UNIT 3 ESSAY – CAPSTONE ARTIFACT 1

Unit 3 Essay – Capstone Artifact

Salma Martinez

ORGL 3332 – V01

South Texas College

Dr. Christopher J. Gomez

UNIT 3 ESSAY – CAPSTONE ARTIFACT 2

As a leader of an organization you have the responsibility of making important decisions

that will either make you or break you. Throughout your career as a leader there will be a million

situations in which you will have to decide what to do. These situations range from the simplest

thing like how many employees will you hire to the toughest decisions like what you will change

about your products or services to have higher sales than your competitors. If I would ever

become a leader of my own organization, I would oversee almost everything.

A simple, yet problematic situation I encountered in my organization was the idea of an

incentive program. It’s been proven that having an incentive program is an excellent way to

motivate employees. The thing about not having incentives is that employees will only work

what they are paid for and nothing more. Most employees will literally only follow the job

descriptions they read when they applied and got the position. As a leader, you want everyone to

follow your footsteps so that maybe one day your subordinates can be like you as well. You can

lead, you can demand, you can assign tasks, but if you never motivate your employees in any

way, you can’t expect them to go above and beyond their everyday duties.

As for my example, I’ve noticed that my organization has been performing just what

seems fine. However, if you want higher success you need to do something to reach it. I, myself,

am a person who likes to be motivated or else I won’t do anything, and if I do, I’ll probably do it

with no desire. I decide I want to add the incentive program as a way to motivate my employees

to reach out and do more for the overall success of the organization. Since this is my first time

doing this, I’m not quite sure in how I’ll be rewarding them. The two options in place are having

monetary rewards like extra money on their paychecks, gift cards, or memberships, and the other

one is having days off, like once every two months, for example.
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My management team and myself can’t really decide on which option to go for, or what’s

best for our employees so they won’t lack off. We come up with the idea of letting each

employee vote on their desired incentive. Unfortunately, we have a situation in which the results

are half and half. The problem here, however, is that those who voted for monetary rewards said

that any other type of incentive won’t help them get motivated and they would probably continue

working normally. On the other hand, those who voted for having days off, said that what’s the

point of working harder if they don’t have any chance to rest or have time to do personal things.

They even threatened that it was possible for them to quit and look for another job that doesn’t

require that much work. If you think about it, as regular employees both groups have a good

point. Since I’m not a leader who likes favoritism, I wouldn’t think it’s fair for anyone to choose

either or of the options that I suggested. As a small organization who is trying to succeed

furthermore than its competitors, I couldn’t afford to have employees quitting on me, nor having

them work as they’ve been used to do so.

My management team and I later thought about adding the program in two different

ways. One way was to add it and allow employees to choose whatever option they liked best

whenever they performed. The other way was that employees would get whatever they deserved

depending how much they performed compared to other months or other employees. The one

example that I included in my exercises on module 3, explained the second example a little

better. Let’s say that my organization would host an event for the community. I picked a group

of employees who would take care of planning and organizing the event. From that group of

employees, the best two employees would be the leaders. Both have the same duties and tasks,

but it’s up to them how much effort they’ll put into it. By the end of the event I collect statistics

on how much one employee worked more than the other. Also, I have the other group members
UNIT 3 ESSAY – CAPSTONE ARTIFACT 4

answer a survey on who they think made a bigger effort. Whichever employee worked the

hardest to make the event a success, will get rewarded whatever he or she wants.

The only reason I ended up choosing this method is because that is the best for the

employees, myself, and the whole organization. As a leader, you can’t give too much liberty to

employees because they can get out of your control and it can become a problem for the overall

success of the organization. It’s important to remember that the only reason I’m adding the

incentive program is to motivate employees to achieve more.

Choosing what’s best for the organization reminds me of the thinker Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu

was a military strategist, writer, and philosopher of the ancient China. He was best known for

creating strategies to have a successful victory. Even though business has nothing to do with the

military, its strategies which help a group, or organization, become the greatest. Based on the

selection that I made for my incentive program, I think Sun Tzu would be the perfect critic to

give an opinion about it because I made it based on strategy and what I know will help the whole

organization to be successful.

Although the case scenario presented does not seem like something that would have a

leader from being able to sleep, it is a problem seen in many organizations in real life. Like

mentioned in the beginning, there are many different types of difficult situations in which leaders

must make decisions, even if they’re the simplest things. When making decisions it’s important

to do it with strategy. Sometimes this means that it won’t necessarily benefit you, the leader,

personally, but it is what is best for the overall success of the organization and your employees.
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References

Tzu, S., & Giles, L. (n.d.). The Internet Classics Archive | The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Retrieved

March 8, 2020, from http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html