Reflection on Guest Lecture of Middle Managers

It was interesting to listen to Mica Wulff Kamm's lecture about her working experience as a middle manager in Telia Sonera. I can see how she enjoys her current position because she can involve in a lot of operations, strategies and decision making.

A company may face several times of re-organization and the new strategy will be implemented due to the tenure of new CEO. Middle mangers play an important role in the communication between the subordinates and top management teams. When there's a change of strategy within an organization, middle managers functions as the bridge to transmit the information correctly to their employees so that everyone is coherent to the same vision. It is inevitable that employees may have emotional problems with the change; for example, they may feel insecure or anxious about their positions and future career paths. However, middle managers may face the same problems as their subordinates do because they are not only the targets but also the agents of the change; they need to find the balance between the operation and leadership by using soft skills to help the employees through change and hard skills to let them recognize the direction of the organization, and implement the strategy effectively.

I agree with her view that middle managers are getting more and more important in a company. They are responsible to guide and coach the well-educated people to achieve the goals. However, the dilemma of their role exists and they need to find solutions for them. Take re-organization for example, she mentioned that it is better to get involved in it because you will be able to decide which job you really want. I think this also means that a middle manager needs to be very proactive in the organizational activities, especially in organizational strategies. While in real lives, I find it hard for middle managers to have authority to make major decisions. Although they enjoy the empowerment, they sometimes are put in an embarrassing position between the top managers and subordinates because the communication may fail and they do not own the actual power to make a decision. They need to execute what is decided by their higher level managers.

From my point of view, interpersonal skills is one of the management skills which a middle manager should possess. He or she should be able to handle the resistance of his/her staffs through transitions, coach them and direct them. He/She should be reliable, accountable, and proactive. His/Her social network is very cricial for him/her to build a strong connetion with the industry and people and gain more useful information. To make good use of the networking, he/she can perform better than he/she expects. In addition, the relationship in the company no matter the level of position is high or low is also essentail.

All in all, as an organization grows, the demand of capable middle managers increases. They are strategic assets and change intermediaries in a firm. Without them, there will be gaps between the top management and employees and it will be difficult to achieve the goals.


References:

Balogun, J. (2003) From Blaming the Middle to Harnessing its Potential: Creating Change Intermediaries, British Journal of Management, vol. 14, 69-83.

Huy, N. Q. (2002) Emotional Balancing of Organizational Continuity and Radical Change, Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(1), 31-69.

Growing Pains?

Recently we read an article about growing pains and the author states the ten most common organizational ones, which are quite interesting. Since our group needed to teach this module, we found it was published in 1990 and the examples might have been out of date; thus, we tried to look for updated ones in order to make the teaching session more interesting. However, we spent a lot of time searching and it's a pity that little information could be found related to this topic. Most can be looked up on internet is about human's growing pains. Though it has nothing to do with organizational growing pains, it occurs to me that the pains come into existence when facing a transition from one stage to the next no matter it happens to people or companies.

I have worked for a big telecom firm for several years and this article reminds me a lot of the situations as I was working there. For example, people are not aware of what other people are doing, there are too few good managers, most people feel that meetings are a waste of time, and so on. I observed that the most serious problem there is the unclear defined roles and responsibilities. Also, most employees spend a lot of time in meetings which usually are neither well organized nor planned; therefore, they waste a lot of time and do nothing productive to the firm. It makes me wonder that those problems exist not only in a growing organization because my former company is a very stable one. The management team is the one who should be responsible for those pains.

Another interesting point is the ninth organizational growing pain: Some people feel insecure about their place in the firm. I heard my ex-colleague said it is obvious that there is little business in the company for the 3th and 4th quarters of 2008; most employees feel insecure and are trying hard to grab other co-workers' jobs. As we date back the economical history in Taiwan, there has been a great deal of large cutbacks in personnel from several years ago, the telecom industry was no exception. People feel insecure when the company doesn't run well or has no business. This pain does not only exist in the growing organizations, but also in those which are unstable or of little business opportunity.

Reference:
Flemholtz, E. G. (1990). Growing Pains: How to make the transition from an entrepreneurship to a professionally managed firm. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Success of Threadless

When I heard Threadless in Professor Haff's seminar, I found the firm a good example of innovation. Although it is a web based retail company, it is far from those online apparel shopping ones. Its success has aroused my interest a great deal.

The t-shirts designs are uploaded and scored by the public on their website. Those who are interested in designing a t-shirt can have the chance to show their works and see how popular they are. It is a good way to let people have a space to not only display their creativity and talent in design but also make money and gain achievements from it.

From Threadless's view, they have saved the personnel and operational expenses on designers. In addition, it makes good use of crowd sourcing, gathers the intelligence from the masses, and sets up a good example of the business model. Its creative marketing and up-to-date designs are attractive to us as well. Most people are sick of wearing a t-shirt and meeting a person who's wearing the same one very often. Threadless provides the unique designs and limited amount of t-shirts to their customers and makes them special as well.

Threadless has been a brand which symbolizes fun, unique, and creativity. Its website is direct, simple and effective. Customers can view the latest designs on the homepage. The website design is easy and user friendly. This is also one of the primary factors to its success.













Reference:
http://www.threadless.com/
http://mmdays.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/threadless/

Opportunity Creation and Identification

Knowing that we had to sign up for the seminar debate, I found myself more interested in Opportunity Creation. From my point of view, an entrepreneur is one who dares to take risks and is always willing to take challenges. He or she has the vision which most people can not see. Opportunities don't come and knock our doors, I believe we should create them.

After the debate, I have to admit that some opportunities have already exist and they are waiting for us to discover. Opportunity identification and creation can be applied and combined to develop business. Nevertheless, the mindset of an entrepreneur is the most important of all. He or she should be optimistic, curious, and willing to try new things, otherwise any excellent opportunity can't be seized even if they are in front of the entrepreneur.

Characteristics of Entrepreneurs

It was interesting to learn some important points in Mr. Tatsuno's New Venture Financing lecture. He kept reminding all of us not to do a business for money, the importance of cash flow, and the tips of bootstrapping.

When looking for angels, I agree that an entrepreneur should have the characteristics of integrity and honesty which will appeal to angels. A proverb says, " Birds of a feather flock together." which can explain why those characteristics are absolutely necessary for an entrepreneur's success. Moreover, he will find a great team which is composed of A people as well. Those angels and A team are attracted by the vision which is shared by the entrepreneur, instead of talking about money.

One of the keys to venture financing is K.I.S.S. ( Keep It Simple and Stupid. ) It sounds funny, but it's true. When we want to solve a problem, we usually overlook it and forget the easiest way to the solution. Sometimes the simplest and most stupid thought can be the most creative innovation and we shall not ignore the power of it.

I admire Blake Roney, chairman and co-founder of Nu Skin Enterprise, who held the simple belief that he wanted to produce "all of the good, none of the bad" skin care products for human beings. No one believed that he could make because even big cosmetics firms can not afford the high cost of ingredients and environmental protection packages, not to mention of the cost of changing the production lines. With the bootstrapping strategy (the business was started with 500 dollars), the business soon turned to be a hyper-growth venture with the revenue of 100,000 dollars in 10 years. He always tells the distributors to put their family in the first place instead of your personal success. He also asks them to recruit those who are honest because cheating is not the way to success. His sole concern is to improve people's lives no matter in personal finance or in health; however, he himself owns a simple life even though he is already a successful entrepreneur. It is obvious that he has a talented management team to run the company well and a lot of outstanding distributors to promote the opportunity and products. From my point of view, it is Blake Roney's view, and noble and honesty characteristics that brings them into his venture. The core value is what they really believe in, and NSE even established a non-profit organization called Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation which was led by Lee Iacocca voluntarily to improve human life and protect fragile environments. Blake Roney always thinks about people's benefits, which has paved the right way from the beginning.


Reference:
http://www.nuskinenterprises.com/
http://www.forceforgood.org/

Reflection on Creativity Literature

When reading Improving The Creativity of Organizational Work Groups, there are a lot of key points which talk about team creativity. Surprisingly, I learned a lot insights which were different from my previous impression on them.

I used to think that creative teamwork is better than individual. I enjoy teamwork because it can spark and inspire one another to enhance our creativity and it is beneficial to all of the team members. Since each individual is unique, everyone looks at things at different angels. By sharing their ideas in a group, it is positive to the team performance. From my point of view, brainstorming is a famous method to stimulate participants' creativity growth. However, after reading Thompson's analysis, I agree that there are also some obstacles to creative teamwork. If all of the participants are open-minded to various opinions, brainstorming is an effective way and is beneficial to creativity. Unfortunately, we can not control the quality of participants and force them to accept divergent thinking. In addition, people are inclined to avoid conflicts within a group so that they will try to compromise with others. Such situation is definitely a defect to creative thinking as well as that resulted from conformity.

The author mentioned that absence of hierarchy and bureaucracy are killers to creativity. I can't agree with it more. This circumstance is even more serious in Chinese society. Comparing to Western societies, we Chinese are taught to respect and follow what the older, the senior, and your bosses say and it is hardly to be allowed to express ourselves no matter how wonderful your ideas are. It is frustrating because I believe employees may have higher creativity than the managers do. We are envious of the relationships between supervisors and employees in Western countries because usually they have a smooth channel to communicate with their bosses. When I worked for Ericsson Taiwan, our former president who is an Irish can not only accept and listen to every one's opinions and even ask HR to build a web-based communication channel for employees to express themselves to any department heads or himself. Although most local employees still kept silent even when they had any creative thoughts or complaints, some who spoke out did let us see the new vitality of the company. There were some new and creative devices applied to save the cost in our organization. The most impressive one was that mobile office was on the way and that was an innovative office management which can not only save the working space and rent but also the mobility of most employees will lead to a more efficient and flexible ways of working.

I also found Cliffe's article interesting because it states the problems a manger encounters and that is quite common and may happen anywhere. I would say that Andy is so self-centered and egoistic that he scares everyone in the office and can hardly have a real friend. He should learn to respect others and be polite. Relationship is the most complicated part in a firm and, of course, it is difficult to deal with. I agree with Jordan that it is Jane's job to manage people although Andy may not change at all. When people have conflicts and difficulty in working together, it will be too late to find a solution. Jane needs to train the team with conflict management because it will happen anytime no matter with your co-workers, families, or friends. We can also let Andy put on the black hat to change the perceptions on him from others, but I don't think people can change their impressions on a person in a short time. Furthermore, if Andy doesn't adjust his behaviour, he will never be accepted regardless how great his work performance is. Behaviour and relationships do count in the overall performance. Chinese people put more emphasis on human relationships in daily life as it is one of the key factors to succeed. Without it, you need to be very outstanding and make more efforts than those who have good relationships.

To sum up, those articles are really inspiring and make me think a lot of the differences between traditional thoughts and new ideas on management which have either positive or negative effects to creativity. It is no doubt that entrepreneurship needs the infusion of creativity to make innovation.

Reference:
Thompson, L. (2003). Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of Management Executive, Vol. , No. 1
Cliff, S. (2001). What a Star – What a Jerk. Harvard Business Review, September 2001

Creativity in My Entrepreneurship

Frankly speaking, I think that my thoughts have been restricted by the traditional ways of education and ethical boundaries in Taiwan for years. Even after I entered the workplace, I found it difficult to develop one's own creativity in such culture and environment. However, in recent years, there are more and more companies in my home country, like Google and Microsoft, which are full of vitality and creativity and successfully enhanced the creative ability withing their employees as well. They really catch my attention and that is what I would like to achieve if I start up my own company.

To reach the creativity increment for my ideal company, my strategies can be divided into two aspects: software and hardware. Software means the resources; in other words, the people I would hire to work for me. Hardware means the working environment.

According to Robert I. Sutton, it is interesting to have a reverse thinking when hiring an employee; namely, an entrepreneur should recruit those who most managers or co-workers do not like to get along with or work with. I can not agree with his point that a slow learner is good for a company's creativity. I would rather hire someone who is smart and learn everything quickly. Since they are so brilliant that they will always figure out new solutions and invent new ideas for business. This is positive to the whole company because other co-workers will be stimulated and inspired by them at the same time. However, such kind of creative people have a definite character that they don't abide by the rules that they think unreasonable. I will have to stand it and listen to them because they are so creative and their reasons are certainly of great value to me. These employees may be hard to handle, but what they need is a right place for them so that their creativity and talents won't be limited and restrained. Their ideas may sound wild to others, but they may plant seeds of innovation for my company. If those seeds are killed by others before they bud, it will be a huge loss for the company.

People issue is always one of the major problem in a firm. In Cliffe's article, I think I will not be able to stand an employee with bad behavior toward his co-workers. No matter how outstanding his performance is, he will definitely ruin the harmony in the office and is a poison to others. I will look into each employee's advantages and arrange the position and work which is best for them to develop their expertise. Besides, the chance of job rotation will let them learn more skills and may discover their specialty in another new field. As for those who are creative and smart but egoistic and difficult to get along with, it is important to set up a core value as Mary Rowe suggested for the entrepreneurship. It is also essential to develop my own entrepreneurial culture so as to create a common view for every employee toward their work and they can cooperate with each other well.

Aside from the above points for people management, it is also important to define and clarify roles and responsibilities well as McKenzie mentioned. From my past working experience, it's been a serious problem within my previous company because most people are not aware of what their real job scopes are and what they should do. When confronting a lazy but senior colleague who push his job to you, whether you should take it or not might influence your own performance and interpersonal relationships a great deal. I believe that not everyone has the experience and skills to deal with the situation well. Therefore, the clarification of roles and responsibilities should be set up at the beginning for each position and division. For those excellent but not good at getting along with others, I will separate them from others. Thus, they won't influence others' performance and can fully utilize their capability without being interfered. In the end, everyone works toward his target and increases the creativity and effectiveness for my company.

As for the working environment, I agree with Thompson that a playground should be built. In Taiwan, most workplaces are designed only for work. Employees are under pressure and may not have their own creativity in such circumstances. I have read a report about the innovative office design which is really a dream office for me and my ex-colleagues to work in . Moreover, these companies may have some entertainment or enjoy the tea time in an office cafe during working hours. I believe the appropriate relax and fun can stir employees working spirits and promote the morale in my company. Colorful decoration, relax, and fun will be the major elements in my company working environment. When it's fun to work, creativity and effectiveness will automatically generated.

Reference:
Thompson, L. (2003). Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 17, No. 1
Cliff, S. (2001). What a Star – What a Jerk. Harvard Business Review
Sutton, R. (2001). The Weird Rules of Creativity. Harvard Business Review