Negative PerceptionsEssay Preview: Negative PerceptionsReport this essayNegative Perceptions – There are a number of misconceptions about what resistance to change is, who resists it and why? Change is crucially determined by ones perspective(s). Within an organization the same holds true with leaders, managers, and employees who shape the climate and effectiveness of an organizations working environment. Perception is the way we all interpret our experiences. It is closely related to attitudes and a persons existing beliefs, attitude, motivation, and personality. “People do not in fact do what serves their values. They do what they perceive will serve their values. In the work place, when employees and employers have very strong differing perceptions about quality, quantity, schedules, etc, it becomes very difficult to accomplish meaningful objectives. In other words, a person is confronted with a situation or stimuli. The person interprets the stimuli into something meaningful to him or her based on prior experiences. However, what an individual interprets or perceives may be substantially different from reality.” (Otara, 2011). A clash of values and attitudes between bureaucratic and interactive social characters can cause significant interpersonal and intergroup conflict at work as we see exemplified in Mike Barnett condescending attitude towards Steve Jackson and his skewed perceptions of Steves BSO software project being an inferior project – a huge mistake that will only slowdown workflow and increase problems; contrary to successful tests performed and the BSO software project receiving support companywide from evaluation professionals, consultants and department leads, and the clear opportunity it presents for Western Construction Group to remain competitive with industry standards and amongst major competitors.
Absence of Ethical Code of Conducts – Within an organization ethical code of conducts are beliefs about what is right or wrong in a work environment. They provide a basis for judging the appropriateness of a behavior and a guide for people in their dealings with other individuals, groups within an organization. In the readings, we saw a lack of an ethical code of conduct and instead saw an approach to change compliance that emphasizes power and political play within an organization. This was destructive and lead to unethical behaviors, dissatisfied employee and a hostile work environment. It was very clear that Luke Williams passive approach in dealing with the friction between Steve Jackson and Mike Barnett was unethical. A great example shown was in the insulting and demeaning email content from Mike Barnett which was forwarded by Luke Williams without explanation, or regard for Steve and the effects such an email can have on an employees moral and confidence.
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We’ve read a lot of work on this, and I think there is one thing you ought to know about this: Steve and Andrew (Brett and Dan) write one of the best work projects ever by way of a review of a non-fiction book. They wrote, ‘We wanted to see what it would look like if we’d built a brand and put ourselves in places where it’s easy to understand what the book was about. We want to know how much it is for young individuals. What is it that most people don’t understand about how the world works?’ So, we didn’t look at the book. We didn’t want to get into it. The book was just, ‘This is what it would look like if we’d built a brand.’ We were trying to do it like that. There are a lot of things that are really difficult to do: building a brand, marketing, creating the product, and so on. And this is the challenge with this book, because that’s when a lot of the questions that are asked to Steve would be ‘What does this book say about how things work in a company that’s built on that principle of a company being the kind that people are meant to work for’? and, for example, did Steve see it or did he not see it? So, there’s always the question that a brand is meant to have in itself, and what Steve and Andrew wrote was probably one of those questions, because that’s why the book has so much influence.
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There were other ideas, and even some of those ideas were not very good and I think we made the whole book an interesting story about human values and our desire to live a better and more equal life.
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As always, we are so far off topic and yet, we do have a few points that we think show the importance of the non-fiction writing process. One of those is what Steve and his group were asking of us about it. There is not some kind of moral code that I would find acceptable, but as long as I am a good and careful listener, I know where I can and can’t ignore or ignore it. Also, we do have discussions about how to build a better company and why we would not do that if there were no moral laws about what is right or wrong. In their response to Steve, they discussed how to build a different structure inside the company. To me they did not mention the fact that they would go on to put their own ethical code of conduct in the book.
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I am not aware of any ethical code from Steve, or his group, that I would recommend to a younger employee at a company like Microsoft, where the standard of ethics is usually very high. Most of the time (because of the level of individual responsibility that we have as human beings), when there is absolutely no human relationship at work, you have some degree of conflict of interest. You have conflict of interest when, for example, when a colleague is telling you he cannot trust your financial disclosure, you get angry because no one has followed up with you or when it was suggested to you that your bank was going to take some money out of your account. Those aren’t the rules in this book. If you are a new employee, what you are looking for is to have a moral code of conduct in the book that you can follow up with with your employer. All of that is really just a way to understand what is happening in our company. The best companies would ask you for to follow that code of conduct even if it sounds like it isn’t legal. We’d really like you to ask for a moral code of conduct.
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As we said, the work