4 Concepts

There are many concepts I've noticed at my Applied Studies site; from diversity to interpersonal communication and cross-functional teams to leadership management. There are many different teams that help this organization run but there is also a team called CFAT which stand for Cross-Functional Affairs Team. This team is comprised of members of all the other teams. Someone from Alumni Affairs, Programming, Development, District Strategy and Operations will come together every other week, discuss and work on projects together. This enables each team to know what is going on on all the other teams and it seems to make the organization run much smoother.

This also ties into the concept of interpersonal communication because this enables the lines of communication to remain open throughout all departments. Not to mention management has one hour meetings with their staff each week to see how their doing and if the staff has any concerns. These meetings are one-on-one which gives the employee more freedom to speak free.

Another concept present is leadership versus management. All those that are in leadership positions are communicative, respectful and lead by example. They are all hard-working with an empathetic attitude. This I find to be key qualities in a leader. They don't simply bark orders and demand to be blindly followed.

This organization also encourages diversity, both in their hiring practices and during corps member recruitment. They have also started a team that focuses on diversity and being sure to educate staff and new corps members because the schools where these teachers are placed tend to be quite diverse and it is essential to make sure the children feel understood and included.

Interdisciplinary vs. Multidisciplinary

So I've been thinking a lot about this weeks question because it's hard to pinpoint multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary on this organization. I came to the conclusion that it operates as both. There is a common goal among the staff and that is to end educational inequity. However, their are multiple departments that work towards this goal such as the Program team that oversees the corps members (teachers) and lends support to the schools when needed. There's the Operations team who's responsible for administrative and financial tasks; maintaing budgets and hiring and training new staff. The Development team deals directly with the donors, all marketing materials and writing grants. The District Strategy team places teachers in schools, creates and maintains relationships within the educational and political community. Finally there's the Alumni Affairs team that works to fully engage previous corps members within their communities. They do this by encouraging and supporting the corps members to enter fields of leadership in schools and politics. So all these departments have their own responsibilities but it is for one common goal. Now there's also CFAT, which stands for Cross-Functional Affairs Team. This team is interdisciplinary because it consists of staff from all the previously mentioned teams. The individuals on this team bring their own perspective from their department into the meetings that take place twice a month. During these meetings staff will focus on "in-depth skill building in the competencies as well as ongoing analysis of each member’s mindset, work values, and time applications". I asked my mentor, Wendy, why she thought CFAT was needed and she said, because of the quick growth of the organization in our region over the past 3-4 years there is a greater need for teams to be able to better coordinate their efforts. As far as the organizational structure I believe it to be hierarchical because each department does have a manager and the organization does have an Executive Director, so it is a pyramid stucture.