Forget the Pecking Order

WK4 Assignment: Forgettin" rel="nofollow">ing the Peckin" rel="nofollow">ing Order Reflect on the chapters you read this week and use them as a lens for the Ted talk you watched. In your reflection, write about the followin" rel="nofollow">ing questions: • What kin" rel="nofollow">ind of organization is Heffernan presentin" rel="nofollow">ing? • What type of human need does it fulfill? • Assess the different elements and processes in" rel="nofollow">influencin" rel="nofollow">ing behavior of the in" rel="nofollow">individuals makin" rel="nofollow">ing up this organization • What role would social workers play in" rel="nofollow">in the ongoin" rel="nofollow">ing development of this as an organization? Task: Write a substantive paper in" rel="nofollow">in approximately 500 words. In your paper address the questions and criteria in" rel="nofollow">in this assignment. Reference your sources appropriately accordin" rel="nofollow">ing to APA guidelin" rel="nofollow">ines. Objectives, Readin" rel="nofollow">ings, and Resources Learnin" rel="nofollow">ing Objectives After completin" rel="nofollow">ing this week's activities you will be able to: • Explain" rel="nofollow">in models of organizational structure and their respective attitudes toward power; • Examin" rel="nofollow">ine in" rel="nofollow">interpersonal communication and barriers in" rel="nofollow">in organizations; • Describe traditional bureaucracies and their orientation toward social work as well as behavioral patterns found in" rel="nofollow">in them; • Discuss two common management approaches • Explore ethical issues related to these approaches. Textbook Readin" rel="nofollow">ings Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2014). Human behavior in" rel="nofollow">in the macro social environment (4th ed). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishin" rel="nofollow">ing Company. • Chapter 7-8 Media • Margaret Heffernan: Why it's time to forget the peckin" rel="nofollow">ing order at work • An evolutionary biologist at Purdue University named William Muir studied chickens. He was in" rel="nofollow">interested in" rel="nofollow">in productivity -- I thin" rel="nofollow">ink it's somethin" rel="nofollow">ing that concerns all of us -- but it's easy to measure in" rel="nofollow">in chickens because you just count the eggs. (Laughter) He wanted to know what could make his chickens more productive, so he devised a beautiful experiment. Chickens live in" rel="nofollow">in groups, so first of all, he selected just an average flock, and he let it alone for six generations. But then he created a second group of the in" rel="nofollow">individually most productive chickens -- you could call them superchickens -- and he put them together in" rel="nofollow">in a superflock, and each generation, he selected only the most productive for breedin" rel="nofollow">ing. • 0:56After six generations had passed, what did he fin" rel="nofollow">ind? Well, the first group, the average group, was doin" rel="nofollow">ing just fin" rel="nofollow">ine. They were all plump and fully feathered and egg production had in" rel="nofollow">increased dramatically. What about the second group? Well, all but three were dead. They'd pecked the rest to death. (Laughter) The in" rel="nofollow">individually productive chickens had only achieved their success by suppressin" rel="nofollow">ing the productivity of the rest. • 1:29Now, as I've gone around the world talkin" rel="nofollow">ing about this and tellin" rel="nofollow">ing this story in" rel="nofollow">in all sorts of organizations and companies, people have seen the relevance almost in" rel="nofollow">instantly, and they come up and they say thin" rel="nofollow">ings to me like, "That superflock, that's my company." (Laughter) Or, "That's my country." Or, "That's my life." • 1:51All my life I've been told that the way we have to get ahead is to compete: get in" rel="nofollow">into the right school, get in" rel="nofollow">into the right job, get to the top, and I've really never found it very in" rel="nofollow">inspirin" rel="nofollow">ing. I've started and run busin" rel="nofollow">inesses because in" rel="nofollow">invention is a joy, and because workin" rel="nofollow">ing alongside brilliant, creative people is its own reward. And I've never really felt very motivated by peckin" rel="nofollow">ing orders or by superchickens or by superstars. But for the past 50 years, we've run most organizations and some societies along the superchicken model. We've thought that success is achieved by pickin" rel="nofollow">ing the superstars, the brightest men, or occasionally women, in" rel="nofollow">in the room, and givin" rel="nofollow">ing them all the resources and all the power. And the result has been just the same as in" rel="nofollow">in William Muir's experiment: aggression, dysfunction and waste. If the only way the most productive can be successful is by suppressin" rel="nofollow">ing the productivity of the rest, then we badly need to fin" rel="nofollow">ind a better way to work and a richer way to live. (Applause) • 3:09So what is it that makes some groups obviously more successful and more productive than others?Well, that's the question a team at MIT took to research. They brought in" rel="nofollow">in hundreds of volunteers, they put them in" rel="nofollow">into groups, and they gave them very hard problems to solve. And what happened was exactly what you'd expect, that some groups were very much more successful than others, but what was really in" rel="nofollow">interestin" rel="nofollow">ing was that the high-achievin" rel="nofollow">ing groups were not those where they had one or two people with spectacularly high I.Q. Nor were the most successful groups the ones that had the highest aggregate I.Q. Instead, they had three characteristics, the really successful teams. First of all, they showed high degrees of social sensitivity to each other. This is measured by somethin" rel="nofollow">ing called the Readin" rel="nofollow">ing the Min" rel="nofollow">ind in" rel="nofollow">in the Eyes Test. It's broadly considered a test for empathy, and the groups that scored highly on thisdid better. Secondly, the successful groups gave roughly equal time to each other, so that no one voice domin" rel="nofollow">inated, but neither were there any passengers. And thirdly, the more successful groups had more women in" rel="nofollow">in them. (Applause) Now, was this because women typically score more highly on the Readin" rel="nofollow">ing the Min" rel="nofollow">ind in" rel="nofollow">in the Eyes Test, so you're gettin" rel="nofollow">ing a doublin" rel="nofollow">ing down on the empathy quotient? Or was it because they brought a more diverse perspective? We don't really know, but the strikin" rel="nofollow">ing thin" rel="nofollow">ing about this experiment is that it showed what we know, which is some groups do better than others, but what's key to that is their social connectedness to each other. • 4:54So how does this play out in" rel="nofollow">in the real world? Well, it means that what happens between people really counts, because in" rel="nofollow">in groups that are highly attuned and sensitive to each other, ideas can flow and grow.People don't get stuck. They don't waste energy down dead ends. • 5:13An example: Arup is one of the world's most successful engin" rel="nofollow">ineerin" rel="nofollow">ing firms, and it was commissioned to build the equestrian center for the Beijin" rel="nofollow">ing Olympics. Now, this buildin" rel="nofollow">ing had to receive two and a half thousand really highly strung thoroughbred horses that were comin" rel="nofollow">ing off long-haul flights, highly jet-lagged, not feelin" rel="nofollow">ing their fin" rel="nofollow">inest. And the problem the engin" rel="nofollow">ineer confronted was, what quantity of waste to cater for? Now, you don't get taught this in" rel="nofollow">in engin" rel="nofollow">ineerin" rel="nofollow">ing school -- (Laughter) -- and it's not really the kin" rel="nofollow">ind of thin" rel="nofollow">ing you want to get wrong, so he could have spent months talkin" rel="nofollow">ing to vets, doin" rel="nofollow">ing the research,tweakin" rel="nofollow">ing the spreadsheet. Instead, he asked for help and he found someone who had designed the Jockey Club in" rel="nofollow">in New York. The problem was solved in" rel="nofollow">in less than a day. Arup believes that the culture of helpfulness is central to their success. • 6:14Now, helpfulness sounds really anemic, but it's absolutely core to successful teams, and it routin" rel="nofollow">inely outperforms in" rel="nofollow">individual in" rel="nofollow">intelligence. Helpfulness means I don't have to know everythin" rel="nofollow">ing, I just have to work among people who are good at gettin" rel="nofollow">ing and givin" rel="nofollow">ing help. At SAP, they reckon that you can answer any question in" rel="nofollow">in 17 min" rel="nofollow">inutes. But there isn't a sin" rel="nofollow">ingle high-tech company I've worked with that imagin" rel="nofollow">ines for a moment that this is a technology issue, because what drives helpfulness is people gettin" rel="nofollow">ing to know each other. Now that sounds so obvious, and we thin" rel="nofollow">ink it'll just happen normally, but it doesn't. When I was runnin" rel="nofollow">ing my first software company, I realized that we were gettin" rel="nofollow">ing stuck. There was a lot of friction, but not much else, and I gradually realized the brilliant, creative people that I'd hired didn't know each other. They were so focused on their own in" rel="nofollow">individual work, they didn't even know who they were sittin" rel="nofollow">ing next to, and it was only when I in" rel="nofollow">insisted that we stop workin" rel="nofollow">ing and in" rel="nofollow">invest time in" rel="nofollow">in gettin" rel="nofollow">ing to know each other that we achieved real momentum. • 7:35Now, that was 20 years ago, and now I visit companies that have banned coffee cups at desksbecause they want people to hang out around the coffee machin" rel="nofollow">ines and talk to each other. The Swedes even have a special term for this. They call it fika, which means more than a coffee break. It means collective restoration. At Idexx, a company up in" rel="nofollow">in Main" rel="nofollow">ine, they've created vegetable gardens on campus so that people from different parts of the busin" rel="nofollow">iness can work together and get to know the whole busin" rel="nofollow">iness that way. Have they all gone mad? Quite the opposite -- they've figured out that when the goin" rel="nofollow">ing gets tough, and it always will get tough if you're doin" rel="nofollow">ing breakthrough work that really matters,what people need is social support, and they need to know who to ask for help. Companies don't have ideas; only people do. And what motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks. • 8:45Now, when you put all of this together, what you get is somethin" rel="nofollow">ing called social capital. Social capital is the reliance and in" rel="nofollow">interdependency that builds trust. The term comes from sociologists who were studyin" rel="nofollow">ing communities that proved particularly resilient in" rel="nofollow">in times of stress. Social capital is what gives companies momentum, and social capital is what makes companies robust. What does this mean in" rel="nofollow">in practical terms? It means that time is everythin" rel="nofollow">ing, because social capital compounds with time. So teams that work together longer get better, because it takes time to develop the trust you need for real candor and openness. And time is what builds value. When Alex Pentland suggested to one companythat they synchronize coffee breaks so that people would have time to talk to each other, profits went up 15 million dollars, and employee satisfaction went up 10 percent. Not a bad return on social capital,which compounds even as you spend it. Now, this isn't about chummin" rel="nofollow">iness, and it's no charter for slackers, because people who work this way tend to be kin" rel="nofollow">ind of scratchy, impatient, absolutely determin" rel="nofollow">ined to thin" rel="nofollow">ink for themselves because that's what their contribution is. Conflict is frequent because candor is safe. And that's how good ideas turn in" rel="nofollow">into great ideas, because no idea is born fully formed. It emerges a little bit as a child is born, kin" rel="nofollow">ind of messy and confused, but full of possibilities. And it's only through the generous contribution, faith and challenge that they achieve their potential. And that's what social capital supports. • 11:00Now, we aren't really used to talkin" rel="nofollow">ing about this, about talent, about creativity, in" rel="nofollow">in this way. We're used to talkin" rel="nofollow">ing about stars. So I started to wonder, well, if we start workin" rel="nofollow">ing this way, does that mean no more stars? So I went and I sat in" rel="nofollow">in on the auditions at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in" rel="nofollow">in London. And what I saw there really surprised me, because the teachers weren't lookin" rel="nofollow">ing for in" rel="nofollow">individual pyrotechnics.They were lookin" rel="nofollow">ing for what happened between the students, because that's where the drama is. And when I talked to producers of hit albums, they said, "Oh sure, we have lots of superstars in" rel="nofollow">in music. It's just, they don't last very long. It's the outstandin" rel="nofollow">ing collaborators who enjoy the long careers, because brin" rel="nofollow">ingin" rel="nofollow">ing out the best in" rel="nofollow">in others is how they found the best in" rel="nofollow">in themselves." And when I went to visit companies that are renowned for their in" rel="nofollow">ingenuity and creativity, I couldn't even see any superstars,because everybody there really mattered. And when I reflected on my own career, and the extraordin" rel="nofollow">inary people I've had the privilege to work with, I realized how much more we could give each other if we just stopped tryin" rel="nofollow">ing to be superchickens. (Laughter) (Applause) Once you appreciate truly how social work is, a lot of thin" rel="nofollow">ings have to change. Management by talent contest has routin" rel="nofollow">inely pittedemployees again" rel="nofollow">inst each other. Now, rivalry has to be replaced by social capital. For decades, we've tried to motivate people with money, even though we've got a vast amount of research that shows that money erodes social connectedness. Now, we need to let people motivate each other. And for years, we've thought that leaders were heroic soloists who were expected, all by themselves, to solve complex problems. Now, we need to redefin" rel="nofollow">ine leadership as an activity in" rel="nofollow">in which conditions are createdin" rel="nofollow">in which everyone can do their most courageous thin" rel="nofollow">inkin" rel="nofollow">ing together. • 13:35We know that this works. When the Montreal Protocol called for the phasin" rel="nofollow">ing out of CFCs, the chlorofluorocarbons implicated in" rel="nofollow">in the hole in" rel="nofollow">in the ozone layer, the risks were immense. CFCs were everywhere, and nobody knew if a substitute could be found. But one team that rose to the challenge adopted three key prin" rel="nofollow">inciples. The first was the head of engin" rel="nofollow">ineerin" rel="nofollow">ing, Frank Maslen, said, there will be no stars in" rel="nofollow">in this team. We need everybody. Everybody has a valid perspective. Second, we work to one standard only: the best imagin" rel="nofollow">inable. And third, he told his boss, Geoff Tudhope, that he had to butt out,because he knew how disruptive power can be. Now, this didn't mean Tudhope did nothin" rel="nofollow">ing. He gave the team air cover, and he listened to ensure that they honored their prin" rel="nofollow">inciples. And it worked: Ahead of all the other companies tacklin" rel="nofollow">ing this hard problem, this group cracked it first. And to date, the Montreal Protocol is the most successful in" rel="nofollow">international environmental agreement ever implemented. • 15:00There was a lot at stake then, and there's a lot at stake now, and we won't solve our problems if we expect it to be solved by a few supermen or superwomen. Now we need everybody, because it is only when we accept that everybody has value that we will liberate the energy and imagin" rel="nofollow">ination and momentum we need to create the best beyond measure.