Grabowski

Team Evaluations

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:46:19 EST

Throughout my academic career at Case Western Reserve University, I have worked on more than a dozen team projects dealing with a variety of topics. Some of my experiences in group work have been terrific while others have left me hoping for more. Therefore, I am often pleased when one of the grades for a project consists of a team self assessment process where team members rank each other on their performance in the group.
Although this process is relatively common, I have never been asked to form my own set of criteria by which my team mates should be scored. This was a very new experience for me in MGMT 250 and I feel that it showed me a new side of team projects at Case.
As a group we brainstormed several categories which we thought were the most important to the success of the project. After arriving at a final list, several different assessment rubrics were authored as a means of giving the team members a choice as to the exact format of the evaluations. Although each form contained very similar categories, the point systems on certain rubrics favored higher scores where other formats were less forgiving.
While I did expect that the format that would result in the highest marks would be favored, I had not predicted how well the choices of team members correspond to their individual weaknesses. Therefore, team members who were seen as being the strongest favored evaluation techniques that highlighted their strengths in timeliness for example. Conversely, those persons who had experienced problems with attendance chose methods that did not heavily weigh attendance.
These results may not be terribly striking but they do point to the fact that team members are very aware of how they are perceived the remainder of the group. Thus, it seems that being candid about opinions of each other in a team setting may be an even more positive objective than I had previously considered since those persons are most likely aware of general problems.

The Danger of Assumptions

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:28:15 EST

I was fascinated by a point that was made by the speaker who discussed on the job punishment and firing. Much of his speech centered on material that everyone expected he would cover. This included references to appropriate punishment and highlights of which actions warrant reprimand. However, the exercise that he presented the class with on the misperception of facts was very striking to me.
The simple example that he shared with the class, dealing with a description of a possible robbery and several follow-up questions which tested our understanding of the passage, resulted in very surprising outcomes for most participants. Most students, including myself, were confident in their ability to analyze a simple story and to derive to appropriate facts from that account. However, as the presenter demonstrated, people are naturally prone to assuming facts about much of what they read or hear.
The conclusion that my classmates and I are liable to assume incorrect facts led me to question my approach to the HR simulation. My teammates and I believed that our approach to the quarterly decisions of the simulation was all encompassing and, in general, led us to the proper conclusions. However, after seeing how difficult it can be to analyze a simple passage, I began to reconsider the validity of our decisions.
When looking at the previous quarter’s results, and planning for the coming period, my group was forced to constantly make assumptions about relationships between the data. With consecutive quarters, our analyses of relationships amongst data sets became more accurate as trends became clearer. However, in essence all of our decisions were based on guesses relationships that we felt we uncovered.
Although this line of thought brought a lot of doubt to my mind about the general process of decision making, it also helped me to realize that such assumptions are a necessary part of life. Nonetheless, I am still much more conscious about the possibility of making errors while assuming too much about a given set of information.

Three Instructors

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 21:55:01 EST

This semester we had opportunity to work with three instructors who took on three individual roles in the class. Prof. Powley was, obviously, the actual instructor for the course. Prof. Piderit acted as the seasoned advisor for the HR simulation and Meredith was a resource for every non HR related assignment. Although I was at first unsure about the prospects of having to deal with three persons throughout the semester, I found that this system allowed for many unique learning opportunities.
Prof. Powley was the regular lecturer for the course and an out of class advisor for anyone with questions. Although I never had the opportunity to work with Prof. Powley outside of the classroom, I felt that his teaching style, one of invoking class discussion and organizing small group communication, allowed for a much more interesting learning environment. I feel that this was particularly true because even though the class’s reading materials were informative, they often only showed a single perspective where as class discussion helped to reveal a wider array of possible view points.
Conversely, my exposure to Prof. Piderit was found much more often outside of the classroom. Dealing mostly with the HR simulations, my meetings with Prof. Piderit were particularly interesting because they often felt like a mutual learning experience. It was obvious that my knowledge of the project was inferior to hers, but it was also evident that certain issues that my team was dealing with were not initially clear to Prof. Piderit either. This one on one experience with Prof. Piderit proved to be a new one to me and I found it to be a very pleasant change.
Finally, one of the most interesting experiences in MGMT 250 has been my communication with Meredith. Although I only met with our TA on several occasions, it was astounding to me how helpful she was in explaining assignments and in working with me to develop my writing. My discussions with Meredith were always fun and engaging and she always seemed very sincere in her desire to help.
While not all the assignments that I worked on during this semester were ones that I fully enjoyed, I was at least always able to look foreword to not working on them alone and without any feedback. Therefore, the very hands on approach of the professors, and the TA, this semester made MGMT 250 a memorable experience.

Team Unity in the Second Year

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 21:26:02 EST

The HR simulation process has been one of many ups and downs during which our team has been able to learn a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of every individual member. We found the first few weeks of the project to be a challenge not only from the perspective of working on a major assignment, but also because this was the first time that any of our group members had worked with each other. Slowly, but decisively, our group transformed itself into a team, as we all became comfortable with each other’s capabilities, work habits and schedules.
Although this process did not consist of a clearly outlined set of events, I do believe that the decision meeting for Quarter 5 of the simulation was the first time that our group of five fully began working as a team of five. The process of deciding on incident solutions and budgetary distribution became almost automated. Although we still had to sit down and discuss all possible options and their possible results, the role of every member was obvious and their duties were clearly defined.
Every week from then on, someone was responsible for organizing the budget and the decision sheet, someone for writing the quarterly report and a person for each of the remaining jobs. It was a terrific feeling to receive a budget form and a set of graphs via e-mail well in advance of when you planned to write up a quarterly report. More importantly, our entire team learned the standard of quality that we expected everyone to meet and we therefore were all comfortable with trusting each other’s work.
Due to this team unity really flourishing during Quarter 5, I found the second fiscal year for our company to be much more enjoyable. Although it seemed like our company’s progress had begun to stagnate, our team cohesion allowed us to further analyze our issues and to push past some of our most pertinent problems. Therefore, even though our team did not receive any award for our company’s performance, it was still a great experience to see the unity that formed amongst our unseasoned team.

Tom Mendola - Possible Solution

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 20:49:32 EST

The class discussion pertaining to the Tom Mendola case resulted in an analysis of several possible solutions to the problems that the company was experiencing with Tom. Personally, I felt that the most reasonable solution would have been to fire the unreliable employee based on his inability to be productive as well as his negative influence on other employees. I found that most of the persons in our class shared my sentiments and that the general consensus amongst us was that Tom should be let go.
However, regardless of personal opinion, certain members of the class were forced to support the continuation of Tom’s employment at the company. Many reasons were discussed in reaction to this but few actually seemed to address the core problem. After looking at possible reasons for keeping Tom, the class then focused on how the employee could possibly be made to be more productive. Although the class was able to produce reasons for keeping Tom, it seemed to me that, in general, students were not as capable of figuring out the ‘how.’
I found that I was also unable to initially uncover a proper resolution for this problem but, after further thought, I decided that there was in fact a reasonable solution to this problem. The general downfall for Tom occurs after a month or so of work at which point he loses interest in his responsibilities. Therefore, as a means of both allowing Tom to stay motivated and to not waste the company’s money when he is not working diligently, I feel that a commission payment system would be appropriate for this situation.
If Tom was to be paid based on how much work he completes, there would be an obvious incentive for him to continue to work at a reasonable pace even after the initial period of interest elapses. In fact, a goal based system would make it possible for Tom to clearly see the fruits of his work and he might be willing to work even harder than before. In addition, such a payment system would make it easy for the company to both save money and to gradually release Tom. In the event that the employee continued to work insufficiently, he would see his income decrease sharply and would then lose interest himself in continuing to stay with the company. Thus, a change in the payment scheme would mean that whether Tom decided to change his work habits or not, the company would benefit.

The Learning Plan is Already Paying Off

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 22:45:08 EST

Although I originally did not know what to expect from the Learning Plan, one specific idea has already come out of the process that has made writing the paper very rewarding. The raw nature of the project suggests that we, as authors, have to cover vast amounts of information and distill it into several cohesive pages of analysis. To me, several parts of the paper were simple reflections on ideas that we thoroughly had covered in class and thus, writing about those concepts was not a learning experience for me. These already covered topics included the analysis of the MSI and of the My Values exercise. However, while writing the paper according to the guidelines that we were provided with, I realized that when looking at myself from many different angles within a short timeframe, I can analyze my persona as a greater whole and in more detail.
Much of the assignment consisted of describing my strengths and weaknesses. As I listed the many attributes of my personality that I find to be beneficial, and those that are a hindrance, to my success in working situations, I was following much the same path as I had in previous exercises of a similar nature. I noted that my ability to work on large and varied projects is an asset and I also mentioned that my need for a strong work life balance with a constantly changing activity can be a weakness in certain situations.
Although the depiction of my strengths and weaknesses was still a process that I was used to, it greatly affected the way in which I approached the predictions of my future. When looking at my interview results and plotting out my career path, I realized that of the two professions that I was looking at, it clearly made sense for me to follow Managerial Consulting over Investment Banking. My strengths of looking at problems from many differing view points and of putting a large project together based on different subject matters pulled me towards consulting. Also, my inability to work well with a port work-life balance and my nature to become bored with an activity if the topic matter is not constantly changing meant that Investment Banking would highlight my weaknesses. Therefore, I am very glad that this assignment forced me to look at these several issues in a very compact format where all aspects of my persona had to be considered simultaneously.

Exploding Job Offers

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:53:51 EST

During his visit to the class last week, Patrick Keebler brought up the interesting topic of “exploding offers.” Patrick summarized this term as referring to an offer, with a short due date, that a company gives to a prospective employee. Due to the allowable acceptance deadline occurring so soon after the initial offering date, such situations are considered as being very not ideal for the job seeker. While dealing with a short deadline, the prospective employee is forced to make a quick decision and is thus often rushed into accepting a sub par offer.
I view such an offer from two different perspectives. The first is in reference to a situation where I am not convinced as to my desire to work at the mentioned company. In such a situation, an “exploding offer” would seem very inopportune for me. Being forced to quickly make a very crucial decision would, more likely than not, push me towards making the safe choice. In a situation where the company was not a sure choice of mine, I would probably not accept the offer.
However, I view this as more of an opportunity if the company is one that I am greatly interested in. If a firm that is a top choice of mine provided me with an “exploding offer,” I believe that I would most likely accept it. Due to the short deadline of the proposal I would probably expect that the benefits provided with the package would likely be less than what I would ideally expect. However, it seems to me that a low end “exploding offer” could also act as a “doorway in” to the company. Although I may be seen as a less than perfect candidate, if given the opportunity to prove myself at a firm that is my top choice, I can always rise to the occasion and be quickly promoted to where I should be placed. This is to me a great alternative to not receiving an offer at all and not being given the chance to find my place within a firm.

Role of Graphs in the HR Simulation

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 19:57:19 EST

Arguably, the largest improvement that our HR simulation group has made is the way in which we approach graphing. The first two quarters of the first simulated year consisted of a lot of in-group decision making. We considered the incident report and other programs and, after recording these on all of the required forms, we graphed our results. Therefore, any graphs that we produced acted as a means for displaying our decisions and the results from previous quarters. However, after two quarters of confusing results and a meeting with Professor Piderit we deviated greatly from our past practice.
Starting with the decisions required for quarter three, our team approached graphing as one of the first steps in our quarterly process. We first graphed all changes that occurred from quarter one to quarter two. Although some aspects of the results were to be expected, such as the relationship between morale and other, non production related, variables. However, we were extremely surprised by how our efforts to decrease absenteeism by investing in certain programs were not showing positive returns.
Therefore, based on the information that we had already gathered from two quarters of decisions and results, we were able to focus our efforts on certain aspects of our company. Although based on two quarters of results we were not able to decipher any complex correlations between the variables, several simple patters were becoming obvious. Then, when deciding on which programs we would invest in for quarter four, we utilized the same procedure. However, now having results from three quarters made our trend analyses even more accurate and allowed us to further focus on our goals.
Thus, shifting our approach to graphs from a simple illustration of our results to viewing graphs as a key tool for decision making has been a tremendous aid in strengthening our company. Each quarter has proven to be an even greater time of growth than the previous as more accurate data becomes available. Therefore, my suggestion to all groups who have yet to utilize graphs as a tool is that you should surely begin to do so with quarter five.

Follow-up on Harrah's Casino Discussion

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 19:29:21 EST

I felt that the in-class discussion of the Harrah’s Casinos case left one important point untouched. Many of the issues that were referenced in class dealt, in one way or another, with the problem of the current bonus system. The current procedure was based on performance reviews that were filled out by customers. If the ranking that a department received improved from a “B” to an “A” over a certain percentage of the reviews, than the employees of that department were then eligible for bonus pay.
The major topic that was discussed in class was the question of how to fix this bonus system so that instead of a 4% improvement barrier, there was a more tiered system of bonus levels. Thus, if the performance improved by 2%, employees would still receive bonus pay but it would not be as substantial as if they had achieved a 4% level of improvement. Many people suggested that such a tiered system would be clearly superior to having a minimum benchmark which created tension amongst employees when they nearly reached the 4% goal. In addition, having tiers above 4% would create for additional incentive to improve customer satisfaction by more than this single benchmark.
Although I agree that a tiered system would be an improvement upon Harrah’s current bonus system, it seemed to me that everyone in the class failed to notice the fault in not having a minimum value which has to be reached. By allowing for bonuses at 1%, the company would allow for a large probability of a bonus being awarded based on coincidental improvement in customer satisfaction. For example, if one month there just happens to be more pleasant customers, who naturally note better reviews, than a 1 or 2 percent change might occur. However, such a small change would have nothing to do with the employees of the company. Therefore, I feel that a minimum benchmark of around 2% would still be necessary, along with the tiered solution. This would allow for a more accurate representation of the performance of the companies employees.
I was very surprised that no one else brought this point up in class as it is crucial to the overall “fairness” of the bonus system, which is something that all of us were worried about. Not only does it provide for a more balanced environment for the company, in which they are not throwing away money, it also creates for a situation where all employees must sincerely work towards a bonus as opposed to some people being handed a bonus randomly as other, who worked harder, receive a comparable incentive.

Jonah Creighton Follow-up

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 18:25:42 EST

The Jonah Creighton case brought up a point that seems to be more important to my professional future than I had previously considered. Jonah, as you all know, decided to stand up at the workplace for a cause that he greatly supported. As was presented in the case study, Jonah was aware of the detrimental influence that such an act could have had on his career, but he decided to place the importance of his values over his eligibility for a bonus. Although I have never believed that I would be faced with a similar issue, it can be assumed that Jonah never felt that he would have to deal with this sort of problem himself. Therefore, after reading the case I began to consider what my reaction would have been in a similar case of a company policy conflicting with my values.
Based on my analysis of this issue, I have arrived at two specific options for such a situation. The first, and the more direct route, is to try to attack a problem as soon as possible. This would result in a strict abidance by my own values and would not allow me to slowly stray away from my morals. However, trying to solve a large problem in a sizable company while still in a low level position could, possibly, act as nothing more than a personal outburst that goes unnoticed. Therefore, allowing the situation to be maintained temporarily, and then addressing it from a more respected position, could prove to be much more effective.
Thus, I am not convinced as to which course of action would be the best to follow. Although an immediate action may not bring about change, it may still be more important to me, depending on the severity of the situation, to act immediately and hope for a positive outcome. From this perspective, if the issue is severe enough to bring about such feelings in me, leaving the company following a failed attempt at change may be the best course of action anyways. Regardless, I will have to approach any problems of this type on a case by case basis and hope that my values are as clear to me then as they are now.

Learning Plan Interviews

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 15:32:25 EST

After speaking with several other MGMT 250 students about their worries related to the Learning Plan Interviews, I decided that it may be worthwhile to share my experiences with the interviews. I approached finding these interviews from two differing directions. For the first of my two interviews I took the most straight forward route. I contacted the Career Center and asked for the name of someone in my industry of choice who may be interested in speaking with me. One thing that did surprise me during my conversation with the Career Center was that there is a clear distinction between those persons who are willing to speak with students casually in an informational interview format and those alumni who can be contacted for finding a job. Nonetheless, after noting that I wished to conduct an informational interview I was given the name and contact information of Case alum. One additional point to note about this interaction is that the Career Center was also able to provide me with a Word document that outlines the types of informational interviews and common questions that can be asked during such conversations. The second source of an interviewee was a faculty member at case. Although the directions for the assignment state that current Case employees shouldn’t be interviewed, most of the Weatherhead faculty is very well contacted in the industry. Thus, I was able to gather the contact information of a person who worked not only in my desired industry, but even in one of my most desired firms. Therefore, although the career center is likely the most convenient, and very effective, place to search for interviewees, you shouldn’t neglect the resources of Weatherhead’s faculty. I found that because my second interview was based on a recommendation of someone who the interviewee knew personally, they were even more responsive to my questions.

Are Networking Events Meant to be Awkward?

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 23:12:49 EST

Although I originally did not feel that the “class mixer” would be a very mind opening experience, it did act as a point of reflection on several previous mixer or networking events that I have attended. The two aspects of such situations that I dreaded most in the past were the ideas of approaching people randomly and introduction myself, and finding questions to ask that would not seem out of place. These are points that I think most attendees of such mixers have to deal with. However, due to the very informal nature of this mixer, I was able to analyze these ideas from a different perspective. When looking at a networking event from the viewpoint of dealing with peers who all have the same intentions in mind, it is evident that approaching other persons should not be difficult as it is expected that everyone is at such a gathering for the same reasons. Thus, approaching persons at random shouldn’t feel awkward or out of place but should, in fact, feel natural. Secondly, I gained a new perspective on the idea of asking questions that fit into the situation. At this mixer event, I actually found it much more difficult to carry on a plausible conversation than I do at professional mixers because there was no particular goal for the people involved. Therefore, I summarized that these events, in a professional setting, cater perfectly to asking questions naturally because everyone already expects that they will be asked about their career and experiences. Therefore, what I was able to take away from our class mixer is that because everyone is at a networking event for the same reason, there is no need to feel like someone will not be willing to talk to you as that is the reason why they are there. Secondly, I derived from this event the idea that mixers, by nature, are environments for using standard questions which are expected and accepted. Although this by no means is an indication that people should only use standard questions at networking events, I feel that these ‘by the book’ inquiries are great starting points for discussions.

How Personal Should an Interview Be?

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:31:42 EST

Throughout different job interview workshop sessions, I have always been under the impression that such events should be kept extremely technical and professional. Thus, I went into my mock-interview with exactly this sort of mentality. Every question that was asked of me I responded to with a clear and decisive answer that strayed as little as possible from the professional nature of the inquiry. However, I was deliver one question that asked me to reveal some weakness of mine. Although this is always a tricky point to dance around, I found myself reflecting back on a tendency of mine that I have inherited from my father. Therefore, I elaborated on my dad’s past as an officer in the army and how this created in him a propensity to take charge when things were not being done properly. I then explained how this acted as a weakness of mine and continued on with my interview. After the event, my interviewer proceeded to provide me with feedback. Surprisingly, one of the points that he really stressed was how affective the anecdote of my father was in relaying not only my point, but also a more personal side of me. The interviewer continued to state that this sort of window into my personal life helped to reveal a part of my character that is not necessarily clearly visible throughout the remainder of my interview. Because this seemed to be such a positive, I began to rethink my interviewing strategy after this event. Although I would like to incorporate personal stories or information more often if it has such a positive affect on the outcome of the interview, I simultaneously would no like to dilute an interview into nothing but an hour of childhood stories or an analysis of my emotions. Thus, I was wondering what sort of approach the rest of the class takes with regard to incorporating more personal information in their interviews.

Personality and Learning Style Results in Action

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:17:45 EST

In the aftermath of the first HR simulation quarter, it is interesting to look back on how the personality and learning test results took shape during my group’s meetings. The first, and most obvious, characteristic of our group that I noticed was that we are all extraverts. Although this didn’t result in everyone screaming and dancing around uncontrollably, it did become evident in the very free flow of ideas that occurred. Everyone was very willing to present their own ideas and critique, with bias towards positive criticism, the thoughts that others were sharing. The second, and to me the more interesting, aspect of our group was the very evident set of differences in learning and organizational styles. From the first moment that we began discussing our project, it was clear that everyone had a different priority. Where I automatically scoured the informational packet for what was due for the coming week, certain members of my team began jotting down due dates for the next two months. Similar rely, as I proceeded to examine the instructions for the first assignment in detail, other skimmed all of the project’s instructions as a means of surveying the landscape. Our organizational skills also shone through quite clearly during our first few meetings. It was clear that some members felt more comfortable with splitting up the work into small sections and working on these parts as a group, where others wanted to tackle these minute tasks as individuals. In addition, another member proposed that we all first analyze the entire problem alone and then bring everyone back once we had all formed thoughts on the project. Although we spent a lot of time in class speaking to these differences amongst individuals, these ideas didn’t become clear to me until I worked with this team while keeping an eye out for such characteristics.

Real-World Team Projects?

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 20:50:43 EST

For the most part, I feel that teamwork is an essential part of many careers and thus I believe that it is very appropriate that so many business classes at Weatherhead stress the importance of team projects. If I am not mistaken, every single business class that I have taken so far at Case has involved at least one group project or presentation. However, after this part Thursday’s discussion on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, I felt slightly different about the direct application of these college experiences to the real world. When dealing with group projects, especially ones where the teams are randomly assigned, it seems to me that often at least one of the five dysfunctions is present. The most common appears to be an absence of trust. The two things that seem to lead to this lack of trust are the short nature of most team project encounters and a lack of basis on which to build trust. The first of these issues is self explanatory as it is obvious that in the work setting people spend months together where most team projects last a few weeks at most. The latter conflict is based on the fact that there aren’t many detailed pre-requisites associated with being in a class. The college application process is by no means as specific, or stringent, as a job interview and thus it seems that many teammates have no reason to assume that their partners are, to put it simply, smart. However, despite my slight shift in perception of the real-life application of college team projects, I still feel that these assignments are crucial to the development of capable business people.