Film Analysis: IDEO Design Thinking, Team Dynamics, and OB Theories

This report provides an analysis of the film "Deep Dive" about the organization IDEO, which focuses on product design and has successfully implemented a democratic organizational culture. The report examines the application of Laissez-Faire leadership, where employees are empowered to make decisions. It also connects the company's success to the expectancy theory, highlighting the importance of psychological rewards like empowerment. The report emphasizes the role of innovation and employee satisfaction in organizational performance, as well as the need for a supportive and stress-free work environment. It also discusses the significance of design thinking principles such as involving team members, revisiting past solutions, and adopting a learning-oriented approach. The report concludes that employee-oriented leadership, fostering a democratic culture, and providing positive motivation are key factors for organizational development and success.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Name of the Student
Author note

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YOUR NAME
PROFESSOR’S NAME
SUBJECT
DATE
DEEP DIVE
The film in the discussion is called Deep Dive and it is about how an organization has
been able to successfully implement a democratic organizational culture, rather than a
conventional corporate one, in which the leader of the team in the organization is in charge of
making the key decisions and his or her opinions and decisions matter the most in the
decision making process within the team ("IDEO: Shopping Cart Design Process"). The
organization shown in the documentary is called IDEO and is responsible for product design
for one of the top clients in the world. It is therefore responsible for designing products for a
lot of organizations in the world, ranging from Apple to even small retail stores in the
vicinity. It is for this reason that they have become a recognizable name in the industry of
product design.
This essay aims at analysing why there has been such success in the organization
despite the fact that it does not follow a corporate culture unlike most of the other corporate
organizations that have been successful in the business that they do. One of the employees in
the organization has said that he has refused to work in few of the best organizations in the
world due to the fact that according to him, working in IDEO is a lot more fun. The
documentary is based on designing a shopping cart for a nearby retail store, as there had been
a few identifiable problems with the existing design. Referring to the creative process model,
employees first recognize and understand the problem in the design of the existing shopping
carts. In the incubation stage, they just subconsciously keep sketching solutions that could be

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innovative. The illumination stage is where they collectively come up with a design that is
agreed upon by all. Lastly, in the verification stage, they evaluate whether the design solves
the problem and does not create any new loopholes. This is how the story of the company and
the work procedures have been revealed in the documentary. It is through this that the viewer
gets to know that IDEO believes in encouraging employees to design and feel free in the
environment as if they hold as much power in the company as the boss himself. Clearly, from
this, it could be made out that the main type of leadership in the organization that is prevalent
is that of Laissez Faire leadership, in which employees are given enough power to make sure
that the main thing that is to be done is to make the employees feel empowered to make
decisions for the team as well, and value those decisions (Wellman and LePine). This can in
turn be related to the expectancy theory of organizational behaviour, which would be
analysed in the later part of the essay.
The main success that has been achieved by the individuals in the film is that they
have been able to make complex designs and complete difficult projects within stipulated
deadlines, which has in turn helped the company immensely in maintaining client relations.
This could be attributed to how the employees are treated in the company. They are not
distinguished on the basis of seniority. In the company, every employee matters as much as
the boss himself, and every voice matters in the decision making processes in an equal
manner. This is the reason why the employees have been motivated to work in the company
and come up with ideas because they work in a free environment. Yerkes Dodson law states
that employee performance is the best at medium stress, and declines from there as stress is
increased (Chaby et al.). Here, the only stress is the challenge of the project, which is just
perceived as a medium stress, and the work culture imposes no other stress, which is why the
employees have been able to make sure that they succeed in the job that they do.

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This has been able to be accomplished due to the Laissez Faire form of leadership that
takes place in the organization. The leader of the team, gives power to the employees to make
decisions for the team themselves, as he believes that it makes no sense that the leader would
have the perfect idea or solution to every problem, and the designers themselves would not. It
is for this reason that the employees themselves are given the power to make designs on their
own and also choose the final design on their own, and the leader just approves of it.
Therefore, it could be said that design thinking has been applied extensively in the team,
which has four rules. The first is to involve the members of the team. The second is to avoid
the identification of problem too soon. The third is to make sure that past solutions are
revisited, and finally, to adopt a learning oriented process of work. Each of these four rules
have been abided by the team at IDEO.
It is for this reason that the expectancy theory could be applied to this situation to
further explain why the individuals have succeeded in such an organizational setting. The
expectancy theory states that employees tend to act in a desired way as the organization
wants them to, as long as there is some psychological or possibly even materialistic reward
attached to it (Purvis,Zagenczyk and McCray). The main thing that has to be noted in this
regard is the fact that the organization in this case is rather making sure that the reward is in a
psychological sense, in the form of empowerment, which very few of the corporate cultures
around the world, no matter how big or small, do provide. There are four levels of employee
involvement, from low, medium low, medium high and high. In this context, it is high, in
which employees collectively recommend solution to a problem and are also responsible for
the entire decision making process, which acts as their psychological reward in this scenario.
Employees sense that there is something to take away from the effort that they put in.
as one employee puts forth in the documentary itself, they all put in so much effort because
they know that it is worth it in the end, due to the culture in which they work for, facilitated

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by the fact that every team member including the boss have got their backs in each project,
creating a highly supportive culture. This has acted as the psychological reward that has acted
in determining their actions and the efforts that they put in, and has acted as the driving force
towards their collective success, thereby establishing the expectancy theory.
What this teaches about business thinking going forward is the fact that innovation
plays a big part in organizational culture. Where there is something positive and unique in the
working culture of an organization, it can develop employee satisfaction, as seen in the
documentary. With a healthy working culture, in which employees have something to gain
out of, organizational performance is at its very peak (Osman and Turner). It is for this reason
that the main thing that has to be noted in this regard is the fact that the people within the
organization must be exposed to a value that is beneficial to them, the best way to do which
would be to obviously empower them. When employees feel empowered and valued in the
team, and when they know that their voices matter, they come up with solutions and ideas to
a problem fearlessly, which could be immensely fruitful for the company.
Last but not the least, it is immensely important to let the employees work freely,
without imposing any additional stress on them. This is because of the fact that the main
thing that has to be noted in this regard is the fact that employees already do face a significant
amount of stress from the challenge that they face from their everyday work. What is required
in this situation is just positive motivation and encouragement, instead of strict orders that
would only add up to the pressure. It is under medium pressure that the employees are able to
work at their best, and anything more than that deteriorates their performances. It is therefore
important that the organizational culture supports a democratic and friendly culture, which
would rather ease the stress. Furthermore, the business world is evolving and it looks as if
employee oriented leadership is the way to go for organizations for the purpose of
development.

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REFERENCES
"IDEO: Shopping Cart Design Process". Youtube, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=izjhx17NuSE.
Chaby, Lauren E., et al. "Can we understand how developmental stress enhances
performance under future threat with the Yerkes-Dodson law?." Communicative &
integrative biology 8.3 (2015): e1029689.
Osland, Joyce, Kay Devine, and Marlene Turner. "Organizational behavior." Wiley
Encyclopedia of Management (2015): 1-5.
Purvis, Russell L., Thomas J. Zagenczyk, and Gordon E. McCray. "What's in it for me?
Using expectancy theory and climate to explain stakeholder participation, its direction and
intensity." International Journal of Project Management 33.1 (2015): 3-14.
Wellman, Edward McClain, and Jeffery LePine. "Laissez-Faire leadership and informal
leadership behavior." Academy of Management Proceedings. Vol. 2017. No. 1. Briarcliff
Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management, 2017.