Tower Analysis

RMIT University

Mohammad Faruq

Student ID # 3297926

08

Fall

TOWER ANALYSIS

Introduction

Tower building exercise gave us first-hand experience of how management style affects the performance of a team. Within the span of less than an hour, it has shown different styles in action, demonstrating, for example, that what manager intended is not always what comes across. It was an engaging, enlightening exercise that has real impact and generates live, interaction, enthusiasm one can work with.

Why managers involve employees?

The success of a manager relies on the work performance of their sub-ordinates and also how to deal with his or her boss. John Gabarro (2005) wrote "Recent studies suggest that effective managers take time and effort to manage not only relationships with their subordinates but also those with their bosses". Gabarro argues that the relationship between employees and their managers is changing. Employees are encouraged to work with their managers to achieve the best possible results for themselves, their manager and the company. It is difficult for one manager to fulfil all the four roles of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling effectively every single time. The collective ideas and skills of the employees will bring about a much better outcome than the outcome achieved through the planning by one manager alone. Also, through participation employees feel ownership for the project and are more sincere, more creative and more efficient in their tasks. This sort of mentality brings the ingredients of forming, norming, storming and performing. (Tuckman, 1965)

When we were asked in a group to build a tower with limited blocks given, the aim was to build the longest tower with minimum use of block within a certain time period. This was the brief given to us by our manager. She was very clear about the brief of what we need to do as a group in order to get the tender. Her communication skill was something to look forward. She was...