Article on ACT change

Quinn recommends an 8-step Advanced Change Theory that he claims overcomes the inertia of a settled "normal" perspective within an organization. All of the elements of the 8 theory made a significant impression, but the one that especially stood out is the embrace of the hypocritical self. In trying to institute change in the organizations, I am always confronted by the gap between the standards I am attempting to achieve and the reality of what I am capable to accomplish. By learning to practice a new type of "transformational behavior," he suggests, even "ordinary people" can have "extraordinary impact." His message is clear, in order to become a change agent, you must first change yourself and then immerse yourself in the common good, disturb the system, and "set the truth free

Organizational Silence

The CEO isn’t wearing clothing, and yet, no one within the organization is courageous enough to speak up and notify him/her of this flaw. This enforces the concept that there is evidently something wrong with the system of the organization. Individuals tend of believe they would face negative repercussion if they spoke up. In an effort for organizations to prevent this defect from occurring, leaders should implement a reward system for employees that come forward with sensitive or risky information. As a leader, I certainly would hope my employees would look out for the organizations best interest. If I went off course in the wrong direction, employees should not be condemned for speaking out and redirecting my attention for my oversight.

Effective leaders should embrace employees that productively offer criticism and politely disagrees with their stance, but this should be exercised with precaution. Leaders should be aware of employees being reliant of your cordiality. Allow employees to offer suggestions and feedback, but set up the norm for them to conduct the research and explore of their own terms. The last thing I would want to result from this is more responsibilities and dependence.

The Men's Warehouse

In the history of the Men’s Warehouse, the company grew exponentially with 40-50 stores per year. By the end of the company’s 1996 fiscal year, 345 stores were in operation. The company’s strategy surrounded the premise that men do not like to shop, or bother with the time to hunt for bargains and wait for sales. Consequently to meet the demands of men, the Men’s Warehouse offered their merchandise that were typically 20-30 percent below other competing high class department stores, avoiding the special promotion technique. This is was very thoughtful and strategic. They know who were targeting and understand the needs of their customers.

Employees in upper management are loyal to the company which indicates they are highly invested in their work. Four members of the senior management team had held their positions since its inception and others have had at least 10 years of dedication. Loyalty extends through the organization from wardrobe consultants to mangers. Zimmerman (CEO) is also heavily invested in his company, not just in the financial sectors, but building positive relationships with his employees as well. During the holiday seasons, he tries to attend at least several of the company’s Christmas party to make his presence known. To me that shows dedication and taking an interest in his colleagues and fellow workers. The same mentality is expected of managers. District managers are expected to go to every each week and regional managers are to attend every month. This is a well thought out idea to have management be more present at the lower levels of the organization.

The company is founded on the concept of servant leadership rather than self-serving interest. Under the servant leadership, people transcend self-interest to serve the needs of others, by helping them grow professionally and emotionally. They as a whole, encourages others in their personal development and helps them understand the larger purpose in their work. One of the quickest ways an organization can distinguish the difference between a servant leader and a self-serving leader is how they handle feedback, because one of the biggest fears that self-serving leaders have is to lose their position. In contrast, servant leaders embrace and welcome feedback as a source of useful information on how they can provide better service.

“The people you manage and work with are your customers, as well as clients of the store.” This place emphasis to treat your employees as you expects them to treat your clients. Both are assets to the overall wellbeing of the organization. George Zimmerman conducts training seminars personally, which is great because so many CEO’s of large corporation seems unreachable to individuals in the lower status. “Employees come first and our customers come second.” If you create quality relationships with your employees, then they will do the same for your customers.

Compensation and staffing are completely based on commission in an effort to avoid issues of working off the clock, and dealing with over time. The company implemented a new bonus program to encourage employees to be more “team oriented” by providing monetary incentives at the end of the month. Promotion & Career Development was completely from within; again, reinstating loyalty among employees within the organization. Individuals working in management have always started working for the Men’s warehouse from the bottom up. When it comes of hiring and firing, the company focused on hiring employees based on their personalities and skills rather than previous experience. If an employees is not working up to their potential, rather than firing that individual, the company provide ample opportunities (transferring that person to another store) to improve their practice. I really liked the “Jim” example of an employee whose only ability comes from stealing other consultants’ customers and pilfering other team members’ sales. The interesting result from his termination allowed other employees to collectively work together and overall, they did much better than Jim individually, which invalidates the importance of teamwork within an organization.

The company encourages its employees to socialize with each other. They have enforced several sports team such as baseball, softball, and hockey teams all consists of co-workers and colleagues. But this seems to happen with people on the same social status, the higher echelon of managers partnering with district mangers. Although it’s a step in the right direction, it is still very sheltered in terms of socialization.

Level 5 Leadership

Level 5 Leadership is an interesting concept in that it paves the steps as to what it entails to become a good leader and how good companies can become great ones. I especially took notice on the part involving personal humility. An individual that encompasses this characteristic often times look in the mirror, and not out the window. They respond by taking responsibility for poor results, never blaming other people (fundamental attribution error), external factors (self serving bias), or bad luck. My concern is how can you learn to become Level 5? I think it requires lots of personal attention to yourself and your own behaviors in order to take notice of your actions. But along that line, it also requires vision, strategy, focus, and discipline.

Good Leadership Requires Executives To Put Themselves Last

This was a great article in terms that it described what it entails to become a good leader: good governance depends primarily on leaders who put integrity and the interests of their companies ahead of their self-interests. The examples of these leaders are willing to grapple with difficult decisions that may involve personal sacrifice, which is a selfless act for the better of the organization. This behavior is definitely opposite of the “Kiss up, kick down” attitude.

Mr. Leven, the finance executive at the Day’s Inn encompassed this description of a “good leader.” Mr. Leven realized the company's cash balance was shrinking and the accounting standards he had long upheld were being undermined by the previous two owners. He discovered this problem first from suppliers, who called to tell him they weren't getting paid, and in the process revealed the new owners weren't paying the franchise fees and mortgage payments they owed. By then he suspected the owners were also embezzling funds from Days Inn's accounts. At this point he was forced to make one of two difficult decisions. After consulting an attorney who told him to resign, Mr. Levin decided to inform his bosses outlining his suspicions. Needless to say, he left the company without any severance pay (a very honorable deed). He landed a new job six months later at Holiday Inn. But he had to take a 25% pay cut and a lower-level position as president of franchising.

The following years, Mr. Tollman and Mr. Hundley were convicted of fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and lying to banks. The charges stemmed from an elaborate scheme in which lenders were defrauded of more than $100 million. I thought Mr. Leven acted with class and sophistication through all chaos and got himself out of the sticky situation gracefully and dignified. After hearing the outcome of his superiors, Mr. Leven says he isn't angry about how things turned out. "I did what I had to do even though it cost me a significant amount of money."

How a Marine Lost His Command in Race to Baghdad

This was an interesting article that involves unfolding the 18 hour, high-speed race into Baghdad, two weeks into the war in Iraq of Marine Colonel Joe Dowdy and his elite band of Iraqi troops (6,000) men. No praises awaited the first Marine regimental commander when he returned to the army station on April 4, 2003. He was stripped of his command, which immediately ended his 24 years of Marine profession. The dismissal wasn’t a normal act that was for discharge such as failing to complete a mission, or disobeying direct order, but rather it involved his decision based on a operating tempo. The reasons for the firing were convoluted because neither side wanted to discuss the outcome.

Throughout the course of the investigation, Colonel Dowdy admits to making mistakes, none of which (in my opinion) provided a valid for his removal. I’ve never been in a combat situation, so excuse me if I don’t understand the importance of following orders in a dire circumstance. But in an event of warfare, I would assume doing what’s best by using your intuition and logic would be the best choice of action under duress. His superiors confirm that he wasn’t ordered to take his regiment through the city. He decided no not to go through the city. Getting to Baghdad early wasn’t worth the risk and in the process, failed to take orders for his superiors. However, there was a lot of confusion regarding who gave permission to go or not go into the city. Colonel Dowdy makes a crucial decision, one that was against his orders but they made it through anyways.

I thought he seemed like a generous and nice person that opened his home (during Christmas) to the enlisted men in the Marines. His reputation preceded his actions in combat. One of his honorable traits was that he didn’t accept any privileges that were an entitlement unless the same was served to his men. It’s a shame that someone of his caliber was released unjustly on the basis that the Marines faulted him for “being fatigued beyond normal” and “not employing the regiment to its fullest combat potential.” Doesn’t appear to be a legitimate excuse.

Diamonds in the data mine by Gary Loveman

Harrah’s motto is” if your service can persuade one customer to make one more visit a year with us, you’ve had a good shift. If you can pursue three, you’ve had a great shift.” Their objective is to deliver excellent service from every angle and every department that contributes to the success of the company. No one is left or is expected to perform any less. Although most of their customer walking into Harrahs doesn’t fit the traditional profile of a high roller, their goal (nonetheless) is to target every customer and makes sure they feel special through recognition and great customer service.

Currently, Harrah’s technique to increase customer loyalty is utilized with two distinctive, well thought-out methods: first, through the use of database marketing to widen the gap between casinos that operates based on their customer incentives rather than intuition and evidence. Second the focus is to be on great service that the consumers expect. Fine tuning service-delivery strategies keep customers coming back. Their philosophy is “if you build it, they will come.” I thought the general shift in culture after Gary Loveman stepped on board was very effective. His promoted and encouraged the idea to make sure their regular customers are more than satisfied. Only then can they attract new customers by maintaining the ones that remained with us from the beginning.

Unlike the other fantasyland LV casinos that focuses more on the attractiveness of their facilities and the luxurious limelight of amenities, Harrah’s didn’t depend heavily on its stores, restaurants, bars or other amenities; they focused more specifically on cultivating lasting relationships with their core customers. Such as slot players, many of which are middle class, everyday “Joe the plumber” type of individuals that just enjoyed playing slot machines after work. It’s their continuous dedication that would lead to greater and more sustainable profit. They did so by providing regular customers with incentives to visit Harrah’s properties throughout the country with the launch of their Total Gold card. The three tiered system adds a motivating element (positive reinforcement) to the system that persuade customers to keep playing.

Understanding the lifetime value of the customers would be a critical marketing strategy to consider by focusing on the potential worth overtime. The hard work of some employees often times go unnoticed, even though they are the frontline representation of your company and the first person to come in contact with your clienteles. Harrah’s new incentive program allows highly dedicated employees to earn extra cash for achieving improved customer service satisfaction scores. A bonus system was implemented for the employees that eradicated the concept of individual competition. They’ve created a system that would encourage teamwork. The reward program depended on everyone’s performance. If one department was lacking in some way or another, employees that are excelling in their areas of expertise would be persuaded to assist and offer their colleagues what they can do to improve.

Gary Loveman and Harrah’s Entertainment

Gary Loveman, a former professor from Harvard University led Harrahs through a transition to a more marketing-focused company and help the company break out of a financial performance plateau. As one of many initiatives to expand their customer engagement, Gary (along with the previous COO) developed a customer loyalty program called Total Gold, modeled after the airline mileage reward program to provide incentives for loyal clienteles. As CEO, Loveman has concentrated on attracting average gamblers to Harrah's casinos with a direct mail marketing and customer loyalty program, Total Rewards, instead of targeting only high rollers or creating family friendly attractions. His strategy makes gaming, rather than hotels, performance venues or other associated ventures, responsible for the vast majority of Harrah's revenues.

Gary was selected over Sergio Zyman (CEO ofCoca-Cola) on the basis that he had a previous history of working with the company. He understood the culture, worked on-site, maintained high understanding of the dynamics of customers and didn’t have an ivory-tower mentality towards consumers. Satre’s decision to hire Gary was his alone. He didn’t consult his stance with other senior executives or his board of directors. He avoided Group Think. Most people within the organization would probably consider Gary to be inexperienced in management especially with his background more focused on academia. Gary was an unconventional choice for COO, one that might’ve been against a risk adverse decision, but nonetheless, a wise one. Many wondered if Gary would be successful in leading the operation with no practical experience

Gary gained credibility and confidence among his colleagues immediately. He had a perception that his job was not to over-manage people who were experts in their areas of specialization. He had the notion that his job was to provide direction, confidence, and intellectual horsepower to assist the company to move faster and effectively towards its strategic goal. He won over his colleagues by making himself more readily available to people aside from the higher up general managers, but to employees in all areas within the organization. He was personable and interactive and reversed the ideal that the CEO is unreachable to employees occupying the low positions. Good communication tactic. Gary also established a great incentive plan that recognized employees when they reached their goals and offered positive reinforcements in the form of added bonuses to continuously motivate workers to strive for the next level.

General culture shift occurred when Gary infused Harrah’s with a sense of focusing on high-impact efforts by limiting unnecessary agenda (update website) and reducing the scope of responsibilities of workers. One task Gary considered to be a secondary assignment was the revision of their website. The task didn’t contribute to the organization’s financial sector and was considered unnecessary. He did however, provided an alternative to those that were eager to work on this assignment and that was made available once all of the aforementioned areas were addressed. He realized that a loyalty strategy based on same-store sales growth was the best approach to secure their finances. From his research team, Gary realized that the company’s best customers were those that visited the casino regularly, middle class citizens that lived nearby, and that were opposite of the high rollers that the entire industry had targeted for many years. He also discovered factors that motivated these regular customers were not of free hotel rooms because most of them lived near the casinos they visited, but instead desired free casino chips as rewards.

From the preferences of the customers, Gary altered the existing rewards program into a tired system that motivated consumers to migrate up the pyramids of rewards. The tiers were purposely made to be exclusive so customers will get the idea “the more you play, the higher you go.” In an effort to target customers that fell out of touch with the company, a direct mail and phone call system was utilized to contact those that haven’t stepped into Harrah’s in the past three month. This is truly a great idea to show customers that your organization cares about their business to the company and recognizes their contributions when they’re absent.

Overall, I was really impressed with Gary’s ability to takeover and transition the company only within a few short years. He is a Socratic thinker that believes in win-win situations, not just for customers but for employees as well. Customer satisfaction is a win for the company and a win for the employees that are the front runners to make this happen.

The Dean’s Disease

Deans are generally grateful for the confidence placed in them by their former colleagues and are highly motivated in an effort to “change the system” and remove unjust privileges and practices occurring in their departments. This stage usually takes place early in their tenure status referred to as the “honeymoon period”. However, soon this feeling of gratitude and new found appreciation of everyone within their environment becomes a faint memory of the past and the transformation is then followed by a change of attitude in taking more interests in maintaining a high profile than discussing the basis for their decisions. In this new phrase of being dean, individuals become “puffed up” with their own importance from exercising their ability to use power. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The first reason for the dean’s disease to occur is that in the early implementation of their new position, deans find they’re able to influence faculty members due to the resource available to them and that are within their control. This form of influence then manifests as deans exercise both coercive power (punitive actions for those that are noncompliant) and reward power (salary increase for those that do comply), which validates the belief that power tends to corrupt institutions if used injudiciously.

The second reason occurs following from the first. As a result of being the target of flattery, deans create this self serving bias that they are indeed “special” and develop an overinflated sense of self that they are truly as gifted and intelligent as others tell them. This is a negative attribute of personal superiority especially when they’re challenged by others. Communication is a two-way street. Deans need to learn how to be empathetic listeners and be able to respond to the concerns of their faculty members.

A third reason is when the control of resources requires that dean to adopt ethics consistent with the power connected with their power for control. Having acquired a "taste for power," the pursuit of power becomes an end in itself and they begin to ignore commonly held values and norms. They believe that they are exempt from moral standards to justify their self-interested actions.

Safeguards can be employed to minimize its devastating effects on deans and faculties. The first step in preventing the dean's disease is to recognize its individual and organizational markers in dean applicants. One strategy for assuring due diligence is sending a subset of a dean's search committee to a prospective candidate's campus to talk with local colleagues about the candidate's background. A second strategy to look for signs of the dean's disease is by reviewing the past records of applicants for administrative positions and their annual reviews involving collegiality. Some applicants may display isolated symptoms without having the disease, but one or two symptoms may be enough to raise serious concern. Finally, reviewing a display identifiable personality characteristic can be another preventative measure. Be very cautious of candidates that appear to possess a lot of personal charm and seductiveness, qualities that may have originally been responsible for their personal attractiveness.

Evidence-Based Management

Evidence-based management entails managerial decisions and organizational practices informed by the best available scientific evidence. It’s an emerging movement to explicitly use the current, best evidence in management decision-making. Recent studies show that only about 15 percent of their decisions are evidence based. In the article Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, they make the comparison of business management to its counterparts in medicine and education. Managers are actually more ignorant than doctors about which prescriptions are reliable and they’re less eager to find out. If doctors were as reckless as some managers in practicing management, there would (without a question) more unnecessarily sick or dead patients. There is a lack of accountability and legal responsibility on behalf of business managers in the business realm than in the medical field. If both disciplines were unequivocally alike, then more managers would be in jail or suffering other penalties from mal-practice.

The article then takes the effort to clear up common misconceptions in the business world. One is which when people are overly influences by ideology, they often fail to question whether a practice will work. Being an effective business manger requires years of rehearsal and preparation with practical experience. Some techniques are just not listed within a textbook and would expect an individual to experience it first-hand to understand the details. Then after the occurrence, managers will be able to reflect back and hone in the weak areas to prevent the same situation to happen twice. Management is analogous to medicine as it will be a continuous process of refined practice and experience.

One factor that the article point out that complicates evidence based management is that there can be too much evidence applied to a particular situation. For instance, Business: The Ultimate Resource weighs a whopping eight pounds and includes over 2000 pages! Who in their right mind is going to purchase this oversized document, not to mention expensive, and expect their employees to read it? I’m currently reading the 5th discipline and that textbook runs over 400 pages. It’s a tough book to get through and will probably take me at least two readings for all the material covered to sink in. I don’t think most people in business to have an ample amount of time engage themselves in difficult to read book.

Compensation and Performance Evaluation at Arrow

After reading the case, it was pretty evident that the Abandon the Employee Performance Review (EPR) system because the system is not able to effectively identify over and under achieving individuals. No one is satisfied with the outcome of the system. Employees are unhappy with the reviews they’re receiving and managers are upset to go through with the process. This ultimately is a failure in the organization’s system that needs to be addressed and replaced. Sales associates would seek for other positions at other distributors when the market was slowing down because 60-80 percent of their salary is based on commission. This behavior indicates that they’re not invested in the company and the working environment is adverse and unaccommodating to its employees. Having a high turnover rate in employees will ultimately affect the company, especially if they have to hire new people and invest training time to replace the “W-2 Hoppers” and fill the vacuum.

I disagree with Kauffman’s concept of allowing his 43 branch managers to make and learn from their own mistakes when it comes to hiring the right people. An organization should direct, instill and promote a set of objectives that all employees should follow. Certain behaviors that can lead to damage and cause the company to suffer should be avoided. The organization should establish a more successful hiring process followed by strict standards and expectations to filter out undesirable hires in an effort to prevent high turnovers. The average life span of a worker is 3-4 years before that individual is “stolen” by another company. That’s 3-4 years of training and investment that your company provided before that member jumped ship to apply their knowledge (the knowledge that your business provided) to help your competitors.

Their current strategy of college recruiting plan is obviously flawed. Hiring 90-100 graduating college students and requiring them to go through with 26 weeks of the extensive training process isn’t going to magically transform them into hard working and motivated employees. If anything else, the high transiency rate should be an indicator that the current system in place is a failure. The rating scale for employee evaluation is good idea in that it allows managers to provide necessary feedback about their performances and recommend areas for improvement. However, it does have its deficit. For example, wording of the evaluation will initiate the domino effect of employees comparing themselves with the evaluation of their colleagues, followed by questions such as “Who’s better than I am” will follow. This can create animosity among co-workers.

In the end, the rating system failed. Managers were very reluctant to have to tell their employees what they’re doing wrong, so they tend to assign everyone 4’s and 5’s which nullifies the purpose of the evaluation. In turn, employees got the impression that their performance is great when they receive 5’s and don’t think they need to improve on anything.

Sins of Commission

I have never worked in an environment that commission was the basis of salary (luckily) because that shouldn’t be the driving force for customer service. After reading the article on Sins of Commission, it is very evident that individuals working in the incentive-pay organizations are not there to assist customers because they take pride in there work. Customers are seen a walking paycheck and sucking-up is a must in order to gain the commission. For example in the reading, when the author told the salesperson at the Toyota car sale’s lot that he would probably not make a purchase that afternoon, the sales rep brushed him off. This seems like a common behavior that most sales associate would do, at least the one’s that I have encountered shopping in a high priced department store. Disregarded the presence of unlikely buyers and focus their attention on other customers who were more willing to make a purchase.

I see this type of behavior to be very prevalent in high-class boutique shops in California where most sales associates earn their income on meeting sales quotas. The first thing that comes out of their mouth is “Is there anything that I can help you with?” and if the customer says “no,” they usually ignore them, thinking “I’m not going to gain anything from this browsers” and find other potential consumer. A general flaw these associates overlook is the fact that customers who go to these stores browsing, shopping, looking around are doing that for a reason. They might selective in the decision making process, but eventually they will make a purchase and when that time comes around, friendly customer service is what they’ll remembers. For those associates that consider choosy buyers to be unworthy of their time and effort, they are losing prospective sales when they turn their backs on customers that don’t buy on site.

The article also includes a section on employees’ regard to salary. People are motivated by more important factors such as job satisfaction than money. In fact, people in most surveys rank salary at the bottom of the list as one of many reasons why they remain at a company. I would agree with Maslow’s hierarchy of need that people would require an adequate salary in order to live comfortably. According to Maslow, after acquiring the initial lower of physiological, safety and security needs, job satisfaction would provide fulfillment for social and esteem needs.

I found the quote given by George Zimmerman, founder and CEO of Men’s Warehouse to be very effective in accurately describing the focal point for incentive pay: “you want incentives to be just large enough but not too large…you want the reward to be large enough to be notice…but not so large that they begin to drive distort behavior.” When presented with a raise, people will feel the significant advantage for the first 30 days, and then after that feel disappears and working is back to normal. Money is a temporary motivator at best.

Nordstrom

After reading the article on Nordstrom, I was taken aback by their disrespectful behavior towards employees. Being a longtime dedicate shopper myself, it was difficult to accept the fact that I directly contributed to an organization that is discourteous and outright rude to their employees. Within the reading, the article stated that employees discovered subsequently that on Saturday’s the clock was always broken or the time cards were not assessable. When hours of overtime are hand written on the time cards, managers took the initiative to white out the hours (is that even legal? Can't the employees complain to the Union?) and accused them of “not being a team player.” I’m assuming by that they are referring to working overtime at the employees’ expenses rather than the company. Upper management lying to their workers and manipulating the situation in an unethical manner establishes the precedent that employees are allowed to do the same without facing the consequences.

Managers are always grilling employees about their sales quotas not meeting up to par. The constant badgering and nagging makes the employees feel as if their job is in jeopardy. This type of behaviors from management violates the esteem level of Maslow’s hierarchy of need and prevents employees from fully enjoying their job. Management also failed to realize their actions contributes to the downfall of employees. Their behavior is a factor to the fundamental attribution error. They might consider the cause of employee’s unwillingness to work as a sign of laziness, but what they fail to realize is that the system that assisted in their employees downfall has failed. The constant demands, grueling hours, and endless harassment will eventually deter employees from working at Nordstrom.

Nordstrom’s customer service is impeccable and one-of –kind, Sales reps or better referred to as ”Nordies” goes up an beyond the call of duty to ensure their customers gets everything they want, any time they want and anywhere every they want it delivered. Given the fact Nordstrom’s employees are expected to outperform within their responsibilities, and they do, should upper management do the same? After all, their sales reps are the standing in the front line all day, everyday assisting their customers with the utmost respect. It would seem unruly for management to treat them with such a deceitful manner with events like cutting employees hours or assigning them unfavorable working hours if they refuse to work off the clock. These negative reinforcements will work short term because they are executed for two main reasons: it’s an attempt to develop desirable behavior by issuing positive consequence, or strengthen negative behavior from arising by withholding negative consequence.

SAS institute

Jim Goodnight, the company’s CEO believes the industry is moving too fast and admits that he is not much of a visionary as Bill Gates. He’s uncertain where the organization is heading towards in the future.

In an effort to understand the request of their customers, the company distributes ballots to at the end of each year asking them what features they would like to see in upcoming projects. This company is definitely attentive and responsive to their feedback. They have adopted “give them the software they want” attitude with a logically system of “there’s no reason to develop software they don’t want,” which reassures that their clients come first with an exceptionally high level of service

In addition to its courteous service to customers, the company is also considerate of their customers financially. The SAS Institute’s business model is unique in that rather than selling a product and upgrading the service several years later and require the product to be purchased again, they provide an annual licensing arrangement with free upgrades. This tells me that the organization is truly concerned with the satisfaction of their customers and not just for profit.

The SAS Institute has no single competitor in their unique design of software. In segments of their business it competes with companies that create statistical analysis packages such as SPSS, a software I often times use in my doctoral program to analyze data in my research projects. It’s nice to see that although competition isn’t a factor this company needs to consider, it however still continues to improve their associations with customers and validates the company’s high morals.

The company treats their employees just as well as their customers. In class we’ve discussed that employees are on the front line dealing with the customers and representing the company on a daily basis. It would seem relevant to make sure your employees are satisfied with their jobs in order to transfer that satisfaction when working with clienteles. The SAS institute follows four distinct principles: 1. Treat people well and things will take care of themselves (the trickle-down effect), 2. Intrinsic motivation – emphasize on coaching and mentoring rather than monitoring and controlling, 3. A long term perspective is required of all issues, and 4. Bottom-up decision making with no specific financial goal.

It’s just amazing to me how so many companies are unable to abide by principle two. They expect employees to be able to perform to a certain satisfactory level set by management (in which that set level has absolutely no merit what-so-ever and is invalid), but fails to provide the necessary guidance to ensure employees will reach that point. Frustration then ensues due to the lack of direction and eventually leads to job dissatisfaction.

The fourth principal is one that is very important, but isn’t very popular within most organizations. Financial revenue and growth is key to most companies, but it’s remarkable to see the difference in the business dynamic when the focus of business isn’t concentrated on “making more money.” That’s what distinguishes SAS from other business that money doesn’t comprise everything.

Specialty Medical Chemicals

This company has a few loose employees that were unable to work cooperatively with each in reaching the objectives of the company. Employees were consistently given high raises at the end of each year with inadequate annual review procedures. Their manager (Barry Tompkins – single loop learner) brought stability and maturity within the company, but failed to execute the business’ growth and progress in the industry. His heart wasn’t invested in the company’s wellbeing and lacked interest to improve. As a result, their sales growth had slowed considerably.

I feel that Laura’s presence was absolutely necessary to sustain and increase productivity. It is evident the company failed to improve their revenue in previous year and employees were granted meritless salaries accompanied by insufficient feedback from administration. Her presence in the company is not to agitate the organization, but to rekindle growth and create a comprehensive, valid view of each individual’s position. Sure, employees might be conversing at the water cooler about the security of their jobs and may feel that the company is unable to manage themselves. However, under the current situation they’re in dire need of help to refocus their goals. It certainly doesn’t hurt to pointedly nudge the employees back in place when they have continuously taken advantage of the company’s assets.


In Laura’s feedback report, she pointed out that the team is superficially running smoothly and the groups of individuals working within the company are very protective of sharing information. It seems they’re all have an unhealthy competitive nature to advance forward with individually, even if it means neglecting each other as a whole. There is clearly a lack of discussion and consensus I the decision making process. Employees also exert the power jockeying and “wait & see attitude,” which could be the result of the previous relaxed attitudes from managers. One area of concern I have about Laura is in her ability to implement broad strategies and structures within the company itself and encourage by in from employees. She needs to resiliently “rock the boat” and put people in positions that can successfully do the job.

There are obviously problems instilled in the organization. Executives in high positions are not pulling their weight and contributing to the company. There is a lack of communication and consensus among each department that needs to be reversed in order for the growth of productivity. The best method in this situation would to confront the individuals and notify them of their behaviors. Provide the opportunity for them to change. If they refuse or do so in a poor manner, then it’s probably the best time to recruit another individual to fulfill the position. Members of the company that are not willing to adapt to change when the company is clearly in dire need of change is not a team player. It only takes one executive to hold down and prevent everyone else from moving forward.

Scott's initiative

Scott’s initiation to decrease employees’ obesity rates and smoking habits should be seen as a positive move in the right direction to prevent unhealthy habits that are fatal to their livelihood. The company has taken on the effort to assist employees to their harmful habits of smoking by granting them with a 60 day probation followed by the all-paid counseling sessions, prescription drugs for Nicolette and any additional help they would need in the process to recovery.
More company needs to provide incentives for employees that maintain healthy lifestyles. In my line of work, my company provides free health insurance to anyone that qualifies for their provision. On a yearly basis, employees are asked to conduct a health screening to see if they qualify. The typical questions asked includes: smoking, cholesterol, weight, BMI index, blood pressure and among other health factor indicators. Employees that failed the screening would result in paying an extra $40.00 per month to receive the same premium coverage. In addition to my company’s willingness to convince their employees to adapt to a healthy lifestyle, they also offer a variety of Good Health Incentive Program in an effort to increase health awareness and promote responsible preventive actions. This program drives an incentive approach as its framework to prevention by developing programs and services to address key focus areas and leading health indicators. Any participants that successfully complete the task will receive monetary compensation.

Southwest Airline

Southwest Airline’ competitive advantages are:
1. The company’s cost structure. They concentrates on flying to airports that are underutilized and close to a metropolitan area, which recognizes that short-haul flying is inherently more costly than longer flights and in turn saves customers up to 20-30 percent in comparison to other airlines.
2. The only types of aircraft that they use those that are fuel efficient. Being green is the new black
3. consistent with their customer service motto that “customers come first” by providing with low cost fares at off peak seasons, with frequent flyers, offers only two fares, doesn’t regulate the assigned seating policy, and waive the $40.00 meal ticket in exchange for free snacks.
4. Southwest’s travel agents consist of 55 percent of their booking agents, as compared to 90 percent of other competitive airlines, which enforces the idea that we take our business seriously, provide ownership to our company and deal with our customers directly rather than transferring them to a third party.
5. Personalized customer service. Employees are willing to treat customers like family Ex. Taking care of their dog when the airline enforces the “no pet onboard” regulation.

My assessment of Herb Kelleher’s contribution to the success of Southwest is that he leads by example and participates in all aspects of problems that show up. Ex. Staying up with a mechanic in late hours to figure out the issues. He’s willing to recognize and commemorate all employees and their families by providing a budget for parties. I would like to work for Herb (not in the airline industry) because he’s a leader that is personable and sensitive to the concerns of employees, but tough when he needs to be.

I really liked their motto “The People Department” that reflects on their dedication to their employees and sends the message that “our people are the competitive advantage.” SW also spends a lot of time identifying the key components that comprise effective performance and behavior, especially within their pilots’ ability to work as a part of the team.

I would like to see more strict recruiting policies like those listed in SW Airline. They’re extraordinarily selective in their recruiting. Out of 98,000 job applicants, less than 3 percent of all interviewees are chosen to remain in the company. They focus on specific messages the candidate convey in the interview with certain uses of “I” which reflects on their lack of team work and solidarity.

The company believes that most skills can be learned and doesn’t screen heavily except for certain specialist jobs. My profession requires individuals to fully understand their abilities and their areas of expertise. Therefore, the idea of hiring people who are not highly skilled might work in the lower sectors of the airline industry; it certainly doesn’t work in higher education. Keller expressed his decisions on hiring people with little or no experience with the basis of “we draft great attitudes. If you don’t have a good attitude, we don’t want you, no matter how skilled you are. ” He makes the valid point that attitudes can’t be changed, but as we discussed in class that attitude is a psychological tendency expressed by some degree of favor or disfavor, that perception can be changed depending on their job satisfaction.

Two football coaches have a lot to teach screaming managers

The book defined motivation as the process of arousing and sustaining goal-directed behavior. With that said, the article compares the practices of two very distinctive coaches in their methods of motivating players in an effort to increase their productivity. On one hand, you have the coach that stares into silence as a way of coping with disappointment, and on the other you have the coach that screams and hollers insults to get his message across. Based on my past experiences, the usage of sarcasm and belittling employees is very ineffective. Sure, raising your voice to express dissatisfaction may attract attention at first, but the continuation of losing your temper displays the message to employees that you’re not in control of your emotions and it’s also a tad bit over dramatic to say the least. An effective leader should be composed in time of crisis and should employ the use of emotions (screeching out insults, physically throwing a temper tantrum, etc) with caution. People beneath you watch your actions and leadership at all times and therefore, shouldn’t give them a reason to think you’re anything less than in control.

MBTI

The MBTI describes me as an extrovert, sensate & intuitive, judging & thinking individual. Overall, the MBTI test is a pretty accurate instrument for measuring my preferences in the four basic scales of (1) extraversion/introversion, (2) sensate/intuitive, (3) thinking/feeling, and (4) judging/perceiving. I am a person that tends to over analyze in a lot in my decision-making process and for the most time, that’s a positive attribute, but it can be overbearing as well. Especially when I map everything out and a surprising, unwanted interruption occurs and blows my plan out-of-order. I realize that I need to refocus my attention of the big picture and allow the small unimportant things to let go.

Jesica's Story

After ready Jesica’s miraculous story of an inexcusable medical mistake gone horribly wrong at the hands of her surgeon, my first reaction was the anger expressed from her parents that overcame impossible barriers to make sure that she gets the best medical care. Then my perspective changed to sorrow and remorse for the unfortunate surgeon that regrettably overlooked one simple oversight for her blood type that resulted in her death. He at least stepped up and took full responsibility for his mistake, although it was unavoidable. Immediately following the incident, people started to point fingers and initiate blame. Santillan's transplant surgeon said he takes responsibility for the organ mix-up. He didn’t reproach the nurses that should’ve verified the blood type, but rather admit that he was liable for the negligence. Because a surgeon is technically in charge of the surgical case, Dr. Jaggers assumed accountability for the medical error. I think in this situation no human error along is to blame. The medical error that took Jesica’s life was the result of system design failures.

Work Matters

Bob Sutton provided an insightful notion in his blog “Work Matters” that individual who consider intelligence to be changeable or “malleable” are prone to become smarter. This is because people who recognize their flaws and “glaring deficiencies” will take in the effort to improve and adjust, whereas individuals (especially ones that have consistently succeeded in the past) will ignore them and continue their ignorance. I agree with his argument. I think some people who are overly confident may overlook their shortcomings and perceive them to be signs of weakness rather than an opportunity for improvement. There will always people who are naturally born to be intelligent, but to be successful in all endeavors, intelligence certainly plays a role in the process, however it is motivation and dedication that I consider to be the primary characteristics to success.

Learning by Case Method

Learning by the case method by John S. Hammond explain that this is the most relevant and practical method to learn about managerial skills. I agree. Initiating the discussion of real-life situations allows readers to put themselves in the position of managers facing difficult condition. This permits the readers to analyze the event, come up with the best applicable approach, and provide an opportunity for them to share their insights with a group of people who all can contribute to the discussion. I find this methodology to be more effective than reading and rote-memorization from a text book. Readers might be able to ascertain the theoretical and philosophical information of situations, but confronting the event heads-on in real-life is a different story. I look forward to our conversations in class pertaining to this subject.

Teaching Smart People How to Learn

In Chris Argyris’s Teaching Smart People How to Learn, he emphasizes the issue that most businesses and organizations suffer is from the inability of individuals to learn from their own failures. Highly education professionals (as he explains) who are always successful and victorious in their past endeavors fails to recognize their own ignorance when they encounter adversity. To most people, these past accomplishments are greatly valued and respected. However, in business, failure to recognize when one has failed has detrimental effects. Business success depends on the ability to learn and recognize mistakes but most people in these organizations don't know how to learn. Learning is not just narrowly defined as problem solving created by external forces, but to recognize that in order to learn, one needs to look inward at one's own behavior.

From the lack of exposure to failures, individuals in high positions become immune to learning new concepts and methods. When confronted with a difficult situation unexpectedly, these people get defensive, repel criticisms, and convey the “blame” on others aside from themselves. They rarely fail and do not know how to learn from failure. This is a self-protective mechanism to prevent admitting to wrong-doing, which they perceive as signs of weakness. Instead, they continue to ineffectively manage the organization without changing their behavior and without bring about “real” change. Argyris states there are two kinds of learning which he names single loop and double loop. He provided the metaphor that a single loop is similar to a thermostat set to 68 degrees that turns up the heat whenever the temperature drops below 68. On the other hand, a double loop requires a higher level of thinking that challenges the underlying question itself “why is the thermostat is set to 68 degrees?” and “is that the optimum temperature?”

From reading this article, I can honestly relate the assumptions in my everyday life. When an event takes a startling turn and ends up unfavorably, it’s within human nature to lay the blame on others rather than self reflecting on my own behaviors and actions. In my earlier years of working in the education field, when something goes array I can almost systematically divert my attention to blaming other people, students, budget cuts, and other factors that wasn’t related to me. As I matured through the process, I now focus on myself when a situation turns problematic and ask myself “what could I’ve done differently to change the results and what preventative measures can I take to ensure the same pattern doesn’t occur twice?” I have come to the conclusion that if I can change my method of thinking, then I will ultimately change my behavior in the long run (with a few bumps and curves) long the way.