Project Performance Improvement Online Communication

Question: Describe about the Project Performance Improvement for Online Communication. Answer: Introduction: Personality and motivation are such factors which work as an internal driving force for people in organizations and other institutions involved in projects (Ovsiy 2013). Successful projects are those which are completed within the stipulated time frame and boundaries of scope. Cost and quality too are important factors that need to be taken due care of in completing projects successfully (Ferris et al. 2013). Projects when considered bad or unsuccessful is a huge loss for the team involved in it and at times can be difficult in dealing with it. There are situations when completed projects are deemed as unsatisfactory or unsuccessful due to heavy cost incurred, much more than the budget fixed for such a project and overrun of schedule. Every organization or other teams that are involved in projects should think of better ideas, methods and structures in managing live projects. The behavior of people is considered one such factor which plays a crucial role in making projects successful. Among the behavior of people, two main attributes are motivation and personality which is essential, and needs proper understanding from the project manager or leaders point of view (Pinder 2014). In the recent scenario where projects too have become cross cultural, it is important to understand the behavior and emotions of people attached with such projects. Such stories have been quite common where project managers or leaders have sleepless nights due to behavior of people, where lack of trust, laid back team members and struggling to change can jeopardize work. It is the responsibility of project managers or leaders to apply techniques which are people centric, which will help them in managing the behavioral aspects of people in a successful manner. In this report, I will share a live project incident that I was part of, where motivation and personality factors played a huge part in completion of the project and that too right on time. The Live Project with Motivation and Personality factors: Our group consisted of four people and the topic provided to us was how an organization can be made successful and how an individual should be working in groups. We selected to work with a FMCG company in Australia for some days to get the same feel as their employees and luckily we were allowed by one among many to have a real experience. We went through a lot of books and articles and got hold of something by the name of Belbins Profiles, where motivational and leadership information was provided, and that a group should make a legislative body to select a leader. Being a leader is not easy; one has to have the required quality and personality to become one. Such key roles can be categorized as team worker, resource investigator, monitor, coordinator, shaper, complete finisher, specialist and plant (Belbin and Roles 2012). It is based on the respective profiles and the requirements needed for being leader of such profiles, determine the person who will be leader of the pack. For ex ample the duty of a complete finisher is to finish projects without any ambiguity. The shapers role is to deal with the presentation of monitor, coordinator and most importantly how the structure would look like of the team. The team worker is given the responsibility to ensure a healthy and cordial relationship is maintained between co-workers. Every role has its own profile criteria that need to be maintained and fulfilled in order to achieve success in the project. Every team has these members who have vital role to play in the team. The roles can be reversed and interchanged but a team leader needs to select the best possible people for playing such roles. Introvert people can never be shaper, aggressive people with bit of extrovert in him will be ill suited for the role of a complete finisher. Adverse situations can also arise when two managers play the same role, where there will be conflict of interest. Such things are better avoided, because if they are not it lets down the morale of the team. The team is only going to suffer and they will not be reluctant to get much involved between the conflicts of the two, because sometimes taking sides can be a major problem in organizations (Mendenhall and Osland 2012). But the organization I was along with my group, such incidents never occurred during our tenure. We were duly helped by the HR Manager, Mr. Richard. A man with great communication and HR skills, he surely knew how to manage people, and get the best out of them. Not so with the Development manager, Mr. Tom, who liked being alone and was an aggressor. Importance of Motivation, Emotion and Personality: According to Heinrichs, Oser and Lovat (2013), it is difficult to understand a human mind which sometimes exhibit different emotions which are hard to understand and control. Emotion is such a factor that motivates people either in a positive way or in a negative way. Emotion of people poses a real challenge for project managers and leaders who are in charge of the teams performance and well being. Emotion leads to motivation, where a motivated team member or employee exercise a particular level of effort dedicated towards a particular goal for a certain time period. Motivation is generally based on three concepts which are namely extrinsic motivation, intrinsic and self control. Extrinsic motivation is something that comes from the outer environment or outside the player. Its not money that always work as a motivational factor, they are other things too which are negative in nature but injects a positivity in the minds of people. Team members sometimes get motivated while doing live projects in fear of facing retribution or punishment if their performance is not up to the level where it should be. Intrinsic motivation is something that is derived while performing the task itself. Self control motivation states a situation where a person does not perform certain tasks in projects despite being highly intelligent. Motivational and Personality Theories: To understand motivation, we need to look into the theory of The Hierarchy of Needs as was developed by Maslow in the year 1940 (Jerome 2013). This theory stated that the needs of humans are formed into five groups staying together taking the shape of pyramid (Miner 2015). Physiological Needs: This needs form the base of the pyramid and takes into account the basic human needs including food, education, and medical care. While doing or being involved in projects the basic need for a team can be to have a good and proper working environment and providing salary to their employees (Taormina and Gao 2013). While doing the live project, I along with my group members found out that an employee works better in an organization when provided with an environment where he can flourish the most. Salary then becomes the motivational factor for that person. The live project was for 45 days and the manager was kind enough to provide us with a stipend that in turn motivated us to work on a serious note. Security Needs: it takes into account the way people feels safe, having a secure job. Organizations can help their employees out by providing them with job continuity, proper retirement plans and health insurance schemes. While doing the live project I along with my two team members got to know that companies are tying up with insurance agencies like Bupa for providing health insurance. Belongingness Needs: A sense of belongingness is what matters. For a team member and an employee the biggest thing is to have a feel that he/she belongs to that team or is an important member of the same. It is up to the managers, leaders and supervisors to encourage the work in group, ensure a proper communication is being followed in the group and increase their own interaction with the group (Lee and Hanna 2015). If proper communication is maintained by the supervisors and managers, the whole group feels motivated to work well. During our live project, I came to this conclusion that the organizations where there is existence of proper communication channel between the group and the supervisor, work becomes easy. During that tenure of ours, each day we were told to report either to the HR Manager or to the Development Manager on what we observed in the organization, what is lacking and what can be improved. The HR Manager was pretty good and so was his communication skill. He never let us feel that we were meager university boys trying to complete our project work. He was patient enough to hear our views and opinions and did rectify us where we went wrong. It did not took us long to find out that he was one of the popular HR managers of the company for the kind of behavior he shows to his people and motivates them enough for better performance. The Development Manager was opposite to what the HR Manager was, he did not treat us in the same manner like the HR Manager. In those 45 days we could only meet him around 8-9 times as he presented himself as a much busier person than he actually was. We were not comfortable in meeting him and sharing our views because of his stubbornness. While being there I personally felt that some of the employees too was not comfortable with the Development Manager. Whenever he was not around the employees use to share a joke or two about him, but I failed to notice anything like that in case of the HR Manager. My group was part of two board meetings in that company, and the board meeting scenario gave us a clearer picture. The development manager was abusive, never singled out anyone during the meeting to know where he was having problem or what was bothering him in the organization. His point of view about a group project is that, in a group not everyone has the same talent or intelligence. If one is lacking, the others need to cover him up, but the employee who is lacking needs to motivate himself in order to survive. On the other hand, the HR Manager was calm and composed. He used to believe in the unity of the team, where each member plays an important role in achieving success. If somebody in the team is lacking he should be taken due care of, provided with proper feedbacks and point him out where he is going wrong and how it should be done. It is the duty of the manager to motivate his people in a group if his chips are down. Esteem Needs: it can be internal in nature as well as external. Internal takes into account the needs related to self esteem like self respect and achievement. External focuses on the needs of recognition and social status. This needs if satisfied injects a feeling of self confidence among people. The HR team has implemented various schemes in the company where every significant contribution made by employees is being recognized and rewarded. The Quality Assurance Manager did praise my group for coming up with a good and valuable report on what the company is lacking and the possible recommendations that can be suggested to improve the companys market condition. On the recommendation of the Quality Assurance Manager, we were provided with some cash rewards which proved that our work has received recognition and we have been successful in achieving something noteworthy. Moreover, we understood the value of time as we had to finish the report and present it in front of the board member s within a very short time span. We were sometimes put under extreme pressure to deliver such results. Self Actualization Needs: the last or the highest level of hierarchy states that a person should be the one which he wants to be, like a musician has to be a musician, he cannot be anything else (Ozguner and Ozguner 2014). It has been stated if all the above needs of people are satisfied, then there is nothing lot to do for managers or leaders except making sure that the job is a challenging one for the individual. It can be concluded that as we move up the pyramid, instances where the supervisors and managers assist in satisfying the needs of the employees and motivate them in improving their job performance can be seen. McClelland Theory of Needs: McClelland recognized three motivation factors that human beings do have in them. Achievement: An achiever is someone who takes calculated risks in accomplishing their goals and is in the habit of working alone (Alvesson 2012). He is the person who needs a regular feedback on his work progress and achievements. He likes setting challenging goals. The Development Manager can fit in this category. He liked being alone and was very challenging, though his ways were disliked by many, but in an organizational group, one would always come across such individuals. Affiliation: An Affiliate is a person who does not indulge in high risk activities and favors collaboration (Mangi, Kanasro and Burdi 2015). He has to feel the sense of belongingness within a group and will follow whatever the rest of the people in the group will do. Power: he is someone who likes winning arguments and enjoys competition unlike the affiliate. He likes controlling and influencing others. It is important to share an incident that I witnessed while working in that company for the live project. During one of the Board meeting, the Sales Manager praised a lady staff for her achievement. She was being congratulated by all, but she did not revert back with a smile, and kind of looked embarrassed. Instead of appreciating the attention and congratulatory remarks she received, she lowered her head as vanished to her cabin. I was left wondering what happened to her that she left in that manner when she was being praised. After the meeting got over, the HR Manager did make me understand what really went wrong with the lady. The lady belongs to the Affiliate class which states that she does not like standing out in a crowd. The feed or appreciation would have better served had it been in private rather than being in public. It is important as a manager to know what motivates his team, or how they react to a criticism and praise (Ogarc?, Cr?ciun and Mihai 2015). Identification of drivers becomes important, which is based on personality and past actions of people. There are people in meetings who will influence others, persuade them to do something and entrusts responsibilities for others to achieve goals. He is someone whom we can recognize as driven by power. Then there are people who will talk less or not talk at all in meetings, feel uncomfortable if assigned with high risk projects and strive hard in managing conflicts, representing the affiliation group. Herzbergs ERG theory: This theory classified job factors in two groups: -Hygiene factors: Existence of motivation at workplace leads to hygiene job factors. Absence of such factors from workplace often leads to dissatisfaction (Yusoff, Kian and Idris 2013). Some of the hygiene factors include: Pay: the salary structure must be in accordance to the industry standards and reasonable too. Though such insights were difficult to reach in the company, we later found out that the organization had a good pay scale (Caulton 2012). Physical working conditions: Proper working condition should be provided for employees where they feel safe and hygienic. Everything from machine to other equipments should be well maintained ad updated. The company I and my group went into had everything updated and upgraded. Status: I found out from past reports that employees in the mentioned organization are retained if their performance is not below par over the years. Job Security: Employees working in the FMCG Company does have job security until they are performing way below expectation. It is also mentioned in the Company policies that any employee managing below par performances will be given three chances to rectify themselves and match the expected level through proper company guidance. -Motivational factors: A sense of positivity where employees are motivated to perform at a superior level. My group was motivated with the recognition we got with our report on the company, we tried to impress them even more. The factors include everything from responsibility to recognition to sense of achievement. Personality factors: Sigmund Freuds human personality is complex in nature (Westenberg, Blasi. and Cohn 2013). The Id: The source of all psychic energy, Id, is personalitys primary component. It is stated to be the only component which is present in an individual from his birth. It is unconscious in nature and takes into account the primitive behaviors. Id states that some needs are to be immediately fulfilled which is not possible all the time (Ryckman 2012). The Ego: The personalitys component which is which is accountable for dealing with the reality. The functionality of ego takes place in the preconscious, conscious and unconscious mind (Siddiqui 2015). The working process of ego depends on the reality principle. Ego sometimes works as a mental block among the group members of a team. Egoistic people are driven by recognition and a desire to have greater influence. My group member has this ego problem, though it is difficult to predict under what mind he gets egoistic. During the live project work his egoistic nature has created a bit of issue for the team. The Super Ego: the last one of personality type is superego. Judgments are being made on the basis of guidelines provided by superego (Schultz and Schultz 2016). The superego too is present in conscious, preconscious and unconscious state of mind. Situations may arise due to rise in conflict of the id, ego and superego matters. Freud mentioned ego strength as a way it functions (Friedman. and Schustack 2013). Good ego strength people will manage pressure situations effectively, whereas people with less ego strength will find it difficult (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons 2013). Conclusion: This paper has been a personal reflection of me, and what I witnessed along with my group in those 45 days. The project was a long one, but it made me understand things in a better way. People in an organization belong to all kinds of culture and have different attitudes and personality, it is up to the project manager and other supervisors to handle them in the best possible way. Real life situations in organizations presents better scenario in understanding the motivational and personality factors that plays a role in the organizations. The project we set out to do was accomplished in time. I am a much better person now with a bit of more understanding that has been injected in me during these 45 days. The project taught me the value of time. Reference: Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015.Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge. Alvesson, M., 2012.Understanding organizational culture. Sage. Belbin, R.M. and Roles, T., 2012. Who does what?.Online Communication and Collaboration: A Reader. Belbin, R.M., 2012.Team roles at work. Routledge. Caulton, J.R., 2012. 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