4.2 Assignment: Motivation, Satisfaction, and Performance

Getting Started

In this assignment, you will develop a template discussing Daniel Pink’s theories of motivations about what motivates, satisfies, and increases the performance of followers. Many of the organizations appearing in Fortune magazine’s “The 100 Best Companies to Work For” also do well when compared to the S&P 500 Index. The best leaders may be those who can motivate workers to perform at a higher level while maintaining an equally high level of employee engagement and job satisfaction (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2019, p. 340).

Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

• Create an ethical strategy and standard for communication during change.
• Identify team dysfunctions and develop appropriate interventions to drive enhanced organizational performance.
• Differentiate appropriate interventions for organizational challenges.

Resources

• Textbook: Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience
• Article: Five Questions About Motivation with Daniel Pink
• Video: Daniel Pink – Motivation
• File: Pink Analysis Template

Background Information

Many companies state something to the effect of, “Our people are our most important resource.” Yet disengaged employees are costly to an organization in terms of both productivity and morale. Productivity loss due to disengaged employees is estimated to be 34% of each disengaged employee’s annual salary.  

According to Gallup, disengaged employees have 37% higher absenteeism, 18% lower productivity, and 15% lower profitability. When that translates into dollars, that is $3,400 for every $10,000 they make. Motivational theorists over the years have developed numerous theories that fit into five major motivational approaches, each hoping to provide managers with the basis for strategies to improve employee motivation. By understanding where employees place on the motivational continuum, managers and leaders can develop change and communication strategies to address individual motivational needs for each of their employees

For more insight into addressing disengaged employees, read “How Much are Your Disengaged Employees Costing You?“

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.
2. Read Chapter 9 of our textbook, including all Profiles and Highlights for added perspective on the chapter’s content.
3. Read the article “Five Question about Motivation With Daniel Pink“.
4. Watch the video Daniel Pink – Motivation for an additional perspective on Daniel Pink’s theories of motivation.
5. Complete the Pink Analysis Template. Analyze either your current job or the job of one of your direct reports for each of Pink’s three categories (Autonomy, Mastery, and Meaning). 
6. For each of Pink’s three categories, list the current state of the job.
7. Then describe what the job would look like in the desired state. 
8. For each fundamental need, list two action steps that can be taken to close the gap between the current state and the desired state.
9. Your template should be 400–500 words in length. Use proper spelling, grammar, and APA style for any sources cited. For questions on APA style, go to OCLS APA Writing Styles Guides.
10. When you have completed your assignment, save a copy for yourself and submit a copy to your instructor by the end of the workshop.

5 questions about motivation with Daniel Pink

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4.3 Assignment: Groups and Teams

Getting Started

In this assignment, you will explore the leader’s role and responsibilities in developing effective group work and teamwork. You will learn about the nature of groups, group roles and norms, and how to achieve group cohesion. You will also become familiar with the theories underlying effective teamwork in organizations, including the ever-increasing use of virtual teams in a diverse and geographically dispersed organizational environment.

This assignment uses a minicase, “Integrating Teams at Hernandez and Associates,” to apply what you have learned in a real-world situation.

Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

• Identify team dysfunctions and develop appropriate interventions to drive enhanced organizational performance. 

Resources

• Textbook: Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience

Background Information

In the introductory comments to Chapter 11, “Groups, Teams, and Their Leadership,” the authors of the Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience text write:

Certainly, leaders need to understand some things about themselves. Their skills, abilities, values, motives, and desires are important considerations in determining their leadership style and preferences. Leaders also need to understand, as much as possible, the same characteristics of their followers. But if you could know characteristics of both yourself and each of your followers, that would still not be enough. This is because groups and teams are different than solely the skills, abilities, values, and motives of those who compose them. Groups and teams have their own special characteristics. (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2019, p. 424)

This assignment incorporates what you learn in Chapter 11 of the Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy’s (2019) text and applies those lessons to a case study.

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.
2. Read Chapter 11 of our textbook, including all Profiles and Highlights for added perspective on the chapter’s content.
3. Read the minicase at the end of Chapter 11, “Integrating Teams at Hernandez and Associates.”
4. Write a paper in response to the two questions listed below, with a minimum of six citations from the assigned reading (not the case) in Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy (2019). (Note: It is not necessary to do any outside research beyond the information in the minicase and the assigned reading.)
5. Make certain that you utilize the Team Leadership Model (TLM) to respond to Question (a)(i) below.   
6. Provide a detailed explanation for your evaluation that demonstrates clear, insightful critical thinking.
   1. Like many leaders, Marco has a team in place and does not have the luxury of building a new team to adapt to the changing business environment his firm now faces. Use the TLM to help Marco diagnose the problems faced by the firm and identify leverage points for change.
      1. Consider the major functions of the TLM—input, process, and output. Where do most of the firm’s challenges fall?
      2. What are the team’s goals for outputs?
   2. Identify potential resources and tools from the content in Chapter 11 of Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience that Marco and his team could use in assessing term performance and developing a strategy to change the way they conduct business at Hernandez & Associates.
7. Your paper should be 500–600 words in length. Use proper spelling, grammar, and APA style in your paper and for any sources cited. For questions on APA style, go to OCLS APA Writing Styles Guides.
8. When you have completed your assignment, save a copy for yourself and submit a copy to your instructor by the end of the workshop.

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4.4 Discussion: Groups and Teams Rocket Model

Getting Started

In this discussion, you will learn the tools to both develop a high-performance team and diagnose team dysfunction. You will learn about each stage of Curphy’s Rocket Model, a simplified model of team effectiveness that is both prescriptive and diagnostic. You will learn about each of the eight components of the Rocket Model and their connection to each of the other Rocket Model elements.

This will be a two-part discussion over two weeks in which you will describe a dysfunctional team situation and analyze which Rocket Model component did not function properly. Your response posts, which will follow in the workshop for next week, will be a review and analysis of dysfunctional team situations described by your classmates.

Upon successful completion of this discussion, you will be able to:

• Integrate the concepts of Curphy’s Rocket Model in the development of high-performance teams.

Resources

• Textbook: Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience

Background Information

In describing the Rocket Model in Chapter 12, “Skills for Developing Others,” the authors of the Leadership: Enhancing the Lessons of Experience text write, “Building a team can be analogous to building a rocket. Just as rockets operate in different environments…so must teams clearly define the context in which they operate” (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2019, p. 482). Curphy’s Rocket Model identifies in sequential order the components of team building which are necessary to insure a high performing team.

This discussion incorporates what you learn in Chapter 12 of Hughes, Ginnett, and Curphy’s text and applies those lessons to a discussion forum post on dysfunctional teams.

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.
2. Read Chapter 12 of our textbook, specifically focusing on the Rocket Model in the section titled “Building High-Performance Teams: The Rocket Model,” including Figures 12.2, 12.3, and 12.4.
3. Navigate to the discussion below and discuss the following:
   1. Describe a current or past personal or professional team situation that is or was dysfunctional.
   2. After reviewing the model and reading the description of the eight components of the Rocket Model, identify the Rocket Model component which most likely contributed to the dysfunction. Provide a detailed explanation for your choice that demonstrates clear, insightful critical thinking. 
   3. Identify actions that can be or could have been taken to increase the probability of team success. Provide a detailed explanation for your post which demonstrates clear, insightful critical thinking.
4. Your response to each question above should be one paragraph in length and cite one academic source. 
5. Your initial post response should be 200–300 words in length and is due by the end of the workshop.

Note: Although this activity is designated with 0 points for now, this initial posting is required to earn the full 40 points in Workshop 5.4.

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4.2 Assignment: Skills Development Case

Getting Started

Understanding the relationship between fixed and variable costs is essential in predicting profitability at varying levels of production and sales. Performing cost-volume-profit analysis is the way accountants analyze this relationship. Part of this process is determining the contribution margin of a particular product.

Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

• Explain activity-based costing and how it differs from a traditional costing system.
• Assign costs to cost pools using a first-stage allocation.
• Compute activity rates for cost pools.
• Explain why organizations budget and the processes they use to create budgets.

Resources

• Textbook: Managerial Accounting
• Article: Virtuous Leaders & Organizations

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.
2. Read the Skills Development Case S5-2, “Analyzing Cost Behavior and the Impact on Profit,” at the end of Chapter 5 in the textbook.
3. Complete the Skills Development Case S5-2. Submit a one-page document with your response to Case S5-2. Please incorporate the “Virtuous Leaders & Organizations” article perspective into your response.