Entries in the Category "MGMT250"
Freakonomics
Lately, I have been reading “Freakonomics” by Levitt and Dubner. There was an interesting story about how economists wanted to test how parents respond to a fee when they are late picking their children up from daycare. This study lasted twenty weeks, but the fine was not introduced until the fifth week. During the first five weeks, there was an average of eight late pickups. But after the fifth week, when the fine was announced, the late pickups went up to an average of twenty. You would think that a fine would be an incentive to pick up your child on time. When the economists eliminated the fine on the seventh week, the number of late pickups remained the same. The reason that the economists came up with is that when the parents pay the late fine, they feel no quilt when they don’t pick up their kids on time. This only shows that business and other fields such as psychology are more intertwined than most of us think. In the example that I just discussed, we see evidence of things working against logic. I am sure that most of us would have thought that introducing fines would decrease the late pick-ups instead of the opposite. This could also be incorporated in the management department. For example, in "The Strategy That Wouldn't Travel", the SPITS program worked well in the Wichita plant but back fired at the Lubbock plant. Why didn't work? Perphaps this could be explained in the field of psychology.
Surviving Stress
I found Tucker’s section of surviving stress very useful. I am sure that most of us have to deal with stress every day. I think that this is more likely the further we progress into the work field. Some of the tips were don’t fight tension, tackle one thing at a time, laugh at yourself, and take control at your own rate. I found some other tactics that could be used to take care of stress. Things like, take yourself out of the stressful environment, meditation, and take a walk or a break.
Ch. 5 Tucker
In Chapter 5 of Tucker, the book talked about creativity and innovation. I believe that these two subjects are very important in today’s business world. Without creativity or innovation, we would not have cell phones or computers. It also takes innovation to push technology that we already have. If we stopped at just having computers, then we wouldn’t have the Internet or create a new kind of communication resource. Creativity and innovation does not only pertain to technology. We also apply new techniques in managing companies. In today's global market, managers have to incorporate new skills in order to communicate and administrate its international counterparts. What are some of other innovation that we have seen in the past 5 years?
Jonah Creighton Case Study
In the Jonah Creighton case study, one of the questions that we were asked to answer was how Creighton undermined Dan Newell. In my opinion, I do not think that Jonah did anything wrong. In the subject of racial discrimination, was it unjust that Creighton pressed to resolve such problems or was Newell right to say that it was ‘nothing’? If Jonah did not proceed to voice his opinion, then his is stating that “yes, racial discrimination is okay”. I can’t believe anyone could justify Newell for being offended by Creighton’s actions.
Recalls
I'm sure that all of us had experience with product recalls right? I never purchased a recalled product before but last week, I discovered that all the images on the t-shirts from my apparel company tend to wash off! Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of them so we didn't loose a lot of money. This event made me think about product recall for larger companies and for their customer image. I am also thankful that for us, none of those shirts were sold yet. From now on, I think I am going to execute tests on the ink to make sure that they won't wash off.
HR simulation...so far
So far, my team haven't encountered any major problems. I think we all click very well. I really appreciate my team manager, Jill, for working with all of our schedules. Since not all of us can meet twice each week, Jill made it possible for two of the team members to meet per session. I think she made a good point to show that in business, flexibility is key to success.
Life/work balance
I had to interview Kathleen for my individual learning plan paper. She brought up an interesting topic during our interview. It was about the Life/Work Balance program. In her company, it is implemented for employees with families. Some of the benefits that they receive are babysitting programs and flexible hours. What kind of benefits are you looking for in your future career?
Personality Test
With regard to the personality tests that we have been forced to take, I think it is a complete waste of our time and resources. In reality, how accurate are these tests? Why we really find it necessary for some little test to tell us who we really are? I just wanted to say, this is a higher education institution, are we going to be doing more than personality tests?
Managerial skills
What managerial skills do you think you already possess, and why?
I think that it is essential for a manager to be open-minded. This is an important skill to possess because business is always changing, therefore it in necessary to adapt to those changes. I am not suggesting that one should adjust their beliefs or ethic values based on change. But rather have a perspective that the different aspects of business should be viewed upon without bias. I believe that this is how the business world grows. It is constantly evolving and improving thanks to the people who doesn’t set a limit to what business is and should be.
Managerial skills
What managerial skills do you think you already possess, and why?
I think that it is essential for a manager to be open-minded. This is an important skill to possess because business is always changing, therefore it in necessary to adapt to those changes. I am not suggesting that one should adjust their beliefs or ethic values based on change. But rather have a perspective that the different aspects of business should be viewed upon without bias. I believe that this is how the business world grows. It is constantly evolving and improving thanks to the people who doesn’t set a limit to what business is and should be.