During one of the initial lectures in COMM 101, students voted on which major they would like to pursue, and resembling a majority of my peers I picked Finance. I chose this career path early on because I had a fantasy of exotic cars, diamond chains, and heaps of cash as high as Mount Everest. Although I knew about the difficulty and amount of hours investment bankers worked, I thought the benefits of extra money would outweigh the negatives.

I read an article about Stephen Ridley who graduated from one of the best universities and he was one of the largest revenue generators at a top tier European investment bank. He was living the life that I deemed ideal, until I discovered out he resigned due to a lack of motivation. Stephan hated the work he was doing and there was always an onslaught of emails, PowerPoint, Excel, and meetings that he did not care about. He became extremely bored of his dull job, and opted out in order to pursue something he was passionate about. After six months, he pursued his dream of playing the piano, and he recently released his first album.

There was clearly a disconnect between Stephen’s experience as a banker, and what I thought his job would entail. I could not figure out why Stephen would leave his job until the fifth week of COMM 292. Professor Charlton discussed motivations in the workforce, and how people are motivated by different things. Stephen pursued extrinsic rewards that he believed would fulfill him and balance out with the negative aspects of his work. However, what Stephen really wanted was work that was meaningful, progressive, and reflected a sense of competence which is why he chose to pursue his dreams on the streets of London.

I believe that Stephen was initially intrinsically motivated, but like myself he thought tangible awards would be enough for him to stay motivated in the workforce. People every day have jobs that don’t motivate them, and I think it is extremely important for individuals to self-reflect and to decide what inspires them. Through Stephen’s experiences I have decided to drop my target on money, and I have started thinking about a career that will fulfill my needs for motivation.

Word Count: 376

Works Cited:

Du, Lisa. “Former Banker Explains Why He Hated His Job So Much He Left To Be A Street           Musician.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 26 Apr. 2012. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.

Work is stereotyped as a five to nine job that entails boring and repetitive tasks while being cramped up in a cubicle that isn’t even big enough for a monkey. Relationships and work are two separate entities and the employees that clock in every day are completely dissatisfied.

I read an article online about the company Zappos which is an online shoe retailer that completely flips this script and redefines the work environment. Unlike most companies, Zappos completely understands employee attitudes, and job satisfaction in the workplace. Unlike the conventional system where there is usually a head of a company, Zappos is “a work place where no one and everyone is the boss” (Noguchi 2015).  Zappos has adopted a self-governing system that has eliminated management. This drastically changes the environment of the work place.

Employees are rewarded by their peers, and they work in teams in order to develop new ideas or solve problems. As a result, there is tremendous job satisfaction as employees have real meaning in their work, and they make decisions on a regular basis that impact the company. These results draw parallels with concepts learnt in class in regards to job satisfaction and the effects on the organization.

This job satisfaction effectively increases the productivity of workers, which makes employees more motivated to go above and beyond their usual job duties. Further, relationships between employees become extremely strong and genuine which translates in to another positive externality of the worker’s attitudes on their workplace. Because Zappos is a retailer that focuses on communication with their customers, Employees go to great lengths in order to ensure customer satisfaction. One employee went as far as to spend over two hours on the phone in order to help a customer.

This is a company that understands how inter-connected employees are with their customers. The work place should not be a stage where employees resemble marionettes that sway helplessly to every movement of their boss who pulls the strings. I hope more company’s plan to integrate a system that mimic’s Zappos where they get rid of the top-down hierarchy and employees have a larger responsibility.

Word Count: 355

Works Cited:

Noguchi, Yuki . “Zappos: A Workplace Where No One And Everyone Is The Boss.” NPR. NPR, 21   July 2015. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.

One of the most interesting lectures of Comm 292 was the discussion of how groups and teams are different. I didn’t even know there was a difference until Professor Charlton pointed it out, and I began to read the textbook. I have been apart of teams all my life, whether it was in regards to athletics, or if it was during my part time jobs, but I never understood what makes a great team.

After years of analysis, Google has announced that what makes the best teams in their company’s, is simply to become nice. In class we learned about the 5 stage model which consists of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. A lot of teams get stuck in the second or third stage of the model, as they do not spend enough time on the first stage. Google has now put an emphasize on team building, and relationship building in the workplace which has increased the cohesiveness of their teams drastically. As a team you should focus on stage 1 which is Forming for a long period of time so there is a sense of trust, and relationships are built upon one another. Only then will you be able to move throughout the rest of the stages and to become and extremely effective team.

One of the worst experiences I have had as a team, was during my time while I was working construction in the 10th grade. The group of individuals who I worked with always ended up finishing our jobs the slowest as we didn’t really like each other and their were conflicts on a regular basis. Whether it was repairing the dry walls or painting the interior, no matter how hard we tried, we could never finish in time and we never bothered getting to know one another. Looking back at the other groups on the job site, they looked like they were best friends. Each one of the counted on each other and they built an extremely strong relationship. They were extremely nice to each other, but they also worked together very hard and this allowed them to perform very well. Those other teams were able to quickly move on to the other stages of the model, but our team was always stuck. This made me come to the conclusion that in order to work in an effective team, the first step is the most important in order to genuinely build relationships with the other members and to trust one another.

Word Count: 380:

Works Cited:

Mohdin, Aamna. “After years of intensive analysis, Google discovers the key to good teamwork is being nice.” Quartz. Quartz, 26 Feb. 2016. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.