#Discussion Forum Stress, both good and bad, is a part of life.

Why is stress management important?

It's unavoidable and all affecting you whether it's good or bad. There are many reasons that cause stress such as, works, assignments, chores, finance, insomnia and more. They all have one thing in common which is all affects you in different ways. We all have a fear of something happens to us whether you are rich or poor.

How does stress affect your life?

Stress, both good and bad. My life has been changed by many events that happened in my early life. When my father closes the business he built in his 20s about 25 years ago, I began to worry about the future, what kind of life I have to live with. Today, my father started a food company and run it well for almost 7 years. I still got stressed sometimes, because after he went through the downtime of his life, he became really emotional and controlling. He stops me from being a veterinary which is my dream job. So I got stressed and feared about the future because I don't know what I am going to do.

Identify three stress management techniques you are going to use to decrease your stress levels. How can you apply these strategies to your life?

We always have a little monkey in our mind to interrupt us and procrastinate. So I have 3 three stress management techniques of my own that are "fun", "easy and organize" and "rewards".

1.FUN: Making things fun is a great way for me to reduce my stress level. If I have to do something and I can't get away from it then I start to think about how can I make it less boring or even have fun doing it. For instance, when I working out or exercising, I imagine that I am fighting against a monster and I don't want to be its lunch.....

2.EASY and ORGANIZE: When something is easy and organized, it's become more possible to achieve. Instead of setting goals like lose weight, it's more achievable to set goals like "eat 400kcal a day" or "run one kilometer every day". Separate your goals to tiny simple and easy pieces can increase the confidence for you to start. Believe is key to achieve anything.

3. REWARDS: You will need some rewards for yourself to build a habit. After the habits have been built, you can decrease your stress levels when you doing something that makes you stressful but you already built a habit which you know that it will come with a reward.

How will these strategies help you manage your stress?

When you get stressed, you might be afraid of something happens to you. So think about the coming up troubles and get prepared. Making things fun, easy, organize and come with rewards to prepare the solution effectively. 

#Learning Journal Summarize the key steps in planning and executing change

Unfreezing Before Change

• Executing change without prior preparation is likely to lead to failure. So it's much better to get prepared before you actually make the change. So every organization should start with the preparation procedures which is the unfreezing to make sure that all members are sufficiently prepared for it and receptive. In other words, if you are not doing your study or research, you are much likely to fail on an exam.
• Communicating a Plan for Change: When employees know what is going to happen, when, and why, they may feel more comfortable. For instance, you go to see a doctor and the doctor doesn't explain why he(or she) doing this treatment, you might be nervous and confused, and start to think about all the bad situations.
• Ensuring that top management communicates with employees about the upcoming changes also has symbolic value. As I said, the doctor doesn't tell you all the details you should know about every step that you are about to be treated. It's might affect your confidence during the treatment.
• Develop a Sense of Urgency: Our brain is made up to avoid danger. So people are more likely to accept change if they feel that there is a need for it. If the doctor tells you that the surgery is necessary and you need to do it now, you will still choose to ignore it? 
• If employees feel their company is doing well, the perceived need for change will be smaller. Just like your recovery is doing well after the surgery.
• Building a Coalition: To convince people that change is needed, the change leader does not necessarily have to convince every person individually. In fact, people’s opinions toward change are affected by opinion leaders or those people who have a strong influence over the behaviors and attitudes of others. Instead of trying to get everyone on board at the same time, it may be more useful to convince and prepare the opinion leaders. Just like the advertisements on the TV or the internet. There is always a celebrity to introduce their product and telling you that it is really worth to buy. Then you lose your mind and your hand starts to get out of your control......Finally, you pick up your credit card and enter the card number......
• Provide Support: Employees should feel that their needs are not ignored. Just like patients need good care. Providing emotional and instrumental support, discussing the changes, encouraging employees to voice their concerns will express confidence in employees’ ability to perform effectively under the new system.
• Allow Employees to Participate: Employees who participate in planning change efforts tend to have more positive opinions about the change. I think this is important because when you are taking part in something, you get the satisfaction from its success. And the engagement can do more than just participation, because of the communication and the exchange of opinions.

Executing Change

• Continue to Provide Support: As the change is underway, employees may experience high amounts of stress. While the patient is on the pain of the treatment, the only thing that can make them comfortable is the anesthesia. They may make mistakes more often or experience an uncertainty about their new responsibilities or job descriptions.
• Create Small Wins: Sometimes, "Your surgery is successful" and show the evidence of the success on the screen is much better than just put you back to the ward and disappearance. If people see changes, improvements, and successes along the way, they will be inspired and motivated to continue the change effort.
• Eliminate Obstacles: It is the management’s job to identify, understand, and remove these obstacles. What do you think if the doctor sees cancer and telling you that he(or she) can not do anything?

Refreezing

• After the change is implemented, the long-term success of a change effort depends on the extent to which the change becomes part of the company’s culture. If the change becomes a habit in the organization, the rewards even show up before the change is executed. Like the smoker and a drug addict people, their brain might reward themselves even before doing the behavior.
• Refreezing involves ensuring that change becomes permanent and the new habits, rules, or procedures become the norm.
• Publicize Success: Sharing results with employees increases their confidence, like the moment you take down the king on a chessboard.
• Reward Change Adoption: The rewards are to give support to the change effort and it's may encourage others to get on board. However, customized rewards is a better way to do it, because not everyone is enjoying the same thing.
• Embracing Continuous Change: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” – Steve Jobs. Not all the efforts will result in success, but giving up must fail. By setting up a dynamic feedback loop, learning can become a regular part of daily operations. If an employee implements a new method or technology that seems to be successful, a learning organization is in a good position to adopt it.

The text discusses three kinds of organizational structures: matrix, boundary-less, and learning. In a 2-page paper answer the following questions

What is a challenge to reporting to more than one manager in a matrix organization?

In a matrix structure organization, the reporting relationships are set up as a grid, or matrix, employees generally have to report to both a functional manager and a product manager. However, all managers are humans, they are not computers who can be set up with zero conflict. Actually, even computers also have errors or bugs sometimes. The biggest challenge is clearly the coordination I think. Without coordination, not only human managers but also computers are all lead to failure eventually. For instance, if the managers are the CPU, Hard disk, GPU, and RAM then the employees are like many tiny pieces of units on the computer. Even a tiny little disconnection can get your computer broke and shout down unexpectedly. Interpersonal conflict is a common situation that happens in a matrix structure organization. Moreover, the conflict can appear in the contradiction of goals, objectives, mission, and vision. When employees are required to report to the lines, not around the work, they might not see themselves as part of the same team and lose the "I am one of the team" sense of feeling. Thus, while the focus is on power and control instead of the goal, attention is turned in the wrong direction. If the environment is complex that several teams are working on different aspects of a project, it can be unclear who has the final authority over decisions, because almost every employee owns a tiny piece of a project or product lines. However, this is one of the reasons why there are many delays in decision-making.

What might be a benefit?

If the coordinated across functional departments are doing well, the resources can be used efficiently, since experts and equipment can be shared across projects. The more coordinated across functional departments is doing, the more information flows across and through the organization. And the employees can speed the decision process with the help of the sharing information. 

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of being employed by a boundary-less organization?

The advantages of being employed by a boundary-less organization?

Because of the traditional barriers between departments as well as barriers between the organization and the external environment are eliminated, you can increase the flexibility, collaboration, and shared more information. With a strong vision and goals, employees feel more self-satisfying with their job.

The disadvantages?

Because of the elimination of traditional barriers between departments and the organization to the external environment, the top managers might set multiple objectives to ensure the specific goals will be executed. The employees will take more responsibility for their jobs or the objectives set by managers. The truth is the more freedom you have, the more responsibility you have to take.

What is the main cost of maintaining an organizational learning environment?

The experimenting and learning new things can be the main cost of maintaining an organizational learning environment. Because of experimentation and testing, potentially better operational methods are encouraged, the organization has to pay the bills of failures. Not everything is perfect and can be done perfectly for the first time. 

What is the greatest benefit?

The experimenting and learning new things can be a way of identifying future opportunities. Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. Learning from failed experiences is probably the best way to move forward quickly. Like a scientist experiment so many times to find the truth, you can find the treasure if you try enough shots.

Which kind of organization would you like to work for? Why?

If I just looking for a part-time job, I prefer the matrix organization. I can just do what I suppose to do and that's it. I don't want to be required to coordinate across reporting lines to accomplish other people's goals and objectives. No more duties coming up in my mind. However, if I want to learn and digging more about the job, I would like to choose the learning organization. In the learning organization, I can learn how to institutionalized experimenting with new ideas. I might be allowed to work on my personal project with the resources of the organization.

#Notes 7.3 Contemporary Forms of Organizational Structures

7.3 Contemporary Forms of Organizational Structures

Beginning in the 1970s, management experts began to propose organizational designs that they believed were better adapted to the needs of the emerging business environment. Each structure has unique qualities to help businesses handle their particular environment.

Matrix Organization

Matrix Organizations

• Combines a traditional functional structure with a product structure.
• To balance the benefits of product-based and traditional functional structures. 
• Specifically, employees reporting to department managers are also pooled together to form project or product teams. 
• Each person reports to a department manager as well as a project or product manager. 
• Product managers have control and say over product-related matters, while department managers have authority over matters related to company policy. 
• Created in response to uncertainty and dynamism of the environment and the need to give particular attention to specific products or projects. 
• Using the matrix structure as opposed to product departments may increase communication and cooperation among departments because project managers will need to coordinate their actions with those of department managers. 
• Research shows that matrix structure increases the frequency of informal and formal communication within the organization.
• Matrix structures also have the benefit of providing quick responses to technical problems and customer demands. 
• The existence of a project manager keeps the focus on the product or service provided.
• An example of a matrix structure at a software development company. Business analysts, developers, and testers each report to a functional department manager and to a project manager simultaneously.

• Each employee reports to two or more managers. This situation is ripe for conflict. Because multiple managers are in charge of guiding the behaviors of each employee, there may be power struggles or turf wars among managers. 
• As managers are more interdependent compared to a traditional or product-based structure, they will need to spend more effort coordinating their work. 
• From the employee’s perspective, there is potential for interpersonal conflict with team members as well as with leaders. 
• The presence of multiple leaders may create role ambiguity or, worse, role conflict—being given instructions or objectives that cannot all be met because they are mutually exclusive. 
• The necessity to work with a team consisting of employees with different functional backgrounds increases the potential for task conflict at work. Solving these problems requires a great level of patience and proactivity on the part of the employee.
• The matrix structure is used in many information technology companies engaged in software development. 
• Sportswear manufacturer Nike is another company that uses the matrix organization successfully. New product introduction is a task shared by regional managers and product managers. While product managers are in charge of deciding how to launch a product, regional managers are allowed to make modifications based on the region.

Boundary-less Organizations

• Boundary-less organization refers to an organization that eliminates traditional barriers between departments as well as barriers between the organization and the external environment. 
• The modular Organization. An organization where all the nonessential functions are outsourced. The idea behind this format is to retain only the value-generating and strategic functions in-house, while the rest of the operations are outsourced to many suppliers. An example of a company that does this is Toyota. By managing relationships with hundreds of suppliers, Toyota achieves efficiency and quality in its operations. 
• Strategic alliances (A form of boundary-less design where two or more companies find an area of collaboration and combine their efforts to create a partnership that is beneficial for all parties.) constitute another form of boundary-less design. In this form, similar to a joint venture, two or more companies find an area of collaboration and combine their efforts to create a partnership that is beneficial for both parties. In the process, the traditional boundaries between two competitors may be broken. As an example, Starbucks formed a highly successful partnership with PepsiCo to market its Frappuccino cold drinks. Starbucks has immediate brand-name recognition in this cold coffee drink, but its desire to capture shelf space in supermarkets required marketing savvy and experience that Starbucks did not possess at the time. By partnering with PepsiCo, Starbucks gained an important head start in the marketing and distribution of this product. 
• Boundary-less organizations may involve eliminating the barriers separating employees; these may be intangible barriers, such as traditional management layers, or actual physical barriers, such as walls between different departments. Structures such as self-managing teams create an environment where employees coordinate their efforts and change their own roles to suit the demands of the situation, as opposed to insisting that something is “not my job.”

Learning Organizations

A learning organization (One where acquiring knowledge and changing behavior as a result of the newly acquired knowledge is part of an organization’s design.) is one whose design actively seeks to acquire knowledge and change behavior as a result of the newly acquired knowledge. 

• Experimenting, learning new things, and reflecting on new knowledge are the norms. 
• There are many procedures and systems in place that facilitate learning at all organization levels.
• Experimentation and testing potentially better operational methods are encouraged. This is true not only in response to environmental threats but also as a way of identifying future opportunities. 
• 3M is one company that institutionalized experimenting with new ideas in the form of allowing each engineer to spend one day a week working on a personal project. 
• At IBM, learning is encouraged by taking highly successful business managers and putting them in charge of emerging business opportunities (EBOs). By setting up a structure where failure is tolerated and risk taking is encouraged, the company took a big step toward becoming a learning organization.
• Learning organizations are also good at learning from experience—their own or a competitor’s. To learn from past mistakes, companies conduct a thorough analysis of them. Some companies choose to conduct formal retrospective meetings to analyze the challenges encountered and areas for improvement. To learn from others, these companies vigorously study competitors, market leaders in different industries, clients, and customers. 
• By benchmarking against industry best practices, they constantly look for ways of improving their own operations. Learning organizations are also good at studying customer habits to generate ideas. For example, Xerox uses anthropologists to understand and gain insights to how customers are actually using their office products. 

#Notes 7.2 Organizational Structure

Organizational structure refers to how individual and teamwork within an organization are coordinated. 

To achieve organizational goals and objectives, individual work needs to be coordinated and managed. 

Structure : 

1. A valuable tool in achieving coordination
2. Specifies reporting relationships (who reports to whom) delineates formal communication channels
3. Describes how separate actions of individuals are linked together. 

Organizations can function within a number of different structures, each possessing distinct advantages and disadvantages. Although any structure that is not properly managed will be plagued with issues, some organizational models are better equipped for particular environments and tasks.

#Notes 7.5 Planning and Executing Change Effectively

• 7.5 Planning and Executing Change Effectively
  
  
  Unfreezing Before Change
  • Executing change without prior preparation is likely to lead to failure. So it's much better to get prepared before you actually make the change. So every organization should start with the preparation procedures which is the unfreezing to make sure that all members are sufficiently prepared for it and receptive. In other words, if you are not doing your study or research, you are much likely to fail on an exam.
  • Communicating a Plan for Change: When employees know what is going to happen, when, and why, they may feel more comfortable. For instance, you go to see a doctor and the doctor doesn't explain why he(or she) doing this treatment, you might be nervous and confused, and start to think about all the bad situations.
  • Ensuring that top management communicates with employees about the upcoming changes also has symbolic value. As I said, the doctor doesn't tell you all the details you should know about every step that you are about to be treated. It's might affect your confidence during the treatment.
  • Develop a Sense of Urgency: Our brain is made up to avoid danger. So people are more likely to accept change if they feel that there is a need for it. If the doctor tells you that the surgery is necessary and you need to do it now, you will still choose to ignore it? 
  • If employees feel their company is doing well, the perceived need for change will be smaller. Just like your recovery is doing well after the surgery.
  • Building a Coalition: To convince people that change is needed, the change leader does not necessarily have to convince every person individually. In fact, people’s opinions toward change are affected by opinion leaders or those people who have a strong influence over the behaviors and attitudes of others. Instead of trying to get everyone on board at the same time, it may be more useful to convince and prepare the opinion leaders. Just like the advertisements on the TV or the internet. There is always a celebrity to introduce their product and telling you that it is really worth to buy. Then you lose your mind and your hand starts to get out of your control......Finally, you pick up your credit card and enter the card number......
  • Provide Support: Employees should feel that their needs are not ignored. Just like patients need good care. Providing emotional and instrumental support, discussing the changes, encouraging employees to voice their concerns will express confidence in employees’ ability to perform effectively under the new system.
  • Allow Employees to Participate: Employees who participate in planning change efforts tend to have more positive opinions about the change. I think this is important because when you are taking part in something, you get the satisfaction from its success. And the engagement can do more than just participation, because of the communication and the exchange of opinions.
  
  
  Executing Change
  • Continue to Provide Support: As the change is underway, employees may experience high amounts of stress. While the patient is on the pain of the treatment, the only thing that can make them comfortable is the anesthesia. 
  • Create Small Wins: Sometimes, "Your surgery is successful" and show the evidence of the success on the screen is much better than just put you back to the ward and disappearance. If people see changes, improvements, and successes along the way, they will be inspired and motivated to continue the change effort.
  • Eliminate Obstacles: It is the management’s job to identify, understand, and remove these obstacles. What do you think if the doctor sees cancer and telling you that he(or she) can not do anything?
  
  
  Refreezing
  • After the change is implemented, the long-term success of a change effort depends on the extent to which the change becomes part of the company’s culture. If the change becomes a habit in the organization, the rewards even show up before the change is executed. Like the smoker and a drug addict people, their brain might reward themselves even before doing the behavior.
  • Refreezing involves ensuring that change becomes permanent and the new habits, rules, or procedures become the norm.
  • Publicize Success: Sharing results with employees increases their confidence, like the moment you take down the king on a chessboard.
  • Reward Change Adoption: The rewards are to give support to the change effort and it's may encourage others to get on board. However, customized rewards is a better way to do it, because not everyone is enjoying the same thing.
  • Embracing Continuous Change: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” – Steve Jobs. Not all the efforts will result in success, but giving up must fail. By setting up a dynamic feedback loop, learning can become a regular part of daily operations. If an employee implements a new method or technology that seems to be successful, a learning organization is in a good position to adopt it.

#Notes 6.3 From Management by Objectives to the Balanced Scorecard

Management by Objectives (MBO)

A systematic and organized approach that allows management to focus on achievable goals and to attain the best possible results from available resources.

MBO aims to increase organizational performance by aligning the subordinate objectives throughout the organization with the overall goals that management has set.

MBO was where managers should focus their time and energy. Effective MBO managers focus on the result, not the activity. 

MBO is about setting goals and then breaking these down into more specific objectives or key results. 

MBO involves :

1. setting company-wide goals derived from corporate strategy
2. determining team- and department-level goals
3. collaboratively setting individual-level goals that are aligned with corporate strategy
4. developing an action plan, and 
5. periodically reviewing performance and revising goals.

The broader principle behind MBO is to make sure that everybody within the organization has a clear understanding of the organization’s goals, as well as awareness of their own roles and responsibilities in achieving objectives that will help to attain those goals.

In MBO systems, goals and objectives are written down for each level of the organization, and individuals are given specific aims and targets.

In what ways do goals and objectives help managers control various processes within an organization?

In what ways do goals and objectives help managers control various processes within an organization? 

Managers are always making decisions during their jobs. Goals and objectives can help managers to make the decisions more effective by setting a series of measurable and time-based objectives. If the organization wants to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas and avoid global warming, the objectives might be cut off by 30% fossil-fueled cars, 50% electric cars on the road, 50% of plant-based meats, or something similar. When you have these specific, clear and measurable objectives to achieve, then the date of accomplishment is not far away anymore.

How do specific and measurable goals affect employees and promote organizational performance? Provide an example from your own experience of when a specific goal or objective provided beneficial control over a process. 

While most students are talking about work experiences on this topic, I want to go a different way which is the travel plan. When I visited Japan 3 months ago, I was the chief of the tour group. The goals can be as simple as have a nice trip. But when it comes to the objectives parts, I have to set clear and measurable programs for my members. I sent a checklist to them to make sure they have taken all the needs in their packages such as passport, tickets, local currency and it has to be done by the time they leave home. Then I set a schedule for each of them who lives in different cities to meet in the airport right on time and at the right place. Then when we landed, I set the simple objective that is meet and wait at the door 9 and the members have to report why they can match the mission if they are late. This is important because I can better handle all the problems without being a mess.

Explain what the beneficial control was and how did it positively impact organizational performance.

As I said, I set the specific objectives on each step to make sure all things are mostly under control. If I have not set the meeting time and the place, they might be confused about the when or where they should get. When they bring all the needs because of the checklist, it impacts the organizational performance. There might be a serious delay when they forget their passports.

My own Strategy Diamond

This week, the journal will focus on your personal growth and development strategy. Review section 5.7, Formulating Organizational and Personal Strategy with the Strategy Diamond in the text and develop your own Strategy Diamond. Include the final list of your personal goals and objectives as well as the work you did to arrive at them.

My own Strategy Diamond

• Arenas ( What would I want to do and where will I be active in? )

1. Open a coffee shop in Taiwan.
2. Be a professional multinational investor.

• Differentiators ( Advantages and How will I get there? )

1. Increase savings by having a job.
2. Improve business knowledge.
3. Think creative.
4. Set priorities and to-do lists to achieve. 
5. Expand views while traveling to different countries.
6. Time management.
7. Work as an intern at a coffee shop.
8. Keep healthy
9. Present economy environment

• Vehicles ( Connect how the strategy will get me there )

1. Read at least one business every day.
2. Save money by managing the salary to 3 parts that are needs, wants, and savings.
3. Make friends who already succeed in the area, or listen to their public speech. 
4. Create a step by step PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) map to achieve the goal.
5. Use a time management app to better manage my time.
6. Practice barista skills every day in order to be hired into the coffee industry.
7. Finish my study at Unversity to get a better chance.
8. Exercise 3 times a week to keep healthy.
9. Keep notice of the global financial market.
10. The St.Louis Federal reserve bank database mail.

• Staging and pacing (Time and next stop )

1. Set a timeline and taking goals apart to tiny pieces.
2. Deposit 30% of income into savings account every month.
3. Read one book which relevant to my goals every month.
4. Learning every detail and take at least one paper of note during an internship at the coffee shop.
5. Keep noticing the surroundings of where I want to start my business and record it in a journal.

What negative consequences can emerge when vision, mission, or values contradict strategy

• In the last unit, we learned about vision, mission, and values. In this unit, the text states: “…a strategy captures and communicates how vision and mission will be achieved and which goals and objectives show that the organization is on the right path to achieving them.” What negative consequences can emerge when vision, mission, or values contradict strategy? Name a time where you believe strategy was not aligned with vision, mission, or values. How can leaders ensure that strategy matches the vision, mission, and values?

• What negative consequences can emerge when vision, mission, or values contradict strategy? 

"Planning starts with vision and mission and concludes with setting goals and objectives. In-between is the critical role played by strategy."(Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2012). What happens if the vision, mission, or values contradict strategy? According to the "Management Principles"(Carpenter, Bauer, & Erdogan, 2012). There are two aspects of strategizing that you should recognize which are corporate strategy and business strategy, corporate strategy answers strategy questions related to “What business or businesses should we be in?", business strategy, however, focuses on how a given business needs to compete to be effective. 

When vision, mission, or values contradict strategy some negative consequences can emerge such as the mission statement is not disseminated internally while it is used by employees, stockholders, and leaders throughout the organization. The vision statement is the foundation of the company and is based on the company’s core beliefs and It addresses the company’s purpose for the future and what the organization exists to achieve. The strategies born to help the company to achieve the goals effectively. So that it can cause a ship to get lost in the ocean and could not find the right direction.

• Name a time where you believe strategy was not aligned with vision, mission, or values. 

There was a time when I work at a coffee shop, the vision is to serve with pride and working with passion to deliver the café dreams. The mission is to be the leading coffee roaster and purveyor of gourmet coffees and foodservice products around the community by offering the guiding principles of integrity, quality, service, and relationship.

But the point is, they don't have a clear training plan on emotional management for the barista. What happened if they get too busy and rising their temperature? They can not be working with passion to deliver the café dreams for certain.

• How can leaders ensure that strategy matches the vision, mission, and values?

Imagine that when you are driving a car, you want to go left but your hand turns the wheel right...If the strategy doesn't match the plan, this situation might be the company's story on the road. So the leaders must ensure that strategy matches the vision, mission. But how do leaders to ensure it? When the leaders thinking about what can we do, it's a chance to rethink the vision and the mission that is what do we really want to want to do? what do others expect us to do?