Overview Group Blog and Present the plan of Assignment1-By Angie

Overview Group Blog

1. The Layout of Group Blog

In our blog, except weekly activities, there are some gadgets, such as daily calendar, search bar, useful links, and some preview modules. In “Partners”, it links our members’ individual blogs. “Recent Comments” is arranged in order of time of occurrence. The inviters can quickly read our comments. At the right, it is our “Article List”. It records our all activities. Besides, there are links to other groups, RISAL and Moodle.

2. The Article Format in Group Blog

Generally speaking, the article format about our weekly activity is that one member first post the key information about weekly activity, and then every member writes their opinions in the “comment table”. But, in the “comment table”, we can not share video and links other digital information. Therefore, sometimes, in order to embed some video or other digital material, every member would post their own “activity page” and give a clear indication of the author.

Following is my plan about our group assignment.

At first, every one will give a brief introduction about our organizations, including the history, culture, current plan, and employees. In order to compare the similarities and differences, we will choose the key words and fill out a comparing table. It is a quite useful and simple way to compare different data.

In the part two, we will use some models to interpret the specific situation about our organizations. The initial selected models include the “Diffusion of Innovation” model, Fullan’s “framework for leadership”, Senge’s “five principles for Learning Organizations”, and Newhouse et.al. (2002) framework. In this part, we will first make a brief introduction about these modules, and then give four cases about our organizations respectively. After finishing the basic statement, we will give a comparison or summary about our four organizations. I think in this part, we can also use some tables and key words to compare different data. (The outline about the basic structure of our assignment http://mainland4.blogspot.com/2011/03/outline-of-group-assignment.html)

After we finished comparison, we will discuss the key “What strategies does your organization have in place to encourage development, change and innovation”. I will answer this question as the implications of the above four models presented. The specific format is that I will itemize the concrete strategies as the displayed four models. I think it is a good way to keep connectivity and consistency.

Presentation of our group work

Two parts used to introduce and explain our group assigenment in the prsentation tonight:
1.The design of our blog
2.The plan of our group assignment and several steps to complete it


Dear group members, please make comments below about the two aspects.

Preparation of group assignment

According to the outline of mite6328, the group assignment may be devided into three parts:

1.Gather data from each group, including history, culture, current planning, staff ect.

In this part, in that each of us has introduced our working place in group activitites, what we need do here is to offer a brief introduction and put all the information together. In order to offer others who review our assignment, my suggestions are as followes:
1.Each of us write a breif introduction of our own organization focusing on the above mentioned aspects(history, culture, current planning, staff, anything you want to add) within 200 words.
2. Choose key words from the our introduction and compile them together in the following table:

The content of the blank may be finished individually and each blank is limited to 20 words.

2.Give an account of what development has been conducted at your workplace with reference to theory and research in organizational learning.

In this part, we can just review our comments in group activities and summarise them individually. Each of us are supposed to share a passage with about 500 words.

Also, in this part, it is suggested that we analyse the topic in several certain models discussed in our sessions, so that we can compare the result with each other.

3.Compare and contrast this data and answer the question “What strategies does your organisation have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?”

Finally, the basic information, as well as the data of "a learning organization" posted by Azalea will be put together to compare in group. Then an article to answer the question"What strategies does your organisation have in place to encourage development, change and innovation" will be finished together. Since our working places are all typical mainland Chinese companies taken in charge of different individualls or organizations, we may think about on the same background, what different strategies do we taken and why do the changes differ from each other?

The outline of our final assignment:

Part 1:Introduction(about 200 words in each passage)

A:

B:

C:

D:

Part2:Comparasion and contrast:

Table 1:Basic information

Table 2: The data of "learning organization"

Part 3:What development has been conducted at your workplace?(about 500 words in each passage)

A:

B:

C:

D:

Part 4:The comparison of our current situation with different models

Part 5:The summarise of "What strategies does your organisation have in place to encourage development, change and innovation?”

Here is a possible plan of our group assignment, all suggestions are welcomed. Please make comments below. And the plan may be decided before the end of this week to make sure that there will be enough time for us to finish it.

Mite 6328----Group Activity 7

Develop ideas of where you could incorporate the use of Scenario Planning in your organization.

storytelling in my organisation by Ximeng Li

Since I worked for government, I’d like to share Chinese government’s story to you and meantime Japan was just facing the nuclear incidents, so I want to share story regarding new energy technology development in China, In 2008, Chinese leaders doubled their commitment to new energy technology, we seeking funding for research and set targets for installing wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources of energy. The country had virtually no solar industry in 2003, five years later, it was manufacturing more solar cells than any other country, winning customers from foreign companies that had invented the technology in the first place. What I concerned is , new energy technology is indeed safe? We have to rethinking it and make a self-criticism while Japan gave us a lesson, every coin has two sides!

Activity6 - Story Telling

------ By Azalea

I would like to share the real story which it happened in my organization about four years ago. The story is telling us the working style of traditional Chinese organizations as well as the attitudes of their employees. Also, it brings us to understand how those employees learn and realize the potential after leaders focus to make a change. The story was happened fours years ago. I was an editor in Shanghai Security News as well as an editor for its online platform www.cnstock.com. I remember that my boss went to Hong Kong to observe how the staff of TVB made its programs. Then, after her HK visit, she went back to Shanghai and asked us to try the ways how TVB staff made their programs. All of our staff thought the ways TVB staff made the programs is impossible because they thought that it is impossible to make a program by only a person. Actually, our organization divided the program into many parts which will be separately assigned to a dedicated person to be responsible to the specific part. Therefore, no one thought that a person can take in charge of the entire program. However, the leader of my organization forced us to make this practice without any excuse. What’s a surprise! My colleagues really made it after trying for few times. Finally, they realized that it is possible. They understood that “you never try, you never know”. Also, they understand people in traditional Chinese organizations do not initiate to make the change by themselves or even resist making any change with high tolerance. Thus, most of change is being forced by someone or the situation. With that experience, my colleagues start to learn and learn it quick. As a result, the productivity of my department was increasing five times at that time.

Group Activity- A story in my organization-By Angie

I think in many Chinese companies, there are lack of a clear vision and culture. It is generally believed these are only a conception. Perhaps, the following story represents many Chinese leaders' idea about their organizations.

There are two leaders in café.

One said, “you are so busy, what’s your intend?”

“To expand the business.”  The other answered.

“Then, what’s your future plan?”

“Then, to dominate the market.”

“After that,  what are you going to do?”

“Then, I hope to be a listed company, and earn much more money. ”

Then, they laughed.

I think this is a universal phenomenon in many Chinese organizations. “Profit , to be a listed company”, is the most important goals. But, are there any others?

I think that it is many Chinese entrepreneurs are facing now.

A story by Jacqueline(Yang Ye)

A story for a voluntary organization members who intend to teach in the coutryside:
A boy standing on the beach picked up the fish and threw it into the sea. Then an old man aside him asked a question that there are a great number of fishes here, can you save all of them?
The boy did not stop but answered, "At least, it is useful for this one in my hand."

The story tells us why teachers should attend this activity even though no great change will be made on euducaion of China.

group activities 5 - Reflection on Learning Organization Survey by Ximeng Li

As I stated that my organization is government, so I’d love to investigate this survey towards government in mainland China in regard to using organizational processes methods, such as Learning Organization Survey described by Harvard Business Review. My learning organization survey posted as below:

In summary, my learning environment composite wasn’t so good for learning process, and obviously, my government leaders hasn't used to open their mind to accept new ideas, which means innovative way was hard to push in government. And they were not appreciated differences between our government system, they need more stability and harmony. Though the time for reflection was enhanced and improved by decades.

For an organization, innovation would denote the generation or adoption of novel ideas or behavior. However, it's hard to do the same way that innovative things push on government policy, Hence, to an enterprise, an innovation can be a new product or service, a new production technology, a new operation procedure or a new management strategy, comparing with government, an innovation can be more open policy in political issues, such as democracy improvement, Most successful innovations are the result of gradual changes in concepts and methodology implemented continually over time. Accumulation of organizational resources relies on the creation, search, acquisition and sharing of knowledge; and effective organizational innovation is the key to maintain competitive advantage in a constantly changing environment. This is based on the distinction between administrative and technical innovations. While it is recognized that organizational innovation is the key determinant of an enterprise’s success or failure, either also suitable for government innovation, the question of whether policy would affect the implementation of innovation remains to be explored let’s see further.

---------------------------by Ximeng Li

Activity 5 - Comparison

------By Azalea

Activity 5 - By Azalea

To read the entire document, click here.

Group Activity 5----By Jacqueline(YANG Ye)

Applying an online survey in your workplace as an learning organisation
I have tried the online survey about learning organisation offered by Harvard Business Review among my colleagues in my department. Therefore, I would like to try to analyse the results here first.

David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino(2008) states that there are three aspects used to decide whether an organiztion is "a learning organiztion", including leadership that reinforces learning, concrete learning process and learning environment.

The first part of the survey indicates the general level of the three aspects. In our department, the data of three aspects are all below the average, especially among which the result of leadership that reinforces learning is at the bottom quartile. For us it is really an unexpected result since we work in a training school where learning should have been emphasized,respected and encoraged. Although the different culture and thinking models between eastern and western countries should be taken into consideration, which I will explain later, it is still necessary for our company to treat the problem seriously.

Then, I will give a reveiw of the second part of the survey focusing on the concrete learning processes and Practices.

Experimentation: the data is a little lower than the median level, which is reasonable since the business of our school is traditional: teaching and learning. Although we discusses various ways of teaching in HKU and excellent softwares are introduced by our tutors, they are not easily used in our school. The reason is that most students come here for higer marks rather than ability or innovation or creativity. However, the results may be different in other departments which focus on the improvement of language ability.

Information collection and Analysis:in the two aspects, we do relatively well since we should keep pace with the changing of exams, especially the college entrance exam which is emphasized to such an extent that you may not easily imagine, as well as the mentality of students and parents. In addition, when the action is taken, the results of expanding market are obvious. Such is human nature that more actions in the same aspect will be taken in the future.

Information transfer: the problem is obvious that memebers of this group can not share and make full use of the resources after the comparision of information collection and information transfer. Another important point is it is not because we lack of information but because we lack of the way and platform to share what we have got. And that is why in the aspect of education and training, we also get a bottom mark, which is quite dangerous to a training school.

Finally, according to the last table in the result, we find a really surprising result. It indicates that the time for reflection is enough, but what members reflect will not taken seriously. Most of teachers in our school with relative high salary claim that they never feel save here since they have too much free time but no sense of belonging and a great number of teachers choose to leave because of it, which is also one of the most serious problems our leaders are worried about.

Considering that most of my colleagues who take the survey think high of it for the result reflects real problems of this organization and I am greatly interested in this topic, I decide to do a widecompany suvey across mainland China. The concrete plan has been sent to the Director of Human Resources and the CEO of our company in Beijing and they decides to begin the online survey recently. The data of local branch schools are supposed to sent to me by the end of March. (If any of our group members has problem in collecting data, welcome to join this plan since there will be quite a lot of data to analyse.) I believe the results of each branch school will be different, so by comparision of the data, I will finish an analysis of the current situation of all branch schools and our branch schools can take advantage of each other in different aspects. Also, a deep research focusing on one or two aspects may be continued if it is necessary.

Outline of group assignment

------(by Azalea)



To view the whole picture, click here.

Activity 5-By Angie

Activity 5:Applying an online survey in your workplace as an learning organization.

In order to realize the organization and “determine how well is performing with each building block” (Garvin etal., 2008), the survey was used and completed.

My organization-the industrial association belongs to the local governmental department-Industrial and Commercial Bureau. Due to its special status, the organization almost is in a monopolistic circumstance. However, there is a change from 2008. The individual companies could choose to handle their industrial and commercial yearly check, by themselves. This change made the staffs stressful. Although the leaders took some measures to train their staffs and publicized their advantages to do the industrial and commercial yearly check,

the effect was quite a little. Based on on-line survey, the following statement is the survey results and a concrete analysis.

As the figure 1 indicated, the overall scores of my organization are quite low. But, the scores of three building blocks are quite consistent. They are all in the bottom quartile, and at a comparative low place. These results showed that my organization does not function as a good learning organization.

Figure 1： Learning organization Scores Summary of Industrial Association

Following is the concrete analysis of every aspect in each building block. The scores of Figure 2 pointed the five subcomponents situation in the building block of “Concrete Learning Process and Practices”. There are four scores in the bottom quartile, and experimentation gets the lowest score among them. Apparently, my organization does not receive the new ways of working. On the other hand, the score of analysis is comparatively high and in a forward position in the third quartile. It is beyond my imagination, because I always assumed the analysis of my organization being bad. It reveals that the leaders need “to think about the degree to which people test assumptions, engage in productive debate, and seek out dissenting views” (Garvin etal., 2008).

Figure2： Scores of Subcomponents in Concrete Learning Process and Practices

In the third figure, there is an interesting situation. The score of “Openness to new ideals” is below the bottom quartile, while the “Time for reflection” is in the first quartile. Although the “Appreciation of difference” is in the bottom quartile, it is quite close the second quartile. Yet the “Psychological safety” is also in the bottom quartile, at a lower position.

The report by Garvin etal. (2008) pointed that “‘openness to new ideals’ and ‘Education and training’obvious links to organizational improvement and personal development ”. In fact, these two aspects are the most difficult problems my organization faced in currently. The staffs lack enough training and further education, and staffs always feel that they could not get the respects. Indeed, staffs are eager to self-improve.

The “Psychological safety” suggested that “employees must be comfortable expressing their thoughts about the work at hand” (Garvin etal., 2008). It implied that leaders need to create a supportive environment to encourage employees to express their own opinions. The current situation is that the leaders always dislike the different opinion, or seemingly accepted. However, there is a positive sign about that the leaders gradually began to realize the significance of the difference options and appreciate them, which led to the score of “Appreciation of difference” being close to the second quartile.

The score of “Time for reflection” is the highest among the all scores. “Supportive learning environments allow time for a pause in the action and encourage thoughtful review of the organizations’ process” (Garvin etal., 2008). In fact, as a governmental department, the organization has a good schedule and a series of rules about post-audits and reviews, which had a positive function of self-reflection.

Figure 3： Subcomponents of Supportive Learning Environment

In conclusion, it is clearly indicated that my association is not a good learning organization, and there many aspects need to be improved through analysis of the above three building blocks. Admittedly, the subcomponent of “Openness to new ideas” is one of the toughest problems. If the leaders will to receive the new ideas and put into practice, the overall performance may be obviously improved. Four principles from Garvin etal. (2008) are also suitable for my organization. The leaders need to be clearly aware of “leadership alone is insufficient; organizations are not monolithic; comparative performance is the critical scorecard; and learning is multidimensional” (Garvin etal., 2008). If leaders can transfer their working style from leader-orientation to employee-orientation, it is believed that the performance will be more effective, and the organization will gradually become a good learning organization.