MSLD 634 Module 5-Is Marketing Evil?

When it comes to business, people often times immediately assume that the primary goal is to promote and sell products or services. Mostly true, but as a former business student, I’ve learned that businesses are so much more than selling. One of the most common reasons why organizations fail to lead effectively is because they view decision-making as a one directional, monolithic process (Anthony & Schwartz, 2017). While selling is indeed a primary operation, it is important to remember that people are what make business possible. And with people, there are always social aspects to consider and implement in decision-making: one of which is ethics.

Ethics and ethically decision-making is a bit of a "no-brainer": we have to understand and do things that’s considered right and agreeable by the people to effectively run our organization. This relationship is seen on Ferrell’s (2005) chart from Marketing Ethics (p.4):   

The important thing to consider from the table above is that this doesn’t show how to make a decision, but rather how decisions are made (Ferrell, 2005). Another thing we can draw from the table above is that how ethical decisions are depends on how the company internally approaches ethics. To ensure that ones don’t go off track, it is critical to establish strong and clear ethical guidelines throughout the company.

            While ethics is one critical thing to consider in marketing, it is also important to maintain positive relationships with consumers as well as understanding what people need, want, and like in general. One way businesses gain such information is through what Herb Weisbaum (n.d.) labels as “behavioral tracking”. Behavioral tracking is the way where organizations builds a detailed profile about people based on the information on what sites you visit and the things you buy and search. In most cases, this is done without ones knowledge or consent (Weisbaum, n.d.). To me, consent and being informed is very important, and I’d find it very unethical if ones have unauthorized access through my personal information. So here we might ask, if some business think this way, how can ones gain useful information for their business? If I played a role as a marketing manager, I’d try to gain information based on consumer feedback while maintaining a good company reputation by quickly responding to consumers.

While participation may be a bit of a struggle, I personally believe that feedback is a more reliable source of information as it comes directly from the consumer. In addition, feedback informs consumers about our request for information and gives them the option on whether or not to give consent to the company. To maintain a good reputation for the company, communication and timely responses are critical. If consumers were dissatisfied or received a faulty product or service, we need to accommodate them as soon as possible. If we see a trend that effects our consumers, take notice and take action. Just as Ferrell (2005) mentioned, companies can also get involved and give to the community to maintain a good company image (such as Home Depot providing support to Habitat for Humanity in response to Hurricane Kathrina). When this all comes down together, I personally believe that marketing isn’t necessarily evil as long as the company responds and meets consumer demands, needs, and preferences.  

References:

Anthony, S. & Schwartz, E. (2017). What the Best Transformational Leaders Do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/what-the-best-transformational-leaders-do

Ferrell, L. (2005). Marketing Ethics. Retrieved from http://college.cengage.com/business/modules/marktngethics.pdf

Weisbaum, H. (n.d.). Who’s watching you online? FTC pushes ‘Do Not Track’ plan. MSN News. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42239031/ns/business-consumer_news/t/whos-watching-you-online-ftc-pushes-do-not-track-plan/#.WjriM1VKuUl

MSLD 634 Module 4-Is Affirmative Action Ethical?

Affirmative action, or the practice of giving special consideration to minorities (LaFollette, 2007) may appear ethical for those in consideration, but we may ask ourselves: is it really ethical? Looking into our history, the general idea of affirmative action was ideal. American women once did not have equal rights with men and blacks once did not share equal rights to whites. Eventually, such discrimination were prohibited and affirmative actions (a plausible form of compensatory justice) were taken to ensure equal qualities of life to those involved (AAAED, 2015). Over the course of years however, racism and other forms of discrimination has declined: which changed the way we view affirmative actions.

The whole concept of affirmative action reminded me of a personal situation I’ve been involved with during a mid-season tryout for my high school varsity tennis team. During these tryouts, top rank players from the junior varsity team had a chance to play several matches against the varsity players. Depending on the result of these matches, players had the opportunity to move up and even join the varsity team. As the top-rank player in the junior varsity team, I participated in the tryouts and managed to win a match against a varsity player. Upon winning, my opponent and the entire varsity team got into a very emotional state and were deeply sadden by her loss. Despite my hard efforts, the coaches eventually made the ultimate decision to not swap ranks due to the “friendship” involved. When this decision was made, I was confused (and very upset) since I didn’t understand the difference between my opponent’s friendship to the varsity team and mine. What made my opponent stand out more than me? If I were my opponent, would I be getting the same treatment? While the probable reason may be for the two of us to avoid any negative impacts (the opponent dealing with embarrassment and the varsity team treating me badly due to winning), the real reason to this decision remains unclear.

Similar thoughts and questions arises in the case of student admissions: which I personally find to be a long time and fairly popular topic related to affirmative action. A recent article I came across is in relation to Harvard University and their lack of admission for Asian-Americans. Recent statistics show that more than half of the university’s freshmen class were women, more than one in five were Asian and nearly 15% were African-American (BBC, 2017). While it is unclear if race is involved in the admissions process, some claims that education standards in Asian countries may be the primary reason to lower admission rates. In a 2010 statistics from the Program for International Assessment (PISA), eight of the top ten countries that ranked in education were from the Asia-Pacific region (Desai, 2010). If Harvard’s decision-making were based on this, this would be a form of reverse-discrimination and hence unethical for the Asian-American population. While there are many other factors involved in the admissions’ process, I generally believe that affirmative action is unethical: as there will always be two different sides in a situation.

References:

American Association for Access Equity and Diversity. (2015). More History of Affirmative Action Policies From the 1960s. Retrieved from https://www.aaaed.org/aaaed/History_of_Affirmative_Action.asp

BBC. (2017). Harvard affirmative action ‘investigated by Justice Dept’. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42070493

Desai, V. (2010). The U.S. must start learning from Asia. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/07/school.results.us.asia.desai/index.html

LaFollette, H. (2007). The Practice of Ethics. Blackwell Publishing.

MSLD 634 Module 3- The Harder They Fall

The leadership program so far has taught me many tips on what it takes to be a great leader, and I once again sharpened my understanding this week. For this week’s module, we read Roderick Kramer’s article The Harder They Fall: which primarily focused on power. Many people desire to move up and be successful, however often times they are not aware of the potential risks involved and as a result struggle to maintain efficient leadership. For this blog post, I will be briefly discussing some of Kramer’s points and suggestions, in addition to relating the topic to my current work experiences.

Despite being constantly reminded how the world is getting flatter, I personally believe that strictly following the traditional top-down styles of leadership is one common mistake in many organizations today. According to Obolensky (2014), different levels of an organization tend to have different kinds and amount of information. In his study, he finds that approximately 60% of the information required for decision-making are found at the bottom level of an organization versus 30% in the middle and 10 on the top level (p.37). As a result, he concludes that it’s important for ones to encourage communication (including external stakeholders) to make more effective decision-making (Obolensky, 2014).

Obolensky’s points adds up to Kramer’s points on the danger of over relying on power. By doing so, ones come to believe that normal limits don't apply to them and that they are entitled to any spoils they can seize. This behavior then causes them to become less aware of the things happening around them, which can eventually lead them to corruption (Kramer, 2003). To ensure that leaders can avoid the traps that power can bring, Kramer (2003) suggests leaders to implement several common psychological and behavioral habits. Some of the suggestions included that ones should simply live their lives, be “ordinary” like everyone else, shine a light on their weaknesses instead of trying to cover them up, and to always be reflective (Kramer, 2003). The suggestions Kramer made reminded me of Obolensky’s concepts of leading as a polygarchy (where everyone works and has a leadership role). By reducing the power barrier in the workplace, it encourages ones to communicate with one another. This can establish more of a learning environment in the organization: which can serve growth opportunities for the organization (Obolensky, 2014).

This week’s topic reminds me of a time when my workplace was in the early process of simplifying and centralizing campus operations. Some of the changes revolved around the low levels of the university: which caused a lot of issues with student advisement. Eventually, the university established a month-long training session: where we received new and refresh training to clarify and improve campus operations. During our sessions, many of the lower-leveled employees including myself were given the opportunity to speak out and even provide suggestions to individuals from various departments and levels of the organization. Despite higher levels having their own preferred way, our opportunity to speak provided them opportunities to consider additional information to a procedure or standard. Since this training, I personally believe that top leaders have improved their understanding of listening and hence been making improvements for the university.

References:

Kramer, R. M. (2003). THE HARDER THEY FALL. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 81(10), 58-66.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2nd ed.). UK: Gower Publishing.

MSLD 634 Module 2- Theories of Ethics

For this week’s module, LaFollette introduced us to two different categories of ethical theory that have different approaches on problem solving: consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism, as LaFollette (2007) defines is the way where ones choose the available action(s) with the best overall consequences, whereas deontology states that ones should act in ways circumscribed by moral rules or rights (p. 22). The key difference is that consequentialism focuses more on results while deontology focuses on how to get to the results (Rudin, 2014).

Of the two categories, I consider myself more of a consequentialist since I personally believe that a thorough analysis (more details) is what makes decision-making more efficient. As LaFollette (2007) stated, consequentialists typically specify which consequences are morally relevant, how much “weight” or consideration we should give to those that count, and how precisely we should use them in moral reasoning (p. 23). An example I had was whether to determine if making regular phone calls (general information) to students was an ideal operation for my campus. If I chose to regularly call students, I know that students will be informed and will likely be happy to hear from us. However, considering the fact that most students are full-time employees, I worried that calling them about non-urgent information in the middle of work could be a distraction and may lead to negative consequences. With these and other thoughts in mind, I decided that calling regularly will likely not be the best choice for my campus, an instead decided to email the information to the students.

                As previously mentioned, deontology is the way where we act in ways circumscribed by moral rules or rights (LaFollette, 2007). A recent example of this is when I went over the Train Dilemma in last week’s blog post. One of the scenario asked whether I should push an elderly man to save five children on the tracks or not to push. At an instance, my immediate thought was to not push the elder because, I believe that all human life is sacred regardless of their gender, age, race, etc. While I make some decisions in this category, I personally worry if my moral beliefs do not align with what others think. In a hypothetical setting, if I chose not to sacrifice the elder despite sacrificing to save the young were considered a moral act for many, I’d likely face deep consequences for my action. With this in mind, I personally believe that deontology is a better approach when dealing with less complex situations (no large consequences).

References:

LaFollette, H. (2007). The practice of ethics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Rudin, S. (2014). Consequentialism, Deontology, Ethics, and Virtue. The Loop. Retrieved from http://www.theloopnewspaper.com/story/2014/03/29/local-news/consequentialism-deontology-ethics-and-virtue/416.html

MSLD 634 Module 1-The Train Dilemma: When no Choice is a Good One!

Whether it’s for personal or professional reasons, we make decisions every day. In most cases, we require little time to think over and determine the most effective choice(s). Decision-making however is not always easy: as not all choices can be good. For this week’s module, I had the opportunity to learn about the Train Dilemma. Developed by Phillippa Foot in 1967 and later adapted by Judith Thomson in 1985, the purpose of the experiment is to think through the consequences of an action and consider whether its moral value is determined solely by its outcome (D’Olimpio, 2016).

The Train Dilemma consist of a situation where a train is hurtling down a track where several children are standing. As a switchperson, we are involved in making a choice that involves unpleasant sacrifices. Below are three different situations of the Train Dilemma and how I will likely approach each situation:

Situation One:

A train is hurtling down the track where five children are standing. You are the switchperson. By throwing the switch, you can put the train on a side track where one child is standing. Will you throw the switch?

In any crisis, our goal as humans is to save as many lives as possible. We see examples of this almost daily with local news stations: warning and helping citizen prepare for an upcoming hurricane to sending alerts of an active shooting. While making efforts is important, every case is different and we are sometimes unable to save every one. In this case, we see a train coming at full speed and only have a few seconds until the train hits someone. With the previous moral belief and hope that all children will make effort to escape, I’d likely turn the switch to the single child on the side railing since I’d lose one rather than five children if they were unable to escape on time.

Situation Two:

A train is hurtling down the track where five children are standing. You are the switchperson and standing next to an elderly man. If you push him in front of the train, it will stop the train and all the children will be saved. Will you push him?

Unlike the last situation, we have an elderly man that’s currently at the scene, but not necessarily involved in the same danger the children are in (not on the tracks). If the scene has the exact set up as the last scenario, but with no one on the side rail, throwing the switch will be the most ideal choice. However based on the description of the scenario, this is likely not the case. Despite the fact that sacrificing an elder can save all the children, all human life is sacred regardless of their gender, age, race, etc. If I decided to sacrifice the elder despite this belief, people will likely view my actions as murder: which can pose lifetime complications than dealing with the fate of the children. As a result, I will not sacrifice the elder. Other reasons for this action include a belief that there may be a possibility of the elder failing to stop the train and the possibility of the elder making his own choice to sacrificing himself (the public will likely see this as an act of heroism rather than murder).

Situation Three:

A train is hurtling down the track where five children are standing. You are the switchperson. By throwing the switch, you can put the train on a side track where one child is standing. However, this child is your own child. Will you throw the switch to save the five children?

               Despite believing that it’s important to save as many lives possible, this situation becomes excruciatingly difficult when you have a family member involved. As a result, the actions we make in such situations will likely be personal.  If all the children involved were far from reach (distance and time-wise), I’d honestly save my own child. However, still believing the importance of saving people, I’d likely throw the switch to ensure the five children will not get hurt, and try to save or sacrifice myself to save my child.

Although I listed the choices for each scenario, I’d honestly say that I can’t guarantee making ethical and efficient decisions despite knowing what I believe is right and wrong. The Train Dilemma reminded me of a mall stabbing incident that occurred earlier this year. Everything happened so fast- the moment I saw a large crowd of people running towards our direction, I didn’t know what was happening. Without realizing what was going on, I ran with the crowd despite being with my friend: who happened to be visiting the mall for the very first time that day. If I had the time and was in a more relax state, helping and escaping with my friend will be the more ideal choice. However, since fear shuts down the thinking process, I ended up making the less ethical choice (Dayton, n.d.).

References:

Dayton, T. (n.d.). Scared Stiff: The Biology of Fear. Tian Dayton Phd. Retrieved from http://www.tiandayton.com/scared-stiff-the-biology-of-fear

D’Olimpio, L. (2016). The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five?. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-trolley-dilemma-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-five-57111

MSLD 635 Module 8- Transformational Strategies

Throughout the leadership program, we’ve been constantly reminded how change is always constant. Because of this, organizations must stay proactive and adapt to any changes in order to survive (Obolensky, 2014). Leading and adapting to changes however is not always easy. One common reason why organizations fail to lead during change is because they approach change as a monolithic process (Anthony & Schwartz, 2017). As leaders, it is important to keep in mind that adapting to change consist of a multi-step process.

According to Brown (2011), company culture plays a large role: as it correlates to an array of things in an organization (p 406). Figure 15.4 shows and define what strong and weak cultures are:

To ensure organizations have strong company culture, there must be a strong commitment and share of company values. In addition, it is important for leaders to note that strong culture often times leads to higher resistance to change (Brown, 2011).

Another helpful tool to consider for organizational transformation is the Strategy-Culture Matrix:

Since company culture correlates to an array of areas within the organization, it is ideal to know the status of the company culture before implementing a strategy. Figure 15.5 shows the relationship between company culture and strategy: which can help leaders decide the most appropriate strategy for the company.

            For this week’s module we watched two videos that focused on transformational strategies. The first video consisted of a short interview with Gallery Furniture owner, Jim McIngvale. In the 31 years of his business, McIngvale dealt with two major issues. The first was a recession that lead to a decrease in new homes (which decreased customer traffic) and another was a $30 million fire that resulted in an 80% drop of the company (VitalSmarts, 2012). Due to these changes and continuing decline, McIngvale decided to take immediate actions.

Since McIngvale was aware of customers leaving the store without any purchase, he decided to train his employees on how to approach potential customers. Something that left me in awe was when McIngvale quoted that he had to “teach them (employees) to love what they hated” (VitalSmarts, 2013). This statement reminded of myself when advising students who disliked or wanted to avoid online classes. Since individuals who resist something mostly focus on the negatives, it is important to counter this by bringing out the positives (Brown, 2011). In McIngvale’s case, he showed his employees examples of successful people to bring out the message that they too can be successful if they implement the new strategy (VitalSmarts, 2013).

The second video for this week’s module was a TED talk by Stanley McChrystal titled, Listen, Learn….Then Lead. Throughout the talk, McChrystal shares what he learned about leadership in the military. He initially talked about how he was raised with the traditional styles of leadership, but in time, he realized how leadership styles have changed. In summary, he has learned the importance of relationships. One of my favorite quotation in the TED talk actually occurred in the end where McChrystal quotes, “If you're a leader, the people you've counted on will help you up. And if you're a leader, the people who count on you need you on your feet.” (McChrystal, 2011). Unlike the past, leadership has shifted from a traditional, “one-leads-all” to that of a polygarcy: where everyone has a leadership role (Obolensky, 2014). The key here is that everyone can learn from each other. While they’re not necessarily employees, an example that occurs in my organization is between me and students. As an advisor, it’s always important to remember that students actually have experiences in classes and other university resources. From this other perspective, I can gain new information: which can be used for future advisement.

References:

Anthony, S. & Schwartz, E. (2017). What the Best Transformational Leaders Do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/what-the-best-transformational-leaders-do

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

McChrystal, S. (2011). Stanley McChrystal: Listen, learn…then lead. TED. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/stanley_mcchrystal

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2nd ed.). UK: Gower Publishing.

VitalSmarts. (2012). Influencer: Gallery Furniture Video Case Study [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20RW75Fhu4

MSLD 635 Module 7-INSEAD Reflection

Most of today’s businesses have become complex to the point that the traditional “one leads all” method is often times the least-effective way of running an entire organization (Obolensky, 2014). Since there’s too much responsibility and information for a single leader to handle, we rely on a team of people who practice self-management. As Paul Tesluk explained in this week’s video, a self-managing team has formal responsibilities and authorities to make their own decisions on how they organize and plan to get their work done (INSEAD, 2008).

My current workplace heavily relies on self-managing teams and they have both their benefits and drawbacks. Aside from splitting the workload, one important aspect my organization obtain from self-managing teams is that each team have and obtain unique information per-campus. As an online university, my organization consist of over 100 campuses around the world to provide advisement to current and prospective students. Due to demographic, environmental, and other differences, some methods the university encourages us to practice may not work for all campuses. For instance, my campus mainly consist of Boeing employees. As many of them work at the typical 8-hour day and travel constantly, we worry that telephone calls about non-urgent information (such as on-campus offerings) would be a distraction to their work. Since many of them prefer emails to begin with, we therefore send emails that provide the information the campus wants us to distribute.

            While each self-managing team split the company’s workload and usually increase efficiency (due to unique set of information), there are also some negative aspects to consider. Due to a number of people working together, there is a higher risk of conflict. Conflicts in the organization can occur either within or with other teams: as someone or a group have a completely different view or idea of something (Kokemuller, n.d.). Having strong support of one’s own ideas and operations can also increase the risk of a group going off-track. This can create an assortment of problems that could eventually hurt the entire organization. To minimize these drawbacks, it is important for organizations to periodically check-in with teams to ensure that they’re doing their jobs correctly and efficiently. Coaching, training, and interviews are some examples that will help employees on track (Brown, 2011). For my case, the university offers mandatory as well as optional online conferences in addition to an annual summit meeting that provide reviews and brand new information. In some cases, these meeting allow us to provide and share feedbacks with one another: which can help us learn and enhance our everyday campus operations.


References:

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

INSEAD. (2008). Self-managing teams: debunking the leadership paradox [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=GBnR00qgGgM

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2nd ed.). UK: Gower Publishing.

Kokemuller, N. (n.d.). The advantages & disadvantages of teams in the workplace. Chron. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-teams-workplace-21669.html