The Center – OIT Project

Second Year I/O Students Courtney Austin and Jodie Watford

Beginning in the fall, four interns from The Industrial & Organizational Psychology Center were given the opportunity to act as external consultants for a local technology company. In alignment with The Center’s mission of bridging the gap between science and practice, we worked as consultants and researched the topics of organizational culture and change before developing workshops to present to the organization’s Directors and line managers. Our team worked to develop tools to help the leaders to identify and understand the organization’s culture by collaboratively establishing the company’s values, as well as creating a vision and mission statement.

The process began with an assessment done by a consultant from an outside company who identified the current environment of the organization as a whole. Each Director also took a similar assessment to see how their individual leadership style aligned with the organization’s current environment. This information provided a baseline for our team to understand the current state of the organization. Individual coaching sessions were held with each Director to discuss the results of their assessment, their leadership style, and their thoughts about the direction of the company. Pre-work was assigned to the Directors, requiring each to list the values that best represent the organization as well as the values that guide them as individuals. Our team integrated these responses and the information was used as a starting point for the development of the organization’s values system. Two workshops were facilitated by our team which enabled the Directors to successfully identify a set of values that will be the driving force behind the development many other important organizational initiatives.

            Our team spent many hours researching, brainstorming, creating and presenting these workshops. The quality results created by the organization leaders we worked with were exactly what we hoped to achieve. We learned that the development of quality results from workshops cannot be rushed, but that appropriate time must be allocated in order to ensure thoughtful deliberation and consensus.

            It is difficult to jumpstart the process of organizational change; however, a handful of themes emerged throughout the project. In the workshop developmental phases, it became clear of the importance of understanding the client. Each internal stakeholder may hold very different assumptions about “why” the organization behaves as it does, and “why” decisions are made. These assumptions influence the stakeholders’ perceptions of what the organization strives to be, (i.e., the organization’s vision); hence the need for the client and the consultant to explore these assumptions together. By understanding each stakeholder’s unique perspective and by feeding these perspectives back to all of the stakeholders, the consultant can begin to find a common ground within the organization. 

          Another valuable lesson learned from this experience is that you can plan and prepare extensively, but things will rarely unfold exactly as you expect. Throughout this project, our team devoted numerous hours into the development of these workshops and not one of them proceeded without some surprise. The biggest challenge was allotting the “right” amount of time to the given tasks. We were fortunate that our client was an active contributor who partnered with us throughout the whole process to accomplish the objectives. Being a part of the consulting relationship, and having the opportunity to be a hands-on contributor to an organization’s development and success, was truly a great experience.

I/O Psychology and the Dallas Medical Reserve Corps!

Congratulations to Karline Chapman (second from left) and Lori Dawson (far right), 2nd year I/O MS students for successfully completing a semester long project involving the creation of a training program designed for the Dallas County Medical Reserve Corp. With the help of undergraduate students Michelle Tang (far left), Alisa Millard (second from right), and Matilda Jaegerman (not pictured), Karline and Lori developed an interactive training program based on a rigorous needs analysis that focused on the competencies necessary for successful leader performance in the event of a medical emergency. The pilot program was delivered on Saturday, April 27, 2013 in downtown Dallas. Great job everyone! Check out what the undergraduate students involved in this project had to say about their experience!

Alisa

As I stepped into the elevator inside the Life Science building, I hit the button to take me to the third floor where the first Dallas Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) meeting of the semester was to take place. I would be working with two I/O psychology graduate students and two other undergraduates like myself. Our project: assist the graduate students in developing a leadership training program for the MRC. The graduate students (Lori and Karline) clearly outlined their expectations for what Matilda, Michelle, and I would be expected to uphold. I was ecstatic to delve into such a thrilling project.

After the first meeting, the graduate students set up a weekly meeting time with us to discuss what tasks we would be carrying out. The project began with interviewing SMEs to gather further details on what can be expected of a leader in the MRC and which qualities a leader in the MRC should have. After each interview was conducted, the SME wrote task statements pertaining to the leadership position. While this was going on, we were reading up on how to conduct a job analysis. Once we gathered all of the data from the SMEs, we organized and condensed the task statements.

My next duty was to type up the task statements into Survey Monkey so the MRC volunteers could rate the task statements. The task statements were going to be rated on two scales: importance of task to a MRC leader’s job and criticality of consequences if the task were to be performed incorrectly. This information would become valuable for when it came time to develop KSAOs (knowledge, skills, abilities, and other) which are necessary for being a leader in the MRC.

Our next task was finding leadership articles which included topics ranging from transformational leadership to leadership in crisis situations. After the collection of articles was completed, the next step was to complete a content analysis of leadership articles we were assigned. We than began to develop KSAOs based on the task statements we had previously revised. 

After the KSAOs were created, we were able to attend an MRC focus group. The focus group was a chance for the MRC volunteers to give us feedback and commentary on the KSAOs created previously. It was very enthralling to witness the discussion the graduate students and the volunteers had with each other. Very valuable information was revealed during the focus group.

Crunch time began and we soon hit the ground running searching for training materials and I was also given the task of creating the workshop course evaluation (which was to be filled out by volunteers at the end of the leadership training). Soon enough it came time for the pilot leadership training workshop to take place on a Saturday morning at the end of April. The workshop went very well but did have some areas of improvement which we discussed a few days later.


All of the hard work put into this project paid off and taught me what things I can expect for my time in the I/O program. It truly was an incredible learning experience and the whole group worked swimmingly with each other. In closing, I could not have wished for a better way to spend my last semester as an undergraduate psychology student.

Michelle 

My freshman year of college I was undeclared. It was by sheer chance that I found out about I/O psychology the summer leading into my sophomore year. I happened to be on a plane on my way home from a family vacation when I overheard another passenger talking about it. As soon as I got home I went to research industrial and organizational psychology and became thoroughly interested. I made an appointment to see Laura, the undergrad psychology advisor, the next day. She told me more about the field and that semester I took Dr. Lopez’s class for intro psych. Needless to say, I became more enamored with the field since. I took business psych with her the semester after and then research with her after that (which I’m currently in).

This semester has been an amazing experience for me. While working under Dr. Lopez’s research lab, I (as well with two other undergrads- Alisa and Matilda) helped two graduate students with developing leadership training for the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) in Dallas. There was a lot of time spent finding, sifting, organizing, reading, and summarizing articles over leadership. This helped me expand upon my skill set. I learned how to create and go through task statements and KSAOs. I got to shadow an interview, focus group, and pilot leadership training. To see all the semester’s amount of work in full manifestation was surreal. Things are always different in theory than in practice. I learned about the whole process in business psych a semester ago, but to see the whole process pan out was an experience in all of its own. The two graduate students-Lori and Karline were great mentors throughout the whole process. The two other undergrads and I got very lucky to be able to be a part of project that was more on the application side versus the research side.

The knowledge and first-hand application reaffirmed that I’m going down the right career path. I’m very glad I did research with Dr. Lopez when I did. It set in stone that this is exactly what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. It was more than just finding a career to occupy me before retirement- I wanted to help people. Going down this road, I get to kill two birds with one stone- a career that I will enjoy and a way to help people. For me a career is more than the money you’ll make; it’s about the difference I will make.

Matilda

This semester I have had the opportunity to work with two grad students in the I/O program, Lori and Karline. The project is for a training program for the Dallas Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) volunteers. Over the course of this semester I have learned so many valuable skills and information that have real world application. I have had hands-on experience for concepts I have only studied and read about. I was able to sit in on interviews of SMEs, attend the MRC's current orientation, and attended a focus group. All of which have been very beneficial in seeing how the process of creating a training program works.
               
This project has given me a look into both I/O and the demands of grad school.  Although I was not a part of all the steps in the project, I believe that what was not hands-on was discussed in our weekly meetings. So, I have an idea of what each step is and if I were to have a similar project in the future I have an understanding of the process and the knowledge as to where to go to fill in any blanks. I feel very fortunate to have worked with Lori and Karline. They have made the process seem flawless and created an environment that was interactive and abundant in learning. I hope I am able to take what I have learned and build on it in the future. Not only has this project taught me more about job analysis and training, but also it has improved my research skills and, spreadsheet proficiency. These skills will benefit me in my senior year here at UTA.

This semester has been a very demanding but with all I have learned it has been worth the extra stress. I still have a little over a year before I graduate and my current plan is to go into the I/O graduate program.