Mark L. McConkie

The Destructive I mpact of a Positive Team-Building Intervention

Team-building interventions seek to build competent, collaborative, and creative work teams by removing the barriers to effective group functioning and by helping participants better understand and utilize the group processes associated with effective group behavior. This article examines a confron tation-team-building intervention that was highly successful in building the supervisors into a cohesive, trusting, and unified group. However, the team became the most important variable, with little consideration given to the rest of the organization. As a result, the whole organization was severely crippled and had to be completely rebuilt. Lessons are drawn from this excellent example of a lopsided intervention.

Sustainable Change in the Public Sector: The Longitudinal Benefits of Organization Development

This article examines the impact over a 30-year period of a 4-year organization development project in the Metro County Sheriff’s Department. Interventions included confrontation team-building sessions, management training, process consultation, survey feedback, third-party consultation, technological interventions, implementation of methods for increasing accountability, and changes in the organization structure, the physical setting, and the policy formulation procedures. Results include improved organization climate and leader effectiveness; decreased employee turnover, jail breaks, and citizen complaints; increased resources allocated to the organization; and improved organizational effectiveness, as measured by criminal justice leaders in the community. This research becomes the longest longitudinal study of the effects of organization development interventions in the behavioral science literature.

Classifying and Reviewing the Empirical Work on MBO: Some Implications

This review classifies, according to levels of empirical rigor, the empirical work dealing specifically with management by objectives (MBO) and it summarizes the major findings of the research and suggests observations regarding the implementation and maintenance of MBO programs.

An Autopsy of an Intended OD Project

A series of consultant omissions and errors is traced over the course of a five-month organization development (OD) project that was terminated by top management. Although some positive results were obtained, only the major problems and flaws are examined in detail here. Most of the defects in the OD process could have been avoided had the consultants had a better understanding of the fifteen pitfalls discussed. The primary problems center on diagnosis of the system, the development of client expectations, and effective communication between the consultant group and top managers.

TRUST AND THIRD-PARTY CONSULTATION: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY.

This study extends previous research on third party consultation interventions by exploring trust and other factors that can facilitate conflict resolution while examining several outcomes longitudinally. Data for this 14-year study in an operating room came from self-reports by the participants, behavioral observations by hospital administrators, and hospital records. Results include statistically significant improvement in trust measures, individual and group effectiveness, increased availability of surgical supplies and equipment, reduced physician abuse of scheduling privileges, decreased verbal abuse of nurses by physicians, the elimination of nursing turnover, and a decision by the surgeons to not build an outpatient surgical center.

“I Teach Them Correct Principles and They Govern Themselves”: The Leadership Genius of the Mormon Prophet Abstract

Abstract In an age characterized by “strong-man” or “leader-centered” leadership styles, Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, set himself apart by leadership behaviors that centered in the conviction that the world of human interaction is governed by interpersonal and moral laws in just the same sense that the physical world is governed by the laws of nature. If one could identify these correct or “fixed principles,” and live in harmony with them, one would thereby gain leadership power and influence. From this belief grew his leadership dictum, “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.” Specifically, we note Smiths emphasis on integrity as a foundation for leadership interaction, both in truth-telling and in living in harmony with the correct principles one knows. In addition, Smith underscored the importance of unleashing the creative talent of followers by trusting them with sizeable responsibilities (empowerment, in todays terms), in demonstrating love for followers, and in having the courage to think and act independently of mainstream thought and practice. His chief concerns in selecting a leadership team included his focus on character, building an organizational structure which would institutionalize over time the principles he taught, and then motivating followers in pursuit of challenging goals.