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 Each time that I can watch Sheena Iyengar, I can honestly say that I learn something. Unlike other presentations I've seen, she has a real way of presenting her data and her information. To begin, she mentions four areas that can help us make choosing a better experience. They are, cut, concertize (concrete), categorize, and condition for complexity. Each one was interesting to learn about this week and I now have a better understanding of how each one can play it's own part in the marketplace.

The first implication I wanted to touch on was the cut aspect. Like she stated, people do not know what to do with themselves when their choices are taken from them. I personally believe that as a society, we want as many choices as possible. Taking what she said into consideration, people don't want there to be less choice even though it would help them in the everyday application of things. When I'm shopping at out local supermarket (Woodmans), I find that my wife and I laugh about how long it takes us to find things and then to decide on what brand to buy. Like Sheena mentions, we have to many choices and it actually makes our buying experience less enjoyable. I doubt the retailers wants to loose customers over their frustration and annoyance. I could see how having less decisions to make in a organizational role could be beneficial to the overall success of the company. You wouldn't want one employee to have to make a lot of minute decisions and have a million options when doing so. In my decision making processes, I like to find the factual information and make an informed choice, limiting any emotional input. So to be able to cut down the information to what is actually factual saves me time and effort in most matters.

The second topic I wanted to focus on is complexity. I feel that every time I have a transaction these days, there is some type pf catch, mail in rebate, little writing, or something we all miss. I'm sure that it has something to do with getting people through the door and then getting them to commit to buying but when did buying get so complex? Like Sheena said, we should try and limit the amount of complex choices we make our shoppers make. If we were able to do that at an organizational level, wouldn't customer have a better time in our store, dealing with us, or remembering how easy we were to work with? As for me, I find it exhausting to have to make complex choices all the time. I just had to deal with picking a TV provider and then choosing between a hundred programming options. Why is TV so hard to set up? Maybe they should look into that so they don't loose a lot of consumers!

I think that I can better my decision making my trying to stick to my moral and religious inputs. Sometimes we are persuaded by secondary influences that are impulsive or less researched. IT is important to me that I don't worry about what other people are doing and to concentrate on what is important for me, my family, and my career. Sometimes we let that get away from us all.

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Critically think about your own decision-making process and reflect on the process you use compared to the process outlined in the article.  Would this improve your decision-making?  What would the impact be on forward planning?  How would you apply optimal dynamic decision analysis to predict future impact of today's decision?

For this week, I wanted to share a recent decision making process and experience I had/used. A few months ago, my wife and I decided that we needed to get a larger car for our growing family. My wife left all of the decision making to me to figure out and so I used what I knew then to better determine what car we should buy and how much we should spend. Based on the reading this week, I now understand that I basically used forward planning to determine the need for our new car along with how that new car might serve our best future needs. I took into consideration the car we had, we had just bought it brand new Jeep a year earlier. I was using my past experiences to form a decision now. The reading this week made mention that when we are making decisions, we sometimes will measure the good verse the bad and that we keep for decisions based on past experiences and emotions. In this case, I was doing that. I knew that I needed something reliable, affordable, and something bigger then what we had. I knew what we didn't need, I just needed to figure out what we NEEDED.

The reading this week said "we are inherently prone to give more weight to that which is more concrete and vivid at the expense of that which is more intangible and ambiguous" (Hock, 2011). I think this is the way I make decisions, in most cases. I like to know the details and information before I make a choice. The reading also mentioned that people tend to look ahead only one step at a time and that we have a hard time seeing well in advance of a situation. Sometimes, I get blond sided that way also. I lack the ability to see a few steps ahead. In my car buying example, I was actually trying to use this method of looking into future scenario which actually turned out well for us and the car we selected.

Lastly, forward planning is something that I have to learn to be better at. What I've learned in other classes is that I sometimes let my emotions and feelings get to much in the way of making informed decisions. The reading made me think of something. The reading talked about how our past knowledge and bias may prevent us from making the best decisions because those experiences could have been not good. What I think I need to work on is weeding out my bias and past emotional experiences in order to make the best choice for the present situation. I will however try and use the good past experiences to lead me into making a decision in the future. Success is something that forms influences and that could be something we find ourselves in later. There is a lot to be learned from this week. Understanding different impacts and outside influences have on you is something that will allow me and others to  make choices and decisions more rationally serving the best needs of ourselves or our companies.

Hock, S. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

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Are you comfortable developing sources of personal influence to gain power?

To be honest in answering this question, I'm not sure. I personally do not have the experience in any management level to give a direct response, but I can speculate based on my learning and the reading this week. Based on the three R's presented by Whetton and Cameron 2011, I think I could apply my influence when needed. I think there is something to be said about a manager who is not afraid to experiment with new things, after all, this class has taught me that change can be a good thing and managers/leaders need to keep up with change to be effective. I have all the confidence that I could use reason and reciprocity to gain power in my position. I personally feel that using reason can ultimately be your best bet. I say that because reason "shows others that it makes sense to do what you say" (Whetten and Camerson, 2011). I would prefer to reason with people to help them better understand my point of view and where I'm coming from. If need be though, i could use my gained positional power to make sure things get done the way in which I specify. 

Do you embody the characteristics of likeable people depicted in Table 5.4?

I believe I do. The first one, "support an open, honest, and loyal relationship" (Whetton and Cameron, 2011) is something that I find very important. Honesty is linked to trust. Trust is a foundation in which a lasting relationship can be formed and built on. I truly believe that I encompass the ability to be honest, truthful, and straight forward.  Being all of those allows me to gain at positive foothold in any organization. Second, "provide unconditional, positive regard and acceptance" (Whetten and Cameron, 2011). I feel like sometimes there is a breakdown from management to the main workforce level. The workforce level has to feel needed and accepted as a positive entity to the success of the company. i personally feel as though I am very positive and great at giving positive reinforcement and encouragement.

Are you able to use influence both up and down your organization considering the information in Table 5.5?

  

I think there is a certain amount of "up" and not a lot of influence down. Mostly because in my organization, there is no down really. If truth be told, the working class controllers are the down. There is only a couple levels above us and then it ends. It is hard to understand my boss's goals and objectives, for the most part they are dictated by the government and they are pretty black and white. Second, I am able to address my strengths and weaknesses and how that contributes to my personal style. At our level, learning what we bring to the table is essential for us because we need to know what we can and cannot do. We need to feel comfortable doing our job each day. After all, Leo Tzu said " A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves" (Kruse, 2010). That sums it up!

Kruse, K. (2012, October 16). 100 Best Quotes On Leadership. Retrieved October 10, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/10/16/quotes-on-leadership/

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing management skills. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall/Pearson.

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Write a blog entry on the significance, importance, and/or impact of having a coach and/or a mentor to help you in your professional journey.

A mentor or a coach can play a huge role in any career field. Sometimes having a mentor can help shape a potential company leader, influence a body of individuals, or help get a team motivated. In my discussion post this week, I mentioned that I was part of a mentor program when I was in the U.S. Navy. This programs intention was to help younger sailors connect with more seasoned sailors and for the younger sailors to identify with their mentors in order to build their career. Each sailor had the opportunity to take some time to get to know which person they may want to choose. After they determined who they wanted as a mentor, they took time to get to know them personally and then they set up their own mentor program based on the needs of the younger sailor. 

When I began in the program, I was paired up with a sailor that actually took time to get to know my needs and really applied himself to me and the program. One of the benefits of his effort was that I was able to get valuable insight to the system in which I was trying to get qualified. My mentor was actually amazing, he had a huge impact of my career and the direction it took. In some cases however, there isn't quite the success that I experienced. Sometimes the mentor didn't give any effort or direction. When a mentor actually gives themselves to the  program, a younger person is ultimately the beneficiary. According to one source "To reap the benefits of mentoring requires that protégés and mentors are carefully matched" (Management, 2012). Like I observed, a mentor program can be awesomely effective. A person can benefit in a number of areas including, religion based learning, leadership skills, social interaction, and mental growth. According to one of our readings this week, The benefits of mentoring to mentor cannot be overemphasized. Mentor, even though, might an embodiment of knowledge, skills and experience needed by mentee; he or she still stands to gain a lot from mentoring relationship (Ayinde, 2011). A mentor can shape your thought process, help you identify things you might not have noticed, and help you better understand a situation or organization. The benefits of that are endless.

In this weeks class discussion, a lot of people shared the benefits of learning from other people. It was interesting to see that programs like these are actually at work and are being utilized as they were designed to be. I personally feel that I am where I am today, thanks to the mentor program that the Navy had set up. I was afforded great direction and knowledge which I was then able to pass on to my protégé. I feel as though a mentor program can really help any leader or organization.

Ayinde, A. T. (2011). Mentoring: Does it work? Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. Retrieved from https://erau.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/institution/Worldwide_Online/MSLD_Courses/MSLD_520/pdf/Ayinde.pdf

Management, R. (2012, October 16). Key Benefits of Mentoring. Retrieved September 26, 2014, from http://www.right.com/blog/careerpluswork/2012/key-benefits-of-mentoring/

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I've been observing and asking my peers about my team skill-set and asking for their feedback this week. In our facility, we often times will work independently, each person works their shift alone and then when its time, the next person will relieve them. There isn't an entirely large amount of interaction between us each day but there is interaction between us all on a weekly basis. As far as the first question, do I actively engage my team to accomplish our mission, I would say yes. In the rare cases where a pilot or student brings up a question about us or are work, I make it a priority to help resolve the situation for the teams sake. I personally believe that by doing that, I create a positive atmosphere and a learning environment.  Like I said, I received some perspective this week. Sometimes my feedback to other team members comes across a little pushy and a bit on the "know it all" side. I took this information to heart and I've begun to address that and better apply what I'm learning in grad school. Do I think I'm still helping accomplish the mission, absolutely. I think that if I weren't helping bring these situations to an end, that maybe they wouldn't be resolved, ever.

As to the second question, do you work to improve the team cohesion and collaboration? To be honest again, I haven't done the best collaborating with the other employees to situations that pertain to the entire team here. That could have some negative effect on the cohesion of the group and there could be some small trust issues. I don't think its an entirely "me" situation but I am willing to say that I have some areas in which need work. In this weeks discussions, I've come to better understand how other people view their team experiences and how they have been part of meetings or situations that they shouldn't have. I've learned from our class discussions that sometimes in order to get things accomplished, high efficient teams are needed to be more effective. I have now come to understand that some people have not experienced these high performance teams and that I assumed that most people had. I'm now going to take that and apply it to my everyday job. Maybe I had some assumptions about my team-member roles that were incorrect and my perspective was wrong. This week has taught me a lot about enhancing team members roles and trying to get the right team formed for the right job. The source I read this weeks states, " It is important that each team member feels comfortable speaking her mind about her responsibilities on a project to allow for the expression of creative ideas and to ensure that questions are raised before mistakes are made (Wolski, 2014). What that means to me is that we need to be able to communicate with one another and that we all have input. Each team member needs to have the ability to want to share ideas and thoughts. If we can all do that, we can help solve issues that we face and perhaps we can all find more common ground. Our weeks reading states "team members behavior is interdependent, and personal goals are subservient to the accomplishment of the team goal (Cameron and Whetten, 2011). In this facility, we may have to observe that and maybe I can bring some perpective to the situation through my leanings this week.

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011).  Developing management skills (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Wolski, C. (2014, January 1). Characteristics of a High-Performance Team. Retrieved September 19, 2014, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/characteristics-high-performance-team-1402.html

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In your blog, prepare a summary that compares and contrasts the concepts discussed to those discussed in the text

After all of my readings this week, I find the implementation of empowerment to be a tricky and complex proposal for any organization. What I've come to learn is that a company or organization will first have to determine a few things prior to empowering the employees. These factors include control constraints, boundary limits, and the delegation of management roles. When a company is ready to decide whether or not they want to empower their employees, they need to carefully understand the workforce and understand how each level of workers will handle the opportunity. Will the employees know what to do with power, will they know how to properly take on more work, and will they rise to the occasion of using the new power?


Comparing the two readings - In out book reading this week, it states, "they (the workers) possess the capability and competence to preform a task successfully. Empowered people not only feel competent, they feel confident" (Cameron and Whetten, 2011). I interpret this to mean that when a company is looking to transition to a new management plan, they need to make sure that the lower level work forces are ready to take on responsibility, do to the fact that some middle managers may loose their jobs. Sometimes, the workforce is not capable or wanting of that extra work. In the supplemental reading, the author states "a transfer of power from those who had it and those who had less of it. Power was seen as a commodity whose currency could be acquired (Forrester, 2000). In this interpretation, power is something that lower level employees wanted to gain from those above them. In my understanding however, sometimes those lower level people do NOT want extra duties and if the company is not careful, they could ruin their implementation of empowerment by forcing it into use to early. Both sources this week hinted at the carefulness that an organization might need to heed in this process. 

Differences - I found that in the (Cameron and Whetten) reading, they focus on articulating goals and sharing information with employees and enabling them through trust and strategy. In the Forrester article, I found that there was more of an emphasis on physiological concepts and implementation inputs and hazards. Our book reading looked into the ability to utilize empowerment as a tool and how we can use it and the article focused on the "how to" get this done and examples of how companies succeeded or failed using the empowerment techniques. One downside I personally noted from the Forrester article was "Empowerment is deployed selectively, segmenting the workforce into those who are empowered to use their brainpower and creatively to solve problems and those who are not. Such deployment is destructive and virtually guarantees failure" (Forrester, 2000). 

I understand that there is a level of care when implementing change, especially empowerment activities into a company. There has to be a clear idea, a workforce who is willing to change and a certain level of trust and direction from the upper management level. The failure to carefully understand your businesses goals and workforce could lead to a failure in successfully changing your open door policy and empowering employees. This week I personally learned that sometimes changing to quickly and for the wrong reasons can lead to un-beneficial outcomes and misdirection in management.  I now know that I need to propose change based on the knowledge that my workforce trusts me, we have a clear direction, and we have the ability (internally) to do so.



 Whetten, C. & Cameron, K. (2011). Developing Management Skills (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. 

Forrester, R. (2000, January 1). Empowerment: Rejuvenating a potent idea. Retrieved September 11, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4165660?uid=3739976&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104154496521

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Create a blog entry discussing each of the motivators identified in this video and discuss their impact on you; additionally identify 3 additional motivators that have a major impact on you.

 Motivators seem to be something that inspire people to come to work and to stay at work. Each of us want to feel as though we are contributing to the overall mission of the company and that the company recognizes our dedication to them. In the video, Andy mentions three motivators that he thinks inspire people. They are interesting work, recognize me, and expand my skill set.

To address how they effect me, I thought about them in my current work environment. I think we've all heard over the years that "we should do what we love". I interpret the "interesting work" aspect as the ability to be involved with a company who peaks your interest and your creative side. For me, I love my job, everyday brings something new and there is a constant need for me at my job. Secondly, I feel as though I'm always looking to expand my skill set. Who isn't? I love to learn and I love to see how different rules of regulations effect my ability to adequately do my job. As Andy mentions, pay doesn't always keep someone working for you and it doesn't always mean that you're happy there. The last aspect was the value me. Like the discussion this week, KPMG has a great program for it's employees. They show initiative to help women in the work place, placing emphasis on family orientated advantages. It was interesting how KPMG was able to keep a lot of the woman workforce employed. In past classes and in past week's, I've learned how hard it might be to do that. In the video from KPMG, we saw how happy the workforce was and how the members at KPMG were having the three principles that Andy talked about addressed.

Last, three motivators that have an additional impact on me are, work schedule, distance from home, and coworkers. My current work schedule is rough. I don't know what a Monday through Friday schedule feels like, I never have. That isn't a current facility thing, that is an air traffic control thing. It seems like we're always at work. Planes are always flying. Second, if I'm going to be spending that much time at work, I need to be close to where I live and close to things I enjoy doing. I recently turned down a six figure job. Why? Because, like Andy mentioned, money isn't everything and why would I want more money to live somewhere I didn't want to be. Last, sometimes we all work with people we don't like or don't get along with. If there was a magic wand that I could wave to make people a little easier to work with, I'd sell that and become rich. Coworkers can make or break the culture of a facility. Sometimes there isn't anything that you can do about it.

I learned a lot this week from looking at things from another angle. When a company can keep you engaged, keep you happy, and then show appreciation for you, you would tend to be a lot happier there. Like everyone else, I think those are things that make people happy and make people feel appreciated. These have to be things that are done daily or weekly, not annually. Being appreciated in your career is great. Sometimes money comes with appreciation, but like Andy said, it shouldn't be a driving force.


Mulholland, A. (2011, January 1). The Three Things We Work For (Money Isn't One of Them). Retrieved September 7, 2014, from http://library.books24x7.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/VideoViewer.aspx?bkid=43753