People and Organizations

Calendar

SES #	TOPICS	KEY QUESTIONS	KEY DATES
1	Introduction and overview	What challenges can I expect in my first job?
2	Work and careers: Past, present, and future	What do I want/expect from my work/career? How is this similar or different from what my parents and grandparents wanted and expected?
3	Leading and facilitating teams: An engineering team exercise	How can I make my team work well?
4	Organizations: Past, present, future	How did the modern organization evolve and where is it going?
5	Organizational analysis: Strategic design lens	How do I analyze and make sense of the organizational structure in which I am working?
6	Organizational analysis: Political lens	Who will share my interests and who won’t? Who has power, and how will it affect what I do?
7	Putting the political lens to work: Influencing upward in organizations	How do I sell my great idea to higher authorities?	Organization selection for individual paper due
8	Organizational analysis: Cultural lens	What traditions matter in an organization, and how do they affect what goes on?
9	The cultural lens in action: The Lincoln Electric case	Why has Lincoln Electric’s incentive compensation system worked for decades while most others’ have failed?
10	Applying the three lenses: BP and lessons from the Gulf Coast disaster
11	Teams in organizations
12	Team processes: Strategies for building a high performance team
13	Midterm exam
14	Introduction to negotiations	How do I negotiate when it looks like I have no power?	Topic selection for group paper due
15	Recruitment and job offer negotiation	What should I ask for? What should I offer?	Individual paper draft due
16	Interest-based bargaining in action: Riggs Engineering case study	Can I put the internet-based tools of Fisher and Ury to work in a real life negotiation? How do I sell this agreement to my “constituents” or superiors?
17	Leadership and change: Introductions
18	Leadership and change (cont.)
19	Leadership continued: The Big Dig, Part 1
20	Leadership continued: The Big Dig, Part 2
21	Organizational change: MassDOT case	What structural, political, and cultural challenges have to be addressed to integrate multiple agencies into a single efficient transportation organization and system?
22	Managing the innovation process	How do ideas move from the laboratory through the organization to the marketplace?
23	Corporate responsibility in global supply chain	What purpose(s) should corporations serve? Should Nike and other global corporations be held responsible for the practices of their suppliers? If so, how?
24	Team reports on change project		Individual paper due
25	Inventing the future: Wrap-up		Team paper due