1. Peer Relationship
I work with a few people at Sherwin-Williams and the relatively few workers means that you get to know each other fairly well and have a more personal, less uptight and rigid dynamic on a daily basis that allows for more open conversation. At my store, I would have to consider my co-worker Sarah as my greatest workplace proximity associate and would consider us to have a collegial peer relationship. Collegial peer relationships are characterized by moderate levels of trust, self-disclosure, emotional support, and friendship, most of which I would say our relationship has. We demonstrate a decent level of trust between one another simply by trusting the others work and flowing better together as well as being able to gossip and discuss work and personal issues openly. Additionally, we have a good sense of friendship in our ability to be relaxed and joke around with each other on serious issues, and our lack of socializing outside of work is the only real barrier we face to having a special peer relationship.
2. Elements affecting Relaltionships
Of the four elements discussed in chapter 11 that affect peer relationships, I believe just about any two people could see how most if not all of these elements come into play in their relationship.
Proxemics - Close proximity in the workplace has absolutely affected my relationship with my collegial peer, simply in that we often use to work many shifts together by ourselves giving us a lot of time and opportunity to openly socialize without other people around. As our shifts together have lessened to almost none, there can be perceived distance growing between us until we can have more time to socialize again.
Similarity - This category has come into play more than I would have ever guessed. I believe we have many similarities and tastes on different topics, music, political debates, work issues, and so on, but even more so in casual conversation. It is rare to meet someone with whom you gradually talk with throughout the day and have fun during casual conversations because you both simply get what the others saying and have something interesting or funny to say back.
Relational Balance - This element I'm sure has some affect on my interactions with Sarah, but it is a category that is hard to identify. For instance, our balance may dictate that she needs a workplace friend more than I do, but the only way I could really know that is by directly asking her or noticing some imbalance as to which one of us starts a conversation or texts the other outside of work more often. Even if I perceive this imbalance as existing, I then still cant definitively say that its caused by her greater need for a friend. With all that being said, I do not believe there is any imbalance in our relationship and that we maintain a symmetrical dynamic between us.
Personal Needs - It is difficult for me to say what Sarah may have for personal needs in our workplace relationship, but my guess is that it would be similar to my own personal needs. I seek workplace relationships to have someone to ask questions of, to casually talk with, and to gossip about work and life issues. In some sense my personal needs are rather selfish ends, without a desire for new friendships really being among them. However, I don't think this has had any adverse affects on our relationship as I'm certain that she has the same needs to at least some degree. In book terms, my needs mainly stem from inclusion but may include some elements of control as I see these relationships as a source of information as well. There may be some needs for affection on her side, I am uncertain, but I have tendencies to be rather distant in emotional situations and therefore do not seek affection in new relationships often which is likely a big factor that prevents further developing this and other relationships.
3. Dark Side of Peer Relationships
The dark side of peer relationships can often be seen in work environments, though it may not always be easy to realize at first until you come to better understand your co-workers and their motivations.
The greatest misuse of the peer relationships I can think of would stem from our assistant manager in her co-dependency use of relationships with the rest of us. Though she will never admit it, she has a strong sense of superiority and believes she knows better than everyone else, which becomes evident in her constant interrupting of your helping a customer to butt in and say something completely irrelevant or that the person had already covered, usually confusing and angering the customer. However, in her mind she thinks shes just correcting you from not saying or presenting a piece of information exactly the way she would do it which is the best way in her mind. She takes this further by then relying on all of us to finish her work and responsibilities she cant live up to because she just "has too many other things to handle" or "has been working so hard all week" and other lame excuses. In this sense, she is completely co-dependent on her relationships with us to pick up her slack and keep the store running, but also as scapegoats for the blame should anything serious go wrong.
There is some level of support working against the person here too, in that our assistant manager will on rare occasions talk up Sarah to customers or others in the heat of the moment. In this sense Sarah is using her relationship with our assistant to further her own advancement in the company by simply nodding and agreeing with things such as taking on the assistants responsibilities so that eventually the higher managers see how incompetent she is and let Sarah take her place. This is actually her admitted plan, to simply allow our assistant to think their friends or at least okay with each other and do whatever ridiculous things she asks so she can eventually go talk to the district managers and prove that shes doing almost half of the assistant responsibilities already so that hey will hire her and fire or at least move the current assistant manager to another store.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Superior-Subordinate Communication Within Sherwin-Williams
1. Trust
Scale Rating: 8
There is some distinctive elements of trust within my small circle of co-workers and superiors at Sherwin-Williams. Focus will be given to the elements of Behavioral consistency, integrity, and demonstrations of concern.
In line with behavioral consistency, my manager has a tendency to be very inconsistent with his behaviors and personality. I have come to believe that much of this is due to his short temper. One example of this is how he can go from praising my hard work and dedication to the store to suddenly heavily criticizing me for accidentally charging a customer for a transaction that I shouldn't have, an easily fixable mistake that happens regularly and takes literally less than 5 minutes to correct. In this situation and others like it, it is hard to foster trust with my manager when I cannot be certain where I stand.
My manager also has issues with behavioral integrity, being prone to making idle promises and doing nothing about them. This includes things such as frequent acknowledgment of the problems with the assistant manager but does nothing to fix them or at least provide support by letting us know he wont punish us or will at least be forgiving if we attempt to confront the issues with the assistant manager. Similarly, he also makes promises such as giving me a raise that he said he would push through over 2 months ago but has still to even meet with me to discuss it. This type of behavior makes it very difficult to believe anything he says or to even feel motivated at work.
One area he does excel in is demonstration of concern. Although his behaviors may be inconsistent he does frequently make a point of indicating appreciation for your efforts, and although he doesn't follow through, there is something nice about being recognized for deserving a raise. Overall, his ability to show concern for our well-being as employees does enough to help me forgive his shortcomings in other areas and still feel like he is a good manager overall.
2. Immediacy
Scale Value: 6
There is distinct variation between the immediacy levels at my Sherwin-Williams location between manager and assistant manager situations. Where my manager excels in most of the aspects of this concept, my assistant manager falls far short.
Expression of appreciation of work is something my manager regularly does through text (since we rarely if ever see each other in person) basically every time I send him the list of things to do for the next week since I usually work weekends. On the contrary my assistant manager literally has never expressed appreciation for anyone's efforts at work, and she has been at the store nearly 6 months longer than the current manager.
Similarly, the assistant manager demonstrates no willingness to assist with tasks, preferring to criticize mistakes and jump in to take over when your not doing things her way. She lacks any willingness to help with tasks that are also her responsibility, such as unloading truck inventory in the store, instead preferring to disappear into the office to "make sales calls" though it is clear that she is lackadaisically going about this task or is simply the slowest sales call maker in history. She further will actually delegate her job responsibilities, such as batching which involves the filling and logging of receipts and transactions, to my co-workers who already perform all the daily store maintenance and management functions.
While she is very task oriented and has an air of believing her way and opinion are always correct, our actually manager does some good at balancing that toxicity by being the polar opposite. While he is useless for getting paperwork and organization done, he excels at communication and making people feel as though he truly values their opinions. He makes this behavior most evident during store meetings when he will open up the floor to each employee individually, and asks if there is anything he or the assistant manager can do to make our jobs easier or more accommodating. I think he partly does this because he understands the frustrations of the job and our disdain with the assistant manager, but also knows he can't and is unwilling to do anything about it respectively.
3. Providing and Seeking Feedback
Part One:
There was only one instance of official feedback provided to me as an employee in the form of a performance review. Occasionally updates on performance and small tasks to improve on are given at store meetings, but only once a year is an official performance review given, prior to raises being distributed. My review was given by our previous manager and consisted of both positive and negative feedback with some initial disclaimers. The review basically covered statistical goals such as number of sales calls made, number of new accounts opened by type, number of line items sold on each transaction, and so forth. However, my manager at the time made clear that the goal objectives (which are never told to us prior to the review) are set to be unrealistic. In this sense I suppose some strategic ambiguity was involved simply in that she chose to repeatedly outline that the goals were arbitrary and meaningless but that they are also important and should be strived for, with no real details on the reasoning behind the unrealistic goal setting or who was responsible for it. Overall, I believe the review helped me to get a grasp on some of the metrics used by the company to rate performance, and get a better idea of what they really want out of employees, sales. I believe it made me view the company in a more negative light, and I struggled not to feel the same toward my manager as she critiqued me on what seemed to be ridiculous goals and details while failing to acknowledge my above average work performance and dedication, inherently making me less productive and motivated for a short time.
Part Two:
The few times I have had my superior seek feedback from me was when our current manager asks us how we feel about the way things are going and encourages us directly to express any concerns or issues we may have with him. Specifically, he has asked me on multiple occasions about anything he or the other employees can do to make my job easier (since I work the weekend shifts alone and still manage to get more done than anyone during the week). In one of those moments I remember saying that nothing in-particular came to mind, just making sure the store is clean and ready to go on Saturday mornings rather than the complete disarray it is usually left in, though I didn't mention the last part. Along with not mentioning the typically dire state the store is left in on Friday nights to Saturday mornings, I also forwent the opportunity to discuss some of the issues we have been long having with the assistant manager. The opportunity to express my opinions made me feel great but also anxious and nervous, I was so use to superiors not caring what subordinates think I wasn't sure how to react or what would be appropriate to say.
4. Upward Influence
The use of upward influence by subordinates in an organization is more common today than it probably has ever been. As workers become more comfortable and feel that a growing number of organizations are championing employee rights, they feel more able and willing to stick their necks out and express their opinions and concerns.
While I have no examples of such dynamic events in my organization from the use of upward influencing strategies, I can provide one that demonstrates the usefulness of these techniques.
Our prior manager, and especially our prior assistant manager, were very much penny pinchers with the store budget and resources. They frequently refused to throw away old and useless stuff that blocked up warehouse storage space and made it more difficult to work in the backroom just in case we might need it one day. Old paint supplies, shelving metal, drywall and plywood boards, old signs, and left over remodeling supplies were among the numerous sources of clutter in our warehouse. While I rarely concern myself with trying to influence my superiors, often preferring to exist in my own bubble, I saw the coming of a new manager as the perfect time to change this incredibly irritating situation. My first question upon meeting my new manager was to ask how he felt about throwing things away. We had a small discussion about it and he came to the conclusion that I had been at the store longer and he was going to trust my judgement as to what could be thrown away or not.
This was perhaps the most validated and appreciated I have ever felt at the company, simply because it mattered and made sense to me. In my mind there was absolutely no use for any of the clutter in the store, and even in the unlikely event that we ever needed something I throw away, we could just order more from corporate for roughly $50 or less. I do believe I used a mostly open persuasion strategy, largely because he was a new manager and there were no pre-established norms of communication or assumptions about personality. That being said, I did use some strategic persuasion in my lack of detail on what exactly I would be throwing away, with our new manager assuming it would be small incidental stuff, but in reality I planned on, and did, throw away thousands of dollars in old shelving, boards, products, etc. that I correctly believed had no use. While my sudden and quick cleaning out of the back room took our new manager by surprise, he quickly saw all the extra storage space I was creating and enjoyed the lack of clutter, especially since I keep up on making sure we don't start saving useless stuff again.
5. Upward Dissent
The only real use of upward dissent in my organization has been when attempting to discuss issues with and solutions for our latest assistant manager. I had long discussions with our prior manager on the issues, but her interests lied more in gossiping about it rather than addressing it. I have since also discussed the issue in small minor talks with our current manager, but to a much less intense degree.
During these discussion I believe I employed the first 3 of the five strategies of upward dissent, including direct factual appeals, solution presentation, and circumvention.
The use of the circumvention technique was only idly used but is important to point out in that ideally I should discuss the issues I have with my assistant manager with her directly and allow her the opportunity to hear and understand what I have to say and respond to my grievances or justify her actions in some way. However, as previously outlined in this blog and other posts, that was in no way my chosen course of action.
Rather, I would frequently employ factual appeal with my manager at the time. Situations like a lack of cleaning up after herself, following through with customer orders, completing responsibilities, and trusting co-workers to properly do their jobs i.e. not intensely micromanaging, were large issues that frequently came up and I tried to express concern for. Being able to fully fill a customers order and stick to it, rather than suddenly asking a co-worker is already working on a customer order to take over your order so you can go suddenly make sales calls in the middle of the day, is a fundamental job responsibility and gross overreach of power. The company purposefully promotes sharing of responsibility and tasks between managers and employees, with emphasis on managers being their to train and guide employees, not take advantage of them to delegate tasks that managers don't feel like doing. Similarly our assistant manager has had a serious issue with being able to trust employees with helping customers and making the correct product recommendations, and on more than one occasion has actually stopped employees to criticize their choice of words when greeting or saying goodbye to customers. Both of these behaviors are logically and fundamentally bad for the organization and the superior-subordinate relationship, but they are also in violation of company values and policies for which managers are suppose to train and guide new members and be able to handle their own responsibilities rather than micro-managing insignificant details such as word choice and being unable to handle simple job tasks like loading five-gallon buckets into the shakers.
My solution presentation were far less evident and more intertwined with my factual appeals than they should have been, but after all how to you correct mismatches in personality? For awhile they attempted to make her more responsible for sales in an effort to help break her out of her shyness so she could more easily see and understand when she overstepped her bounds. While their is certainly value in this approach, it was clearly not producing adequate results, and I voiced the idea of doing the opposite. I suggested preventing her from doing office paperwork and forcing her to do the more hands on tasks of fully helping customers, unloading truck, and cleaning the store properly at night to give her a new or reaffirmed sense of not being any better than anyone else and the total scope of responsibility and task difficulty that we all deal with. I hoped it would help her see that she needs to be responsible for her own fate and we cant come running to safe her all the time, as well as that she needs to respect our opinions and professionalism to get the job done in our own ways. Currently, the attempts to support her and isolate her from the full-scope of her job responsibilities is still being tried, and hopefully will begin to yield better results.
Scale Rating: 8
There is some distinctive elements of trust within my small circle of co-workers and superiors at Sherwin-Williams. Focus will be given to the elements of Behavioral consistency, integrity, and demonstrations of concern.
In line with behavioral consistency, my manager has a tendency to be very inconsistent with his behaviors and personality. I have come to believe that much of this is due to his short temper. One example of this is how he can go from praising my hard work and dedication to the store to suddenly heavily criticizing me for accidentally charging a customer for a transaction that I shouldn't have, an easily fixable mistake that happens regularly and takes literally less than 5 minutes to correct. In this situation and others like it, it is hard to foster trust with my manager when I cannot be certain where I stand.
My manager also has issues with behavioral integrity, being prone to making idle promises and doing nothing about them. This includes things such as frequent acknowledgment of the problems with the assistant manager but does nothing to fix them or at least provide support by letting us know he wont punish us or will at least be forgiving if we attempt to confront the issues with the assistant manager. Similarly, he also makes promises such as giving me a raise that he said he would push through over 2 months ago but has still to even meet with me to discuss it. This type of behavior makes it very difficult to believe anything he says or to even feel motivated at work.
One area he does excel in is demonstration of concern. Although his behaviors may be inconsistent he does frequently make a point of indicating appreciation for your efforts, and although he doesn't follow through, there is something nice about being recognized for deserving a raise. Overall, his ability to show concern for our well-being as employees does enough to help me forgive his shortcomings in other areas and still feel like he is a good manager overall.
2. Immediacy
Scale Value: 6
There is distinct variation between the immediacy levels at my Sherwin-Williams location between manager and assistant manager situations. Where my manager excels in most of the aspects of this concept, my assistant manager falls far short.
Expression of appreciation of work is something my manager regularly does through text (since we rarely if ever see each other in person) basically every time I send him the list of things to do for the next week since I usually work weekends. On the contrary my assistant manager literally has never expressed appreciation for anyone's efforts at work, and she has been at the store nearly 6 months longer than the current manager.
Similarly, the assistant manager demonstrates no willingness to assist with tasks, preferring to criticize mistakes and jump in to take over when your not doing things her way. She lacks any willingness to help with tasks that are also her responsibility, such as unloading truck inventory in the store, instead preferring to disappear into the office to "make sales calls" though it is clear that she is lackadaisically going about this task or is simply the slowest sales call maker in history. She further will actually delegate her job responsibilities, such as batching which involves the filling and logging of receipts and transactions, to my co-workers who already perform all the daily store maintenance and management functions.
While she is very task oriented and has an air of believing her way and opinion are always correct, our actually manager does some good at balancing that toxicity by being the polar opposite. While he is useless for getting paperwork and organization done, he excels at communication and making people feel as though he truly values their opinions. He makes this behavior most evident during store meetings when he will open up the floor to each employee individually, and asks if there is anything he or the assistant manager can do to make our jobs easier or more accommodating. I think he partly does this because he understands the frustrations of the job and our disdain with the assistant manager, but also knows he can't and is unwilling to do anything about it respectively.
3. Providing and Seeking Feedback
Part One:
There was only one instance of official feedback provided to me as an employee in the form of a performance review. Occasionally updates on performance and small tasks to improve on are given at store meetings, but only once a year is an official performance review given, prior to raises being distributed. My review was given by our previous manager and consisted of both positive and negative feedback with some initial disclaimers. The review basically covered statistical goals such as number of sales calls made, number of new accounts opened by type, number of line items sold on each transaction, and so forth. However, my manager at the time made clear that the goal objectives (which are never told to us prior to the review) are set to be unrealistic. In this sense I suppose some strategic ambiguity was involved simply in that she chose to repeatedly outline that the goals were arbitrary and meaningless but that they are also important and should be strived for, with no real details on the reasoning behind the unrealistic goal setting or who was responsible for it. Overall, I believe the review helped me to get a grasp on some of the metrics used by the company to rate performance, and get a better idea of what they really want out of employees, sales. I believe it made me view the company in a more negative light, and I struggled not to feel the same toward my manager as she critiqued me on what seemed to be ridiculous goals and details while failing to acknowledge my above average work performance and dedication, inherently making me less productive and motivated for a short time.
Part Two:
The few times I have had my superior seek feedback from me was when our current manager asks us how we feel about the way things are going and encourages us directly to express any concerns or issues we may have with him. Specifically, he has asked me on multiple occasions about anything he or the other employees can do to make my job easier (since I work the weekend shifts alone and still manage to get more done than anyone during the week). In one of those moments I remember saying that nothing in-particular came to mind, just making sure the store is clean and ready to go on Saturday mornings rather than the complete disarray it is usually left in, though I didn't mention the last part. Along with not mentioning the typically dire state the store is left in on Friday nights to Saturday mornings, I also forwent the opportunity to discuss some of the issues we have been long having with the assistant manager. The opportunity to express my opinions made me feel great but also anxious and nervous, I was so use to superiors not caring what subordinates think I wasn't sure how to react or what would be appropriate to say.
4. Upward Influence
The use of upward influence by subordinates in an organization is more common today than it probably has ever been. As workers become more comfortable and feel that a growing number of organizations are championing employee rights, they feel more able and willing to stick their necks out and express their opinions and concerns.
While I have no examples of such dynamic events in my organization from the use of upward influencing strategies, I can provide one that demonstrates the usefulness of these techniques.
Our prior manager, and especially our prior assistant manager, were very much penny pinchers with the store budget and resources. They frequently refused to throw away old and useless stuff that blocked up warehouse storage space and made it more difficult to work in the backroom just in case we might need it one day. Old paint supplies, shelving metal, drywall and plywood boards, old signs, and left over remodeling supplies were among the numerous sources of clutter in our warehouse. While I rarely concern myself with trying to influence my superiors, often preferring to exist in my own bubble, I saw the coming of a new manager as the perfect time to change this incredibly irritating situation. My first question upon meeting my new manager was to ask how he felt about throwing things away. We had a small discussion about it and he came to the conclusion that I had been at the store longer and he was going to trust my judgement as to what could be thrown away or not.
This was perhaps the most validated and appreciated I have ever felt at the company, simply because it mattered and made sense to me. In my mind there was absolutely no use for any of the clutter in the store, and even in the unlikely event that we ever needed something I throw away, we could just order more from corporate for roughly $50 or less. I do believe I used a mostly open persuasion strategy, largely because he was a new manager and there were no pre-established norms of communication or assumptions about personality. That being said, I did use some strategic persuasion in my lack of detail on what exactly I would be throwing away, with our new manager assuming it would be small incidental stuff, but in reality I planned on, and did, throw away thousands of dollars in old shelving, boards, products, etc. that I correctly believed had no use. While my sudden and quick cleaning out of the back room took our new manager by surprise, he quickly saw all the extra storage space I was creating and enjoyed the lack of clutter, especially since I keep up on making sure we don't start saving useless stuff again.
5. Upward Dissent
The only real use of upward dissent in my organization has been when attempting to discuss issues with and solutions for our latest assistant manager. I had long discussions with our prior manager on the issues, but her interests lied more in gossiping about it rather than addressing it. I have since also discussed the issue in small minor talks with our current manager, but to a much less intense degree.
During these discussion I believe I employed the first 3 of the five strategies of upward dissent, including direct factual appeals, solution presentation, and circumvention.
The use of the circumvention technique was only idly used but is important to point out in that ideally I should discuss the issues I have with my assistant manager with her directly and allow her the opportunity to hear and understand what I have to say and respond to my grievances or justify her actions in some way. However, as previously outlined in this blog and other posts, that was in no way my chosen course of action.
Rather, I would frequently employ factual appeal with my manager at the time. Situations like a lack of cleaning up after herself, following through with customer orders, completing responsibilities, and trusting co-workers to properly do their jobs i.e. not intensely micromanaging, were large issues that frequently came up and I tried to express concern for. Being able to fully fill a customers order and stick to it, rather than suddenly asking a co-worker is already working on a customer order to take over your order so you can go suddenly make sales calls in the middle of the day, is a fundamental job responsibility and gross overreach of power. The company purposefully promotes sharing of responsibility and tasks between managers and employees, with emphasis on managers being their to train and guide employees, not take advantage of them to delegate tasks that managers don't feel like doing. Similarly our assistant manager has had a serious issue with being able to trust employees with helping customers and making the correct product recommendations, and on more than one occasion has actually stopped employees to criticize their choice of words when greeting or saying goodbye to customers. Both of these behaviors are logically and fundamentally bad for the organization and the superior-subordinate relationship, but they are also in violation of company values and policies for which managers are suppose to train and guide new members and be able to handle their own responsibilities rather than micro-managing insignificant details such as word choice and being unable to handle simple job tasks like loading five-gallon buckets into the shakers.
My solution presentation were far less evident and more intertwined with my factual appeals than they should have been, but after all how to you correct mismatches in personality? For awhile they attempted to make her more responsible for sales in an effort to help break her out of her shyness so she could more easily see and understand when she overstepped her bounds. While their is certainly value in this approach, it was clearly not producing adequate results, and I voiced the idea of doing the opposite. I suggested preventing her from doing office paperwork and forcing her to do the more hands on tasks of fully helping customers, unloading truck, and cleaning the store properly at night to give her a new or reaffirmed sense of not being any better than anyone else and the total scope of responsibility and task difficulty that we all deal with. I hoped it would help her see that she needs to be responsible for her own fate and we cant come running to safe her all the time, as well as that she needs to respect our opinions and professionalism to get the job done in our own ways. Currently, the attempts to support her and isolate her from the full-scope of her job responsibilities is still being tried, and hopefully will begin to yield better results.
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Organizational Culture of Sherwin-Williams
1. The Lived Values
Sherwin-Williams has many aspects of organizational culture that can be identified. When thinking of the culture in respect to lived values, there are a few that are clearly espoused and promoted when dealing with customers.
One lived value Sherwin-Williams promotes is the GUEST acronym at our stores. This stands for G - greet customer, U - use their name and give yours, E - evaluate and fulfill needs, S - smile, T - thank the customer. This acronym is typically hanging on a wall somewhere in every store and is taught to each employee in our training videos. This acronym is another element that establishes a culture of customer care and appreciation. While most employees don't strictly follow this method, we all know it and often make fun of it as being too over the top to actually use. Never the less, we always use parts of the acronym and because it is often discussed and fresh in our minds, it tends to manifest itself in a stronger desire to properly greet and help customers in our own way.
Another lived value of the company is the list of 10 commandments is each store, but not the religious kind. Some of these commandments include always answering the phone by the 3rd ring, always carrying customers paint out for them, and never making idle promises - say what you can do and do what you say. While these commandments are not as strongly promoted as the GUEST acronym in our training, they serve as yet another well known lived value of the organization that extends beyond just how we generally deal with customers. This value has the advantage of actually promoting some of the specific behaviors we attempt to adhere to. The effect of this on company culture can be seen in the work of employees as we will always rush to answer phones and insist on carrying paint out for the customers, assuming they let us. Between these 10 commandments and the GUEST acronym, one can see how the espoused values the company promotes become lived values in the everyday actions of employees, shaping how they interact with customers, sometimes without them even realizing it.
2. Symbolic Elements
I believe symbolic elements can often be the more difficult ones to identify and relate to actually affecting the organizations culture in some way. That being said, there are some aspects of these cultural elements present at Sherwin-Williams.
One frequently used version of a tangible symbolic element is the use of stories within our organization. The stories told are heard at least once during new member training sessions and revolve around the founding and growth of the company. It is often discussed how Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams started the company but much more of the focus is given to how they grew it. There is a great sense of pride within the company for all the major innovations they have introduced to the market from the first ready to use paint to the first spray paint can. These inventions coupled with our growth worldwide and a strong history of promoting from within are examples of symbolic stories told to new and existing employees to help them feel apart of a family, or at least an organization that cares.
A second symbolic element at my organization is the technical language used to discuss issues. Many of our products and daily tasks revolve around memorizing codes for different types of paint products, different colors, and short hand terms for referring to a specific process, tinting requirement, paint product element and so on. This development of an almost coded language system creates a strong sense of belonging in the company and pride in your work when you finally adapt to the language. Prior to adapting it can cause you to feel left out or inferior to others who use the language effortlessly.
3. Role Elements
One organizational member who could qualify as a hero would be the store manager at the Festus location who has worked with the company for over a decade. While not all members particularly like this hero, it stems from his overbearing adherence to the company values. He has an unparalleled knowledge of how to solve any type of issue that arises and strongly adheres to working hard, sharing the work of part-time employees, promoting the efforts of all employees, treating customers with the respect and patience the company demands and so on. He represents the epitome of the organizational culture the company wants to promote and often makes you feel more apart of it, as if you want to try harder. This in turn helps solidify the culture of being in a family type organization that highly values both employees and customers.
An example of an organizational outlaw would be myself in this organization. While I do respect the values that the company tires to promote, I see them as going over the top to an almost cheesy feel. The training videos actually encourage you to recap with customers everything their buying and restate all the benefits their getting from choosing these products. This is obnoxiously overbearing in my view, if you helped a customer find the right products and went over all the benefits, then there is absolutely no need to do it again as your ringing me out. Another example is our lift safe values that I blatantly ignore, choosing to instead climb the buckets of paint and shelves to grab things from the top rather than dragging out a ladder. I also frequently bash the company or managers when they employ practices that are unfair to the part-time employees or simply try to pass off their responsibilities on us. While i'm sure my insubordination causes a degree of discomfort as i espouse opposite believes as the company or point out its use of unfair practices or ridiculous new policies. However, I also believe my role is necessary to draw attention to the short-comings of our organizational culture and to help give other members the courage to stand-up and report their managers for unsupportive, attackative, or simply lazy behavior.
4. Interactive Cultural Elements
One interactive cultural element present at Sherwin-Williams is the use of what we call pro-shows and other promotional events. Every few months or when we have a significant new products come out we will host a pro-show at each store location, or at least those that will be stocking the new items. These shows include demonstrations of the new products, special sales and deals that day for contractors, and free lunch provided by the company. These shows help to demonstrate a culture of customer care and appreciation, as well as highlighting our focus on contractors and other professional customers. While the company is attempting to appeal to more homeowners, we have historically focused on the professional side of the business and it shows in our culture from the prices we charge to the products we carry and the events we host.
Another interactive cultural element occurs between employees and is only understood and identified after having worked there for some time. At our company there is a very strong sense of individual responsibility and hard work ethic. Though neither of these things are ever specifically discussed or mentioned by members, over time you develop the understanding that the company is depending on your individual drive and desire to work hard. Employees are often left to their own devices and must learn to understand the products and processes of the store with minimal help. Part-time employees make up the bulk of their workforce, with only managers and higher being employed full-time. This promotes a culture in which members are relying on each-other to simply do their part and help the store function, which also creates a lack of communication between employees, as each is relying on the other to simply know what to do and how to do it.
5. Context Elements
History strongly affects the direction of our organization. As can be read in the rest of this blog, history of the organization greatly affects how we train employees, the values the company attempts to promote, and what customers we focus on. With a strong history of innovation, growth, and employee care, the company often tries to protect employees with things such as the numerous safe guards against being fired and the ease of access to higher up district managers. Higher managers will often hear the complaints of part-time employees and help them resolve the issues, being much more in touch with local stores than one might expect. Our history even shapes our business plan on a daily basis, with the company attempting to expand from our history of professional service to also serving the everyday homeowner.
Place is a more difficult cultural element to identify but is certainly present at Sherwin-Williams. Having expanded to over 4,000 locations in dozens of countries across the world, there is an undeniable aspect of needing to adapt to the local cultures and operate smoothly within them. Because of the attempt to promote high levels of care for employees, Sherwin-Williams always promotes and highers employees form the local communities they operate in and do there best to prevent turnover and keep all employees for as long as possible. These local employees in foreign countries serve as the connection to the people in that region in many ways. They are not the only connection however, as there are many differentiated commercials and products that are present at different locations. By specializing the products, promotions, and employees that are used to best serve each region, rather than one uniform practice for all locations, Sherwin-Williams demonstrates its flexibility and sensitivity to local cultures and customs.
One lived value Sherwin-Williams promotes is the GUEST acronym at our stores. This stands for G - greet customer, U - use their name and give yours, E - evaluate and fulfill needs, S - smile, T - thank the customer. This acronym is typically hanging on a wall somewhere in every store and is taught to each employee in our training videos. This acronym is another element that establishes a culture of customer care and appreciation. While most employees don't strictly follow this method, we all know it and often make fun of it as being too over the top to actually use. Never the less, we always use parts of the acronym and because it is often discussed and fresh in our minds, it tends to manifest itself in a stronger desire to properly greet and help customers in our own way.
Another lived value of the company is the list of 10 commandments is each store, but not the religious kind. Some of these commandments include always answering the phone by the 3rd ring, always carrying customers paint out for them, and never making idle promises - say what you can do and do what you say. While these commandments are not as strongly promoted as the GUEST acronym in our training, they serve as yet another well known lived value of the organization that extends beyond just how we generally deal with customers. This value has the advantage of actually promoting some of the specific behaviors we attempt to adhere to. The effect of this on company culture can be seen in the work of employees as we will always rush to answer phones and insist on carrying paint out for the customers, assuming they let us. Between these 10 commandments and the GUEST acronym, one can see how the espoused values the company promotes become lived values in the everyday actions of employees, shaping how they interact with customers, sometimes without them even realizing it.
2. Symbolic Elements
I believe symbolic elements can often be the more difficult ones to identify and relate to actually affecting the organizations culture in some way. That being said, there are some aspects of these cultural elements present at Sherwin-Williams.
One frequently used version of a tangible symbolic element is the use of stories within our organization. The stories told are heard at least once during new member training sessions and revolve around the founding and growth of the company. It is often discussed how Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams started the company but much more of the focus is given to how they grew it. There is a great sense of pride within the company for all the major innovations they have introduced to the market from the first ready to use paint to the first spray paint can. These inventions coupled with our growth worldwide and a strong history of promoting from within are examples of symbolic stories told to new and existing employees to help them feel apart of a family, or at least an organization that cares.
A second symbolic element at my organization is the technical language used to discuss issues. Many of our products and daily tasks revolve around memorizing codes for different types of paint products, different colors, and short hand terms for referring to a specific process, tinting requirement, paint product element and so on. This development of an almost coded language system creates a strong sense of belonging in the company and pride in your work when you finally adapt to the language. Prior to adapting it can cause you to feel left out or inferior to others who use the language effortlessly.
3. Role Elements
One organizational member who could qualify as a hero would be the store manager at the Festus location who has worked with the company for over a decade. While not all members particularly like this hero, it stems from his overbearing adherence to the company values. He has an unparalleled knowledge of how to solve any type of issue that arises and strongly adheres to working hard, sharing the work of part-time employees, promoting the efforts of all employees, treating customers with the respect and patience the company demands and so on. He represents the epitome of the organizational culture the company wants to promote and often makes you feel more apart of it, as if you want to try harder. This in turn helps solidify the culture of being in a family type organization that highly values both employees and customers.
An example of an organizational outlaw would be myself in this organization. While I do respect the values that the company tires to promote, I see them as going over the top to an almost cheesy feel. The training videos actually encourage you to recap with customers everything their buying and restate all the benefits their getting from choosing these products. This is obnoxiously overbearing in my view, if you helped a customer find the right products and went over all the benefits, then there is absolutely no need to do it again as your ringing me out. Another example is our lift safe values that I blatantly ignore, choosing to instead climb the buckets of paint and shelves to grab things from the top rather than dragging out a ladder. I also frequently bash the company or managers when they employ practices that are unfair to the part-time employees or simply try to pass off their responsibilities on us. While i'm sure my insubordination causes a degree of discomfort as i espouse opposite believes as the company or point out its use of unfair practices or ridiculous new policies. However, I also believe my role is necessary to draw attention to the short-comings of our organizational culture and to help give other members the courage to stand-up and report their managers for unsupportive, attackative, or simply lazy behavior.
4. Interactive Cultural Elements
One interactive cultural element present at Sherwin-Williams is the use of what we call pro-shows and other promotional events. Every few months or when we have a significant new products come out we will host a pro-show at each store location, or at least those that will be stocking the new items. These shows include demonstrations of the new products, special sales and deals that day for contractors, and free lunch provided by the company. These shows help to demonstrate a culture of customer care and appreciation, as well as highlighting our focus on contractors and other professional customers. While the company is attempting to appeal to more homeowners, we have historically focused on the professional side of the business and it shows in our culture from the prices we charge to the products we carry and the events we host.
Another interactive cultural element occurs between employees and is only understood and identified after having worked there for some time. At our company there is a very strong sense of individual responsibility and hard work ethic. Though neither of these things are ever specifically discussed or mentioned by members, over time you develop the understanding that the company is depending on your individual drive and desire to work hard. Employees are often left to their own devices and must learn to understand the products and processes of the store with minimal help. Part-time employees make up the bulk of their workforce, with only managers and higher being employed full-time. This promotes a culture in which members are relying on each-other to simply do their part and help the store function, which also creates a lack of communication between employees, as each is relying on the other to simply know what to do and how to do it.
5. Context Elements
History strongly affects the direction of our organization. As can be read in the rest of this blog, history of the organization greatly affects how we train employees, the values the company attempts to promote, and what customers we focus on. With a strong history of innovation, growth, and employee care, the company often tries to protect employees with things such as the numerous safe guards against being fired and the ease of access to higher up district managers. Higher managers will often hear the complaints of part-time employees and help them resolve the issues, being much more in touch with local stores than one might expect. Our history even shapes our business plan on a daily basis, with the company attempting to expand from our history of professional service to also serving the everyday homeowner.
Place is a more difficult cultural element to identify but is certainly present at Sherwin-Williams. Having expanded to over 4,000 locations in dozens of countries across the world, there is an undeniable aspect of needing to adapt to the local cultures and operate smoothly within them. Because of the attempt to promote high levels of care for employees, Sherwin-Williams always promotes and highers employees form the local communities they operate in and do there best to prevent turnover and keep all employees for as long as possible. These local employees in foreign countries serve as the connection to the people in that region in many ways. They are not the only connection however, as there are many differentiated commercials and products that are present at different locations. By specializing the products, promotions, and employees that are used to best serve each region, rather than one uniform practice for all locations, Sherwin-Williams demonstrates its flexibility and sensitivity to local cultures and customs.
Friday, February 9, 2018
Introduction to Sherwin-Williams
1. The Mission
The name of the organization I will be examining is Sherwin-Williams, a commercial and retail coatings supplier. The company has multiple missions or objectives that revolve around the supply of quality paint products. First, Sherwin-Williams strives to provide the highest quality service and knowledge in the industry through highly qualified and trained staff that can answer questions and direct consumers to the right products for their projects. Second, they seek to provide a variety of the highest-quality retail and commercial coatings, stains, and supplies to best fit every type of project.
Many companies will boast a mission that is somehow related to providing the best products or services to their customers, but often times this is little more than positive PR. Having worked at Sherwin-Williams for multiple years I can say that their care for the customer is genuine, even if its to serve the greater goal of profits.
2. Website Link
This link will take you to the main website which contains links to pages for all their company, product, employee, and investor relations information.
3. History of the Company
The story of The Sherwin-Williams Company and its journey to becoming one of the largest known paint suppliers is a story of success and innovation. The company traces its beginnings to 1866, when Henry Sherwin became a partner in Truman, Dunham, and Company, a small supplier of paint ingredients and other products. In 1970 the partners wanted to focus on different pursuits so the partnership dissolved, replaced by Sherwin, Willaims & Co. With the help of his partner, Edward Williams, Henry turned the small paint supply company into a household brand by redefining the industry (Sherwin-Willaims, 2018).
In more ways than one, Henry and Edward created what we now know as the paint industry through a slew of ground breaking inventions. Starting in 1877, Henry patented the first resealable tin can and later introduced his own pigment grinding process. These two inventions allowed Sherwin, Williams & Co. to create the first high quality and reliable pre-mixed paint. Amazingly, the company has managed to stay on the fore-front of innovation with over 100 patents on inventions like the first paint roller and spray paint can (Sherwin-Williams, 2018). In this time, they have also managed to expand world-wide with over 4,000 locations and 40,000 employees in over 100 countries. With such a strong history of innovation and success, its no wonder Sherwin-Williams has risen to become one of the top coatings suppliers worldwide.
Reference:
The Sherwin-Williams Company (2018) Important Moments in our History. Retrieved from: http://excellence.sherwin.com/history_timeline.html
Reference:
The Sherwin-Williams Company (2018) Important Moments in our History. Retrieved from: http://excellence.sherwin.com/history_timeline.html
4. Personal Role
I have been working at Sherwin-Williams in a part-time position for a little over two years now. I started as a sales associate and am currently a closer or 3rd key as we call it. My current role consists of essentially running the store in day-to-day operations including helping customers, preparing orders, and dealing with inventory. The only tasks i do not handle are the behind the scenes paperwork to the main offices, this is supposed to be the job of the managers. Though there is an extensive service aspect to my role, it also requires a high level of training and product knowledge to be able to help customers with even simple questions. I typically work by myself on weekends, opening and closing the store, roughly around 20 hours a week.
5. Management Styles
When attempting to apply concepts of classical and humanistic management styles to Sherwin-Williams there are two levels of management that we can look at. First, the level of management directly above me, my manager and assistant manager. Second, the corporate management above my managers, namely the district managers. Of course there are more levels of management throughout the company but these are the two levels that i have direct interaction and experience with.
The interactions between me and my direct managers is mostly personal and relaxed rather than official and strict. This stems from the mostly humanistic management style employed by my manager. Some elements highly utilized by my manager are closely related to Douglas McGregors Theory Y, with a strong focus on upward communication, tapping workers potential, and as Mcgregor termed it, integration (Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017) p. 34-35). For instance, although our store is required to have meetings every so often, our manager ensures they are more personal by asking everyone their opinions and insisting that we point out things he or the assistant manager are doing wrong and that we would like to see changed. This puts focus on upward communication and the interpersonal relationship we have with our manager. Additionally, he will check up on us when he can to ask if there's anything we need but also gives clear direction on what needs to get done and trusts us to do it our way, not hovering over our shoulders micro managing every hammer stroke. A great final example that brings together our managers use of integration and trying to fully utilize our potential is his implementation of a incentive program. Our company has long relied on strong incentive programs, internal promotions, and other employee benefits but he took it a bit further and tied the company performance to a bonus each month. If the company performs well in certain areas such as increased sales, accounts, positive reviews, and other performance standards each month, the employees receive a bonus as a way to further align our interest with the companies.
As to the styles of management employed by our district managers, it is decidedly more related to the classical theories of management. In particular, the district managers tend to adhere to or employ many elements of Henri Fayol's Administrative Theory. There is a strong sense of unity of command, direction, and centralization of power. There is also significant use of the scalar chain type communication rules present in the organization, and even an esprit de corps or element of loyal members (Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017) p. 22). The unity of command, direction, and loyalty of members is fostered largely through company culture and benefit programs. As previously mentioned our company has strong incentive programs and keeps over 95% of promotions within the company. Not only are career options plentiful at Sherwin-Williams, but there are significant safety nets to provide high job security and the company does extensive work and investment into truly benefiting consumers. These elements provide many reasons for employees to stay loyal to the company and commit to its direction. When these incentives fail, the district managers have also been known to inspire unity of direction and command by force, as they have final say in our yearly goals, inventory levels, and overall daily behavior. The company tends to let the stores run themselves in some ways but reserves the right to take complete control. On many occasions I've seen district managers come through and decide to change our inventory levels even though they have no idea what our daily customers need. Likewise they have set unreasonably high goals for us, such as increasing sales volume by 20% in a year while they continue to open other stores in our territory, forcing us to divide customers and business between multiple new locations. This is also a demonstration of the centralization of power present in the upper levels of management in this company. This is also where the use of the scalar chain communication comes into play, because if our manager has a serious concern or need to question a decision, they have no power to do so and whatever the district manager wants to do is what happens. A situation similar to the ones previously mentioned, just recently occurred with our delivery service. Some years ago the company decided to concentrate all delivery vehicles and requests to one store in each district, called the HUB. The hours for delivery through the HUB are very limited however, and it typically takes upward of 3 hours for a delivery to arrive, much to long for impatient contractors. Because of this our district often uses an outside delivery source that charges for each delivery. This past quarter our district managers decided we spend to much money on this external delivery service and cut off our ability to use them, holding store managers personally responsible. As often seen in the classical theories, and Fayol's Administrative theory in-particular, there is a strong lack of upward communication and respect or inclusion for the worker at these upper levels of management. There is also a strong centralization of decision making power as you move higher up in the organization (Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017) p. 22). These elements are somewhat disguised by strong benefit programs and company culture, along with a buffer of different management styles between district or higher and local store managers, helping to ease new employees into the company.
Reference:
Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017). Organizational Communication: Foundations, Challenges, and Misunderstandings, 4th Edition.
The interactions between me and my direct managers is mostly personal and relaxed rather than official and strict. This stems from the mostly humanistic management style employed by my manager. Some elements highly utilized by my manager are closely related to Douglas McGregors Theory Y, with a strong focus on upward communication, tapping workers potential, and as Mcgregor termed it, integration (Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017) p. 34-35). For instance, although our store is required to have meetings every so often, our manager ensures they are more personal by asking everyone their opinions and insisting that we point out things he or the assistant manager are doing wrong and that we would like to see changed. This puts focus on upward communication and the interpersonal relationship we have with our manager. Additionally, he will check up on us when he can to ask if there's anything we need but also gives clear direction on what needs to get done and trusts us to do it our way, not hovering over our shoulders micro managing every hammer stroke. A great final example that brings together our managers use of integration and trying to fully utilize our potential is his implementation of a incentive program. Our company has long relied on strong incentive programs, internal promotions, and other employee benefits but he took it a bit further and tied the company performance to a bonus each month. If the company performs well in certain areas such as increased sales, accounts, positive reviews, and other performance standards each month, the employees receive a bonus as a way to further align our interest with the companies.
As to the styles of management employed by our district managers, it is decidedly more related to the classical theories of management. In particular, the district managers tend to adhere to or employ many elements of Henri Fayol's Administrative Theory. There is a strong sense of unity of command, direction, and centralization of power. There is also significant use of the scalar chain type communication rules present in the organization, and even an esprit de corps or element of loyal members (Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017) p. 22). The unity of command, direction, and loyalty of members is fostered largely through company culture and benefit programs. As previously mentioned our company has strong incentive programs and keeps over 95% of promotions within the company. Not only are career options plentiful at Sherwin-Williams, but there are significant safety nets to provide high job security and the company does extensive work and investment into truly benefiting consumers. These elements provide many reasons for employees to stay loyal to the company and commit to its direction. When these incentives fail, the district managers have also been known to inspire unity of direction and command by force, as they have final say in our yearly goals, inventory levels, and overall daily behavior. The company tends to let the stores run themselves in some ways but reserves the right to take complete control. On many occasions I've seen district managers come through and decide to change our inventory levels even though they have no idea what our daily customers need. Likewise they have set unreasonably high goals for us, such as increasing sales volume by 20% in a year while they continue to open other stores in our territory, forcing us to divide customers and business between multiple new locations. This is also a demonstration of the centralization of power present in the upper levels of management in this company. This is also where the use of the scalar chain communication comes into play, because if our manager has a serious concern or need to question a decision, they have no power to do so and whatever the district manager wants to do is what happens. A situation similar to the ones previously mentioned, just recently occurred with our delivery service. Some years ago the company decided to concentrate all delivery vehicles and requests to one store in each district, called the HUB. The hours for delivery through the HUB are very limited however, and it typically takes upward of 3 hours for a delivery to arrive, much to long for impatient contractors. Because of this our district often uses an outside delivery source that charges for each delivery. This past quarter our district managers decided we spend to much money on this external delivery service and cut off our ability to use them, holding store managers personally responsible. As often seen in the classical theories, and Fayol's Administrative theory in-particular, there is a strong lack of upward communication and respect or inclusion for the worker at these upper levels of management. There is also a strong centralization of decision making power as you move higher up in the organization (Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017) p. 22). These elements are somewhat disguised by strong benefit programs and company culture, along with a buffer of different management styles between district or higher and local store managers, helping to ease new employees into the company.
Reference:
Modaff, D. P., Butler, J. A., DeWine, S. A. (2017). Organizational Communication: Foundations, Challenges, and Misunderstandings, 4th Edition.
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