Manage Decisions

Highlighted below are some of the leadership practices and questions on which I reflected upon at the end of the course.

-self-awareness (centering, TR)

When I started working on self-awareness, I had absolute lack of knowledge about my own inner self and all my actions were driven by utter disregard for other’s emotions and in conflict with my own ideal self. But as I focused and started introspecting more on my thoughts, feelings and actions, I started getting a grip on the practice. Instead of just being satisfied with the practice, I started applying them to various contexts and started realizing my strengths, weaknesses, and negative predispositions, emotions of anger, envy, jealousy pride and arrogance. I could relate my social acquaintances with people sharing similar viewpoints, found reasoning for my disappointments, disillusions and short-term moody behaviors. I realized how empathy towards others emotions, understanding and appreciating other cultures, values and beliefs brings about joy and happiness in others. Professional conduct with honesty, integrity and commitment helped me strengthen my value system and I had occasions when I lost my temper but thanks to the practice, I was quickly able to regain my control and act in an appropriate way.

-listening

Paying undivided attention and respecting others views, soliciting feedback, open communication and being receptive to new ideas and opinions had really changed my relationship with others. People who feared to talk freely now have vibrant conversations with me. I am able to treat others with due respect and this had instilled confidence, morale and brought in high performance from my staff. Having shown keen interest in discussions, I was able to address many hostile behaviors and resolve contentions.

-embodied presence (centering, blending)

As with self-awareness, I was ignorant about embodied presence and I realized the detrimental consequences of my moody behaviors. I was able to neutralize my fixations on judgments and perceptions of others, be present in the moment, analyze contexts and choices and engage in actions that have greater meaning and purpose.

-blending

Blending was a unique exercise which I employed effectively while negotiating with clients. People have their own unique personalities, behave differently, have their own egos and conflicting opinions, but directing them to a common ground where mutual interests are served; most differences in opinion can be worked out. The blending practice was instrumental in our merger talks with a competitor.

-assessment of  progress on personal coaching objective

I see myself as being challenged take on new responsibilities in a diverse cultural environment. I will find effective use of all the knowledge and experience I had gained so far in this course. Now having developed emotional intelligence, I feel comfortable in connecting with others and able to manage people, culture, strategy and value networks. Though not globally challenged, my new leadership role will definitely alter my leadership style, help me probe, sense and act in complex situations, seize opportunities and explore disruptive innovation as means to sustain competition.

With exposure to such immense learning, I have really broadened my scope of learning and fell confident with my leadership competencies – personal and social and ready to take on new challenges of the real world.

-description of the work and/or life context for the next several years

a)-the uncertainty of the context in which you will be operating (using Snowden’s four distinctions; more than one may be applicable);

The consulting market place is constantly changing and highly unpredictable. Any one involved in this business needs to adapt in an agile way and rapidly jump into opportunities that will lead to business growth. I will find tremendous use of Snowden’s Cynefin framework to act in such complex contexts. I’ve been though disorderly and chaotic situations before but had acted with gut feeling and intuition. Having grasped all this knowledge now I feel more empowered to address uncertainty with positive outcomes.

b)-the EI leadership styles you anticipate will be most useful, whether they are your preferred styles or not, and, if not, how do you intend to prepare yourself to use your less favored styles;

I will not be engaging in any preferred leadership style, but based on the situation I’ll apply the appropriate one which will deliver positive results. I’ve applied the commanding style during the recent economic crisis taking some tough decisions, but now having merged, I would prefer a mix of visionary, affiliative, coaching and democratic styles.

c)-the opportunity for you to lead innovation in that context and innovation “probes” you might consider useful;

Being in IT consulting, I find great use of disruptive innovation. With the recent regulatory mandate on financial reporting in XBRL format, our company had developed low cost software products for small to medium business to conform to this new regulation. We probed the markets, understood competition, and realized the potential opportunities before we went ahead with R & D investment in the product.

d)-how you expect to address the development needs of your employees and/or teams (ex., Blanchard, Vision (grounded in strategic assessment and intrinsic motivation), culture (key values and addressing appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, as in our class discussion of Gerstner’s assessments and actions)

As a key executive, I will discourage dysfunctional behaviors persistent in the new organization. This will take time and I’ll have to meet with people, gather feedback and evaluate the organizational culture, the readiness of people to adopt to change etc. before I transform processes, culture and behaviors. In order to motivate people, I’ll have to understand what really inspires and encourages them to do a great job and accordingly will formulate strategies and introduce reward systems. I will have to calibrate my leadership style according to response from people. Emotional skills combined with left brain thinking will be helpful in instilling right motivation.

e)-Your emotional state (transitory, related to a specific event) or mood (a persistent background emotional state not necessarily identifiably related to a specific event) at the time you completed the first self-assessment and when you completed this revised self-assessment; what dispositions to action and constraints on action were created by those emotions or moods; your assessment as to whether those emotions/moods were helpful in your completion of the assessment; if so, why and if not, why not and what could you have done to approach the assignment with a more productive emotional state or mood.

Before I started the course, my emotions were momentary, highly unreliable and had loss of faith and trust from some employees. But with the EI practice and gradual improvement in leadership skills, I have become easily accessible to everyone, others treat me with respect, I regained lost faith and trust and I feel more confident to take on new challenges.

I would suggest role playing in leadership and excerpts of real world application of EI practices will definitely help students complete the learning loop. This will greatly provide them a complete understanding of the leadership competencies and the relevance of emotional intelligence for primal leadership.

Managing interest rate risk is very crucial for any institution whose balance sheet has a mix of Assets and Liabilities with different maturities. The recent financial crisis has demonstrated the grave interest rate risks that play havoc with the financial health of a company. The capital formation class has really helped me establish a broad based opinion on financial markets, their inner workings, influential factors (economic & non-economic), term structure of rates, long and short term debt instruments – treasuries, money markets, corporate and municipal bonds, Asset-backed securities, A/L management and various hedging mechanisms (derivatives) to reduce risk exposure, financial reform and future outlook for the markets. The class material was exhaustive, taught with current crisis perspective and allowed us to think beyond traditional ways. As part of this class, we did a paper on forecasting interest rates for a hypothetical company with a simple balance sheet (various short & long term securities), assessed Asset/Liability  risks, measured rate risk using GAP, duration, scenario analysis (including Black Swan events) and Value at risk methods and recommended hedging strategies to alleviate rate risk.  It was a very challenging engagement and I’ve really enjoyed every moment of it.

Paper1 – dealing with interest rate forecast for Hatchet Financial Co.

As part of our term paper in Business Ethics, we researched the Satyam Scandal, the largest corporate accounting scandal to date in India, to find out the ethical and moral collapses that occurred, the psyche of the key executives and what we can learn from it. It is amazing to know that in spite of all these scandals brought to limelight there has been little evidence to suggest that change has taken a strong foot hold. Executives still indulge in gross ethical violations and we hope the reinforcement of ethical code of conduct and fostering a culture of trust and integrity will bring about the much needed change in organizational and executive behaviors.

Research paper - The Satyam Scandal

Values and ethics are a part of our everyday lives. We wake up to these values and beliefs each day as they are the “rules” that govern us. Ethics is not just about morality; it is a complex dimension of personal and corporate life that can lead to higher performance by both business and society. Individual experiences of values and beliefs stem from the personal point of view, a cultural perspective all the way to an organization perception. Although we hear a lot about immoral and unethical practices from various quarters – corporate, societal and personal, I am lucky to have worked with some great managers who stood by their value systems and challenged unethical behavior risking their own jobs. In this paper I will focus on an ethical action taken by Mr. Madison, Director of Higher Education Consulting, XYZ Corporation to illustrate how possessing good ethics can have a positive effect in the workplace. XYZ Corporation was known in the industry for fairness, integrity and credibility. I was part of the team managing the project schedule and implementation effort on this project.

While heading the implementation of a new financial application at Oregon University in 2001, Mr. Wilson faced a difficult ethical dilemma. As part of the new IT infrastructure, a web based application was developed using a new programming technology. The company engaged consultants and utilized most of the funds allocated for building this application. The software was not yet proven to work seamlessly as per the client’s requirements. In addition, there were many quality issues – design flaws, programs failures under simulated conditions, data corruption etc. If the software got deployed to production, there would be major operational issues and severe financial damage to the client. The client was deliberately insulated from these issues to prevent any re-work connected with quality issues. Because of the over-extended commitments made by XYZ corporation during the contracting process, the company was obligated to deliver this application on the agreed upon date and the date was nearing. The company vice-president gave the approval to go ahead with the deployment. At the time this decision was made, XYZ Corp. was struggling with falling revenues and shrinking markets due to the dot-com bust. The company could not afford to lose any existing contracts to competitors, but at the same time executives were instructed not to exceed any estimated budgets and look for additional revenue generation. Mr.Madison was surprised to hear this decision and knew how it would violate the company’s ethical principles and negatively affects their client relationship, employee productivity, job satisfaction and trust in other fellow employees. A devout Christian with strong cultural and family values, Mr.Madison felt that the decision also conflicted with his own personal morals – of being truthful, honest, caring, fairness and loyalty.

Being a certified project manager, Mr. Madison has to abide by the code of conduct from the Project Management Institute. Turn a blind eye to evil, and you may not be an accomplice. But you’re an enabler. Regardless of how the decision impacted, Mr.Madison could not compromise his principles. He took on the challenge of questioning the executive management about the unethical decision made and was willing to risk his job than act unethically.

After repeated attempts to convince his company not to deploy the software, Mr.Madison ended up disclosing the serious flaws prevalent in the web application to the client. He brought this matter to the immediate attention of the client since it violated contractual terms and his professional ethics. XYZ executives were more interested in the financial stability of the company and ignored the calls for strict quality checks. Mr.Madison took the decision in the interest of his company and moral self –to withhold company’s ethical values, maintain credibility and stay true to his personal values. The client immediately responded with a thorough review of the application development process, forced the company to fix the design issues and perform joint integration testing with the client. Even though the experience initially was uncomfortable, by complying with the client requirements and being outspoken about the glaring defects and taking the client into confidence, the project got extended and the contract was renewed for two more years. We often make small ethical compromises for “good” reasons: We lie to a customer because our boss asked us to. By relying on his moral principles and professional ethics, Mr.Madison prevented XYZ Corp. from ending up having a sour business relationship with the client. The company was able to reinstate trust and confidence among employees and adherence to ethical code of conduct was made mandatory.

Ethical Dissonance

In this particular case, Madison’s ethical principles were in conflict with the organization’s policy. His decision to expose the quality flaws were based on his own value system and ethical principles rather than on the organizational norm. Hiding the truth, lying blatantly and deceiving someone are gross violations of good practices. His belief in right or wrong can be traced to his family roots, religious and cultural influences. As a loyal employee bent on upholding the company’s reputation, he revealed the problems to the client because any reconciliatory measures taken as a consequence will create positive outcome for the company. Though in the near term the company will be forced to spend more to fix the software which will put additional financial stress on a struggling company, but in the end, being fair, honest and candid led to a sustainable business relationship.

On the contrary, the executives argued that their actions too were in the interest of the company. They were under tremendous pressure not to exceed budgets and not to incur any additional costs due to quality issues; they tried to hide facts and instead pushed for delivering a faulty software product. To them, saving the company from additional expenses was the right thing to do. They turned to unethical behavior and denied their own moral principles to take effect. Their perception of “good” has a different meaning and they tried everything in their means to oppose the views of Mr.Madison. Instead of contradicting Mr.Madison, the company should have addressed this issue on ethical terms and changed the way it does business in this situation. Minor ethical lapses can seem harmless, but they instill in us a hard-to-break habit of distorted thinking. Ethical decision making is the foundation for any sustainable business that will help realize the best values present in employees and transform business relationships.

Many people find their personal, cultural and/or organizational ethics conflicting and must reconcile a course of action that will mitigate cognitive dissonance. To uphold these values, one must reconcile these conflicts on a daily basis and continually move forward while maintaining personal integrity and balance. Ethical decision making provides opportunities to most affect our own happiness and to have the most positive effect on those around us and achieve the peace and happiness that are so threatened in these tumultuous, ethically-challenged times. In the long run, a company will reap great profits from a customer base that feels it is being treated fairly and truthfully.

As part of our course exercise on business sustainability, I went to Banshee Reeks again to capture some of the species diversity existing in the preserve. I had to identify an ecological enterprise and report on its ecological footprint and role in the community.

I was fortunate enough to capture some of the wonderful animal life on my camera which is available through the link below:

Wildlife exploration at Banshee Reeks

Short videos of my trail walk are available here:

Along Spring Trail in Banshee Reeks

On way to Goose Creek

My goal in the business program has been to see how individual endeavors undertaken by companies eventually rollout at the macro level and contribute to the overall business growth in challenging and competitive environments.

I have been really excited with the ongoing debate about the ethics and moral reasons behind running some of the large business sustainable initiatives at US Corporations. Though there is some credibility to the initiatives, I suspect whether the triple bottom line of “people, planet and profits” is exactly balanced. In fact, I look at some programs as blatant “greenwashing” spoofs. With the shifting economic dynamics towards emerging countries, the next age of environmental destruction will come from the rapidly industrializing and resource hungry nations of the developing world. The lack of agreement on Kyoto treaty, weakening carbon emission and renewable energy initiatives owing to falling oil prices, lack of commitment on sustainable practices from developing world are areas which need immediate attention. 

Though I am not an expert to evaluate anyone’s judgments and the success measures, I am in this class to learn about the future corporations and their role in leaving a planet healthy enough to sustain not just the next generation, but for multiple generations to come. I want to learn about the ecosystem and how the natural processes carry life forward retaining the delicate balance and harmony amongst the various inhabitants of this planet whether living or non-living.  I want to understand the various perspectives of business sustainability with a global focus subject to strong criticisms. I am also interested to know what transformations have to take place in individuals (behavioral, cognitive and emotional capabilities) especially in dilemmas where nature is in conflict with individual or company’s interests. I truly believe in the words of Edward O. Wilson in his book The Diversity of Life,

“There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us”.

Short video recorded in Banshee Reeks Preserve.

Banshee Reeks Preserve

As part of my sustainability course, I’ve taken up Banshee Reeks preserve for my case study and having the opportunity to explore the natural habitat so that I have a deep understanding of how nature works, how we interact with it and know our accountability towards preserving and protecting mother nature and creating sustainable businesses that meet the triple bottomline.

Picture below are some snapshots and videos taken in the preserve. To contrast natural habitats, I’ve included some pictures taken in my back yard to elucidate the gross biodiversity missing from artifically created human ecosystems.

Banshee Reeks Preserve Pics

Backyard Pics

Plant Inventory

Additional Pics from the preserve

Mr. Steward took over as CEO in 2001 and has been looking at ways to make healthcare delivery more efficient and effective. True to the company commitment to value care, Mr. Steward launched an IT initiative to streamline data collection procedures and consolidate all disparate systems into an integrated health informatics system. Mr. Steward sought expertise from the CIO and other IT specialists before finalizing the strategy.  When the employees were informed of the new IT initiative, there was initial resistance to the idea from the administrative offices where the IT automation was to happen.  In addition to the individual stakeholder’s resistance; the technical, project management and organizational “people” skills that were inadequately addressed throughout the project implementation will be highlighted in relation to their impact on the “innovators to the laggards”.

As for this IT Implementation, although the system was not an outright failure it did not meet user and organizational expectations; perhaps due to system limitations and lack of customization and interoperability which may of course been due to the budget constraints of this not-for-profit healthcare organization.

If one looks at the necessary system components to ensure a successful health informatics implementation, the traditional focus in healthcare organizations has been first on hardware, then on software and the final and least prioritized component has been the peopleware. First, the staff was never familiarized with the software and there was no initial buy in from them. Lack of familiarity and visibility caused resistance to change.

During the project implementation, a strategic decision made to move beyond technology acquisition to the next level of technology assimilation; unfortunately there was more of a financial incentive driving the assimilation goals in the area of capturing charges, compliance with regulatory governing bodies and revenue enhancement than on the area of provider delivery of quality of care and efficiency by ensuring stakeholder and end user communication, involvement and satisfaction.

Organizational politics among leadership led to some forcible acquisition of a less robust system.

With no perceived unified model or leadership confidence by the departments and subunits, which had in the past been forced to manage their own information challenges due to an unresponsive overworked IT department, they set out from beginning to end of the project to “control” their data and became the greatest obstacles to success.

Leadership was reactive rather than proactive leading to lack of empowerment over the “big picture” that the department heads perceived. The perception of the stakeholders, (department heads, line supervisors and end users), was that the decision was made personally by someone in high level administration (without a medical or an information technology background), and then delegated the “change agent” and project manager role to the CIO, Chief Information Officer, (who also had no medical background). The CIO was given the mandate of pushing the organization toward results as opposed to pulling it toward a shared vision.

The controlled nature of the project supervision and the lack of strong leadership developed into a definite disconnect between this designated change leader and the stakeholders, including the physicians who blamed the CIO for their lack of involvement by not including their medical informatics liaison to the degree desired by the medical staff.

Executives must be willing to move to a shared-leadership model that involves all employees in developing and enabling a common vision. They must be comfortable receiving constructive feedback from employees about what’s working and not working within and commit the time required for teams of employees to work on improving internal communications.

Without Senior Leadership’s willingness to acknowledge the importance of communicating a clear vision to the entire stakeholder and end user group, a shared vision that was not only in line with Corporate view for the individual Healthcare Organization, but also that met the needs of all stakeholders’ within the individual organization and the patients served challenges heightened.

The end users blamed the technology instead of the lack of planning, communication or involvement that was more the cause than the “off-the-shelf” hospital information system and clinical data repository. There was waning of support from the department heads that had been charged with supporting the change leader. There were no “in common” focus groups. Lack of empowerment led to backstabbing, gossip and disregard for organizational values. These were early signs of lack of readiness on the part of the organization for a system that must capture data from multiple sources to be used in critical decision making at the point of care.  No multifunctional team was assembled to work with leadership, the CIO, the IT Department and each other to establish their own and a common hospital wide vision and goal. The organizational structure was rigid and very inflexible.

Staffing reductions coupled with use of outside experts to bring culture change caused distrust and had in some cases caused low self esteem among workers.

Add to the existing lack of trust culture was the lack of time spent on the planning, communicate and involve phase; holding all “conflict issues” until after the go live and false assumptions turned early innovators to laggards due to despair and disappointment. The lack of involvement of the stakeholders, “early adopters” and end users in the decision for implementation of systems and methodology caused delayed in their acceptance of the innovation and diffusion was further delayed. Involve and communicate methodology had not been followed as recommended, lack of training for physicians led to lack of self confidence and faith in the new system. In the end a complete change in leadership was introduced and the CEO fell victim to his own gross incompetence and lack of oversight and control.

Dennis Steward is a perfect example of ineffective leadership.  First he lacked the emotional intelligence to be self-aware and self-regulated. He was not comfortable with ambiguity, never relied on real-assessments, wasn’t open to communicate freely, trusted few individuals and delegated most responsibilities assuming commitment and seamless execution. He was unable to motivate people, establish harmonious relationships, influence positive behaviors and show empathy towards employees. He never made efforts to seek their feedback. Inability to establish create a shared vision, coherence, poor decision making and management strategies led to lack of trust, dissonance and failure. I could only see few streaks of coaching style but that too is fraught with weaknesses and loyalty issues. At times, he behaved arrogantly and was adopted an authoritarian style.

The real key to success is user involvement, involving them every step of the way to gain trust and buy in on the redesign of their work practices and ensuring that their priorities have been met as part of a larger team effort to prioritize patient care and public safety. Equally as important is the adherence to the organizational aspects of change management and to pay close attention to the support and structure given to the empowered “change agent” ensuring that the person designated to this role stays as the perceived champion of the project and does not become the detriment unknowingly through poor decision making and management strategies.

Ensuring a positive working environment that respects people and encourages the high level of team work and collaboration is the result of focus on these important attributes to be included in the process and the project.

The company’s culture is grounded in loyalty, respect and dignity, honesty, integrity and fairness in conducting business.

This paper is intended to be a reflection of my learning experiences so far and there is no question that that the course has left a deep impact on my critical understanding of human capital as a strategic asset to an organization. We had clear expectations from the class and it was all well laid out in the syllabus. As future managers, we learnt how to align HR with business strategies, understand impact of external and internal environments, design HR systems to promote positive behaviors among employees, establish staffing and compensation systems to attract, retain and motivate best employees, understand employee relations, manage change during difficult times and leverage these strategic HR skills that add critical value to corporate decision-making. The recommended textbook was very practical and explained the importance and application of HR practices as they stand in the real world. Instead of dwelling into the theories and concepts with no clue about their intended application, the book explained the reading goals of each chapter, their strategic importance, techniques, best practices, various perspectives, emerging trends and challenges in a global environment. The use of real-world examples along with the case studies really closed the learning loop.  The professor was very knowledgeable, highly motivated and inspiring. He was very receptive and understanding whenever you approach him with any questions or concerns. The learning aspects were unique from a traditional setting in that the students took the collective responsibility to learn by sharing their individual experiences, knowledge, skills under the expert guidance of the Professor. I really felt that this approach left memorable experiences for each of us. The class setting fostered and promoted a collective atmosphere where ideas, thoughts, criticisms, were freely exchanged leading to desired consequences. The Socratic style of teaching helped us to critically reflect on the topics, engage in team coherency and facilitated mutual learning. The organizational practice cases made us understand the prevailing practices in various organizations, HR situations, problems and issues as they emerge.  The case or “Story” presentation made us think critically, explore options and address situations with specific solutions.

But as we went along, every session turned out to be exciting, rich with individual’s experiences and critical thoughts about the topics discussed. What I felt great about the class was the constant feedback and review exercises we had and the expert facilitation by the professor.

A brief synopsis of the topics we learnt includes:

1. Employee Selection – Strategic importance of selecting right individuals to fit the job and the organization, designing such systems, techniques for assessing job applicants, legal considerations and challenges with recruitment.
2. Performance Management – Strategic importance, Responsibilities of HR triad for performance management, ways to measure performance and feedback, appraisal formats, rating processes and current issues
3. Performance based Pay – Strategic importance, design choices, implementation of performance based pay, recognition, rewards, merit pay, types of incentive pay, global variations and challenges
4. Fair treatment and Legal Compliance – Strategic importance, perceptions of fairness, employment laws, dispute resolution techniques and current issues
5. HR Planning for alignment and change – planning process, scan and assess environment, various HR objectives and metrics, develop HR plans, implement action plans and address current issues

Every topic that I learnt could be related to my own work place and seem to blend in with my organizational culture.  Human resource management has been changing over the decades and new trends are emerging showing the strategic importance of HR (Human Capital) to drive competitive advantage. The roles and functions of the HR Triad – Line Managers, HR Resource and Employees are critical for any organizational success. The steps to selecting the right employee; performance management and evaluation; relative importance of merit, ability and seniority when promoting employees; job analysis and its value; labor laws under the EEO, Affirmative action, managing diversity, talent management and retention; employee motivation, accountability and loyalty; ethical and moral issues; fairness and equality; discrimination and diversity are of utmost importance to any one who is managing employees.

I even had the opportunity to discuss my work-related issues with the professor to gain his expert advice and seek remedies to the problems I am facing at my work place. I was really happy with the conversation I had and planning on putting into action the valuable suggestions made by the professor. My work-place experiences dealt with most of the issues an individual would face diverse organizations.

Overall, the course was very informative, instilled critical thinking and developed the competencies required to manage people in an effective way. One added benefit was the formulation of strategies to establish workplaces that are efficient, effective and meet the organizational goals. Every Organization must fully utilize the unique and individual characteristics and strengths that individual workers offer.

HR should plan for the future, identify current and future needs, train workforce to face the next biggest challenges. Astute organizational behavior combined with effective HRM should result in greater business effectiveness.