Conclusions and Recommendations

Organizational Analysis Step 1
Name
Institution
Brief History of Organization:
As the CEO and founder of Performance Course, Geno’s unique approach has been developed over a 23-year career. A resident of Allen Texas, Geno was a three-year starter at defensive back for Missouri Southern State University where he received his degree in psychology. He finished his career as an NSCA All-American and team captain. Geno and his wife Jamie are members of Cottonwood Creek Baptist Church and have three children, Lainey (8), Payton (10) and Oliver (20) who is a sophomore wrestler at Arizona State University. He is certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and by USA Weightlifting as a Level 1 Club Coach (USAW).
Working with hundreds of school districts and thousands of coaches and athletes over this period, Performance Course programs have created long term athletic development plans unlike anywhere in the United States. Through this process, Geno has developed trusted relationships with coaches and school districts garnering 75 team state titles in various sports. Performance Course is the largest service provider of onsite long-term athlete development programs in the country. (Geno Pierce)
As a young professional, Geno had the opportunity to work and learn under Boyd Epley CSCS (Hall of Fame strength coach and founder of the National Strength and Conditioning Association). Through his career, he has worked with some of the top professionals in the field and mentored some coaches that have moved on professionally.

He is a sought after consultant and presenter, specializing in systematic long-term athlete development planning within school districts. With a career spanning over two decades, he has worked with hundreds of division 1 athlete, and had the opportunity to see some them advance to the professional level. Geno is one of the original athletes to develop the Performance Course training methodology, and takes great pride in providing this service to coaches and athletes. With this unique perspective, he has a talent for bridging the gap to serve each coach and program’s unique philosophy and needs. (Geno Pierce)
Discuss the Vision, Mission, and Operative Goal:
Mission:
We believe in the relentless pursuit of perfection. We will challenge ourselves daily to win all 1–on–1 battle expectantly, not settling to be better, but only the best by challenging and supportive learning environment for our athletic students, where all participants act as role models in athletic sportsmanship and academic achievement.
Vision:
Are you a giraffe or turtle? , they both have a vision, but it is on two different levels.
The turtle can only see so far, it is only ground level; it eats the left over’s from the tree. The giraffe can see miles away. It eats the best nutrients from the top of the true. A giraffe and turtle are on opposite sides of the zoo. Both visions are neither right nor wrong, but which one would you call you a giraffe or a turtle?
Value:
Performance Course is valued by the approach to progressively improving athletic ability. This unique course combines sound, proven strength and conditioning principles with the latest methodologies to give the participant the top athletic performance program in the nation.
(Geno Pierce)
Operative Goal:
The training goal is to be based on proven scientific training principles. These principles along with a dynamic training environment give our athletes a physical and mental advantage over their competition. (Geno Pierce)
Main Products and Services Produced or Provided:
Performance course has developed a program that gives an undeniable advantage. I know the kids are well taken care of and in the best shape of their life when they report to their coaches in August. I am a huge advocate of the performance course (Geno Pierce)
This is delivered through expert coaching, high-quality equipment, convenient scheduling and exceptional exercise programs. When a person exercises in a group, has fun and uses everyday functional movements; he or she is far more likely to exercise more often, eat better, have fewer injuries and lose weight while gaining muscle mass. The program provides all of the elements necessary for participants to achieve their fitness goals. (Geno Pierce)
Method Used to Collect Information:
I am a former employee of performance course so, information collected by talking with and listening to people, either face-to-face or over the telephone, and in-depth examination of a particular case program, group of participants, single individual, site/locations.
Organizational Analysis Step 2
Critique the organizational/market/operational strategy of the organization
My organization is using the Mechanistic Model- A mechanistic model is one where the basic elements of the model have a direct correspondence to the underlying mechanisms in the system being modeled. (Organizational Behavior pg.449)
The Strength of the strategy of this organization is through his coordinators. Geno Perce has about 75 different locations throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He has hired coordinators to run these sites. They have learned how to run the program in their version, but everybody speaks the same language, and learned the same techniques through his way of getting the best out to the athletes. The operation has grown since he has started and been the strength of the performance course. The weaknesses are hiring too many of friends. Most of the time friends working with friends are pretty good, but in certain environments they tend to get too comfortable that leads to not that much work being done.
The environment of the organization is awesome. High energy is the first and number one focus during sessions. A sense of urgency a fast pace in engaged within the organization. Decisions are made quickly yet always linked to creating satisfaction for the organization’s customers. Productivity is expected to be high, and the bar is raised for high performance that includes a high sense of urgency about getting things done. Achievable success when people see success about to happen, they get excited and begin to push harder to get closure on the challenge. When people are allowed to celebrate their successes, the excitement grows for achieving another success. Thus, a success mentality appears to rule the office, and people are happy and excited about their work.
Critique the culture of the organization (choose a framework/model from the text)
Socialization (Organizational Behavior pg. 475) Socializing at work benefits the workplace through encouraging teamwork. Allowing these teams to give high fives, exchange handshakes or spend a little time bragging may bolster their team spirit. This type of socialization is infectious. Encourage teamwork by putting winners on the back and giving whenever you see company winners.
People Shape the Culture. Personalities and experiences of employees create the culture of an organization. For example, if most of the people in an organization are very outgoing, the culture is likely to be open and sociable. If many artifacts depicting the company’s history and values are in evidence throughout the company, people value their history and culture.
The strength for the culture recognition for hard work rewards is necessary to encourage certain behaviors in persons. This is known as positive reinforcement under operant conditioning in the field of psychology. It is used in organizational behavior management as well: by rewarding employees who put to their work, this will promote similar behaviors in the future. The weakness subcultures could be said to oppose the cultural norms found within mainstream culture. Is the difference between subcultures and mainstream cultures so clearly defined? Subculture groups form because of the need to escape and seek new meaning.

Critique existing/possible decision-making strategies/methods
The decision making is typically made by the boss. Consulting, he will gather up any information that is valuable, if it sounds applicable to him he will use it.
When they encounter a new problem or decision they must make, they react with a decision that seemed to work before. It’s easy with this approach to get stuck in a circle of solving the same problem over and over again. Therefore, it’s often useful to get used to an organized approach to problem-solving and decision-making. Not all problems can be solved, and decisions made by the following, rather a rational approach. However, the following basic guidelines will get you started. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the list of guidelines. After you’ve practiced them a few times, they’ll become second nature to you enough that you can deepen and enrich them to suit your needs and nature.
The strengths in consulting decision making are, that it takes minimal time to make a decision. It is useful when one person on the team has the overwhelming expertise.
Listening to the team increases the accuracy of the decision. The team members feel understood. The weaknesses are, Opinions of least and most knowledgeable members may cancel. Commitment to a decision may not be strong. It may damage future team effectiveness. It may create an air of competition among team members.
4. Critique how the organization motivates employees.
Having a goal motivates people. Sometimes it can be hard to do things that seem boring or complicated. It is so easy just to put them off until tomorrow instead of dealing with them now even if we secretly know that tomorrow never comes. One way to deal with this is to start creating your life plan and have a goal.
Setting goals increases awareness of a person’s strengths and weaknesses, working toward goal completion allows people to identify what areas they need to improve to achieve a goal. Goal setting also allows people to identify their strengths and use them to achieve a goal more quickly or with better results. The weakness, some people have difficulty completing tasks because they do not know their priorities. Without a set of clear goals, people spend time on things that distract them from achievement. Depending on the person, distractions could include watching television, surfing the Web or playing computer games. Creating a clear plan of action forces people to determine their priorities and limit distractions, according to Montgomery County Public Schools.
5. Critique existing/possible leadership styles
Being a visible role model,” employees will look t the actions of top management as a benchmark for appropriate behavior sends a positive message” (Organizational Behavior pg.481).
Role models create visions, encourage their followers to identify with the visions and inspire the followers to work toward fulfilling them. Role models are the style of a particular leader, and the strengths and weaknesses depend on the nature and competence of the role model. Role models help the realization of a leader’s vision, while weaknesses hinder it.
Conclusion
Being the CEO of Performance Course, Geno has established a very good work environment in the company that makes workers comfortable, hence are poised to perform even better. His leadership structure, in which he has coordinators that help him run the company is also effective as he can concentrate on other areas of management. The company also does well in making employees set goals that they are supposed to meet as this greatly motivates them to accomplish them. Although the company is doing well currently, there are some adjustments that should be done to enhance productivity as outlined in the recommendations.
Recommendations
The major adjustment that the company needs to make it the process of hiring; Geno has the tendency of hiring his friends to the positions of coordinators. Although some may be qualified, it may be difficult to deal with them in things like accountability or commitment to work due to the close ties enjoyed with the CEO. Therefore, Geno should consider advertising the posts to the whole public and the entire process takes at least two weeks and the most qualified are picked, so that people can be employed on merit, as this would help obtain the best available expertise.
The company should also introduce performance contracts to tie down the employees to better performance. The employees should sign those performance contracts one week after being hired, and they should be subject to renewal, maybe after two years, as this would increase performance and commitment from the workers.
Also, the company should change its decision-making process, so that other employees are involved in the process. This should be done by changing the leadership structure such that the CEO can have assistants or other individuals to help in making decisions. This would make the employees feel like they belong there, thus a motivational factor to working even harder.
The reward structure of the company should also be revised from just goal setting to tangible incentives, where employees are given monetary rewards or promotions to encourage them work hard.
The only challenges that might be encountered in the process of implementing these adjustments are resistance to change, which may come from the employees. However, this can be solved by informing them earlier enough and explaining it to them in detail so that they can understand better.
References
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2007). Organizational behavior. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall. (Pages-449, 475, 481).