Initech versus The Coffee Bean

How Important Subordinates Are?
Each organization has one leader but many subordinates. Each department has one manager but many followers. It means that most job are done by subordinates, leader is the person give direction, strategic and keep thing on the right track. Subordinates do job in detail. They contribute to the success of company and also can destroy it even they work at low position. Learning about case Initech versus the Coffee Bean will let us know how leader affects performance of employees that how employees affect success of whole organization. What is Peter’s Achievement Orientation?

Peter wants to be recognized and devote more for his job not just working hard enough for not being fired. He needs to know company’s goal and mission as well as reward and punishment policies for him to adjust his behavior because he doesn’t know so he doesn’t care and lack of attention to office policies and procedures. Some of the Needs Not Being Met for Peter Gibbons at Initech He has eight bosses, it is so confuse and scary. Every time he makes mistake all of them know and come to tell him about that. In that case just small mistake can become big mistake as each person has different aspect about this. The more people talk about the mistake the bigger it is and Peter become less trustable in job. In order to protect himself from dismissing he must try to focus on avoiding mistake, this will destroy every creation. If leader want to encourage innovation they must accept their employees’ mistakes.

Performance appraisal base on how busy staff looks. Is it ethical to pretend to be busy to get good performance appraisal? Employee pay much energy on showing how busy they look not what result they get, time by time they lose competency and become pretender. New culture of company will be changed from this point. Meticulous attention to paperwork is the only way to get promotion in Initech. All employees will develop one skill, it is carefulness. It is not enough to prepare for company development, not satisfy demand of personal development, not deploy employees’ talent and cause unfair in performance evaluation because there are many people not good at paper work but very good at selling, communication, building relationship, negotiation… Questioning authority is taboo, so what happen in case employees don’t understand boss’ requirement or instruction and in case employee has any better idea how should they contact with their boss? Information only moves top-down and no feedback. So how can boss know what is happening with their employees, what is their obstacle, how should they be changed or supported… Change That Might Improve Peter’s Motivation

According to Hughes, R, Ginnett, R, Curphy, G. (2015) we have five approaches for motivation: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; Achievement Orientation; Goal setting; Operant approach; Empowerment. And base on above analysis there are some changes that might improve Peter’s motivation. They are goal setting, operant approach and empowerment. Company should let Peter know clearly about their goal and mission and give standard, suitable behavior for Peter to follow and also empower him so he can use his knowledge, skills, experience to achieve the goal and has the right to discuss directly to their leader to get explanation, direction, support in skills and resource. Company also needs to change reward, punishment and evaluation criteria to encourage suitable behavior and good performance.

Initech Has Failed in Motivation Its Employees How About The Coffee Bean? From the case we see that the leaders at Initech as more likely to invoke the Golem effect. They have little faith on their followers’ ability to accomplish a goal and experience employee low performance that need consult from efficiency expert to find the reason to make improvement. The Coffee Bean is vice versa. Their leaders are more likely to invoke the Pygmalion effect. They express high expectations for followers and these expectations alone lead to higher-performing followers and teams. Management team of the Coffee Bean decided to pursue the FISH philosophy that stresses fun in the workplace including four principles: Play (working fun), Make Their Day (meaningful job), Be There (active and enthusiasm attitude), Choose Your Attitude (optimistic and open minded working attitude).

These principles create group cohesive in employees and loyalty of customers. Employees are empowered to decide activities that meet the philosophy. Activities as dressing up for themes and give discounts to customers who dress same, trivia question, Coffee Craps, Fear Factor Friday make both employees and customers satisfied with their choice as the result the Coffee Bean has seen a significant reduction in its turnover, dropped to 69 percent from more than 200 percent over a three-year period. The Coffee Bean has motivated employees by clear philosophy and empowered them to do in their way to get the best result.

Conclusion
After learning case of Initech and The Coffee Bean we can see that subordinates contribute large part in company’s success and their capacity not only depend on their education, knowledge, intelligent, characteristics but also motivation. Organization and leader must pay high attention on motivation to deploy employees’ talent and satisfy them. And as a rule it will make the company success.

References
Hughes, R, Ginnett, R, Curphy, G. (2015). What Do We Mean by Leadership. (8th Ed), Leadership: Enhancing the Lesson of Experience (pp. 378, 379, 341). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education