THE BIGGEST HURDLE FOR MOST MINORITIES IN CORPORATE America is not getting hired, it's retention and advancement--particularly for minorities who are middle managers looking to move into senior level positions.
Ron Parker, PepsiCo's senior vice president for human resources, believes that a major disconnect between company management and minority is culture--both associated with race and a company's environment. Managing the corporate culture forces employees to understand the performance mandates of their position in the context of the company's political structure. With issues of race, cultural differences can discourage open communications between associates, which is crucial for company growth. For example, some minorities may not ask necessary performance questions, because they don't want to be perceived as inadequate. Conversely, some managers are reluctant to offer feedback to minority employees for fear of being seen as racist.
"Sometimes, information is not being withheld deliberately but culturally." Offers Maurice Cox, Vice President for diversity and development. As a result, PepsiCo has included training in organizational behavior to its repertoire of diversity workshops.
Sample workshops include topics such as how to give and receive feedback, how to develop and leverage your internal relationships with mentors and other associates, and how to manage your personal profile within the company.
What sets this initiative apart is PepsiCo's requirement that individual managers are reviewed based on goals they set before going through diversity training. Before the workshops, the company runs a manager quality index survey to take the pulse of how managers are faring in effectively communicating with their employees.
"In the survey we ask how does a manager constructively address performance issues; how effective is he with working with people different from himself; does a manager support diversity? "says Parker.
Parker explains that these questions are designed to help managers set personal goals for how best to manage a diverse workforce. The responses are incorporated into each manager's performance review.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Worse CEO or not?
Was Yahoo's Terry Semel The Worst Internet CEO Ever? (YHOO)
We like Terry Semel. He was friendly to us in the brief period in which our Yahoo-Analyst / Yahoo-CEO careers overlapped. As Yahoo shareholders, we also enjoyed Terry's early years as CEO, when Yahoo worked its way through its post-bubble collapse and the stock jumped about 7X. So we will begin this brief essay on Terry's horrific mistakes by giving credit where it is due.
Terry got to Yahoo at the time when it needed his skills and experience the most: When it was reeling from the bubble-bursting and in desperate need of both adult supervision and crisp decisionmaking. In Terry's early years, the company turned its display advertising business around, and--for a brief, happy period--almost regained its 1990s mojo.
Alas...
Then came a series of mistakes that has left Yahoo in today's desperate straits, barely able to control its own destiny. Terry doesn't bear direct responsibility for every one of these errors, but he was ultimately responsible for all of them:
Yahoo--and Terry--fumbled the search ball, opening the door for Google. Sometime in the late 1990s, Yahoo made a colossal strategic error, one that has cost its shareholders at least $150 billion so far. What was that error? Yahoo began to stray from its "search and navigation" roots and obsess about becoming the next great media-and-entertainment company. Terry wasn't responsible for the early strategic missteps, but he accelerated them when he arrived. For example, he opened a huge Los Angeles office and staffed it with media and entertainment folks like Lloyd Braun under the theory that that Yahoo needed to become more like a production company. Terry also commuted from LA, sending the message that Sunnyvale and the rest of Silicon Valley were just office parks annoyingly far from Mecca. Terry's LA efforts eventually bombed. More importantly, he took the company's eyes off the search business when it needed to protect it the most: When that start-up down the road was beginning to cannibalize it.
M&A Mistake No. 1: Failure to buy Google. Early in Terry's tenure, he passed on the opportunity to buy the company that would one day crush Yahoo like a bug. Terry was willing to pay $1 billion. Larry and Sergey wanted $3 billion. Google is currently worth around $180 billion--while the deal-speculation-inflated Yahoo is worth about $35B.
Barcalounger culture, no sense of passion or urgency. We continue to be astonished at the speed with which Yahoo transformed from a company fighting for its very survival (2001-2002) to a lazy, complacent bureaucracy. Obviously a lot of Yahoos hit cruise control during this period, but responsibility for intensity, innovation, and culture starts at the top. From the langorous tone with which Terry delivered Yahoo's quarterly conference calls, we always imagined that he was speaking from a chaise longue. This attitude was mystifying but defensible when Yahoo was gaining market share every quarter (for a few years, at the expense of the even-more-pathetic AOL and Microsoft). As soon as Yahoo began getting its clock cleaned by Google, however, the fact that Yahoo wasn't quietly confident but asleep at the switch was revealed.
M&A mistake No. 2: Failure to rapidly buy and integrate Overture and attack Google in search. Terry did finally notice Google eventually, and he eventually bought Overture to allow Yahoo to compete with it. He also extracted a nice patent settlement out of Google (which came in the form of Google stock and which, unfortunately, he sold way too soon). Terry waited too long to make the Overture move, however, and thus ended up paying more than he should have for it. He also then took too long to integrate it.
The never-ending wait for Panama. Yahoo's answer to Google's search threat was two-fold: 1) Overture, which took too long to buy, and 2) Panama, which took way too long to roll out. If Yahoo had jumped on the Google search threat a few years earlier, it might have been a contender. Now, it's share of the search business is headed steadily, inexorably toward zero.
M&A mistake No. 3: Failure to buy Facebook. As Wired tells it, shortly after the first Panama delay, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Terry had an agreement that Yahoo would buy Facebook for $1 billion--and that Terry then called him at the 11th hour and suddenly cut the offer to $800 million. Zuckerberg understandably walked. Yahoo missed its chance to acquire the next big Internet franchise.
M&A mistake No. 4: Failure to buy DoubleClick. Industry sources tell us that, a few months before Google bought DoubleClick for $3 billion, Terry had an agreement to buy it for $2.2 billion. For whatever reason, however, Terry failed to sign on the dotted line. Given Yahoo's subsequent embrace of "display" as its salvation (as its search market share heads steadily but inexorably toward zero), this failure was catastrophic. Not only did Terry pass on buying the company that could have given Yahoo an absolute lock on the display business--he allowed it to fall into the hands of its largest, most fearsome competitor.
M&A mistake No. 5: Failure to sell to Microsoft. The recent shareholder lawsuit against Yahoo all but proves that Terry received a buyout offer of $40 a share from Microsoft in January, 2007, that he immediately passed on. Now, Yahoo is struggling (and likely to fail) to persuade Microsoft to pay $33, or else be chopped up into scrap. (And $33, needless to say, is vastly more than any other bidder could ever deliver.) First offers are rarely best offers, so it seems safe to assume that if Terry had engaged with Microsoft in January 2007, he could have sold the company for, say $45-$50 a share. Now, 18 months later, even with a potential Microsoft transaction on the table, the stock is barely clinging to $25.
Does this litany of errors make Terry Semel the worst big-company Internet CEO ever?
We like Terry Semel. He was friendly to us in the brief period in which our Yahoo-Analyst / Yahoo-CEO careers overlapped. As Yahoo shareholders, we also enjoyed Terry's early years as CEO, when Yahoo worked its way through its post-bubble collapse and the stock jumped about 7X. So we will begin this brief essay on Terry's horrific mistakes by giving credit where it is due.
Terry got to Yahoo at the time when it needed his skills and experience the most: When it was reeling from the bubble-bursting and in desperate need of both adult supervision and crisp decisionmaking. In Terry's early years, the company turned its display advertising business around, and--for a brief, happy period--almost regained its 1990s mojo.
Alas...
Then came a series of mistakes that has left Yahoo in today's desperate straits, barely able to control its own destiny. Terry doesn't bear direct responsibility for every one of these errors, but he was ultimately responsible for all of them:
Yahoo--and Terry--fumbled the search ball, opening the door for Google. Sometime in the late 1990s, Yahoo made a colossal strategic error, one that has cost its shareholders at least $150 billion so far. What was that error? Yahoo began to stray from its "search and navigation" roots and obsess about becoming the next great media-and-entertainment company. Terry wasn't responsible for the early strategic missteps, but he accelerated them when he arrived. For example, he opened a huge Los Angeles office and staffed it with media and entertainment folks like Lloyd Braun under the theory that that Yahoo needed to become more like a production company. Terry also commuted from LA, sending the message that Sunnyvale and the rest of Silicon Valley were just office parks annoyingly far from Mecca. Terry's LA efforts eventually bombed. More importantly, he took the company's eyes off the search business when it needed to protect it the most: When that start-up down the road was beginning to cannibalize it.
M&A Mistake No. 1: Failure to buy Google. Early in Terry's tenure, he passed on the opportunity to buy the company that would one day crush Yahoo like a bug. Terry was willing to pay $1 billion. Larry and Sergey wanted $3 billion. Google is currently worth around $180 billion--while the deal-speculation-inflated Yahoo is worth about $35B.
Barcalounger culture, no sense of passion or urgency. We continue to be astonished at the speed with which Yahoo transformed from a company fighting for its very survival (2001-2002) to a lazy, complacent bureaucracy. Obviously a lot of Yahoos hit cruise control during this period, but responsibility for intensity, innovation, and culture starts at the top. From the langorous tone with which Terry delivered Yahoo's quarterly conference calls, we always imagined that he was speaking from a chaise longue. This attitude was mystifying but defensible when Yahoo was gaining market share every quarter (for a few years, at the expense of the even-more-pathetic AOL and Microsoft). As soon as Yahoo began getting its clock cleaned by Google, however, the fact that Yahoo wasn't quietly confident but asleep at the switch was revealed.
M&A mistake No. 2: Failure to rapidly buy and integrate Overture and attack Google in search. Terry did finally notice Google eventually, and he eventually bought Overture to allow Yahoo to compete with it. He also extracted a nice patent settlement out of Google (which came in the form of Google stock and which, unfortunately, he sold way too soon). Terry waited too long to make the Overture move, however, and thus ended up paying more than he should have for it. He also then took too long to integrate it.
The never-ending wait for Panama. Yahoo's answer to Google's search threat was two-fold: 1) Overture, which took too long to buy, and 2) Panama, which took way too long to roll out. If Yahoo had jumped on the Google search threat a few years earlier, it might have been a contender. Now, it's share of the search business is headed steadily, inexorably toward zero.
M&A mistake No. 3: Failure to buy Facebook. As Wired tells it, shortly after the first Panama delay, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Terry had an agreement that Yahoo would buy Facebook for $1 billion--and that Terry then called him at the 11th hour and suddenly cut the offer to $800 million. Zuckerberg understandably walked. Yahoo missed its chance to acquire the next big Internet franchise.
M&A mistake No. 4: Failure to buy DoubleClick. Industry sources tell us that, a few months before Google bought DoubleClick for $3 billion, Terry had an agreement to buy it for $2.2 billion. For whatever reason, however, Terry failed to sign on the dotted line. Given Yahoo's subsequent embrace of "display" as its salvation (as its search market share heads steadily but inexorably toward zero), this failure was catastrophic. Not only did Terry pass on buying the company that could have given Yahoo an absolute lock on the display business--he allowed it to fall into the hands of its largest, most fearsome competitor.
M&A mistake No. 5: Failure to sell to Microsoft. The recent shareholder lawsuit against Yahoo all but proves that Terry received a buyout offer of $40 a share from Microsoft in January, 2007, that he immediately passed on. Now, Yahoo is struggling (and likely to fail) to persuade Microsoft to pay $33, or else be chopped up into scrap. (And $33, needless to say, is vastly more than any other bidder could ever deliver.) First offers are rarely best offers, so it seems safe to assume that if Terry had engaged with Microsoft in January 2007, he could have sold the company for, say $45-$50 a share. Now, 18 months later, even with a potential Microsoft transaction on the table, the stock is barely clinging to $25.
Does this litany of errors make Terry Semel the worst big-company Internet CEO ever?
Sunday, August 29, 2010
course module of OB ( MB 102)
Organization Behavior (MB 102)
Session 2010-2012
Course Instructors :
PP Singh & Sneha Sharma
+91-9914551155 +91-9317552855
pctepps@gmail.com Snehasharma28@yahoo.co.in
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course deals with human behavior in organizations. Understanding what shapes the way organizations work. Business is about people. From the smallest enterprise to the largest corporation, organisations are created and designed by people to fulfill human objectives.
Organisational behaviour (OB) seeks to understand how we can do this in the best way. This course aims to provide better understanding of human behaviour in organisations.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. To gain a solid understanding of human behavior in the workplace from an individual, group, and organizational perspective.
2. To obtain frameworks and tools to effectively analyze and approach various organizational situations.
CLASS REQUIREMENTS AND ASSESSMENT
1. Attendance Criteria – 75%
2. You are expected to be class on/before scheduled time.
3. Do not remain absent for presentations, case studies and tests, there will be no compromise later.
4. Submit the assignments on or before the day of submission. You will be well informed about the assignments and their submission dates in advance.
Internal Assessment
Ist Hourly : 05 marks
IInd Hourly : 05 marks
MSE : 15 marks
Presentation : 05 marks
Assignments : 10 marks
TEXTBOOKS
1. Robbins Organisation Behaviour Pearson Education Asia
2. Luthans Organisation Behaviour Tata McGraw Hill
3. Udai Pareek Understanding Organisation Oxford Publishing House
Behaviour
Course of Lectures
Total Lectures: 45
Lecture Number Topics Assignment
1 Introduction to OB
2 Contributing Disciplines, Challenges and Opportunities of OB
3 Foundations of Individual behavior-Biographic Characteristics
4 Ability and Learning
5 Value Assignment -1
6 Attitude and Job Satisfaction
7 Case Study -1
8 Personality and Emotions
9 Perception Submission of Assignment -1
10 Case Study -2
11 Motivation – Concept, Theory of Maslow
12 Herzberg Theory
13 McClelland Theory
14 Case Study -3
15 Porter and Lawler model, Application of Motivational Concept
16 Open Book Test -1
17 Group Behavior- Formation,
18 Development of groups
19 Structure of Groups
20 Group Processes
21 Group Decision making Assignment -2
22 Work Teams , Group Activity -1
23 Interpersonal Skills- transactional analysis
24 Life Positions and Johari Window
25 Leadership-concept
26 Leadership theories
27 Leadership style and their application Submission of Assignment 2
28 Case Study -4
29 Open Book Test - 2
30 Power and Politics in Organisation
31 Power and Politics in Organisation -2
32 Conflict Management
33 Group Activity -2
34 Stress Management
35 Crisis Management
36 Organisation Change and Development
37 Innovation
38 Creating learning Organisation
39 Emotional Intelligence
40 Open book Test -3
41 Organisation Culture
42 Cross cultural Behavior
43 Organizational Effectiveness
44 Revision -1
45 Revision – 2
ASSIGNMENTS
You are expected to submit the assignment on time. Late submission will not be accepted. Total of 2 assignments will be given on group or individual basis.
ASSIGNMENT-1
In group of 4, conduct a survey in a company to study the role of impression management in the process of selection, recruitment and placement. Compile your findings.
ASSIGNMENT-2
In a group of 4 conduct a survey of any organization to find out the differential level of needs among the three levels of management (top, middle and lower). Also find out what strategies organization can adopt to help employees meet the needs.
ASSIGNMENT-3
In a group of 4, study the leadership patterns of leaders from private and public sectors organizations and identify the differences.
GROUP ACTIVITIES
These will be conducted during the lecture only.
PRESENTATION
The presentations will be given in a group of 5. The presentation topics will be announced in class. The presentation will be evaluated for 50 marks and will account for 5 marks in internals.
The criteria for evaluation:
Dress code : 10 marks
Content : 10 marks
Communication skills : 10 marks
Slides : 10 marks
Query handling : 05 marks
Team work : 05 marks
CASE STUDIES
These will be discussed as per the lectures scheduled. The announcement for discussion will be done one day in advance. You are expected to get a copy of your case study in hard or soft form on the day of discussion.
There are a total of four case studies included in the course which will help in further understanding of the concept.
CASE STUDY – 1
Gourmet Foods Works on Employee Attitudes
Gourmet Foods is a huge grocery and drug company. It has more than 2400 supermarkets, and its Premier and Polar brands make it the fifth-largest drugstore company in North America. In a typical year, shoppers will make 1.4 billion trips through its stores. Gourmet Foods competes against tough businesses. Wal-Mart, in particular, has been eating away at its market share. In 2001, with revenues flat and profits falling, the company hired Larry Johnston to turn the business around. Johnston came to Gourmet Foods from General Living Medical Systems. It was while he was at General Living that Johnston met a training specialist named Roger Nelson.
Nelson endeared himself to Johnston when the latter hired Nelson to help him with a serious problem. At the time, Johnston had been sent to Paris to fix General Living’s European division. The division made CT scanners. Over the previous decade, four executives had been brought in to turn the division around and try to make it profitable. All had failed. Johnston responded to the challenge by initiating some important changes—he made a number of acquisitions, he closed down inefficient plants, and he moved factories to Eastern European countries to take advantage of lower labour costs. Then he brought in Nelson to charge up the troops. “After we got Roger in,” says Johnston, “people began to live their lives differently. They came to work with a spring in their step.” In three years, the division was bringing in annual profits of $100 million. Johnston gives a large part of the credit for this turnaround to Nelson. What is Nelson’s secret? He provides motivation and attitude training. Here is an example of Nelson’s primary program—called the Successful Life Course. It lasts three days and begins each morning at 6 a.m. The first day begins with a chapter from an inspirational handout, followed by 12 minutes of yoga-like stretching. Then participants march up a hill, chanting, “I know I can, I know I can.” This is followed by breakfast and then a variety of lectures on attitude, diet, and exercise. But the primary focus of the program not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.”
Other parts of the program include group hugs, team activities, and mind-control relaxation exercises. Johnston believes strongly in Nelson’s program. “Positive attitude is the single biggest thing that can change a business,” says Johnston. He sees Nelson’s program as being a critical bridge linking employees with customers: “We’re in the business of maintenance and acquisition of customers.” With so many shoppers going through his stores, Johnston says there are “a lot of opportunities for customer service. We’ve got to energize the associates.” To prove he is willing to put his money where his mouth is, Johnston has committed $10 million to this training. By the end of 2006, 10 000 managers will have taken the course. They, in turn, will train all 190 000 Gourmet Foods “associates,” with the help of tapes and books. Nelson claims his program works. He cites success at companies such as Allstate, Milliken & Co., and Abbott Labs. “The goal is to improve mental, physical, and emotional well-being,” he says. “We as individuals determine the success of our lives. Positive thoughts create positive actions.”
Questions
1. Explain the logic as to how Nelson’s three-day course could positively influence Gourmet Foods’ profitability.
2. Johnston says, “Positive attitude is the single biggest thing that can change a business.” How valid and generalizable do you think this statement is?
3. If you were Johnston, what could you do to evaluate the effectiveness of your $10 million investment in Nelson’s training program?
4. If you were a Gourmet Foods employee, how would you feel about going through Nelson’s course? Explain your position.
CASE STUDY -2
NovaScotian Crystal
Do opposites attract? Meet Denis Ryan and Rod McCulloch—partners in NovaScotian Crystal, a small company situated on the quaint waterfront of Halifax. NovaScotian Crystal makes fine crystal the traditional, old-fashioned, expensive way, with trained craftspeople. It is the only company in Canada that produces mouth-blown, hand-cut crystal. Ryan started the company in the late 1990s on an impulse. He had already had successful careers in the entertainment and the financial services sectors.
With a vision, intrigue, creativity, an impulsive nature, and a contagious enthusiasm for making crystal the traditional way, Ryan set up his glassworks. He even convinced craftspeople to come from Ireland to work for him. After a few years of making crystal, but not many sales, Ryan found himself facing a serious financial crisis and possible bankruptcy. He needed someone who could focus on the financial side of the business. On another impulse, Ryan hired Rod McCulloch and a new partnership was born. Ryan took on the role of chair, figurehead, and liaison, while McCulloch became president. McCulloch—a details, numbers, cost-conscious, organized kind of guy—looked for ways to turn the company around. Using his years of experience as an accountant, he thought about how to manage the company better, make it more efficient, and iron out production. He then began searching for more ways to cut costs and increase sales. With each taking on different roles, Ryan and McCulloch worked well together.
While McCulloch presented tough cost-cutting measures, Ryan brought impulsive ideas about new markets and, often, much-needed personal and emotional support. Even in the face of continuous failures and disappointments, the team never gave up. Out on the waterfront, over a mug of tea, Ryan could often be found giving McCulloch encouragement, a moment of peace, inspiration, and yet more creative, impulsive ideas for meeting their challenges. Take, for instance, how Ryan encouraged McCulloch to call investors for more money, or the suggestion to market their product to a high-end retail store in Toronto.
At long last, after a spring trade show, creative selling strategies, an expanded product line, and a Christmas craft show, NovaScotian Crystal finally turned a profit in the fall of 2001. Ryan and McCulloch celebrated their success over something stronger than tea. And wouldn’t you know it: They didn’t drink the same brand of beer. Today, after years of operating near bankruptcy, NovaScotian Crystal has expanded its product lines, launched a series of online catalogues, and markets its products worldwide.
Questions
1. How would you describe the personalities of Denis Ryan and Rod McCulloch? Describe the extent to which personality plays a role in how Ryan and McCulloch run NovaScotian Crystal.
2. Evaluate the emotional side of running the business. How do Ryan and McCulloch each deal with the stress of running the business?
3. Explain the perceptions of each of these men. What role do these perceptions play in how each runs the company?
CASE STUDY-3
Frustrated at Age 32
Bob Wood is 32. But if you listened to him, you would think he was 65 and washed up. “I graduated from university at a great time. It was 1996. I started as an analyst for Accenture, worked as a health care IT consultant for two other firms, and then became chief technology officer at Claimshop.com, a medical claims processor.” By 2001, Bob was making $80 000 a year plus bonus, driving an expensive European sports car, and optimistic about his future. But Bob Wood has become a statistic. He’s one of the Canadians born between 1966 and 1975 whose peak earnings may be behind them. Bob now makes $44 000 as a technology analyst at a hospital and is trying to adjust to the fact that the go-go years of the late 1990s are history.
Like many of his generation, Bob is mired in debt. He owes $23 000 on his university loans and has run up more than $4500 on his credit cards. He faces a world very different
from the one his father found when he graduated from college in the early 1960s.“The rules have changed. And we Generations Xers are getting hit hard. We had to go to university to get a decent job. But the majority of us graduated with tuition debt. The good news was that when we graduated, the job market was great. I got a $5000 hiring bonus on my first job! The competition by employers for good people drove salaries up. When I was 28, I was making more money than my dad, who had been with the same company for over 20 years.
But my dad has job security. And he has a nice retirement plan that will pay him a guaranteed pension when he turns 58. Now look at me. I don’t know if I’ll ever make $80 000 again. If I do, it’ll be in 20 or more years. I have no job security. I’m paying $350 a month on my university loans. I’m paying another $250 more in payments on my BMW. And my girlfriend says it’s time for us to settle down and get married. It would be nice to own a house, but how can I commit myself to a 30-year mortgage when I don’t know if I’ll have a job in six months?” “I‘m very frustrated. I feel like my generation got a bad deal. We initially got great jobs with unrealistically high pay. I admit it; we were spoiled. We got used to working one job for six months, quitting, then taking another and getting ourselves a 25 or 30 percent raise.
We thought we’d be rich and retired by 40. The truth is that we’re now lucky to have a job and, if we do, it probably pays half what we were making a few years ago. We have no job security. The competition for jobs, combined with pressures by business to keep costs down, means a future with minimal salary increases. It is pretty weird to be only 32 years old and to have your best years behind you!”
Questions
1. Analyze Bob using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
2. Analyze Bob’s lack of motivation using equity theory and expectancy theory.
3. If you were Bob’s boss, what could you do to positively influence his motivation?
4. What are the implications of this case for employers hiring Generation Xers?
CASE STUDY-4
Moving from Colleague to Supervisor
Cheryl Kahn, Rob Carstons, and Linda McGee have something in common. They all were promoted within their organizations into management positions. As well, each found the transition a challenge. Kahn was promoted to director of catering for the Glazier Group of restaurants. With the promotion, she realized that things would never be the same again.
No longer would she be able to participate in water-cooler gossip or shrug off an employee’s chronic lateness. She says she found her new role daunting. “At first I was like a bulldozer knocking everyone over, and that was not well received. I was saying, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’ And was forgetting that my friends were also in transition.” She admits that this style alienated just about everyone with whom she worked.
Carstons, a technical manager at IBM, talks about the uncertainty he felt after being promoted to a manager from a junior programmer. “It was a little bit challenging to be suddenly giving directives to peers, when just the day before you were one of them. You try to be careful not to offend anyone. It’s strange walking into a room and the whole conversation changes. People don’t want to be as open with you when you become the boss.” McGee is now president of Medex Insurance Services.
She started as a customer service representative with the company, then leapfrogged over colleagues in a series of promotions. Her fast rise created problems. Colleagues “would say, ‘Oh, here comes the big cheese now.’ God only knows what they talked about behind my back.”
Questions
1. A lot of new managers err in selecting the right leadership style when they move into management. Why do you think this happens?
2. If new managers don’t know what leadership style to use, what does this say about leadership and leadership training?
3. Which leadership theories, if any, could help new leaders deal with this transition?
4. Do you think it’s easier or harder to be promoted internally into a formal leadership position than to come into it as an outsider? Explain.
Activities
Team building
The Paper Tower Exercise
Step 1
Each group will receive 20 index cards, 12 paper clips, and 2 marking pens. Groups have 10 minutes to plan a paper tower that will be judged on the basis of 3 criteria: height, stability, and beauty. No physical work (building) is allowed during this planning period.
Step 2
Each group has 15 minutes for the actual construction of the paper tower.
Step 3
Each tower will be identified by a number assigned by your instructor. Each student is to individually examine all the paper towers. Your group is then to come to a consensus as to which tower is the winner (5 minutes). A spokesperson from your group should report its decision and the criteria the group used in reaching it.
Step 4
In your small groups, discuss the following questions (your instructor may choose to have you discuss only a subset of these questions):
a. What percentage of the plan did each member of your group contribute, on average?
b. Did your group have a leader? Why or why not?
c. How did the group generally respond to the ideas that were expressed during the planning period?
d. To what extent did your group follow the five-stage model of group development?
e. List specific behaviours exhibited during the planning and building sessions that you felt were helpful to the group. Explain why you found them helpful.
f. List specific behaviours exhibited during the planning and building sessions that you felt were dysfunctional to the group. Explain why you found them dysfunctional.
Activity -2
A Negotiation Role Play
This role play is designed to help you develop your negotiating skills. The class is to break into pairs. One person will play the role of Terry, the department supervisor. The other person will play Dale, Terry’s boss.
The Situation: Terry and Dale work for hockey-equipment manufacturer Bauer. Terry supervises a research laboratory. Dale is the manager of research and development (R & D). Terry and Dale are former skaters who have worked for Bauer for more than 6 years. Dale has been Terry’s boss for 2 years. One of Terry’s employees has greatly impressed Terry. This employee is Lisa Roland. Lisa was hired 11 months ago. She is
24 years old and holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Her entry-level salary was $52 500 a year. She was told by Terry that, in accordance with corporation policy, she would receive an initial performance evaluation at 6 months and a comprehensive review after 1 year. Based on her performance record, Lisa was told she could expect a salary adjustment at the time of the 1-year evaluation.
Terry’s evaluation of Lisa after 6 months was very positive. Terry commented on the long hours Lisa was working, her cooperative spirit, the fact that others in the lab enjoyed working with her, and her immediate positive impact on the project to which she had been assigned. Now that Lisa’s first anniversary is coming up, Terry has again reviewed Lisa’s performance. Terry thinks Lisa may be the best new person the R & D group has ever hired. After only a year, Terry has ranked Lisa third highest in a department of 11.
Salaries in the department vary greatly. Terry, for instance, has a basic salary of $93 800, plus eligibility for a bonus that might add another $7000 to $11 000 a year. The salary range of the 11 department members is $42 500 to $79 000. The lowest salary is a recent hire with a bachelor’s degree in physics. The two people that Terry has rated above Lisa earn base salaries of $73 800 and $78 900. They are both 27 years old and have been at Bauer for 3 and 4 years, respectively. The median salary in Terry’s department is $65 300.
Terry’s Role: You want to give Lisa a big raise. While she is young, she has proven to be an excellent addition to the department. You don’t want to lose her. More important, she knows in general what other people in the department are earning, and she thinks she is underpaid. The company typically gives 1-year raises of 5 percent, although 10 percent is not unusual and 20 to 30 percent increases have been approved on occasion. You would like to get Lisa as large an increase as Dale will approve.
Dale’s Role: All your supervisors typically try to squeeze you for as much money as they can for their people. You understand this because you did the same thing when you were a supervisor, but your boss wants to keep a lid on costs. He wants you to keep raises for recent hires generally in the range of 5 to 8 percent. In fact, he has sent a memo to all managers and supervisors stating this objective. However, your boss is also very concerned with equity and paying people what they are worth. You feel assured that he will support any salary recommendation you make, as long as it can be justified. Your goal, consistent with cost reduction, is to keep salary increases as low as possible.
The Negotiation: Terry has a meeting scheduled with Dale to discuss Lisa’s performance review and salary adjustment. In your role of either Dale or Terry, take a couple of minutes to think through the facts in this exercise and to prepare a strategy.
Determine what your target and resistance points are then you have up to 15 minutes to conduct your negotiation. When your negotiation is complete, the class will compare the various strategies used and the outcomes that resulted.
Session 2010-2012
Course Instructors :
PP Singh & Sneha Sharma
+91-9914551155 +91-9317552855
pctepps@gmail.com Snehasharma28@yahoo.co.in
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course deals with human behavior in organizations. Understanding what shapes the way organizations work. Business is about people. From the smallest enterprise to the largest corporation, organisations are created and designed by people to fulfill human objectives.
Organisational behaviour (OB) seeks to understand how we can do this in the best way. This course aims to provide better understanding of human behaviour in organisations.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. To gain a solid understanding of human behavior in the workplace from an individual, group, and organizational perspective.
2. To obtain frameworks and tools to effectively analyze and approach various organizational situations.
CLASS REQUIREMENTS AND ASSESSMENT
1. Attendance Criteria – 75%
2. You are expected to be class on/before scheduled time.
3. Do not remain absent for presentations, case studies and tests, there will be no compromise later.
4. Submit the assignments on or before the day of submission. You will be well informed about the assignments and their submission dates in advance.
Internal Assessment
Ist Hourly : 05 marks
IInd Hourly : 05 marks
MSE : 15 marks
Presentation : 05 marks
Assignments : 10 marks
TEXTBOOKS
1. Robbins Organisation Behaviour Pearson Education Asia
2. Luthans Organisation Behaviour Tata McGraw Hill
3. Udai Pareek Understanding Organisation Oxford Publishing House
Behaviour
Course of Lectures
Total Lectures: 45
Lecture Number Topics Assignment
1 Introduction to OB
2 Contributing Disciplines, Challenges and Opportunities of OB
3 Foundations of Individual behavior-Biographic Characteristics
4 Ability and Learning
5 Value Assignment -1
6 Attitude and Job Satisfaction
7 Case Study -1
8 Personality and Emotions
9 Perception Submission of Assignment -1
10 Case Study -2
11 Motivation – Concept, Theory of Maslow
12 Herzberg Theory
13 McClelland Theory
14 Case Study -3
15 Porter and Lawler model, Application of Motivational Concept
16 Open Book Test -1
17 Group Behavior- Formation,
18 Development of groups
19 Structure of Groups
20 Group Processes
21 Group Decision making Assignment -2
22 Work Teams , Group Activity -1
23 Interpersonal Skills- transactional analysis
24 Life Positions and Johari Window
25 Leadership-concept
26 Leadership theories
27 Leadership style and their application Submission of Assignment 2
28 Case Study -4
29 Open Book Test - 2
30 Power and Politics in Organisation
31 Power and Politics in Organisation -2
32 Conflict Management
33 Group Activity -2
34 Stress Management
35 Crisis Management
36 Organisation Change and Development
37 Innovation
38 Creating learning Organisation
39 Emotional Intelligence
40 Open book Test -3
41 Organisation Culture
42 Cross cultural Behavior
43 Organizational Effectiveness
44 Revision -1
45 Revision – 2
ASSIGNMENTS
You are expected to submit the assignment on time. Late submission will not be accepted. Total of 2 assignments will be given on group or individual basis.
ASSIGNMENT-1
In group of 4, conduct a survey in a company to study the role of impression management in the process of selection, recruitment and placement. Compile your findings.
ASSIGNMENT-2
In a group of 4 conduct a survey of any organization to find out the differential level of needs among the three levels of management (top, middle and lower). Also find out what strategies organization can adopt to help employees meet the needs.
ASSIGNMENT-3
In a group of 4, study the leadership patterns of leaders from private and public sectors organizations and identify the differences.
GROUP ACTIVITIES
These will be conducted during the lecture only.
PRESENTATION
The presentations will be given in a group of 5. The presentation topics will be announced in class. The presentation will be evaluated for 50 marks and will account for 5 marks in internals.
The criteria for evaluation:
Dress code : 10 marks
Content : 10 marks
Communication skills : 10 marks
Slides : 10 marks
Query handling : 05 marks
Team work : 05 marks
CASE STUDIES
These will be discussed as per the lectures scheduled. The announcement for discussion will be done one day in advance. You are expected to get a copy of your case study in hard or soft form on the day of discussion.
There are a total of four case studies included in the course which will help in further understanding of the concept.
CASE STUDY – 1
Gourmet Foods Works on Employee Attitudes
Gourmet Foods is a huge grocery and drug company. It has more than 2400 supermarkets, and its Premier and Polar brands make it the fifth-largest drugstore company in North America. In a typical year, shoppers will make 1.4 billion trips through its stores. Gourmet Foods competes against tough businesses. Wal-Mart, in particular, has been eating away at its market share. In 2001, with revenues flat and profits falling, the company hired Larry Johnston to turn the business around. Johnston came to Gourmet Foods from General Living Medical Systems. It was while he was at General Living that Johnston met a training specialist named Roger Nelson.
Nelson endeared himself to Johnston when the latter hired Nelson to help him with a serious problem. At the time, Johnston had been sent to Paris to fix General Living’s European division. The division made CT scanners. Over the previous decade, four executives had been brought in to turn the division around and try to make it profitable. All had failed. Johnston responded to the challenge by initiating some important changes—he made a number of acquisitions, he closed down inefficient plants, and he moved factories to Eastern European countries to take advantage of lower labour costs. Then he brought in Nelson to charge up the troops. “After we got Roger in,” says Johnston, “people began to live their lives differently. They came to work with a spring in their step.” In three years, the division was bringing in annual profits of $100 million. Johnston gives a large part of the credit for this turnaround to Nelson. What is Nelson’s secret? He provides motivation and attitude training. Here is an example of Nelson’s primary program—called the Successful Life Course. It lasts three days and begins each morning at 6 a.m. The first day begins with a chapter from an inspirational handout, followed by 12 minutes of yoga-like stretching. Then participants march up a hill, chanting, “I know I can, I know I can.” This is followed by breakfast and then a variety of lectures on attitude, diet, and exercise. But the primary focus of the program not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.”
Other parts of the program include group hugs, team activities, and mind-control relaxation exercises. Johnston believes strongly in Nelson’s program. “Positive attitude is the single biggest thing that can change a business,” says Johnston. He sees Nelson’s program as being a critical bridge linking employees with customers: “We’re in the business of maintenance and acquisition of customers.” With so many shoppers going through his stores, Johnston says there are “a lot of opportunities for customer service. We’ve got to energize the associates.” To prove he is willing to put his money where his mouth is, Johnston has committed $10 million to this training. By the end of 2006, 10 000 managers will have taken the course. They, in turn, will train all 190 000 Gourmet Foods “associates,” with the help of tapes and books. Nelson claims his program works. He cites success at companies such as Allstate, Milliken & Co., and Abbott Labs. “The goal is to improve mental, physical, and emotional well-being,” he says. “We as individuals determine the success of our lives. Positive thoughts create positive actions.”
Questions
1. Explain the logic as to how Nelson’s three-day course could positively influence Gourmet Foods’ profitability.
2. Johnston says, “Positive attitude is the single biggest thing that can change a business.” How valid and generalizable do you think this statement is?
3. If you were Johnston, what could you do to evaluate the effectiveness of your $10 million investment in Nelson’s training program?
4. If you were a Gourmet Foods employee, how would you feel about going through Nelson’s course? Explain your position.
CASE STUDY -2
NovaScotian Crystal
Do opposites attract? Meet Denis Ryan and Rod McCulloch—partners in NovaScotian Crystal, a small company situated on the quaint waterfront of Halifax. NovaScotian Crystal makes fine crystal the traditional, old-fashioned, expensive way, with trained craftspeople. It is the only company in Canada that produces mouth-blown, hand-cut crystal. Ryan started the company in the late 1990s on an impulse. He had already had successful careers in the entertainment and the financial services sectors.
With a vision, intrigue, creativity, an impulsive nature, and a contagious enthusiasm for making crystal the traditional way, Ryan set up his glassworks. He even convinced craftspeople to come from Ireland to work for him. After a few years of making crystal, but not many sales, Ryan found himself facing a serious financial crisis and possible bankruptcy. He needed someone who could focus on the financial side of the business. On another impulse, Ryan hired Rod McCulloch and a new partnership was born. Ryan took on the role of chair, figurehead, and liaison, while McCulloch became president. McCulloch—a details, numbers, cost-conscious, organized kind of guy—looked for ways to turn the company around. Using his years of experience as an accountant, he thought about how to manage the company better, make it more efficient, and iron out production. He then began searching for more ways to cut costs and increase sales. With each taking on different roles, Ryan and McCulloch worked well together.
While McCulloch presented tough cost-cutting measures, Ryan brought impulsive ideas about new markets and, often, much-needed personal and emotional support. Even in the face of continuous failures and disappointments, the team never gave up. Out on the waterfront, over a mug of tea, Ryan could often be found giving McCulloch encouragement, a moment of peace, inspiration, and yet more creative, impulsive ideas for meeting their challenges. Take, for instance, how Ryan encouraged McCulloch to call investors for more money, or the suggestion to market their product to a high-end retail store in Toronto.
At long last, after a spring trade show, creative selling strategies, an expanded product line, and a Christmas craft show, NovaScotian Crystal finally turned a profit in the fall of 2001. Ryan and McCulloch celebrated their success over something stronger than tea. And wouldn’t you know it: They didn’t drink the same brand of beer. Today, after years of operating near bankruptcy, NovaScotian Crystal has expanded its product lines, launched a series of online catalogues, and markets its products worldwide.
Questions
1. How would you describe the personalities of Denis Ryan and Rod McCulloch? Describe the extent to which personality plays a role in how Ryan and McCulloch run NovaScotian Crystal.
2. Evaluate the emotional side of running the business. How do Ryan and McCulloch each deal with the stress of running the business?
3. Explain the perceptions of each of these men. What role do these perceptions play in how each runs the company?
CASE STUDY-3
Frustrated at Age 32
Bob Wood is 32. But if you listened to him, you would think he was 65 and washed up. “I graduated from university at a great time. It was 1996. I started as an analyst for Accenture, worked as a health care IT consultant for two other firms, and then became chief technology officer at Claimshop.com, a medical claims processor.” By 2001, Bob was making $80 000 a year plus bonus, driving an expensive European sports car, and optimistic about his future. But Bob Wood has become a statistic. He’s one of the Canadians born between 1966 and 1975 whose peak earnings may be behind them. Bob now makes $44 000 as a technology analyst at a hospital and is trying to adjust to the fact that the go-go years of the late 1990s are history.
Like many of his generation, Bob is mired in debt. He owes $23 000 on his university loans and has run up more than $4500 on his credit cards. He faces a world very different
from the one his father found when he graduated from college in the early 1960s.“The rules have changed. And we Generations Xers are getting hit hard. We had to go to university to get a decent job. But the majority of us graduated with tuition debt. The good news was that when we graduated, the job market was great. I got a $5000 hiring bonus on my first job! The competition by employers for good people drove salaries up. When I was 28, I was making more money than my dad, who had been with the same company for over 20 years.
But my dad has job security. And he has a nice retirement plan that will pay him a guaranteed pension when he turns 58. Now look at me. I don’t know if I’ll ever make $80 000 again. If I do, it’ll be in 20 or more years. I have no job security. I’m paying $350 a month on my university loans. I’m paying another $250 more in payments on my BMW. And my girlfriend says it’s time for us to settle down and get married. It would be nice to own a house, but how can I commit myself to a 30-year mortgage when I don’t know if I’ll have a job in six months?” “I‘m very frustrated. I feel like my generation got a bad deal. We initially got great jobs with unrealistically high pay. I admit it; we were spoiled. We got used to working one job for six months, quitting, then taking another and getting ourselves a 25 or 30 percent raise.
We thought we’d be rich and retired by 40. The truth is that we’re now lucky to have a job and, if we do, it probably pays half what we were making a few years ago. We have no job security. The competition for jobs, combined with pressures by business to keep costs down, means a future with minimal salary increases. It is pretty weird to be only 32 years old and to have your best years behind you!”
Questions
1. Analyze Bob using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
2. Analyze Bob’s lack of motivation using equity theory and expectancy theory.
3. If you were Bob’s boss, what could you do to positively influence his motivation?
4. What are the implications of this case for employers hiring Generation Xers?
CASE STUDY-4
Moving from Colleague to Supervisor
Cheryl Kahn, Rob Carstons, and Linda McGee have something in common. They all were promoted within their organizations into management positions. As well, each found the transition a challenge. Kahn was promoted to director of catering for the Glazier Group of restaurants. With the promotion, she realized that things would never be the same again.
No longer would she be able to participate in water-cooler gossip or shrug off an employee’s chronic lateness. She says she found her new role daunting. “At first I was like a bulldozer knocking everyone over, and that was not well received. I was saying, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’ And was forgetting that my friends were also in transition.” She admits that this style alienated just about everyone with whom she worked.
Carstons, a technical manager at IBM, talks about the uncertainty he felt after being promoted to a manager from a junior programmer. “It was a little bit challenging to be suddenly giving directives to peers, when just the day before you were one of them. You try to be careful not to offend anyone. It’s strange walking into a room and the whole conversation changes. People don’t want to be as open with you when you become the boss.” McGee is now president of Medex Insurance Services.
She started as a customer service representative with the company, then leapfrogged over colleagues in a series of promotions. Her fast rise created problems. Colleagues “would say, ‘Oh, here comes the big cheese now.’ God only knows what they talked about behind my back.”
Questions
1. A lot of new managers err in selecting the right leadership style when they move into management. Why do you think this happens?
2. If new managers don’t know what leadership style to use, what does this say about leadership and leadership training?
3. Which leadership theories, if any, could help new leaders deal with this transition?
4. Do you think it’s easier or harder to be promoted internally into a formal leadership position than to come into it as an outsider? Explain.
Activities
Team building
The Paper Tower Exercise
Step 1
Each group will receive 20 index cards, 12 paper clips, and 2 marking pens. Groups have 10 minutes to plan a paper tower that will be judged on the basis of 3 criteria: height, stability, and beauty. No physical work (building) is allowed during this planning period.
Step 2
Each group has 15 minutes for the actual construction of the paper tower.
Step 3
Each tower will be identified by a number assigned by your instructor. Each student is to individually examine all the paper towers. Your group is then to come to a consensus as to which tower is the winner (5 minutes). A spokesperson from your group should report its decision and the criteria the group used in reaching it.
Step 4
In your small groups, discuss the following questions (your instructor may choose to have you discuss only a subset of these questions):
a. What percentage of the plan did each member of your group contribute, on average?
b. Did your group have a leader? Why or why not?
c. How did the group generally respond to the ideas that were expressed during the planning period?
d. To what extent did your group follow the five-stage model of group development?
e. List specific behaviours exhibited during the planning and building sessions that you felt were helpful to the group. Explain why you found them helpful.
f. List specific behaviours exhibited during the planning and building sessions that you felt were dysfunctional to the group. Explain why you found them dysfunctional.
Activity -2
A Negotiation Role Play
This role play is designed to help you develop your negotiating skills. The class is to break into pairs. One person will play the role of Terry, the department supervisor. The other person will play Dale, Terry’s boss.
The Situation: Terry and Dale work for hockey-equipment manufacturer Bauer. Terry supervises a research laboratory. Dale is the manager of research and development (R & D). Terry and Dale are former skaters who have worked for Bauer for more than 6 years. Dale has been Terry’s boss for 2 years. One of Terry’s employees has greatly impressed Terry. This employee is Lisa Roland. Lisa was hired 11 months ago. She is
24 years old and holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Her entry-level salary was $52 500 a year. She was told by Terry that, in accordance with corporation policy, she would receive an initial performance evaluation at 6 months and a comprehensive review after 1 year. Based on her performance record, Lisa was told she could expect a salary adjustment at the time of the 1-year evaluation.
Terry’s evaluation of Lisa after 6 months was very positive. Terry commented on the long hours Lisa was working, her cooperative spirit, the fact that others in the lab enjoyed working with her, and her immediate positive impact on the project to which she had been assigned. Now that Lisa’s first anniversary is coming up, Terry has again reviewed Lisa’s performance. Terry thinks Lisa may be the best new person the R & D group has ever hired. After only a year, Terry has ranked Lisa third highest in a department of 11.
Salaries in the department vary greatly. Terry, for instance, has a basic salary of $93 800, plus eligibility for a bonus that might add another $7000 to $11 000 a year. The salary range of the 11 department members is $42 500 to $79 000. The lowest salary is a recent hire with a bachelor’s degree in physics. The two people that Terry has rated above Lisa earn base salaries of $73 800 and $78 900. They are both 27 years old and have been at Bauer for 3 and 4 years, respectively. The median salary in Terry’s department is $65 300.
Terry’s Role: You want to give Lisa a big raise. While she is young, she has proven to be an excellent addition to the department. You don’t want to lose her. More important, she knows in general what other people in the department are earning, and she thinks she is underpaid. The company typically gives 1-year raises of 5 percent, although 10 percent is not unusual and 20 to 30 percent increases have been approved on occasion. You would like to get Lisa as large an increase as Dale will approve.
Dale’s Role: All your supervisors typically try to squeeze you for as much money as they can for their people. You understand this because you did the same thing when you were a supervisor, but your boss wants to keep a lid on costs. He wants you to keep raises for recent hires generally in the range of 5 to 8 percent. In fact, he has sent a memo to all managers and supervisors stating this objective. However, your boss is also very concerned with equity and paying people what they are worth. You feel assured that he will support any salary recommendation you make, as long as it can be justified. Your goal, consistent with cost reduction, is to keep salary increases as low as possible.
The Negotiation: Terry has a meeting scheduled with Dale to discuss Lisa’s performance review and salary adjustment. In your role of either Dale or Terry, take a couple of minutes to think through the facts in this exercise and to prepare a strategy.
Determine what your target and resistance points are then you have up to 15 minutes to conduct your negotiation. When your negotiation is complete, the class will compare the various strategies used and the outcomes that resulted.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
LEARNINGS: STEP TO PROGRESS
LEARNINGS: STEP TO PROGRESS: "Lets learn to unlearn old AND learn new for betterment"
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)