Erin E Hall

Honesty and transparency are very important in the workplace as long as the feedback is objective. Additionally, the feedback should be distributed in such a way as not to raise emotions so those providing the feedback should be careful about their tone during communications.
The only time I can see withholding bad news as being the better choice is when the employer is trying to collect the amount of mistakes an employee makes to make a case for firing the employee. I believe employees should actively seek feedback from superiors so that there is less surprise when reviews are issued where companies are not transparent.

I think honesty and transparency are vital in the workplace. From my experiences at my internships and talking with business professionals, people want the whole truth. If a coworker feels that someone isn’t being honest about a situation or is omitting particular details in the workplace, the level of trust between those two will decrease to the point where one or both parties involved no longer have trust, making it hard to get work done. This also applies when dealing with clients, if a client believes you’re not being transparent and honesty you will most likely lose their business. I actually witnessed this first hand at one of my early internships. My one boss continually finished projects late for a variety of reasons and wouldn’t be completely transparent with the client. Once clients started catching on, many didn’t do business with him anymore. Overall, not being completely honesty and transparent with people in the workplace will only cause problems down the line.

I think that employees should be careful in choosing whether or not to engage their boss in work-related conversation in their boss’s free time. Bosses with packed schedules may only have brief periods of time to themselves: quick walks through the office, elevator rides, and (possibly) lunch breaks. Encroaching on these times may sour your boss’s opinion of you; he or she may see you as someone who disrespects traditional methods of supervisor engagement and imposes on others at inappropriate times. Trying the same tactic with another boss, contrarily, might be commended for its boldness and deemed totally appropriate. Thus, it is important to know your boss’s receptiveness to impromptu meetings prior to attempting one.

Silicon Valley is the next Silicon Valley. There is simply no alternative.
Las Vegas is not a city that white collar workers will want to live in. We talked about Iowa in class and how no one would want to go there for work, it’s almost the same thing with Las Vegas. If you have the talent, you will be going to Silicon Valley. If you don’t have the talent, you might consider Las Vegas, or the plethora of other cities claiming to be the next Silicon Valley.
What Tony Hsieh is doing is admirable and it’s been mildly successful, but no city in the United States will be the next Silicon Valley, unless it somehow falls off the face of the earth.

Years ago if you wanted to start a tech company Silicon Valley was your only option because that is where all the tech people were. Today, many cities around the US and around the world have thriving start up communities, many of which as moving up trying to take Silicon Valley’s place at the top. I am not, however, convinced that Las Vegas is the city that will do it. In my mind when I think of Las Vegas I think of somewhere you go to visit, not somewhere you live. It does not have many of the attractions other cities have and has a relatively bad reputation. Even if you wished to live in the suburbs and commute, as many people around other cities do, then you are living in Navada, which makes me thing of the desert and nothing else. If any city was going to overtake Silicon Valley I would look towards Seattle, which already has many successful tech companies with headquarters there. With a cost of living only slightly more expensive than Las Vegas but a much more positive reputation I would be much more likely to move there. Silicon Valley is an incredibly expensive place so I can see another area taking over as the hub of the tech world, I just don’t think Las Vegas is that place.

Personaly, I don’t think Las Vegas has the potential to become the next technological hub because when I think of Vegas I think of a vacation spot that people go to for a few days. There is not much to do in Las Vegas other the entertainment and I don’t think professionals would want to live there. It may be cheaper but I don’t think it would have a positive turn out. I agree with Amanda’s comment; I can see where another area can take over as the tech world but not Las Vegas.

I believe that systems thinking in the public sector is very crucial to its success because the public sector has problems whose solutions are not obvious. Since the public sector is supposed to proactively service the public and provide them with solutions, the public sector has to take into account many actors and has to help those actors see the “big picture”. Often times the issues that the public sector tackles are issues where an action affects the environment surrounding the issue. Thus, if the public sector does not use system thinking, it will lead to ineffective solutions.

I am going to jump off of what Andre said in regards to the statement “Often times the issues that the public sector tackles are issues where an action affects the environment surrounding the issue.” When thinking of Systems Thinking I can not help but think about Newton’s third law of physics “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” I find this to be the case in any line of work where you are providing a solution for customers, business’s, or a community. Like you said Erin, “systems thinking can be applied virtually any industry if you are willing to shift your mindset.” I believe this to be very true because no matter what the situation is the solution you come up with will effect more than just the issue at hand.

I agree that Systems Thinking can be applied to just about any industry, and to good use too. It’s imperative to be able to understand the interrelation between all actors and functions in a plan. If you can’t do this, then you cannot be certain what will happen. In the case of the public sector, I agree with Andre in that it would greatly benefit from a Systems Thinking approach. It’s very easy to think only about little parts of the bigger picture and try to get those parts to work, without much thought as whether it will work well with the rest of the system. One change in a part of the public sector can create changes in other parts of the public sector, and if no one knows what those changes are, then that can be a recipe for disaster. So while Systems Thinking is definitely more synonymous with IT, it is definitely well-suited for anything in which the solution has many interrelated parts and is not obvious.