Organizations According to Greys Anatomy

After reading the chapter on organizing teams I was able to learn a lot about the importance of a functional team and how its structure can lead to its success.  When thinking of a successfully functioning team, the first one that comes to mind is one from my favorite television show.  In the program Greys Anatomy, the story of several young surgical interns is followed as they make their way from first year interns to full time residents.  Throughout the twelve seasons, Meredith Grey (the lead character) and the other employees of Seattle Grace undergo several leadership shifts and changes, all for the betterment of the organization.  Because the series is so extensive, and throughout the program there are so many leadership changes and restructuring, I will be evaluating the first season to make it a little less confusing.

To begin, the hierarchy of the hospital, specifically the surgical department, is set up in a dual authority configuration.  With this system, there is one head boss who is in charge of department heads.  These department heads have a collection of employees below them and the flow continues from there.  With the hierarchy of Seattle Grace, there is a chief of surgery (Richard Weber), who is responsible for the entire surgical department at the hospital.  He is the one who hires interns and promotes the residents.  It is his job to more or less ensure that the surgical department is running smoothly.  He is the one who schedules all the surgeries.  The interns see and respect him, but for the most part, they do not deal directly with Weber.  From there, Weber dictates to the department heads. The departments are broken down by category of surgical need, such as head of cardio and head of neurology.  These department heads are responsible for surgeries in specialized fields.  Derek Shepherd (head of neurology), only receives cases that are specific to issues with the brain.  The same goes for the rest of the department heads.  The next level gets a little tricky.  The interns are the lowest level on the hierarchy.  They are brand new to medicine and have little experience.  This is Meredith’s position.  What gets complicated is that the interns rotate from department to department each week.  This allows them to get trained in every specialty.  The interns take on an all channel, or interconnected network under the department level.  At any one time, the department heads are working with three to four interns at one time. 

This leadership structure works well in the context of the show.  Department heads answer to the chief which prevents some of the power struggles that come up from becoming an issue.  In many instances of the show, multiple department heads are called in for the same patient, and they each believe what they are doing is the priority. It is Weber who makes the final call on which doctor’s method of treatment will be used.  Also, the all channel network of organization among the interns is beneficial as well.  While having no set leader at the intern level might seem bad for organization, the interns need to constantly be working with a new department head in order to get a well-rounded education.  In the long run, they benefit from working with a rotating leadership.  However, there are cases of conflict that arises from this type of hierarchy.  For several characters, personality differences prevent interns from receiving a full education from department heads.  This is the fault of the department head for playing favoritism on specific interns.  In a real, functioning hospital, this could create a problem in that if a department head was doing that, one intern would have a poorer education in that specialty which could result in casualty.

Opportunism

In organizations, opportunity to get ahead is seen as a good thing.  If given the chance, most will not turn down the opportunity to further their career, make more money or simply get ahead of the competition.  But when this desire to get ahead is at the expense of those around you, there is some question on whether or not opportunistic actions are good or bad.

One example of a time when I passed on the chance to act opportunistically at work was when I helped out a coworker in need without expecting anything in return.  I have worked on campus as a bartender and kitchen help at Legends Bar and Grill for the last year.  For the most part, employees are willing to trade shifts or simply pick up another’s shift if there is inconvenient scheduling at work.  This trade tends to be beneficial for both parties.  However, on some occasions, when an employee is in serious need of a shift covered, they will offer financial compensation in the form of between ten and twenty dollars to the person willing to cover their shift.  The money is an incentive for someone to take on additional hours when many of us are so over loaded with school and work already.  The shifts that have a financial attachment tend to occur over the weekend because most people have plans and are less willing to give up their time. 

At our job, any shift change requests go through our Facebook page, and people are able to post responses and additional comments to share their availability.  In the instance that comes to mind, a girl had a family emergency and had to go home for the weekend and needed her shifts covered.  She needed a kitchen shift covered on Saturday night in order to go home and after posting about it, did not receive a response for several days.  I normally am very willing to help coworkers with shifts if they need something covered, but this particular weekend, I had plans for my roommates birthday and had specifically requested the day off in advance.  As the weekend approached, the girl grew more desperate.  Finally, the Friday morning she was supposed to go home, she updated to our group that she was willing to give fifty dollars to whomever would cover her Saturday shift.  This was quite a lot of money and her desperation was obvious.  I felt really bad for the girl, so I messaged her that I would cover her shift and to not worry about the money.  While I could have been opportunistic and taken the extra fifty dollars, I felt that doing so was wrong, and I did not want to take advantage of her family emergency.  I gave up spending the weekend with my friends so that my coworker could take care of what she needed to without getting any additional compensation from her. 

To me, opportunism in the work force is a negative for the most part.  When coworkers take advantage and try to profit off of one another, it is breeding a hostile environment.  This is especially true if it becomes apparent that one person in particular is going out of their way to be opportunistic.  Going back to my job, there was one employee who would only pick up shifts if there was monetary compensation attached.  He would go so far as to ask for more money if the person was only offering a small amount.  After several instances of this, he was called out by the staff and criticized for it.  What he was doing was not wrong from a legal or business standpoint, and management had no issue with his actions.  However, many of our coworkers found his opportunistic advances as taking advantage of someone else’s lack of options.  I would rather see my organization as a whole succeed than to make small gains at the expense of those around me. 

Nordstrom as an Organization

One experience that I have with organizations is my time spent working at the department store Nordstrom.  Nordstrom is a high end retailer with stores across the country.  I spent the summer working in their Via-C luxury brand department in Skokie, Illinois and got to witness first hand, how a nationally respected organization operates.

One thing that I noticed about the operating style at Norstrom was, rather than supplying each store with the exact same merchandise, they took a boots on the ground approach to buying product at a store level.  Each store has its own buyer who works with department managers to see what brands are popular versus what is not selling.  For example, the location I worked did not have as high a demand for formal wear as the location at Michigan Avenue, so we did not have a gown department, whereas they did.  The buyers would even talk to the sales associates to get a feel for what customers' comments and criticisms were on different styles as well. This allowed for in store space and buffer stocks to be used optimally.  This style of buying is better for both the sellers in the stores and the consumers.  If each store was given the exact inventory dictated by headquarters, many stores would not be able to operate to their fullest.  They would be forced to carry excess product that would never be likely to sell.  For example, Arizona and Alaskan customers have very different needs, and by getting buyers on location to receive feedback, the brand as a whole was much better off.

Another thing I noticed while working for this organization was the importance of stable leadership and the effects that a seemingly simple change in routine can lead to.  Just prior to my time starting, there was a change in leadership at the highest level in my store.  The store manager, who is in charge of the store as a whole, left and was replaced by a woman from within the company, but not our store specifically.  While I was not present at the time of the change, I felt the effects of the switch long after I began.  Any change in leadership is going to cause controversy, and many long-term employees expressed their grievances about the new manager.  Right away, changes were made by management, from schedules being altered, to entire shifts in different departments.  These changes upset people so much so that some decided to change locations and even leave the company.  This experience made me realize that a manager needs to gain the respect and trust of their employees in order to lead successfully.  Many felt as though their voices were not being heard, or that the new manager was changing things without understanding how the store was functioning before her time.  The new manager was extremely qualified, and in fact, some of her changes were beneficial.  However, because she was new and her style of leading was unfamiliar, she was met with resistance.  There was a somewhat obvious change in enthusiasm, and when employees left the store, there was an added burden on those who stayed.  Even though the change was only one person, the ripple effect of this change made its way all the way down to the sales floor.  

All in all, I really enjoyed my time at Nordstrom.  I got to learn so much about not only how a successful store is run, but also how a multi-level corporation is able to maintain its high level of success for over one hundred years.  The lessons I have learned here will carry on with me throughout my career.

Amy Finkelstien Bio

One of the most respected economists in modern days, Amy Finkelstein was born November 2, 1973 in New York City.  In 1995 she graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University and after, attended Oxford University for a Masters in Economics.  She then went on to receive her PhD in Economics from MIT.  Currently, Amy works at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a co-Scientific director of J-PAL North America.  This is a research facility at MIT specializing in domestic policy issues.  As well as MIT, she is also the co-Director of the Public Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Amy Finkelstein not only has an impresssive academic and employment history, she is the recipient of numerous awards and given only to industry innovators.  In 2012 she received the John Bates Medal from the American Economic Association, which is given to an economist under the age of forty who is making exceptional advancements in economic thought.   She has also won the Elaine Bennett Research Prize in 2008 just to name a few.

Currently, Amy Finkelstein specializes in public finance and health economics.  She is one of two Primary Investigators in the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment where she is researching the effects of Medicaid on low income households.