NORTHWESTERN CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

NAME:

REG NO:

COURSE CODE: LAD 843

COURSE TITLE: QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUES

QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the difference between a Learning Organization and Organizational Learning.

2. What influences development of learning organizations? Cite examples and explain your
answer.
3. What are the elements of hierarchical authority?
4. Explain the way you would advise a democratic leader on how to improve on the
leadership style to be able to achieve organizational goals with a higher level of
productivity?
5. State the challenges faced in leading a learning organization.
1. Discuss the difference between a Learning Organization and Organizational Learning.

Learning Organization focuses on learnings to enhance competencies and capabilities of

employees whereas Organizational learning focuses on learning by experience and knowledge
gathered from day to day activities. An organization improves over time as it gains experience.
From this experience, it is able to create knowledge.

2. What influences development of learning organizations? Cite examples and explain

your answer.
- Organizational set-up:

The organizational set-up of the school also influences learning. The time-table must be drawn,
in accordance with the psychological principles. It should avoid fatigue and boredom. Difficult
subjects should be taught in the morning. There should be interval after some periods.

- Age:

Learning capacity varies with age. Some subjects can better be learnt at the early age, and some
during adulthood. Learning proceeds rapidly between 18 and 20, remains stagnant till 25, and
declines upto 35. Age accompanies mental maturation. So some complex problems cannot be
solved till the person is sufficiently mature.

Children learn the school subjects more easily than uneducated adults can learn. This is perhaps
because the children’s minds are not burdened with worldly problems, and they have more
flexible nervous system.

- Motivation and Interest:

No learning take place unless it is motivated. Purposeless learning is no learning at all. Every
child is impelled by some motive to learn new things. In the absence of motivation, can he does
not feel interested in the act of learning. A child’s behaviour in learning is energised by motives,
selected by motives and directed by motives.

- Working conditions:

Learning is hampered by bad working conditions such as distraction, noise, poor illumination,
bad ventilation, overcrowding, bad seating arrangement, and uncomfortable stay both at home
and school. The location of the school, the internal set-up, the accommodation, decoration and
healthful and sanitary conditions are very important for efficient learning.

- Timely Testing:

Through tests, the learner knows his exact achievement, and there is no scope for over-estimation
or underestimation. Occasional and periodical testing motivates the pupil to be regular in his
studies.

3. What are the elements of hierarchical authority?

This are building blocks that managers must use in developing and structure organizational
hierarchy. It include-;

- Designing jobs

It means-defining an individual’s responsibilities at work. Job design involves defining areas of

decision-making responsibility, identifying goals and expectations, and establishing appropriate
indicators of success.

- Departmentalization or Grouping Jobs

It is composed of various departments and managerial positions and their relationships with each
other. As an organization grows, its departments grow and more sub-units are created, which in
turn add more levels of management.

This often creates less flexibility, adaptability, and units of action within the firm.

Departmentalization is the efficient and effective grouping of jobs into meaningful work units to
coordinate numerous jobs—all for the expeditious accomplishment of the organization’s
objectives.

- Establishing reporting relationships between jobs

Establishment of reporting relationships indicates; clarifying the chain of command and the span
of management.

The chain of the command shows a clear distinct line of author among the positions and span of
management indicates the number of people who report to a particular manager.

Here; the organization’s hierarchy, its positions, and its lines are defined.
 - Distributing authority among jobs

It means; giving decision power to employees.

A warehouse-manager must have the authority to check the quality of the material coming and
stored, to record the events in the storage, to check and report on the quantity of material and
much more.

But he cannot decide on deciding the selling price for them. That’s why the proper distribution of
authority throughout the organization is required for the smooth sailing of the organization.

Two specific issues that managers must address when distributing authority they are; delegation
and decentralization.

- Coordinating activities among jobs.

Coordination is essential for management and structuring organizations. Achievement of the

harmony of individual effort towards the accomplishment of group goals is the purpose of
coordination.

Modern organizations depend upon specialization of functions arid activities delegated to

different individuals.

If each individual is allowed to perform his function efficiently without taking note of the
connected function performed by another individual, it will create chaos in the organization.

It is essential that there be complete coordination, so that unity of action on the part of all is
achieved. Also, the conflict between the line executives and the staff poses the problem of
coordination by the chief executive.

Hence, the chief executive has to coordinate not only functions and activities but also individuals
performing different functions.

- Differentiating among positions.

Differentiating between line and staff positions in the organization is the last building block of
organization structure. A line position is in the direct chain of command also responsible for the
achievement of an organization’s goal.
On the contrary; a staff position is there only to provide expert advice, and support for line
positions. However; in modern organizations, these differences are very less; in some cases, the
difference is eliminated.

Organization structure is the formal pattern of interactions and coordination designed by

management to link the tasks of individuals and groups in achieving organizational goals.

To establish a structure one must mix all the six elements of the organizing,
 4. Explain the way you would advise a democratic leader on how to improve on the
leadership style to be able to achieve organizational goals with a higher level of
productivity?

A democratic leader is committed to sharing some authority with employees. He/She assigns
projects and gives her employees input into how a project will be implemented. Each person's
ideas are important to this leader. When you know this is your style, you can create teams and
give them a decision-making process to follow. It's important to hold the group responsible for
end results and to hold team members responsible for individual contributions. Democratic
leaders might not offer strong direction to self-governing teams. The key here is finding your
weaknesses and choosing appropriate ways to become a more well-rounded leader. Some of the
best traits a democratic leader need to put in perceptive are as follows-;

- Create a Vision Amongst your employee

If you are a managerial leader invested in the day-to-day operations of your business, you want
employees to understand their job descriptions and follow established routines. Devote time to
learning the strengths and weaknesses of employees and re-assign them, if needed, to tasks that
are better matched to their strengths. You also can also create a vision for your business. First,
look at where your organization business is and establish a financial and growth plan for the next
several quarters or year. Next, map out a set of goals that would give all employees a role in
helping you fulfill the plan.

- Attune to Employee Needs

If you're usually focused on giving orders to employees, you might be overlooking the needs of
your staff. To overcome this problem and improve your leadership style, a good first step is to
make yourself more available. Schedule a team meeting with each department once a week.
Schedule one-on-one meetings with new employees and struggling employees. Create a
suggestion box. Take more time to respond to employee emails and phone messages. The more
you focus on employee needs and respond with compassion and advice, the more employees will
feel that you value them as individuals.

- Take Some Control

Democratic leaders let employees participate in decision-making and are very attuned to their
needs. The problem is, you cannot always count on the team to know what's best for your
company. Improve your leadership style by taking some control back from the group in an area
that will help the company grow. For example, take charge of opening another business location
or developing a new product while the team handles existing operations. Employees can respect
a strong leader most comfortable with a democratic style.

- Personal Growth

It's important for business owners to become aware of their strengths and identify what they still
need to learn to compensate for their weaknesses. As you try new techniques, such as listening to
your employees more, you will start to see how employees really perceive you as a leader. Take
their feedback and continue to evolve while accepting responsibility for mistakes and
acknowledging that you're also trying to develop as the business owner.

- Goal Setting

You have different objectives for the business, usually expressed as goals. Let employees take
ownership of goals, not just projects or supervisory duties. Break down central goals into smaller
goals. Encourage employees to pick a goal and then rewrite it as a cause, suggests Terry St.
Marie, SOBCon's co-founder, on Entrepreneur.com. When employees define their work as
causes, they get more emotionally caught up in what needs to be achieved. You can assist in this
exercise if needed. Employees should also create goal deadlines, measure their progress and
report their progress to you as the top leader in the company.
 5. State the challenges faced in leading a learning organization.

Organizational learning calls for the group interpretation and procedural integration of new
information, which leads to a group initiative and experimentation through risk taking. While
organizational learning offers practically infinite benefits, there are almost an equal number of
challenges. The following information explains the most critical challenges faced in leading
learning organization.

- Stubbornness and Resistance to Change

This is prevalent mostly in environments with individuals who have been at their jobs for a long
time, and are set in their ways. Older companies have a hard time with organizational learning
organization, if they have older career people working for them who feel they know darn well
how to do their job, and won’t have some young guns telling them how to do it better. This kind
of mentality is inevitable, and all human beings are prone to it, so it’s the first and most severe
barrier to overcome. This is where you as a leader must be able to win them over and make the
understand that it is for their benefit, not detriment that changes and new ideas are being brought
in.

- Lack of Direct Leadership

Leadership that is overly passive isn’t going to get the job done with learning organization.
While some passive, mellow mindset helps in leadership with modern culture, leaders need to be
present and involved in every aspect of learning, to motivate people and give them the resolve
and confidence they need to press on. Leaders must ask difficult questions and be a little tough
where need be – tough love isn’t always a bad thing.

- Disregard of Team Success

In many corporate cultures, a mindset sinks in of congratulation and adoration of personal

accomplishments, but a sense of team spirit and unity isn’t really there. Beyond a sense of
zeitgeist within the company as a whole, teamwork is viewed as a means to an end, and not
something to be valued itself. For learning organization to be successful, then team success and
unity must be valued equally to if not more than individual success and prosperity.
 - Lack of Value for learning Itself

In some environments, learning for the sake of knowledge and wisdom itself isn’t present, which
can result in a disregard by parts of the whole for the new learning being introduced. The
problem here is that for an organization to be trained as a unit, some individuals must learn new
information they don’t immediately need to apply. When individuals don’t value new learning
and growth for its own sake, this will make that aspect of organizational learning very difficult
and troublesome overall.

- Short-Term Focus

In business, it’s often easy to focus on stop gaps to solve short term problems without looking at
the big picture. When one is in a leadership position that isn’t so grandiose as CEO or the like,
this is often necessary, in order to carry on with things. Unfortunately, this is a mistake in
organizational learning, as the big picture must always be the focus of all involved. This includes
the people learning as well as the leadership in charge.

- Too Much Control

While being organized and planned out is always valuable, it’s often an unintentional habit for
leaders to abuse charts and graphs and the like when planning out organizational learning like
any other procedure. The problem is that this kind of thing will frustrate those involved, and the
act of charting and plotting everything will take on a mind of its own. It is best to keep the
plotting and charts simple. They are needed, but only in small doses most of the time.
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