a 2016 goal to have 30 percent of new engineering hires in engineering roles be female and 8 percent from underrepresented ethnic minorities.2
Is setting diversity hiring goals fair? While companies that set them note they are not meant to be quotas, some managers may perceive them that way. This would likely create feelings of reverse discrimination, fueling resistance to hiring diverse employees.
What has led to the skewed demographics at technology companies? Some experts believe the root cause goes back to patterns and norms in elementary and high school, where girls are not encouraged to focus on the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math). If this is true, female high-school students are not developing the proficiency that would help them major in STEM subjects in college. Further, a writer for Forbes concluded that an unconscious bias exits “that science and math are typically ‘male’ fields while humanities are primarily ‘female’ fields, and these stereotypes further inhibit girls’ likelihood of cultivating an interest in math and science.”3
A related issue is the “information gap.” High-school students simply do not know which jobs are in high demand. For example, research shows that 24 percent of high-school seniors “have no idea of what career they want to pursue. Of high school seniors who have pinpointed a desired profession, 23 percent said they made their career choice based on something they saw on TV or in a movie.”4 This is a problem because TV shows often depict technology-oriented people as geeky males. Who wants to be a geek?
Others claim the industry has a pipeline problem. In other words, not enough females and minorities are majoring in STEM subjects in college. Statistics conflict on this subject. Some data indicate that females earn fewer than 20 percent of college degrees in computer science, even though they achieve the majority of bachelor’s degrees in the United States.5 In contrast, other studies show that there is not a pipeline issue. According to a Forbes writer Bonnie Marcus, there is “an equal number of high-school girls and boys participating in STEM electives.” Marcus also notes that 50 percent of the introductory computer science students at Stanford and Berkeley are women.6 A USA study further showed that “top universities graduate black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering students at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them.”7 There must be some reason these students are not being hired.
If the above data are accurate, then it is possible that companies have a systemic problem based on hiring managers’ beliefs, stereotypes, or unconscious biases. This occurred at Pinterest, for example, when it tried to increase the number of women and minorities being hired. Although recruiters found qualified applicants “from nontraditional backgrounds, managers often continued to prioritize people from places like Stanford and MIT, which have less broad student bodies. And while Adam Ward, Pinterest’s head of recruiting, and Abby Maldonado, its diversity-programs specialist, had encouraged colleagues to pass along résumés form a range of candidates, most of the referrals were still white or Asian,” according to FastCompany.8 Pinterest founder Evan Sharp believes technology companies may not be giving diversity the same type of attention it does to product development initiatives.
There may also be more overt causes of the underrepresentation of female and minority tech employees. Consider results from an interview study of 716 women who had held technology positions. These women left the industry after seven years, and 27 percent cited “discomfort working in these companies.” Other top reasons were perceived discrimination in regard to gender, race, or sexual orientation, lack of flexible hours, and unsupportive work environments.9
Could something as subtle as gender-based communication contribute to the problem? The answer is yes according to a recent report presented in Fortune. A study of 1,100 technology résumés from 512 men and 588 women uncovered gender-related differences that may affect a recruiter’s perceptions. For example, “women’s résumés are longer, but shorter on details. … Yet when it comes to providing details about previous jobs, the men present far more specific content than the women do,” according to the Fortune report. Women were also found to “lead with their credentials and include more personal background. On average, the women’s résumés cite seven personal distinctions apiece, while the men’s cite four.” Overall, women tend to use more narrative while men are more precise about their experiences.10
Assume you are a senior leader at a technology company. What does the information in this case tell you about managing diversity?
What is the main problem here for technology companies?
Multiple Choice
- Hostile work environments
- Ambiguous performance evaluations
- Skewed employee demographics
Lack of ethics
- Poor growth
Which of the following is NOT a cause of workforce composition issues at technology companies?
Multiple Choice
- Unconscious biases
- Gender-based communication
- Difference in abilities between males and females
- The “information gap” for high school students
- Patterns and norms when it comes to studying STEM subjects prior to college
What can be a strong reason that top universities graduate black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering students at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them?
Multiple Choice
- Inadequate credentials
- Lack of ability
- Lack of skills
- Not enough applicants
- Hiring manager bias
If technology companies attempt to implement an affirmative-action type of diversity program, in order to solve the problem, which of the following would probably NOT result?
Multiple Choice
Management may feel as if reverse-discrimination is occurring.
- Applicants who benefit from the program may feel negatively stigmatized as unqualified or incompetent.
- New opportunities would open for applicants that otherwise would not have been considered.
- Management would be able to effectively manage diversity.
- The program would not be supported by people who hold racist or sexist attitudes.
MGT 312T Wk 2 – Practice Week 2 Knowledge Check
Perception is influenced by three key components: the characteristics of the perceiver, of the target, and of the situation.
True or False
The potential to learn and use spoken and written languages is known as linguistic intelligence.
True or False
Planting the same crop year after year:
increases damage by insects and disease.
It is always a mistake to use stereotypes.
True or False
The internal dimensions of diversity
Multiple Choice
include personality.
include race and gender.
are viewed as changeable.
include external differences.
are not apparent to others.
Intelligence cannot be modified or altered.
True or False
Prejudice is one of the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs.
True or False
A person who ___________ is relatively unconstrained by situational forces and effects environmental change.
Multiple Choice
is emotionally intelligent
has an internal locus of control
has a proactive personality
is an introvert
is emotionally stable
Which of the following is not one of the basic dimensions of the Big Five personality dimensions?
Multiple Choice
openness to experience
agreeableness
extraversion
conscientiousness
locus of control
In the self-serving bias, employees attribute their success to internal factors and their failures to external factors.
Managers can have great impact on fixed individual differences.
Group startsTrue or False
“Individual differences” is a narrow category only used to describe the “Big Five” personality attributes.
Perception is the process of becoming consciously aware of something or someone.
Group startsTrue or False
MGT 312T Wk 3 – Practice: Week 3 Knowledge Check
Equity theory is a model of motivation that explains how people strive for fairness.
In Maslow’s need hierarchy, the most basic need (and the one that must be met first) is physiological.
Step 1 of the performance management process is monitoring and evaluating performance.
Motivation explains why we do the things we do.
Intensity pertains to the amount of effort being invested in an activity.
______ justice is the perceived fairness of how resources and rewards are distributed or allocated.
An instrumentality represents an individual’s belief that a particular outcome is contingent on accomplishing a specific level of performance.
______ is the process of strengthening a behavior by contingently withdrawing something displeasing.
______ is the positive or negative value people place on outcomes
_____ is the extent to which a job enables an individual to experience freedom, independence, and discretion.
Multiple Choice
Autonomy
Task variety
Experienced responsibility
Task identity
Task management
Perception is influenced by three key components: the characteristics of the perceiver, of the target, and of the situation.
Managers can have great impact on fixed individual differences.
___________ occurs when an individual is “turned on to one’s work because of the positive internal feelings that are generated by doing well.”
Multiple Choice
Organizational citizenship behavior
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
Job satisfaction
Job dissatisfaction
Feedback has only one primary purpose for those who receive it: motivation.
True or False
Prejudice is one of the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs.
In the self-serving bias, employees attribute their success to internal factors and their failures to external factors
Diversity refers to age, gender, and religion, but does not include personality.
The last step in effective performance management is
Multiple Choice
providing consequences.
monitoring performance.
reviewing performance.
defining performance.
evaluating performance.
Intrinsic rewards are psychic and self-granted.
True or False
Performance management is a set of processes and managerial behaviors that involve defining, monitoring, measuring, evaluating, and providing consequences for performance expectations.
Foundations of Motivation—Hot Topic
This video case provides valuable insights into Hot Topic, a music and clothing retailer. The company has made Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and interviews with the CEO and other employees explain why. Hot Topic has a unique organizational culture with an accompanying and similarly unique performance management and motivation program. Opting for an open, no-walls corporate office, CEO Betsy McLaughlin hopes to foster communication, motivation, and increased performance by removing many of the barriers to cooperation and creativity found in many corporations today. This case will allow you to see how Hot Topic employees are motivated and some of the incentives the company uses in their performance management system.
Click play to start the video and answer the questions that appear below. NOTE—You must answer every question. After all questions are answered, you can review and change your answers before submitting.
Hot Topic CEO Betsy McLaughlin, describes a clear and consistent message communicated to and possessed by employees—passion! She then says that the company translates this passion into positive customer experiences, the overarching goal of the company. Based on the fact that a “passion for the concept” is so important to the culture of Hot Topic, which of the following statements is most likely an accurate statement?
Multiple Choice
Pay for performance would be a good way to motivate the employees of Hot Topic.
Behavioral goals, as opposed to specific objective goals, would be commonly used in the performance management system at Hot Topic.
Performance management is likely not a high priority for Hot Topic.
Financial performance measures are the most likely method of evaluating employee performance.
Performance evaluations at Hot Topic likely are biased by leniency.
Which of the following best describes the motivation generated by the Concert Reimbursement program?
Multiple Choice
Meaningfulness
Extrinsic
Intrinsic
Psychic
Inspirational
Which aspect of intrinsic motivation is illustrated by Betsy McLaughlin in the video?
Multiple Choice
Choice
Inspiration
Achievement
Meaningfulness
Non-financial
Based on the description of Torrid, which of the following statements would most likely be accurate concerning the employees working with the customers in this store?
Multiple Choice
They are motivated primarily by financial extrinsic rewards.
The goals they set are primarily task oriented in nature.
They derive great motivation from nonfinancial extrinsic rewards.
Managers would only rarely need to use reinforcement or punishment with them.
They are intrinsically motivated through meaningfulness of their jobs.
______ refers to how long we focus on an activity.
Multiple Choice
Volume
Intensity
Integration
Persistence
Direction
MGT 312T Wk 3 – Apply: Employee Performance and Operations
Monitoring Performance Through Goal Measurement
Performance management doesn’t stop once effective goals are set for employees. Monitoring performance is an important next step to monitoring progress toward achievement of those goals—and accurate measurement of progress is critical. This activity is important because managers can use information gathered during performance monitoring to identify problems with and find opportunities to enhance employee performance.
The goal of this activity is for you to develop your knowledge of monitoring performance by matching measures of goal progress with their descriptions.
Read the descriptions of measures of goal progress. Match each type of measure to the appropriate description.
- Timeliness
- Quantity
- Financial metrics
- Quality
Garbage… Not Just the Work but the Outcomes Too
In an effort to cut costs, Albuquerque city officials decided to stop paying their garbage collectors for working overtime. This decision had a noticeable impact on the quality of their performance. This exercise is important because managers must consider how decisions about the financial health of a company can impact the quality of performance among its employees.
The goal of this exercise is to draw the connection between consequences and performance outcomes.
Read the case about trash collection crews in Albuquerque getting paid for only eight hours of work, then using the 3-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.
City officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, needed to cut costs. Among the targets they identified was overtime pay of trash collectors. The officials decided to pay trash collection crews for eight hours of work no matter how long it actually took them to finish their routes. The hope was that the crews would work more efficiently and quickly, given that they could then go home early and still get paid for eight hours of work.
This PM practice seemed like a success, and overtime costs dropped significantly. However, unintended consequences emerged. Crews overloaded their trucks to reduce the time they spent going to the dump, but strict weight limits resulted in fines when they arrived. So they drove faster, which resulted in more tickets and accidents. Sometimes they skipped trash pickups and truck maintenance, which generated customer complaints and more frequent vehicle breakdowns.1
Apply the 3-Step Problem Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem city officials wanted to fix.
Step 2: Identify the potential causes of this problem. (Consider also the common reasons rewards fail to motivate.)
Step 3: Make your recommendations.
Footnote
- Pfeffer, “Wean Us from Incentive Myths,” The Washington Post, March 22, 2009:
What is the key problem in this mini-case?
Multiple Choice
- Employee productivity
- Increase in accidents involving trash collecting trucks
- Low quality performance by trash collectors
- Customer complaints about trash collectors
- The need to increase overtime pay from its current levels
If city officials considered the elimination of overtime as a reward—meaning trash collectors could go home early if they finished their work, yet still get paid for eight hours—then, why did it fail to motivate the desired behaviors?
Multiple Choice
- The reward had a short-lived motivational impact
- The practices focused only on monetary rewards
- There was a long delay between the performance and when the reward was provided
- The trash collectors seemed entitled
- The reward seemed to be one-size-fits-all
What is one way city officials could have had more success in achieving their cost-cutting goals?
Multiple Choice
- Quickly terminating trash collectors who were exhibiting counterproductive behavior
- Allowing for overtime pay to continue
- Reducing the number of pickups for drivers
- Including the trash collectors in the process of designing the cost-saving program
- • Upgrading trash trucks
Why Are Some Companies Yanking Forced-Ranking?
Forced ranking is a popular performance management tool for many well-known companies such as Ford Motor Company, 3M, and Intel. For decades, forced-ranking appraisal practices have helped organizations and their managers differentiate among high- to low-performing employees. This exercise is important because it shows how organizations decide to recognize and reward top performers and determine grounds for terminating low performers.
The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of forced-ranking systems.
Read the case about the Adobe’s performance-management practices. Then using the 3-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.
Money is an important tool for both attracting and motivating talent. If you owned a company or were its CEO, you would likely agree and choose performance management practices to deliver such outcomes. You would probably also favor rewarding high performers and having an effective means for removing low performers. For decades, forced-ranking appraisal practices have helped organizations and their managers differentiate employee performance and achieve both objectives—rewarding top performers and providing grounds for terminating the low performers.
Broad Appeal
These qualities made forced ranking (also known as forced distribution or “rank and yank”) a popular performance management tool for many marquee companies, such as Ford Motor Company, 3M, and Intel. GE, for instance, made the approach famous using its “vitality curve” to rate employees into three categories—top 20 percent, middle 70 percent, and bottom 10 percent. The top often received raises two to three times greater than the next group, while the bottom group was often put on probation or fired.1 Microsoft also used forced distribution to ensure it was always raising the bar on talent and performance. It replaced its lowest-performing employees with the best in the market and ensured there was always more exciting work than it had people to do it.2
One argument in support of forced ranking is increased accountability. It requires managers to do the difficult work of differentiating performance. While nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, not confronting performance issues is an underlying cause of score inflation (grade inflation in school) and mediocrity. The implication is that not everybody can be a top performer, and it is management’s job to know and acknowledge the differences. Forced ranking also can be used to remove “dead wood.” Employees who aren’t as driven, capable, or competitive are driven out and replaced with those who are.3
Another central supportive argument is that resources are constrained, notably people and money. Culling the workforce based on performance is a way to be sure your best employees are able to work on the company’s most important and valuable projects, products, and services. And it allows companies not only to allocate more to their best employees, but also to create clear and often substantial differences between different levels of performance and associated rewards.
This All Makes Sense, But Why Are Many Company’s Yanking the Practice?
Performance management practices have compounded the challenges faced by Yahoo and Amazon. According to a spokesperson at Yahoo, the company’s program—quarterly performance review (QPR) recommended by McKinsey Consulting—is intended to “allow for high performers to engage in increasingly larger opportunities at our company, as well as for low performers to be transitioned out.”4 However, problems arose when managers and employees accused the company of using it to fire employees “for performance” instead of laying them off. The scale of this issue is substantial, given that nearly one-third of the company’s workforce left or was terminated in 2015-2016, though the law requires at least 30 days’ notice for mass layoffs.5 Similar practices also were linked to discriminatory dismissals at Ford, Goodyear, and Capital One and caused them to change their practices.6
Amazon has embraced forced ranking to foster internal competition and drive employees to always improve. Its organizational-level review (OLR) process requires managers to select which employees to support and which to “sacrifice” (not all employees can pass). Even after an incredibly rigorous hiring process intended to select the best of the best, employees are distributed into high, average, and low performers—20, 60, and 20 percent, respectively. This means 80 percent of the company’s employees have stopped being stars by the time of their first performance review. The process is challenging for managers too, who must continually select talented subordinates to fire at every performance review.7
Rank and Yank at Adobe
Another company that championed forced ranking was Adobe. It had a rigorous, complex, technology-driven process for ranking its employees each year. Performance expectations were set and performance was measured, documented, reviewed, and rewarded. The goals were to help the company improve employee performance and ensure it had the best talent. However, what the company actually achieved was quite different.
Adobe calculated that its process of reviewing its 13,000 employees required approximately 80,000 hours from its 2,000 managers each January and February. This massive time commitment actually reduced employee performance, because this time wasn’t being spent on productive work like developing products or cultivating and serving customers. And while the system was meant to ensure manager accountability, it actually allowed many to avoid confronting low performers until the annual review. This meant low performers were terminated only once a year.
Donna Morris, Adobe’s global senior vice president of people and places, described the PM flaws this way: “Especially troublesome was that the company’s ‘rank and yank’ system, which forced managers to identify and fire their least productive team members, caused so much infighting and resentment that, each year, it was making some of the software maker’s best people flee to competitors.”8 Moreover, the performance management practices did not align with the goals of employee growth and team work, both fundamental to Adobe’s success. It instead focused on past performance and compared employees to each other.
The shortcomings of the process were underscored by internal “employee surveys that revealed employees felt less inspired and motivated afterwards—and turnover increased.”9 This last point compounded problems by causing the wrong employees—the high-performing ones—to quit.
Assume you are Donna Morris, Adobe’s global senior vice president of people and places. How does the information in the case inform your recommendations about PM practices at Adobe?
Based on the case, which of the following is a problem with forced-ranking?
Multiple Choice
- It discriminates among employees based on performance.
- It forces managers to have difficult conversations.
- It allows for low performers to be fired at an increased rate.
- It contributes to a rigorous hiring process.
- It causes infighting and resentment among employees.
Which step in an effective performance management system would forced-ranking be a part of?
Multiple Choice
- Set benchmarks
- Setting goals
- Monitor and evaluate performance
- Provide consequences
- Define performance
Which of the following is NOT an advantage of forced-ranking?
Multiple Choice
- Identifies employees who are not driven, capable or competitive
- Allows the best employees to work on most important projects
- Allows for an objective rating system
- Increased manager accountability
- Saves managers time
What do you recommend Adobe do to improve its performance management practices?
Multiple Choice
- Ensure that the performance management practices focus on employee growth
- Ensure that the performance management practices focus on employees’ past performance
- Encourage managers to have annual reviews for their teams
- Be sure employees know they are constantly compared to one another
- Commit more manpower to reviewing performance reports
Adobe’s performance management practices fall under which area of the organizing framework?
Multiple Choice
- Individual-level outcomes
- Individual-level processes
- Person factors inputs
- Organizational-level outcomes
- Situation factor inputs
iSeeIt! Animated Video: Contingent Consequences
When it comes to motivating employees, managers often times try and bring about a certain target behavior by offering specific consequences to employees. This concept is also known as reinforcement theory, and is widely used in today’s workplace. This theory includes providing employees with certain positive and negative consequences in order to spur desired behavior.
After reviewing the animated video on contingent consequences, please respond to the following questions.
Shawn is required to be in the office Monday through Friday, but would really value the ability to work from home one day a week. Based on Shawn’s above-average performance last year, his boss is allowing him to work from home on Fridays. This is an example of which of the following?
Multiple Choice
- Positive reinforcement
- Equity
- Punishment
- Extinction
- Negative reinforcement
Reducing an employee’s compensation because of poor performance is known as negative reinforcement.
Melissa is an engineer at Acme Consulting. She used to work from 8:30am to 5:30pm, but her boss told her she could come in at 9am because of her great performance last year. However, this year Melissa is constantly arriving late to work. Her supervisor is looking to utilize extinction to remedy this behavior. Which of the following would be an example of extinction in this situation?
Multiple Choice
- Providing Melissa with additional compensation if she arrives to work by 9am
- Firing Melissa
- Having Melissa attend leadership training
- Having Melissa go back to working from 8:30am to 5:30pm
- Reducing Melissa’s compensation
MGT 312T Wk 4 – Practice: Week 4 Knowledge Check
Meetings should be held as scheduled, whether or not there is a goal for a meeting.
True or False
A group that gets together because of a common interest is an informal group.
True or False
Teams composed of specialists from different areas are called virtual teams.
True or False
Assigning a particular person to fill the role of critic is known as angel’s advocacy.
True or False
One of the possible causes of incivility in the workplace is autocratic leadership.
True or False
Harmonizer is a maintenance role in groups.
True or False
Teamwork competencies include constructively interacting with other team members and expecting quality work from others on the team.
True or False
A distributive negotiation usually involves a single issue in which one person gains at the expense of another.
True or False
Trust of character is known as competency trust.
True or False
A group that gets together because of a common interest is an informal group.
True or False
An informal group exists when the members’ overriding purpose of getting together is friendship or common interest.
The 3 Cs of effective teams include charters and strategies, composition, and conscientiousness.
True or False
A distributive negotiation usually involves a single issue in which one person gains at the expense of another.
True or False
Trust of disclosure is _____ trust.
Multiple Choice
communication
competency
contractual
organizational
expertise
A _____ is a set of expected behaviors for members of the group as a whole.
Multiple Choice
group norm
task role
group role
group competency
maintenance role
The two types of roles that are very important to effective group functioning are forming and storming.
True or False
The three primary reactions people have to attempts to manage or influence them are
Multiple Choice
rebellion, sabotage, and resistance.
compliance, commitment, or empowerment.
influence, power sharing, or power distribution.
resistance, compliance, or commitment.
indifference, passivity, or active resistance.
The _____ is the person who records and talks about group dynamics and processes.
Multiple Choice
standard setter
harmonizer
commentator
encourager
gatekeeper
___________ are shared perceptions among members of a team about the intensity of disagreement over either tasks or relationships.
Multiple Choice
Conflict processes
Conflict states
Personality conflicts
Intergroup conflicts
Conflict handling styles
MGT 312T Wk 4 – Apply: Effective Groups and Teams
Linking Influence Tactics with Outcome
Influence tactics are used in order to attempt to affect and change behaviors of others. This activity is important because, as a future manager and OB practitioner, you must have a good understanding of these tactics in order to strengthen your chances of success.
The goal of this activity is for you to link different influence tactics with various outcomes of the influence process.
Read each description. Match the outcomes with the best-fitting descriptions. Pay close attention—some descriptions might fit more than one outcome, but there is only one way they all combine to be correct.
- Building commitment
- Short-lived impacts
- Persuasion
- Accept change
- Long-term impacts
- Commitment
A large measure of interpersonal interaction involves attempts to influence others, including parents, bosses, coworkers, spouses, children, teachers, friends, and customers. Researchers developed a useful body of research that generated nine influence tactics. This activity is important because managers need to understand both how they influence and are influenced by others.
The goal of this activity is for you to demonstrate your knowledge of the nine influence tactics.
Read each description. Match the influence tactics with the corresponding descriptions.
Skip to question
Empowering a Team of Your Peers1
In general, exceptional performers will find themselves promoted to higher positions; these promotions generally mean that individuals will now also be supervising former peers. This activity is important because in the process of embracing a position of power, new managers also need to learn how to empower their former peers.
The goal of this activity is to show how part of being an effective manager is empowering your peers.
Read the case about Jennifer’s promotion to supervisor. Then, using the 3-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.
Jennifer was a highly regarded and top-performing marketing associate at an international pharmaceutical company. Due to her exceptional performance and other skills and abilities, she was promoted to manager. This transition meant she was now the supervisor of her former peers.
Her first assignment was a new product to be launched in a foreign market. To formulate and ultimately execute a successful product launch, Jennifer and her team would need to gather market data, learn and share information about the competition, analyze financial details, coordinate with other product managers, hire and work with an advertising agency, and secure regulatory approval.
Jennifer had personal experience and success doing most of these things, but now she had to do them on a much larger scale and in the context of a team she managed. Being a high performer, she was determined to get all the details right. Therefore, when any element was late, done poorly, or just not up to her expectations, she stepped in and did it herself. Her work life quickly expanded to 15-hour days and weekends.
Jennifer’s involvement in so many aspects of the product launch prevented her from mentoring and developing her team members in the ways they clearly needed. They seemed to lack a sense of accountability, knowing that if their work wasn’t up to speed the boss would step in and complete or correct it. Jennifer noticed this and feared her team was not learning to produce high-quality work on its own. Not only would this hurt the current project, but other departments and teams would come to know it and be less willing to work with them in the future, damaging Jennifer’s own performance and interests and those of her team.
Jennifer was extremely reluctant to go to her boss for help, because she had been told she’d earned her new position, and it was a test for another role with still greater responsibility.
Assuming you are Jennifer, what would you do?
Jennifer is confronted with low team performance; which of the following would you recommend to overcome this problem?
Multiple Choice
- Have a better work-life balance
- Build a coalition
- Consult with her boss about what to do
- Utilize self-promotion
- Implement psychological empowerment
Jennifer’s team members are producing poor work, but instead of addressing the poor work, she is just fixing it herself. What team-level process from the organizing framework needs to be taking place, but is not?
Multiple Choice
- Relationship quality
- Conflict and negotiation
- Performance management
- Team performance
- Stress
Skip to question
Optimizing Team Performance at Google1
Effective teams can make the difference between a business’s success and failure. This exercise is important because in order for managers to build effective teams, they must recognize the strengths and weaknesses of potential team members and develop their teams accordingly.
The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate the positive impact of effective team building.
Read the case about the role of Project Aristotle at Google; then, using the 3-step problem-solving approach, answer the questions that follow.
Google is well on its way to ruling the universe. Whether this is its actual goal or not, the company’s short- and long-term success depend on the performance of its work teams. Realizing this, Google applied its immense human, technological, and financial resources to finding out what makes top-performing teams so effective. Despite its legendary achievements, the company knew that teams vary considerably in terms of their performance, member satisfaction, and level of cohesion and conflict. To understand why, it did what it does best—collect and analyze data. It created Project Aristotle and spent millions of dollars to gather mountains of data from 180 teams across the company. The only thing more surprising than what it found was what it didn’t find.
What Did Google Expect to Find?
Google sliced and diced the team data looking for patterns that would distinguish the most successful from the less successful teams. It expected that some combination of team member characteristics would reveal the optimal team profile. Such a profile or pattern never emerged. Google examined seemingly everything, such as team composition (team member personality, experience, age, gender, and education), how frequently teammates ate lunch together and with whom, their social networks within the company, how often they socialized outside the office, whether they shared hobbies, and team managers’ leadership styles.
It also tested the belief that the best teams were made up of the best individual contributors, or that they paired introverts with introverts and friends with friends. To the researchers’ amazement, these assumptions were simply popular wisdom. In sum, “the ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.” Even more puzzling was that “two teams might have nearly identical makeups, with overlapping memberships, but radically different levels of effectiveness,”2 said Abeer Dubey, a manager in Google’s People Analytics division.
What Did the Company Actually Find?
It turned out it wasn’t so much who was in the group but the way the group functioned or operated that made the performance difference. Group norms—expected behaviors for individuals and the larger team—helped explain why two groups with similar membership function very differently. But this finding was only the beginning. Now Google needed to identify the operative norms.
Members of the Project Aristotle team began looking for team member data referring to factors such as unwritten rules, treatment of fellow team members, ways they communicated in meetings, and ways they expressed value and concern for one another. Dozens of potential norms emerged, but unfortunately the norms of one successful team often conflicted with those of another.
To help explain this finding, the Project Aristotle team reviewed existing research on teams and learned that work teams that showed success on one task often succeed at most. Those that performed poorly on one task typically performed poorly on others. This helped confirm their conclusion that norms were the key. However, they still couldn’t identify the particular norms that boosted performance or explain the seemingly conflicting norms of similarly successful teams.
Then came a breakthrough. After intense analysis, two behaviors emerged. First, all high-functioning teams allowed members to speak in roughly the same proportion. Granted, they did this in many different ways, from taking turns to having a moderator orchestrate discussions, but the end result was the same—everybody got a turn. Second, the members of successful teams seemed to be good at sensing other team members’ emotions, through either their tone of voice, their expressions, or other nonverbal cues.
Having identified these two key norms, the Project Aristotle team was able to conclude that many other team inputs and processes were far less important or didn’t matter at all. Put another way, teams could be very different in a host of ways, but so long as everybody got and took a turn when communicating, and members were sensitive to each other, then each had a chance of being a top-performing team. With this knowledge in hand, now came the hard part. How to instill these norms in work teams at Google?
How could Google instill the appropriate communication practices, as well as build empathy into their teams’ dynamics?
What is the main issue in this Google case?
Multiple Choice
- What Google found about working in teams versus working individually, via Project Aristotle
- Differences in group and team performance
- Lack of minority dissent at Google.
- The composition of Project Aristotle team members
- Inability to identify effective group norms
In order for Google to implement its findings from Project Aristotle, and instill the norms of high-performing teams, it should promote which of the following?
Multiple Choice
- Focus on group survival
- Clarify central values
- Write formal rules
- Avoid embarrassing teammates
- Focus on the composition of teams
Google discovered that all high-functioning teams allowed members to speak in roughly the same proportion. Which maintenance role would be responsible for encouraging group members to participate in discussions?
Multiple Choice
- Energizer
- Information seeker
- Harmonizer
- Follower
- GatekeeperCorrect
Which of the “3 Cs of Effective Teams” did Google find to be the least important?
Multiple Choice
- Capacity
- Communication
- Charters and strategies
- Collaboration
- Composition
MGT 312T Wk 5 – Practice: Week 5 Knowledge Check
The career functions of the mentoring process that enhance career development include
In the encounter phase of organizational socialization,
If there is a lack of information or inaccurate information about the change, management should adopt an education and communication approach to managing resistance to change.
Organizational culture is not statistically related to any measures of organizational effectiveness.
Which of the following is not one of the career functions of mentoring?
In Kotter’s step of creating the guiding coalition, managers
The participation and involvement approach to overcoming resistance to change should be used when
_________ is a stress reduction technique that is expensive because it requires a trained psychologist or counselor.
A(n) _______ culture encourages being adaptable, creative, and fast to respond to changes in the marketplace.
_______ are specific behaviors used to deal with a stressful situation.
What cultural types represent competing values?
A clan culture has an internal focus and values stability and control.
Artifacts include an organization’s acronyms, manner of dress, and myths and stories told about the organization.
There are three types of change: upward, downward, and lateral.
Which type(s) of organizational culture has (have) been shown by research to be most strongly related to subjective innovation?
Organizational climate is defined as the set of shared, taken-for-granted, implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments.
Mission statements represent the reason that an organization exists.
The two dimensions of the competing values framework are
The two general functions of mentoring are internal and external.
According to research, organizational commitment is lower in market cultures than in clan cultures.
Which of the following is not an underlying assumption of Lewin’s model?
Meditation is an approach to stress reduction that involves redirecting thoughts away from self, following a structured procedure.
Secondary appraisals are perceptions of how you are able to deal or cope with a given demand.
Which of the following mechanisms for changing organizational culture addresses all three levels of culture?
External forces for change include demographic changes in the organization’s workforce.
ABC Company states, “We put the smiles on kids’ faces.” This is its
The complete absence of stress is death.
The four phases of mentoring are initiation, cultivation, socialization, and definition.
The socialization tactic that ranges from a newcomer being socialized over time with the help of an experienced member, to the newcomer not being provided with a role model, is
In the change and acquisition phase of organizational socialization, the newcomer’s values, skills, and attitudes start to shift as the new recruit discovers what the organization is truly like.
When implementing cultural change through the use of organizational activities, processes, or outcomes, a leader is operating at the level of espoused values.
One of the important functions of organizational culture is to facilitate collective commitment.
Resistance to change is caused solely by irrational and stubborn recipients of change.
Which of the following is not a characteristic of a change agent that would cause resistance to change?
An example of social and political pressures for change is
A ________ outlines an organization’s long-term direction and the actions necessary to achieve the planned results.
The first step of Kotter’s change model is to establish a sense of urgency.
The levels of organizational culture are
________ change is the most complex, costly, and uncertain of changes.
MGT 312T Wk 5 – Apply: Best Buy Case Study
This problem-solving application profiles electronics retailer Best Buy. The entrance of Amazon and Walmart into the online resale marketplace gashed Best Buy’s instore sales. When you couple that with inefficient processes and procedures at the organization, and scandals with senior leadership, the organization really was in dire straits. Organizations such as Circuit City, CompUSA and RadioShack could not survive their problems, could Best Buy? In came new CEO Hubert Joly and CFO Sharon McCollam. They are now in the middle of the many challenges Best Buy is facing and need to find solutions to these major problems.
Some of Best Buy’s internal issues could best be addressed by ______
Multiple Choice
changing customer preferences
internal competition
demographic changes
participation/suggestions by employees
mergers and acquisitions
If Best Buy chose to compete by introducing online sales direct to the consumer, this would be an example of ______ change
Multiple Choice
innovating
adaptive
radically innovative
Product
Process
Which type of analytical framework could help Best Buy develop a strategic plan?
Multiple Choice
competing values analysis
SWOT analysis
systems analysis
force field analysis
organizational development analysis
Best Buy might use all of the methods of change listed below. Which of these includes inputs, strategic plans, target elements of change, and outputs?
Multiple Choice
organizational structure plan
social factors method
organizational arrangement
three-stage model of planned change
systems model of change
When other tactics will not work or are too expensive, the best approach to overcoming resistance to change is
Multiple Choice
facilitation and support
manipulation and co-optation
explicit and implicit coercion
participation and involvement
education and commitment
- The majority of problems Best Buy is facing have been brought about by ______ forces.
external
The change brought about by online competition from Amazon and Walmart are examples of _____
Best Buy’s new CEO and CFO will need to function as catalysts in helping the organization to deal with old problems in new ways. They would then be known as
Recommend a solution to the problem outlined above in no more than 175- words