Prompt 1:

Consider past experiences when you have had to exercise your influence. Briefly
describe an incident in which you were ineffective at influencing your desired
outcome. What approach(es) did you use? What alternative tools might you have
employed?
The experience that comes to mind concerning me exercising my influence is
when I attempted to get the CEO of my last company to embrace the concept of
including a virtual experience with our live motivational events. I spent a month
preparing a detailed analysis on how this could be accomplished using technology. The
idea was to tap into additional markets we wouldn’t do a live event and increase our
profits. In addition, it would put us ahead of any of our competition as I was certain this
concept would eventually be adapted. I created a presentation that included graphics,
demographic studies, and cost analysis spreadsheets. This was then presented to the
CEO. Although he was impressed with the concept and how it could increase our
market presence and profits, he was unreceptive to the plan. His response was that the
company has always done it the current way and it works. I don’t know of any
alternative tools that I could have utilized to achieve my ideas.
Follow up note: The company is out of business due to COVID because we
couldn’t do large live events but competitors that have subsequently adapted the
concept of virtual events are surviving.

Prompt 2:
Consider current, and future opportunities that you have to exercise your
influence. Briefly describe the situation, and suggest a possible strategy, using one or
more of the tools of influence discussed here or in the Module Six learning materials.
Being unemployed and currently an UBER driver makes this question tough to
answer. I guess when I start doing job interviews again are an opportunity to exercise
my influence over the interviewer to get hired. Part of a successful job interview is
getting the interviewer to like me by influencing their thought process. Utilizing some of
the 6 shortcuts to persuasion in the Science of Persuasion would assist in this process.
First would reciprocity where I would be the first to give a warm enthusiastic
acknowledgement/introduction of myself to the interviewer. Next, I can explain how I
different and a scarcity when it comes to being an IT Director/Manager due to my
leadership abilities and experiences. I can also demonstrate my authority and
consistency through examples of success at previous positions. Finally, the interviewer
would say yes because they are impressed and like me for being similar to what the
company values and beliefs.
Prompt 3:
Think about an organization you are familiar with. Based on the dimensions of OCP
(described in Chapter 15.3 in your textbook), how would you characterize its
culture? As you review the cultural dimensions, what kinds of cultural “gaps” can you
identify between the organization’s culture and your own organizational cultural
preferences?
Using my last company as an example for this question, I would say it could be
characterized by a few different cultures without fully embracing any of them. The CEO
expounded an aggressive culture in his speech. He was always worried about
outperforming current or future competitors. The company was also could be
considered a stable culture as the we were constantly reminded that the company had
done things a certain way for over 20 years with success. It was also detailed oriented
as the CEO expected all details be done exactly and correctly. There were obvious
flaws in all these examples. The CEO and company were too rigid in its culture. He
wanted to outperform competitors but failed to analysis what they were doing
successfully. This failed analysis was due to the fact that he refused to acknowledge
that technology and people had changed over the past 20 years and this change was
occurring faster every year. The lack of embracing innovation and being people-
oriented ultimately led to the end of any cultures.
Prompt 4:
With respect to the OCAI instrument, what were your preferred scores in each of the
cultural dimensions (clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy)? How did they differ from
your perceptions of the organizational culture you had in mind as you answered the first
set of questions?
Prompt 5:
What kinds of connections can you make between what you learned in Module One
about your personality-related variables, what you learned in Module Four about your
DISC style preferences and your organizational cultural preferences?
I can see connections between my personality-related variables, DISC style
preference and cultural preferences. I embrace adapting and trying new innovations to
advance a company into the future. My personality-related variables included
courageous and intellectual while my DISC style was management along with
Creativity/Innovation and my organizational cultural preferences are innovative and
team-oriented. Innovation is the common thread throughout the three areas, and this
coincides with my interest in the IT field.

Prompt 6:
Do you think that different cultures are more or less effective at different points in time
and in different industries? Why or why not? Can you imagine an effective use of
subcultures within an organization?
I believe certain cultures are effective for an entire organization no matter the
time or industry while other cultures are more effective depending on subcultures within
an organization but not necessarily for the complete industry. I don’t think any
organization should only be oriented to only 1 culture in order to successful. Being
people and team oriented I believe should be foundational cultures for any successful
organization. But now let’s use the US Army as an organization for sub-cultures. More
often, everyone characterizes the Army as being an aggressive outcome-oriented
culture. While this may work for infantry units, this doesn’t work for in other disciplines
in the Army. Those in finance need to be detail-oriented and in some disciplines
innovation is important. The underlining culture though is team oriented.