Organizational Behavior

Each morning, we have production meetings where the supervisors/managers of the major manufacturing functions within our company meet to discuss the important aspects of the day. What are the important products that need to be manufactured and/or shipped? What are some of the lead-times for these products and do they need to be adjusted? What are the important health and safety issues? Are there any quality issues? These are some of the questions that are discussed in detail on a daily basis. It is very important to communicate with each other in order to stay on top of the issues to ensure things are not forgotten, maintained and running smoothly.

The meeting is managed by our Operations Manager. Also in attendance are some of the manufacturing functional department heads: Precious Metals, Semi-conductor copper and LPSM (solder mask). The Quality Control department is represented by the QC manager. Others in attendance include: the HSE Compliance Engineer, Customer Service, maintenance and shipping.

The meeting begins promptly at 8:30. Walking into the meeting room, every one is stunned to see someone from Finance (myself) in attendance. I'm getting very strange looks. Without uttering a word, people are already thinking the worst. You can see it all over their faces. I don't know why, I'm Finance not HR. I'm not there to fire anybody. After exchanging a few laughs and calming everyone down by telling them I was observing the meeting for the purposes of a communications project for grad school, the daily production meeting gets underway.

Having not really attended one of these meetings in a long time, I have to say, they are one of the more well run and to-the-point meetings I've been a part of.

IDENTIFICATION

The way the meeting is structured, the department supervisor represents his/her team. The operations manager treats each function supervisor as a separate entity. He reads from a spreadsheet, all of the orders that are on the agenda that have lead-times out to two weeks. Will this order get done on time? Do we need to order more raw materials? Have the samples sent to the quality lab been assayed? Everyone understands the common goal which is to get the order done right and shipped in time for the customer to receive it when they've asked for it to be delivered. In listening to the discussions, there are a lot of references to the team, meaning the functional team. Statements are made like "we will get this done on time." Or "we will get this shipped on time." There is definitely a separation from the group as a whole and more identification with each supervisor's functional team. Therefore, I would rate the group as nominal, leaning more towards the functional group.

INTERDEPENDENCE

Even with the distinction of functional groups in the meeting, the notion of interdependence is very prevalent. The manufacturing departments depend on the quality department to substantiate that the products are made to spec. The shipping department relies on manufacturing and quality to get the finished foods to them in time to package and ensure that the shipment leaves at the designated time for on-time delivery. There is great interaction between function groups. Each party describes whether the job is finished, what they still have to do and when the next group can assume its responsibilities. Each department works together to reach the ultimate goal of correct, on-time delivery. I would rate the interdependence dimension as very interdependent towards Real Team.

POWER DIFFERENTIATION

Power differentiation was only used by the operations manager as a means to keep the meeting going. Most of the functional supervisors in the meeting were the same level. The operations manager made sure everyone in attendance received a chance to speak and offer their views/opinions. Each of the functional groups had a chance give an update for their group. Once an answer was given, the next topic on the agenda was discussed. Everyone was permitted to speak freely. The ops manager refrained from using his power to dominate the meeting and therefore promoted