Monthly Archives: March 2017

COMM 292: Types of Power and Motivation in Professional Sports

Every coach and authoritative figure in every sports league must have the ability to properly motivate their players. After a strong win or a depressing and dramatic loss, players feel an extreme bipolarity of emotions. It is the coaches, and team captains job to guide them back to the balanced middle ground, such that they stay focused and motivated. They are the leaders that the players look up to and because of this dependence, they withhold many different types of power and great influence over them. However, with younger athletes in the new Generation Z becoming a bigger part of professional sports, player deviance and arrogance are rising. Coaches must adjust their style of motivation accordingly, in order to extract the highest quality results that they can. This is not only an internal problem, but also external in the sense that many people look up to athletes and will mimic their behaviour. For example, showboating in the National Football League (NFL) has become a subject of extreme controversy and it has shown to have a correlation with ratings dropping (Mushnick, 2016).

In order to resolve this issue of “pre-madonna syndrome” among certain players, coaches and team captains must create a stern environment of discipline and simply state that that kind of behaviour will not be tolerated. Upon examining the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid, they actually should have high concern for product and low concern for people in these specific situations, placing themselves in the authoritative category. Generally, concern for both should be high, placing themselves in the team category. 

In my classmates blog post on the subject, Noah Woogman stated that hierarchy is at the pinnacle of success in professional sports franchises, and I fully agree. I found this blog post to be useful as it highlights that stern authority is often a proper managerial solution in some instances like this.

Bibliography (APA):

[Professional Sports Leagues]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/pro-sports-logos.jpg

Mushnick, P. (2016, October 21). NFL’s sinking ratings tied to shameless showboating. Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://nypost.com/2016/10/20/nfls-sinking-ratings-directly-tied-to-shameless-showboating/

Pumerantz, Z. (2017, January 26). The 50 Greatest Coaches of All Time. Retrieved March 30, 2017, from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1277689-the-50-greatest-coaches-of-all-time

Woogman, N. (2017, March 27). Noah Woogman’s Blog – Gettin’ Woogie with it. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/noahwoogman/

COMM 292: Organizational Culture of Zappos

Zappos is an ever growing and extremely successful footwear distribution company. Recently, they have gained a lot of public exposure due to their relatively unorthodox working culture. In the early stages of the mandatory introduction to commerce course, COMM 101, last semester, we discussed the source of their vast success: their organizational culture and working atmosphere. Zappos’ CEO, Tony Hsieh, is simply an expert at using proper motivational theories, and other organizational behaviour concepts to balance output efficiency and job satisfaction of his employees.

According to Zappos’ own website (Zappos, n.d.), their 10 core values are:

  1. “Deliver WOW Through Service
  2. Embrace and Drive Change
  3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
  4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
  5. Pursue Growth and Learning
  6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
  7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
  8. Do More With Less
  9. Be Passionate and Determined
  10. Be Humble”

The company truly strives to create a culture where everyone is welcomed as family. However, the true genius lies in the fact that output goals are still met. As mentioned in my classmates blog, Matheson Kroeker, “The equality in the company is another factor that creates a healthy environment for everyone, the CEO’s office is a normal cubicle the same as every other, and the technical support staff is situated in the middle of the cafeteria so that they are easily accessible and able to connect with everyone in the company,” (Kroeker, 2017). This post was very useful as it highlights another aspect of Zappos’ success.

Before employees are hired, they are offered a sum of money to quit (Kroeker, 2017). This reinforces and ensures the Theory Y standard of employees, where they enjoy their work and are not fully extrinsically motivated. Zappos organizational culture is innovatively based, as they pertain to the organic model. This has enabled them to creatively continue to be one of the leading footwear distributors. In summary, upon correctly identifying an organizations goals, the application of correct organizational structures can lead to vast success. Zappos is a prime example of this fact.

Bibliography (APA):

[Zappos Culture]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/karenwang/files/2013/11/zappos2.jpg

About Zappos Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.zappos.com/core-values

Heathfield, S. M. (2016, June 28). Want to Know How Zappos Reinforces Its Company Culture? Here Are 20 Ways. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://www.thebalance.com/zappos-company-culture-1918813

Kroeker, M. (2017, March 29). Matheson (Matt) Kroeker’s Blog. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/mkroeker/

Zappos [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.shellypalmer.com/wp-content/images/2011/09/zappos.jpg

COMM 292: The 2008 Recession from an Organizational Behaviour Viewpoint

In late September 2008, a major financial crisis emerged, causing a recession of paralleled magnitude to that of the great depression in the 1930’s, and the crash of the stock market. It was largely caused by a massive housing bubble built over time due to greed and ineffective organizational behaviour of banks and rating agencies. In short, as banks attempted to sell as many grouped mortgage bonds (called “CDO’s” or Collateralized Debt Obligations) as they possibly could, in order to collect commission, they eventually ran out of higher quality loans to group together. As a result, they started giving out subprime loans to fill up their CDO’s, which were extremely low quality and given to people with a high risk of defaulting (Kosakowski, 2017). For example, strippers would own two to three houses! Rating agencies wrongly still rated these lower quality CDO’s with AAA ratings, in fear that banks would take their business to other agencies if they refused to give them what they wanted. Eventually, as default rates on these subprime loans began to rise, these bonds failed, which created the crash. Although this is a simplified explanation, it still highlights the vastly flawed organizational behaviour of banks and rating agencies.

Stevan Noronha stated in his blog post about how he “lost everything in 2008,” that “it was a painful period for me; personally, as I had saved this capital for my business and was hoping the investments in stock would provide the cushion” (Noronha, 2013). I found this blog to be extremely helpful, as it provides a first person insight into the suffering that amassed as a result of the crash. Many other people also more dramatically lost their jobs and their homes, all due to simple and avoidable greed.

Due to the fact that bankers and employees at rating agencies were very extrinsically motivated, pertained to Theory X (people naturally dislike work), and likely withheld high pressure to perform from their superiors, they took shortcuts that had drastic implications. In hindsight, a proper solution to this issue would include the Lewin’s Model of unfreezing the current situation, altering the management style of the organizations to be held to a higher ethical standard, and refreezing with the change locked in place.

The effects of the 2008 recession are still felt today, and the underlying issue to the problem is widely applicable to the theories and models of organizational behaviour. In the future, these tools can be used to prevent such a substantial downfall of the economy from occurring again.

Bibliography (APA):

[A Perfect Storm: 2008 Financial Crisis]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://seebetterlear.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/saupload_housing_crisis_cartoon.png

Kosakowski, P. (2017, March 13). The Fall Of The Market In The Fall Of 2008. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/subprime-market-2008.asp

Noronha, S. (2013, October 27). How I lost everything in 2008 stock market crash – Three lessons learnt. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.stevannoronha.com/three-important-things-about-investing-the-2008-stock-market-crash-taught-me/

The Origins of the Financial Crisis – Crash Course. (2013, September 07). Retrieved March 29, 2017, from http://www.economist.com/news/schoolsbrief/21584534-effects-financial-crisis-are-still-being-felt-five-years-article