Question: Practice Being A Manager
Navigating Different Organizational Cultures Effective managers recognize that organizational culture is an important, often critical, element of organizational health and performance. But recognizing and understanding culture, especially its less visible aspects, is often quite challenging. This exercise will give you some practice in recognizing cultural differences and the challenges and opportunities that managers face as they work with diverse cultures. Suppose that major music recording company Sony BMG has announced plans to hire several college students to form a team that will invest in the "next big things in music." The selected students will be paid $50,000 per year for working part-time. Sony BMG will also allocate up to $10 million for hiring artists, producing records, and so on based on the team's recommendations. The new team has been dubbed the Top Wave Team (TWT). If TWT's recommendations are fruitful, the company will sign each member of the team to $150,000 full-time contracts. The company also plans to keep the team together and to give members bonuses and promotions based on their group performance. Your class has been chosen as the representative college class. The music company is now asking you to form affinity groups by musical preferences in your class (e.g., a Country Music group, an Urban/Hip-Hop group). Each group will nominate one of its members to receive the first $50,000 internship as a TWT team member at SonyBMG. The new TWT group will meet and discuss initial plans and investment recommendations, and then your class will discuss the process and outcomes.
Step 1: Choose your musical affinity. In the class session before this exercise, your professor will ask you to submit a survey form or sheet of paper with your name and your preferred musical genre/identity. Identify yourself with one of the following musical genres based on (a) preference/affinity ("I prefer this music") and (b) knowledge/understanding ("Of all types of music, I know the most about _______ music/musicians"):
1. Rock
2. Country
3. Religious/Spiritual
4. Urban/Hip-Hop
5. Rap
6. Jazz/R&B
7. Pop/Mainstream
8. Classical
9. Folk/Bluegrass
Your professor will review your submitted preferences, and organize affinity groups for the next class session.
Step 2: Organize into groups. Your professor will organize you by musical affinity. If your class is heavily concentrated in one or a few of the musical genres, you may be asked to further divide into smaller groups by subcategories (such as Rock-Heavy Metal and Rock-Popular/Hit).
Step 3: Prepare your recommendations. In groups, discuss what is important about your type of music and what investments should be made by the TWT team. Keep in mind that the investments made by the TWT team could have a big impact on the future of your favorite music. Recommend a dollar amount or percentage of the $10 million that your representative ought to secure for investment in your genre. Each group should then select one of its members to receive the internship from Sony BMG and represent the group on the TWT team.
Step 4: Discuss recommendations before the class. Nominees from the musical affinity groups should discuss their recommendations before the class. Those not on the TWT should observe the process and take notes on what happens in this meeting.
Step 5: Hold the team meeting. Your professor will allocate a short time for the initial meeting of the TWT. It may occur before or during the class meeting. After the TWT reaches agreement on how it might allocate its investments by genre (or by some alternative approach), reaches impasse, or reaches the time limit, your professor will call an end to the TWT meeting.
Step 6: Debrief and discuss. As a class, discuss the process and outcomes of this exercise. Consider the following questions and/or others posed by your professor:
• Did you sense some cultural affinity with others who shared your musical tastes? Why or why not?
• What expectations might be associated with choosing someone to "represent" a group on a team such as the TWT?
• What tensions and challenges might face each member of the TWT in a real-life setting of serving on a group that represents various cultures?