Optimist International Case Study

During my time at Optimist International, I would say the management was overall pretty effective. The management style that I witnessed the most and saw in other departments of the organization was delegation of tasks. I was lucky enough to sit in on a staff meeting roughly half way through my internship. It was led by the executive director of the company, but it was less of a demand on things that needed to be done, and more of a conversation between each employee and the status of their assigned tasks. The CEO usually had his things he did in his office, but would occasionally come and visit each department and chat about what the weekly tasks were and how everything was going. One of the best things at Optimist International is the high …show more content…
These kinds of thoughts and statements made it seem like everyone in the office is committed to making everyone’s job as easy and painless as possible. The organization takes a number of steps to help maintain a positive reputation within the office. First, Optimist International pays for employee’s club fees. This allows for employees to actively take part in what they are working for. By encouraging employees to partake in joining an existing club or building a new club, the organization is attempting to align organizational values and goals with the work that employees are doing. Another way Optimist International is encouraging a positive reputation within the organization is providing positive and constructive feedback in a timely manner. After convention, my supervisor met with every worker on the floor and discussed a number of positive things that were done at the convention. In addition to praising what was done correctly, she also offered constructive feedback on things that could have been done differently. Lastly, Optimist International seemed to be a consistently fair and balanced place of work. When a worker begins to slack off, management avoids jumping at them and pressuring them into fixing the wrongs; they may take some work away from the employee to relieve stress or give the employee a day …show more content…
I probably took a good two day to figure out how to use a conference phone and an industrial copier. Lucky, UMSL prepared me for the mass amount of work I had to do in Microsoft Excel. I was even able to show my supervisor and other coworkers how to do a number of useful functions on the spreadsheets. A set of skills that I knew I was pretty good at and was eager to apply to the internship was my organizational and time management skills. I was able to organize what needed to be done by a certain time so I would still be able to discuss a certain project with another employee during lunch or before we headed home for the day. At the conclusion of my internship, my supervisor pointed to my organizational skills as one of the reasons the job opening was offered to me. It was a reassuring feeling to know that something that I take my time with was noticed by management above me. The last thing this internship helped with my educational experience is that it was a massive boost in my self-confidence. In nearly every class I took in college, self-confidence was always a sticking point that every professor touched on at least once. Being a 20 year old kid heading in to the “real work world” I was prepared for the worst. I was able to travel into