The Three Stages of Socialization

The book emphasizes socialization is the way in which people learn the norm of society within their culture, which means how the society works. There are three stages of socialization: 1) anticipatory socialization, 2) organizational assimilation, and 3) organizational turning points.
1) Anticipatory socialization has two forms which are vocational and organizational. Vocational is the form that happens while growing up, they are the values and beliefs instilled in us from birth. My parents taught me to work hard and play hard, to be respectful to everyone, not to make judgements, etc. These are all examples of vocational forms of anticipatory socialization. The organizational form is specific towards your job and is what is learned from the internet and the interview process. I worked at a construction company doing secretarial work. When I interviewed, I learned this company is the middleman in construction and finds all the companies needed to work on a project. I learned that the company deals with many plans and bids, which I would be in charge of organizing. This was the type of work I would be doing and that is and example of the organizational form.
2) Organizational Assimilation is when an employee first arrives to their job and learns their roles and the typical behaviors of the staff. When I walked in for my first day at the construction company everyone was dressed nicely and I was dressed in my typical jeans, t-shirt, and sandals. I then realized I needed to dress up everyday, so on Friday I come in slacks and a nice shirt only to find out it is casual Friday. They find it comedic to do this to new employees. I learned about how the company work; it is a relatively small company. There are the partners in the company that deal with comadeering projects and smooth talking everyone over, then there are the project managers who are normally on site at the jobs or making sure that every company is on task. There are the partners secretaries that send out memos to companies for expected projects, and then there was me being a secretary to a secretary. I had to make copies, calls, file and organize. It was the typical secretary job.
3) Organizational turning points are points within your life or career that change your perception. They include career choices, job transfers, and your life's purpose. The only turning point I have experienced is figuring out what I want to do in life, public relations.

Eight Common Characteristics of Successful Companies

In Chapter Five, eight common characteristics were highlighted after Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman Jr. researched the sixty-two most successful companies. The eight common characteristics that were found are: 1) a bias for action, 2) close relations to the customer, 3) autonomy and entrepreneurship, 4) productivity through people, 5) hands-on, value-driven, 6) stick to the knitting, 7) simple form, lean staff, and 8) simultaneous loose-tight properties.
1) A bias for action means that the company makes decisions quickly.
2) When a company has close relations to the customer, their customers are accustomed to quality service, innovation, and reliability.
3) A company that practices autonomy allows their employees to take risks and assume responsibility.
4) Productivity through people means that employees are on task.
5) Hands-on, value-driven companies have a common vision that guides employees.
6) Stick to the knitting means that the company sticks to what they know and are good at.
7) Simple form, lean staff happens when a company keeps a relatively manageable work group and their is a simple structure throughout the group.
8) Simultaneous loose-tight properties promote individual and group making decisions.

The company I worked for is successful, but they were hanging in there and making ends meet. I am going to examine the eight characteristics and see how well they fit with my company.
The company was not action oriented. All decisions had to pass through my boss and she was extremely wishy-washy when it came to making a decision. The company had close relations to the customer and clients were always coming in to the office to express their gratitude. There was very little autonomy within the company because my boss micromanaged you, which lead to less productivity among workers. All employees knew the common focus, which was the kids, and because they wanted to help the kids they were value driven. The company stuck to what they know and never strayed away from swimming. There was a simple structure and a small staff, but they were not able to make individual decisions. I would say that my old job possessed about half of the quality characteristics, which may explain the reason as to why they are barely hanging on.

Domination Metaphor (Lecture Notes)

The domination metaphor refers to how an organization tries to control its employees and the affects that this control has on employees. Organizations impose themselves on their employees by making the employee accessible at all times. There needs to be a medium between work and a person's personal life, but now organizations are crossing the line. Work place surveillance was the example given for organizations controlling their employees. Organizations have the technology to monitor their employees at all times and keep them on task. This is a good way of keeping employees on task, but at the same time it is reducing productivity. It decreases productivity because employees cannot focus on work for eight hours straight; they will become sloppy. Pagers and cell phones are intrusive. Once an employee goes home, they should not be bombarded by work.
When I was the manager of a swim lesson program I worked from 8 in the morning until 8 at night, five days a week. I had never worked so hard in my life and when I got home all I wanted to do was relax, eat dinner, and go to sleep. On average, I would get a call from my boss after I got home so that she could tell me how to do things the next day. Not only was I being micro-managed, but my down time away from work was being taken away. My boss wanted to control everything that was happening and in return she reduced my productivity. By the end of summer, I dreaded every single day of work.

Learning Organization

In Chapter Four, Peter Senge highlights five distinguishing focus point for learning organizations. The five points are: systems thinking, personal mastery, flexible mental models, a shared vision, and team learning. The two points I am going to focus on are shared vision and team learning.
Shared vision within an organization is where group members act together in order to accomplish a common goal. This helps by bringing cohesiveness within a group because it unites the group towards working together for the one goal. The team must work together in order to accomplish a goal and this leads to group members being on task and helping each other out when it is needed.
Team learning is when communication leads to the group making intelligent decisions. This is necessary in order to avoid group think. Group think is when a group makes a bad decision because no one would voice their opinion and all group members went along with the voice of one person. Intelligent thinking involves collaboration among all group members.

Scientific Management Perspective of Goals

The scientific management perspective of goals is that individuals and organizations direct their activities and behavior towards reaching their goals. This is the most effective way to obtain a goal.
Each and everyone of us should set goals that can be reached. The should be slightly beyond your grasp so that you have to work for them, but they should be attainable. It is important to set goals because it gives a person something to strive for and work towards; it is a motivator.
My personal goal, when it comes to school, is to get straight A's. This motivates me every day and that is why I try hard and go to class. On the average day I need a reason to get out of bed, and my goals are the reason I get up. If I don't set goals then there is no motivation for me to do anything. I set goals to see how far I can push myself, and some goals are not attainable, but I try and that is all that matters.
Goals change your attitudes. Since they are motivators, they require you to be productive and happier. When you are working towards something, you know you are trying to accomplish something which makes it easier to put in the effort. Goals are a necessary part of life.

Scientific Management

Frederick Taylor was a visionary and all though his theory didn't work according to plan he did focus on the relationship between managers and their subordinates. Managers give their subordinates tasks and they must be done.
In my Fundamentals of Behavior and Organization Business class, my group did a research project on self-management. How this works is a manager gives their employees tasks and goals. Once the employee has their task they are sent off to do it with little micro-management. They ask for assistance when it is needed, but otherwise they are on their own. This gives the boss time to accomplish their own tasks. We found that this is a very effective way and increases job satisfaction and productivity for employees.

The Three P's

The three P's to think about while reading about theories are partial, partisan, and problematic. When thinking about a theory and if it is partial, one must take into account if the theory is complete or if there are still parts of the story that have been left out. It is like the game telephone. After a phrase has been passed around to a number of people the phrase has been altered either completely or parts of the phrase have been left out. This is a common occurrence when a story is being traveled by word of mouth. People interpret things differently and that is why a story can be partial.
When a theory is partisan, it means that it is biased. The theory is told from the view point of the teller and may leave out the view points of others, which skews the information. When a theory is partisan it is also partial, but there is no way to be able to capture every persons view point. Say you are telling your friend a story. You are only going to re-enact the thoughts and actions that you yourself did. A person is not about to think about how the person in the corner felt about what happened to you because they do not know how that person felt; this is how a story becomes partisan.
The third part of examining a theory is determining if it is problematic. A theory is problematic because not all questions are answered. Have you ever been watching a child and they ask you why? And then you respond and they ask you why again? It is a continuous battle and no one can answer all the why's. It is a never ending battle and because of this people must interpret why for themselves.
The three p's are all interrelated and that is why a theory can change depending on the eye of the beholder.