A633.4.3.RB_PALUGODCAROLYN

I believe that the shift in leadership to a more bottom-up structure is happening because the traditional top-bottom model can no longer support organizations in this dynamic and complex environment that we live in.  As I have been learning in this course, globalization and technology has changed how business is done (Obolensky, 2014).  I believe that the whole of humanity is making a shift to a more holistic way of viewing the world.  Whether it be in the practices of science, medicine or business, humanity is moving towards a more integrated system of working with our environment.  Holism is the concept “that everything exists in relationship, in a context of connection and meaning -- and that any change or event causes a realignment, however slight, throughout the entire pattern” (Holistic Education Network website, n.d.).  In fact, we see something similar called Systems Thinking or Systems Approach that has been applied to both science and even business (Holistic Education Network website, n.d.).  In business for example, Senge (n.d.) describes systems thinking as a way of looking at the world or society as a complex system of interrelated parts.  Senge (n.d.) explains:

 In a systems approach to a problem, you start by realizing that there is no inherent end to a  system.    There is no such thing as a complete theory. The quest is to look at a problem more comprehensively. The resolutions come from rethinking how we deal with complexity.  

Obolensky (2014) points out this visible shift as well when he talks about the flow towards polyarchy and away from oligarchy.  Obolensky’s comparison to the Taoist philosophy further strengthens the idea that leadership strategy is naturally moving towards these holistic traditions because we live in a very complex environment (Obolensky, 2014).  He explains that there is a “swing towards Yin” (p. 7 of 249) thinking and gives the examples of the birth of quantum mechanics which he describes as a “sign of this deeper change” (p.7 of 249).   How this translates into the business world is the understanding that organizations are not just a machine with a bunch of moving parts working independently, instead it is an organic system with many parts or “organs” that rely on each other to make the entire organism survive.  The idea that all parts are equally important and contribute equally as much is something that many senior executive directors in companies are starting to realize (Obolensky, 2014).  There is a growing realization that the structure or foundation of an organization (the employees), are many times closer to the problem, and therefore can offer the best solutions (Obolensky, 2014).  Therefore, the trend towards a bottom-up strategy is an inevitable progression that mirrors this natural evolution that we are seeing in society.  

I believe that this is indicative of what is happening in my organization as well, because I have seen at least on my regional level a shift towards more bottom-up practices.  For example, in the last three or four years we have begun regional and campus level town hall meetings.  These meetings are held at regular intervals, and staff, faculty and leadership attend these meetings.  Sometimes they are simply open forums where employees can question leadership about things that are happening throughout the organization or  platforms where they can offer feedback and propose solutions.  I have actually seen changes come from these meetings and conference.  I personally feel that our organization values our expertise in the field and they understand that there must be a platform where we can express and offer our knowledge for the betterment of the organization.  On some occasions they have also requested staff members to volunteer for temporary teams for certain projects.  Team members are selected based on the skills and knowledge that the individual has and can contribute to particular tasks.  This is another visible example of how our organization recognizes the importance of bottom up strategic practices.

Three reasons that I feel our organization is supportive of a bottom-up structure and sensitive to the need to encourage interactive dialogue between top and bottom members of the organization, is first of all,  that we are geographically spread out.  We have three major campuses, two in the U.S. and our Worldwide campus that encompasses both our online programs and campuses in over 150 locations in the world.  We also have a campus in Singapore and Berlin.  All these separate entities belong to the same organization, yet due to logistics, military politics and resources, each campus is somewhat unique.  We cannot use identical strategies across the board and our leadership team is not familiar with the nuances of each campus.  The best resources for solving problems are the people who work at each campus.  The second reason that our organization supports a bottom-up perspective to problem-solving is the diversity within our institution.  Again, we have people from many different cultures, religions, and beliefs working together.  Even our leadership team is diverse.  For this reason, the bottom-up approach allows for a broader spectrum of ideas and solutions that can respect all these differences.  Lastly, the rate of technological change that happens just within our organization makes it difficult to adhere to a traditional top-bottom approach to business.  First of all, not all of our leaders have an engineering education, or experience in computer software, or even a military background.  With changes happening so rapidly, the organization relies heavily on the expertise of employees in these sectors to provide the solutions to complex problems that are beyond the scope of our leadership team. According to Obolensky (2014) the scale and pace of change has been extremely rapid in just the last 100 years.  It makes sense to pool the resources from the bottom of the pyramid where they are more plentiful.

My organization still has a long way to go if it is going to embrace and evolve into a CAS business model.  There is the deep rooted military influence at the foundation of my organization that will make evolution a slow process.  Yet, I do see our younger leaders, believe it or not, taking a more dynamic approach to leadership.  Also, at the bottom level of the organization, many of my co-workers take a more aggressive approach to change by being very verbal about their issues and openly providing feedback.  Some of the things discussed in the article How To Lead When You’re Not the Boss such as establish goals, providing feedback, engaging others and especially, learning from experience, are characteristics that I have seen from some of our more engaged employees (How to Lead, 2009).  I think that a step in the right direction towards incorporating a more bottom-up approach is going to have to be influenced and implemented from the bottom-up as well.

References

Holistic Education Network website. (n.d.). http://www.hent.org/wview.htm

How to Lead When You're Not the Boss. (2009). Harvard Management Update, 14(3), 1-2.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Retrieved from Kindle Edition

Senge, P. M. (n.d.). Systems thinking by Peter M. Senge. Retrieved from https://www.solonline.org/page/SystemsThinking

A633.3.4.RB_PALUGODCAROLYN

I have only been with my organization for six years, but in those six years I have seen a lot of changes.  I have also seen several major changes in strategy in the time I have been with my university.  First, there was a restructuring of the organizational chart.  Secondly, a push towards online learning and implementing strategies that provide a better structure and better technologies to further expand and improve the online learning platform.  Lastly, we have begun to integrate all the campuses more by incorporating regular townhall meetings and the formation of strategy teams.  It is a way in which employees on the bottom-end of the pyramid can contribute to the organization.

The first strategic evolution I experienced with my organization was the restructuring of the organizational chart.  They completely did away with a position or role that was directly in charge of academics and faculty at the campus level.  These roles were absorbed by each school or academic department.  On the negative side, power was stripped from the individual campuses and the ability to schedule our own classes was taken away.  The positive effect of this change was streamlining our schedules in a way that we could project our classes a year in advance.  As Obolensky (2014) explained, this new evolution or transition, caused our organization to take a step back before it could move forward.  A couple of years after implementing this change, I am now starting to see the benefits of these projections.  Instead of molding our schedules to our students, we mold our students to our schedules. 

Another major change was the emphasis and move towards online learning.  The university realized that the trend towards online learning was not slowing down.  To keep with the academic integrity of the university we needed to improve the platform that was used for our online learning and improve our technologies.  The introduction of programs such as Campus Solutions and Canvas really provided the university with the necessary technology to keep up with the latest online trends and still offer academic excellence through an online program.  Our technologies included going completely paperless, the use of web conferencing technology for online classes as well as meetings, trainings, webinars and other venues in which to share information.  

I believe in the next ten years the university will continue to make the move to more virtual styles of education as more and more students begin making the shift from the bricks and mortars universities to universities that offer online programs.  This is an inevitable evolution in the educational industry and it seems our organization is riding the cusp of this trend.  As of today, our Bachelor’s programs were rated as the number one online programs by the U.S. News Report (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University website, 2014).  

I am not sure where I will be in 10 years.  As much as I enjoy the academic community, I feel that my leadership training is going to lead me more towards the nonprofit humanitarian sector.  I know that my education in CAS and other strategic leadership tactics such as Holacracy, will be very integrated in everything I do and how I work with any organization that I become a part of.  I hope to be one of the leaders to drive this kind of change in our future organizations and hope to be able to move the stagnant world of strategy to a point of evolution and transition.

References

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University website. (2014). http://worldwide.erau.edu/newsroom/press-releases/embry-riddle-worldwide-named-among-us-news-world-reports-top-online-educators.html

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Retrieved from Kindle Edition

A633.3.3.RB_PALUGODCAROLYN

I have decided to research a Canadian-based company called Precision Nutrition which is a “research-driven, web-based coaching community” (Precision Nutrition website, n.d.).  It is no secret that the health industry is a lucrative business and competition is very aggressive.  Everyone wants to lose weight and get fit.  There are books, websites, local programs, online programs, college programs and seminars that all compete to offer health-related services.  Precision Nutrition was created because there was a strategic need to revamp the nutrition and fitness industry.  To answer the dilemma of yo-yo dieting, fad diets and other fitness crazes that did not deliver results, the company Precision Nutrition was created (Precision Nutrition website, n.d.).

What makes this company stand out is that they practice a concept called Holacracy which is “a new way of running an organization that removes power from a management hierarchy and distributes it across clear roles. The work can then be executed autonomously, without micromanagement” (Holacracy website, n.d.).  Some of the key features of this company is the use of diverse “world-class coaches, counselors, physicians, nutritionists, health scientists, technologists, and creative thinkers” from all over the world that provide personalized coaching services on health and fitness.  (Precision Nutrition website, n.d.).   Holacracy differs from traditional management because first of all, titles are non-existent and are instead replaced by roles (Precision Nutrition, 2014).  This is one of the characteristics of a holacratic business model.  “Roles are defined around the work, not people, and are updated regularly” and employees will hold multiple roles (Holacracy website, n.d.).  Whereas in traditional companies, the work is “organised along functional specialisms” and “therefore the specialisms do not really talk to each other as this is left for higher leadership” (Obolensky, 2014, p. 23).  Strategically, this business model flattens the organizational structure and gives power back to the employees.  For example, complex decisions are not made by some upper-level manager who is four tiers removed from the actual problem.  Instead, Phil Caravaggio, explains that complex decisions are made by “the person in the best possible position to make that decision” (Precision Nutrition, 2014).

My organization does have a more traditional organizational structure.  We follow a hierarchal format with each region being run by a leadership team.  I answer to my boss, who answers to her boss, and so on and so forth.  Because I am on the lowest end of the pyramid, I am not aware of what goes on at the higher levels of our organization.  They make it very clear to us that we do not need to be implicated in those decisions.  Our organization works on a “need to know” basis.  Although we do have opportunities to present our opinions, thoughts and ideas during conferences and townhall meetings, I am not sure how much weight our feedback carries on an individual basis.  However, the cumulative feedback from each individual and campus, if noteworthy enough, is considered and I have experienced the changes that this feedback has affected.  

I feel my organization could benefit if it embraced a more complex adaptive system (Obolensky, 2014).  The mere environment that we work in is complex and dynamic.  Embry-Riddle Worldwide has over 150 campuses.  Each campus has its own unique problems due to geographical, political and procedural differences.  For example, some campuses are more restricted on how they market their courses then others depending on which military installation they are on and which military branch they are serving.  It is almost impossible to have all the same policies and practices on each campus due to these differences.  Although the ERAU Worldwide campus does have a set of general policies and procedures that governs all of us, many other strategic decisions we make (especially when it comes to marketing or classroom courses) must be catered to the restrictions of each campus.  In this aspect, I sometimes feel that giving each campus a little more autonomy and ability to make decisions would help us grow and would help reduce a lot of the frustrations we have dealing with our leadership teams.  The decision-making process can also sometimes be slow as we have to follow the proper chain of command.

I feel that the appropriate actions our organization should take to move forward towards a more complex adaptive system would be a complete restructuring of the roles of each employee.  Unfortunately, our organization has its roots in a very military-influenced environment, with a large percentage of the organization being ex-military, making even a change from a functional silo stage to a matrix stage more complicated (Obolensky, 2014).   However, one feature of the complex adaptive system that I have noticed our organization implement is the use of teams.  We are no strangers to forming teams for specific goals which then dissipate once the goal has been met.  For example, my Director is currently part of a dynamic team that is in charge of creating a New Employee Hire Standards manual. The team is formed by a diverse group, each contributing their knowledge and experience to create this manual.  There have been many other teams that have been formed for different functions and to attack different problems within the organization.  I think a move towards using more team-based strategies would definitely move the organization towards the right direction.  

I think another improvement the organization could make is a move towards more transparency.  Sometimes, especially those of us on the bottom, feel that we are the last to find out about changes that could directly affect us.  It feels sometimes like there is a shroud of mystery surrounding the organization and it can lend itself to a lack of trust with leadership.  But this is to be expected from a very top-down traditional business structure.  Obolensky (2014) explains the importance of clarity when it comes to strategy.  According to Obolensky (2014), “clarity means that everyone in the organisation understands the overall big picture strategy and how they fit within it” (p. 29).  

In conclusion, I feel that it will take some drastic changes to move our organization towards a complex adaptive system given the dynamic differences in geography as well as the social and political differences within the 150 locations.  An entire restructuring of the entire culture of our organization would have to be considered before making that drastic kind of transition.  For now, we are slowly making small progressive steps such as becoming more financially transparent, formation of strategic teams to address particular issues and the unification of all the campus through streamlined processes and procedures.

References

Holacracy website. (n.d.). http://www.holacracy.org/how-it-works/

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Retrieved from Kindle Edition

Precision Nutrition. (2014, March 21). No bosses or titles? Phil Caravaggio discusses Precision Nutrition’s unique working environment  [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaaI23skV0

Precision Nutrition website. (n.d.).

A633.3.3.RB

A633.2.3.RB_PALUGODCAROLYN

            My first example of the butterfly effect is the establishment of our Monday meetings.  I work for the WW ERAU campus in Rota, Spain.  Our school shares an office with three other universities.  In the past the four universities were very disconnected and even went through phases of immense competition.  Previous reps for some of the schools were treating students like numbers and looking out for the interests of the schools instead of the student’s needs.  In the six years I have been with the Rota ERAU campus I have seen some great changes in our office.  The more aggressive school reps have left and some more ethically-inspired reps have taken their place.  My Director being one of them, has very student-centered values and between her and myself we have been able to change the culture in our office to one that honors and respects the needs of our students first. 

Three years ago I suggested to the other schools that we hold a weekly meeting to talk about things happening in the office.  We could discuss course schedules, office hours, (if anyone was on leave for example) educational opportunities, events and other related subjects.  Before we started having these meetings, the universities never communicated with one another.  If a rep was out sick or if they heard about an event we could participate in, we sometimes didn’t know about it.  Everyone was out doing their own thing and sometimes overlapping or doubling our efforts.  The Monday morning meeting that we have instilled now offers all the schools the opportunity to share resources and talk about possible events for outreach opportunities. 

Since we have begun these meetings we have learned the strengths and resources of each university. For example, ERAU has a close connection with the air force squadron on the base and Central Texas College has ties with the security command and the Marines.  We all pull in our resources and together are able to reach out to a larger audience on the base and promote the importance of education.  Because of these monthly meetings our office has become a seamless source for education.  Students know when they come in that they will get personalized attention and non-biased academic advising that addresses their personal needs.  In 2011 our Navy College office won the quality performance award out of all the Navy Colleges.  This was a testimony to how all of the organizations came together and collaborated to provide a seamless quality service to the students who came to our office, regardless of the school they attended.  Reeves & Deimler (2011) tell us that the more traditional strategies “aim to build an enduring competitive advantage by achieving dominant scale, occupying an attractive niche, or exploiting certain capabilities and resources” (p. 137).  This tactic doesn’t seem to work in such a small communal environment that is a military base.  First of all, all the schools tend to recycle the same body of students at some point in time.  Military students tend to jump around a lot when it comes to getting an education.  A lot of this is the lack of availability of schools in certain areas.  Here in Europe, we are all fishing from the same pond.  Secondly, as an office, we all came to a unified realization that our ultimate goal is to provide the student with the best services.  We are after all nonprofit institutions.  The competitive edge that has lingered in our office has been heavily influenced by the military culture and certain competitive and aggressive employees who forgot to take off their military dress when stepping into these civilian jobs. 

The environment we work in is highly complex due to the nature of many different entities interacting.  On one side you have four different colleges and on the other a student body comprising of both military and civilian members.  To top it off, funding is always unpredictable with the military and processes are short of efficient.  Every day there is a new crisis to deal with and sometimes it seems chaotic.  Yet Obolensky (2014) reminds us that from the chaos simplicity and order are born.  Complexity science helps us understand these complex environments and learn how to inter-relate, adapt, become self-organized and emergent with new solutions.

My second example is the mobile advising opportunity that we provide to the Air Force squadron.  I work on a Naval base with a small Air Force squadron that also functions out of this base.  The Navy personnel can come to the Navy College counselors for assistance regarding their military TA or any other educational inquiries that relate to their military training.  The Air Force squadron however has to report to their educational office in Ramstein, Germany.  ERAU has become very well versed in the processes and requirements for the Air Force education.  We are able to give them one-on-one assistance that they are lacking on this naval base.  We took the time to train ourselves in their procedures and educate ourselves on the rules and regulations of their tuition assistance program.  Also, our Air Force service personnel work alternate shifts either from 0700-1900 or 1900 to 0700.  It is very difficult for them to come see us in the office sometimes.  Therefore we established a mobile office where we visit their squadron from 0800-1100 and we bring our services to them.  By being on site we are able to assist a lot more service members with their educational needs.  We have a much larger population of students now due to the accessibility they have to our services.  On a higher level, some of our other European campuses have copied this initiative and are also offering the same type of mobile service.  Since we began this outreach project our presence at the Air Force squadron has increased as well as our reputation for being an efficient service advising team.  Our students receive the attention they need and more of them sign up for classes.  This small effort on our part has enhanced our reputation on the squadron and enhanced the trust that students have in knowing that our ultimate goal is to help students achieve their academic goals.

References

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Retrieved from Kindle Edition

Reeves, M., & Deimler, M. (2011, July/August). Adaptability: The new competitive advantage. Harvard Business Review, 89(7/8), 134-141. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9cb0d498-9bd3-4b45-9ba0-8218449bf9fe%40sessionmgr106&vid=1&hid=128