A520.9.5.RB_TingJunLee

Are you comfortable developing sources of personal influence to gain power?

According to Whetton and Cameron, personal power or influence comes from four sources – expertise, personal attraction, effort and legitimacy. In my current field of work as an engineer, there are two clear and distinct groups of people in my workplace that commands power and influence. One group is the managers who are able to exert power because of their position. But the other group comprises of all the technical experts who are able to contribute effectively to the daily work that we do, as well as provide advice for colleagues who do not have much experience. Hence, it is important for me as an employee to develop technical expertise in my field, as well as my positional power, to fully gain power in my company.

Do you embody the characteristics of likeable people depicted in Table 5.4 (p. 290)?

I would like to believe that I have the characteristics of a likeable person as shown in the table. However, I accept the fact that not everyone will like me and similar, I will not like everybody that I know. Despite the differences, it is important to remain professional in the workplace and put personal difference aside to get the job done.

Are you able to use influence both up and down your organization considering the information in Table 5.5 (p. 293).

Unfortunately, I am unable to comment on influencing employees below me because currently, I am at the bottom of my organization. I had the opportunity to mentor several interns and have successfully gotten them to follow my instructions during their time with my company.

With regard to my boss, yes I have been able to influence him to help me with my work whenever I feel I need a high power to step in. At the moment, I have a good working relationship with my boss that goes beyond the workplace. It also helps that he is approachable and helpful.

A520.7.3.RB_TingJunLee

Write a blog entry on the significance, importance, and/or impact of having a coach and/or a mentor to help you in your professional journey.

Thus far in my career, I have had the opportunity to be both a mentee and a mentor considering that I am only 3 years into my job since graduation. When I first started out in my current company, I was assigned a mentor who was also my supervisor. This mentorship program was primarily in place to help new hires like myself settle in and familiarize myself with the company. I was also taught the intricacies of the job and how the work gets done. Because my mentor was also my work supervisor, we had a lot of daily interaction and I could approach my mentor for any problems I had.

For a fresh graduate just starting out in the work force, it is very important to have the right mentor to guide me. Obviously, I did not have a choice in choosing my mentor when I first joined. However, now that I am more experienced, I think back of my experience with my mentor (who is no longer my supervisor). Looking back, I realized that there were many things that were not explicitly taught to me. It seemed more like a rite of passage and that I needed to experience the good and bad things myself in order to learn. Picking up the good habits is a plus point, but I was not corrected on the bad habits. When I changed supervisor, I had a rude awakening when the expectations suddenly changed and I was not prepared.

At the moment, I no longer have a mentor though I wish I had one. The company has a mentorship program but it is not popular as most employees do not have time or are not willing to fork out extra time for such programs. Having a mentor in the company is important as it serves as an avenue for employees to channel their thoughts to. They can tap on their mentor’s experience in the same work scope to gather valuable information and insight that can help them with their aspirations both externally and internally from the company. Furthermore, such mentorship programs within the company are free, unlike external coaches which are not and also may not have the relevant industry specific experience for proper guidance.

Now that I am more experience, I was recently assigned an intern to mentor. At the moment, I am using my experience as a mentor to guide my mentee along and hope that he can pick up as many pointers along the way. More importantly, being assigned as a mentor reflects my manager and supervisor’s trust and faith in me that I can do a good job.

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Consider how you generally relate as a team-member.

In my current team, we are given different portfolios and customers to handle individually, with all engineers reporting to a supervisor and a manager. Day to day issues and tasks that require engineering expertise can be solved easily by us. In a way, that is the authority and responsibility that is given to us. We function well as a team, especially when a colleague has to be out of office for long periods of time. Also, there may be instances where a colleague may be overloaded with work. If so, the work is spread among the others so as to keep things moving and accomplish goals on time. Everyone seems willing to help one another.

Do you actively engage your team to accomplish its mission?

I am currently leading a project, which comprises of 2 other engineers more experienced than me. It is challenging because I need to manage both the customer’s expectations as well as my team’s seniority. During meetings, I tend to ask for suggestions and listen to what they have to say, taking on the role on a facilitator rather than a dictator. As they are more experienced, they may have better ideas and suggestions on how to solve problems. Decisions are made collectively and everything is discussed properly before coming to a conclusion. I make sure the approach is uniform and everyone agrees to it before moving forward.

Do you work to improve the team cohesion and collaboration?

With regard to the team I am leading at the moment, there’s no need to improve team cohesion specific to this project team. At a department level, we belong to the same department anyway so team cohesion and collaboration occurs at that level, rather than being task-specific. Although I am not the supervisor or manager of the team, I feel that everyone needs to play a role in supporting the team dynamics. This may be as simple as going out for lunch together, or maybe even hanging out for drinks after work. Social events away from the office allow us to bond further at an unrestrictive environment like the office. Personally, I try my best to hang out with my colleagues whenever I can to help with the team cohesion.

A520.5.3.RB_TingJunLee

Prepare a summary that compares and contrasts the concepts discussed to those discussed in the text.

Precipitous empowerment mandates

In his article, Forrester said that providing too much power by entrusting your employees in a short period of time will not work and may backfire. Time is need by the employees to adjust to their new responsibilities and some times additional training is required. This is similar to what was mentioned in the text. Besides simply empowering individuals, additional resources and training needs to be provided as well. This allows employees to access more information and hence, do their job properly.

Overreliance on a narrow psychological concept

Forrester next talks about the innate nature of humans to feel self-competent and self-efficacy. Executives then convince employees that they have such power but in reality, they do not. This may lead to the employee feeling deluded and in a way, cheated. As stated in the text, this actually has a negative effect. The employee who was supposed to have power but does not have will feel even more powerless than before and helpless.

Distortions of accountability

In the article, Forrester mentioned that there are occasions where employees are given the power and authority to make decisions but do not make them accountable for their decisions. This works both ways. If a good decision was made, the employee does not get credit. If a bad decision was made, they do not suffer the consequences either. This leads to a reversal of power, especially in a bad scenario. This has also been mentioned in the text. For every task that the employee is delegated, he or she needs to be identified with it and must take full responsibility for their actions.

One-size-fits-all empowerment

Forrester states that empowering employees have benefits and are not destructive to the organization. However, it is important to identify the employees who are ready to take up additional responsibility through such empowerment. This concept is also covered in the text but under delegation. When delegating work to an employee, it is necessary to consider the abilities and commitment of the employee. By delegating authority properly, the risk of having to pull back this authority when a mistake is made will be lesser.

Focus on results

In the text, it was mentioned that for an individual to feel empowered, he needs to have a clear vision and goal of what needs to be accomplished. This can only be provided for  by his or her supervisor or the person empowering this employee. Goals need to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic and Time-bound. Similar, Forrester talks about how businesses tend to be good at establishing goals but often these goals do not have much significance. Examples are profits, market share and productivity. However, such end result numbers do not mean anything to employees and are not specific enough. A better way is to set goals and targets for the employees in order to achieve the profits, productivity and market share that the company wants. This can come in the form of number of sales made or achieving a certain number of output per given time frame.

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Create a blog entry discussing each of the motivators identified in this video and discuss their impact on you; additionally identify 3 additional motivators that have a major impact on you.

1) Interesting Work

My work involves the writing of repair instructions for aircraft engine components. The repairs of these components are highly limited as technology takes time to catch up, hence the repair methods are typically the same for the same distress mode. This makes the writing of repairs repetitive and mundane as the steps are largely the same. On top of that, the approval process of these repairs are also the same, as well as working with the same engineers most of the time. Obviously, this gets boring after a while and results in a drop in motivation. I find myself become increasingly deluded with my work as everyday seems to be the same as before.

2) Expand Skills

As a fresh graduate and my current job being my first and only job thus far, I entered the company with a lot of expectations but yet totally clueless about how the job gets done. Over the years I have learnt a lot from when I first started but still not enough to feel comfortable on my own to make decisions, especially technical decisions. The exposure and training that we have is not enough to fulfill the needs to every hired engineer, although there are the occasional training sessions. In addition, the engineers work in relatively specialized areas of the aircraft engine so we become fairly familiar with the type of work in that area but not others. After a while, I have come to realize that my interest in work has stagnated, especially as the learning curve started to taper off. I think by putting myself in a new environment, such as a new team, I will be forced to leave my comfort zone and learn a new skill. This may help to improve my motivation for work again.

3) Recognition

My company recognizes good performance by giving out monetary incentives. I received such awards twice and must admit that I felt proud to receive them. It definitely boosted my morale and for a while after, I strived to produce better work. My manager also praises good performance publicly for the rest of the department to know and that makes me feel good. On the other hand, when others receive praise I find myself wanting to know what they did right so I can learn.

Additional Motivators

In my opinion, having a good supervisor/manager/mentor is important in motivating me to work. When I see my bosses work hard, I feel the urge to work hard as well. A good manager to me is one that understands his or her employees and is willing to get his hands dirty with their subordinates. Such a boss will get my respect for sure.

Work-life balance also plays a part in my motivation to work. I am someone with a rather short attention span so I cannot stay in the office the whole time. I feel the need to get out and live a little. Thankfully my current company has an excellent work-life balance which allows me to have my own personal time to do the things I want to do. 

Finally, after all the above has been covered, monetary remunerations come in to the picture. I will definitely not be motivated to work at my current level for anything less than what I receive when I first joined. It is difficult to determine the right level of pay and annual increments so market comparison needs to be done. Naturally, the more money the better it is and may lead to more motivation, but it definitely does not beat the rest of the items covered above. 

A520.3.5.RB_TingJunLee

How you can integrate supportive communication in your present position, utilize the guidelines detailed on page 265 and describe the expected outcomes that may result from your efforts.

My job role is very interesting in terms of communication. The company is split in two, one half in Singapore and the other half in East Hartford, Connecticut. We rely heavily on our counterparts in the U.S. and hence email is our main mode of communication. Several times a week, we also have teleconferences. But such communication does not allow us to see each other and it is some times awkward to ask another person to do you a favor not knowing how he or she looks like.

Sometimes, the “tone” of the email received may seem “harsh” and I may begin to take the email as a personal attack on my character. However, through this course and the guidelines detailed on Page 265 of the textbook, I have realized that it is important to bring the situation back to being problem-oriented, rather than person-oriented. With the colleagues locally, it may seem easier to communicate with them since they are physically around. With certain individuals, it may challenging to communicate with them as they see themselves being technically better than you and will not accept your ideas or proposals. I think it is important to listen to what they have to say first, and then agree to disagree. Approaches to solving conflict can be used, such as allowing them to “win this battle” and maybe the next time he or she will let you “win”.

In addition, as we lack the personal touch with our colleagues in the U.S., it is very difficult to convey messages of appreciation and thanks. It is not as easy as walking up to the person and saying thanks. However, more can be done to express thanks and appreciation through the phone or email. That way, even though we have not met each other, we can build a better relationship and communication style over email and understand the working style of the individuals better.

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What are a few words that describe your decision-making style?

Cautious

Intuitive

Logical

Self motivating

What are the opposites of the words you chose?

Risk taking

Reasoned

Irrational

Being instructed on what to do

Could you see any benefits to making decision using an approach that is based on either the opposites or somewhere in-between and what outcomes would you expect to see?

One approach that I'll like is to take on more risks. Of course, the risks has to be calculated and substantiated although it maybe fun and challenging to jump in first without fully knowing the consequences. At the moment, I see myself as cautious and tend to be pessimistic on the outcomes of projects.

Another approach I'll like to see is to be more reasoned. This was actually a feedback I received from my supervisor during a performance review. In order to be reasoned, it is important to make decisions with data and information at hand. Some times I tend to make conclusions without fully researching into the problem thus leading to more problems at the end.