respond back to these 4 responses:

MGMT414-A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOC) analysis is a part of step four in the strategic change cycle. The SWOC analysis is used to aid in identifying both internal and external factors to an organization that may impact operations. The most important benefit of effectively assessing the internal and external environments in this step is producing relevant information that’s vital to and organization’s survival and success. Properly assessing the external environment is important because failure to do so will likely result in an organization failing to thrive, which would likely result in an organization not surviving.  

The first part of step four is to explore forces and trends external to the organization to identify opportunities and challenges. The three main categories of forces and trends that may be monitored during this phase: 1) forces and trends, 2) key resource controllers, and 3) actual or potential competitors or collaborators. Once identified, forces and trends typically fall into one of these categories: political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal categories.

With these categories in mind, I find the political one the most interesting. Additionally, of the recent issues and trends listed in our reading material that relate to forces and trends, I find the reform and redirection of governments and increased interaction among public, private, and nonprofit sectors to be the most interesting. I find this to be the most interesting because it seems like the most relevant and difficult challenge to overcome to me. I’m assuming that countless challenges will arise when attempting to navigate this challenge.            MGMT414-The SWOC analysis is a tool used to evaluate a organizations current state. By evaluating an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges over time, the organization can track it progress and be sure that they are staying relevant in changing markets. By identifying your strengths you can use best practices to benchmark and bring to areas of the business that might be struggling. By evaluating your weaknesses and taking action on them, you are creating an environment of continuous improvement and honest assessment of the business’ current state where you fall in line with your goals. When used correctly the SWOC analysis will keep a company continuously improving and maintaining a competitive edge on their competition. It also gives leaders the opportunity to analyze individual areas within a business to make incremental improvements throughout the business by frequently assessing their responsible areas.

It is important to understand external environmental issues so that a company maintains relevancy in changing and growing markets. It is important to take a frequent evaluation of your competition and understanding. This is how you develop and maintain a competitive edge in your industry. It is also important to understand external factors that aren’t competition related. It is important to understand the health of your external support such as logistics and supply chain resources. By keeping an accurate assessment of these external support functions it will keep the company in a place of having less interruptions in their external operations. It allows for appropriate contingency planning and the opportunity to plan for back up resources or lining up additional resources.    MGMT312-Transformational Leadership is one where the leader truly has an understanding of support and respect for their subordinate.  They learn as individuals what they need to be successful, what type of mentorship and push they need in the work place.  They also work closely with the individual to ensure goals are being met.  Leaders who use transformational leadership are able to connect with their subordinates both on a moral and ethical level.  This allows growth for both parties.  There are four types of Transformational leadership to include:  Charisma, Inspirational motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration. Charisma really allows for the subordinate to understand and strive for the vision of the project.  With this leadership style the individual really feels a level of trust and respect.  Inspirational motivation is when leaders really push the goals of the individual and promote high expectations. They are able to inspire those who work for them to want to do good, what a shared vision.  Intellectual stimulation is where a leader really hangs on the intelligence of and individual, the goals are one that can be achieved with problem solving and by taking challenges in their thought processes. Finally Individual consideration happens with the individual is given personal attention to work together, almost as if a coach or a mentor, to come to a proper resolution. MGMT312-For this week’s discussion, I chose to talk about the in-groups and the outgroups. The reason I chose this topic is that it is incredibly common to see this type of behavior in the law enforcement community. There are the in-people and there are the out-group members. The in-group members at the hot shots go out there and work and strive to be better. In the police world, we call them the go-getters, the proactive officers. These are the guys who form good relationships with their bosses. It is completely normal because they make their bosses look good. Furthermore, these are the guys who go over to their bosses’ houses for parties and share memes on group threads. 

On the other hand, you have the out-group. They are the opposite of the in-group guys. These are the guys that come to work and barely do what they are supposed to. Unfortunately, I feel like these guys are more prevalent in the law enforcement community now. We too have names for them such as ROD (retired on duty), or the long-running joke that they commit fraud every two weeks and scam the agency for a paycheck for doing nothing. These are the guys who are avoided, and more likely to receive disciplinary actions against them for violations of policies.   

A person can absolutely float between the two groups. Again, I will reference law enforcement. There was a formal officer who used to work for me named Will. Will was a rock star! He was proactive, conducted amazing investigations, and overall did a great job. However one day he just stopped. Continuously came in late, and when he was at work did the bare minimum, which was very disappointing. I tried every method to get him to open up about what was going on but he never would. After receiving some disciplinary paperwork for his continuous tardiness he put in his 2-week notice and ended up going to another agency. He seems to be doing okay there.