Stoicism: Negativity Spawns Negativity

Stoicism: Negativity Spawns Negativity

How do you deal with unwanted situations? 

While doing some reading on attributes of a great leader this week I can across this article, “22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader” (Adam Bornsrein & Jordan Bornstein, 2016). One of these qualities made lots of sense and got me thinking and researching the concept further. That term is Stoicism,

“Stoicism is, at its core, accepting and anticipating adverse situations such as costly mistakes, unexpected failures or unscrupulous enemies, etc. in advance, so that you don’t freak out, react emotionally and aggravate things further”            

(Adam Bornsrein & Jordan Bornstein, 2016, Entrepreneur.com)

Wouldn’t it be nice if all leaders could do this?

Just this week I was watching “OutDaughtered” and the father Adam Busby showed some fantastic leadership with all five of his now 2-year-old quintuplets. In this episode, Adam didn’t show the least bit of frustration while trying to do some prep work before painting a room, he simply went with the flow, fully aware he wasn’t going to get much done before the girls went to bed for the night. It’s amazing to see a father treat his kids in this manner, wouldn’t it be great if all leaders treated everyone this way.

During my research I went from reading through articles comparing the similarities between Christianity and Stoicism, how it was the main philosophy in ancient Rome, and how Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180) was a large influence on this way of thinking and his writings are considered to be the greatest works of philosophy.

Imagine for a minute what your work place would look like if leaders practiced a little more Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius said “the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts”, we know how negativity spawns negativity, and how being positive especially in the workplace increases employee engagement, overall Moral, and thus happier and more productive employees. 

Let’s all make Stoicism a required quality of ourselves and our leaders. The glass is half full, look into the future and anticipate those situations where your actions and/or attitude may not be what is expected or warranted and start now on the process of projecting a calm and collected demeanor in all situations good or bad.

References

Adam Bornsrein & Jordan Bornstein. (2016, Entrepreneur.com, October 28). Take It From The Pros 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader. Retrieved August 10, 2017, from Entrepreneur.com: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270486

Followership Types

Followership Types and Cultural Diversity

This image was downloaded from Ambiguity Advantage

Understanding cultural differences is definitely a step in the right direction in encouraging team collaboration and increasing team performance. I believe it's important not only to understand how these cultural differences can affect performance and team interactions, but the leaders managing these teams need to also rely on their people skills to ensure that each team member receives the leadership required to effectively perform with the team.

In my other studies, I found the concept of substitutes for leadership and the different types of followership types (Daft, 2014) interesting when applying them to the global virtual teams. This opens up a new complexity for global virtual teams, how do leaders who understand cultural diversity ensure all team members are effective while ensuring there is no dysfunction created due to assuming team members should act/perform in a particular way?

It's crucial team leaders in their understanding of cultural differences do not confuse this with stereotyping. “Stereotypes never accurately describe individual behavior; rather, they describe the behavioral norm for members of a particular group.” (Alder, 2010, p. 76, para. 3). Even though members of a particular culture typically act, perform, and communicate in a predictable manner, leaders need to realize while these may be cultural norms, not everyone from these cultures will act or perform based on the cultural sensitivity training.

Followership

While individuals can be typically stereotyped based on cultural diversity, leaders need to ensure they not only understand the culture but each individual team member as well. By doing so will help prevent any stereotyping from affecting team performance. Whether team members are from a particular culture or not doesn’t necessarily imply they will act stereotypically. This is where understanding followership types can greatly increase overall team effectiveness.

Under the ideal circumstance, it would be beneficial to have a team comprised of dedicated, highly capable, motivated and empowered individuals. According to the different follower types, this follower would be the effect or star follower. Effective followers are not inhibited in challenging the status quo, or to accept the risk. Courage is one of their best attributes (Daft, 2014, p. 200). This type of follower requires less effort on behalf of the leader to achieve results.

Members of a team may fall under any of the other follower types;

·       Yes People/Conformists: These team members would do what they are told. Requires direction from leaders. Daft identifies conformists as concerned with avoiding conflict (Daft, 2014, p. 200).

·       Sheep/Passive Followers: These members would require more leadership interaction and have all the task details explained. (Daft, 2014).

·        Pragmatic Survivors: They usually go with the flow of what is going on. In the event an organization is going through a change they will become active until the problem is solved. This type of follower is not concerned with the long term, and typically would not make a good team member under normal circumstances, this team member may not be relied upon to take the team forward, (Daft, 2014). 

·       Alienated Follower: They are critical thinkers and do a good job with what they have to do. However, they don’t go above the minimum requirement. (Daft, 2014).  This would also not make a good team member as the normally go about their day doing as little as they can.

Understanding the follower type of a global virtual team would greatly improve the way the leader interacts with members. Unfortunately, not all teams can comprise of highly effective followers, in these cases, leaders need to understand how to interact with these different team members and provide them with the leadership style they require to remain an active member of the team. These different followership types could pose a problem for active leadership considering the team is virtual, especially for some of these follower types which require more interaction by the leader. The active use of technology can help to provide some followers/team members with the style of leadership they require to perform, such as email and video conferencing.

Substitutes for leadership

“In some cases, virtual teams may lack appointed leaders altogether, being as a result formally self-managing and free to organize themselves”, (Crowston, Heckman & Misiolek, (2010). This is a substitution for leadership, (Daft, 2014), which allows for the replacing of active leadership, this could include Factors such as subordinates being “highly educated (and) professional”, (Daft, 2014, p.88, para. 2). A virtual team with capable, experienced, and self-motivated professionals have the skills to substitute for leadership. Such as the student project teams from this course. Even though there is no active leadership, this team was able to collaborate and work well with one another to completed required task.

Conclusion

            With the wide range of individual performance levels and virtual team member requirements, I believe it’s just as important to understand who the team members are and what they are capable of, rather than only relying on cultural diversity which may lead to stereotyping and ultimately team dysfunction. By reviewing the different followership types it may be possible to assemble a team which would require less leadership.

References

Adler, N. (2010), International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 5th edition. Cincinnati:           Southwestern College Publishing. ISBN: 9780324360745

Crowston, K., Heckman. R. & Misiolek, N. (2010), Leadership in self-managing virtual teams,         Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/897298/Leadership_in_self-managing_virtual_teams

Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience (Sixth ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning

Effective Team Leadership During Change

http://tracktrainingservices.co.uk

Leading a new team can have its challenges, especially for a leader who has never been part of a team or have had to form one. I believe an effective leader, one who encourages employees to offer suggestions and be part of decision making should find it more easily to lead a team. It’s important for a leader to understand they are also a member of the team. The amount of leadership required is determined based on the type of team, i.e. a functional team requires more leadership than a self-directed team, (Daft, 2014, p. 294). There would be a shift in leadership style based on the type of team, a leader would need to utilize a different set of traits depending on the situation. 

A leader needs to look at the team as a whole, as a working unit which is not the same as leading merely a group of employees. There are factors which can cause dysfunction in any team which the leader needs to be able to identify and prevent so the team will be able to work together, collaborate, and achieve set goals. Daft (2014, p. 298) list 5 reasons why a team can become dysfunctional. 

•“Lack of trust”: 

Leaders need to ensure open communication is active.

•“Fear of conflict”: 

This is something which can hold any team back, it prevents “…constructive passionate debate”, (The HR Specialist, 2012). People can be affected by the something called Abilene paradox, these are who agree with everything, even if it contradicts what they have agreed upon with a different group of people, as they want to please others, (Daft, 2014, p. 182, para 5). Leaders need to be able to recognize this in order to prevent.

•“Lack of commitment”: 

This can be an indication the team may consist of the wrong people, however, this may be a case where there is a lack of empowerment and motivation. Clear expectations and goals may also be missing. Team members need to know and understand what is expected of them.

•“Avoidance of accountability”: 

Similar to commitment, empowerment and motivation can help to prevent this as well. Clear expectations need to be communicated and follow-up is imperative.

•“Inattention to results”: 

This can involve team members who have their own agenda which differs from the group’s goals. 

For smaller teams, leaders will need to rely more heavily on their communication and people skills to ensure the team remains effective. 


References

Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience (Sixth ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning 

Fred Bailey: An Innocent Abroad, A Case Study Review

Fred Bailey: An Innocent Abroad

 Phases of Cultural Adjustment, (Cuevas et al. 2011)

 An interesting case study illustrating the adverse effects of an organization failing to recognize cultural diversity. In this particular case, Fred is not only struggling with running the Japan office, his personal life is also being affected. And if that wasn’t enough, the organization is experiencing poor performance. There are many factors to consider in order to determine why and what went wrong for the organization, Fred, and his family. The organization along with Fred need to accept some of the responsibility for this failed endeavor as effective leadership and cultural sensitivity is not only the organization's obligation but the leaders as well.

Identification of the Issues

After moving his family to Japan, Fred had started to experience problems immediately in his new assignment. The first of these problems was during his introduction and inspirational speech on his vision for the Tokyo office. A situation which left him wondering why the Japanese seemed not to care. The next problem Fred encounters is the error he made in trying to push a potential client to accept a new proposal. The Japanese value personal relationship and this is one criteria they utilize to help make business decisions; Fred had failed to make this connection, leaving the potential client wondering why Kline & Associates would be a good fit for them. A third mistake Fred made was when delegating a project to a Japanese subordinate, failing to understand how the Japanese perceive personal relationships and how this affects business dealings. In all three of these problems Fred experiences, at the end they all relate to one major deficiency; Fred’s inability to recognize cultural diversity.

External Factors

Upon analyzing the case study for external factors, we learn there are a few which help to foster and expand the problems Fred faces. The first major problem was the lack of cultural training for Fred and his family. It is clear, not only did Fred’s wife not want to move to Japan, she is also struggling to understand the culture and fit in. This is adding stress to Fred’s already stressful days at work. After almost half a year, Fred is wondering if they made the right decision to move.

Internal Factors

My analysis is; not only has the company fail to discuss the differences in cultures, they also failed Fred and his family by not providing the cultural sensitivity training “needed to meet the challenges and issues he would possibly face.” (Cuevas, Beda-Andourou, Bernal, Bolivar, & Mujtaba, 2011). An interesting point Cuevas et al., (2011) make is after a short period of time, why did the previous director last less than a year. Was there additional information about the assignment withheld for fear Fred would decline the offer?

Opportunities

 In my analysis of the case study, there are some immediate steps the company could take to help Tokyo office, Fred, and his family. Pre-training on the cultural differences should have been offered to both Fred and his family. It’s important to note, even though this training was not offered, the Bailey’s would still benefit from cultural training now seven months later, (Alder, 2014). Fred should be given every opportunity to succeed in this assignment.  Fred needs to start asking the following questions, to what should I pay attention? and what does it mean? (Alder, 2014, p. 278, para 2). Part of these questions is how he needs to recognize the cultural differences in the workplace, as well as discuss these with his wife so she may work through these differences with Fred’s help.

Culture Shock

Culture shock is the “frustration and confusion that result from being bombarded by too many new and uninterpretable cues”. (Alder, 2014, p. 277). The four different phases of adjustment are “honeymoon, culture shock, adjustment and mastery”, Figure 1. Phases of Cultural Adjustment, illustrate the relationship between these four phases, (Cuevas et al. 2011). Culture shock is an important phase which all expatriates will experience when working in a new culture. If Fred and his family were to begin culture sensitivity training they would begin to emerge from the culture shock phase which according to figure 1, usually takes place around ten to twelve months. While culture shock is not an enjoyable aspect of this type of move, there is some indications Fred and his family will emerge from this phase.

Severe culture shock is often a positive sign indicating that the expatriate is becoming deeply involved in the new culture instead of remaining isolated in an expatriate ghetto. Experienced expatriates therefore should view culture shock as a sign that they are doing something right, not wrong. For them, the most important question is how best to manage the stress caused by culture shock, not how to avoid the culture shock itself. (Alder, 2014, p. 278, para 1)

My analysis show there is an adjustment period for expatriates when exposed to working conditions in new cultures. The average time to rebound from honeymoon to culture shock and back to the same level of acceptance as the honeymoon phase is about twelve months, (figure 1.). This is interesting considering the previous director which Fred replaced was in Tokyo less than a year. A step the company should have included in pre-move orientation is to connect the Baileys with an experienced expatriate, preferably one living in Japan, a mentor who could help them understand the four phases of cultural adjustment as well as what could be expected in each phase.

Conclusion

Although Fred should have been given a pre-move orientation which would have prepared him and his family better for the culture change, it would have also given him some of the tools he would have required to successfully change his leadership style and begin to lead a multi-cultural team.

           

I believe there is still time to turn this situation around. The company has a few options which would deal with the current situation; they could simply chose to ignore everything and  transfer Fred and his family, or provide leadership and cultural sensitivity training, accompanied with a mentor to not only help Fred professionally but socially as well.

Ignoring everything

Ignoring the situation may be the easiest tactic for the company, however if Fred doesn’t emerge from the culture shock phase it may cost the company more in moving expenses, finding a replacement to take over the Tokyo office and possible an increase in the turnover of employees. This tactic could also quite possibly give Fred doubts about his career choice.

Transfer

This is an option the company could consider as they may have experienced a similar situation with the previous director. Although we do not understand what the previous situation entailed, we do know based on the four phases of culture adjustment, the previous director would likely have still been in the culture shock phase. This would create a cycle which would most likely cost the company financially with transfers every six to twelve months.

Provide training              

                                                                                                       

Providing the training for Fred and his family would be the best option in this situation. Fred has a proven track record leading successful projects, (Fred Bailey case study, 2010). The training would provide Fred with a better understanding of the Japanese culture and what is required to do business there. This would not only benefit Fred and his family but the company itself. Some of the benefits the company would see would include increased performance of the Tokyo office as culture differences would become an asset and Fred would better understand what is involved in signing on new clients, as well as what is required to keep employees motivated. The company would also see cost savings as they would potentially not need to replace their directors on an annual basis.

            

My analysis shows there is a benefit to providing training and orientation to all involved parties, “Sixty percent of companies offer some type of cross-cultural pre-departure training; however, such training is mandatory at only a quarter of the companies.” (Alder, 2014, p. 275, para 1). These numbers reflect the increased need for cultural sensitivity training; seventy-five percent of organization feel there is no need for training which raises the question, why? Is it because of cultural blindness, attempts to save money, possibly their confidence in their leader or maybe an individual would refuse such training out of fear the organization would see them as the wrong candidate as they believe they require additional training.

References

Adler, N. (2010), International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 5th edition. Cincinnati:           Southwestern College Publishing. ISBN: 9780324360745

Cain, S. (2012), The Rise of the New Groupthink, retrieved form http://www.nytimes.com/2     012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Chalre, (n.d), Expatriate Culture Shock, retrieved from http://www.chalre.com/hiring_man    agers/expatriate_culture_shock.htm

Cuevas, P., Beda-Andourou, A., Bernal, M., Bolivar, and M., Mujtaba, B. (2011), Lessons from

Fred Bailey’s Expatriate Experience in Japan: Proactively Preparing Employees for

International Assignments, Journal of Business Studies Quarterly 2011, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.

40-52, retrieved from http://jbsq.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Sep-2011-4.pdf

Fred Bailey case study. (2010), Fred Bailey:  An Innocent Abroad, [Case study], University of   Evansville Global Case Competition

China Presentation, Global Economics

China Presentation, Global Economics from William Allen

Virtual Technology

Team Virtual Technology Presentation from William Allen

Excerpt from Keurig Sustainability report

Keurig Green Mountain Inc. Sustainability Audit
By: William Allen, Alicia Anderson, Brandi Borman, Patrick Dupuis, Ariel Jackson, Steven Morton,
Melissa Strle

Keurig Green Mountain Inc. has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1981 as a small specialty coffee store in Vermont, USA. The company was originally called Green Mountain Coffee but then transitioned into Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. In 1993, two engineers approached Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to invest in a single cup brewing system, and Keurig was born (Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, n.d.). An initial public offering was completed in September of 1993. In 1997, Keurig became the first to offer coffee in a K-Cup portion pack for the Keurig Single-Cup Brewing System. In 1998, the first single cup coffee brewer for offices was delivered (Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, n.d.). Since then, the company has experienced tremendous growth.

In 1995, net sales were $34 million but increased to $84 million in 2000 and then to $224 million in 2006 (Keurig Green Mountain Sustainability Report, 2014). In 2010, net sales further grew to $1.36 billion and went on to reach enormous volumes with net sales of $4.71 billion in 2014 (Keurig Green Mountain Sustainability Report, 2014). To reach this level of growth, Keurig utilizes strategic partnerships with 80 coffee brands allowing for 575 hot and cold beverage varieties for its brewing system (Keurig Green Mountain Sustainability Report, 2014). Keurig primarily operates within North America and has established facilities in six U.S. states. Its principle Canadian office is in Montreal, Quebec where Keurig’s management team, coffee roasters, and packaging plants are located (“Keurig Green Mountain,” 2015). As the company has expanded in sales and profit, Keurig’s commitment to sustainability increased as well. 

Interestingly, two of Keurig’s corporate values are “We play to win” and “We brew a better world” (“Keurig Green Mountain,”2015). It is important for major companies to recognize the importance and value of a strong business case for sustainability. Berns et al. (2009) determined after reviewing facts and identifying a strong business case, leading companies will publicly commit to ambitious sustainability goals, demonstrating that investment in sustainability leads to strong business results. Keurig’s website indicates it is using the power of business to brew a better world through building resilient supply chains, sustainable products, thriving communities, and a water-secure world (“Keurig Green Mountain,” 2015). Keurig identifies both a solid business foundation in combination with sustainable values to justify its goal of having a positive impact on the world.

An analysis of six sustainability dimensions at Keurig Green Mountain Inc. was audited to provide an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of current sustainability practices at the company. The sustainability dimensions analyzed include corporate governance, environment, social and cultural, economic, technology, and community engagement. To determine Keurig’s overall sustainability rating, the individual dimension ratings and rationale of sustainability practices at Keurig’s are also provided.

For the complete report click here