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

CSI: Normal

1. I feel that all of us together took on most of the ten types of team roles. We were all kind of in the same boat when it can to the knowledge each of us had on the subject. No one knew more than the other in terms of being a contributor with expertise in solving a case. I tried to to be more of a contractor, because organizing and summarizing things are something I like to pride myself in. As I read the blue sheet I made sure to write down pertinent information to the case, then relayed that to the rest of the group.  Ryan played the completer and coordinator role, while Mike was the communicator and calibrator.
2. Communication was key in the discovery that each blue sheet contained different information. Also having me as the contractor and Ryan as the cooperator let us quickly identify the differences in the sheets and rule out suspects. Having a contributor with significant expertise would have been great, although we were doing just fine ourselves. But there was a lot of information for each of us to sift through and some of it got left behind when it came to determining our suspects.
3. I believe when group 1 solved the mystery, our group was somewhere in between the norming and performing phase. We were comfortable enough with each other to find it easy to establish goals and gather common reasoning for the case, but we were not quite at the peak of our performance because I got the group stuck on determining the ages of the suspects incorrectly.

--Kaitlin Reichel

Team Exercise: CSI Normal

1. After reflecting on the CSI Normal team exercise, many different roles were played. It was clear we all played a contributing role in the mystery, especially because our team was was just three that day. Michael and Kaitlin played other roles as well. As far as task roles, Michael played a contributor role and Kaitlin played a "Critic" role. She is very good at playing "devil's advocate", which is good because I'm not always right. As far as social roles, I tended to play a calibrator role. Michael played the cooperator role because he's pretty laid back. Kaitlin played the communicator role.
2. Our team didn't do well in the boundary-spanning roles portion, which led to our inability to solve the mystery. More people to help would have been quite beneficial. The consul role is usually filled by Matt, but he is sick and Eddie does well at consul-ling and coordinating activities. This is where our team missed out.
3. Our group is probably still in the norming stage because we haven't done a whole lot for our team project. My hope is we get to the performing stage soon. This would look like the punctuated equilibrium model because we would quickly go from norming to performing.

-Ryan Luginbuhl

Bobby Kotick: The Harvey Dent of Gaming Publishers

                This blog is a mixture between superhero and villain, but I chose to do so because I believe there are many leaders in corporate America who are viewed in different lights. Bobby Kotick is not a name commonly heard unless you own some sort of gaming device, pc or console.  Kotick became the CEO of game publisher Activision Blizzard in 2008 and completely restructured the way the video game industry delivers content for games.  Before 2008 gamers enjoyed being able to purchase games for the reasonable price tag of $49.99 and in addition received downloadable content for their game free of charge, but when Kotic took the reins he realized the untouched money making potential his company’s games had. Activision Blizzard is mainly known for its two most popular series, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft it’s two biggest cash cows. Kotick expanded the idea of downloadable content for all of the games Acitvision and it paid off, by 2010 Activisions revenues were over $4.4 billion. This is the sort of innovation that propelled other publishers to view Kotick as a Superhero. Kotick also promotes giving his employees the freedom to fail. His company has come up with so many innovative games that just don’t do well in the marketplace but are well received by critics. For example DJ hero was an idea that spawned off of the very popular guitar hero series that critics loved, but no one ended up buying it.  Public relations with their customers allow Acivision to deliver the content consumers want, and they know that customers will fork out additional money for that content. This is where we see the villain inside of Kotick, he essential sucks cash out of his customers because he knows he can and he won’t have to deal with any complainers. I’m one of the few customers who hates the idea of DLC being released every few months, it essential allows publishers to earn upwards of $100 per game. I personally believe Kotick is a villain in the industry because he has essentially found a way to release and incomplete game and charge full price but then charge consumers more money to buy the rest of the content to complete the game.

-Eddie Nemeth

Ewalt, David M. "Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick: How To Be An Innovator - Forbes." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2011/07/20/activision-blizzard-bobby-kotick-innovation/>.

How do Superheroes Think?

After reading this article I was stunned at the points brought out by the author. The author is a dean of a business school and has a great amount of knowledge of how successful leaders think. Over a six year period he interviewed 50 different leaders. The main point illustrated in this article is that we need to quit emulating the exact actions of our really successful business leaders in the world. For example, he is suggesting that copying what Steve Jobs did at Apple over the years is misguiding and really not the point people need to understand about good leaders. The reason it’s misguiding is because each action by a successful leader is different in different situations and different businesses. This makes a whole lot of sense to me. Don’t we need to get into that person’s head and see how they process information and make decisions?

 Superhero Predisposition

The author claims that good leader have one important trait and ability. They have the ability to hold two opposing ideas or viewpoints in their head at once. With these opposing views, they then have the ability to easily choose one without panicking. What this person does with the opposing viewpoints is coming up with a new idea based on the contents of each idea to make a separate but superior idea. This type of cognitive synthesis is called integrative thinking. This process is not debilitating to the individual and is just a natural state a good leader is typically in when decision-making. In chapter 9 of the textbook it talks about a leader’s general mental ability or IQ. The book says that good leaders tend to be smarter in IQ and EQ or emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is someone’s self-awareness, social skills, and motivation and is a huge factor in becoming a good leader. I would say EQ would directly tie into a person’s ability to think the way the author of this article describes it. The most effective leaders are book smart (IQ), but really effective leaders are really high in EQ (Bauer and Erdogan Ch. 12).

Can we learn to be Superheroes?

After an interview with Bob Young from Red Hat, a Linux-based open-source software company, the author tries to answer the question above. The answer is “yes.” When faced with really tough decisions Young wouldn’t settle for “either-or” choices. These “either-or” choices are what other companies decide to do. What is it that separates your company? This type of thinking is integrative thinking in action and made Bob Young stand out at his company and made it successful. Young took a step back and didn’t settle for the “easy road.” This takes patience and creativity.

The Process

A four-step decision-making process is vital in integrative thinking. First, one must determine salience or “which factors to take into account.” Integrative thinkers seek less obvious but potentially relevant factors. Conventional thinkers only focus on the obvious factors. Second, one must analyze causality. Conventional thinkers only consider linear relationships between variables. In contrast integrative thinkers consider nonlinear relationships among multiple variables. Third, one must envision the decision architecture. Integrative thinkers see potential problems holistically and how each part effects the decision. Conventional thinkers break each problem into pieces and separately work on each problem without regard to other parts. Finally, one must achieve a resolution. Integrative thinkers creatively resolve the preceding steps conflicts by integrating or generating innovative outcomes. Conventional thinkers make the “either-or” choice based on the pieces that they’ve funneled down to. It’s easy to see the differences from great leaders of business to the “average Joe” when broken down through cognitive decision-making process shown in this article.

Conclusion

This article directly ties in the premise of what Dr. Sheep has been trying to get us to do in MQM 221 from the beginning….that is to think outside the box and analyze the situation and come up with ways to reflect on our experiences. This line of abstract think and idea conceptualization seems to be the premise of our “Journal Entries” in class and our papers as a whole. Since it is possible to learn how to think this way, we need to take what we’ve learned in class and in this article to be future Superheroes of the business world!

Questions

How do you feel this about this type of thinking and how will you apply it to your future career?

Roger, Martin. "How Successful Leaders Think." Harvard Business Review 85.6 (2007): 60-67. Business Source Premier. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.ilstu.edu/bsi/detail?vid=3&hid=119&sid=d7248b48-470e-432f-bec3-3c8c9bc8f09c%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9YnNpLWxpdmU%3d#db=buh&AN=24997966>.

The Positive Side to Failure: Rewarding Risk

Since entering the College of Business here at Illinois State University, almost all of my professors have encouraged their classrooms to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal. Reluctantly I have, and I only say reluctantly because there is so much information to sort through, and so many issues around the world in countries that I didn’t even know existed. But never the less, I make an attempt to look through each day’s paper. Last month I stumbled upon this article titled “Better Ideas Through Failure,” and I found that this article has so much to offer in regards to everything we’re learning in this class.

            “Better Ideas Through Failure” is essentially what it sounds like, companies around the United States are beginning to invite, acknowledge, and reward creative and innovative failures. This seems like a perfect idea to me. I am terrified of doing something incorrectly, which often times leads me to stand aside and do nothing at all. But if I were to work in an environment that saw creative failure as something positive I think there are many good ideas I could share. Rewarding employees for doing their job, not just doing it “right,” can change the way employees perceive the organization they are in. Motivation and creativity must be at their peak in organizations that thrive off the failure of new ideas. Although an idea may sound good, it may not work that first time, but allowing yourself to even try the first idea, give you the opportunity to tweak things here and there that may have gone wrong, ultimately leading you to the best, most successful advertising scheme the world has ever seen! With optimism like that circulating around an office work attitudes and job performance are bound to be higher.

            I suppose this somewhat goes along with Expectancy Theory in the idea that when an employee puts in effort will it gain them higher performance which will lead to favorable outcomes and rewards? I feel like in this case yes. Employees are encouraged to be creative and innovative, and the more ideas they have and the more effort they put into their work will bring them closer to that next goal of high performance. Even a not perfect idea can lead to high performance, or recognition of work from a superior, and the outcome can lead to a reward of self-gratification or even something tangible. The article discusses the company Grey New York and they have recently adapted giving out a quarterly award “Heroic Failure” to an employee to demonstrate their creativity and taking a big, edgy risk.

            When failure is not perceived as negative, great changes can be made. Do you think that adapting a thought process of “better ideas through failure” is a realistic way for companies to become more innovative in the constantly changing market? Also, would this idea work well within large groups, small groups, or simply stick with the individual’s ideas? There are so many ways to get people to switch on their creative side, and I think this article perfectly demonstrates how well it would work in the corporate world.  

-- Kaitlin Reichel

Shellenbarger, Sue. "Better Ideas Through Innovation." The Wall Street Journal. Sept 27, 2011. D1,D4.

Rypple: The Speed of Information

It can be intimidating going through your supervisor’s door for a performance appraisal. Most companies have some form of a periodic review for each employee’s work. Many times this is an opportunity to advance in the company, gain perspective, learn, and share your voice, but the process has its flaws. Would you like to hear you’ve been doing something wrong for the last six months.. and never knew? Even if you knew, did you know how to get better?

Rypple is a platform on your computer which enables live business communication. It has the feel of social networking platforms like Facebook, but it offers other social and performance management tools as well. Some features are that goal accomplishment can be recognized and members can thank or congratulate their peers. The utilities offered now may be few, but are versatile in their capability. As Daniel Debow, co-CEO and co-founder, puts it, “(it) helps Facebook, Gilt Groupe, and other innovative companies recognize great work, run fast, have efficient feedback loops, and coach employees to achieve their goal.” It delivers a real-time system which accomplishes the goals of performance appraisals, among other social-systems within typical business.

Despite how it may swing communication away from direct contact, the idea behind this is to bring the human element back into business. By utilizing a more natural flow of communication, Rypple is optimizing social efficiency. It is therefore making the way people behave in organizations more congruent with business needs. For example, standardization has done wonders for work processes, but standardization is congruent with neither the human condition nor how people define businesses.

People come to work with different attitudes, desires and needs which even change. This natural flow of communication fosters job satisfaction and commitment through person-environment fit and positive attitudes. The ability to build relationships not only helps attitudes and citizenship but also acts as a catalyst in learning and functioning as a group. It helps people be more motivated through satisfying their needs for affiliation and accomplishment. It acts as a motivator through the opportunity for recognition and growth. It may even be so evolutionary that it will be a hygiene factor of working conditions in the years to come. At the very least, it allows people to get detail on what to expect from their jobs or their efforts. This system reduces stress in so many ways, it would seem to save the day when you look at the impact businesses have on our daily lives, or even on that performance review day.

This platform sets a good example for how businesses can facilitate positive organizational behavior and employee satisfaction. In The World is Flat, a book discussed in chapter one, the speed of business is getting faster due to the access to information via the internet. As demands change, so too should our systems. Rypple is a microcosm in the sense that it is the kind of innovation seen from this flattening of the world and is also the kind of agent causing it.

In what ways do you see how Rypple could help in decision making, brainstorming, reinforcement etc? How does it relate to fault lines and schedules of reinforcement? 

-Matthew Mimnaugh

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/09/25/executive-profiles-disruptive-tech-leaders-in-social-business-daniel-debow-rypple-software/?boxes=ceo-network

http://rypple.com

Steve Jobs: Master of Innovation

        Many of the products available to us in today’s marketplace follow the same trend of “be like the rest and you will keep your customers happy.” There are few companies who have taken the risk to create something new and provocative so that consumers are presented with an “alternative.” For my first blog post I would like to focus on Steve Jobs Apples former CEO. Steve Jobs used his innovation to propel his company into a league of its own which has gained an almost “cult” like following of consumers. So the question that everyone wants to know the answer to is “How did he do it?” the answer is innovative leadership skills. Jobs understood that in order for his company and ideas to be successful he needed to think differently than everybody else and that’s exactly what he did.

        In order for Jobs to achieve success he constantly thought with the mind of a consumer saying, “What could I use in my everyday life that would make things easier for me?” and achieved unique ideas by putting together a team of very diverse employees. Diversity at Apple is what has defined its corporate identity; it is a place where people want work because they can be creative and not have to worry about getting fired for an odd idea. A great example of this would be the iPhone, manufactures and cell phone providers told jobs that no consumer would ever pay $400 dollars for a phone but when the original iPhone hit markets in 2007 it proved all of those companies wrong. Apple created something that consumers had been waiting for, something unique and easy to use. Steve Jobs could have thrown the iPhone on the back burner after being told off by various different companies but his intuition told him to stick through it and as we all know today the iPhone paved the way for smartphones. In almost every business aspect Apple is consistently 1 step ahead of everyone else.

        Coming full circle it may be true that if you produce a similar good with a few tweaks it will see profit. But companies like Apple who produce that creativity first strive in the marketplace and make substantially more profit on their products than their competitors because they have delivered the product that the consumer wanted instead of what the company thought would be best. Steve Jobs is a superhero for the technology world; his management skills have paved the way for other companies to be innovative and assured them that taking risks can be a good thing.

-Eddie Nemeth

Kuang, Cliff. "What Can Steve Jobs Still Teach Us? | Fast Company." FastCompany.com - Where Ideas and People Meet | Fast Company. Web. 02 Oct. 2011. <http://www.fastcompany.com/design/2011/what-can-steve-jobs-still-teach-us>.

Amazon.com: Beyond the Computer Screen

            While searching around for articles for this blog, I came to the sad realization that it is much more easy to spot the villains of the business industry than any superhero that may be roaming around doing good for their organization. Today I’m focusing on Amazon.com and the recent controversy over the working conditions in their factory located near Allentown, Pennsylvania. The truth is those of use who use Amazon.com don’t know much more beyond the retailer besides the website. I’ve been buying and selling books and gadgets on Amazon for years now, and I honestly never thought about how the item got from them to me, like most consumers, I just wanted it to happen quickly.

            The Amazon warehouse located in Pennsylvania has been having terrible work conditions related to this extremely hot summer we just experienced, and these hot work conditions are specific to only this warehouse. People who began work in that factory in the early months of the year stated that they loved their job, and tried to perform at the pace that was expected of them. But as temperatures rose and the heat index increased, workers were pushed to work at an unattainable pace, leading to lower productivity than management had forecasted. Positive job performance is heavily correlated with a positive work environment, and I know I would have trouble working in a building that was 114 degrees at any given time.

            Amazon management rebuttals by stating that during these conditions they gave employees free water, fruit, and snacks to rejuvenate their strength; but in conditions like that extra fluids and food can only do so much good. When performance begins to decrease among individuals, managers go looking for answers. In my opinion being over-heated is a valid excuse for working slower than you would in a stable work environment, but that is not the case in this warehouse. When management came inquiring about the slow down in productivity and workers responded with the truth about the heat and working conditions, management translated this into suspension or termination.

            Amazon uses a temporary employment company to find suitable applicants for their jobs, and they say that there are plenty of eager applicants out there looking for work at Amazon. So do they really even care about the forty year old woman suffering from asthma who can’t keep up with production from the heat, or are they just going to terminate her and replace her with someone who isn’t so fed up with the working conditions? Working conditions are a large part of job performance and motivation, but the way we are treated in the work place is important too.

            Some employees may be suffering from continuance commitment, where they just cannot afford to leave. In an economy like this finding a job is a blessing, and with the unemployment rate so high, people are taking what they can get. But why is it just this warehouse that is experiencing so many problems regarding the weather? How did Amazon management not foresee the need to industrial air-conditioners in a warehouse located in Pennsylvania? Employees said that Amazon management had paramedics standing by to monitor any employee that fainted or had any reaction to the over heated warehouse. When medical professionals need to present on site doesn’t that tell management that something is not right? Amazon wants their employees to work hard and at a productive level, but without providing the proper environment to do so; so how can they expect so much from their employees? 

  

                                                                                -Kaitlin Reichel

Soper, Spencer. "Amazon Warehouse Workers Complain of Harsh Conditions." The Los Angeles Times: Business". October 1, 2011 

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1001-amazon-allentown-20111001,0,5945449,full.story

 

A Villain Exposed!

Media today tends to be quite negative. I didn’t have to look very far to find the next “Enron-esque” tale. This story is about a woman name Sujata “Sue” Sachdeva. Sue was an employee of Koss Corporation, a major player in the stereophonic headphone industry. Sue was a veteran to the company of 15 years, VP of Finance, and principal accounting officer for Koss. To put things simply, Sue stole half the company’s pretax earnings over five years. On trial Sue pleaded guilty to embezzling $34 million dollars from Koss. 

How did this happen? Sue had help. Senior accountant Julie Mulvaney helped Sue cover up her thefts in a number of false journal entries and false cashier checks. Another entry level account, Tracy Malone, didn’t blow the whistle during the five year scheme as well. How was each player in this story motivated? What personality traits would also play a role in allowing this embezzlement scheme to happen?

Sue Sachdeva was the first and main player. She had some interesting traits. It is obvious Sue was neurotic, and she displayed this by her erratic behavior. Her attorney’s defense was that she had “bipolar disease of compulsive shopping disorder.” According McClelland’s acquired-needs theory, her motivation might be found as “need for power.” With her high position she was able to influence and control Julie and Tracy. Her need for power was also shown in her uncontrollable spending habits and need for wealth and prestige. 

Julie Mulvaney was as guilty as Sachdeva. As a senior accountant she was easily manipulated into doing the “dirty work”. She overstated assets, expenses, and cost of sales in the books. This type of deviant behavior might be explained by fear. Julie could have felt her job was threatened and over time just got numb to the illegal activity. Her motivation also could indicate a strong need for affiliation. If her main motivation was to make her boss happy, then the unethical behavior could be explained. 

Finally, an entry level accountant, Tracy Malone, didn’t blow the whistle when she caught the mistakes in the ledger accounts. Tracy more than likely was scared as well about losing her job, but her overall moral conscience and commitment to the organization was non-existent over the span of five years. 

Some internal auditing should have been done here because the external auditor didn’t catch the mistakes. Trust is a huge mechanism to hold upper management together, but some occasional inquiry and review is okay as well. Constant quality assurance isn’t the answer, but some moderate use would have been reasonable. 

In the end Sachdeva was a true villain. It seems that historically villains find people to manipulate and control like her two “evil sidekicks.” Villains are selfish. Villains find glory where glory shouldn’t be found. Villains hurt a lot of people, ruin trust, and put companies underground. A lot can be learned here and this villain will pay the price behind bars.

My question for everyone would be this: In your opinion, how does unethical behavior by a high-level employee affect others in the organization? This could be other high-level executives or the janitors cleaning the hallways. 

Ryan Luginbuhl

Verschoor, Curtis C., How an Embezzler Stole Millions from a Small Company, Strategic Finance, Jan2011, Vol. 92 Issue 7, p13-61.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

Netflix used to be a company dedicated to providing it's customers with a service that no other company was offering, and that was a simple way to enjoy multiple types of entertainment. They also provided their customers with a sense of complete control over every aspect of their account and offered additional online services which were very successful in drawing in new customers. Netflix seemed like they had the movie rental business all figured out, and then some. But in July of this year, Reed Hastings and his team completely reorganized the entire structure of the company and split the movie rentals off into a whole new division under a completely different name, which will potentially cost them many of their loyal customers.

Reed Hastings and his team at Netflix have put the company in jeopardy and made a very drastic change to the way that they plan to do business, and did all this with absolutely no warning for their unsuspecting customers. This sort of blunder leads me to consider the phrase "if its not broken, don't fix it." Things seemed to be going so well for the company and now they have done something that has left them vulnerable for another company to take advantage and offer a service designed very similarly to the old Netflix at a much lower price.

I think that their biggest disadvantage now is that they have taken away that sense of ease and control by forcing customers to visit two completely different websites to do what they used to be able to do with one. In addition to unnecessarily complicating the process, they have also bumped up the price of a subscription for everyone, which is almost like adding insult to injury. If Hasting felt that the price for subscriptions needed to be increased, it would not be unreasonable to do so, he just did it in the worst possible way and even acknowledged this fact by writing a letter of apology to his customers on the Netflix blog site. I believe this uproar of complaints could have been avoided if Hastings announced what he was planning on doing with the company and if he had avoided splitting off into two companies to do the same thing that could have been accomplished with just one. Reed Hastings has made himself a villain in the business world for delivering a potentially fatal blow to a once very successful company.

Michael Lorimer


Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/09/20/hastingss-folly-the-netflixqwikster-quagmire/

Superheroes and Villains

 Hello! We are excited to start this blog as Illinois State University business students. We have five members on our team that will be contributing to this blog. Team 7 consists of: Ed Nemeth, Kaitlin Reichel, Michael Lorimer, Matt Minnaugh, and Ryan Luginbuhl

Team 7 is excited to learn from a variety of different leaders in the world of business. We think there is a lot of value in understanding the successes and failures of different leaders of organizations. Our attempt will be to parallel famed superheroes and villains to organizational leaders. We plan to share stories about the “Superheroes” of business who have made outstanding leadership decisions that have helped their company succeed or added immense value to their firm. In contrast, we plan to share stories of “Villains” in the business world who haven’t added value to their organization. Each story will hope to enlighten us and readers to a better understanding of who we wish to be as future leaders and how we can make a positive impact on the people around us and the world.