Cal Ripken Interview

Being in this class gave me insight on the way that I learn. I’ve had my share of jobs along with schooling and various other learning experiences. Some good, some bad but I can honestly say that I never noticed the pattern on how I learn. Now I know I learn more by being more of a hands on person. Also utilizing my thinking and problem solving skills has helped with my growth. I also found it important to use my reflective observation too. Mostly combining different learning styles have helped me in life to understand the way I learn and the benefits that could come if I use my strengths to further my ambitions.

The course has had the largest impact on me outside of the classroom with the intentional

This past Thursday I had the opportunity to sit down and conduct a phone interview with Jordan Maleh. Jordan graduated from UConn in 2006 with a Bachelor’s in Sport Management and then his Master’s in Sport Management and Sociology in 2008. He currently works at the Big Ten Network in Chicago, Illinois as the Director of Digital and Consumer Marketing. As a graduating senior, this interview was very helpful to me because it gave me the chance to ask a professional in the sport industry, such as Jordan, questions about his experience at UConn and how he got his start in the sport industry and to where he is today.

Over time, the culture can change or adapt. This may be due to new leadership, mergers, or acquisitions. It may even be due to a change in the market climate itself. As new employees are brought on, they must be taught the company culture to keep it strong and in line with the overall company umbrella. Most large companies have established culture programs for their leadership, so that they may take those tools, thought processes, and examples back to their teams to keep the culture strong.

Organizational culture according to Hofstede (2007) “is a much more superficial phenomenon residing mainly in the visible practices of the organization, acquired by socialization of new members who join as young adults. Culture helps define what behavior gets recognized and rewarded along with appropriate actions taken by top management. When Leary was introduced into the Elmville office, she knew that in order for her to build a winning team she would need to change the culture because the current one would not allow for such growth.

McCoy’s Building Supply Centers and Chick-fil-A are two 70 years old, successful companies withstanding the test of time. They continue to sustain growth and longevity through economic turbulence, and remain competitive with new and upcoming companies. What is the secret to their success one might wonder? As we examine each company, we begin to recognize the existence of a solid organizational culture. The organizational culture of a company is the anchoring core values, which permeates throughout the company and its employees (Schermerhorn, Osborn & Uhl-Bien, 2012, pp. 9).

Within organizations, large and small, there exists a sense of identity among its members that separates it from other organizations. This sense of identity is known as organizational culture. All over, managers seek to influence and change this into something that can be beneficial for the organization. In his article, “The Six Levers for Managing Organizational Culture”, Professor David W. Young defines the different elements that can influence and change the culture within the organization and how the reader can use these “levers” to their advantage. While the author does present a decent explanation for changing the culture of an organization, he leaves many questions unanswered that leaves his argument incomplete.

To be successful, you must be able to get a point across quickly and you must be able to do so in a way that you sound credible to your audience. This course fits in with my career goals because as a civil engineer designing bridges, I will have to communicate on a daily basis with my fellow employees, employers and clients. I have seen this in my internship with a civil engineering consulting firm, where the employees are constantly communicating with one another and their clients every

Reflect on what you have learned in this course and discuss how it might influence your work as a professional

It is important to change various aspects of organization culture when trying to institute change in organizations (Kavita, 2005). The aspects that such changes should target include the balance of power in the organizations, the organization structure that supports the framework, leadership and management styles. Organizational history is also very critical, especially if it has a progressive track record success. However, if the culture despite the changes remains aligned to the organization goals and mission the employees will adopt it and embrace change.

One huge impact I learned instantly is how you communicate with your client. I had to strengthen my communication skills because I needed to communicate with my clients in vocabulary that I knew they would understand. Communicating with a fellow peer, who is knowledgeable about taxes, is a different situation that of when you are speaking with a client. A client most likely doesn’t know the exact, in-depth details about taxes, which can lead to complications and confusion, so I had to adjust my lexicon to fit the clients’ needs and understanding. Also, working with partners was great. It gave me an opportunity to work with others and solve problems in a group. Sometimes, when one of us didn’t know the answer, the other one would step in and help. Also, I felt like the class was a gigantic supportive group because we would ask and answer each other questions, when we a confused about a topic or area.

There is a multitude of reasons as to why an organization may change their culture. Some catalysts to cultural change could be such things as changes in the economy, external events, internal shortcomings, restructuring of leadership, or growth of technological capabilities. Since IBM was founded in 1911, it has undergone a multitude of cultural changes driven by each one of these factors. The 1990’s included a large cultural shift for this organization driven by a new CEO and new technological capabilities.

Existing culture can in times be very hard to continue with because of the change in the growth or in the strategic change in the organisation. At such appropriate web of culture is important to be identified or that can be a problem in the progress of the organisation. These identified elements will give organisation a bigger picture of what was going wrong and how can they change it towards betterment of the organisation.

Many times during class I have taken notes and realized that the concepts we are learning can be applied to the relationships within the job I am in right now. When I learned about culture, I was learning how to best communicate and understand others as an individual or group. In learning about a conflict I was having problems with a few coworkers and not understanding why they don’t connect with the various cultures we serve. At times throughout the conference, I saw this class as my work relationship survival guide for this upcoming school year. It was great to be able to take what I already knew about interpersonal relationships and communication and assign vocabulary with actual theories to my previous knowledge. Throughout this course and conference, I have found many connections in the two most important relationships in my life.

Prior to attending this class, I thought that it was going to be a very boring one with long frustrating lectures. I was surprised at how much I was enjoying this class because it had to do with an area I have interest, which is, working in the community. Some of the challenges I encountered in this class was conducting a needs assessment, identifying advocacy article, and the elevator pitch. I can say honestly say that I learned how to conduct an actual needs assessment, although when I was doing my paper I did not quite grasp it at the time. It was not until the presentations I understood how it is done based on the information presented and the comments and explanation given by the professor. It was very important that I learned how to conduct the needs assessment, because my interest is working with low income individuals in different communities. Now that learned how to conduct a needs assessment I am excited to go out and gain some practical knowledge with a team. The lecture and the advocacy piece assignment helped me to understand what advocacy is all about; I now able to write, research and recognize and any advocacy document. The elevator pitch was novel to me and I had a hard time understanding how someone can give all that information in a minute. After the different scenarios that were role played during the presentations I got knowledge on how it is done. I also