Inside Yahoo's Virtual Halls: A Deep Dive into Organization Culture and Politics

Assignment Part 1

Overview of Yahoo! Inc

In 1994, two graduates from the Stanford University, David Filo and Jerry Yang founded Yahoo. By 1995, the organization became incorporated, and later, in 1996, Yahoo became publicly traded as YHOO on NASDAQ (Schneider, 2019). Originally, the company began as a random collection of the favourite websites of the founders, and it was named “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019). The founders changed the company’s name to Yahoo, which stands for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019). However, since they could not acquire a trademark for the name, Yahoo, an exclamation mark was added, thus the current trademark version Yahoo!.

Yahoo! Inc is a global provider of internet services with its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. It is a website which allows its users to access other websites, and acquire information and other online utilities. It contains features like an e-mail service, search engine, a news branch and a directory. At the present day, Yahoo is one of the websites that are most visited in the internet (Schneider, 2019). As from 2017, the organization is under the ownership of Verizon Communications and it has employed over 8,500 people on a full-time basis (Clement, 2018). The organization’s employees have adopted a ‘work hard, play hard’ informal motto which drives them to go against competitors such as Google and Facebook (Schneider, 2019). The organization is also committed towards promoting diversity among its staff members (Clement, 2018).

Yahoo! Organization Culture

In 2012, Yahoo! Took in Marissa Mayer as its president and chief executive officer. Mayer’s portfolio includes a crucial role played in the growth of Google, and her employment at Yahoo was anticipated to turn things to the better, amid the company’s financial issues (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019).The organization’s employees have, for a long time, remained focused on high performance, which boosts the productivity of the company. Prior to Mayer’s presence, Yahoo’s employees adopted a ‘work from home’ culture, best known as telecommuting. The employees relied on this work culture because of its flexibility and work-life balance. Mayer’s presence in the organization seeks to overturn the culture of working beyond the conventional work environment, and this is evidenced be a previously leaked memo that requested every employee to return to working on-site (Kotter, 2013). This change in organization culture was received with a great deal of outrage, especially from mothers working in the company while relying on the flexible schedules brought about by telecommuting (Phys.org, 2016).

Yahoo! Politics and Power

According to Cacciattolo (2014), organization politics is the behaviour which is aimed at protecting one’s self interest at the expense of another person, and commonly, this behaviour is in conflict with the goals of the organization. Other researchers for organizational politics have referred to it as a form of antisocial behaviour (Cacciattolo, 2014). Without any doubt, Yahoo! has various numerous organization politics stories looming around. The most popular and most recent politics in the organization concerns the rebooting of its notorious organization culture (Foremski, 2013). More subtly, the politics circulates around Mayer’s efforts to pull the company’s workers back from working from their offices at home. Many people think her strategy as a kind of attack on telecommuting and the potential output of workers that are based remotely (Foremski, 2013). Changing the company’s way of working, in Mayer’s perspective, is the key to restore the lost glory for Yahoo, as it was once regarded as the largest internet organization in the planet (Tynan, 2018).

Alapo (2018) defines power as a person’s capability of exerting change on the way of life and the actions of another person. When used, power is a very valuable tool in influencing others and acquiring one’s desires and controlling the future actions of other people (Alapo, 2018). At Yahoo, matters concerning power is evident, once more in relation to the existing CEO, Marrisa Mayer, whom as a young mother and lover of work, took up the job at the organization while 5 months pregnant, then took a two-week maternity leave, built a nearby nursery at her personal expense so that she would be close to her new-born son, which allows her to work for longer hours (Phys.org, 2016). Mayer banned telecommuting as a working culture in the company, which represented insensitivity and selfishness from her side towards mothers who are overladen with work and depend on the flexible schedules were initially accorded to them.

Motivation Theories and Motivational Techniques

For a long time, motivation theories are used to inspire workers to acquire the desire to achieve both personal and organizational goals (Badubi, 2017). Apart from the achievement of goals, motivation influences the outcome of job satisfaction among employees. Many theories compete in trying to explain the workings of motivation. The motivation theories that influence behaviour and enable the achievement of goals in the context of Yahoo! Inc are discussed as follows.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

This is a content theory which depends on people’s desire to increase their wants, needs, and achievements in life according to their level of significance. Abraham Maslow considered the psychological, social, physical, and biological needs of a person to develop this five-stage theory. Maslow suggested a hierarchy of needs, arranged in a pyramid form, which people strive to satisfy from the bottom to the top. The needs at the top-level cannot be fulfilled without fulfilling the bottom-level needs first (Ball, 2012). Running from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy are physiological needs, security and safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs (Badubi, 2017).

At Yahoo!, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can be used in influencing behaviour and the ability to achieve goals. The CEO, Marissa Mayer, needs to ensure that every employee has the basic physiological needs of food, clothing, and shelter. While implementing the new work culture, she can ensure that employee physical protection during their movement to the place of work is guaranteed. Also, in banning telecommuting, Mayer ought to balance the social needs of employees, especially the work-life balance of working mothers. Esteem needs can be met by acknowledging the effort which employees put into pushing the organization forward. Self-actualization needs can be fulfilled by attributing certain organizational achievement from specific efforts from employees (Venugopalan, 2007). Esteem and self-actualization needs can be met by reinforcing and rewarding certain actions by employees.

Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene/ Two-Factor Theory

This theory grew out of a study that was conducted among engineers and accountants with the goal of determining what made them feel bad or good concerning their work. There are five features which determine worker satisfaction, these are recognition, achievement, advancement, responsibility and the job itself. There are also factors which result in the demoralization of employees, which are approach of management, pay, supervision, work relationships, working conditions, and institutional politics (Badubi, 2017). Mayer can use this theory to bolster personal enrichment, recognition and growth among employees at Yahoo!. She can ensure that once certain stages of their career are completed and certain achievements acquired, the employees ought to be promoted and granted recognition where possible.

Reflection

The discussion has led me to think of the many organizations which I have been able to know about and taken interest in their activities since I learned about the corporate world. Indeed, culture and motivation have great potential effects on the behaviour of employees inside and the prosperity of an organization. In the Employer Advisory Forum, I have selected to address the organization, Yahoo! Inc, particularly because of my aspiration to work in a similar organization and the signature footprint it has acquired as a global provider of internet services.

I admire the previous working style, which is that of telecommuting, adopted by Yahoo! prior to the welcoming of the new CEO, Marrisa Mayer. Gallup (2017) confirmed that 43% of employees telecommute on a regular basis (Gallup, 2017). Telecommuting is touted by management gurus as being beneficial in terms of boosting productivity, reducing operational costs, presenting an ample working environment, and increasing job satisfaction (Bruggen, et al., 2017). Yahoo! had adopted this style of work over the years before, but it proved to be ineffective and inefficient to the prosperity of the organization. In addition, the organization which was once what the internet was all about became beaten by new organizations like Google and Facebook which came into the internet providing scene afterwards (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019).

Despite the changing of the telecommuting working culture in the organization, it becomes rather apparent that Yahoo! has struggles with power and politics. Having taken the helm of Yahoo!, Mayer used her newly gained power to alter the working style not only for the benefit of the organization, but also for personal interest. Mayer is known to be a workaholic and she used her financial power to set up a nursery near her place of work, so that she would be able to see her son with ease after work. Organization politics comes in by the banning of the work-at-home culture which proves to be a misuse of power from her side, and being insensitive towards the needs of mothers who work diligently at the comfort of their homes.

The overall impact of the trending organization power and politics in Yahoo! could prove to be detrimental to its prosperity, even though the changes were intended to bring about organizational growth. Thus, the following recommendations stand. Mayer ought to have borrowed from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory when implementing changes. She would have considered that every level of needs are met before introducing a change in style of work, which has a great impact on the motivation of employees and their ability to achieve personal goals and those for Yahoo!. Mayer ought to have borrowed from the Hezberg’s Two-factor theory by considering the satisfiers and dissatisfiers crucial toward employee motivation when making a decision to ban telecommuting.

Assignment Part 2

Analysis of Team Dynamics

Working together in a small group made it easier for team members to get to know each other and at least refer to one another by their first names. Our team consisted members with balanced age and gender, such that there were 3 male and 3 female students. Prior to beginning the team activity, we decided to choose a team leader and assistant team leaders. Specific roles were assigned to the team leader, with the main role being to link the team with the class instructor, and the assistant team leader would be more concerned about the team members and their relationship with the team leader. The rest of the team members were expected to show loyalty and unity towards the team and its goals.

In completing the class task, our team decided to take a brief moment to discuss by offering insights into the manner the task would be completed using the least degree of complexity and ensuring that every team member participates. To help assign team roles more efficiently, every team member was requested to explain their strengths and weaknesses on certain aspect of the task at hand. Roles were distributed equally, such that everyone was given more roles for activities to which they exhibited strength and least roles to activities which they exhibited weakness. Members who were confident in their strengths in certain activities were given the supervision role over the completion of that activity. The supervision role was necessary so that members who showed weakness in that activity would approach the activity supervisor to offer guidance on their part of the work.

By the end of the task, every team member had made significant contributions. In my perspective, the team members were collaborative and showed determination in ensuring that the group task was completed successfully. Also, I consider my team to have been effective.

Team Development Theories

Many years of studying team dynamics have resulted in theoretical frameworks which can be used in explaining the behaviour of each member and the overall performance of the team. Some of the team development theories that will be discussed in relation to my group above are as follows.

Belbin’s Team Roles

One of the team building theories, which has acquired credibility and reliability from nine years of study, is the framework explanation developed by Meredith Belbin in the year 1981. According to Belbin, a team role refers to an individual’s likelihood of behaving, contributing, and interrelating with other members of the team in a specific way (Management Technology Policy, 2019). The team roles were developed in such a way that they can predict the likely success of managing teams, and offers the insight that the teams that are strong are those which have diverse personality types and characters.

The team roles are divided into three categories. First, there are cerebral roles, which are the specialist, monitor evaluator and plant roles. Second, there are action-oriented roles, which include the roles of completer finisher, implementer, and shaper. Third, there are people-oriented roles, which are team worker, resource investigator and coordinator. As observed in our team, most members had at least two of the roles mentioned above that they became very comfortable with. Not every team role is needed at the same time in a team, and this depends on the objectives of the team and the kinds of tasks to be accomplished (Belbin Associates, 2019).

Tuckman’s Team Development Model

For people in leadership positions, such as managers, Dr Bruce Tuckman offered a classical model that has delivered new viewpoints and offered comfort in the running of a team and the ability for an individual to function in a team for over 40 years (Wilson , 2010). The theory is relevant towards solving various challenges associated with team building, and handling tasks all the way from the forming of a team to the completion of a particular task assigned to the team.

The first stage is forming, which involves team members focusing on the team leader and accepts the leader’s authority and guidance. At this stage, there is some polite distant interaction between the team members. The second stage is storming, which is a difficult stage where team members are overly concerned about the impression they make, seeking respect, battling feelings of being inadequate, and trying to prove to the leader their essence in the team, while ignoring the task at hand.

The third stage is norming, which takes place after storming, whereby, finally, team members take part in making big decisions and get to convert ideas into action. In this stage, challenges and risks are taken as steps towards success of the team. The fourth stage is performing, where the leader and team members are working in cohesion, and there is even positive conflict among members. In this stage, it is difficult to break the fabric of the work relationship. The sixth stage is adjourning, where at this point, the task or project to be run by the team is completed successfully and there is need to bring a feeling of closure among team members. Team members can have a retrospective look at their journey working together and the contributions made by each team member.

Reflection on Concepts and Philosophies of Organizational Behaviour

An organization is able to achieve its goals by developing, operating and communicating in an organization behaviour system which begins with a good managerial philosophy. The philosophy held by managers affects the general behaviour of staff members in an organization, because it consists an integration of the set of beliefs and assumptions concerning the manner things should be run, the reason for certain activities and the nature they should take (Saravanakumar, 2019). The organizational behaviour philosophies, in isolated cases, are either explicit, or implied from a manager’s intuition.

Since organizational behaviour philosophies affect the way a business is organized and govern every area of the company, they are crucial towards the performance and productivity of business. The philosophies determine the manner in which work is divided in an organization in a manner which results in maximum efficiency. They spell out clearly, the chain of responsibilities for every member and department in the company (Hammond, 2019). The philosophies determine the bureaucracies within organizations, and the more bureaucratic an organization is, the slower it is likely to become in accomplishing some of the simple operations. Eventually, this would have a detrimental impact on a firm’s performance and productivity in a highly competitive environment.

References

Alapo, R., 2018. Organizational Power Politics and Leadership Experiences on the View and Use of Power in Organizations. Management Studies, 6(1), pp. 30-36.

Badubi, R., 2017. Theories of Motivation and Their Application in Organizations: A Risk Analysis. International Journal of Innovation and Economic Development, 3(3), pp. 44-51.

Bruggen, A., Feichter, C. & Haesebrouck, K., 2017. The Effect of Telecommuting on Employee Behavior, s.l.: La Trobe University.

Cacciattolo, K., 2014. Defining Organizational Politics. European Scientific Journal, pp. 238-245.

Saravanakumar, A. R., 2019. Unit 1 Organizatoional Behaviour. In: Organisational Behaviour. s.l.:ResearchGate, p. 53.

Venugopalan, O., 2007. Maslow's theory of motivation its relevance and application among non-managerial employees of selected public and private sector undertakings in Kerala, s.l.: University of Calicut.