Assignment:
1. The first barrier is false assumption: "The whole is the sum of the parts, each separately doing its best." If we are doing a mathematic problem, these words give us correct direction. However, that is not the way for enterprisemanagement. They ignored the truth which is one or separate department success is not equal to overall positive results. Obvious systems and different departments are interdependent with each other, the purpose of distributing them into different working area is to achieve the maximum success of the organization. But it is necessary to mark and set the reward system based on overall interests instead of individual interest. Like the example we discussed on page 5, since the company gives engine and transmission department tasks to reduce the cost for each of them, even though an engineer found out the way to reduce the overall cost of the car, however the truth would cause a loss of engine department, and that is why they rejected the proposal. If the company has awareness to announce the goal as reducing the cost of the car, it will get more.
The second barrier is internal competition. Some organizations still consider internal competition as a motivation to increase productivity, however, wise business leaders already see the dangerous sites of internal competition. Internal competition usually accompanied with external rewards, and sometimes the leaders even put their employees on ranking system.The higher the position they get, they more they got paid. Competition pushes employees to focus on themselves, and consider individually when working with coworkers. Self-optimizing and self-protective ways usually come as the consequences of the competition. The co-workers are not just co-workers anymore, they are competitors. To achieve the biggest success, individual employee may even do something by hook or by crook to reach the goal. Competition may ruin the personal relationships within the company, make the teamwork dies, increase turnover rate, or generate morale issues.
The third barrier is lacking of information makes employees unable to engage the problem solving or the cooperation for the good of the enterprise. The reason why companies distribute their employees into different department and do different works is to maximize their mastery and contribute to work. Normally when employees focus on what they are doing now, most of them lack of professional knowledges and skills on other areas. That is why it requires employees to learn and share information to coworkers and cooperate to solving problems such as saving the overall costs.
2. Exposed to the whirlwind of technological revolution we humans have complicated our lives instead of seeking refuge in simplicity. Machines do much of our work, calculators and other instruments ease the burden of mathematics statistics and other subjects but are we there by less worried, less exhausted and more comfortable with the system? Have we achieved our sustainable goals and are we living in a better world? Because somewhere in the greed of lust and power and the approach to obtain our objectives and we have lost the true worth of humanity. We have come to the age which has given us accounting that treats machines as the assets whereas the human force as an expense, only due to the fact that we are more concerned with obtaining our objectives that nothing else matters to us right now. A business now only concerns itself as abstract quantities, not concrete human affairs. We are so focused in our safe heaven of virtual reality that the real problems are ignored.
In order to change this narrative we have to change the economic system which is only possible when we transform the management that drives it. MBM emphasizes that the business should focus on principles that are guided by the Mother Nature. The main differences between the two systems that make this approach a better one is that it focuses on the means through which a certain problem is approached rather than solving the problem any way around just the way you like it. It focusses on the narrative of the performance of the entire system rather than just the goals. The key principles of MBM that make it a better option is maintaining a balanced energy budget over the long run. Seeing the example of Toyota who by following the basic assumptions of this system has far surpassed all its competitors in terms of product quality, reliability, design-to-delivery lead times, customer satisfaction, employee morale, productivity and cost, and overall financial performance. This has further been elaborated by Ravi Radjou in his ted talk on frugal solutions. One thing is for certain that there are no serious technological constraints to organizing human economic activity more along regional lines, in greater harmony with the resources and regenerative capacities of the Earth's major watersheds. The main thing which is obvious from all the points made in his book is that all the abstract goals defined by the management by objectives are materialistic whereas the approach of MBM takes into account the need for human beings as an individuals and their problems as well, the second approach is also applicable in my opinion due to the fact that no matter how advance or automated the world gets, it is in the nature of humans to rely on each other and in long term human beings will realize that wealth maximization by any means necessary is not the only goal in their life.
Using this method ad approach a sense of leadership and autonomy is developed in the minds of the management and the employees working in the business. A skill of excellence is developed in the employees and unlike how it is treated in the books of the company like a machine getting depreciated, the value and the work ethic of the employee will get appreciated.
3. By reading Baker and Pink's books, I feel refreshed on traditional thinking pattern. The first key lesson I have learned is make sure employees understand the overall benefits always should be first considered than the separate parts or the individuals. It is important to understand they are part of the organization, not just part of the department or groups. Of course, to reach the goal we need to make a healthy design on reward system. Be awareness about giving the reward based on the overall outcomes instead of separate results. The second one I want to discuss is Reward system. Before I read Pink's book, I will never imaging that reward may cause a negative performance. Pink mentioned that repeating the reward system will decrease the motivation of employees, and rewards actually narrows their thoughts. Thus organizations need to satisfy their employees' payment to reach the baseline, or better to excess the market line, and try to avoid using single reward system during the work. Especially in rudimentary cognitive skill works, managers need to encourage the intrinsic motive of their employees, and treat each of them as a volunteer.The third one is the autonomy theory, which is let your employees dominate when, how and where to do their work, the managers need to turn their monitoring style management to result-only management style. No matter the example Pink discussed in book, make the call center employees to work in home, it not only saves employees' time, but also saves company's cost. The last impressive lesson is the Type I reward system, there are companies still using the theory X to motivate employees, but it is fueled more by extrinsic desire than intrinsic ones. The measurement system should go through the Self-determination theory, and evaluate employees in multiple ways. For example, the sales volume should not be the only way to evaluate employees. Once the company satisfied the internal needs of employees, which are competence, autonomy and relatedness, they will be highly motivated and working efficiently. Beyond sales volume, companies may evaluate employees on customer satisfaction degree, creativeness of new product, peer evaluation from the co-workers.
4. If the management in the Red Bead Game had followed the advice of Baker, Pink and Johnson, I believe the biggest improvement about the game is the change of the Game system. Relating to the real world, Red Bead system reflects a bad managing system, because for the employees themselves, they are powerless to change the system, thus no matter how willing they would like to work, they bad results always come with them. If the game followed the advice, the first thing is to stop punishing the willing workers when they got negative outcomes. Keeping punishing employees for the bad results will destroy their drive and motivation. When the employees turn to a negative attitude, the performance always come with the same way. Second, the top management designed the system, if we have found out the bad results come from the bad system, they may should change the ideal standard of the Read Bead game results. The higher standards are required, the lower defect rate appears. Since the read bead system is stable, thus it is also predictable. Using the data to make the outcomes predict, and set a reasonable and achievable expectation for the performance will motivate employees' intrinsic willing to work. Another way is to require the top management change the system itself, to remove some of the read beads from the system. If the read beads quantities are stable in the box, workers won't able to make any change, the bad results would be unending.