No Bull Bill: Bill Gates

Bill Gates is known as one of the most successful entrepreneurs and the man who started the personal computer revolution. Many people believe that Gates is very anti-competitive because he does whatever he can to crush the competition. The Windows operating system has dominated the computing world for more than the past decade, mainly because Gates wouldn’t settle for anything but being the best. Gates is best known for his company Microsoft, a company that creates software for personal and professional needs and is pretty much found any computer today other than Macintosh computers. Microsoft is considered to have an aggressive culture because they value competitiveness and love to outperform everyone else. Microsoft has had many antitrust lawsuits filed against them because they continually run companies out of business. One of quotes in the Gates article that really voiced how aggressive the company wanted to be “Basically, Bill took on IBM and won, and that created an environment of excitement, where the whole company was focused on managing the explosion of the PC business” Although The organization culture profile of Microsoft mainly consists of their aggressiveness, Microsoft is also detail oriented because they constantly monitor how their employees do their job because they hold everyone to such a high standard. Microsoft also has service characteristics because even though they outsource their customer support their representatives seem to be pretty competent and helpful when it comes to resolving an issue. These smaller counterparts to the aggressive culture can be considered Microsoft’s subcultures. These various cultures contribute to how employees approach their job every day and Gates has successfully instilled a passion in his employees that motivate them to continue creating and producing the best possible software on the market.


-Eddie Nemeth


Bishop, Todd. "No Bull Bill: Gates' Blunt Legacy - Seattlepi.com." Seattle News, Sports, Events, Entertainment | Seattlepi.com - Seattlepi.com. 23 June 2008. Web. 01 Dec. 2011. <http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/No-Bull-Bill-Gates-blunt-legacy-1277370.php>.

Irene Rosenfeld

Irene Rosenfeld made Forbes' 10 Most Powerful Women list at age 58 as CEO of Kraft Foods. She was also named No. 1 on Fortune's "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" list in 2011. She has been acting CEO of Kraft Foods since 2006 and before that was the CEO of Pepsi's Frito-Lay from 2004-2006. In the 5 years she has been with Kraft Foods, she has overseen the integration of Nabisco, LU and Cadbury and has since increased the annual revenue of the company by 43% up to $49.2 billion in 2010.

Irene is such a powerful woman in the world of business because since filling the position of CEO in 2006, she has turned Kraft Foods into one of the biggest forces in the food and beverage industry and was able to change the face of the company as well as the prospects for the future. Rosenfeld refers to her leadership style as "Servant Leadership" and explains "I'm here to help the organization accomplish its objectives rather than employees being here to meet my needs.." This directly relates to what we talked about in Chapter 13 because she prefers to use the term "leadership" rather then "power" because she would rather someone help to accomplish what is best for the company than to simply meet her own needs as the CEO.


--Michael Lorimer




http://www.forbes.com/profile/irene-rosenfeld/
http://www.kraftfoodscompany.com/about/profile/irene-rosenfeld-bio.aspx

Asking for Help

The business world is constantly changing around the innovations of technology, and those people running the business world need to adapt to the changes. The Wall Street Journal reveals that the traditional method of the older and wiser teaching the youngsters of the business is beginning to not be as beneficial. With technology constantly evolving in the workplace people in senior management positions, who tend to be older, are looking up to their younger employees to show them the way when it comes to everything that the internet and capable gadgets have to offer. They call this reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring not only allows the higher manager to learn new things from the lower employee, it also gives the manager the opportunity to slip in words of wisdom to the employee, giving both people a welcomed advantage in the business world.

Sometimes it can be easily forgotten that upper management has struggles, and it’s nice to see a leader come out and say they would like some help. It’s not just subordinates that need to feel empowerment from a job, everyone should feel empowered and like their work is meaningful, but that can be a challenge when they don’t understand the technology surrounding them. This reverse mentoring helps form relationships built on trust and communication between upper management and the employee, allowing the new-bee to feel more comfortable and open in a “stiff” environment. Not only is this mentor/mentee program teaching the older individuals in the business world how to utilize the technology around them, it is also allowing those working for them to use the technology with their bosses in new ways.

While not everyone needs a Twitter or Facebook account, knowing you way around the web is invaluable in this day and age. I’d like to know if you guys have seen anything like this reverse mentor program in any of the organizations you have worked at or researched, and what did you think? Although we’re young, do you feel totally up to date on the current technology? I certainly don’t. And if you could would you try and implement a reverse mentoring program among people you know who are not tech savvy?

Kwoh, Leslie. “Reverse Mentoring Cracks Workplace.” The Wall Street Journal. Nov 28, 2011. B7

--Kaitlin Reichel

Heroes Care

Intro
Its true, heroes really do care or why would they do the great things they do? Superman wouldn't have saved anyone if he didn't care. It wasn't for his own glory, but for saving others. The article discussed in this blog references leaders who care and how affective it is for organizations. I'll also discuss how it related to more contemporary leadership styles to care for employees. Old-school leaders tended to treat employees mechanistically and very distant. This article cites a different type of leader.

Businesses in the world seem to be going away from the traditional ways of leadership to more conventional ways of leadership. Our textbook describes leaders who have a high respect and care for their employees and how much it will benefit them and the organization because of it. The author says, “If leaders want to attract and retain good people, they need to show they care about their people.” The book describes this type of leader as part of being a transformational leader. One of the three important parts of being a transformational leader is called “individualized consideration.” This is exactly what the authors are describing in this article. When leaders show personal care, it’s proven through their research that followers enjoy their jobs more. Research specifically indicated 80 percent of people don’t like their jobs and 80 percent leave their jobs because they don’t like their bosses. Research also has indicated that these unhappy followers aren’t being creative and used to their full potential because they aren’t asked about their opinions and suggestions at work. This is a waste of human capital. Transformational leaders allow followers share opinions and creativeness to solve problems. They treat them with respect which makes the followers want to actually follow. The book indicates that when leaders show a transformational leadership style that followers trust leadership. Trust is the key because when a suggestion is made by a follower and when it’s taken with respect and put into action, followers feel needed and cared for.  It is easy to see then that when followers are heard and allowed to be part of a community and contribute to something greater, that employees are happy and will be used to their full potential. The authors’ research indicated that half of the people in the study would rather have their boss care about them then receive extra financial benefits.

Conclusion

In closing, businesses aren’t machines, but complex systems that adapt. Because the people are doing the adapting and evolving, it’s important to retain and create an environment that leads to happy employees. Real leadership heroes care about their followers. Villain leaders treat their employees like there are just another number. This is in my opinion the wave of the future and what the book describes a lot of when discussing contemporary leadership theories. I think it’ll be key for me in the future to adopt these characteristics in order to be a good leader.

Questions

How you do you feel about this “caring-type” leader?

Will you adopt this is in your future as a leader?

Lewin, Roger, and Birute Legine. "The Soul at Work." Executive Excellence 17.11 (2000): 14-15. Business Source Premier. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.ilstu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=8&hid=108&sid=a0f4f242-cc30-4d19-b9ec-568c61c50a5f%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=buh&AN=3826046>.

-Ryan Luginbuhl

Team Exercise: CSI Normal

I wasn't in class for the team exercise so I can't really give any thought to the first 2 questions.

3. I believe our group is somewhere between the storming and norming stages of development. We really haven't had any conflict in the group thus far, but I don't believe that we have worked on the project enough to have any sort of argument. Like Ryan said hopefully we can simulate the punctuated equilibrium mode and move quickly to the performing stage.

-Eddie Nemeth

CSI: Normal Team Exercise

1.  During the CSI: Normal my group members and I took on many of the roles from the Team Role Typology. Some of the roles each of us took on at some point or another include contributor, critic, communicator and cooperator. Once our team began to share the information that we gathered for the case reports, we all took on the roles of communicator and cooperator by sharing any idea we had about the case and sharing all the facts that we each gathered from the case reports with each other. We each also took on the role of contributor by sharing what we thought were possible solutions to the case and the role critic when we information that would dismiss someone else’s idea or theory.
2.  Even though each of us eventually took on the role of communicator, it took us longer than it should have to realize that our case reports had different information in them, so if we had taken on the roles of communicators and coordinators right from the start, we would have had a better chance of picking up on the subtle differences of our reports quicker.
3. I think our group is in the performing stage of development because we are able to work together and agree on key issues. We also have very clear goals as a group that we intend to achieve and are able to delegate out tasks to each other to work towards achieving our goals. Our group also has a clear vision and purpose, which is to complete our in-class group tasks and to complete all of our projects for the semester.

--Michael Lorimer

Jeff Skoll: Global Humanitarian

Jeff Skoll started out as eBay’s first full time employee and went on to become the first president of the company. He contributed so much to the company in his time there by developing their inaugural business plan and led their first successful public offering. He is now the founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation, Participant Media and the Skoll Global Threats Fund. He recently received the Tech Awards James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award which is an award that honors individuals who use their broad vision and leadership to help overcome humanity’s greatest challenges. Skoll received this award “for his leadership and broad vision to build a more just, equitable planet.”

In 2009, Skoll set up the Skoll Global Threats Fund to help provide support against the issues of climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and conflict in the Middle East. In 2004 he founded Participant Media, which is a studio intended to produce films about issues that Jeff Skoll personally considers to meaningful. Participant Media released the film An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 which received an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. The studio has also recently release the film The Help which become a very popular film worldwide. Skoll has been a long time member of the Forbes Billionaires list and founded the Skoll Foundation in 1999 to offer support to social entrepreneurs and in Skoll’s words, sought out people defined as “society’s change agents, creators of innovations that disrupt the status quo and transform our world for the better. The foundation currently funds 81 social entrepreneurs who are pursuing their business ventures in over 100 countries across the globe.

Jeff Skoll is a hero in the business world for his work as philanthropist and using his own money and resources to help better the lives of less fortunate individuals around the world. The studio he has founded has produced multiple movies that have helped to shape the way people view global problems and have enlightened many people throughout the world. More than just his environmental and humanitarian awareness, Jeff Skoll has had a very positive impact on the business world by offering support and resources to entrepreneurs that have the same mindset and intentions as Skoll himself has had, which will potentially create more people in the world with the same humanitarian impact on plant Earth as Jeff Skoll has had himself.

--Michael Lorimer

http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2011/10/21/jeff-skoll-joins-forbes-biggest-givers-list-receives-global-humanitarian-award/

http://www.skollfoundation.org/staff/jeff-skoll/

http://thetechawards.thetech.org/global_humanitarian