Organizational Silence

The big thing that happens when people don't speak up, is lack of communication. That lack of communication leads to lack of information and flow. This, I believe essentially chokes the command line, and provides no room for resolve. The importance of communication really comes into play when considering organizational silence. But don't get me wrong, silence can be a very good learning tool as well. The ability to communicate within an organization is the most essential part of growth, and without it, no one knows what is going on behind the curtains.

The main reason why people tend to "not say anything" is what I believe to be fear. If someone is afraid of telling his or her boss something about a problem, that problem gets puts away and shunned from the rest of the management team. This is not a good strategy, as we all know that small problems can become huge ones in little to no time. Employees do tend to have fear for one reason and one reason only, their boss. The person who is managing that person is literally afraid of possible repurcussions that coupld potentially happen if he or she is stuck in a tight situation and is confronted. The ability to address problems right off the bat, I think is the way around the problems that arise from organizational silence.

The good part about being quiet is that you have the optimal ability to learn. As one once said "you can't learn when your talking" essentially puts the people in the position of speaking and addressing the other crowd of people with his or her beliefs in the hot seat. This is a good case most of the time, as that someone who is speaking generally knows more about that subject than you do, or else they wouldn't be saying anything at all. They also might have another opinion, or have an alternative idea. This is the main reason why I think being quiet is beneficial, but when problems arise, we need to be loud as hell.

Extra Readings for Chapter 11

Lt. Withers - This article tells a good story of a true leader, and his willingness to sacrifice his own self gains for the sake of others. Withers has a strong sense of caring and help for others before himself. He took in the two refugees, and helped them out to essentially survive, and prosper. This is strong sign of a leader.Their children were able to reunite with the refugees, and see how they developed and prospered after the war. Withers portrayed strong communication skills between himself and his troops, took the time to listen to them, and kept an open mind. These qualities in Withers signified him as a strong leader. Lt. Withers is a true definition of a strong leader.

Col. Dowdy - Dowdy showed many acts of leadership through out his mission as commanding officer of 6000 troops. He Brought himself to the same level of his troops, which is very few and far between in the military regime. He dedicated his amenities to his troops, and treated them just as how he was treated. He had a significant amount of care for each one of his troops, and did not let any of them down. Everyone who served for him during this time believed that he was a true purposeful leader, even though we was discharged.

New Wine, Old Bottles - The three steps that were implemented into this system were very significant for this type of business. The first step was to build the key relationship with your business customer. This step is one of the main focuses in marketing, to essentially build life long customers. The second step is setting up win-win performance agreements, this is a necessary next-step after setting up the relationship with the customer. The customer will need some sort of assurance that the product or service will be on-time, correct, and exactly what they wanted. The third step is being a good source of help. This third step is one of the long term aspects of the relationship that really count. The customer wants to know that if he or she needs some assistance with your product, we need to be there for them. This third step holds all of the ground I believe in keeping a reputation.

Good Leadership - In all aspects of being a good leader, they need to put themselves on the same page as the people they manage. A good leader only puts himself above others in carrying responsibilities. The information database that a leader has is significant, and the more he or she delegates that information, the more powerful the team is a whole. The more people know, the better. There is no reason for hiding information from other employees, or people under you. A good leader will also make the most correct ethical decisions that will best benefit the company to te best of his or her knowledge. A good leader will always be asking himself "Is this the right thing to do?" This is the one thing that a leader must always keep in the back of their mind.

Level 5 Leadership

A level 5 Leader is defined as a an executive in whom genuine personal humility blends with intense professional will. Executives who posses this paradoxical combination of traits are catalysts for the statistically rare event of transforming a good company into a great one. I believe that a leader should be charismatic, but this is not the case as some good leaders have been somewhat shy. A level 5 leader can be shy, and also be very successful. The typical leader shows a sense of outgoing personality, but sometimes being reserved is a good thing. A good learning tool is to practice the art of humility. One has to put the blame of issues solely on themselves, and somewhat push away the rewards. The behavior that a good leader portrays is important as well. The way the leader acts, the followers tend to recreate. Having a positive outlook on life is good in a sense that people below you will usually have a better attitude as well. Leaders do what ever it takes to get the job done.

The Deans Disease

The deans disease is a problem that potentially any manager can be susceptible to. The deans disease can be applied to any form of leadership in a sense that power can be overwhelming. The abuse of power, and the control of resources that the power encompasses, can be a very big problem. The common affect of the deans disease can be seen in many aspects of management, not just deans.

The top manager of any team has certain people who work under them. When these people begin to copy the dean in ways to always benefit the manager, the manager becomes more engulfed into the disease. The constant praise and complements from the lower workers always reassures the manager that everything he or she is doing is essentially perfect. This power trip that the manager becomes engulfed in consumes his or her entire reality of managing. Then the manager becomes more of a figure of power and dominance instead of being a leader.

A good leader needs to be social, humble, and have a good sense of who they are. They need to realize their weaknesses before they can better the work of others. Good leaders surround themselves with people who take issue to the thoughts and ideas that the manager has to offer. The best way to learn is through conflict, and when there is nobody to conflict with, the process never gets better. Everyone just becomes consumed by the managers power, and strives to be like him or her.

The way to look out for these traits in everyday situations is to encourage independent thought, reinforce independent thought, and implement a written policy that implements the idea of open door ideas. The manager needs to be accessible in every aspect. He or she needs to listen to what others have to say about certain ideas. And not to act from the position standpoint, but act on a social positive manner that internally motivates his or her employees to succeed. The main way to stay away from the deans disease is to be social, open, accessible, and continuously improve ideas and rules to better everyone.

Evidence Based Management

The idea of evidence based management is somewhat common sense. But it is strange that many times in a management situation, people do not follow these methods. To do what is right based upon the results. It seems as though this concept is simple, yet not implemented in the common daily routine of managers. Even with the use of doctors evidence based decision making 15% of the time, they are still relying on methods learned in school, patterns of experience, and certain methods that they believe is right. But none of these assumptions that these doctors are making directly relates to the evidence from results. The even worse case is the percentage of actual managers of businesses that do not implement evidence based decision making. This is a very scary thought, and confusing to me how all of these managers still stay afloat.

It seems as though many managers are trying to move in the direction of evidence based management. The continuous improvement process can be assumed in one way or another to be evidence based. Managers are trying to move from their old ways that have always worked, and are now being subject to change. It seems as though doctors do have a better way of using evidence based management in their practices, but they are also clouded with vendors and new products that could be based upon new evidence, but might be a little over exaggerated.

The tough part about a manager being evidence based is the amount of clouds that revolve the honest truth about what really works. Everyone in the field of any type of work has data that supposedly is based on true evidence. But sometimes this is not the case at all, there so too much evidence out there, and the truth has become engulfed with clutter. Considering the amount of evidence out there, and the search for the true hard facts, there is still many paths that lead to no where. Either the data from the research is not accurate, or the evidence is not applicable to the current situation. There are many boundaries that a manager must face when transitioning into an evidence based management system and mindset.

Gary Loveman & Harrah's Entertainment

The hiring of Loveman for the implementation of new marketing strategies and operations was a great move by Harrahs. Loveman had the most significant impact in the marketing arena. The data that was collected through the club cards had to be analyzed, and used as a beneficial tool in expanding Harrahs, and better identifying certain things that each individual can do to better the company as a whole. Loveman planned on using the data collected to shape the marketing strategies he would implement. While analyzing the data, he found out that 26 percent of the gamblers produced 82 percent of the income. And, that the gamblers that produced all of this income were not the high rollers, they were just the average consistent gambler.

When Loveman realized that the main customers were not just the high rollers, he started to focus more on customer service. He implemented strategies that mainly focused on the average everyday customer. He also implemented the employee rewards to customer satisfaction. The more satisfied the customers, the more money. Loveman implemented some of the fundamental rules to a successful business. He realized that the main way to get Harrahs to grow as a company, they needed to satisfy their customers. And the only way to satisfy the customers is to satisfy Harrah's employees. Happy employees, happy customers, leads to growth, and ultimate success.

Under the leadership of Loveman, Harrahs grew to great heights. Satre eventually stepped down, and Loveman took over as the CEO of Harrahs. Even today, Harrahs shows quality customer service, and is dedicated to their customers. They still receive tons of information from the club cards, and can constantly improve their marketing strategies. I think that the data analysis, the study of the data, and the strategies that came from the sets of data was the ultimate key in the success of Harrahs.

Diamonds in the Data Mine

The strategies that Harrah's mainly followed to increase their customers was evidence based. The evidence based strategies that they followed was directly focused on their casino players. Instead of spending millions of dollars in flashy water fountains, or high class shows, Harrahs spends most of their money on the everyday customers. I think that the reasoning behind Harrah's strategies is unique, and very effective. The way they make every experience for their customers "personal", makes their profits truly rise. Since their main income is based upon slot machines, they focus on the people who play these slot machines, and in turn generate more income.

In stead of focusing on the high rollers, and the one time big spenders, they mainly focused on the everyday average joe. This was a good strategy because they knew that the average joe would come back, and be a regular customer. The regular customer focus made the people who mattered the most, and generated the most income, made Harrahs successful. I believe that this strategy is effective in many ways. The comfort level of the customers is necessary for their happiness, and their likeliness to spend more money.

The service that Harrahs provides is unique and effective. The employees are very personal with their customers, and they try to make every experience for the customers great. The outreach of their employers is one of the most important aspects of their success. This is one of the main business rules for success, and it is funny to see that most of all of the other casinos do not follow the same type of approach.

Good to Great, Or just Good?

The error in Phil Collin's great analysis was the fact that he did not find timeless, universal answers, but an average business performance analysis. The result tat cam from his study were not sustainable aspects that those certain companies have achieved. The analysis only shows the 11 companies that had the principles in common at the time of his study. The test results that came from the study of GTG, concluded that there is no empirical evidence that the GTG concepts lead to sustained great results.

One of the flaws that the system Collins set up was the study of data mining. The problem that occurs is that the data collected during data mining depend completely on the specific time period and data set gathered. In other words, things change over time. The fact that a company does well in a certain period, does not mean that they product those same numbers typically across the board. Another thought about data mining is that the data received is based on a random period of time. Random patterns that only show up in specific time periods. The only way data mining can be accurately analyzed is if we use it over a period of time, and analyze the trends of the data changing. People can then see a typical pattern of each individual company.

Another problem with the GTG analysis is the association and causation comparison. Collins associated the great firms with the five characteristics. So, in a way, he was saying that the only way for a company to be great is to have these characteristics, and these characteristics only. But this is generally not the correct way to analyze the company.

The right way to do things sounds like the fundamental scientific method. The ability to set up a theory, a hypothesis, and then sampling, testing, and drawing conclusions regarding the validity of the theory. This is the proper way to analyze a situation, idea, event, etc. The argument is that Collins did not provide any evidence of using this model.

The results that came out after the comparison of the GTG and the S&P 500 was that there was no significant difference between the returns of the GTG firms, and the S&P 500 firms. They found little evidence of the "Greatness" described in GTG. No evidence was found that the GTG firms were associated with greatness in the time period following that used by Collins to select the firms. All in all, the GTG study was shut down as a accurate way to measure great firms.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Even our own government has been the victim of not implementing "Collective Group Thinking." The United States of America has not used these management skills to properly assess a situation. The biggest management team in the whole entire world, essentially, did not communicate properly. This absolutely shocks me. The fact that the management team who was doing research about invading another country, decrlaring war on another country, and killing numerous amounts of people, did not communicate properly.

If we did communicate properly in this situation, we would be in a completely different situation worldwide. Since we have made this mistake, the US has been lowered on the totem pole. The relationship between Muslims and Americans have now been changed for ever. The ball drops on American intelligence, the fact that we used old evidence prior to 1998 to make our decisions in the 2000s. I cannot believe that this management aspect was not present in the white house. It seems as though this is one of the biggest mistakes a management team can make. Usually a management mistake could potentially lose the company a lot of money. But in this situation, the lack of communication between management teams in the white house has lead to death.

All in all, this article shows that the importance of proper communication throughout a team is critical. And the lack of communication between teams members can, and will result in bad outcomes. Some more intensive than others, especially when you talk about the US, and their bad decisions leading to the loss of human life.

New Product Team Leaders

In order to have a new product introduced into the fast paced business environment that exists today, strong leaders will be critical. The leaders must portray skills and abilities to bring together the team, and complete set goals effectively and efficiently. The transformation of a specific leader to overcome the basic way of managing can have a significant impact on the success of the project. The list of leadership qualities that a person should implement into the team is very helpful. The basic way of linear decision making, and isolated incidents is in the past. The more collaborative the team is during decision making, the overall better chance a decision will be the most effective. The more people involved, essentially, the better. But, a team can be over sized for a certain situation, and people can have too many conflicting ideas. It is from experience, I believe, that an effective team size can be accurately estimated.

For a leader to succeed in all of his major goals, he has to be very committed to what he wants to accomplish. This commitment must also be passed down to all of the team members as well. If everyone one is on the page as far a "wanting" to accomplish the common goal, the project has a better chance of success. The table "The Process of Team Leader Transformation" has some very good situations that are common in my workplace. I think that this table could be passed on to the CEO if any company, and they could learn from it in one way or another.

Leaders also need to realize that everyone cannot be micromanaged, and no one should be. Leaders need to internally inspire each team member, and make them see that the decisions they make, the information that they portray, and the work flow that they decide to follow is ultimately up to the individual. The building of information-intensive environments is a important aspect of team learning. The "need to know basis" is out of date, and also does not include everyone in the step by step learning process. The more information being portrayed to everyone, the better. This way everyone one who is on the team has the chance to learn everything. The information library also makes the amount of rework minimal.

A good quote that I remember about managing. Managers should only put themselves above others in the aspects of carrying responsibilities. The team members themselves should have the freedom to become a partial leader as well, that way the team members don't feel inferior or unable to make decisions. Human interaction is another important factor in the design of a good team. The personal relationships should have a strong basis, and people should be not afraid to communicate to each other, especially the communication with the leader.

Sins of Comission

Extra pay for performance can be seen as a double edged sword. On one hand, the employees who get a pay raise due to their good performance will essentially perform better. But this is only a quick fix for the overall improvement of the employee. If given the extra pay, the employee thinks that they are doing a good job overall, and has no room to grow. The real way to better an employees effectiveness is to change the organizational culture, people's mind sets and beliefs, their knowledge and skills, and how effectively they work and communicate with each other.

It seems as though many companies just give the employees incentives/commission to keep up with the competition, but that is not where the true seed for growth is in a company. The commission idea I believe has a fine line between paying employees too much for their benefits, and too little. The more that an employee gets paid for commission, the more that employee believes that he/she is doing her job fine, and does not need to improve in any particular way. But if the company decides to pay the effective employee to little, that person will become frustrated and not want to work as hard. He/she believes that all of their hard work has not been worth the compensation. I think that all companies should adjust the system to better accommodate employees. And this can act as an incentive as well as help them do their job more effectively.

Arrow Electronics

Stephen Kaufman has two main responsibilities from a CEO's standpoint. The first is to guide the strategy of the organization. Second, is getting the right people in the right places and motivating them, so that the execution of the strategy is effective. Kaufman says that everything else is just mechanics. This puts a heavy emphasis on the people that need to be hired, and their performance evaluations. By looking at employees evaluations, he can better determine if the right people are in the right places and that those people are being effective.

A good point was brought up by Krista Boland. She stated that the comparative rating system was not the best way to give employees feedback about their performance. This was because it indirectly compared the employees to one another. Since the evaluations were based on numbers from 1 to 5, each individual employee had to be compared to one another to get the meaning of 1 and 5. So, if someone got a 2 in a certain area, they started to question who got the 5. All in all, this style of performance evaluation was not based on the individual, but the group of employees as a whole.

The results of the evaluations did not come out as expected. The managers who were conducting the evaluations did not discriminate between employees. I think that they were afraid of the fact that being critical about other peoples jobs might lead someone to be critical about their own. Since the managers were afraid to give true evaluations, everyone received a 4 or 5 on their evaluations. When everyone on received 4s and 5s, they were then under the impression that nothing needed to be improved. So in turn, the employees would not work harder, and more effectively.

All in all, Kaufman tried many different approaches to the performance evaluation rules/criteria. All of these approaches lead to inconclusive results. So by spinning his wheels trying to find a accurate performance evaluation system, did nothing. This is one of the examples that show performance evaluations to be useless. I think that the best way to have productive and efficient employees is to internally motivate them. Employees do not become more efficient after a performance evaluation, they have to be internally aware that they need to do better. Then and only then will be grow and become a better worker. You can compare this situation to the classic new years resolution, millions of people each year set a goal or standard tat they want to achieve throughout that next year. But in reality, 90% of those people who make that goal do not continue it and accomplish it. People have to be internally motivated to achieve something, not just a once a year slap in the face.

Get Rid of Performance Review

I definitely agree that the performance review process does hardly any good. The fact that your boss gets to criticize you, and tell you whats wrong with your self is supposed to help you in the workplace? This makes no sense to me. It seems like the boss should focus on the good things that the employee did throughout that year, other than focus on the main problems that need fixing. The weaknesses of the employees should be brought to their attention right when the boss sees it as an issue, not hold up a list for a year and pile it all on them at once.

Performance and pay I believe usually do come in hand-in-hand. But it is also true that the market and budget in that area also contributes to the chance of getting a raise. If the business is making more money on a certain job, the employees working on that job could have a better chance for a raise compared to employees on a lesser successful job. I believe that it is a combination of work performance, job market, and budgets that contribute to the raises.

The performance evaluation process can be argued as objective. The fact that two separate bosses can give completely different evaluations of the same employee shows that this method is not consistent. Not only is it inconsistent, I think that the process is not even accurate. From my past experience, these performance evaluations are not helpful in developing better employees.

SAS Institute

The SAS Institute seems like the perfect company. The reason for their ultimate success comes from the core values and ideas that were generate right when the company began. The continuous investment in research and development was the key difference when compared to other companies. Especially in the software technology business, continuous improvement and research for new products is an important aspect for company growth. With technology evolving each year, SAS Institute put themselves in the correct position for success.

The philosophy behind SAS Institute was the basis on how the company was developed. By holding four main principles up on the totem pole, kept the business profitable. The first and most important principal, keeping the employees happy, is the first step for business development. In order to find customers for life, customers need to be satisfied. In order to satisfy customers, a business needs to have employees to do the satisfying. In order for employees to satisfy, they need to be happy with their work. The second principal, intrinsic motivation, is a great idea. The proper way to keep employees working is to internally inspire them to do good work. This way, the employees will work and be effective without much supervision and micromanaging. The third perspective is the long-term scope on things. To look into the future and foresee the potential for anything is always beneficial. The fourth part of the management philosophy is the bottom-up decision making. Not having a clearly defined goal for finance or growth has apparently worked for SAS. I'm not really sure how this philosophy works, but it seems to just give people a mindset of "do the best you can, and things will keep getting better". This philosophy might just be a focus on a lesser management type of goal.

The recruitment and selection process for SAS is a good one. They have been focusing on a more family-friendly place that helps people deal with real life. This focus goes back to the first principal that SAS has of keeping the employees happy. The compensation focus for SAS is unique since it does not focus on commission. This way employees are more inspired to build the long term relationships with customers rather than just focusing on the sale itself. The good work environment for SAS, I believe has been an important contributor to the success of SAS. Its important to the employee to have a "normal" work day. Employees that are tired, and that work late are not as efficient. The idea that people need rest is common sense, but is sometimes overseen in the workplace. SAS's performance management theory is an important part in the development of their organizational structure.

Nordstrom

The Policies, Practices, and Measurement Systems utilized by Nordstrom seem very unique. It is not the basic 40 hour work week for sales personnel at Nordstrom. They have the breakdown of sales per hour, which essentially is how efficient each worker is being. This is a good way to see how productive sales people are, but the total hours recorded, and the total hours actually worked is sometimes skewed for the sake of making good numbers. Using this system of SPH, I believe that the sales clerks have a to walk a fine line in regards to getting this SPH number as high as possible. On one hand, the clerks want to work full time and get the most pay, but If they work too many hours, they might not get the extra incentives for a high SPH. If the sales clerks work a little bit at a time, their low hourly wage plus incentives might not make up for the full time paycheck. If I were in this situation, I would keep the hours extremely low at first to get the highest SPH, then after some getting a reputation up, I would distinctively choose certain hours during the week to work which would slowly get me more hours, and keep the SPH high as well. Then, as soon as I see a drop in my SPH, I would go back to lowering my hours again. The practice of this SPH would have to be constantly changing each week.

The additional elements of the management team also contributed to Nordstrom's success. Having the company policy where promoting only comes from within gave the employees a better outlook when thinking about their future with Nordstrom. This helped motivate employees to work harder, and to keep looking ahead. Also, the structure of Nordstrom's bussiness was a good design for profit. The top management had less control over operations, but each individual operation was relatively free to make their own decisions. A complement to the environment that Norstrom had, was the way they set up the customer service all star awards. When setting this up, they produced a competitive environment making the employees strive for this goal of being and all star.

I guess the SPH didn't turn out to be the best method overall. The way SHP was set up actually did implicitly encourage employees to work off the clock. This was realized by the local unions, and Nordstrom was attacked. But lesson learned is to pay your employees for the hours that they work. And if that doesn't work, you can always just hire someone and put them on a salary. This way, you can work them like crazy and get around all of these "by hour" statistics. I personally am on salary and work far beyond 40 hours a week, but that's just how the cookie crumbles.

Specialty Medical Chemicals

Carl Burke, The new CEO that is out to save the company, needs a consultant. "He was hired to rekindle growth, not to shake-up the whole organization." By what means does a new CEO not shake up organizations? Isn't that their job? Anyways, they apparently needed a consultant to help this new fantastic CEO with his job. Hiring a consultant in any situation should always be very well thought out. Someone who gets paid to tell you whats wrong with your company, can sometimes be solved in-house. If I were Carl, I would have a least given an effort to restructure the system myself, then if that didn't work, maybe a consultant would be effective.

Hiring a psychologist to do the assessment, in order to better structure the company as a whole, and identify weaknesses in the team. I personally believe that a more type of "system" bettering approach would have been more effective. Since the business is structured as as system, all the psychologist can do is look at human behavior. The environment should be the main focus in this situation. It seems to me that most of the results that Laura came up with for the people she was interviewing was behavioral. Random comments about people's clothing as how its "flashy", or the three question marks after comments??? How does that help the company grow?

One good thing that I believe Laura caught that is important is communication. The fact that certain parts of the company were not sharing information with others is a big problem. For a business to run better, knowledge should spread like wild fire. Everyone should be copied on emails, given all available information, and have a ego-free workplace. Some sections of businesses hold their knowledge/information to just their section for the sake of putting them higher on the knowledge scale than other sections. This I believe should be completely eliminated, but it takes a lot of effort.

All in all, lesson learned that the system needs to be altered to better the companies structure. Bringing a psychologist in to do personality tests kinda really doesn't help the situation.

Chapter 5 - Extra Readings

Screaming Managers - Screaming Managers = The worst thing in the world! Nothing has ever made me more unmotivated and unwilling to work than screaming managers. The fact that they are pissed off definitely rubs off onto the people they are yelling at. Anger, I believe spreads like wildfire. The important part of my job is to keep cool when things are hot. Anger is one of the main emotions that must be controlled in the workplace. It creates negative energy throughout the area that these "yelling events" take place. Even people who are not involved in the argument feel the tension and heat. This article should be read by all "hothead managers". They might not even realize it, but actual calm techniques and directions create good results when compared to yelling.

Get Healthy or Else - It's quite scary to think even though we are healthy, we actually could be days away from a serious health risk. Even a tri-athlete who cycles 36 miles to and from work every day, was at risk of dying because of a bad diet. I have heard the rumor that 80% of the way we look is what we consume, and only 20% comes from exercising, working out, etc. I never really believed this before, until I read this article. I see in the future all companies regulating policies on cigarette smoking and obesity. Since obesity is the number one killer, shouldn't everyone including health plans have a focus on helping this epidemic? I believe it is just as important as any other reason to go to the doctor. Therefore, I believe that a "health plan" for any given employee should include curing obesity, nicotine reduction plans, and all other issues that people may have that affect their true health.

Jessica's Story - This story sounds like one in a million. This high tech process is so involved with scans, diagnostics, tests, etc. it is completely ridiculous to fail under the reason of choosing the wrong blood type. The best of the best, fall to the simplest task probably even an intern can accomplish. Even someone who has no medical experience would probably think "Oh, I one thing that I DO know is that the person we are operating on has to have the same blood type as the organs that we are putting inside of her." Completely ridiculous!

As far as the operation goes, they are replacing a heart, and a lung. This has to be an extremely complicated procedure. With all the steps that are taken, and the procedures to follow, something had to be flawed. And it was double checking work. In this critical of a situation there should be a least three people checking each others work constantly, and even finally inspected by a higher up before proceeding with work. The people working in this environment probably got too "into" what they were doing, and figured that everything always goes smoothly in their daily routine. But, someone always has to step in and keep people on their toes, otherwise corners will be cut, and overlooked.

Southwest Airlines

It is quite amazing what southwest airlines has done over the years. Having a rough start with companies tireless efforts to shut them out and hold them down, southwest airlines has overcome all competition and boundaries to make the most profitable airline ever. The company itself has a strong CEO with a good combination of dedicated people, which all are satisfied and happy. Many different efforts have been put forth for the ultimate success of southwest airlines. one key factor was that southwest never gave up. through hard times and good times, they remained calm and always made the right move. Also, every aspect of southwest airlines was just a little bit different from other competition, this I believe made them unique and innovative. As of today, southwest's competition is now following in SW's footsteps to create a similar approach to airline service.

At the beginning of southwest airlines' arise, they went through a lot of tough challenges. One of their competitors, continental airlines, created some of the main struggles that southwest airlines had to undergo. Continental kept southwest airlines out of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, and kept southwest in a legal battle that almost shut them out right off the bat. On top of the issues with continental airlines, the wright amendment was aimed at stopping southwest by encouraging traffic through the new Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

One marketing strategy that southwest airlines had was the implementation of the "Make Love, Not War" theme. Southwest has been using a heart emblem on all of their aircraft, and using it as a typical symbol for advertising and corporate communications. This strategy I think means that southwest has a good relationship with people, the way they satisfy their customers and employees as a impact on some level of care for one another. The caring and building of good relationships I think has definitely been a key factor in the success of southwest airlines.

Another one of southwest's strategies was to use the same type of airplane in all areas of travel. This allows southwest to be somewhat "mass produced" and typical of all of their airplanes. The training for just one type of airplane is easier, and the employees can have a better understanding of the airplane that they use since it is typical. The pilots can also have a better understanding of the airplane itself, in turn making every flight safer. The aircraft that was chosen was also fuel-efficient and had a fast turnaround time. This made the cost for each flight cheaper, and the waiting time less.

A good approach to southwest's mission to get more customers, was the idea of competing with ground transportation. The idea of making the fly actually cheaper than the drive is actually a great approach in getting more customers. Its seems that southwest was the first to have people switch over to flying and actually making it cheaper, and more convenient. Besides waiting in line to get on the plane, there is no traffic in the sky, no stoplights, and the passengers can focus on something other than the actual drive.

Having a competitive advantage was one of southwest's strengths for success. Keeping the costs down significantly, I believe helped southwest get where they are today. A good breakdown showing this was the "cents per mile." In comparison to southwest's competition, their costs were about 20-30 percent lower. This cents per mile is a good breakdown for the analysis. Since it involves the cost of meals, gas, employees, etc. the "cents per mile" is a good thing to try and keep low and is a good measurement for comparison with other companies.

Leadership anywhere is an important for the creation of success. Southwest's leadership kills have contributed to a lot of their accomplishments. Southwest's CEO Herb Kelleher had a great drive for leadership. Without this drive, I believe that southwest would not be the company it is today. In order to be a leader, I think that making good relationships is key. This way everyone who works for you is happy, and in turn makes the customers happy, and eventually leads to success and growth.

The people department is a good way of changing the aspect of human resources. They actually changed the way human resources is from all other companies. I think that their people department should be a fundamental change in the way we organize human resources. The way they have their mission statement as the backbone of the people department is very important.

Recruiting is a very important aspect in making a successful company. The best part of a business is people, and in order to have a good business, recruiting is an essential part of growth. The idea of having a laid back crew is a good idea as well. This way there are no ego battles, and people can come to work relaxed and have fun. The big portion of creating a good work force is the actual training that employees go through. Southwest has actually set up a "University for People" program that teaches the newly hired employees the way southwest does business.

All in all, I believe that the most successful portion of southwest's company is the spirit that they portray to their customers and employees. The southwest spirit has many aspects including: customer service, hard work, equality, cost consciousness, dedication, fun, and family. This way everyone is happy working for southwest, working with southwest, and in turn constantly growing.

Chapter 4 - Extra Readings

UA Pilot - Capt. Denny Flanaganis a great example of a superior employee. He goes and personally interacts with the passengers, which I think is a great idea. Every time I have been on a flight, the captain always says a few words at the beginning of the flight about the weather, and never really interacts with anyone. It seems that Captain Flanaganis has made a big impact on many people by just reaching out for a friendly "hello." This reminds me of the first type of personality from the MBTI test. I would definitely say that Captain Flanaganis is an extrovert. He gets energy, and inspiration by speaking and interacting with people. This is a very rare case I would say for pilots, since it seems as though many of them are more introverted. Captain Flanaganis is a good ideal character that every business should have at least one of.

Rules of Engagement - I believe that being happy in the work place is one of the most important factors involving productivity, and having that happy person reflect their own feelings on their customers. This way, as shown in studies, the employees are more productive, and in turn generate more money for the company as a whole. I think that the worst place someone could possibly be is in a job that they do not like. If people could actually breath at work, it seems that they would be more productive in the long run. Some people just don't function if they work 60+ hours a week. As for myself, I actually like to work in bursts of energy. I can run through a ridiculous amount of work in a sort period of time if I have the need/want to do so. I believe that certain people can actually work more in a short period, be more efficient, and happier if they can essentially "breath" at work.

Chapter 3 - Extra Readings

Work Matters - Some people tend to believe that "smartness" comes as a natural gift. I believe that in order to be smart, you have to work at it. "Smartness" does not just come naturally, it comes through effort and practice. The ability to learn has to come with an open mind, and a grain of salt. Some people might solve a problem faster than you, but this does not mean they are smarter. Everyone should realize that we as human beings can learn more about everything. There are no limits in the act of knowing and learning. I agree with Dweck when he says "People who believe that intelligence is malleable keep getting smarter and more skilled at what they already can do." Everyone should have the mindset that smartness is the learning of a lifetime.

Dweck's Article - The idea that personality is based upon beliefs, goals, and strivings is fascinating. If we take a step back and look at our lives from this perspective, I believe that a lot can be done. When people look at personality in this way, our minds might be able to switch gears. We can change our personailties for the better. I agree with Dweck when he says "beliefs and their impact are part of personality, that they underlie important aspects of adaptive functioning." The research results from the students shows that when subject to the realization of malleable learning, they achieve higher scores. According to this study, all we have to do is convence the person who wants to learn that malleable learning exists, and has a positive impact. This should in turn make that person a better learner, and be able to alter his or her belifs which will potentially change his or her personality.

Chapter 2 - Extra Readings

Women in the workplace - I am definitely a firm believer that women are aspiring a lot more today than in the past. Women now have more confidence, and more reasons to succeed in and out of the workplace. I also think that the more attractive a woman is, the more potential she has for success in a workplace. This thought is shallow, but I believe that it is true. As far as the "flirting" goes, the guys should probably realize that the women who are flirting with them are just trying to "get along" and men should never overstep their boundaries. In other words, men should know when the women are playing the "flirting" game.

USA Today, Flirting - This article completely denied my previous thoughts about women who flirt for success. The statistics show that women who did wear short skirts, flirt, etc. actually won fewer raises and promotions. I guess being a good person and not using your body to get into higher positions at work is a must.

How to Get Hired

The ability to relate to all employees at a company is an important aspect. In order to manage people at a "lower-level", managers have to know what they do, and how they can relate to it. Also, in order to manage a company, it is critical to know what that company does! It doesn't surprise me that recruiters look for this in the process of choosing the right candidate for the job.

The writing ability of an MBA graduate is critical. Recruiters want their employees to be able to express their ideas in a professional sense, and make strong statements about what they believe. But, the strong statements made should not portray arrogance. Ethics and integrity are important attributes when considering new hires. It is important to be human throughout the interview process, and not make up stuff that the recruiters want to hear.

Kenneth W. Monfort College of Business

Back in 1992, the Kenneth W. Monfort College of Business was the first college to hold two accreditations in both business administration and accounting. Today, the college is one of only five undergraduate-only programs in the united states to hold both accreditations. The Monfort College of Business has done this by providing top quality education that prepares students for successful careers and leadership roles in business, and providing that education at a low price. The quality education that MCB provides is based upon the principles of high-touch, wide-tech, and professional depth. Also, MCB has a continuous improvement in the programs that are being taught. All of these qualities made MCB the 2004 Award Winner for the National Quality Award.

The Top Business Schools

I believe that leadership is one of the hardest skills to teach and learn. Yet leadership is one of the most important skills for success. I believe that one of the most effective skills a person can have is interpersonal communication.

In order to succeed in the workplace, communication skills is a definite must. Most of all successful people have good communication skills. The fact that people can do work efficiently and fast is a good trait, but to portray that information to others is what really counts. I am not surprised that most recruiters of MBA graduates look for strong "soft-skills." The ability to communicate, and lead a team of people to better the progression of the company is an important quality that every MBA graduate should have. Being able to work under pressure, and not loose your cool in high intensity situations is a important quality as well. No one wants to hire a manager with a short fuse. His/her perspective on situations should be straight forward, calm, and clear.

Teaching Smart People How to Learn

I believe that this article should be read by every person that is involved with business. The lessons in this article can be taught to anyone in the business industry. The most important part of this article is the ideas behind getting smart people how to learn. Most importantly, understanding the reasoning behind the mental block that some people have, and helping them overcome it.

First loop learning - The best way to describe this in my own experiences is repetition. People get used to doing something over and over, and unknowingly create a mental block that adapts them to this first-loop learning. People can get used to this idea of repetition, and never think outside of the box. I believe that this type of leaning is the opposite of innovation in the workplace.

Double-loop learning - I see double-loop learning as the constant asking of the question "why?" When working on a certain task, some people just sit there and do it because its there job, but others might ask "why am I doing this?" And when they do ask "why", they should be thinking to themselves "how can I make this task better?" I believe that double-loop learning is a way of thinking outside the box, and being innovative in everyday tasks. This allows more ideas for improvement, and a better way to see things in the big picture.

How Professionals Avoid Learning - I believe that the "ego" of a person sometimes depends on their tendency to have an open mind. If someone who has been an expert at a certain subject for a significant amount of time, they tend to have a strong confidence in what they are doing. For someone to tell that person that they have made a mistake, that person denies it because of his confidence in what he is doing, and his lack of open-mindedness. Even if that person is right, they should listen to what that other person has to say, and not just shut-out all other ideas. In order to break this barrier, people need to communicate more in the workplace with their superiors, and the people below them. This way, they have a better understanding of the mindset that these people have for their own job.

Defensive Reasoning and the Doom Loop - When people do something wrong, they should fess up to it, but instead some people use defensive reasoning to justify there decision making. Even though they know that they are wrong, people will sometimes deny the fact that they have made a wrong decision. When subject to interrogation of a certain decision, people should accept the fact that other people might think differently about that decision. When people have a breakdown of there defensive reasoning, they sometimes might fall into the "doom loop." The doom loop would be the realization that he/she made a bad decision, and because of that decision, he/she is gong into a downward spiral. To overcome the doom loop, people should realize up front that a decision they made was wrong. By accepting that the decision was wrong, they can learn from their mistakes, and not fall into the "doom loop."

Learning How to Reason Productively - The senior managers must learn how to reason productively before the company as a whole can. The senior managers must have the specific mindset that creates productive ideas in the workplace. This way people can reason not just for the sake of arguing points, but to share ideas, and have a common ground to work with. Coming to a final decision does not have to be based upon winning arguments. In the work place, people should be able to build off each others ideas, and have insight to combine everyone's ideas and make final decisions based upon everyone's input.