A630.7.4.RB - Mastering the Art of Corporate Reinvention

In the video, Bonsignore talks about the importance of communication and how vital it is to be truthful on all levels of the organization.  This means being completely honest with your employees.  If you keep them involved in what is going on with the company they will deal with the hardships better if they know that management is being open and honest with them and that there is light at the end of the tunnel if things are not going well.  I believe that this is a big part of what will make Honeywell successful because he sees the importance of communicating what is going on with the company.  When you can motivate your employees by showing them that the success of your company depends on them they will feel that they are truly part of the process.  Employees who do not want to be a part of change will bring down motivation of an organization so they either need to get on board or be let go.

Companies have to be adaptable, have credibility and be able to communicate with employees as well as customers.  If a company cannot adapt to changes in technology, product growth will go nowhere.  With technological changes comes a depersonalization of the simple processes such as customer service.  Customers want to speak to a human being to get their questions answered.  So be sure you have a personal touch so that your customers know you care about them and that they are not just a number to you.  If you don’t get feedback from your customers you won’t know where you need to make improvements.  When you set expectations for your company and you can’t follow through with it, own up to that by being honest with your public as well as your employees.  If your company takes success for granted complacency can take over.  This is when mistakes can happen.  A swift kick in the rear will get you moving again.  The speed at which things are changing these days is ever increasing so you must be ready to change and adapt in order to grow.

Getting a good sense of what is expected of the company on all levels from the janitor to the CEO is by having strategic business plans in place that are both short term and long term. This way success is measurable.   It also gives the employees have a clear idea of how to get from point A to point B and how they can be a part of that.  This gives them a purpose and creates a corporate culture of being part of the solution.  One of the things Bonsignore talked about was thinking in terms of what is good for me and good for the company.  In other words you should think about the big picture, not only how it affects you but the company.

Listening to the video it was great to see that both Bethune and Bonsignore admit that mistakes happen and the best thing to do is to own up to those mistakes and move forward from it.  You have to be able to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and figure out where you went wrong and what you can do to try to avoid making the same mistakes again.  The best successes usually come from failing at something.  Set expectations and be sure to get feedback.  For me I can use all of these things in my job currently.  Because there are so many changes to regulations we always have to adapt to changes that are happening.  For example, I already know that there will be more changes to how we perform verifications for the next academic year.  I would like to get some forms together and have a committee of students who review them for usability to see where we may be missing the ball on communicating what is needed.  Are the forms understandable?  Does it make sense?  Do the awarding letters break down the important information such as terms financial aid is awarded, where to find information regarding policies and such?  I think it would be great to get a survey together to see how students feel about financial aid and what can be done to improve how we do business.  This I feel will help communication and how we work our processes.

A630.6.4.RB 50 Reasons Not to Change/The Tribes We Lead

“Why change its working ok”, “it’s too much trouble to change”, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, “I don’t like it”, “We have always done it this way”, “it’s too complicated”.  These are just some of the things I have heard when it was announced a couple of years ago that we would be switching to a new software system at my organization.  Change this big may understandably bring some of these comments because changing your habits of how you do things can be a scary thing. But what about small changes, how does that affect us.  Perhaps it’s a change in how we perform a task or when we do it or even not having to do it again.  When I hear these types of comments what I hear is fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of not being able to keep up with the change and fear that one may not like the new changes. 

I have even heard some new reasons not to change; “we need to win the lottery so we don’t have to learn the new system”, “we will have just as many issues with the new system”.  These come from people who have been through a change before and saw the issues and problems it created.  Why do we fear change though?  Look around and you will see that things have changed, nothing stays the same and if it did there would be no progress made.  Ever.  No man on the moon, no cell phones, no internet, no modern modes of transportation.  Technology is evolving at a much faster pace these days so what worked just a year ago may be obsolete now.  Change is going to happen whether we want it to or not.

Change is inevitable and it is better to embrace it and learn to adapt to transform.  I don’t think I ever used any of these excuses when it comes to change.  For me I ask more questions about the change.  “How will this affect how I do things”, “how quickly can we get it up and running”, “will there be training on how to use all aspects of the new product”.  Asking questions and learning how changes will affect you, your work and your organization you can overcome any thoughts or fears of how you will manage with new processes.  We must understand that we must change in order to move forward.  It not only helps us to understand things better but with this change we may find a better way to do things, a way to improve the way we work.  Who doesn’t like that?

Seth Godin spoke about tribes and how we may be a part of one whether it is the people we work with, groups we belong to or ideals that we feel strongly about.  It takes one person to say this is what I think and this is what I am going to do about it, come along if you want to.  There was a YouTube video posted on the announcement board a couple of weeks ago showing one random man dancing by himself to the music at some outdoor festival.  There were plenty of people around him, many walked by, some stopped to watch his unique style of dancing.  Then something amazing happened.  Someone else joined him.  And then another and another, pretty soon people were running not walking to be a part of this man’s journey of dance.  He didn’t shout for people to join him but without doing anything else other than what he was enjoying he formed a tribe.

            Seth offered three questions about tribes and change. The first one, who exactly are you upsetting seems pretty clear.  You stand for something and you want to be heard.  If it is not a big deal to you it won’t be a big deal to anyone else either.  You have to make yourself heard because this is how you change things, make them better, bring attention to wrong doings.  The second one, who are you connecting, makes you think about who you want to connect to.  Why are you connecting?  What are you going to get out of it?  I have recently started to run 5ks with a coworker of mine.  It did because she asked me to go because she thought I would like it.  I have just completed my 4^th 5k in the last 3 months and I am beginning to see a lot of the same people.  I am making connections with this group, this tribe. These runs are more than just about beating my own time; they help different organizations and individuals. 

The third one, who are you leading, is to me the most important one.  The focus is on who we will lead as this is where change is going to happen.  We make people think and want to do more.  My daughter is now interested in doing a 5k with me because she sees how happy it makes me knowing that I did something for someone else.  This is bringing another person in to help push change.  It can be as small as getting out there and doing it.  It doesn’t matter what the time on the clock says it is about making a difference in someone else’s life.

In my department I maintain a positive outlook even when change may affect how I do my work.  I focus on how to make it better not dwell on how unfair it will be.  Recent events in my area would make some people mad or frustrated but for me I will continue to do what I do and strive to make lasting changes that will better my department as well as me as an individual.  That is what makes me a good leader and perhaps propel me into a great one.

A630.5.4.RB - NASA Culture Change

Why did NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe address NASA employees to describe the plan to bring about proposed changes to NASA's culture? After the tragedy with space shuttle Columbia, an assessment was done by BST to see what may have cause the accident.  Where were the weaknesses within the organization?  O’Keefe talked about the assessment that was done and how it applies to all of them and all that they do and every aspect of the organization.  The assessment brought to light that it wasn’t just one department, one area of the organization; it is much broader than that. 

He made it known that though there were many aspects of what NASA has done that adds to the culture of NASA but there were many areas that demanded improvement.  By addressing the employees directly and taking questions as well he is making a point that it involves everyone in the organization.  He even told them that it needed to start with leadership including him because it is not as good as it should be.  He said that it needs to be thought of as constructively about what can be done to strength the culture of NASA.

Was he believable? Is it important whether he appeared to be believable?  He appeared to be believable as he continued to talk.  I found it interesting that when he first started talking and the video scanned the audience one member was smirking and appeared to have a look that said he didn’t quite believe what O’Keefe was saying.  As the talk went on and the video scanned the same person again it appeared that he was actually listening to what O’Keefe had to say.  I think that it is very important that he appeared believable because if they don’t believe what he has to say they will be less likely to want to make the needed changes since leadership doesn’t believe it either.

Why did he talk about NASA values?  O’Keefe pointed out was that though NASA had many of the values already in place there was definitely room for improvement.  The assessment from BST made it clear that change was needed.  He touched on some interesting points that he thought were vital to the cultural change with NASA.  One of them was respect for each other professionally to carry out tasks.  He said this is an area that needs more work.  There has to be respect for one another and their views.  Another area was safety and that the view in concept that safety is not bad but it is not good enough.   He pointed out that “We don’t act it quite the same way we say it” in regards to safety. One can preach about safety all day but it is more than just talking the talk NASA must walk the walk.  There should be no fear to speak up about problems. He suggested that we get leadership up out of their offices and walking around.  This shows that they are committed to making the working environment a better place for everyone.

What I can take away from this exercise that that you will not know what is working or not working in your department if you don’t ask.  Right now my director has asked each of us to put together a list of things that we feel will increase the quality of our jobs.  Though she may not be able to give us a pay increase, she can make little changes that will improve the overall quality of how we do our jobs from larger monitors and more comfortable chairs to holding team building retreats to bring feel cohesiveness to our department.  

A630.4.4.RB - How Companies Can Make Better Decisions

Listening to the video, How Companies Can Make Better Decisions, Faster, everything Marcia had to say kind of made the light bulb go on for me as far as understanding a bit better on how some companies have great success whereas others not so much.  Employee engagement and how it relates to decision effectiveness can be as simple as decisions that are made that are sound and well thought out but not drawn out.  When leaders make clear and concise decisions employees will feel that leaders are making these decisions with them in mind and it makes for a better working environment as well.  Making decisions should be easier not harder and this in turn will make for a more interesting place to work. 

If you have a board or committee of leaders who make the decisions for the organization as a whole and they can’t seem to agree or be on the same page or they want to involve too many people, it slows down progress across the organization.  It makes you wonder what is going on.  I experienced this when I was on a board last year and we had 10 people on the committee and our job was to make the verification process smoother and the forms more user friendly.  The problem was that there were about 6 people too many on this committee and 4 of them had not done a verification in many years if at all, so the changes they wanted to implement would actually make the process harder for the employees and less user friendly for the students and parents.

In the end the employees were frustrated because they were not asked their thoughts on the forms and there should have been at least one counselor on the committee to help since they are on the front lines every day with students and parents answering questions.  If a decision is made quickly and effectively everyone will feel that they are being heard and processes can be implemented faster and the flow is smoother which leads to more productivity for everyone involved.

Some impediments to good decision making that Marcia listed in the video include not having the right talent in key decision roles and leadership behavior getting in the way because there is no open and constructive debates before the decision is made.  So if you have leaders who just want to implement decisions and do not take a little bit of time to actually think about how these decisions can affect the bottom line, there may end up being more talk after the decision has been implemented and doesn’t work. This cause more issues such as a possibility of going back to the drawing board, retracting that decision which may have customers, employees, board members, etc. questioning the leadership ability or the company’s strategy.  Marcia also pointed out that companies are becoming more complex with more companies evolving to reach more markets so they become more complicated.  Organization charts look more like road maps these days so it is hard to keep it simple sometimes.

            In addition to the 4 elements that Blenko suggests (quality, speed, yield and effort) I would add strategy, alternatives, reasoning, and feedback.  Strategy is important because as companies evolve and change, products improve or customer demands change it becomes important that your strategy is well thought out and you are prepared for changes that will happen.  Alternatives would be great to have in place if a decision is made and for some reason it doesn’t work or needs to be tweaked you have back up plan.  So if Plan A doesn’t work then Plan B can be put into play.  This would work well in the planning part of the decision making. Reasoning is important for the simple fact of asking ourselves why we are doing this.  What is the reason we need to make these decisions?  Why didn’t it work before?  Feedback would go well with Alternatives because if you can get feedback on what worked and what did not you can then make necessary changes that are needed in order to implement more effective decisions.

            What I can take away from this exercise is that decisions affect each department as well as the organization as a whole so these decisions need to contain the 4 elements that Blenko mentions such as quality, speed, yield, and effort as well as incorporating the ones I listed.  Our department is smaller and it is easier to have everyone involved to hear ideas and thoughts on how implementing new processes will affect the students as well as the counselors.  Some decisions are out of our control as they come from changes with Federal Regulations however we can be sure that we are getting that information out to our students and parents in a timely manner and that it is done in a way that makes sense and encourages them to ask questions.  

A630.3.3.RB - A Day in the Life of the Culture Committee

Southwest Airlines (SWA) is known as the low fare carrier that delivers more than just a ‘welcome aboard’ speech.  Ask most anyone who has flown Southwest and chances are you will find someone who has experienced their company culture.  From smiling faces and silly songs as you taxi to the gate, you don’t just feel like a number to them you feel like a part of their company.  A part of this always cheerful attitude is in how the employees are treated by each other and by management.  In the video one of the major comments that stuck out for me was the flight attendant explaining the Culture Committee.  She said it was employees appreciating employees.  How many employees can say that about where they work?  This statement is what makes SWA a great place to work because they are all about that culture.

Having the Culture Committee is a big part of establishing the cultural norms of SWA.  Giving the flight attendants a small break by cleaning the plane for them and giving them small snacks is just one way to say thanks for all the hard work.  It is a way to give back to make everyone feel appreciated in every way.  Their enthusiasm and positive attitude plays a big role in this.  You could tell in the video how surprised and happy the flight attendants were to see the Culture Committee greeting them when they opened the airplane door.

By focusing on making happy employees, SWA makes its customers happy as well.  It is like a domino where one piece falls into place and then the rest follow as well.  "They have to practice the golden rule every day - first with each other, and then with our passengers," Barrett said. "They have to serve because they want to. They have to smile because they want to, not because they have to" (CBS News, 2009).  So it is about how you feel and how you interact with each other as well as the customers.  When you love what you do and why you do it the rest is easy.  I feel this is a big part of why the Culture Committee does what it does.

Having the Culture Committee in place not only shows employees how much they are each appreciated by each other but how valuable team work is and perhaps a big reason employees stay and how SWA continues to stay successful.  Part of this success is the key difference in how employees treat each other.  “Kelly says the difference between his company and others is simple: "People working together, people lovin' each other, people respecting each other" (CBS News, 2009).

If I were to try to put together a Culture Committee for my department I would probably focus on the little things first like bringing in breakfast for everyone as small token of appreciation.  We function very well as a team and we all jump to help each other out so there isn’t one thing that one person does that another doesn’t.  If I had to start my list I would say picking two counselors and telling them that they don’t have to work their queue for a day that everyone else will work it for them.  Then pick something different for another counselor like returning phone calls, or answering tickets.  To be able to give each counselor a small break to be able to work on one area without having to worry about getting behind in another would be a huge help the department as a whole.

What I can take away from this exercise is that if you have to have the culture within your employees, make sure you find out what makes them happy while keeping with your standards of the company.  Planning retreats or enrichment seminars for the department to attend can help to shape that more positive culture.  As we saw on the video doing just one small thing for your fellow employee can go a long way and creating an environment that everyone wants to be a part of.  Changing the culture from one that is negative (be it employees or the organization) to positive takes hard work but it can be changed for the better.  It takes patience, understanding and the ability to bring out the best in everyone.

References:

Something Special About Southwest Airlines - CBS News. (2009, February 11). Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-3221531.html

A630.2.4.RB 21st Century Enlightenment

The title 21^st Century Enlightenment is to give us insight on where we were just a few centuries ago and where we are now.  Taylor explains that we have powerful new insights thanks to new emergences in scientific disciplines and social sciences.  Great philosophers of our past knew that enlightenment meant that we could not confirm to religious doctrines as well as to our own intuition. Just because it seemed right at the time since that is what we were told it was and still in within our power to educate ourselves on what is going on around us….that we must enlighten ourselves and those around us.  We need to become more self-aware and self-sufficient to continue the 21^st century of enlightenment.

In the video Taylor talks about "to live differently, you have to think differently"?  I believe what he was trying to say is that we need to stop looking back at the past and look to toward the future.  We need to be positive and be willing to help each other out as human beings instead of shutting each other out and keeping our faces buried in our phones and other social media outlets.  That has stopped us from being aware of what is going on around us.  Taylor explains that we need to see ourselves and the world in a new perspective, perhaps see ourselves in new a light and then will help us see the world differently.  We need to put out positive attitudes as this will come to us as well.  There is a saying that what you put out is what you get back.  So if we want to live differently (happier, healthier, longer) we need to think differently (be happy with who you are, see the good in others, encourage don’t discourage).  We need to actually make changes in the world and not just talk the talk we need to walk the walk.  We should be approaching the world and life in a more holistic way instead of trying to find a “pill” that makes it all go away or that conforms to what ‘should’ fit into a one size fits all.

At one point in the video Taylor argues that we need "to resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange".  I feel that what he is saying is that we should not just go along with the crowd, we should question the whys of things, make our own decisions based on facts not hearsay or fears from the past.  We can have diverse values and traditions and these do not have to fall in line with what is ‘normal’ or right for everyone else.  I had a professor as an undergrad for Abnormal Psychology who loved to tell us, “Question everything assume nothing”.  It took me a couple of years to really understand what she meant by that.  It seems that Taylor may have been saying the same thing here.  We cannot just accept things because that is the way it has always been done or that is what everyone else is doing so that is what we should be doing.  In the organization I work for we are making changes for the better.  We are questioning why things are done the way they are and we are coming up with better and more efficient ways to do it.  Change should be embraced not shied away from.  We cannot be afraid of these changes but strive to understand them better.

With so many advancements in technology we are now sponges of everything that happens around us because we know about pretty much anything and everything in an instant.  Imagine what it would have been like during WWII if we could have seen exactly what was going on in Germany, the things that Hitler was doing to innocent human beings for no other reason than his own twisted thoughts on what the world should be like.  Do you think that he would have be able to do as many things as he did or would have the people raised up in protest to what was happening and yelled loud enough for something to be done? Perhaps.  As human beings most of us naturally want to help as we are more empathetic to each other but we must continue it on a larger scale. We should not be judging each other on who we want to love or marry or the color of the skin of the president.  We should not care what celebrities are doing or what reality show is better.  We need to develop that empathetic attitude more and show each other that we care that real world matters are more important than what is happening on Facebook or Honey Boo Boo or Teen Moms.

At the end of the video, Taylor talks about atomizing people from collaborative environments and the destructive effect on their growth. What is the implication of these comments for organizational change efforts?  We need to start with ourselves and go from there.  Changes can happen with just a few people but the more people you get to make changes for the better the faster it will happen.  Organizations are changing so rapidly to keep up with advancements in every way and we can start with these small changes as individuals and we need to start now.  Putting action into motion creates change now and we can learn from this and grow as well.  I can use these lessons from the video now in my department as far as how to deal with individuals as well as the group.  Understanding how actions and decision affect as a group makes a big difference in how we will interact with each other.  I need to be aware of how these consequences with affect the team and how to ensure that we stay cohesive as a group.

Taylor, M. (2010). The 21^st Century Enlightenment. Retrieved fromhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=youtu.be

A630.1.4.RB Board of Directors

In early 2009 it was announced that ERAU was going to implement a new software system (Campus Solutions) by late 2010 that would be more ‘student friendly’ where students could go to find information they needed in just a few clicks of the mouse.  This new software system would change how the students and employees viewed student accounts.  The information would be easy to find, understood by anyone who viewed the screens and would make life a bit easier on everyone involved. 

Students would be able to ‘shop’ for classes and easily add or drop a class before it started without having to go through their campus or academic advisor.  It would give them more options to set up payment plans, direct deposits and view their account history among other things.  A big selling point for this new program would be that more than one person (employee) could be in a student’s account at once.  This would come in handy if you needed to guide another employee on where to find financial aid status, clear up confusion on what classes a student was taking as well as if they owed a balance or had a hold on their account.

With any new change there is going to be pessimists in the crowd. “We don’t need to change anything”, “Things are great just the way they”, “It is not going to make anything better”, “I don’t know how I will be able to handle these changes, I already have this system memorized”, and my favorite, “We just need to win the lottery”.  These are all comments I heard from people who didn’t want things to change.  Change can be scary for sure especially when you are used to things being the way they are (if it isn’t broke don’t fix it).  My department (financial aid) works hand in hand with the main campus of financial aid as we fall under the same umbrella.  The comments came from managers, directors and fellow employees.

The pessimists in this group felt that making a change to the system was not needed and would only cause more issues.  They felt that it wasn’t going to make anything better but perhaps make them worse.  This group didn’t see the advantages of this new program (newer, faster, more reliable, student friendly, set up to catch issues before disbursements went out) they only saw that it would involve more work for them.  Having to learn a new system would take time and they didn’t want to do this because it wasn’t going to change anything so why bother?

The pragmatists in the group felt that change was definitely needed and if it would make things better than why not go for it?  This group saw the advantage of being able to help students and as well the campuses by being able to see what the student or fellow employee was seeing on their screen.  Everyone could access certain areas of the account and see the same information.  This group also saw the potential for fewer mistakes being made that the old system would not be able to catch.  The new system would have better rules in place to prevent disbursements being made when they weren’t supposed to like when students were at their aggregate limits for federal loans, the information would be pulled directly from the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) instead of having to check multiple sites to confirm this.

The visionaries in the group saw more streamline processes, more accountability within the department, easier way to track changes made, and more automation!  So many processes were handled manually taking more time away from the student.  This group also saw the advantage of being able to see the actual information on the Free Application for Federal Aid (FAFSA) that a student submitted.  It would make working on verifications easier, quicker and would give a more overall snap shot of the students’ situation.  It would also give an overview of the students account as far as what program of study they were in, what classes they were enrolled in and what track for financial aid they were on.

The power players (upper management) saw this as a way to get more students in the door and more funds paid to students in a more timely fashion.  It also would bring ERAU up to speed with other schools who were more student driven in how classes were chosen by giving the student more control over how they handled their account.  And lastly the crowd in this group just wanted to know what they needed to do and where they needed to go.  They were going to follow the group and would do what they were told no questions asked.

To bring these groups together so that changes would be as smooth as possible several trainings were set up once all the systems were tested.  My new director was part of the project to start with and I was brought over toward the end to test various components of the new software.  I had to test the verification process and write a manual for the Daytona, Prescott and Worldwide campuses on how verifications would work in the new system.  The core group performed several tests and pre training trainings to ensure that we were going to be giving out the best information that everyone would understand and be comfortable with.  The first training was an overview and there were lots of people who had a negative attitude because they didn’t want change.  Many people admitted to just being afraid of messing something up.

Before we began that first training session everyone was given a chance to get their fears and frustrations out.  What did they think of the new system?  What were their concerns?  The biggest one was why were a lot of things being taken away from them as far as access went.  This got the ball rolling with everyone being able to ask questions and we got to see it from their point of view.  Once everyone got to express their thoughts and get the negative parts out we were able to answer all their questions.  Did it alleviate all their concerns?  Not all of them but it provided them with a better understanding of why the new system was coming in and the advantages to what it would do for them.  After it was explained that access was limited in the new system because levels of securities were assigned by processes not screens most everyone was ok with that.

Several trainings were held and we still have refresher training every few months as new batches are added to the system.  These batches are put in place to improve the system so it is important to share these changes.  There was only one person from the other campus who decided to leave because the new system was too much for this person to handle.  They were not able to wrap themselves around the new concepts no matter how much training was held.  The biggest hurdle to get over was that the change was happening whether they wanted it to or not so they were going to need to embrace it and learn it if they wanted to be able to make it.  Training is always an option and now that we are two years in (one full year in financial aid) everyone is more comfortable with the new system and how it works. 

Sometimes being a pessimist can be a good thing because we can see why something may not work and we can fix it before it becomes an issue.  The flip side is that this group of people can bring down a department with their negative attitudes and it does affect others.  It is best to understand why they feel the way they do and work through these issues and show them the way to the pragmatic side of thinking.