Leadership and Motivation

Unit 3 Individual Project 1

Diana Pussehl

April 8, 2007

Motivating an employee to work hard for any organization is difficult without the necessary support and the plans to advance those things that support. Culture is not something executives hand to employees; it is something for which each of us has ownership. It is in the way we treat each other and how we perform, communicate, manage and work together. Organizational systems such as job design and goal setting, performance appraisals, base pay, and career development are reliable ways of establishing an atmosphere of efficiency(Powell and DiMaggio, 1991).

Work groups and teams will work at FMC Green River with the right execution and a steady timeline. The overlap will take time and may cause considerable frustration as many employees are opposed to change. There will be a better chance of success starting from the beginning with the plants that are currently in the planning and development stages. Green River management should consider creating self-managed work teams. These teams should operate as self contained organizations as the teams at Aberdeen seem to already do. Teams will work in all organizations; however, it depends upon the goals of the company and the goal of the teams. Some teams are designed for short term goals and projects. Others are for more long term goals that will take years to develop (Clawson, 2005).

Leadership has shown at Aberdeen that the supervisors and Management take an active roll in all aspects of the company. However, there is a level of trust that seems to be higher at Aberdeen that it is at Green River. Dailey heard in his meeting that management didn’t seem to “micro-manage” his supervisors. They were allowed to do their job with complete trust and confidence. At Green River, there seems to be more of a level of fear. No one wants to make waves in the company so no one says anything and they just do as they are told. There seems to be a breakdown of communication between the employees and management (Clawson, 2005).

Aberdeen allows their employees a certain amount of freedom to do their work and to feel relaxed in their surroundings. That is not the case with Green River. It seems as though that management feels if that same amount of freedom is given to their workers that nothing would be accomplished (Clawson, 2005). One way to implement what Aberdeen is doing is to hire more or promote more supervisors to create smaller teams where this may not be the case anymore. Then the employees can feel relaxed and enjoy what they do instead of dreading coming to work.

The needs to be more of an open line of communication. Employees may be feeling that if they have a complaint that they will never get it “up the chain” fast enough for anything to get accomplished. The smaller the groups, as it is in Aberdeen, the more an employee can feel that they are being heard and resentment will not grow. It could be another reason Green river has such a large turnover rate. When employees feel comfortable with management, they are more eager to continue working (Powell and Dimaggio, 1991).

There are many changes