The past few weeks in comm292 were fun because of the amount group activities we did, like building a paper tower, completing in class worksheets and “The Fantasy Project”. Meeting my team outside class helped us break the ice and relaxed the tense atmosphere and awkwardness that we experienced when we first meet. In this blog post I will be evaluating my team using OB concepts.

Our team is over a short period of time, so we won’t have enough time to go through all the 5 stages of team building. The 5 stages are forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. According to me our team is in the norming stage, which is the third stage and it involves the team to be characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness. This is evident as we get along well and support each other while doing our projects and outside class. A major reason we reached the third stage in a short period of time is because prof. Wayne organised team building activates which broke the ice. Also we are all working towards a common goal of achieving the highest marks possible thus we are a self-organised team, which means we are motivated, work towards goals and adapt to any changes. This is one of the reasons our team is well organised, we trust each other and delegate task.

Another characteristics of my team is that all of us come from various ethnic backgrounds and the variation in our cultures allows us to share different perception towards how we decide to work and affects the ideas that we pool together. Not only have we come from unique backgrounds, but we have also been exposed to UBC’s diversity, therefore we’re all comfortable and open to new ideas and able to maintain a dynamic flow of conversation when working together.

In conclusion, I am happy to part of a diverse team with individuals wanting to work hard to achieve a goal and at the same time have fun.

It is interesting that our world is so developed, and something that interests me is the improvement in communication in terms of quality and quantity, and this is evident in the real word.

For example in my high school Geography class we were given examples of how improvement in communication has improved the functioning of co-operatives. So in this blog post I am going to use OB concepts and explain the example of co-operatives that I learned in my Geography class.

A company changed its tracking employee hours from hand written system to an electronic, and this change had good and bad impact. This decision allowed communication richness to improve which is the amount of information recorded in one go, hence improving the speed, efficiency and accountability. This method also reduces the barriers to effective communication. For example a barrier is emotion and when an employee is angry he or she would not be pay much attention on signing in or out, compared to when they are in a good mood. Another example can be to prevent filtering, as an employee can easily manipulate the information to their favour on a hand written document, but it is difficult to do so with an electronic device.

So what went wrong for the company was the mangers did not effectively take part in downward communication, which means that the mangers did not inform the employees about the change. It is common in many organizations for its mangers not to communicate effectively with their subordinates as mangers find it a waste of time and unimportant. However to maintain a positive work environment managers have to communicate a certain matter multiple times, and it wasn’t the case with the organization. The first time the employee heard about this change was through a brief discussion between two mangers. This wasn’t good as it created a grapevine communication network, which is the most common informal network in an organizations through which rumours and gossips transfer. Hence the general agreement between employees was not to trust the mangers as they did not inform them about the change, and this created a negative environment. Also majority of employees are afraid or not ready for change, so the higher authority should do everything in their power to reduce the harmful impacts of change.

In conclusion, I believe that effective communication is important and especially for this organization. This is because bad communication in this situation resulted in long term loss of motivation of employees and trust.

In the past few months soccer players like Hulk, Tevez and Oscar have left top level clubs to join Chinese teams. This has created a whirlpool of media attention, and the world is slowly starting to show serious consideration to the Chinese super league, especially after the January transfer window.

Spend thrift

The Chinese government wants its country to be a footballing power house. So the companies that own the teams, are keen on splashing cash to buy foreign players. This is also seen as a form of investment to gain favours from the government. Moreover the government regulates the number of international players in a squad making the players extremely expensive to buy.

The criticism

Media outside Asia has always criticised the Chinese league and players that transferred to the league. The media has associated these players with dark traits like narcissism and mechavillsim, because they have been termed “unloyal” to their previous clubs and money driven. Due to media shedding bad light on these players it has created a halo effect, as soccer fans now judge and criticize these players solely on the fact that they are moving to china. This is because the public perceives the players as greedy, who have broken the ethical values of soccer. Furthermore critics have also commented that players moving to china are unambitious, because they perceive china as a graveyard for soccer players. Hence it can be interpreted that according to the public it is solely extrinsic motivation, like money and other benefits that influenced their decision to move from a top division team to a Chinese team.

The other side of the argument

On the one hand, I believe the players that move to china have a proactive personality because they are the ones that want to improve their current situation, have a stable job standing and achieve career success. For example one of the main reason Oscar moved to china was because he was a bench warmer in Chelsea which meant less playing time, and this cost him a spot in the Brazilian national team. Now moving to China can help improve his perform due to lack of competition, which will help him regain his confidence and his spot in the national team. This has been true in the past for players like Renato Augsto and Pauilhno. So it can be concluded that there are intrinsic motives like redemption and self-esteem behind the move to China.

In conclusion I believe that players moving to china are not committing a sin because they are still playing the beautiful game.