Can a Culture of 100% Honesty Work?
I thought this article was interesting, especially in light of the discussion of performance reviews yesterday. It looks at a few different companies and their initiatives toward creating completely honest and transparent workplaces. A survey by 15Five indicates that 85% of employees are unsatisfied with the quality of communication at work. On top of this, 81% of full-time U.S. employees would rather join a company with open communication over companies that offer perks such as top health plans and gym memberships.
New York Computer Help
-Joe Silverman (Owner) says “Our motto is total transparency, and I strive to promote this from the staff level through the customer.” Silverman enforces this by dismissing employees on the spot who start to cut corners, or withhold information from customers.
-This honesty is also important in terms of training: “Any time a repair comes in, we ask who hasn’t done this before. Whoever says no gets a crash-test training how to do it.”
Quirky
-Chief People Officer Rochelle DiRie distinguishes between transparency and honesty by saying “Transparency is the surfacing of data and events; honesty is about your interpretation and desires.”
-Both transparency and honesty are strongly enforced at Quirky from senior management down, and are also included in the company’s core values. This mentality also includes never hiding bad news. “We ask our employees to always state their opinions, even if controversial.”
How important do you guys think honesty and transparency in the workplace are? Are there scenarios where withholding bad news is the better choice?
Convincing Skeptical Employees to Adopt New Technology
As MIS majors, understanding the value of new technologies and being able to adapt to them is something that we take for granted. However, within the workplace there is often complacency among employees with existing technology and even hesitancy/fear to acquiring new products and systems.
https://hbr.org/2015/03/convincing-skeptical-employees-to-adopt-new-technology
In a study by MIT Sloan Management Review, 63% of managers said that the pace of technological change is too slow, due to a lack of urgency and poor communication of the benefits of new tools. Rebecca Knight of Harvard Business Review offers managers some advice for overcoming these obstacles with their employees:
1) Choose Technology Wisely: Bear your teams interest in mind. “Functionality is critical, but so is user-friendliness.”
2) State Your Case: Put forth a compelling vision of what the technology is and what it’s going to do.
3) Customize Training: Training efforts should reflect differences in familiarity and interest in technology; don’t be afraid to ask them what they want in a training.
4) Get Influencers Onboard: Create a “Network of Champions” fully invested in the new technology.
5) Make it Routine: “Implicity raise the cost of not using the new technology,” so they’re pushed towards routinely using the new tools.
6) Highlight Quick Wins: Draw attention to positive impacts.
7) Make it Fun: Reward the behavior you want to see (i.e. compensation, perks, recognition etc.)
8) Consider Penalties: Possibly penalize resistors for non-use.
With Windows 10, Your Face Will Be Your Password
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/17/your-windows-10-password-will-be-your-face/#9tKYA4:KAm2
With Windows 10 right around the corner, Microsoft just Windows Hello. If your computer has the right hardware (being Intel’s RealSense camera), your login password can be your face. It will also be used to unlock a number of online services and applications that are linked to your account. It’s not clear as to how accurate or secure this will be (i.e. What if I just print a picture of a person’s face? Would that allow me to sign in?). If done right, though, then this will probably be a popular and secure feature.
While this in particular may not be disrupting any markets (it’s just a password), it gives a glimpse into how this sort of technology will change the way we access hardware and software, and has great implications for the security industry. For example, imagine if this technology were used in order to gain access to your home. There would be a camera at your door, and the door would unlock only if it recognized your face as being a resident of the house. By bring Microsoft Hello to computers, it will help spread awareness of autonomous technology and the benefits of it.
What do you guys think about this? Is this a good or bad idea? Can you think of any other autonomous technologies could be effectively implemented on personal computers? I personally think this can be a good thing if Microsoft is able to make the software really smart at detecting actual faces from fake ones. However, I don’t think it makes sense to make your face the password. It would make more sense to have your face be the username, or at least a security measure to gaining access to your username.
Deloitte Replacing Performance Evaluations With Four Simple Questions
According to The Washing Post, “Research shown to be ineffective, unreliable and unsatisfactory for seemingly everyone involved. They consume way too much time, leave most workers deflated and feel increasingly out of step with reality.”
Deloitte has redesigned its whole performance management plan and how it will evaluate its employees. Deloitte’s is getting rid of nonsensical attempts to build similar goals for everyone in the organization. The company also noticed they were spending two million hours each year assigning numerical ratings to each employee so they got rid of that too.
Overall, Deloitte is replacing its old performance system with four engaging questions they are asking managers to look at instead. Washing Post stated, “At the end of every project, or once a quarter if employees have long-term assignments, managers would answer four simple questions — and only four. The first two are answered on a five-point scale, from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree;” the second two have yes or no options:”
1. Given what I know of this person’s performance, and if it were my money, I would award this person the highest possible compensation increase and bonus.
2. Given what I know of this person’s performance, I would always want him or her on my team.
3. This person is at risk for low performance.
4. This person is ready for promotion today.
This new performance allows how to develop employees in the future based on their performance.
Based on this article/post, do you think organizations should start following this new approach? Would you prefer to be evaluated on these questions or have a standard performance evaluation review? Why?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/03/17/deloitte-ditches-performance-rankings-and-instead-will-ask-four-simple-questions/
Uber and Self-Driving Cars
After reading the post “Cars You Drive Will Eventually Be Outlawed”, I noticed an article about Uber and self-driving cars. In class, we talked about Uber as a disruptive innovation when it comes to current taxi services. When I did my research on autonomous vehicles, this idea that current cars could be taken off the market completely was very real possibility; current cars and self-driving cars will not be compatible on the road together.
In this article, Uber’s technology leaders have started to working with Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center to research “areas of mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology”. Uber is making a smart decision by investing in this technology because self-driving cars will become the new taxis.
Since Uber is investing in this technology, it will be faced with new challenges. While we as consumers use Uber because it is convenient the company has recruited drivers by saying drivers can get rich. But, within the past year Uber has faced several lawsuits from its independent contractors or “drivers”. In my opinion, Uber will probably heavily invest in self-driving cars to eliminate this problem. The article also mentioned that Google may create a taxi service similar to Uber since it is also heavily investing in self-driving cars.
When Uber only has self-driving cars pick you up, would you continue to use Uber? Why or Why not? Would you start using Google’s taxi service instead? How do you think Uber will change its business model to compete with a huge company like Google?
Roger Martin Coined Integrative Thinking
http://rogerlmartin.com/thought-pillars/integrative-thinking
Roger Martin coined the word “integrative thinking” when he observed in his multiyear study of exceptional successful leaders. He found a consistent pattern to the leaders thinking approach when they were faced with challenging choices. In 2007, Roger published a book called The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking. The book describes the components of Integrative Thinking and provides a guide for those who want to manage their own Integrative Thinking capacity. Roger states, “Many people assume that Integrative Thinking is a skill which one must be born to demonstrate. This is definitively not the case! It is clear from this teaching experience that anyone who is willing to work at Integrative Thinking can develop the thinking pattern exhibited by the highly successful leaders that I studied.” I agree with Rogers statement because not every successful leader is born with every skill set to make them successful.
Do you think integrative thinking is an easy skill to learn? How much time do you think you need to put into learning the skill set of an integrative thinker?
NINTENDO IS FINALLY BRINGING MARIO TO MOBILE PHONES
After a very long wait, nintendo is finally bringing its beloved games to mobile devices. Nintendo, like many others, was the incumbent for the longest time in the gaming industry. When smartphones came out, it heavily disrupted the handheld gaming industry because consumers were finding it much easier to download their favorite games directly to their phone. Why carry around two devices when you don’t need to? Nintendo stuck to their guns about only distributing their software on Nintendo only hardware, but finally gave in to the demand. In my opinion, they could heavily disrupt the gaming apps being sold not the app store and really reclaim market share. Thoughts?
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/nintendo-dena-mobile/?mbid=social_fb
We can change the way we think!
Summary of “How Successful People Think”
Integrative thinking is in some way or another an art form, but also is something that can be learned, practiced, and built upon throughout a life time. I believe in order to become an integrative thinker we first need to learn how to think better. “How Successful People Think” by John C Maxwell is a book that addresses 11 skills of a good thinker possess, and how to adopt these skills. These 11 skills are:
1)Big picture thinking
2)Focused thinking
3)Creative thinking
4)Realistic thinking
5)Strategic thinking
6)Possibility thinking
7)Reflective thinking
8)Popular thinking
9)Shared thinking
10)Unselfish thinking
11)Bottom-line thinking
Maxwell’s quote “If you embrace unpopular thinking and make decisions based upon what works best and what is right rather than what is commonly accepted, know this: in your early years you won’t be as wrong as people think you are. In your later years, you won’t be as right as people think you are. And through all the years, you will be better than you thought you could be.”
Maxwell says we can develop these skills during ordinary daily routines. Does anyone have any ideas how they would practice one of the 11 skills in their daily life?
Practicing Integrative Thinking Skills
This week in class, we are discussing the art and science of integrative thinking. To learn more about integrative thinking, I explored online for relevant articles. On The Huffington Post’s website, I located an article entitled Becoming an Integrative thinker: The Keys to Success, by Roger Martin, the academic director of an institute of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and author of the article we read for class.
Martin uses the expression “opposable minds” to explain the decision-making styles of successful leaders; he explains that when faced with options, these individuals do not choose the lesser of two evils but instead synthesize a unique option that is superior to its alternatives.
More interestingly, in my opinion, he argues that integrative thinking is a skill rather than an innate ability—one that must be nurtured to develop, as opposed to one assigned by nature.
As I thought more about the prospect of developing one’s integrative thinking skills, I began to wonder what type of practice is best. Should one focus on case studies, or should one aim to tackle real-life problems? Should one type of practice precede the other, or is a mixture of the two optimal?
Lastly, do we already practice our integrative thinking skills more regularly than one might think?
How to Get the Job When You Don’t Have the Experience
“The Permission Paradox” – You can’t get the job without the experience but you can’t get the experience without the job – is one of the great career Catch-22s.
I came across this article on Linkedin, while I was scrolling for jobs. Almost every job I came across required 3-5 years of professional experience. How can I have experience if I cant get a first job? Well, James Citrin, author of The Career Playbook, tells you how in just 5 steps. Reading this article gave me confidence that not all requirements are so black and white.
James gives a few pointers that stuck with me after reading:
1. Be willing to start at the bottom. Just because we have a degree, doesn’t mean we should automatically get a high paid salary in a fortune 500 company. Sometimes you need to work up the ladder.
2. Re-imagine your experience. Have you ever planned a spring break with your friends? That counts as some type of “project managing” right? It was your responsibility to collect money, work with budgets, and research unknown variables of the trip.
To those of you who are still searching for jobs or have already gotten an offer, have you used creative stories like these in interviews to fill an under qualified job requirement?
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