Marc’s MSLD Reflection Blog

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, has been quoted as saying “change is the only constant in life” (As cited in Singer, 2017). Our day in age seems to be defined by constant change, and the pace of change is accelerating. We have more information accessible at our fingertips than any other age throughout the history of the world.  With just a few taps and clicks on our smartphones, or even by just asking Siri, we can find out detailed information about nearly any topic. Advances in transportation technology has made the world smaller.  Within just a couple days products can be delivered nearly anywhere around the globe. Organizations have had to evolve and adjust to keep pace with this constant world of change. Two examples of leaders from different types of organizations that have had to evolve to survive are Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale of Gallery Furniture in Houston, Texas, and General Stanley McChrystal.  The financial downturn in 2008 deeply affected ...

Brown (2011) explained that a self-managed work team is “an autonomous group whose members decide how to handle their task.”  Paul Tesluk explained, “instead of a formal supervisor having responsibility it’s up to the team to decide how they structure themselves and how they go about organizing their workflow and process” (INSEAD, 2008).  Self-managed teams are given responsibility to carry out all tasks associated with the completion of an objective. Self-managed teams are frequently given responsible for a wide range of supporting tasks, “including setting work schedules, budgeting, making job assignments, developing performance goals, hiring and selecting team members, assessing job performance of fellow members, purchasing equipment, and controlling quality” (Brown, 2011).   Self-managed teams are typically composed of from five to fifteen members that are skilled and knowledgeable about their area of expertise. Diversity of background, experience, and train...

Seagate Technology, “ the global leader in data storage solutions” (Seagate, n.d.),  puts special emphasis on team building. Each year the organization sends 200 of its employees from around the world to an outdoor lab experience in New Zealand called EcoSeagate (Brown, 2011).  Despite the current emphasis on team building, Seagate Technology did not always place such high value on cohesive teams. Soon after becoming CEO of Seagate, Bill Watkins said, “They called it Slavegate.  People got fired all the time. The CEO had a grenade on his desk” (As cited in Brown, 2011). EcoSeagate attendees experience team building through adventure activities such as mountain biking, repellings, whitewater rafting, and zip-lining (Chao, 2008a).  “With such a foreign and intimidating environment, everyone feels off balance and no one has an advantage over anyone else” (Brown, 2011). Participants are selected from among more than 2,000 applicants consisting of “a cross sec...

In 1985, shortly after leaving Apple, Steve Jobs began a new company called NeXT, Inc.  Their first product, the NeXT Computer, was unveiled in 1988 and combined powerful hardware and software in ways that previously had not been done (Garfinkel, n.d.). A documentary video entitled “Steve Jobs Brainstorms with NeXT Team,” gives insight into the culture that existed at NeXT, and the relationships between Jobs and his team during the first few months they were working together at NeXT.  From the video I was able to see that Jobs had a clear vision, and he worked hard to ensure that his team was able to see and be aligned with the same vision. It appears that he was fairly demanding, requiring that his team members be accountable for their actions.  I also found it refreshing to see how transparent Jobs was with his team. It seems that he did not couch his language, and he was willing to admit when he was part of the problem. The video indicated that Jobs was “ass...

In a TED Talk entitled “Build a Tower, Build a Team” Tom Wujec describes a team building exercise that he uses at design workshops. The challenge involves building a tower in eighteen minutes using twenty pieces of dry spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow.  The goal is to have the tallest tower with the marshmallow on top. “Though it seems really simple it is actually pretty hard because it forces people to collaborate very quickly” (Wujec, 2010).  Wujec (2010) explained that the results were surprising; groups composed of kindergarteners generally were able to build structures taller than groups composed of business school students and executives.  Wujec’s reasoning for the kindergartener’s success was that “they build successive prototypes, always keeping the marshmallow on top, so they have multiple times to fix and build the prototypes along the way” (2010).  He explained that this is the “essence of the iterative process” (Wuj...

In today’s turbulent business climate it seems as though there is really only one constant: change.  Change is all around us. Over the last one-hundred and fifty years there have been more changes in the way we live our lives than there were in the previous five thousand.  We have changed the way and the speed at which we communicate. Communication used to be at the speed of a horse. The invention of the telephone in 1876 made it possible to communicate with far away people at the speed of light (Borth, n.d.)!  We can now communicate with people nearly anywhere in the world with the cell phones we carry in our pockets. First the fax machine, and now email and the internet have made it possible to send documents, pictures, video, or nearly any other information instantly.  The availability, speed, and safety of air travel seems to have made the globe smaller, making far away lands accessible within a few hours. When Christopher Columbus first crossed the Atl...

How Companies Can Make Better Decisions Greenfield (2004) indicated that “moving some decision making closer to employees could easily become the most financially valuable initiative most companies could undertake.”  In addition, “most studies found a statistically significant positive relationship between strong corporate culture and financial performance.” Blenko (as cited in Harvard Business Review, 2010) stated that “Companies that are better at making and executing decisions really do seem to operate at a much faster metabolism and have better financial results.”  Organizations that empower their employees to make decisions demonstrate improved performance for a couple of reasons. First, recruiting and training expenses are reduced. Employees that are engaged and empowered are more loyal to their employers, and are less likely to seek alternative employment options. Companies that generate loyalty and engagement in their employees have lower turnover, and therefo...