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Outsourcing – Is it fair to inhibit the growth of other economies by prohibiting outsourcing?
Electronic Herd
Rich/Poor Divide – Overworked/Underemployed
What are the issues on business/corporate ethics – “towing the party line” is expected at most companies. In Nancy’s hospital setting, doctors admit mistakes, and avoid malpractice suits. Patients are likelier to sue if they feel they are being kept in the dark. People asked to do corrupt things are caught in a web, they have obligations to meet, and would compromise themselves if they refused to play ball, or blew the whistle on their company’s practices.

Why is education and government in the United States relatively corruption-free? How does the structure and culture of education and government lead to corruption or the lack thereof in different societies?


Time/Space compression
24/7
Work/Family – 2 income trap – Kids need their parents present in their lives, but parents are often absent.


Can anyone survive work? – Americans work more than Europeans, striving to keep up or exceed the Joneses is an American phenomenon.


“Blue Laws” were abolished to accommodate heavier work schedules, but may lead to a deterioration of work/life balance. When asked, “what law would you introduce to your country? Dilip and his daughter decided that the Blue Law, (everything is closed Sunday) would be best.

Other topics:
1. Power
2. Accountability – would you shred documents if your boss told you to? Corporate culture, like Arthur Anderson’s, would lead otherwise honest people to dishonest acts; those who don’t play ball are out.
3. Credibility


The Global Manager – a myth, but there are three roles managers must play:

Strategic “Global” thinker
Country managerFunctional manager

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If it is true that capital goes where it can grow the most, and corporations will continue to try to make the most profit by reducing labor costs, when will outsourcing stop? Clinton contended that American workers would maintain the highest level of productivity and innovation, but that contention is in serious doubt. How can any country keep its jobs from moving to other countries?

What is the role of government? This question comes up when the economy goes through a radical transformation. Outsourcing is a surface symptom of radical transformations. Situations described in FIASCO and Nickel and Dimed are other indicators or transformation. There is a sizeable number of people making minimum wage; if you are single and earning minimum wage, you can make inasmuch as you are willing to live the American (d)ream, with a small d. In America, the ideal is to live independently; this often translates into living by oneself. Independence means not having to share space. Cultural constraints do not enable strangers to live together; in many restaurants that employ immigrants, many sleep on floors, cars, and tents. If minimum wage will not rise to a level of living wage, how can this problem be addressed? How can we establish a housing scheme that will help people improve their economic situation? An innovation is needed.

Nickel and Dimed brought out sympathy in a reader, FIASCO brought out disdain and outrage. FIASCO is a “tail wagging the dog” story; management of money is as far from material production as possible; nothing is produced, and the process of managing money becomes more and more abstract.

Can the market be constrained to consider the human cost? How can the market be managed to take humans into consideration? How to cope with incessant change?

Discussion: Money rules, but what about the economy needs to be regulated, and who should regulate this process? Why are the Chinese pushing for regulation in the midst of growth? Why do Americans resist it?


Leading Change – Michael Beer

Formula for Change:

Amount of Change = (Dissatisfaction x Model x Process) > Cost of Change

Dissatisfaction should be generated to motivate employees to change.

Change will not work unless a change of behavior is demanded. (Process) The change in the Model will dictate how behavior ought to be changed. Together, these factors have to exceed the cost of change, or change will not happen.

Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change – Beer, Eisenstat, Spector

The key figure in change isn’t a CEO, but a unit manager.

Two assumptions:

1) Mission Statements transform corporations
2) Employee behavior is changed by altering structure and systems.

Aligning work is the key to effective change; upper management lends guidance and support, and share successes when it is time to institutionalize change.

Six Steps to Change:

1) Mobilize commitment to change through joint diagnosis of business problems
2) Develop a shared vision of how to organize and manage for competitiveness
3) Foster consensus for the new vision, competence to enact it, and cohesion to move it along
4) Spread revitalization to all departments without pushing from the top
5) Institutionalize revitalization through formal policies, systems, and structures
6) Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems in the revitalization process

There is no change unless employee behavior changes. Telling them to behave differently will not do, a situation must be created that will force behavior change.

Managing Change: The Art of Balancing – Duck

Every part of a company is interdependent.

“Management is the message.” The behavior of management around the change sets the tone for employees.

Communication and feelings are important. Complaining is allowed, as long as employees are willing to work toward solutions, as long as the criticism is constructive. Allowing visits to “Pity City” creates trust. By the same token, people are allowed to celebrate their little victories.

Change is the time of most anxiety and mistrust. People want to know they are not about to lose their jobs. Duck promotes capability and predictability, so that people know what is expected and are given the tools to succeed in a new environment.
Transition Management Teams, 8-12 talented leaders who make the transition a reality, is the CEO’s “national guard”.

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Final Paper should draw on specific race or gender issues from the workplace; norms will vary depending on kind of work, e.g. non-profit vs. large law firm.

Are race and gender negotiated differently because of the subculture of work? Specific ideas, like “marked” and “unmarked”, “coded” and “un-coded”, glass ceilings, miscommunications, et al, should be contextualized; also note whether the subculture of work accentuates these problems. Why is the subculture the way it is, e.g. the boss, tradition, et al.

Due March 4, or electronically by March 7.


Short paper on Managing Change is due on March 15. Talk about change precipitated by a specific cause. How was the change concretely triggered?


FIASCO

How do individuals and societies deal with risk? Will derivatives lead to the downfall of Western civilizations, or a necessary hedge against financial risk? Derivatives help manage risk. In traditional or primitive society, what could threaten the lives of people? Nature could lead to famine. Nothing could be done about the lack of rain or excess water from monsoons, but people created damns, began to preserve food rather that eat it in order to reduce risk. Today, it is loss of a job, illness, or divorce that can have the greatest negative impact on people’s lives. Is it better to lose a job, have a catastrophic illness, or divorce in the U.S., Germany, or Sweden? For job loss, perhaps Germany is best, but the U.S. may be better for catastrophic illness if health care can be afforded. The U.S. is the best place to find a new job, but Sweden may be the best place to be unemployed in the long-term. The U.S. is the best place for a divorced woman, because of the stigma attached to divorce in Germany, and her greater likelihood of gaining employment in the U.S.

Societies manage risk differently. When a risk-free society seemed close, health care risks went up with the spread of AIDS and avian flu, and nuclear proliferation has become a serious problem; not only is the world not risk-free, but also it is more risk-conscious.

It appears that managing our own money is more complex, but we are in greater control over our own money. Risk is sought; poker is watched on television and played by kids for money. A derivative is worthless on its own, it isn’t an individual security, but is a position taken on the movement of the price of a security. Put is the right to sell at a specified price for a specific period of time; a call is the right to buy at the “strike price”. Derivatives are hedge tools.

In FIASCO, Morgan Stanley traders use the derivatives to make money, rather than hedge risk. Fund managers, who are prohibited from investing in certain securities, invested in derivative instruments on behalf of their shareholders. What tempts the money managers to invest in risky instruments for ½% difference? The aggregate result looks good for the manager; though the difference to the individual investor may be small, the fund managers make a bonus. Individual investors are not qualified to assess the risks of their own funds’ investments, and the instruments themselves create, rather than control, volatility. Enron fell because its management chose to speculate on energy, and invested in bad contracts.

Are these people rogues, or is FIASCO symptomatic of financial markets in general? Is it individuals or the system? Where does the culture come from? Making money was the only priority of the Morgan Stanley traders, the temptation to make extraordinary returns, or maximize profit, is high. The quest for dough is what created the culture.


Comparing Nickel and Dimes with FIASCO, what is valued in each type of work is clear; the money culture has diluted other values in many companies, and profit should not displace other values in the health care industry, for example. In FIASCO, money is clearly what is valued, to the exclusion of all else. Is money-culture contained in the Wall Street world, or is it spreading? In the 1970s or 1980s, money took over as a dominant value…have all professional athletes suddenly become corrupt drug users at once?

Dilip suggests that like Aristotle’s principle of “geometric proportion” that a person is capable of an evil is he is capable of a greater evil, companies that are capable of mistreating employees are also capable of mistreating stockholders, and abstract entity.

In the past 20 years, priorities have changed to revolve around money; the Comm school has no development officer, and no access to a pool of money raised by other schools or departments. This does not reflect old university values.

Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0465081894/002-8716181-0814453

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How Race is Lived in America

Three Friends – Which of the three friends felt the most pressure? The Black Muslim Girl said she had no one to hang out with…there is such a thing as white and black behavior. Public school is the place where people of different races interact, often for the first time. In a city like Evanston, there is a “middle bulge” where people of different races interact a lot, including dating. The bulge shrinks through high school. Why? Where are the cues to separate coming from? Music, sports, advertising are racially coded. Consumption of African-American culture is an American culture experience.

Who Can Tell A Black Story? - Why the social assumption that only black person can tell a black story?

A Limited Partnership – Black man yields the CEO position for which he is more qualified than his white partner, because it would be more difficult to do business in GA with a black as CEO.

Why Harlem Drug Cops Don’t Discuss Race – Racial profiling, Dominicans believe that 90% of their community is involved in drug trafficking, other blacks support the police against the Dominican community. The cops disagree whether the shooting of an unarmed man was justified, the division runs along racial lines. The Dominican police think they would be more careful, wouldn’t have shot Aiello.


Gender Issues


Deborah Tannen – Talking from 9 to 5

She assumes that:

1) Men and Women work together more now than ever.
2) In much of American work the relational aspect of talk is an integral part of the functional aspect; communication is integral to work.
3) Talk is culturally “coded”; race and gender are cultural factors.
4) These factors influence the effectiveness of communication, and women are at a disadvantage at work as a result.

In Chapter 2, Tannen notes that women say they are sorry as a way to initiate communication; it is a part of social ritual. Men consider someone who says they are sorry in a “one-down” position, indicates a lack of confidence on the part of the person who says he or she is sorry. Because of this, men and women should be more aware of the speech rituals they engage in, and realize what the rituals of the other gender really mean. Tannen calls this “anthropological linguistics.” The use of personal pronouns shows identification with a group; linguistic practices reveal our view of the world. “Us vs. them”…speech between equals and between subordinate and superior are examples of hierarchical relationships that are reflected in language.
Chapter 4, “Marked”, says that everything about a woman’s speech and appearance is an identifier, reveals something about her, whereas nothing about men marks them. Judgments are made about the speaker as a result of markers. People are more concerned about Laura Bush’s dress during George Bush’s speeches than his dress. Men have the “privilege of invisibility”. Women’s non-functional “cattiness” at work is marked, whereas men’s non-functional speech and action is not marked. Because of the marking, women have to be constantly aware of their appearance.

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Hertzberg – One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?


There are two ways to make jobs more interesting – Horizontal and Vertical Loading.

Horizontal Loading – Adding territory, reports, et al – “Job Loading” – “enlarges the meaninglessness of a job”, “reduces the personal contribution of employees”.

Vertical Loading – Increasing employees’ autonomy, accountability, variety/challenge, support staff, opportunities to become experts – “Job Enrichment” – control over a complete natural unit of work

Two presuppositions:

1) Hygiene items, when absent, are de-motivating, but their presence is not motivating;
2) Affinity for the job is a motivator

How to make people like the job?

Steps for Enrichment:

1) Select jobs in which change is low-cost, attitudes are poor, hygiene is costly, motivation will make a difference;
2) Approach with the conviction that the job can be changed;
3) Brainstorm
4) Screen the list for hygiene items
5) Screen for generalities
6) Screen for horizontal loading
7) Avoid employee participation
8) Experiment with a control group of employees
9) Prepare for a drop in productivity
10) Expect anxiety from first-line supervisors.



Race


American slavery was distinctive because of its economic dimension, and because one race of people had enslaved a different race. Political rights were granted after the emancipation proclamation, but there was rollback in the South; American blacks had to fight for rights they were entitled to by the Constitution. They also fought for economic rights, or full participation in the American economy, e.g. participation in Labor Unions.
What other struggle do American blacks face? A cultural recognition, or valuing “things African-American”, is a struggle against negative stereotypes. Racial markers are more obdurate; it takes longer for an African American to be regarded as an individual rather than as a member of his or her ethnic group.

Almost all Americans have to negotiate race; one place race is negotiated is at work. How do we do it? Networking, mentoring in the workplace is limited because of its social component, and blacks and women are often not included. Why are whites not fluent in the Asian network, though Asians are fluent in the white network? Why are blacks excluded from both?

Discussion on How Race is Lived in America

Shared Prayers, Mixed Blessings – Georgia Pentecostal Church

Best of Friends, Worlds Apart – Ruiz and Valdez, Two Cuban immigrants

Which Man’s Army – Accusations of Racism in the same Army Company

For Next Week, read the first five chapters of Talking From 9-5.

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For next week, read chapters 1-5, 9 and 13 of How Race is Lived in America. The book is a compilation of articles the New York called for on the subject of race.

Ellis Cose – Ten years ago, Cose identified subtle forms of racism at the workplace, success was superficial, high-level jobs not often given high-level responsibility. In 2002, he wrote a Newsweek article that suggested things have changed, read for next week.

For next week, identify the tensions in each article, and prepare to discuss or lead a discussion on each.

Managers and Leaders – Zaleznik

Kotter would say that management and leadership are different functions, and leadership can be learned; Zaleznik thinks that leaders and managers are different kinds of people. Zaleznik does not create a hierarchical relationship by making managers less than leaders, but distinguishes between them w/ 4 categories:

1) Their attitude about themselves
2) How they relate to others
3) How they view work
4) What are their goals

Zaleznik uses William James comparison between once and twice born. Once-born means that there is continuity between early development and current situation, he or she is in harmony with past, not in conflict with environment, is socialized; “The line of development from family to schools, then to career is cumulative and reinforcing”. Twice-borns are ill-at ease with surroundings, seem listless or directionless, sometimes bored or angry; they undergo a crisis, or rebirth, that results in a new sense of self. They are thus transformed, become determined and clear in their purpose. Twice-borns are often indifferent students, and develop as leaders later with one-on-one relationships with mentors. A clear example of such a transformation would be acknowledgment of homosexuality; after their sexuality is acknowledged, the person’s behavior changes, usually in favor of healthier behavior.

Steve Jobs refused to license its OS, which many considered a mistake; Jobs wanted to maintain the integrity of his products (He is doing the same with ipod, refusing a relationship with Real Player). Jobs was replaced with Jim Scully from Pepsico, the Gil Amelio, et al. Apple crashed and burned because under other leadership because there is too much theoretical/conceptual underpinnings to the work, not enough procedure. Jobs is brought back to run the company again. Jobs buought Pixar from George Lucas, and succeeds in non-linear fashion prior to coming back to Apple; now does both. Jobs also created ipod and itunes when other big-name computer companies avoided the online music business.
Managers relate to work like Alfred Sloan did; the dominant water-cooled car engine was what others in GM supported, but Kettering wanted Sloan to fund work on an air-cooled engine. Sloan manipulates circumstances to make everyone appear to get what they wanted; the air-cooled engine died on the vine.

Managers:

1) Try to go from win-lose to win-win situations, attention to procedure rather than substance;
2) Communicates with subordinates indirectly;
3) Plays for time.


Managers try to avoid risk, and act conservatively, whereas leaders do not. “Leaders may work in organizations, but never belong to them.” Manager is the most representative character in modern life, the most distinctive figure of modernity. According to Kotter, managers manage complexity, which is growing in business. (George Washington was a good manager, but Jefferson, a visionary and inventor, was often bankrupt.) Technologies used to handle complexity create more complexity, and leads to the depreciation of leaders because skill, rather than leadership, is necessary to manage technology. What happens when change is introduced to managers? They are stumped when their routines are interrupted; therefore, a different skill than the ability to manage complexity is required, leadership. Psychologist Eric Ericson wrote books on Gandhi and Martin Luther; Gandhi had a deep crises before becoming a great soul, and Luther was conflicted before creating the schism.

Kotter – Power, Dependence, and Effective Management

Managers are dependent on others; they cannot accomplish their work without the cooperation of others. How does a manager get cooperation? Exercise power. But in America, the idea of exercising power is an uncomfortable one, Americans want to camouflage the exercise of power. Why? A democratic sensibility? Other cause? The idea of parity is what makes he exercise of power unpalatable; we are moving toward an increasingly persuasive means by which we exercise power in America.

The military command structure is sacrosanct; the chain of command is clear, and based on rank. Persuasion is the opposite of military order, the other “pole”; the person of whom a request is made is free to make another choice, not obliged to comply. Persuasion takes time, but can be used to get more out of employees than prescribed by formal rules; the use of formal power gives a manager a range of options to make things happen with speed, but its scope is narrow, applicable in limited circumstances. (e.g. Dilip can ask Brenda Williams to make copies of an article, but not pick him up if his car is broken)

Establishing Power in Relationships – Face to Face Methods

1) Persuasion, by means of doing favors or “making friends”, helps create a sense of obligation, enables exchange of favors;
2) Identification with a manager can help persuade an employee to do more, e.g. Dilip can ask things of students with whom he shares ethic background that he couldn’t ask others;
3) Belief in a manger’s expertise gives manager leverage with people who may need them to grant them a favor later;
4) Perceived Dependence on a Manger indicates that one can be persuaded by a manager in exchange for promises of help, or to avoid being hurt by the manager (Tim Babcock story of flash-firings at a division of a manufacturing company);
5) Formal Authority – helps develop the other four types of power.
6) Combine methods

Indirect Methods

1) Manipulate Environments using any or all of the face-to-face methods;
2) Change the forces that continuously act on the individual – formal organizational arrangements, informal social arrangements.


Oncken and Wass – Who’s Got the Monkey?

How does a manager manage keep his or her work time sacred, and take the monkeys of subordinate-imposed time out of self-imposed time, in order to do planning and training, the boss- and system- imposed time?

What kind of report do you want? Choices are:

1) Wait until told:
2) Ask what to do;
3) Recommend, then take resulting action:
4) Act but advise at once:
5) Act on own, then routinely support.

The manager should outlaw the use of 1 and 2, then assign agreed-upon levels of initiative to each problem.



Care and Feeding of Monkeys:

1) Monkeys should be fed or shot
2) The monkey population should e kept below the maximum number the manager has time to feed;
3) Monkeys should be fed by appointment only
4) Monkeys should be fed face-to-face or by telephone, never by mail
5) Every monkey should have an assigned next feeding time and degree of initiative.


Managing Your Boss – Gabarro and Kotter
To “manage a boss”, employees must recognize, understand, and adapt to manager’s style. “Attend and Monitor

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Reaction to the Posner and Kouzes credibility reading:

- Credibility is a relational concept, people have to attribute integrity, competence, and leadership to a person, who must “communicate” their credibility.

- Credibility is displayed during periods of challenge, change, and crisis.

- Can credibility be taught? (Are leaders made, rather than born?) Cultural elements influence development of credibility; varieties of environments, gender differences make a difference, but people can be trained to “read social situations” as well as those who have a natural aptitude for it, have social efficacy as a “natural trait”. (So much of MSC is common sense, but people often fail to use it).



Mintzberg’s Folklore and Fact:

Post-anthroponorial work:

1) Pressure to do many kinds of tasks;
2) Rapidly changing work environment



An empirical study of managers combined with secondary research, 4 myths:

1) Management is systematic planning – their work is actually characterized by brevity and action-orientation, they don’t favor reflection.
2) Managers have no regular duties – they actually do, and they rarely see a plan materialize
3) Senior Managers need aggregated information – decisions are based on anecdotal information
4) Management is a science and a profession, and becoming increasingly scientific – it is an art.

The article emphasizes that management is a communicative skill.


3 Categories of Manager’s Roles:


Interpersonal Roles: Figurehead, leader, liaison.- The laison role is the crucial outward-looking role

Informational Roles: Monitor, Disseminator, Spokesperson - Monitor is connected to liaison role, constant scoping of the horizon/environment

Decisional Roles: Entrepreneur, Disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator - Entrepreneur role is a reflection of independent thinking and ownership.




Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s New Managerial Work

Hank – changes make reports feel a loss of power, confusion about status of line managers.

George – change in customer relationship strategy at bank, cross-departmental teams where there was once heirarchy

Sally – analyst, benefits from changes in relationships with external suppliers


1) Greater variety of channels for action and influence;
2) From vertical to horizontal, peer networks;
3) Distinction between manager and managed diminishing, esp. access to external relationships, information, and control over assignments;
4) External relationships are more important as sources of power, influence;
5) Career development has become less intelligible but less circumscribed.


Entrepreneurial opportunity is used to motivate and attract talent. Problem-solving, initiative-taking employees are sought.

Tools to encourage high performance and commitment:

1) Mission – people believe in the importance of their work
2) Agenda Control – control over own work
3) Share of Value Creation – share in returns
4) Learning
5) Reputation

In the absence of monetary motivators, learning and reputation are the best motivators, because they help one develop a career or the regard with which they are held in a company. The new security is “employability security” – value in the internal and external labor markets.

Is the “new work” sustainable?