I don't like being a leader

I recall my two weeks of being manager as being relatively uneventful. Maybe it's the number of weeks that have passed since then, but not much sticks out or comes to mind from that time period. So instead of writing about the experiences I had when I was manager of Team Red Stapler, I'll pen a few reflective words about leadership in general.

There've been a few times where I've found myself placed in a position of leadership before; if I've learned anything, it's that I don't like being a leader. It's much simpler to be a follower, taking rather than giving orders. There's an increased sense of responsibility when you've been appointed head of some project, organization, or group, and it can weigh you down if you're not careful. For example, a group I was appointed head of was organizing an event. We were charged with handling thousands of dollars of donated funds, and the pressure of putting together a solid event while juggling school and other responsibilities was enormous. I often wanted to just throw in the towel to give myself time to focus on school but felt like doing so would cause a ripple effect amongst the people who were working together with me. Besides that, I didn't want to disappoint all the people who had donated to our cause either. So I wound up persevering.

As much as I find myself hating the added responsibilities of being in a position of leadership, when Marty Linsky asked the audience about what things they wanted to change and what could be done to change them I found a lot of my old pet peeves about the world coming to rise. I realize now that someone has got to do these things, and if no one else is going to then it may as well be us. Best part? Like Mr. Linsky said, you don't have to be in a traditional position of authority to make serious changes happen. 

Leadership, responsibility, and clarity

My period of leadership for Team Red Stapler was rather quiet compared to some of the other team leaders throughout the quarter, but there was still enough of a difference to being a team member to have an impact on how I understand leadership.

The most interesting aspect for me was that I felt very responsible for the performance of the team when I was manager. This is not entirely new: Often enough in other school related situations I feel responsible for making sure everyone is performing well. However, being vested explicitly as the manager amplified that responsibility considerably. I think that feeling responsible for your team's actions and performance is the first step for being an effective leader of a group, the starting point for everything.

I also found that I tend to prefer a task-oriented style of management, where clarity of responsibility is the most important thing. Ensuring that everyone knows what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how important it needs to be done was something I focused on quite a bit during my time as manager.

My Reign of Terror: Sherri as a Leader

Technically, I was the leader for the first 3 weeks of the quarter, but in actuality I am not sure I ever left the leadership role. I really tried to back away from that when it was no longer my turn, but that was very challenging because I have always been a ring leader of sorts. It was unnatural for me to completely let it go. Especially since I sensed my team kind of needed me to corral everyone to refocus if we started to veer off schedule.

I tried to think of what type of manager or leader I am as far as the various theories from the Leadership reading and I have determined that I am a little bit of both sides depending on the circumstances. I say both sides, because it seems like with each theory it was split into two categories to describe the traits associated with them. Starting with the definition of Leadership vs Management, sometimes I was more of a leader, focusing on the bigger picture of the project and how we could best approach it to ensure retention of knowledge and ways to eliminate having to do extra work in the end because we did not capture the essence of the objective we were working on. Other times I was definitely a manager, making decisions when necessary and managing day-to-day assignments for the group. Even with the X and Y theories, I have both characteristics. I am absolutely people-oriented and try to think of other's needs and take different personalities and strong suites into account, however, i am also task-oriented: if stuff needs to happen, then lets get it done.

One of the most challenging things I faced this quarter was the awkwardness of "calling people out." I tried, and think I succeeded, to be respectful in my reminders of our working agreements and restoring integrity to the team when commitments for completely portions of the project were not completed or if we people were late or missing at meetings we arranged. I always battled feeling like I was being a jerk or for even saying anything at all, like maybe I should just not care so much. But then I felt some solace when I read the article The Work of Leadership. In one of the first few paragraphs when describing what it means to be a leader it said, "Leaders who truly care for their followers expose them to the painful reality of their condition and demand that they fashion a response" (Heifetz). That really is a leader isn't it? It's not about being rude, but about acknowledging the tough things and not settling for less than awesomeness.






 

Works of a Leader

A leader can be found within anyone. I believe that anyone can lead a team, as long as it is in the right field and with the right team. I have found that different people are going to lead in different scenarios. Whether you are playing a game, doing a project for class, or managing employees at work, a leader can be brought out of anyone. Of course certain people are more prone to be leaders. While I usually don't consider myself a leader because normally I consider myself having less experience than my teammates. However, I find myself more and more leading the team at work. Even other coworkers who have worked there longer and have more experience look up to me. So much of developing the leadership in a situation is developing a comfort and analyzing the environment.
The article on leadership talked about a leader being on a balcony, watching over their team. That is a great metaphor for saying that people have to take a look at the bigger picture. People get too caught up in the action that they forget to realize the scope of the project. A great leader has to be aware of this and always need to have the big picture in mind. I think they also need to pull their team to that view from time to time so the rest of the team does not lose focus on the project.

Designing our performance review system and its relation to workplace concepts

Designing our performance reviews was more involved than we initially realized. It wasn't as simple as slapping together a number of questions to ask; we needed to design an entire system to conduct performance reviews. To this end, we made a Google Form where team members could evaluate each other by giving ratings and comments in a variety of categories. Each team member also had a total of 100 points to distribute to their teammates. This meant we could not distribute points completely evenly; someone was definitely going to receive more. This encouraged us to give points truly based on an individual's performance as opposed to just evenly dealing out points.

When it came to the actual process of reviewing each other, we needed a system that would ensure anonymity of responses so that e.g. a reader wouldn't know from whom negative feedback or a low score came from. We solved this by employing a third party: a classmate who would compile submitted feedback and organized it by individual.

The system worked well for our first performance review, and I'm expecting we'll use it again for the final review. Having all team members submitting reviews provided us the feedback Katz describes as "360-degrees": a performance appraisal system involving not only one's peers but a person's manager and/or subordinates as well. For simplicity, we didn't use an essay appraisal style, but I could see it being applicable in situations where more depth is needed. Our current system serves both an informative and developmental purpose: it allows a reviewee to know whether they've been doing good or not overall and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The only thing it lacks is an administrative purpose, i.e. stating whether the person deserves to be moved, promoted, fired, etc. That is obviously beyond the scope of the exercise, but it would still be interesting to have those options discussed as if it were a real-life work situation.

Designing a simple performance review system

When we sat down to design the performance review system which we would use at the end of class, a number of challenges presented themselves. How would the scoring be conducted and whether any ancillary methods of providing feedback were the immediate concerns, followed by how to create a format that would allow for flexibility in the number of people providing input on a single review.

The overall scoring system, where each individual would have 100 points to distribute among his colleagues, was defined by the assignment, but we decided to add two other methods of giving feedback, by adding a graphic rating scale in 5 major categories and by soliciting opinions from each member of the group.

The last major piece of the report is how it is produced. The document we created is just the framework for the final report. All the team members conduct their review through a form which is then submitted to and compiled by a third party. This eliminates the potential for a conflict of interest when an employee creates their own performance review. If we had more time, or if this were in use for real, the third party would be either some other employee dedicated to the task, or a computer system to compile and produce the reports.

The Red Stapler Performance Review :)

The team got together one Saturday afternoon to develop our methodology for completing our team performance review. Some had never given or received one, outside of a classroom style peer review, luckily I had some experience in this area. We looked at various examples online and between that and chapter 9 in the Tucker book, we came up with a system that worked for us.

We broke down the most important aspects of high-performance according to our team, like how good we are at working in a team, if we were reliable, and if the quality of work we produced was on par. We gave each section a numerical ranking, which is exemplary of the graphic rating scale technique or profile rating sheet. We also required a textual response in each category to give more personal feedback. The method we used also falls under the category of peer appraisals and field review because of the different roles each group member has and because we are all peers, at least in the sense of schooling.

I thought the creation of the performance review was really helpful. It was great to get the feedback from my team and to give it as well. I think the insight to how the other members of my group viewed me made me want to try even harder and give more to make our experience as successful and enjoyable as possible.

Introducing...The Initech Hiring Packet!

PDF of the hiring packet

Performance Evaluation

In our CSS 350 class, we did performance reviews for our teams. We used a scale-based system incorporating a comment system along with it to give feedback in different categories. Then we gave each of our other team members a flat score which was added up and combined to form a total 'grade' for the evaluations. The Tucker book talked about ranking employees within the same position. While we didn't publicly post our scores, anyone in group had access to them and with only having a group of four, it was inevitable that we discovered scores for the teams. This is way different than how it is at work for me. I work at retail, and you can very easily view the detailed breakdowns of how each worker is doing. My supervisor is currently trying post a daily/weekly/monthly report of this breakdown for our whole department to see at anytime. While I enjoy seeing how I am doing, being publicly ranked can be quite demeaning if you have a bad performance and it is highlighted for all your peers. I wouldn't be offended or worried if they were posted, but I know a few of my coworkers that would and it's currently driving one of my coworkers to the point where they are ready to quit. I think public ranking can have its place, but should be done only in the right situation.

Interview with Bruce Hennen regarding teams and communication

For my Teams and Communication interview I decided to interview my father, Bruce Hennen. Currently, he is working as a project director for a real estate development firm based in Indonesia. To provide a little background, he has worked in the region a number of times over the past two decades on the project management for a number of successful projects. The interview was conducted over Skype, and the audio is linked at the bottom of the post. It's not great quality (audio and interviewing), so the answers here are tightly paraphrased to keep this post concise.

1. What position do you hold?

BTH: Project director on a real estate development project. In the hierarchy, this is second from the top, behind the company owners.

2. How many people are on your work team?

BTH: My core team consists of about 10 people who I speak to almost daily. In the core project management team there are 15 people, one of whom manages the remaining 50 people in the project management team.

3. What is the largest team you've been a part of?

BTH: As for a team where we were all direct equals, probably when I was working in San Francisco as a structural engineer with 8-10 colleagues. Otherwise, the current project management team of 65 is the largest.

4. Do you manage any employees directly? How many?

BTH: I'm currently directly managing 7 directors of the different departments on the project.

5. How would you define effective communication

BTH: Effective communication is all about clarity, when topics and problems are shared and understood. Defining the task is the first step, and collaboration to solve the problem is the next. Delegation of responsibility and establishment of clear time goals are also important to success.

 Me: In one word, the most important trait of effective communication?

BTH: Clarity! Definitely the most important thing. It's not very easy to find here in Indonesia, because of cultural reasons. It's one of the reasons why most westerners have a lot of trouble here trying to work in management roles.

6.  Do you consider yourself to be an effective communicator?

BTH: With people that speak English, yes. With people who speak Indonesian, no! *laughs*

Me: What about Indonesians who speak English? Can you bridge the culture gap?

BTH: Yeah, most of the Indonesians I work with I've worked with for a while. The hierarchy is well recognized and respected so things get communicated and done, but you need to follow up on some things.

7. Have you ever been on a team with someone you consider a 'bad' communicator? How were they bad?

BTH: Absolutely, yes! The person was upstream of me, so an owner of the project I was working on. He never respected people's time, number one. Number two, he was always late to meetings and required rehashing in order to get him up to speed. He was also took a dictatorial approach to things.

Me: What about other forms of communication, such as e-mail?

BTH: We communicated rather efficiently this way actually. I could write communications in forms looking for yes or no or go or no go, and get his decision with little discussion or trouble.

8. In your team, what are your primary methods of communication?

BTH: In the core team right around me, probably half e-mail and half in person, since we're in the same office. With external teams, 99% email. In person meetings are expensive and rare and are generally reserved for important negotiation or decision making. Text messaging is more or less synonymous with e-mail in this context. All e-mails are formal, as they're generally prescriptive instructions of some sort.

9. How is your team structured? Hierarchy or self-managed?

BTH: Definitely a hierarchy.

10. How open is your manager (if they have defined leadership roles) to input on projects?

BTH: I directly report to the CEO of the public company. He happens to be involved in this project directly but normally he's overseeing many projects and takes a very superficial view.

Me: What about budget issues? I remember you mentioning those before.

BTH: No issues at the moment, but the budget started too low. We were supposed to build a 5 star hotel, but the budget was for one or two stars lower. I did make it clear up front that the budget was too low and they accepted my input, but they still decided to go forward with the project. Usually the owners start to realize the budget is too low when we're in the middle of the project, and then adjustments have to be made. It's an inefficient way of doing things, but it seems to be the trend with this group, anyway!

11. How often do you receive/give feedback?

BTH: We do have performance reviews every 6 months using the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) system. It's a rather new addition to the company conducted by the HR department.

12. If you had critical feedback to give, how would you deliver it?

BTH: I would do it directly, but casually. I try to be as immediate as possible when bringing the issue up and frame the conversation as trying to solve a problem rather than a simple critique.

13. Have you ever needed to mediate between team members in conflict?

BTH: In the early stages of The Peak project in 2007, I was on a three person core team. We were all more or less equal in the hierarchy. The other two members of this group did not like each other! They never came to the meetings together and tried to undo each others work. My biggest challenge was getting them into the same room together to make a decision.

Me: What characterized the communication in these meetings?

BTH: When they came to the meeting together, I would usually make a direct effort to make sure that both of their opinions were known. I would invite the other person to give their opinion to basically say 'Give me your comments now because I don't want to have to work through them after a decision has already been made'

14. In your opinion, what distinguishes a high performing team from an average team?

BTH: Synergy. I always try to build on people's strengths when delegating tasks to them.

Me: What about in terms of communication?

BTH: I think that as a team works together we begin to understand our shortfalls and strengths and weaknesses, and we understand each others' personal nuances to improve communication. At first this project was a bit difficult because all the people but one were new, but that goes away after a while.

15. What does or what could your organization do to enhance team productivity?

BTH: Being an effective communicator. Almost all the problems we've encountered on this project were due to insufficient or unclear communication.


 Although we used the term 'team' throughout the interview, 'group' seemed like a more appropriate word to describe the 15 person core team he mentioned in the interview, as they don't actually share any specific functions, and spend most of the time delegating to and managing people lower down in the hierarchy, and communicating upwards. Even so, it is abundantly clear that clear, concise communication is still key to getting tasks done and problems solved efficiently.

Teams and Communications Interview

The following are summarized responses for the interview with Floyd Kershner.

-What position do you hold?

Floyd - I am a principle project manager for a consulting company.

-How many people are on your work team?

Floyd - I am the only person on my team. I manage multiple teams.

-What is the largest team you have been part of?

Floyd - A group of 60

-So you manage employees. How many?

Floyd - Microsoft had selected 30 customers, each of those had an average of 5 people per team. So was about 150 people.

-What were your primary methods of communication?

Floyd - It was mostly conference calls. Meeting were done as conference calls over the phone. Teams  easily dial in or our during any meeting time.

-How were teams structured?

Floyd - The teams were really self-managed besides the status reports and conference calls.

-If there was any problems within the teams, how were they managed?

Floyd - The team leaders within the teams had it covered.

-How was feedback given and received?

Floyd - Feedback was given during the reports and the conference calls. The teams were self-managed, most of the feedback was handled within the team.

-Would you consider yourself  an effective communicator?

Floyd - Yes, you have to be to deal with so many different teams. Since most of them were outside of  United States, you have to be very clear and concise when explaining things.

-How do you define effective communication?

Floyd - Well you have to make sure the listener understands. It's never a one-way conversation, listener to head and understand what you mean, not just what you say.

-Have you ever been on a team with someone you considered to be a 'bad' communicator?

Floyd - Yes, one of the groups I worked with was very heavy on the politics. People would communicate behind your back. It was very important  to get everyone down in writing.

-Have you ever had to mediate between conflicting team members?

Floyd - Yes, there was a chemical company in Belgium that was hostile towards Microsoft. We had to  a contract with them so that another local company could keep our partnership. We had consistently remind them about the contract and what the writing said.

-Did you ever have any issues regarding accountability?

Floyd- Very rarely. There were a couple teams that considered coding more important than the calls, so were busy working and miss meetings.


I found this interview interesting. They seemed very optimistic about their teams. Very much on the Y-Theory side of it. A really good reason for the teams to keep collaboration going was that they didn't receive funding if they weren't responding and talking to Floyd. It was very cool to get a feeling for how the upper management worked in bigger corporations. Especially to see how they managed outsourced companies testing their products.

Team's & Communication, featuring Brent Collier

I interviewed by brother-in-law, Brent Collier. He has been working as a software developer for about 7 years. Currently he is working for Twitter in San Francisco as a Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead. I selected Brent because since he has entered the software development field he has worked for several different corporations and they all seemed to be structured so differently, he would certainly have interesting experiences to share.

Me: What position do you hold?

Brent: I am a Senior Software Engineer/ Tech Lead for Twitter

Me: How many people are on your work team?

Brent: 10 people

Me: What is the largest team you have been part of?

Brent: Largest was around 30 people

Me: Do you manage any employees?

Brent: Not currently

Me: How would you define effective communication?

Brent: Thorough, but concise

Me: Do you consider yourself to be an effective communicator?

Brent: I am not as effective as I would like to be

Me: Have you ever been on a team with someone you consider to be a “bad” communicator?

Brent: Probably, but I don't remember anyone specifically. 

Me: In your team, what are your primary methods of communication?

Brent: Email, Campfire (group chat) and instant messaging

Me: So, mostly informal?

Brent: Yes

Me: How is your team structured? Hierarchy or self-managed?

Brent: We have a manager mostly for reporting purposes, but we're mainly self-managed.

Me: How open is your manager to input on projects?

Brent: Extremely open. In fact, most of the decisions are made by us.

Me: How often do you receive/give feedback? 

 

Brent: Constantly and at all levels. We do code reviews on all of our work. We have weekly one-on-one meetings with our manager. And we also do biannual peer review feedback on ourselves and our managers.

Me: Have you experienced any issues regarding accountability on your team?

Brent: No issues. We all know what we're responsible for. 

Me: Have you ever needed to mediate between team members in conflict?

Brent: No, in an open group it's rare for things to elevate to that level.

Me: Have you been part of or are you part of a high-performing team?

Brent: Yes, if your team is not high performing, then something needs to change. 

Me: In your opinion, what do the high-performing teams in your organization do differently from average teams?

Brent: Performance teams constantly evaluate and adapt. They spot inefficiencies and address them.

Me: What does or what could your organization do to enhance team productivity?

Brent: We have a team whose sole purpose is to enhance developer productivity. They build and support tools/methods to help us be as efficient as possible which can be difficult in a company with 800 engineers.

It was great to get the perspective of someone in the field that I am working towards entering and realizing that many of the concepts we are learning are actually effective. I thought that Brent's definition on what effective communication entails was completely accurately conveyed in a non complex way. I also thought it was awesome that he is involved in a high performing, self-managed team. I often wondered if self-managed would really work. It sounds good but can it be successful? And i think it can. Based on Brent's experience in the field, he is on a self-managed team that in comprised of team members that are highly effective, are accountable for themselves and the team, and work together to discover the solutions to implement for their organization. The description he gives for his team shows that they really are great communicators and seem to actually be a team, rather than a group.

Introducing...the Creativity Survey!

For the section on Creativity & Inspiration, we created a survey and sent it out to friends and classmates. Respondents were asked to answer a short series of questions related to creativity. For a list of the questions and a graphical summary of the results, follow the link below!

Survey Results

Team members will write individual posts commenting on the results soon...

Deadlines, procrastination, and motivation

An important part of the collegiate education learning experience is learning how to deal with hard deadlines. These deadlines are important for a number of reasons, such as providing a structure to the course and allocating time properly for both the instructor and the student. They can also have a profound impact on a student's motivation, which can be as important a part of teaching as communicating the material.

College students in general are known for procrastination, especially in regards to classes which are undesirable or perhaps considered 'easy'. Consistent, frequent deadlines are important in this situation, as the added pressure of 'time crunch' usually boosts motivation to do homework in a timely manner. If deadlines are spaced too far apart, it may cause a vacuum of interest until only a short time is left. On some assignments, especially those which seem easy but belie a much more difficult problem, this can cause students to procrastinate until it is too late to complete the assignment effectively.

In this sense, the concept of creating smaller, more tangible and more frequent deadlines as parts of larger projects can be a useful tool to help students keep up in the class, and pre-empt the trend to procrastinate until the last minute.

Deceptive Outcomes

I think the reason many people get discouraged is because of false outcomes. Setting goals for yourself is a great and powerful tool to accomplish what you want. The trick is setting a reasonable goal which you can actually achieve. Know yourself when it comes to setting goals. While pushing your motivation to achieve them is a great way to earn what you desire, do not expect more than you will actually do. I have seen multiple times where my roommate has set a goal to work out with me to get back in shape. After several attempts to get him to work out, and many rejections, I have learned that he just doesn't have the motivation needed. The desire needs to out way the hinders. You will get what you put into it. Do not expect to get into shape by doing 10 push-ups a week and continue to eat unhealthily. What you pay is what you get. If you are motivated enough to do the right work to achieve the results, then pursue it. The best way to do this is to self-evaluate, make sure you can take on the challenge, and that the route and the destination are feasible.

Along with this I would recommend letting life go on tangents. Do not worry about sticking to a particular schedule or plan. This is my personal view on life (I'm not trying to impose my views, just share them). Many of the stories in the Katz readings talk about where one idea failed, but produced an interesting bi-product or result. Relating this to life, I think people should let randomness and spontaneity impact their lives as much as current plans would (given that current plans do not hold significant importance for the future).

Motivation: It can be hard to come by at the gym

Katz touched on the power of in-company competition to inspire and motivate employees. I'd say the same thing easily applies when working out at the gym with a partner vs. by yourself.

I've never really been an athletic person. I suck at sports. I dribble basketballs with the skill of a five year-old and my shots show similar proficiency. My hand-eye coordination in tennis or ping pong is cringeworthy. I took a weightlifting class in high school and the teacher was surprised I signed up for a second quarter. I'm so skinny my mother saw me without a shirt and said I looked like a famine victim.

Needless to say, I'm not exactly a Jordan or Armstrong, and I'm certainly no Schwarzenegger. But the desire to look good for the lay-deez is a strong impetus when you're a teenager, and I eventually found myself working out on a regular basis at the gym with a childhood friend for partner. We'd spot each other, give encouragement, comment on each other's progress. Yes, I made progress. I started to fill out and actually had some bumps worthy of being called biceps. I learned the names of muscles I didn't even know I had, and with the help of my friend, shocked them out of their life of leisure and into some forced growth. It was tough in the beginning, but my rapid and visible improvement (it helps when all you have is a skeleton to improve upon) provided a lot of motivation.

But it wasn't just my personal progress that kept me going to the gym. Having my friend there was a big reason for my continued membership; on days he had to miss our workout sessions, I needed no convincing to skip as well. Although he was on the short side, my friend was noticeably strong and his impressive lifting was an inspiration for me. We would also do cardio together, usually running on a fixed track at our gym. What I lack in strength I makeup for in stamina, and my ability to just "keep going" whether on a run at the gym or on a long hike in the wilderness is and was a source of consolation for me. My friend was a bit slower on the track (likely due to his shorter height) and his cardio stamina didn't seem to match mine; it was nice to have an area I could outperform him because there was certainly no way I was going to do so once we hit the freeweights!

Looking back, I realize it was very likely a friendly competition was occurring between the two of us. I think this realization even occurred to me back then, and I like to think it helped us to both to frequent the gym. Unfortunately, we've drifted apart due to my continuing school and his entering the workforce. With no friendly competition/encouragement nowadays, my muscles have receded to their former mouse-clicking, keyboard-typing glory. I may fit right in with the computer science crowd, but I'm feeling like just writing this blog post is giving me some inspiration to get back to the gym again. I think I'll give my old friend a call.

Well, maybe next month...

This is Motivating....

As you can see, this is me during a race and directly following the race. This exemplifies a key factor or end result of something that once was motivating. In our readings assigned for motivation, one of the things that was discussed was that once a person sets out to achieve something and they finish, that same thing is no longer motivating. Human-beings constantly are adjusting their goals as they achieve them. It was also mentioned that this is the reason why workplace reward programs do not typically work to help motivate. Unless the rewards are constantly changing and growing, people will not stay motivated.

Managers and Emotional Intelligence

A critical part of being a good manager is having strong emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, or EI, is defined as the ability to control your emotions and influence the emotions of others. The first critical part of EI, being able to control your emotions, depends on being able to observe your own emotions, while the second part depends on reading or deducing the emotions of others given the context and their displayed actions.

Mastering your own emotions is the cornerstone for good EI. This goes beyond simple self-awareness of your emotions; everyone knows when they're angry, sad, happy, or pleased. It also branches into how and when you express those emotions. Depending on the situation, displaying your frustration or anger can damage relationships and make your job harder, such as when you're trying to teach something, or when you're trying to encourage a reluctant colleague. This skill of knowing when to display your emotions ties into the other part of EI, influencing others.

Being able to influence someone's emotions depends on a number of factors, the two biggest ones being the situation at hand, and how well you can read their emotional state. In a situation where you're listening to someone complain about homework, for instance, there could be a subtle difference between usual reluctant grumbling about difficulty or a small coding frustration, and real desperation which perhaps hints at a larger problem. Being able to sense these differences allows you to be more effective and careful in your interactions with other people, and can sometimes help pre-empt problems later on, if you pursue the right track when trying to help another.

Fun in Retail

After reading about organization and managers, I related it to my experience working retail. The cultures which I became immersed in were interesting to say the least.
Cultures differ significantly between different departments. I have noticed that behavior and standards vary between different ares and groups of people. Even at a retail store where almost everything is becoming standardized cultures differ significantly. Understandably, the training is a bit different since each department is trained by different supervisors and managers. The practices vary significantly between different stores and even within the stores. During my orientation, where lots of newer hire from any store within the territory, I noticed how different stores are. Certain stores were trained to ignore certain behaviors that are almost mandatory in other stores. The difference in what managers and supervisors allowed in their department is the biggest surprise to me. I thought that the corporate managers would regulate and tell the managers what is important and what isn't. We are mostly concerned with profit and customer service. According to studies, there are better ways to get our customers to (happily) spend more money at the store. Personally it feels almost like tricking the customers into buying more items.
In my work culture, it is pretty easy to tell where managers seem to fail. My current manager seems to set goals and expectations too high. My previous manager did not really worry, keep track, or try to motivate the employees to meet certain goals. This way there was very little motivation to make the company more money or do things a certain way. The current way puts too much pressure on the employee. I think that the managers have only utilized the extremes of these and have not found that perfect middle ground. My newer manager seems to have relaxed the goals a little bit since he started which relieves some of the work tension.

The disconnect between managers and regular employees

Shortly after graduating high school, I began working at the service center for a Lexus dealership in Bellevue. This was back in the day when Lexus of Bellevue consisted of two entirely different campuses, a sales center and a service center. Customers brought their cars to the service center for regular maintenance, having problems/issues diagnosed, etc. I worked there as a porter assisting customers and driving customer cars to wherever they needed to go. Sounds fun, right? It does, until you realized your job entailed rapidly moving vehicles worth $50-100k in and out of extremely tight parking spaces. See, the service center got a lot of customers (it's Bellevue, so surprise surprise, there's a lot of Lexuses), so we had to move quickly because on busy days there was always something else you needed to get done: another customer to assist, a car that needed to be moved to the shop, a car that needed to be brought up for a waiting customer. It was very clear that the lot we had was much too small for the number of customers we had, but there wasn't much choice but to wait things out. A new Lexus dealership was being constructed which would unite both the sales and service centers under one roof; until then, we had to make do with what we had.

The odd thing was, our parking spaces were really small. As you can imagine, this is not what you want when parking and moving expensive luxury vehicles. I wondered at our diminuitive parking spaces and heard the following (it's heresay, but I can believe it): the parking spaces had previously been wider, but in an effort to add a few more parking spots management had decided to make the existing ones smaller. If this was true, it seemed to exemplify the classic disconnect between managers and regular employees: management, with little to no idea how things are viewed from the regular employee's perspective, institutes new policies or changes that conflict with the ability of employees to do their job correctly instead of helping or enhancing this ability. Accidents occurred, which meant customer cars got scratched and banged up. Not fun. Had a manager tried working the floor a few days, they would have likely seen that shrinking the existing parking spaces was a terrible idea.

Unfortunately, it seems like this classic situation is all-to-common in American workplaces. The reading included comparisons of the abysmally low number of suggestions made by American workers in comparison to Japanese employees at certain companies. If workers don't have the opportunity to make their voices heard and/or don't feel their opinions are valued by management, this disconnect will continue. Management will issue more decrees that "this is how things shall now be done" and regular employees, who know how things actually get done on the floor, will quietly snicker amongst themselves and continue to go about their work in the way they did things before.

To Stress or Not to Stress, that is the question && My Experience as a Manager

So, I am going to touch on two topics that came to mind relevant to me that I came present to following the reading assigned for "Organizations, Individuals, and Comparative Management." First, I will share, with all of you fine people, my experience with stress and time management. Second, my experience of moving through the ranks to management of a corporate restaurant.

Historically, I know it will come to a surprise to all of you, I have had one or two issues with stress and time management. Pretty much all my life I have been late for everything, procrastinated on all tasks, and told myself I was not smart enough/good enough to do or have certain things. The "certain things" were things that I really really wanted like to have a college degree, be happy, and have deep, meaningful relationships in my life. For some reason, I decided long ago that I would never have those things. I know this sounds all Negative-Nancy, but promise, it's not. I have approached these issues in relatively the same fashion, by participating in a year-long series of leadership training courses called Landmark Education. They were completely life altering. I battled those negative conversations I had with myself, my procrastination, AND time management. Mostly, I stay in the "eustress" zone instead of the unhealthy and prone to heart disease, stress. If it hadn't been for that education, I would never have gotten into this school, in fact, I probably wouldn't have even tried. Emotional well-being is so important to success and the reading regarding that topic really hit home for me.

Now onto management. I was a restaurant manager for a corporate chain restaurant for several years in my mid-twenties. I am not sure if any of you have seen "Waiting," but you should if you have not--especially if you have ever worked in a restaurant; it is pretty awesome. Anyways, I was much like the character "Dean," I started off as a server and was one of the best the restaurant had. I worked super hard and had tons of fun working with fantastic people. We hung out all the time, I even moved in with a few of the girls. Everything changed when I was promoted to manager. Suddenly it was like I was on the outside of the circle and it was pretty lonely. So chapter 8, "Why Managers Fail," I was able to identify with. It was so challenging to transition into management and be an authoritative figure to my peers, people I partied with all the time. Eventually, I was transfered to a new location and I thought that would be better, but it was not! It was so hard! I was brought into the new location as a Kitchen Manager, and I had never worked in a kitchen before. My staff had no respect for me because they knew I had no experience in that area. It was pretty rough.

I also was able to see some correlation in my experience as a manager in chapter 6, "Managing Creativity: A Japanese Model." Often our Area Director's would begin to enforce new ways to manage and tell us how we should implement these new ideas in the management of our employees. It was funny because we would sort of try these new ideas for a second and inevitably go back to the way we did things previously because the new way did not work. We also, as managers, would not really include the staff in the solving of problems.  What did they know? It's not like they are managers, they could not possibly offer sufficient insight on a better approach. In making that realization, I tried to think of any time in my management training that I was told to manage that way, or if that was just what I had experienced from my managers and carried over into my management style. I could not recall a single time anyone told me I should do things that way but I had experienced that from almost every manager I had ever had. I seriously lol'd at some of the things discussed in chapter 6. Duh, no wonder the new ideas did not work, we never even gave them a chance because it was way "easier" to do things the way they have always been done as opposed to changing everything. And wow, I really beat my head against the wall trying to manage my team. Turns out I was most likely alienating them and that is why they pushed back so much. Why can't we be more like the Japanese in the workplace? We should work on that.

Why Can't We Just Be Friends? Reflections on the In-class Negotiation Activity

Unfortunately, I can't remember a "cool" example of negotation in my life (but I will of course remember one after this post is up), so I'm afraid this is going to be another boring reflection on the in-class negotiation activity. I'll touch on three areas: my own attitude towards negotiations, how it helped during the activity, and dealing with conflicts within one's own group.

Refresher: our team was representing Paige Turner and the other team BestBooks.

I don't like confrontation and I don't like subterfuge. While this allows me to get along with a wide variety of people, it's not always that useful during a negotiation where there are competing interests on table and your job is to secure the best deal for your side. My inclination during these events is to be very forthcoming and honest about what I want as well as sincerely asking the other side what they want. We're both here to get something out of this, so why can't both parties leave happy? Needless to say, our team did not take my approach (nor did I ask them to); instead, we decided to do things the traditional/recommended way: we would not disclose immediately what areas were most valuable to us.

My attitude did come in use pre-negotiation. Prior to meeting with the other team, we spent a good deal of time figuring out what the other side considered important and seeing where our interests overlapped: number of countries for distribution and number of book clubs. We also decided what we were most willing to compromise on: number of weeks author would promote the book and number of books author would write for BestBooks. If sending Paige Turner on multi-month book tour would secure us a better overall deal, we were going to agree to it regardless of temper tantrums! This analysis of what the other team wanted would serve us well once the negotiation had started: both sides quickly agreed on both maximizing the number of countries for distribution and number of book clubs, and we went on to use our list of compromisables semi-successfully to negotiate a better deal for ourselves.

Thankfully, no major conflicts occurred within our group. However, there was one incident which gave me some insight on how to handle such a situation. It was towards the tail-end of the activity and things were winding down. It seemed like both sides were getting tired and were ready to close on the terms. Team member Kai then made a proposal to reduce our numbers in one heavily fought over area (the royalties if I recall correctly) in exchange for higher numbers in another (the advance or signing bonus). I was close to ask Kai what he thought he was doing because we had spent a lot of time and effort to gain ground in royalties, and I wasn't ready to give anything up just yet. Instead, I decided to see what he was up to; referring to our point sheet, I realized he was actually making a deal that at first seemed like a loss but would actually net us 500 extra points. It must've been beneficial in the eyes of the other team as well because they readily agreed. Had I leapt into things without trying to understand what my team member was thinking, I could have easily botched an easy 500 point gain. Understanding where the other team is coming from is important, but so is understanding your fellow team members! Conflict averted.

Sweating the Small Stuff - Negotiation as a Foreigner

Most of the time, negotiation about a transaction or sale doesn't happen very often in our lives. As a society, we tend to bargain mainly on large issues such as buying a car or house, or casually among friends. Negotiation for everyday items has mostly been eliminated due to standards and expected norms. This is not the case in many places around the world, however, and although the situation may be unfamiliar, the principles at play are quite similar.

I have lived in and visited a number of countries in Asia throughout my life, and as a foreigner it is important to understand when it is in your best interest to bargain. Being able to appraise the value of the item you are interested in and having knowledge of the culture and economics of the area are very important. More often than not you can expect even up to a tenfold increase over the regular price for an item, and not realizing it or not being willing to negotiate can cost you.

Such a dramatic starting price is indicative of what they expect to achieve. The other party wants to get the most possible from the deal, and they don't expect you to either push very hard, or negotiate at all. Usually a resolution is attempted quickly, and sometimes after a seemingly massive concession. Despite this, however, they may still earn a huge profit, and you would be none the wiser unless you knew more about the economics in the area. Personally I have seen items (fake shoes, bags, watches, souvenirs, etc) easily sell for ten times their real value. A half-hearted negotiation attempt might still leave you at five times what a reasonable price would be.

The strategy to negotiate, then, must be grounded in information about what the item is worth. Understanding the customs and culture of the area also helps but is not as crucial as you might expect, as it rarely actually arises as a problem. A strong competitive style is critical to push back as hard as you can. Often, you can easily push past further than you expect, sometimes past what you feel is reasonable. The other negotiation styles have little place here, especially in situations where you're almost certainly never going to see the other party again.

Although this type of situation rarely arises in modern times throughout most of the developed world, it still occurs in many parts of the world. Tourists are the main victim of these practices, as the stereotypes of overprice holiday souvenirs bears witness to. What they don't realize, or perhaps simply want to avoid, is that negotiation is key to ensuring you get a fair deal.

CSS 350 Negotiation

In our CSS 350 class, we had a negotiation activity were two teams had to represent different sides of a author contracting with a publishing firm. Going back to the negotiation activity, I realize how much the situation impacted on the decisions I made. When we were being pressed on certain topics we tried to not budge on. During the negotiation, trades were always two-sided. Even if the other side didn't lose anything (or almost anything), we would have to trade something they wanted for something we wanted. The biggest conflict we noticed was actually in the other group. One member agreed to something, then a second later a second member disagreed with the decision. During this I realized that my personal strength was best in logical and weighing the pros and cons of decisions and deals. Towards the end of the negotiation, when we were about to wrap everything up, I noticed we could gain 1500 points by giving up 1000. When I offered this trade, I was surprised when the other team was willing to follow through with this trade. If we had been more accommodating  we definitely would have gotten less points and the whole negotiation probably would have gotten less points as well. 
We started off reviewing what our team wanted. Certain traits of the contract scored us more points. My team went over the different categories and tried to figure out how we could utilize certain aspects to increase other aspects. After we had developed a plan, the negotiation began. We started out trying to 'feel the water' as we tried to prod and poke to see what the other team wanted. Once we figured out what they wanted, we tried to use that to our advantage to negotiate what we wanted.

Relating back to the course material for the class, the negotiation is best suited with compromise and problem solving skills. The stakes were high, both sides wanted money and certain traits out of the deal. Both sides also care about their future relationship. If neither side were worried about the future relationship, it should have been more competitive.

Negotiation

A couple of weeks ago during my CSS 350 class, my team participated in a mock negotiation to practice techniques we learned based on assigned readings. The whole thing was staged so that our team, who represented a best-selling author in the negotiation of a contract, was paired with another team who represented the publishing company hoping to take our author on as new client.

The team was given a quick summary of the author's stance on the various topics we would be negotiating with the publishing team. Right away we read through and determined which things we thought would be important to them and what was most important to the author. We chose our bottom line for those portions and with our assumptions of the aspects they would be most interested in--aside from the obvious monetary values like signing bonuses, advances, and royalties-- determined the areas we could apply the concept of leverage we were introduced to for negotiations. The idea is to figure out what is really important to the other side and even if it is not that important to you, make it seem like you are sacrificing something and doing them a favor by giving them this desired agreement.

We also went over another key point to hash out prior to meeting our meeting with the publisher's and that was determining which "school" each of us came from. I was incredibly thankful that we all agreed that we would only be comfortable with honest negotiations. Unanimously we discovered our values of being straightforward, meaning not lying to get what we wanted and win, is the only way we felt comfortable engaging in negotiations. Technically, we did not "win," but we stayed true to ourselves and were only 100 points off, which was pretty close to a perfect win/win.

The activity was really fun and incredibly interesting, especially from a psychology standpoint. It turned out many of the topics of negotiation we thought would be huge for them that we could use as leverage to get something even bigger for us, for example, a longer book contract, were not nearly as important as we anticipated to them. That made keeping our "leverage" far more difficult than any of us thought.

Personally, I was surprised by the roles my team members took on as well as my role. We did not choose one negotiator to represent us, but I think that was okay. We seemed to all pick up when our personalities were most needed and take over for certain parts. My role, typically in situations similar, is to be the leader in the conversation and showing my dominance. I believe this part of my personality did come through, but I do not think it came across as overbearing or bullying, like some similar past situations may have. I believe this partly is because I trusted my team and knew we were on the same page. It was, however, interesting to see how the other team did not seem to have a guideline they stuck to consistently. Often, we would come to an agreement with them on a portion of the contract and one would suddenly object to their other team members in the midst of the negotiation.