The organizational environment represents a rather rigid structure where a specific hierarchy coexists with very rigid standards for employees’ behaviors and attitudes. Although the contemporary business setting creates an illusion of a very flexible environment , the principal constructs of the leader representing a role model and setting the key standards, whereas employee accepting the notions of corporate social responsibility (CSR), innovative thinking, and lifelong learning, remain the same across all industries. However, to understand how the described ideas are translated into the real-world examples of managing an organizational setting and employees’ behaviors and attitudes, one might want to examine the context of a specific industry, such as the interior design. This course has provided me with a plethora of information concerning shaping an individual approach toward leadership and developing the tool for motivating employees, enabling me to translate theory into practice with due insight and efficacy.
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle
In order to establish the entire extent of the effect that the course has produced on me as a future leader so far, Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle will be applied. The specified model is one of the most common approaches toward considering the obtained experience and building the further framework for professional and personal development based on the outcomes. Kolb’s learning cycle includes four phases, which are: Concrete experience, Reflective observation, Abstract conceptualization, and Active experimentation (Bassot, 2015). The specified stages demonstrate how an individual can acquire knowledge, develop skills, and use them by applying theory to a practical concern.
Reflection
Learning about the factors that shape organizational behavior and especially initiative in staff members was one of the key pieces of information that changes my entire perspective on the issue of human resource management and improvement of service quality as someone working in the interior design. Although the context of the interior design business is usually perceived by a side observer as the environment where free expression and imaginative approaches are highly encouraged, it, in fact, is defined by rigid standards for spacing, color theory, and the related constructs (Fletcher & Williams, 2016). As a result, when developing a project, most of the team members prefer either to remain silent or to support the opinion that the majority and, particularly, the team manager, voice. In turn, the very next lecture after the introduction to the course opened my eyes to the reasons why the observed issue takes place, specifically, the fear of failing to meet the established rigid standards.
Therefore, as an interior designer and a leader of a team, I will strive to promote the importance of free expression and the idea of distancing oneself from the rigidity of the current archetypes. Although the importance of quality standards will still remain high, all employees will be welcome to voice any ideas that they deem fit during the brainstorming process. While objective criticism will still be welcome in the context of our team, the role of innovative thinking will be prioritized over the need to reinforce the rules of design. Specifically, a delicate balance between the form and function will become the primary goal of the discussion.
Furthermore, the role of storytelling in shaping employees’ organizational behavior was an important issue to discover and discuss in this course. Storytelling a s a technique used in an organization is typically linked to building a marketing strategy and crystallizing a marketing image that the company will have to uphold in the target market (Fletcher & Williams, 2016). However, when approaching organizational behavior and the associated issues, one may also face the necessity to integrate the principles and key postulates of organizational behavior theories. The idea that storytellers can help to change employees’ mindset by altering their role in the corporate setting is a rather unusual way of viewing one of the major steps in using the Transformational Leadership framework as the tool for motivating employees. Indeed, a closer look at the transformational approach will indicate that the development of a team of devoted employees and ensuring that recruitment of new members into the framework of collaboration and innovation becomes one of the main priorities of the said team members. Thus, the view of storytelling as a vital part of altering staff members’ mindset cannot possibly be doubted.
However, the described idea begs the question of how the specified attitude can be sustained in staff members, and whether the specified approach will work in the contexts that can be described as highly diverse. For instance, in the environment of the interior design industry, where I play the part of a leader, the levels of diversity suggest that the leadership approach can only be used to introduce a rather basic level of homogeneity in staff members’ attitudes. Although the described effect could weaken the outcomes of the leadership process, it gives staff members a greater range of flexibility and agency in the corporate setting, which is vital for their ability to engage in decision-making. In turn, the specified strategy does not restrict their flow of creativity, thus inciting them to come up with unique designs and draw on their culture-specific and general experiences s a combination of ideas that will eventually help them to produce original solutions in the workplace setting. Once the suggested storytelling approach is incorporated into the described context, the threat of erasing the uniqueness of staff members’ perspectives and creating an environment where conformism is celebrated becomes a highly plausible risk.
Therefore, applying the idea if storytelling as a part of the unique brand identity of an organization needs to be applied with due caution when promoting change and increasing engagement in staff members. I strongly feel that the integration of storytelling into the corporate context is expected to introduce staff members to new ideas concerning the company, its goals, and their role and place in it. Specifically, storytelling can be used to convince employees that they are highly valued, thus introducing the sense of trust and goodwill into the relationships between a company and its team members. However, believing that the adoption of storytelling will change not only people’s attitudes but also their value set and principles completely to meet those of an organization deems to be naïve, at best, and disrespectful of the participants; agency, at worst. Therefore, it is the job of a leader to ensure that the process of staff members’ transformation should start with the employees’ willingness to change and their recognition of the need for altering their perspective.
In the environment of the interior design industry, the value of employees’ individuality and their initiative are deemed to be of especially high significance since the initiative of staff members defines their creative ability and the skill of transforming environments and breathing new life into the settings that may seem as uninspired. Therefore, the introduction of a homogenous attitude and value set into the target context might seem as questionable, at best, in terms of the effects that it may have on the creativity of the team members.
However, it appears that, with due focus on the talent management techniques and the support of professional growth of each staff member individually, one will be able to inspire them to support corporate values of the specified organization as well while keeping their unique outlook on their work intact. The described step will demand a change in the dynamics between the staff and the organization, with the shift toward the provision of a better environment for staff members and the increased strength of the rapport between the company and its employees. Therefore, the inclusion of smart storytelling as a tool for changing employees’ attitudes and convincing them to accept the values of the company might turn out to be applicable to the interior design industry and, particularly, the target organization.
In this respect, one should connect the process of talent management with the task of increasing job satisfaction among employees. The course in question has provided me with insights concerning the role that job satisfaction plays in the process of shaping organizational behaviors toward the desired frameworks. Indeed, the notion of job satisfaction is often take for granted since the very notion is traditionally see as idealistic and hardly attainable one. However, the focus on job satisfaction s one of the cornerstone aspects of enhancing employee motivation, one will be able to achieve significant improvements in the staff performance rates. Thus, the course with its focus on the subject matter and its ability to connect the notions of job satisfaction, talent management, and change in attitudes has shown me how to encourage a positive change while also guiding staff members to a more responsible attitude toward their job and introducing them to the notion of the lifelong improvement and learning.
The latter, in fact, plays a critical role in the environment of the interior design industry. Due to the constant introduction of new ideas and artistic trends into the target environment, as well as the development of new technologies, the interior design industry remains a very pliable and constantly changing setting. Therefore, suggesting that staff members should develop not only flexibility and adaptability but also the skills associated with future thinking and the skills of learning independently is an important development in the relationship between managers, employees, and company leaders.
Based on the insights gathered from the information provided so far in this course, the search for the available storytelling techniques and the reinforcement of collaboration and teambuilding along with the corporate spirit should be seen as the essential steps toward a major improvement. To develop a unique business model that will suit the company’s needs while also making it highly competitive in the interior design market, one will have to reconsider the current business strategy and focus on meeting the needs of team members while also inspiring them to accept organizational values and develop loyalty to the company. The described goal can be achieved by creating a talent management framework rooted in the idea of incremental professional development. Specifically, the team members will be offered a role model that promotes continuous learning as a paradigm for professional development. Afterward, the process of incremental improvement and innovation can be launched in the target setting. With organizational behaviors of staff members having changed to the ones that are supportive of the company’s growth an geared toward cooperation, the organization will be able to progress and develop an even stronger competitive advantage in the environment of the interior design.
The variety of business models accessible to a manager, as well as the opportunity to develop a unique business framework tailored specifically to the needs and the environment of a particular business setting was also an important piece of information to learn. However, the descried insight has also sparked several contemplations concerning the application of business models to different contexts in an attempt to produce different results. Specifically, the fact that a particular approach to management has served its purpose and led to improvements in a particular context does not necessarily imply that it will have the same stellar effects in a different organizational setting. Therefore, learning about the specified issue has encouraged me to consider the importance of conducting an analysis of the internal and external environments in which the said strategy is going to be deployed. Specifically, the need for integration of tools for determining the key strengths and weaknesses of an organization, as well as the opportunities that it can pursue in the target market and the risks that it may suffer appear to be the essential takeaway from the specified piece of information.
Experimenting with the specified idea in the interior design context, one must acknowledge the importance of being creative with the development of a business model in order to become distinctively different from other companies that represent the key competitive force in the market. Remarkably, there are specific expectations for the brand image for interior design companies in the global market, which do not seem to be applied to companies in other industries. Specifically, it is crucial for an interior design organization to demonstrate its advantages with the help of the image that its marketing experts have created for it.
Conclusion
By diving deep into the concept of organizational behavior and dissecting it to locate the factors that drive the change within employees’ attitudes and routine actions, this course has helped me as someone working in the domain of interior design to improve the performance of teamwork and the relevant project management processes significantly. Namely, the opportunities for increasing the extent of their agency and willingness to participate have been discovered. Since the existing standards for design create the bubble in which designers are afraid of voicing their opinions out of the threat of seeming incompetent, it is crucial to persuade them to speak their mind in the business setting.
Thus, discussions will produce a much greater range of innovative and fresh ideas, which, in turn, will lead to improved services and the creation of a distinctive brand image of the company. Therefore, as a leader in the interior design industry, I will focus on promoting expression and communication across all levels so that the voices of all participants and team members could be heard. Furthermore, it will be necessity to construct a communication channel that will be used to coordinate actions across the organization and focus on interdisciplinary collaboration. As a result, a plethora of innovative solutions and unique ideas is expected.
References
Bassot, B. (2015). The reflective practice guide: An interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection. Routledge.
Fletcher, C., & Williams, R. (2016). Appraisal: Improving performance and developing the individual. Routledge.