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This a short video explaining visual what operations management is on a daily basis. Although it does not go in depth on each concept, it does provide three concepts not mentioned in the book. They are Total Quality Management, Kanban, or Total Productive Maintenance. I also enjoyed how it went into the big picture of what the operation manager does to make sure that a piece of sheet metal can turn into a car by managing the different people and process to which it happens.

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Frankfurt School of Finance & Management

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I honestly feel the struggle of Capacity strategy. Working in any form of construction many can relate to workload changes that can happen in an instant. Therefore, planning can become a challenging task to manage. Small businesses should utilize capacity planning because of the financial and logistical benefits it offers. One thing I can attest to is the benefits of record keeping to help determine based on historical data, to estimate the costs of overcapacity and under capacity.

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Capacity planning is the efficient use of resources by projecting production needs. It can be applied to your company's computer network, storage, work force maintenance and product manufacturing, ...

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A classic example of how I think less tech-savvy people see Automation. I remember when I started at my current employer hearing people talk about how fiber splicing use to be an art form, and now it is all done by machines that anybody can guide. Therefore, showing them this image I believe would get many laughs in the break room.

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To piggy back off of the last module regarding Flextime, I believe that transitioning into a flextime based company requires a greater understanding of corrective action, because some employees may abuse the flextime abilities. Although, it is important to understand most employees come to work wanting to do a good job.  I believe it is a manager's responsibility to help the employee improve performance, attendance or conduct by providing specific recommendations and requirements.

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Corrective Action | UCSB Human Resources

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Employees generally want to do well at work and will usually correct the problem after the initial meeting or a verbal warning. If the problem performance, attendance or behavior persists, you should meet again with the employee to discuss the concerns and follow-up with a letter of concern or expectation.

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Being a millennial, I can relate to this article ten times over. I also work for a small company (Approx. 175 people) where people are spread out all over the country and a few overseas. We also do not have any office space where employees meet, only a warehouse where our construction crews come together to gather the equipment for the day. Although I am a Millennial, I think that the Work-Family Balance of flextime offers older families the same creative productivity required for a healthy business, by working from home and/or setting their hours of work. I believe Flextime provides individuals the ability to get the same amount of work done without feeling demand; however, this does require a level of self-motivation and trust.

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Several months ago, I was talking to a college senior about her career plans. She wanted a job with flexible hours , and I asked why. The young woman said she wanted the freedom to take a short nap right after lunch when her energy flagged the most and the ability to work late at night when her brain was sharpest.

If I had made a comment like this when looking for my first job 16 years ago, I would have been laughed out of the room. But coming from a college student today, the request doesn't sound all that strange.

According to a new study by Bentley University , 77% of Millennials say that flexible work hours would make the workplace more productive for people their age. Given their comfort with digital technology that allows them to work anytime and anywhere, this statistic hardly comes as a surprise. But as the Millennial generation becomes the majority, we can expect flex time and telecommuting to become a common workplace practice rather than a special privilege.

In fact, by around 2030, the Millennial majority will likely have done away with the 9-to-5 workday entirely. Here are four key reasons why Millennials will insist that flex-work hours happen sooner rather than later.

1. Work-Family Balance

Leslie Doolittle, assistant dean and director of academic support services at Bentley University, has found that work doesn't define Millennials as much as it does older generations. Doolittle says family, friends, and making a difference in the community are more central to Millennials than they are to older people .

Given this, demands on Millennials' personal time are bound to increase as they balance work commitments with raising young children . And, as they are closely connected to their parents, they are likely to be personally involved in caring for them as they age.

The trade-off, of course, is catching up on email at 10 PM or finishing a project on a Saturday morning to make up the time, but in my experience, that's one that most Millennials are fine with making.

2. Continuing Skills Education

According to research conducted by The Hartford , 50% of Millennials desire training and development from their employer. And companies are listening. Bersin by Deloitte said that U.S. spending on corporate training grew by 15% in 2013 (the highest growth rate in seven years).

In addition, many companies are fulfilling the Millennial desire for "experience-hopping" through leadership rotation programs that allow them to test out different areas of a company. The renowned General Electric rotation program is a great example, which allows young employees to experience various functions within GE, such as finance, sales, manufacturing, and engineering.

In any case, Millennials will be spending time taking classes and working additional jobs to skill up, and some of this activity is bound to occur during the classic workday.

3. The Disappearing Corporate Office

By 2030, professionals will work mostly from home using super-fast data terminals . Most companies will have nixed their permanent physical office locations in favor of chains of interconnected hubs with different plans for individuals to access space. Meetings will routinely occur virtually and across geographies and time zones, rendering air travel to visit clients or partners unnecessary. And if the office isn't necessary-why are set office hours?

4. The (Company's) Bottom Line

The fact is, Millennials are right-flexible work hours do make employees more productive . Research by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom found that working remotely increases productivity, overall work hours, and employee satisfaction. Over a nine-month period, Bloom observed 250 employees at Ctrip, a Chinese travel website. Half of the employees worked from home, and half worked in the office. Turns out, removing the time it takes to physically commute to work and the distractions of the in-office environment made a huge difference: The telecommuters completed 13.5% more calls than the office workers, performed 10% more work overall, left the company at half the rate of people in the office, reported feeling more fulfilled at work, and saved the company $1,900 per employee.

Evolving to a Flexible Workplace

We're not there yet-so what will the transition look like? My guess is that we'll start with "easier to swallow" flex-work arrangements, such as job-sharing (two employees split the workload and time commitments of one 40-hour per week job), day shifting (some employees work from 7 AM to 3 PM while others work from 10 AM to 6 PM), and on-peak/off-peak work schedules (employees work more hours during their busy season and vice versa).

In the meantime, more and more people will convince their bosses the let them work from home one or more days a week .

With Millennial employees entering the workforce in droves, the momentum behind making flex-work a reality for all will grow. Is your company ready?

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The Death of the 9-to-5: Why We'll All Work Flex Schedules Soon

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Several months ago, I was talking to a college senior about her career plans. She wanted a job with flexible hours , and I asked why. The young woman said she wanted the freedom to take a short nap right after lunch when her energy flagged the most and the ability to work late at night when her brain was sharpest.

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What I enjoyed about this article was that it expands on other leadership styles not expressed in the book, and also showed the importance of how it can benefit to understand them all and know the appropriate time to use them. In essence, great leaders choose their leadership style like a golfer chooses his or her club, with a calculated judgment of the matter at hand, the end goal and the best tool for the job.

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Taking a team from ordinary to extraordinary means understanding and embracing the difference between management and leadership. According to writer and consultant Peter Drucker, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

Manager and leader are two completely different roles, although we often use the terms interchangeably. Managers are facilitators of their team members' success. They ensure that their people have everything they need to be productive and successful; that they're well trained, happy and have minimal roadblocks in their path; that they're being groomed for the next level; that they are recognized for great performance and coached through their challenges.

Related: Ask Yourself These 5 Questions Before Deciding On A Leadership Style

Conversely, a leader can be anyone on the team who has a particular talent, who is creatively thinking out of the box and has a great idea, who has experience in a certain aspect of the business or project that can prove useful to the manager and the team. A leader leads based on strengths, not titles.

The best managers consistently allow different leaders to emerge and inspire their teammates (and themselves!) to the next level.

When you're dealing with ongoing challenges and changes, and you're in uncharted territory with no means of knowing what comes next, no one can be expected to have all the answers or rule the team with an iron fist based solely on the title on their business card. It just doesn't work for day-to-day operations. Sometimes a project is a long series of obstacles and opportunities coming at you at high speed, and you need every ounce of your collective hearts and minds and skill sets to get through it.

This is why the military style of top-down leadership is never effective in the fast-paced world of adventure racing or, for that matter, our daily lives (which is really one big, long adventure, hopefully!). I truly believe in Tom Peters's observation that the best leaders don't create followers; they create more leaders. When we share leadership, we're all a heck of a lot smarter, more nimble and more capable in the long run, especially when that long run is fraught with unknown and unforeseen challenges.

Related: Five Things I've Learned As A New Manager At Google

Change Leadership Styles

Not only do the greatest teammates allow different leaders to consistently emerge based on their strengths, but also they realize that leadership can and should be situational, depending on the needs of the team. Sometimes a teammate needs a warm hug. Sometimes the team needs a visionary, a new style of coaching, someone to lead the way or even, on occasion, a kick in the bike shorts. For that reason, great leaders choose their leadership style like a golfer chooses his or her club, with a calculated analysis of the matter at hand, the end goal and the best tool for the job.

My favorite study on the subject of kinetic leadership is Daniel Goleman's Leadership That Gets Results, a landmark 2000 Harvard Business Review study. Goleman and his team completed a three-year study with over 3,000 middle-level managers. Their goal was to uncover specific leadership behaviors and determine their effect on the corporate climate and each leadership style's effect on bottom-line profitability.

Related: Why Your Leadership Skills Won't Get You Hired (But These Four Other Things Will)

The research discovered that a manager's leadership style was responsible for 30% of the company's bottom-line profitability! That's far too much to ignore. Imagine how much money and effort a company spends on new processes, efficiencies, and cost-cutting methods in an effort to add even one percent to bottom-line profitability, and compare that to simply inspiring managers to be more kinetic with their leadership styles. It's a no-brainer.

Here are the six leadership styles Goleman uncovered among the managers he studied, as well as a brief analysis of the effects of each style on the corporate climate:

1. The pacesetting leader expects and models excellence and self-direction. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be "Do as I do, now." The pacesetting style works best when the team is already motivated and skilled, and the leader needs quick results. Used extensively, however, this style can overwhelm team members and squelch innovation.

2. The authoritative leader mobilizes the team toward a common vision and focuses on end goals, leaving the means up to each individual. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be "Come with me." The authoritative style works best when the team needs a new vision because circumstances have changed, or when explicit guidance is not required. Authoritative leaders inspire an entrepreneurial spirit and vibrant enthusiasm for the mission. It is not the best fit when the leader is working with a team of experts who know more than him or her.

3. The affiliative leader works to create emotional bonds that bring a feeling of bonding and belonging to the organization. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be "People come first." The affiliative style works best in times of stress, when teammates need to heal from a trauma, or when the team needs to rebuild trust. This style should not be used exclusively, because a sole reliance on praise and nurturing can foster mediocre performance and a lack of direction.

4. The coaching leader develops people for the future. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be "Try this." The coaching style works best when the leader wants to help teammates build lasting personal strengths that make them more successful overall. It is least effective when teammates are defiant and unwilling to change or learn, or if the leader lacks proficiency.

5. The coercive leader demands immediate compliance. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be "Do what I tell you." The coercive style is most effective in times of crisis, such as in a company turnaround or a takeover attempt, or during an actual emergency like a tornado or a fire. This style can also help control a problem teammate when everything else has failed. However, it should be avoided in almost every other case because it can alienate people and stifle flexibility and inventiveness.

6. The democratic leader builds consensus through participation. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be "What do you think?" The democratic style is most effective when the leader needs the team to buy into or have ownership of a decision, plan, or goal, or if he or she is uncertain and needs fresh ideas from qualified teammates. It is not the best choice in an emergency situation, when time is of the essence for another reason or when teammates are not informed enough to offer sufficient guidance to the leader.

Bottom line? If you take two cups of authoritative leadership, one cup of democratic, coaching, and affiliative leadership, and a dash of pacesetting and coercive leadership "to taste," and you lead based on need in a way that elevates and inspires your team, you've got an excellent recipe for long-term leadership success with every team in your life.
Robyn Benincasa is a two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, two-time Guinness World Record distance kayaker, a full-time firefighter, and author of the new book, How Wining Works: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth, from which this article is excerpted. (Harlequin Nonfiction, June 2012)
[ Image: Flickr user Bas Kers]

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6 Leadership Styles And When You Should Use Them

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Taking a team from ordinary to extraordinary means understanding and embracing the difference between management and leadership. According to writer and consultant Peter Drucker, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Manager and leader are two completely different roles, although we often use the terms interchangeably.

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I was first given the article by boss a few months ago. After implementing the 15-minute call with my team, I almost immediately began to see a difference. With the daily meeting, we are much more equipped at keeping our daily tasks aligned with our plan. Moreover, it has helped us keep morale high during the difficult, slow months, and step by step prepares us for the tidal wave of work that will inevitably hit us in the fall, due to concrete not being produced.

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Just as any relationship or team that you have been apart. We can all agree that trust is one of the most keep components in achieving goals. Therefore, instead of posting an article about the importance of trust. I wanted to go a step forward for those struggling with trust issue among teammates or wanting just to build trust. Anything to develop management skills for future use is great. This is a principle of management of course.

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Without trust there is no leadership.

Seems rather simple, doesn't it?

In reality, however, it is not.

Very few managers are leaders. The difference between the two? A manager is someone who has people reporting to him. A leader is someone who people will follow, even if they don't report to him. What separates the two is the trust and respect of his people.

When the leader establishes trust within the team, it truly shows. Team members feel secure in sharing their opinions without the fear of judgment or retribution, freely share information and openly collaborate on projects and know that if the leader pushes them, he does so with their best interests in mind. The result? Highly motivated and productive workforce.

A leader is only as effective as his team. But building trust takes time and conscious effort. People don't trust words, they trust actions.

Here are the behaviors one needs to display to earn trust of his/her team every single day:
Lead by example
Leaders who don't walk the talk lose trust. If you want your team members to display certain behaviors, you need to display them first. You cannot ask someone to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. For example, if you expect your team to work late, do so as well. Showing your team that you are one of them and their equal in being responsible for outcomes will go a long way in building trust.
Overcommunicate
Transparency builds trust. Secrets destroy it.

True leaders are direct and honest. And they communicate all the time. Lack of information creates assumptions that are usually negative or disruptive to team's motivation and productivity. Err on the side of overcommunicating, always.

People can smell you hiding something a mile away. If there is some information you can't share with the team just yet, tell them what you can and show them you got their backs. This is especially critical in the times of reorganization or layoffs. Always follow the rule: "tell the truth, point to hope."
Admit your mistakes and acknowledge your limitations
Publicly own up to your mistakes when you make them. Admitting you were wrong isn't a sign of weakness, but strength. Acknowledge the mistakes and outline the new course.

No one knows everything. We all have our limitations. Build a team around you that complements you - and each other - in knowledge, skillsets, and capabilities. Don't try to do everything. Let your team members drive certain projects and outcomes. That will make them feel valued and will make you look good. But always have their back when something doesn't go according to plan.
Keep your promises and stick to your commitments
No one trusts those who don't keep their word. So keep your promises and, if you make a commitment, stick to it.

Every now and then, however, there are circumstances outside your control that might come into play. In those cases your team will understand, as long as you display this behavior consistently in times when this doesn't apply.
Trust your team
Hire the best and trust them to lead. Trust is a two-way street. If you don't trust your team, they won't trust you.

And always remember: take the blame, but give away the credit. Acknowledge people for their contributions. The more credit your give away, the more motivated your team will be to move mountains for you. And when something goes wrong, acknowledge the fact that the mistake was made under your leadership and don't throw your team under the bus.
Ask for feedback
No one is perfect. All of us learn as we go, even towards the end of our career. Ask your team for feedback: what you can be doing as a leader to help them be more productive, how you can improve their work environment, what process you can change for the whole team to be more effective, how you can better communicate with them, etc. And when the feedback is provided, accept it with grace and say "thank you." It's not easy to hear constructive feedback, but it helps you improve as a manager and as a professional.
Don't play favorites
A double standard is the fastest way to trust deterioration. Playing favorites destroys strong teams. Don't do it! Just don't!
Treat everyone fairly
Always treat everyone fairly. Have the same set of expectations for every team member and create team rules that you expect everyone to respect and follow, such as a "don't gossip" rule, for example. Some leaders create the team rules collectively with their teams which ensures that everyone agrees to uphold the same set of standards.

Setting clear expectations upfront, including clear roles and responsibilities, ensures that there are no surprises. This takes extra stress out of the daily routine. Each employee knows what they are expected to deliver and are not surprised during their performance review discussion.
Don't gossip
Gossip kills trust. Effective leaders set - and follow - a rule of not discussing one team member with another behind his/her back.
Listen
Take the time to get to know every single member of your team.

Ask questions, consistently. And then listen. You will be surprised what you can learn if you keep quiet during discussions or meetings and just let others talk.
Act with consistency
Consistency is key to great leadership. Consistency of acts, behaviors, moods, expectations. I've worked for managers before who would be happy one day and infuriated the other, who would set out one path one day and totally change it the next day. This creates uncertainty, frustration, and distrust. I am not saying don't pioneer change and stay agile. I am saying that whenever possible provide your team with unwavering support that they can rely on and a set of rules and expectations that will be their guiding star through good times and bad.
Put the success of the team before your own
When your team knows that you are in it for your own success, they won't give you their best. Ever. Instead show them that you put them ahead of your own ambitions (or at a minimum let them in on your ambitions and give them a seat at the table in achieving them). And again, I can't stress it enough: take the blame, give away the credit.

At the end of the day, success of your team is your success as well. The two go hand in hand. But in your desire to climb the corporate (or start-up) ladder, don't leave behind or forget those who made it happen. None of us can achieve success alone, remember that.
In summary...
Trust leads to loyalty. And loyalty leads to people doing their best to deliver results for you and the company. To earn trust and respect you have to give trust and respect, as well as look out for your people. And if you do, there will be no limit to what you can achieve.

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12 Leadership Behaviors That Build Team Trust

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Without trust there is no leadership. Seems rather simple, doesn't it? In reality, however, it is not. Very few managers are leaders. The difference between the two? A manager is someone who has people reporting to him. A leader is someone who people will follow, even if they don't report to him.

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Recently I have had to learn and employ the art of emotional intelligence. I have a particular individual on my team. Who when the is focus on the task at hand and free of distraction is the best person to get the job done. However, they are emotional, and that can distract them from getting the job done. Therefore understanding and being able to recognize their feeling and use it to motivate them can go a long way.

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Getting to know people is an extremely difficult task. There are so many intricacies and traits for every individual that we'll probably never see two people that are exactly alike.

Simple triggers can make someone angry, joyous, sad, or happy. We also cognitively develop triggers over time that allow us to feel a certain way during certain events. Example: you know when to laugh at a joke, you know that when it's 5 pm on a Friday, you get excited.

All these emotions and triggers are what make us unique, but it's also what makes being a leader or a (good) manager so damn hard.

A true leader must have enough emotional intelligence to gain an understanding of the people that are following their lead.

Unfortunately, some employees believe their bosses are not only bad but so terrible that they cause employees to feel disengaged at work. A problem that is costing the US workforce over $400 Billion in lost productivity per year.

Quite frankly, if management is not doing their job in leading, it's certainly because they lack the emotional intelligence to motivate and trigger their employees and push them to prominence.

What Happens When Managers Lack Empathy

One of the worst parts about managers lacking empathy or emotional intelligence is the fact that they don't know it.

It's a narcissistic behavioral pattern that doesn't allow them to see past their own biases and beliefs.

Managers that lack empathy will not only discourage the people around them but make life a living hell for an employee that just wants to keep on advancing and producing.

Employees with bad bosses hate a lot about their managers, but not considering the feelings of the people that are working their hinds off is a no-go for any organization.

There are plenty of styles and different ways to lead, and having a "leader" with narcissistic values that doesn't get the concept of working as a team will always lower the productivity of a team.

Make sure you get an accurate psychometric assessment that will let you know if an employee is a good fit for your organization. Not everyone is cut out to be a leader, and having the wrong candidate for an important position can mess up the culture at your office.

Why This Is An Issue For A Lot Of Organizations

One of the beauties of living in the information era is that we have so much knowledge at our disposal. We can validate assumptions that would've otherwise gone unnoticed.

The world of work has shifted drastically in just the past 20 years. We've made a lot of progress in enterprise technologies, labor/job standards, and markets have sprung up (mobile phones, social networks, video conferencing) that have had a massive influence on the workforce.

The one thing that has remained constant is the low levels of job satisfaction.

Though it may not seem possible, 64% of employees that are making over $100,000 a year are still not satisfied. However, the one group of people that tend to feel happiest are managers and leaders.

The narcissism displayed by unempathetic leaders who lack emotional intelligence will lead employees, at any pay grade, to feel dissatisfied at work.

As mentioned earlier, billions of dollars are being lost because people don't feel motivated to work for the people who manage them. Even if you have the best team surrounding you, the person that is in charge has to believe in holacracy and autonomy.

Let the talent bloom and surround them with good personalities and leaders.

How To Develop Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is something that is usually inherited as opposed to taught. The kinds of characters that lack empathy and emotional intelligence lack one other thing, patience.

If you or someone you know is trying to develop emotional intelligence, the best way to go about it is to take things one step at a time. Slow down and acknowledge what is happening.

It doesn't necessarily mean to over-analyze every action, facial expression, or look at what the goal is for the future and why it hasn't been met yet. Slow it down. Take a breath and look around.

Get to know the people around you and gain an understanding of what's going on and why people react to things in a certain way. The more you get to know about the people around you, the more you'll get to see what are their true motives and how they can be better.

People that are emotionally intelligent are motivators. Whereas those who aren't tend to be demotivators.

At the end of the day, it depends on whether or not the person truly wants to change some of their bad habits and become a good leader. The attitude of the office will always reflect the leadership, so whether you're the CEO or HR manager, get a feel for the employees and hear them out. It will only be good for your organization as a whole.

Have You Had A Manager That Lacked Emotional Intelligence?

Have you or any of your colleagues dealt with management that didn't necessarily treat people as good as they could've? What can be done to improve management in some companies?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Why Managers MUST Focus on Emotional Intelligence

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Getting to know people is an extremely difficult task. There are so many intricacies and traits for every individual that we'll probably never see two people that are exactly alike. Simple triggers can make someone angry, joyous, sad, or happy. We also cognitively develop triggers over time that allow us to feel a certain way during certain events.

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Dear Liz,

I'm in a jam. I hired my first HR Manager 20 months ago -- Stephanie. She did an incredible job. I became a very fast convert (not overnight, but within six months) to the power of a strong HR function.

I don't mean 'strong' as in 'makes a lot of rules to slow people down' but rather strong as in strong voice and strong conscience. Stephanie spent a lot of her day talking with employees and managers and untangling interpersonal issues.

Her husband got a job in New Mexico and she had to leave. We were all very sad at her departure and Steph and her family still keep in touch with us.

Three months ago we hired Sheila to replace Stephanie. She is very controlling and very angry at almost everyone. She is an old-school law-and-order type HR person and it's not working for us.

We have a fun and vibrant culture that we've worked hard to build and maintain. Complaints about Sheila started streaming into my office within two weeks of her arrival.

At first I thought it might be partly just a backlash to having anyone new in Stephanie's job, but it wasn't that. I talked to a lot of our team members and I also spent many hours talking with Sheila one on one.

She is not going to change her approach. Sheila has told me that she is not going to be "bullied" by a leader (actually, an entire leadership team) who "can't accept change."

She needs to go, but she has literally told me more than once "Go ahead and fire me and see what happens! I dare you. I know the law inside and out." Should I be worried about that? I have relied on Sheila (and Stephanie before her) to help me manage terminations.

Obviously, that won't be an option in this case. What should I do?

Thanks,

Chuck

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I'd Fire My HR Manager, But She Said 'I Dare You'

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Dear Liz, I'm in a jam. I hired my first HR Manager 20 months ago -- Stephanie. She did an incredible job. I became a very fast convert (not overnight, but within six months) to the power of a strong HR function.

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Although this cartoon is funny, It does make you think that about the person in charge of HR. Who in the company is responsible for ensuring they are the right track with the companies goals, and who does fire them if needed. I am sure this becomes very tricky to deal with in smaller companies.

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Over the last decade, workplace spirituality has become a hot topic within business organizations. Studies have repeated its significance in satisfying individuals’ inner feelings and self- actualization.

"This study explores the link between organizational culture traits and workplace spirituality dimensions by conducting a qualitative case study in Menoufia Province (Egypt). Both correlation and
regression analysis of collected date indicated that it is false to assume that all traits of organizational culture have
a strong effect on workplace spirituality dimensions."

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Although this cartoon looks basic, I believe it best reveals the benefits of delegating authority and the importance of structure. Would we all think it is crazy if we step out of our house and saw the president of the United States outside painting street markets. Why would all ask the question: "don't your have more important things to attend too." So it is not that they cannot do it, but they should delegate responsibilities to others so they can continue to progress the business.

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After reading the chapter, I believe that it is important that organization put the time and effort in creating a successful org. chart. What I like about this certain article is how it lists out the pro and cons of each structure. Whereas the book only gave success stories/situations in which they are used.

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The way that a company's structure develops often falls into a tall (vertical) structure or a flat (horizontal) structures. Tall structures are more of what we think of when we visualize an ...

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I chose to post this for two reasons.

1. Because although the book's definition was descriptive, I think looking at examples of each provides a better understanding.

2.Because although we can all agree that form structure looks clean and concise. The informal structure is the real-world practice whether we admit it or not. Not everything goes according to plan.

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Posting this simply because I knew that there had to be some cartoon taking the term SWOT as "SWAT".

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I used to think mission statements were silly and no ever paid attention to them. However, over the past year on one of our weekly internal calls, we review the company's mission statement before commencement. After a while, I began to reflect on some of the decisions I had recently made and realized that I was making some of those decisions subconsciously because of being ingrained with the mission statement.

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Importance of Mission Vision in Organizational Strategy

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A mission and vision are standard and critical elements of a company's organizational strategy. Most established companies develop organizational mission statements and vision statements, which serve ...

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I enjoy how this provides another viewpoint on decision making that was not discussed in the book, which was Decision Quality and Decision Analysis.

Decision Quality (DQ), is a process that defines a high-quality decision as the course of action that will capture the most value or get the most of what you are seeking, given the uncertainties and complexities of the real world.
&
Decision Analysis (DA), rejects the all-too-common approach of deciding between the status quo and a single alternative course of action. Instead, DA involves considering a range of possible outcomes, their probability of occurring, and the results (financial or otherwise) of each.

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Behavioral economists and psychologists have uncovered scores of biases that undermine good decision-making. And, along with management experts, they have provided helpful tips that decision-makers can use to try to correct for those biases. But a comprehensive framework for achieving quality decision-making throughout an organization is still rare - almost three-quarters of companies have no formal corporate-wide approach to making major, complex decisions.

Without a proven, organization-wide approach, there may be, at best, isolated pockets of high-quality decision-making where individual leaders have elected to take a rigorous, transparent approach. Otherwise, the organization is at the mercy of the biggest bias of all: the perception that it is good at making decisions.

With an organization-wide approach you can increase the odds of circumventing that bias. Further, an organization-wide common language speeds up the making and reviewing of decisions. Transparency in how decisions are reached replaces the blind faith that people must place in the judgment of their superiors. Most importantly, more high quality decisions, instead of merely "good enough" decisions, together can add up to billions of dollars in additional value.

The first step is to define what a good decision looks like. In the early 1990s, Chevron (where until recently one of us worked) began experimenting with Decision Quality (DQ), a process that defines a high-quality decision as the course of action that will capture the most value or get the most of what you are seeking, given the uncertainties and complexities of the real world.

Armed with that definition, Chevron has applied the tools of Decision Analysis (DA), to the choices it faces. DA rejects the all-too-common approach of deciding between the status quo and a single alternative course of action. Instead, DA involves considering a range of possible outcomes, their probability of occurring, and the results (financial or otherwise) of each. Decision-makers can then compare alternatives in terms of both upside opportunity and downside risk, and make decisions in light of their own appetite for risk and tolerance of uncertainty.

With these methods in mind, we can describe the six elements of DQ that characterize any high-quality decision:

An appropriate frame, including a clear understanding of the problem and what needs to be achieved.

Creative, doable alternatives from which to choose the one likely to achieve the most of what you want.

Meaningful information that is reliable, unbiased, and reflects all relevant uncertainties and intangibles.

Clarity about desired outcomes, including acceptable tradeoffs.

Solid reasoning and sound logic that includes considerations of uncertainty and insight at the appropriate level of complexity.

Commitment to action by all stakeholders necessary to achieve effective action.

DQ won a foothold in Chevron through some eye-catching early successes in some major capital decisions. For example, one of the company's refineries needed upgrading to remain competitive in the refining business. A first pass at the problem resulted in a proposal to install a unit called a flexi-coker - a major system capable of refining a range of crude oil types and minimizing the ultra-heavy coke residual.

During the installation, the refinery would have to be shut down, resulting in a significant loss of revenue. Flexi-cokers are expensive, and related improvements proposed for implementation during the shutdown would add to the project's cost. As details of the engineered design matured, the estimated cost escalated, nearly doubling to $2 billion. At that point, senior management asked for a more rigorous review to better understand the risks and risk/reward balance.

To revisit the issue, the team tasked with the review turned to DQ concepts. In the course of the DQ process, the frame was widened to include all improvements that could be made during shutdown of the facility, including those unrelated to the flexi-coker. Doable alternatives, excluding the flexi-coker, were explored. The team then analyzed what would happen if certain variables like feedstock crude oil price, wholesale gasoline prices, and project duration deviated more than had been expected originally. And they analyzed the probability of these specific deviations occurring. The team was then able to articulate the overall risk profile of the project: the potential costs for each deviation and the likelihood of each occurring. These methods revealed that the risk profile of the project as originally conceived was more than Chevron's management was willing to accept.

A set of acceptable cost/value trade-offs, and the likelihood of achieving them, was determined. Further analysis revealed that it was the proposed new flexi-coker itself that was contributing the bulk of the downside risk. At this point, Chevron's management publicly announced the shelving of the flexi-coker portion of the project.

Chevron estimates that revisiting the decision and the subsequent change in project scope captured more than 50% of the original projected value at 25% of the cost, regaining the competitive position of the refinery at a much lower level of deployed capital.

For the first 10 years, the use of these decision techniques by various groups in Chevron was voluntary, though there were a string of early successes. During that time, Chevron proceeded to build deep internal competence in the discipline - introducing thousands of decision-makers to DQ and DA and developing hundreds of internal decision support professionals who applied them to many major decisions.

When David O'Reilly became Chairman and CEO in 2000, he insisted that DQ become mandatory on all capital expenditures over $50 million. Decision executives were also required to become certified in the fundamentals of the approach. Decision professionals were embedded in the organization around the world, and became part of the Chevron capital stewardship process.

The impact of many thousands of people making even marginally better decisions was huge in a company Chevron's size. And in operations, where decisions are made almost daily, the result was, in effect, continuous improvement.

Achieving that level of decision quality throughout your organization takes some work, but you will quickly find that it has great appeal, apart from the value it captures through consistently higher-value decisions. Decision-makers and teams are energized by its capacity to get people to agree on a decision, though they may have begun with widely divergent views about the best course of action.

However, as anyone who has ever seen groupthink in action knows, any number of otherwise intelligent people can come to agree on nonsense. Conversely, autocratic leaders can simply impose their will. But by first defining what constitutes a high quality decision and the elements that go into it, DQ/DA erases lines drawn in the sand by intransigent team members.

Your teams are freed to focus on each element of this rational decision-making model and identify gaps in the quality of a decision. Instead of sticking to biases or getting mired in politics, people work to fill those gaps, with analytics providing a clear line of sight to the most value. Further, by satisfying all six elements of DQ, companies can recognize the quality of a decision as they make it, not just in hindsight. The result: far fewer failed strategies, far less wasted capital in investment decisions, and - to everyone's great relief - fewer blame games and witch hunts.

The hard truth is we all leave a lot of value on the table - value that we could seize with better decisions. Doing so requires an organization-wide framework for making them.

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An Organization-Wide Approach to Good Decision Making

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Behavioral economists and psychologists have uncovered scores of biases that undermine good decision-making. And, along with management experts, they have provided helpful tips that decision-makers can use to try to correct for those biases. But a comprehensive framework for achieving quality decision-making throughout an organization is still rare - almost three-quarters of companies have no formal corporate-wide approach to making major, complex decisions.

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As a project manager I use Gantt charts quite often, but before this class, I had not ever heard of a PERT chart. What I appreciated about this image was the MS project portion. My company uses MS project, and I had no idea that it could generate PERT and Gantt charts from informing already stored. This just saved me a lot of time, and I hope does for others who may not have known this function.

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Leaving this here simply because the chapter does not offer any comparison.

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The pros and cons of hiring locals over expatriates

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What this article offers that the book does not explain to employees who are preparing for foreign assignments, is making a plan for reintegration. I strongly feel that the company should do its part on behalf of the employee to ensure that the both the transition to a foreign country is smooth, as well as, coming back to the home land.

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Sending talented employees overseas can be a promising way to leverage the benefits of a global economy. But expatriate assignments can be extremely expensive: up to three times the cost of a person's typical annual salary, according to some statistics. And despite the investment, many organizations lack the know-how for optimizing the potential benefits, leaving them disappointed with the results. The unfortunate reality is that even companies providing well-crafted relocation packages (including the all-important cultural training) may not have the talent management mechanisms in place to truly leverage the valuable skills expatriate employees gain during their assignments.

We spoke with seven different executives and consultants with deep experience managing the expat process, asking what they've learned over the years about how to maximize the value of these critical assignments. We discovered five tips for increasing the return on investment of your overseas assignments.

Have a compelling purpose - and the right person.

Before you send anyone abroad, it's critical to make a business case for the assignment, just like you would for any other important investment or decision. There should be a clear organizational need and a compelling reason that this need can't be met through a local hire. Everyone we spoke with also emphasized the importance of selecting the right people, for the right reasons. This involves three things: choosing a person who is open-minded and committed enough to adapt to the local culture, thinking about the specific skills that this person will develop as a result of the assignment, and identifying how these new skills will ultimately benefit the organization.

In some companies, for example, international experience is a requirement for moving into leadership positions. In others, there may be a particular need at an overseas office that only a person with a specific skill set can meet. If you can't think of meaningful ways that the assignment will help both the person and the business move forward, you should probably rethink the assignment.

Assign top-notch home and host sponsors.

As assignees delve into their new roles overseas and companies plug the holes left behind by absent employees, it's easy for companies to lose touch with people they send abroad. Just as with remote or virtual employees, expats find that keeping up with their email isn't necessarily the same as having their finger on the pulse of the office, which can be a constant reminder of how different and faraway their former life really is. To prevent your worker from feeling adrift, provide sponsors to oversee the assignee's experience on both ends - one at the home base and another at the destination. These individuals are the point people and mentors for ensuring the fit from the company perspective, the fit from the assignee's perspective, and for comanaging the process throughout. In short, they are the people that the assignee can turn to whenever problems emerge.

The most successful sponsors are typically people who have been abroad themselves and are empathetic and understanding about the experience - not only with regard to what an assignment entails and what can be gained but also with how challenging it can be to go overseas and return. They should also have enough experience in the organization that they can help mentor the assignee on how to maneuver around potential obstacles and make the most of the assignment.

Stay in frequent contact throughout the assignment.

If there was one tip that everyone we spoke with agreed on, it was the critical importance of open, frequent communication throughout the assignment. While the assignee needs to be proactive in reaching out to his or her home sponsor, the home sponsor should keep soon-to-be-returning employees top of mind, identifying how the company can leverage what they are learning and how the employee can take the next steps in their own development at the company as a result of their overseas experience. This communication should follow a highly structured process. For example, one company we spoke with builds in monthly check-ins. The assignee can update the host, home sponsors, and other relevant stakeholders not only on how the assignment is proceeding but also on any important knowledge they have acquired that may be of immediate use to the organization, such as information about how a marketing campaign could be more effective in the assignment country.

Make a plan for reintegration.

Communication should also include a conversation six months before the end of the assignment to discuss the reintegration process. This is a time for the employee to outline the top skills, qualifications, and insights achieved during the assignment and express how he or she would like to incorporate them at the home office (or in some cases on the next assignment). In exchange, the sponsors should elaborate on how they envision the employee leveraging the experience, being frank about what kinds of opportunities might be in the pipeline.There may not be an ideal position for them back in the firm that leverages their talent and fits the needs of the company. But, according to our experts, that's precisely the reason for the constant communication throughout and toward the end of the assignment. Anticipate these contingencies so that both the organization and the employee have realistic expectations and a plan moving forward.

Once next steps have been established, build in time when the employee comes home to reintegrate. They will still likely need transition time to relearn the old corporate culture and process their experience. This may be as little as a few days or even a week or more. While the timeline may vary, it's critical to build in a structured transition process with a mixture of check-ins and downtime so reacclimation is a seamless reentry rather than a crash landing.

Develop ways to share knowledge from the assignee's experience.

Finally, for companies to get the most out of expat assignments, the organization must be proactive in helping employees catalog and disseminate what they have learned. There are a number of ways to go about this. One organization we spoke to asks assignees to blog about their experiences - both during and after the assignment. These posts are shared via internal social media and commented on by others throughout the company. Others make use of metadata on employee profiles to highlight the skills acquired during the assignment; this not only enhances returning expats' credibility but also enables anyone else in the organization to find them when searching for their specific expertise. Companies can also host special sessions or brown bag lunches on managing global work and intercultural communication, including returning expats alongside outside guest speakers and panel discussions.

However it's done, the key is to find ways for people to share what they've experienced and learned so they can process the experience, reinforce the importance of these global assignments within the organization, and, most importantly, transfer the valuable knowledge they've acquired back into the company.

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5 Tips for Managing Successful Overseas Assignments

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Sending talented employees overseas can be a promising way to leverage the benefits of a global economy. But expatriate assignments can be extremely expensive: up to three times the cost of a person's typical annual salary, according to some statistics. And despite the investment, many organizations lack the know-how for optimizing the potential benefits, leaving them disappointed with the results.

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Although, it was discussed in Chapter 2 Maintaining ethics is even more difficult internationally. Mainly because most people think that “If it is legal, it is ethical,” However this particular article harps on the idea of that infringement on recognized standards of human rights and decency is legally permissible in some jurisdictions.

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Many managers think of ethics as a question of personal scruples, a confidential matter between individuals and their consciences. These executives are quick to describe any wrongdoing as an isolated incident, the work of a rogue employee. The thought that the company could bear any responsibility for an individual's misdeeds never enters their minds. Ethics, after all, has nothing to do with management.

In fact, ethics has everything to do with management. Rarely do the character flaws of a lone actor fully explain corporate misconduct. More typically, unethical business practice involves the tacit, if not explicit, cooperation of others and reflects the values, attitudes, beliefs, language, and behavioral patterns that define an organization's operating culture. Ethics, then, is as much an organizational as a personal issue. Managers who fail to provide proper leadership and to institute systems that facilitate ethical conduct share responsibility with those who conceive, execute, and knowingly benefit from corporate misdeeds.

Managers must acknowledge their role in shaping organizational ethics and seize this opportunity to create a climate that can strengthen the relationships and reputations on which their companies' success depends. Executives who ignore ethics run the risk of personal and corporate liability in today's increasingly tough legal environment. In addition, they deprive their organizations of the benefits available under new federal guidelines for sentencing organizations convicted of wrongdoing. These sentencing guidelines recognize for the first time the organizational and managerial roots of unlawful conduct and base fines partly on the extent to which companies have taken steps to prevent that misconduct.

Prompted by the prospect of leniency, many companies are rushing to implement compliance-based ethics programs. Designed by corporate counsel, the goal of these programs is to prevent, detect, and punish legal violations. But organizational ethics means more than avoiding illegal practice; and providing employees with a rule book will do little to address the problems underlying unlawful conduct. To foster a climate that encourages exemplary behavior, corporations need a comprehensive approach that goes beyond the often punitive legal compliance stance.

An integrity-based approach to ethics management combines a concern for the law with an emphasis on managerial responsibility for ethical behavior. Though integrity strategies may vary in design and scope, all strive to define companies' guiding values, aspirations, and patterns of thought and conduct. When integrated into the day-to-day operations of an organization, such strategies can help prevent damaging ethical lapses while tapping into powerful human impulses for moral thought and action. Then an ethical framework becomes no longer a burdensome constraint within which companies must operate, but the governing ethos of an organization.

How Organizations Shape Individuals' Behavior

The once familiar picture of ethics as individualistic, unchanging, and impervious to organizational influences has not stood up to scrutiny in recent years. Sears Auto Centers' and Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation's experiences illustrate the role organizations play in shaping individuals' behavior-and how even sound moral fiber can fray when stretched too thin.

In 1992, Sears, Roebuck & Company was inundated with complaints about its automotive service business. Consumers and attorneys general in more than 40 states had accused the company of misleading customers and selling them unnecessary parts and services, from brake jobs to front-end alignments. It would be a mistake, however, to see this situation exclusively in terms of any one individual's moral failings. Nor did management set out to defraud Sears customers. Instead, a number of organizational factors contributed to the problematic sales practices.

In the face of declining revenues, shrinking market share, and an increasingly competitive market for undercar services, Sears management attempted to spur the performance of its auto centers by introducing new goals and incentives for employees. The company increased minimum work quotas and introduced productivity incentives for mechanics. The automotive service advisers were given product-specific sales quotas-sell so many springs, shock absorbers, alignments, or brake jobs per shift-and paid a commission based on sales. According to advisers, failure to meet quotas could lead to a transfer or a reduction in work hours. Some employees spoke of the "pressure, pressure, pressure" to bring in sales.

Under this new set of organizational pressures and incentives, with few options for meeting their sales goals legitimately, some employees' judgment understandably suffered. Management's failure to clarify the line between unnecessary service and legitimate preventive maintenance, coupled with consumer ignorance, left employees to chart their own courses through a vast gray area, subject to a wide range of interpretations. Without active management support for ethical practice and mechanisms to detect and check questionable sales methods and poor work, it is not surprising that some employees may have reacted to contextual forces by resorting to exaggeration, carelessness, or even misrepresentation.

Shortly after the allegations against Sears became public, CEO Edward Brennan acknowledged management's responsibility for putting in place compensation and goal-setting systems that "created an environment in which mistakes did occur." Although the company denied any intent to deceive consumers, senior executives eliminated commissions for service advisers and discontinued sales quotas for specific parts. They also instituted a system of unannounced shopping audits and made plans to expand the internal monitoring of service. In settling the pending lawsuits, Sears offered coupons to customers who had bought certain auto services between 1990 and 1992. The total cost of the settlement, including potential customer refunds, was an estimated $60 million.

Contextual forces can also influence the behavior of top management, as a former CEO of Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation discovered. In the early 1980s, only two years after joining the company, the CEO found evidence suggesting that the apple juice concentrate, supplied by the company's vendors for use in Beech-Nut's "100% pure" apple juice, contained nothing more than sugar water and chemicals. The CEO could have destroyed the bogus inventory and withdrawn the juice from grocers' shelves, but he was under extraordinary pressure to turn the ailing company around. Eliminating the inventory would have killed any hope of turning even the meager $700,000 profit promised to Beech-Nut's then parent, Nestlé.

A number of people in the corporation, it turned out, had doubted the purity of the juice for several years before the CEO arrived. But the 25% price advantage offered by the supplier of the bogus concentrate allowed the operations head to meet cost-control goals. Furthermore, the company lacked an effective quality control system, and a conclusive lab test for juice purity did not yet exist. When a member of the research department voiced concerns about the juice to operating management, he was accused of not being a team player and of acting like "Chicken Little." His judgment, his supervisor wrote in an annual performance review, was "colored by naïveté and impractical ideals." No one else seemed to have considered the company's obligations to its customers or to have thought about the potential harm of disclosure. No one considered the fact that the sale of adulterated or misbranded juice is a legal offense, putting the company and its top management at risk of criminal liability.

An FDA investigation taught Beech-Nut the hard way. In 1987, the company pleaded guilty to selling adulterated and misbranded juice. Two years and two criminal trials later, the CEO pleaded guilty to ten counts of mislabeling. The total cost to the company-including fines, legal expenses, and lost sales-was an estimated $25 million.

Such errors of judgment rarely reflect an organizational culture and management philosophy that sets out to harm or deceive. More often, they reveal a culture that is insensitive or indifferent to ethical considerations or one that lacks effective organizational systems. By the same token, exemplary conduct usually reflects an organizational culture and philosophy that is infused with a sense of responsibility.

For example, Johnson & Johnson's handling of the Tylenol crisis is sometimes attributed to the singular personality of then-CEO James Burke. However, the decision to do a nationwide recall of Tylenol capsules in order to avoid further loss of life from product tampering was in reality not one decision but thousands of decisions made by individuals at all levels of the organization. The "Tylenol decision," then, is best understood not as an isolated incident, the achievement of a lone individual, but as the reflection of an organization's culture. Without a shared set of values and guiding principles deeply ingrained throughout the organization, it is doubtful that Johnson & Johnson's response would have been as rapid, cohesive, and ethically sound.

Many people resist acknowledging the influence of organizational factors on individual behavior-especially on misconduct-for fear of diluting people's sense of personal moral responsibility. But this fear is based on a false dichotomy between holding individual transgressors accountable and holding "the system" accountable. Acknowledging the importance of organizational context need not imply exculpating individual wrongdoers. To understand all is not to forgive all.

The Limits of a Legal Compliance Program

The consequences of an ethical lapse can be serious and far-reaching. Organizations can quickly become entangled in an all-consuming web of legal proceedings. The risk of litigation and liability has increased in the past decade as lawmakers have legislated new civil and criminal offenses, stepped up penalties, and improved support for law enforcement. Equally-if not more-important is the damage an ethical lapse can do to an organization's reputation and relationships. Both Sears and Beech-Nut, for instance, struggled to regain consumer trust and market share long after legal proceedings had ended.

As more managers have become alerted to the importance of organizational ethics, many have asked their lawyers to develop corporate ethics programs to detect and prevent violations of the law. The 1991 Federal Sentencing Guidelines offer a compelling rationale. Sanctions such as fines and probation for organizations convicted of wrongdoing can vary dramatically depending both on the degree of management cooperation in reporting and investigating corporate misdeeds and on whether or not the company has implemented a legal compliance program. (See the insert "Corporate Fines Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.")

What size fine is a corporation likely to pay if convicted of a crime? It depends on a number of factors, some of which are beyond a CEO's control, such as the existence of a prior record of similar misconduct. But it also depends on more controllable factors. The most important of these are reporting and accepting responsibility for the crime, cooperating with authorities, and having an effective program in place to prevent and detect unlawful behavior.

The following example, based on a case studied by the United States Sentencing Commission, shows how the 1991 Federal Sentencing Guidelines have affected overall fine levels and how managers' actions influence organizational fines.

Acme Corporation was charged and convicted of mail fraud. The company systematically charged customers who damaged rented automobiles more than the actual cost of repairs. Acme also billed some customers for the cost of repairs to vehicles for which they were not responsible. Prior to the criminal adjudication, Acme paid $13.7 million in restitution to the customers who had been overcharged.

Deciding before the enactment of the sentencing guidelines, the judge in the criminal case imposed a fine of $6.85 million, roughly half the pecuniary loss suffered by Acme's customers. Under the sentencing guidelines, however, the results could have been dramatically different. Acme could have been fined anywhere from 5% to 200% the loss suffered by customers, depending on whether or not it had an effective program to prevent and detect violations of law and on whether or not it reported the crime, cooperated with authorities, and accepted responsibility for the unlawful conduct. If a high ranking official at Acme were found to have been involved, the maximum fine could have been as large as $54,800,000 or four times the loss to Acme customers. The following chart shows a possible range of fines for each situation:

What Fine Can Acme Expect?

Such programs tend to emphasize the prevention of unlawful conduct, primarily by increasing surveillance and control and by imposing penalties for wrongdoers. While plans vary, the basic framework is outlined in the sentencing guidelines. Managers must establish compliance standards and procedures; designate high-level personnel to oversee compliance; avoid delegating discretionary authority to those likely to act unlawfully; effectively communicate the company's standards and procedures through training or publications; take reasonable steps to achieve compliance through audits, monitoring processes, and a system for employees to report criminal misconduct without fear of retribution; consistently enforce standards through appropriate disciplinary measures; respond appropriately when offenses are detected; and, finally, take reasonable steps to prevent the occurrence of similar offenses in the future.

There is no question of the necessity of a sound, well-articulated strategy for legal compliance in an organization. After all, employees can be frustrated and frightened by the complexity of today's legal environment. And even managers who claim to use the law as a guide to ethical behavior often lack more than a rudimentary understanding of complex legal issues.

Managers would be mistaken, however, to regard legal compliance as an adequate means for addressing the full range of ethical issues that arise every day. "If it's legal, it's ethical," is a frequently heard slogan. But conduct that is lawful may be highly problematic from an ethical point of view. Consider the sale in some countries of hazardous products without appropriate warnings or the purchase of goods from suppliers who operate inhumane sweat-shops in developing countries. Companies engaged in international business often discover that conduct that infringes on recognized standards of human rights and decency is legally permissible in some jurisdictions.

Legal clearance does not certify the absence of ethical problems in the United States either, as a 1991 case at Salomon Brothers illustrates. Four top-level executives failed to take appropriate action when learning of unlawful activities on the government trading desk. Company lawyers found no law obligating the executives to disclose the improprieties. Nevertheless, the executives' delay in disclosing and failure to reveal their prior knowledge prompted a serious crisis of confidence among employees, creditors, shareholders, and customers. The executives were forced to resign, having lost the moral authority to lead. Their ethical lapse compounded the trading desk's legal offenses, and the company ended up suffering losses-including legal costs, increased funding costs, and lost business-estimated at nearly $1 billion.

A compliance approach to ethics also overemphasizes the threat of detection and punishment in order to channel behavior in lawful directions. The underlying model for this approach is deterrence theory, which envisions people as rational maximizers of self-interest, responsive to the personal costs and benefits of their choices, yet indifferent to the moral legitimacy of those choices. But a recent study reported in Why People Obey the Law by Tom R. Tyler shows that obedience to the law is strongly influenced by a belief in its legitimacy and its moral correctness. People generally feel that they have a strong obligation to obey the law. Education about the legal standards and a supportive environment may be all that's required to insure compliance.

Discipline is, of course, a necessary part of any ethical system. Justified penalties for the infringement of legitimate norms are fair and appropriate. Some people do need the threat of sanctions. However, an overemphasis on potential sanctions can be superfluous and even counterproductive. Employees may rebel against programs that stress penalties, particularly if they are designed and imposed without employee involvement or if the standards are vague or unrealistic. Management may talk of mutual trust when unveiling a compliance plan, but employees often receive the message as a warning from on high. Indeed, the more skeptical among them may view compliance programs as nothing more than liability insurance for senior management. This is not an unreasonable conclusion, considering that compliance programs rarely address the root causes of misconduct.

Even in the best cases, legal compliance is unlikely to unleash much moral imagination or commitment. The law does not generally seek to inspire human excellence or distinction. It is no guide for exemplary behavior-or even good practice. Those managers who define ethics as legal compliance are implicitly endorsing a code of moral mediocrity for their organizations. As Richard Breeden, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, noted, "It is not an adequate ethical standard to aspire to get through the day without being indicted."

Integrity as a Governing Ethic

A strategy based on integrity holds organizations to a more robust standard. While compliance is rooted in avoiding legal sanctions, organizational integrity is based on the concept of self-governance in accordance with a set of guiding principles. From the perspective of integrity, the task of ethics management is to define and give life to an organization's guiding values, to create an environment that supports ethically sound behavior, and to instill a sense of shared accountability among employees. The need to obey the law is viewed as a positive aspect of organizational life, rather than an unwelcome constraint imposed by external authorities.

An integrity strategy is characterized by a conception of ethics as a driving force of an enterprise. Ethical values shape the search for opportunities, the design of organizational systems, and the decision-making process used by individuals and groups. They provide a common frame of reference and serve as a unifying force across different functions, lines of business, and employee groups. Organizational ethics helps define what a company is and what it stands for.

Many integrity initiatives have structural features common to compliance-based initiatives: a code of conduct, training in relevant areas of law, mechanisms for reporting and investigating potential misconduct, and audits and controls to insure that laws and company standards are being met. In addition, if suitably designed, an integrity-based initiative can establish a foundation for seeking the legal benefits that are available under the sentencing guidelines should criminal wrongdoing occur. (See the insert "The Hallmarks of an Effective Integrity Strategy.")

There is no one right integrity strategy. Factors such as management personality, company history, culture, lines of business, and industry regulations must be taken into account when shaping an appropriate set of values and designing an implementation program. Still, several features are common to efforts that have achieved some success:

The guiding values and commitments make sense and are clearly communicated. They reflect important organizational obligations and widely shared aspirations that appeal to the organization's members. Employees at all levels take them seriously, feel comfortable discussing them, and have a concrete understanding of their practical importance. This does not signal the absence of ambiguity and conflict but a willingness to seek solutions compatible with the framework of values.

Company leaders are personally committed, credible, and willing to take action on the values they espouse. They are not mere mouthpieces. They are willing to scrutinize their own decisions. Consistency on the part of leadership is key. Waffling on values will lead to employee cynicism and a rejection of the program. At the same time, managers must assume responsibility for making tough calls when ethical obligations conflict.

The espoused values are integrated into the normal channels of management decision making and are reflected in the organization's critical activities: the development of plans, the setting of goals, the search for opportunities, the allocation of resources, the gathering and communication of information, the measurement of performance, and the promotion and advancement of personnel.

The company's systems and structures support and reinforce its values. Information systems, for example, are designed to provide timely and accurate information. Reporting relationships are structured to build in checks and balances to promote objective judgment. Performance appraisal is sensitive to means as well as ends.

Managers throughout the company have the decision-making skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to make ethically sound decisions on a day-to-day basis. Ethical thinking and awareness must be part of every managers' mental equipment. Ethics education is usually part of the process.

Success in creating a climate for responsible and ethically sound behavior requires continuing effort and a considerable investment of time and resources. A glossy code of conduct, a high-ranking ethics officer, a training program, an annual ethics audit-these trappings of an ethics program do not necessarily add up to a responsible, law-abiding organization whose espoused values match its actions. A formal ethics program can serve as a catalyst and a support system, but organizational integrity depends on the integration of the company's values into its driving systems.

But an integrity strategy is broader, deeper, and more demanding than a legal compliance initiative. Broader in that it seeks to enable responsible conduct. Deeper in that it cuts to the ethos and operating systems of the organization and its members, their guiding values and patterns of thought and action. And more demanding in that it requires an active effort to define the responsibilities and aspirations that constitute an organization's ethical compass. Above all, organizational ethics is seen as the work of management. Corporate counsel may play a role in the design and implementation of integrity strategies, but managers at all levels and across all functions are involved in the process. (See the chart, "Strategies for Ethics Management.")

Strategies for Ethics Management

During the past decade, a number of companies have undertaken integrity initiatives. They vary according to the ethical values focused on and the implementation approaches used. Some companies focus on the core values of integrity that reflect basic social obligations, such as respect for the rights of others, honesty, fair dealing, and obedience to the law. Other companies emphasize aspirations-values that are ethically desirable but not necessarily morally obligatory-such as good service to customers, a commitment to diversity, and involvement in the community.

When it comes to implementation, some companies begin with behavior. Following Aristotle's view that one becomes courageous by acting as a courageous person, such companies develop codes of conduct specifying appropriate behavior, along with a system of incentives, audits, and controls. Other companies focus less on specific actions and more on developing attitudes, decision-making processes, and ways of thinking that reflect their values. The assumption is that personal commitment and appropriate decision processes will lead to right action.

Martin Marietta, NovaCare, and Wetherill Associates have implemented and lived with quite different integrity strategies. In each case, management has found that the initiative has made important and often unexpected contributions to competitiveness, work environment, and key relationships on which the company depends.

Martin Marietta: Emphasizing Core Values

Martin Marietta Corporation, the U.S. aerospace and defense contractor, opted for an integrity-based ethics program in 1985. At the time, the defense industry was under attack for fraud and mismanagement, and Martin Marietta was under investigation for improper travel billings. Managers knew they needed a better form of self-governance but were skeptical that an ethics program could influence behavior. "Back then people asked, 'Do you really need an ethics program to be ethical?'" recalls current President Thomas Young. "Ethics was something personal. Either you had it, or you didn't."

The corporate general counsel played a pivotal role in promoting the program, and legal compliance was a critical objective. But it was conceived of and implemented from the start as a company-wide management initiative aimed at creating and maintaining a "do-it-right" climate. In its original conception, the program emphasized core values, such as honesty and fair play. Over time, it expanded to encompass quality and environmental responsibility as well.

Today the initiative consists of a code of conduct, an ethics training program, and procedures for reporting and investigating ethical concerns within the company. It also includes a system for disclosing violations of federal procurement law to the government. A corporate ethics office manages the program, and ethics representatives are stationed at major facilities. An ethics steering committee, made up of Martin Marietta's president, senior executives, and two rotating members selected from field operations, oversees the ethics office. The audit and ethics committee of the board of directors oversees the steering committee.

The ethics office is responsible for responding to questions and concerns from the company's employees. Its network of representatives serves as a sounding board, a source of guidance, and a channel for raising a range of issues, from allegations of wrongdoing to complaints about poor management, unfair supervision, and company policies and practices. Martin Marietta's ethics network, which accepts anonymous complaints, logged over 9,000 calls in 1991, when the company had about 60,000 employees. In 1992, it investigated 684 cases. The ethics office also works closely with the human resources, legal, audit, communications, and security functions to respond to employee concerns.

Shortly after establishing the program, the company began its first round of ethics training for the entire workforce, starting with the CEO and senior executives. Now in its third round, training for senior executives focuses on decision making, the challenges of balancing multiple responsibilities, and compliance with laws and regulations critical to the company. The incentive compensation plan for executives makes responsibility for promoting ethical conduct an explicit requirement for reward eligibility and requires that business and personal goals be achieved in accordance with the company's policy on ethics. Ethical conduct and support for the ethics program are also criteria in regular performance reviews.

Today top-level managers say the ethics program has helped the company avoid serious problems and become more responsive to its more than 90,000 employees. The ethics network, which tracks the number and types of cases and complaints, has served as an early warning system for poor management, quality and safety defects, racial and gender discrimination, environmental concerns, inaccurate and false records, and personnel grievances regarding salaries, promotions, and layoffs. By providing an alternative channel for raising such concerns, Martin Marietta is able to take corrective action more quickly and with a lot less pain. In many cases, potentially embarrassing problems have been identified and dealt with before becoming a management crisis, a lawsuit, or a criminal investigation. Among employees who brought complaints in 1993, 75% were satisfied with the results.

Company executives are also convinced that the program has helped reduce the incidence of misconduct. When allegations of misconduct do surface, the company says it deals with them more openly. On several occasions, for instance, Martin Marietta has voluntarily disclosed and made restitution to the government for misconduct involving potential violations of federal procurement laws. In addition, when an employee alleged that the company had retaliated against him for voicing safety concerns about his plant on CBS news, top management commissioned an investigation by an outside law firm. Although failing to support the allegations, the investigation found that employees at the plant feared retaliation when raising health, safety, or environmental complaints. The company redoubled its efforts to identify and discipline those employees taking retaliatory action and stressed the desirability of an open work environment in its ethics training and company communications.

Although the ethics program helps Martin Marietta avoid certain types of litigation, it has occasionally led to other kinds of legal action. In a few cases, employees dismissed for violating the code of ethics sued Martin Marietta, arguing that the company had violated its own code by imposing unfair and excessive discipline.

Still, the company believes that its attention to ethics has been worth it. The ethics program has led to better relationships with the government, as well as to new business opportunities. Along with prices and technology, Martin Marietta's record of integrity, quality, and reliability of estimates plays a role in the awarding of defense contracts, which account for some 75% of the company's revenues. Executives believe that the reputation they've earned through their ethics program has helped them build trust with government auditors, as well. By opening up communications, the company has reduced the time spent on redundant audits.

The program has also helped change employees' perceptions and priorities. Some managers compare their new ways of thinking about ethics to the way they understand quality. They consider more carefully how situations will be perceived by others, the possible long-term consequences of short-term thinking, and the need for continuous improvement. CEO Norman Augustine notes, "Ten years ago, people would have said that there were no ethical issues in business. Today employees think their number-one objective is to be thought of as decent people doing quality work."

NovaCare: Building Shared Aspirations

NovaCare Inc., one of the largest providers of rehabilitation services to nursing homes and hospitals in the United States, has oriented its ethics effort toward building a common core of shared aspirations. But in 1988, when the company was called InSpeech, the only sentiment shared was mutual mistrust.

Senior executives built the company from a series of aggressive acquisitions over a brief period of time to take advantage of the expanding market for therapeutic services. However, in 1988, the viability of the company was in question. Turnover among its frontline employees-the clinicians and therapists who care for patients in nursing homes and hospitals-escalated to 57% per year. The company's inability to retain therapists caused customers to defect and the stock price to languish in an extended slump.

After months of soul-searching, InSpeech executives realized that the turnover rate was a symptom of a more basic problem: the lack of a common set of values and aspirations. There was, as one executive put it, a "huge disconnect" between the values of the therapists and clinicians and those of the managers who ran the company. The therapists and clinicians evaluated the company's success in terms of its delivery of high-quality health care. InSpeech management, led by executives with financial services and venture capital backgrounds, measured the company's worth exclusively in terms of financial success. Management's single-minded emphasis on increasing hours of reimbursable care turned clinicians off. They took management's performance orientation for indifference to patient care and left the company in droves.

CEO John Foster recognized the need for a common frame of reference and a common language to unify the diverse groups. So he brought in consultants to conduct interviews and focus groups with the company's health care professionals, managers, and customers. Based on the results, an employee task force drafted a proposed vision statement for the company, and another 250 employees suggested revisions. Then Foster and several senior managers developed a succinct statement of the company's guiding purpose and fundamental beliefs that could be used as a framework for making decisions and setting goals, policies, and practices.

Unlike a code of conduct, which articulates specific behavioral standards, the statement of vision, purposes, and beliefs lays out in very simple terms the company's central purpose and core values. The purpose-meeting the rehabilitation needs of patients through clinical leadership-is supported by four key beliefs: respect for the individual, service to the customer, pursuit of excellence, and commitment to personal integrity. Each value is discussed with examples of how it is manifested in the day-to-day activities and policies of the company, such as how to measure the quality of care.

To support the newly defined values, the company changed its name to NovaCare and introduced a number of structural and operational changes. Field managers and clinicians were given greater decision-making authority; clinicians were provided with additional resources to assist in the delivery of effective therapy; and a new management structure integrated the various therapies offered by the company. The hiring of new corporate personnel with health care backgrounds reinforced the company's new clinical focus.

The introduction of the vision, purpose, and beliefs met with varied reactions from employees, ranging from cool skepticism to open enthusiasm. One employee remembered thinking the talk about values "much ado about nothing." Another recalled, "It was really wonderful. It gave us a goal that everyone aspired to, no matter what their place in the company." At first, some were baffled about how the vision, purpose, and beliefs were to be used. But, over time, managers became more adept at explaining and using them as a guide. When a customer tried to hire away a valued employee, for example, managers considered raiding the customer's company for employees. After reviewing the beliefs, the managers abandoned the idea.

NovaCare managers acknowledge and company surveys indicate that there is plenty of room for improvement. While the values are used as a firm reference point for decision making and evaluation in some areas of the company, they are still viewed with reservation in others. Some managers do not "walk the talk," employees complain. And recently acquired companies have yet to be fully integrated into the program. Nevertheless, many NovaCare employees say the values initiative played a critical role in the company's 1990 turnaround.

The values reorientation also helped the company deal with its most serious problem: turnover among health care providers. In 1990, the turnover rate stood at 32%, still above target but a significant improvement over the 1988 rate of 57%. By 1993, turnover had dropped to 27%. Moreover, recruiting new clinicians became easier. Barely able to hire 25 new clinicians each month in 1988, the company added 776 in 1990 and 2,546 in 1993. Indeed, one employee who left during the 1988 turmoil said that her decision to return in 1990 hinged on the company's adoption of the vision, purpose, and beliefs.

Wetherill Associates: Defining Right Action

Wetherill Associates, Inc.-a small, privately held supplier of electrical parts to the automotive market-has neither a conventional code of conduct nor a statement of values. Instead, WAI has a Quality Assurance Manual -a combination of philosophy text, conduct guide, technical manual, and company profile-that describes the company's commitment to honesty and its guiding principle of right action.

WAI doesn't have a corporate ethics officer who reports to top management, because at WAI, the company's corporate ethics officer is top management. Marie Bothe, WAI's chief executive officer, sees her main function as keeping the 350-employee company on the path of right action and looking for opportunities to help the community. She delegates the "technical" aspects of the business-marketing, finance, personnel, operations-to other members of the organization.

Right action, the basis for all of WAI's decisions, is a well-developed approach that challenges most conventional management thinking. The company explicitly rejects the usual conceptual boundaries that separate morality and self-interest. Instead, they define right behavior as logically, expediently, and morally right. Managers teach employees to look at the needs of the customers, suppliers, and the community-in addition to those of the company and its employees-when making decisions.

WAI also has a unique approach to competition. One employee explains, "We are not 'in competition' with anybody. We just do what we have to do to serve the customer." Indeed, when occasionally unable to fill orders, WAI salespeople refer customers to competitors. Artificial incentives, such as sales contests, are never used to spur individual performance. Nor are sales results used in determining compensation. Instead, the focus is on teamwork and customer service. Managers tell all new recruits that absolute honesty, mutual courtesy, and respect are standard operating procedure.

Newcomers generally react positively to company philosophy, but not all are prepared for such a radical departure from the practices they have known elsewhere. Recalling her initial interview, one recruit described her response to being told that lying was not allowed, "What do you mean? No lying? I'm a buyer. I lie for a living!" Today she is persuaded that the policy makes sound business sense. WAI is known for informing suppliers of overshipments as well as undershipments and for scrupulous honesty in the sale of parts, even when deception cannot be readily detected.

Since its entry into the distribution business 13 years ago, WAI has seen its revenues climb steadily from just under $1 million to nearly $98 million in 1993, and this in an industry with little growth. Once seen as an upstart beset by naysayers and industry skeptics, WAI is now credited with entering and professionalizing an industry in which kickbacks, bribes, and "gratuities" were commonplace. Employees-equal numbers of men and women ranging in age from 17 to 92-praise the work environment as both productive and supportive.

WAI's approach could be difficult to introduce in a larger, more traditional organization. WAI is a small company founded by 34 people who shared a belief in right action; its ethical values were naturally built into the organization from the start. Those values are so deeply ingrained in the company's culture and operating systems that they have been largely self-sustaining. Still, the company has developed its own training program and takes special care to hire people willing to support right action. Ethics and job skills are considered equally important in determining an individual's competence and suitability for employment. For WAI, the challenge will be to sustain its vision as the company grows and taps into markets overseas.

At WAI, as at Martin Marietta and NovaCare, a management-led commitment to ethical values has contributed to competitiveness, positive work-force morale, as well as solid sustainable relationships with the company's key constituencies. In the end, creating a climate that encourages exemplary conduct may be the best way to discourage damaging misconduct. Only in such an environment do rogues really act alone.

A version of this article appeared in the March-April 1994 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Many managers think of ethics as a question of personal scruples, a confidential matter between individuals and their consciences. These executives are quick to describe any wrongdoing as an isolated incident, the work of a rogue employee. The thought that the company could bear any responsibility for an individual's misdeeds never enters their minds.

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I chose this article because I could not imagine what it would be like to move away from your home country for "x" amount of years and then try to resume a normal lifestyle. However, I have someone what experienced this just moving from the boondocks of Jacksonville to city living in D.C. The biggest thing for so far hasn't really been the culture shock from the two living environments, but the people with whom I used to interact with have changed dramatically. Recently, my fiancé and I have been exploring the possibility of moving back, but as mentioned in the article I to feel unappreciated and adrift regarding the job market. Granted, this is why I have resume finishing my degree.

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Become an FT Subscriber. Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more. Choose the subscription that is right for you Not sure which package to choose?

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I believe that diversity at its core is what makes any change happen. People have their own personalities and traits that influence their decisions. Think for a second if no one asked you to try a certain food you never had, do you think you would ever try it? It is another person's culture who influences you to try different foods. So the same thing can and should be applied in the workforce. People from all diverse backgrounds and educations can provide ideas and solutions to grow the company further.

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Stephen Covey once said: "Strength lies in differences, not in similarities."

Diversity is critical for organization's ability to innovate and adapt in a fast-changing environment. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs and most admired leaders will tell you the same thing. Diversity is essential to growth and prosperity of any company: diversity of perspectives, experiences, cultures, genders, and age. Why? Because diversity breeds innovation. And innovation breeds business success. Don't believe me? Take a look:

Forbes study has identified workforce diversity and inclusion as a key driver of internal innovation and business growth.

Lu Hong and Scott Page showed that groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers.

According to McKinsey, companies with diverse executive boards enjoy significantly higher earnings and returns on equity.

According to Harvard Business School, multicultural networks promote creativity.

Successful companies are not the ones that build a business, then look at diversity as a nice-to-have attribute. Truly successful and innovative companies are those that build diverse teams when they are just starting out in their own apartment or their folks' garage. Diversity is a mentality, not just strategic imperative.

One of the companies that does an amazing job at inviting and fostering diversity is Progressive Insurance. I wanted to peak behind the curtain, so I spoke to Neil Lenane, Business Leader of Talent Management and 23-year veteran at Progressive who is an avid advocate of diversity as a business imperative. Below is the transcript of our conversation about diversity and leadership. One thing though that Lenane kept repeating time and time again that struck and inspired me was this:

"If you do not intentionally include, you unintentionally exclude."

Ekaterina Walter: Progressive has diversity built into its core values. Why is diversity so important?

Neil Lenane: Since we rely on our diversity of thought to find innovative solutions to new business challenges as well as provide products and services that exceed our customers' expectations, we find the key is respecting all people (our own, customers, vendors, etc.) and valuing the differences among all of them. By always putting these values into action, we overcome personal inhibitions and apprehensions. And, as a result, we can more openly share our ideas and help Progressive grow as a company.

Walter: Everybody is talking about diversity, but very few companies actually function in a way that truly welcomes diversity. What does it take to make diversity thrive within the corporate environment?

Lenane: We view diversity not as a program but a cultural movement. While gains can be slow moving and measurement less clear than other business metrics, we find the key is keeping the momentum going every single day. Ultimately it ends up as not something we check off a list but a cultural attribute we use to help us achieve our operational goals.

Walter: If you ask executives at Progressive, what three benefits of diversity would they highlight?

Lenane: Being more diverse and inclusive helps us the most with being more innovative, being positioned to better understand our customer's needs, and empower us to cast wider nets for the best talent.

Walter: Can you share your own personal experience with diversity and how it contributed to the innovation and creativity within the company?

Lenane: Katrina 2005: a third of our claims staff impacted in New Orleans while the immediate need of serving thousands of customers in need. How we brought many perspectives from both employees (field and corporate) and vendors, to life in a very short time to work collaboratively which led to stabilizing our people's housing and family needs while coming together to bring best in class service to impacted customers. It tested our ability to manage our biases when time was of the essence to many.

Walter: In your opinion, what makes a great leader?
Lenane:

Leader has great vision and can align and communicate that vision across the organization

Leader invests in people, particularly in their development

Leader builds and manages relationships. (S)he holds people accountable, empowers them to do great things, and is proactive in removing the barriers they face

Leader knows his/her business and can accurately assess risk and make the right decisions

Walter: What advice would you give to aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs?

Lenane: Due to the constant pace of change, increase your desire and ability to be agile. This will help in not only weathering change but proactively adapting to it. And, obviously, look at diversity as a business success imperative.
Conclusion
This quote by James Surowiecki says it all:

"Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise." ~ James Surowiecki

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Reaping The Benefits Of Diversity For Modern Business Innovation

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Stephen Covey once said: "Strength lies in differences, not in similarities." Diversity is critical for organization's ability to innovate and adapt in a fast-changing environment. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs and most admired leaders will tell you the same thing. Diversity is essential to growth and prosperity of any company: diversity of perspectives, experiences, cultures, genders, and age.

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I think we can all agree that we have made much headway regarding gender roles in the workplace. For example, to of the top companies in the world (Yahoo and HP) for have females as the standing CEO's. However, I still believe the pay gap between men and women is still one of the factors that is overlooked.

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I decided to attach this picture because I did not quite feel the book did an excellent job explaining what Triple Bottom Line meant. While reading the definition, I was thinking to myself how much better this could be explained with just a picture rather than bullet points with questions.

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I am posting this article because of an occurrence that happened the other day. I was talking to a lady, and we were complaining about how the hallways are always hot, and she mentioned that it had to do with the building being LEED certified. However, upon doing further research this proved not to be the case, and that many building owners and contractors feel it is an unnecessary expense due to minimal occupancy usage during the day.

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There is a great discussion on LEED apartment building tenant complaints over on the Consilience Blog. The complaints as tenant complaints go are legitimate, but have little or nothing to do with the buildings being LEED certified, rather they have to do with cost cutting and poor design, construction, and facilities maintenance.

In summary the complaints were:

1. Inability to control Air Conditioning to a point below 73 degrees

2. Challenged by low flow appliance and water pressure

3. Common areas have no Air Conditioning

4. Appear to be too few elevators and without AC and too many solar panels

5. Time lags in underground parking illumination due to motion sensors create safety concern .

As a landlord and manager of several non-LEED buildings and as a LEED AP, I had to throw my hat into the discussion and this is what I had to say:

Every one of the complaints listed are irrespective of the building being green or LEED certified. These complaints are a result of poor building, design, and facilities management choices of the buildings not because the building is LEED.

Heating/Cooling complaints are universal in rental units, period. If the building earned credits for indoor air quality /climate control then these complaints are due to poor installation/design/implementation. More likely the building owner and/or contractor cut corners to cut construction costs or have implemented additional throttle controls to cut operational costs.

Low flow plumbing comes in a wide array of quality exceptionally efficient options as well as cheap, poorly crafted, industrial crap. Having grown up in California where drought is perennial, I grew up with the ever changing low flow technology. In 40 years they are now producing superior products, yet the crappy designs still exist because they are cheap (and they are cheap because they are crap) - not to mention many do not have proper water softener installation setups.

Common areas in apartment buildings often do not have AC - whether or not the buildings are LEED. Many building owners and contractors feel it is an unnecessary expense due to minimal occupancy usage during the day. Now if you are talking office buildings, common areas are in constant usage.

Elevators - these complaints look to be budget related. Additional shafts could have been built, regenerative power options could have been used, AC could have been installed (but would also need to also have AC in common areas). Some mights say, depending on the size of the building, that is what stairs were made for. My first apartment was six stories with no AC in the common areas, and one 3-Person occupancy elevator. We all managed just fine with the stairs so stop kibitzing.

Lighting in underground parking. This sounds like poor installation and or equipment choices. The system should be able to be tweaked and a sensor could be placed on-approach to resolve the issue.

Again, none of the complaints are LEED related. They only seem to be because it is a LEED building. These are mostly due to poor design, construction, and/or facilities maintenance and general cost clipping outside of the realm of LEED.

As to LEED costing more, that is becoming a myth. Studies are starting to show that LEED construction is becoming, in some areas, at same cost or less expensive than traditional construction. I recently toured a LEED platinum building which came in I believe 1 or 2% less than traditional construction.

Matthew Rochte, LEED AP
CSR/Sustainability Consultant
Opportunity Sustainability
http://www.OpportunitySustainability.com
http://www.twitter.com/mrochte - follow me for CSR and sustainability trends

Copyright ©2010 Matthew Rochte, Opportunity Sustainability ℠ - Share with attribution

Opportunity Sustainability℠ is a Midwest-based sustainability and corporate responsibility consulting firm specializing in green innovation and seeing opportunities where others see burdens. Matthew Rochte LEED AP, an experienced, operations-based sustainability director, works with company management to navigate and realize the opportunities in taking their company green and growing sustainably.

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LEED building complaints - are they really LEED related?

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Are LEED building complaints from tenants really related to the building being LEED? In a discussion over several LEED apartment tenant complaints Matthew Rochte LEED AP, who has managed and owned non-LEED apartments, weighs in.

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I post this in conjunction with my previous post because I can relate. I am 24 years old and have three people on my team who report directly to me. Two of which are in their late 30's early 40's. Luckily we have mutual respect for each other, and all know what the goals are and work together to achieve them. However, one thing that made me chuckle was how accurate the portion regarding different approaches to work, and more specifically "younger workers are more likely to have shorter workdays in the office but tend to be more open to working from home, when compared to older workers"

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The corner office may now belong to someone younger than you, according to a new CareerBuilder survey. Thirty-four percent of U.S. workers say they are older than their bosses, and 15 percent say they work for someone who is at least 10 years younger, noting a shift in the correlation between seniority and leadership.

"Age disparities in the office are perhaps more diverse now than they've ever been," says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. "It's not uncommon to see 30-year-olds managing 50-year-olds or 65-year-olds mentoring 22-year-olds. While the tenets of successful management are consistent across generations, there are subtle differences in work habits and views that all workers must empathize with when working with or managing someone who's much different in age."The changing face of leadership has brought other changes to the workplace, most notably a difference in work styles, communication and changing jobs. Managers and workers ages 25 to 34 and managers and workers 55 and older were surveyed, and while there may be distinctions between these age groups in how they approach their work, most workers said it isn't difficult to work for a younger boss.

Different Approach to Work
According to the survey, younger workers (ages 25 to 34) are more likely to have shorter workdays in the office but tend to be more open to working from home, when compared to workers age 55-plus.
More:
Communication Preferences How 20 Is The New 30 In Today's Workforce More From AOL Jobs Looking for a job? Click here to get started.
On a typical workday, a younger employee:

Works eight hours or less per day -- 64 percent compared to 58 percent of workers age 55-plus.

Arrives later than 8 a.m. and leaves later than 5 p.m.

Is more likely than workers age 55-plus to work after leaving the office -- 69 percent versus 62 percent, respectively.

Believes arriving on time doesn't matter as long as work gets done -- 29 percent versus 20 percent of older workers believing this.

Workers age 55-plus have a more direct approach to working on projects than their younger counterparts:

Sixty-six percent of workers age 55-plus prefer to skip the process and dive right into executing workplace projects, compared to 52 percent of workers ages 25 to 34.

Only 35 percent of workers age 55-plus write out a detailed game plan before acting, compared to 48 percent of workers ages 25 to 34.

Although technology tends to create a divide among older and younger generations, it's a mutually agreed-upon area in the workplace. When asked how workers most like to communicate while on the job, the survey found:

Sixty percent of workers age 55-plus prefer face-to-face communication, compared to 55 percent of workers ages 25 to 34.

When it comes to email/text, 35 percent of younger workers prefer this method, compared to 28 percent of older workers.

Talking on the phone is the least appealing option to both groups of workers, as only 12 percent of older workers and 10 percent of younger workers chose this as a preferable method of communication at work.
Perhaps an indicator of why a growing number of bosses are younger than some of the employees they manage, the survey found that younger workers often view their career path through opportunistic eyes:

Workers age 55-plus tend to believe that you should stay in a job for at least three years -- 62 percent compared to just 53 percent of workers ages 25 to 34.

In contrast, the younger group of workers surveyed believe you should be promoted every two to three years if you're doing a good job -- 61 percent versus 43 percent of older workers.

Forty-seven percent of workers ages 25 to 34 believe you should stay in a job until you learn enough to move ahead, compared to 38 percent of workers age 55-plus.

The one area that older and younger workers completely see eye-to-eye on? Sixty percent of both groups prefer to eat alone during the lunch hour, as opposed to dining with their co-workers.
Read Full Story

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Younger Bosses Managing Older Workers: Increasingly Common, And Rife With Conflict

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The corner office may now belong to someone younger than you, according to a new CareerBuilder survey. Thirty-four percent of U.S. workers say they are older than their bosses, and 15 percent say they work for someone who is at least 10 years younger, noting a shift in the correlation between seniority and leadership.

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I know that this picture is found in the book but it is one the best visual illustrations I found while reading the book. Once I saw it, it was so clear to me why my top level managers are where they are and why I am a mid-level manager. Also, it showed what I need to learn/understand to make the move into upper-level management; therefore, it acts as a guide while I continue to grow and mature within my career.

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I post this article for two main reasons.

1. I would like to start my own business in the next couple years, and in doing research with my potential partners, we came across this article which shed light on a certain factor not many of us had thought prior which was making efficient use of resources.

2. My potential partners and I currently work for the same company and seem always to be complaining about the lack of resources when needed, and how when we first started it did not seem as if there was much planning; therefore everything felt like a train wreck. However, once more planning was implemented it seemed as if the other topics in the article just came together. So we all agreed that after reading this article and reflecting on prior experiences that it has some serious truth to it.

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The Importance of Planning in an Organization

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Planning helps an organization chart a course for the achievement of its goals. The process begins with reviewing the current operations of the organization and identifying what needs to be improved ...

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I choose this particular video for a couple of reasons.

1. I like how instead of the book's description of the management process "influence" it opted to say "Lead" which when I believe when we think of any manager we automatically think of leadership.

2. I appreciate the how it encompassed how a manager has to be evolutionary in the sense that technology, innovation, globalization/diversification are always changing; therefore, a manager must be accepting of change.

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Four Key Functions

Managers have to deal with multiple different forces that pull and push their businesses and companies in any number of directions. In many ways, it's like working in an obstacle course. There are obstacles you have to deal with, new things that you might not have ever seen before and challenges that will come up that will test your abilities. Managers as a whole focus on four key functions:

Plan: Have a specific outline of the steps they will take to be successful or have their department of the company be successful.

Control: Be able to keep all the pieces and parts of the plan moving together.

Organize: Get all the people and equipment together to support the plan.

Lead: Show vision and enthusiasm to reach the goal of the plan.

They have obstacles, if you will, that arise while they are focusing on these areas.

Technology

Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, and it represents potentially the fastest-moving force on the four functions of management - and it encompasses all forms of technology (communication, manufacturing, marketing, etc.). Technology is moving at an incredibly fast pace, and that forces managers to adjust how they plan, organize, lead and control. Primarily, technology allows a manager to have access to more data and to communicate that data faster and to more people. Thus, they have to be able to work with technology, understand how to use it as a manager and disseminate that information to their employees.

Innovation

For any manager to be able to truly utilize the four main functions, they have to be able to accept innovation and indeed be innovative themselves. Innovation, which is the introduction of new ideas, impacts managers constantly. Just think of the huge changes the Internet posed to managers. Simple things, such as email or text messaging, changed how they managed their employees and communicated with them.

Simple innovations such as these changed the landscape they worked in, and they had to be able to integrate this innovation into their management functions.

Globalization and Diversity

The world, in a word, is shrinking. Influences of different cultures are being felt in all countries via globalization. Globalization is the integration of cultures throughout the world and can be as simple as McDonalds opening a store in Saudi Arabia (bringing the taste of the U.S. to the Middle East, if you will) or as complicated as a mosque opening in a small suburban town. These examples bring a different culture to the location and thus a different perspective on the world. So, as a manager works through the basic functions of management, they have to understand that culturally the world around them is changing, and they need to embrace this diversity.

You see, when cultures mix, we are experiencing diversity, or an environment made up of many different cultures and viewpoints. Now, a manager could be managing people from India, Mexico and Germany all in the same office. Thus, planning their work, organizing it, leading it and controlling it will make the manager change his or her approach. They cannot, for example, lead a person from Mexico the same way they would someone from India. These cultures have different ways of working, and a manager must adjust his or her methods to manage those diverse cultures.

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business environments & the four functions of management - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Business Environments & the Four Functions of Management - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Managers have to deal with multiple different forces that pull and push their businesses and companies in any number of directions. In many ways, it's like working in an obstacle course. There are obstacles you have to deal with, new things that you might not have ever seen before and challenges that will come up that will test your abilities.