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Before taking this course, I had some misconceptions about management and what it entailed. This course journal will chart exactly what the principles of management really are and I will be going into more detail in each module where I may have previously had misconceptions. In other cases, my intuition was proved correct, which I will also illustrate in the modules proper. Much of my misconceptions come from pop culture such as Office Space as well as from the popular comic strip Dilbert, written by Scott Adams. A few of his strips will be included. The comic strip in question is a rather cynical take on corporate culture and management. Office Space is a satire on office work and how boring and unfulfilling it can be for some people as well as the sometimes unintuitive way management can be.

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In this module, one of my first misconceptions was that management was more focused on LEADING people rather than making systems and processes that would let people work towards the goals of the organization. Previous to this course, I had some negative attitudes towards the idea of management and managers, illustrated below by Dilbert, with credit to Scott Adams. The idea that managers were lazy and manipulative plagued me throughout my teenage and early twenties. Though that has changed with experience and education. Though some indeed do embody the negative and cynical spirit of this comic, pictured below.

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Module 1: An Overview of Management: How it Affected Workers

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Module 1: An Overview of Management: How it Affected Workers

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To start with, my view towards corporate life was marred by negativity brought on by such pop culture as Dilbert and Office Space. Office Space followed a group of disgruntled workers unhappy with office work and their shenanigans. They end up burning down their workplace, which is shown as a positive thing for leaving a "soul-sucking" atmosphere. Pictured below is a popular quote from Office Space. Instead, I have newfound respect for the job. As it seems ridiculously hard to plan, organize, lead, and control resources to meet the goals of that organization. The key takeaway for me in learning about this module and the basics of management enlightened me in how I was wrong about the cynical view of management and office work. It's difficult, complex, and nuanced. People are unpredictable and it can be hard to make the right decision. This module showed me that Dilbert and Office Space, while hilarious and may speak some truth to the experience, are exceedingly cynical and negative and often paint their managers as incompetent, which is the main narrative thrust behind Dilbert and Office Space. In addition to my negative and cynical view of management that is now less cynical and negative, I was also under the false impression of middle managers being unimportant. Now, I realize just how important they are to the effectiveness of a business. They are in charge of "interpreting, planning, and setting actions", so without these people to interpret the overarching and highly general goals coming down from the CEO, there wouldn't really be an effective business to run.

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Office Space And Have Those TPS Reports For Us This Afternoon

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Module 2: Ethics and Social Responsibility

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Module 2: Ethics and Social Responsibility

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Starbucks is one of the most profitable and visible companies that practices corporate social responsibility (CSR). As discussed in the article linked below, "Starbucks became one of the first companies to offer comprehensive health benefits to both full and part-time employees, including coverage for domestic partners."
Interestingly, the article goes on to say that discussion surrounding ethical business behavior "dates to the early 1600s in Amsterdam. The Dutch East India Company, the world's first publicly listed company, profited by 'war, rape, pillage, and colonization', said Stephen Davis, associate director and senior fellow of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance". The Dutch, the article goes on to say, protested through the "world's first shareholder boycott of company stock on social grounds. The effort failed and the company carried on, but it laid the groundwork for addressing corporate behavior.
As an ex Starbucks employee I can say that while they do absolutely offer health insurance, paid tuition, and they can absolutely say that they intend to act in a socially responsible and ethical way, I don't think they thought through what they want to offer their workers. I recently left because I couldn't afford any of my living expenses due to the low wage they offer their employees. While it is appreciated that they offer these benefits, Starbucks does not offer a high enough wage to actually benefit from these offers.
They may be socially responsible and ethical on paper, but for a company to actually be as such, I argue that they actually have to pay their workers an actual living for it to count.

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While corporate profits might seem incongruous with doing social good, Howard Schultz, the executive chairman of Starbucks, would counter that the opposite is true.

There is a great need, Mr. Schultz said, "to achieve the fragile balance between profit, social impact, and a moral obligation" to do everything possible "to enhance the lives of our employees and the communities we serve."

At the annual DealBook conference last week, hosted by The New York Times, he said that for such goals to be attainable, sound business practices were essential. "The price of admission to have a social impact agenda is to have financial performance."

Starbucks has stood out over the years in its efforts on behalf of social do-gooderism.

In 1988, it became one of the first companies in the United States to offer comprehensive health benefits to both full- and part-time employees, including coverage for domestic partners.

Under Mr. Schultz's leadership, Starbucks started stock ownership and free college tuition programs for its workers; it made a point of hiring people from underserved groups, including veterans and refugees.

But the notion that companies had some obligation to social good started long before Starbucks, although the history is a little murky.

The discourse about how companies should make money dates to the early 1600s in Amsterdam. The Dutch East India Company, the world's first publicly listed company, profited "by war, rape, pillage and colonization," said Stephen Davis, associate director and senior fellow of the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance.

"A group of Dutch burghers protested, arguing that the company should abide by ethical principles, so they launched what became the world's first shareholder boycott of company stock on social grounds," Dr. Davis said. The effort failed and the company carried on its ways, he said, but it laid the groundwork for addressing corporate behavior "that's become part of the DNA of capital markets."

In America, some early examples of corporate social responsibility (also known today as corporate citizenship, conscious capitalism and purposeful businesses) date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the creation of company towns for workers and the Community Chest movement, one of the first large-scale endeavors by business people to be involved in local communities, said Archie B. Carroll, professor emeritus of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia and a co-author of " Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience. "

By midcentury, business philanthropy and employee volunteerism, in which corporations give away resources like money, products and services, as well as their employees' time and expertise, began to take hold, he said.

But it wasn't until the 1970s that the debate over how companies should ethically make money resurfaced, instigated in large part by Ralph Nader, whose challenges to General Motors and auto safety caused shareholders, investors, and consumers to question "how companies choose to behave," said Dr. Davis, who is co-author of "What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us and How to Fix It."

In the late 1970s and 1980s during the anti-apartheid era, large-scale divestiture by American colleges and universities prompted shareholders to pressure their companies to also pull investments out of South Africa.

From the 1960s through the 1990s, in response to social movements and ethics scandals, "we witnessed a broadening in the social contract between business and society," Dr. Carroll said. A heightened expectation of social performance and a series of regulatory actions, like the formation of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, led to an increase in corporate accountability. The public began expecting businesses to do more than supply jobs, goods and services, he said.

It was in this climate that the Social Venture Network, a group of socially oriented entrepreneurs and investors, was created as a way to serve society by aligning business with personal values.

"It was a shift in thinking," said Joshua Mailman, who founded the group with Wayne Silby in 1987 to bring together like-minded people for inspiration and collaboration, and to support businesses for social good. "We wanted to instigate a movement, to change the world," Mr. Mailman said.

What began as a small gathering at Gold Lake Ranch in Colorado is today a coalition of more than 600 entrepreneurs, investors and nonprofit leaders, and hundreds more through affiliations with similar groups it spawned or inspired. Some of the network's first members are well-established companies today: Bright Horizons, Ben & Jerry's, Stonyfield Farm and Seventh Generation.

Mr. Mailman, managing partner of Serious Change, and Mr. Silby, co-founder of Calvert Funds, continue to be involved in social impact investment initiatives. Mr. Silby is also chairman of SynTao, a Beijing-based consultancy that advises Chinese companies and multinational corporations operating in China on what it means to be a corporate citizen.

"Some of those concepts are kind of new," he said. "The Chinese are known for strong family values, but have not traditionally embraced concepts of community and the integration of social values in business."

Dr. Davis, of Harvard, said in recent years there has been a big paradigm shift. "Corporate social responsibility has moved from an ethics issue to a risk issue," as companies and investors are increasingly concerned about managing risks, such as how to deal with global warming and greenhouse gases.

Today, much of what were once thought to be acts of corporate social responsibility are now important, competitive business issues, Dr. Carroll said, like producing higher quality and sustainable products that are safe; promoting honest and ethical business behavior; committing to safe workplaces and environmental protections; and avoiding deceptive advertising.

And while most highly recognized companies today do much more than the robber barons of the past, there are very few true believers, Dr. Carroll said.

There is considerable greenwashing going on, through deceptive public relations, making claims without evidence and misleading labeling, he said, characterizing those acts as attempts to convey an image of social responsibility when, in fact, it's business as usual. But the public will continue to expect companies to integrate social concerns into their everyday business practices. Corporate social responsibility "will continue to grow in importance," he said.

Mr. Silby said the Social Venture Network's founding principles remain more relevant than ever.

"We need to get ready to face the challenges ahead because of the way society is going to change, due to the rapid force of technology." He recounted a recent meeting of Silicon Valley billionaires, after which one participant told him some of them regretted what they had created, referring to their businesses and their societal impact.

"There really is some soul-searching going on," Mr. Silby said. "It's important to take risks and stand up for what's right, but we need a community behind us to help us do that, to be more bold."

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Howard Schultz, Starbucks and a History of Corporate Responsibility

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While corporate profits might seem incongruous with doing social good, Howard Schultz, the executive chairman of Starbucks, would counter that the opposite is true. There is a great need, Mr. Schultz said, "to achieve the fragile balance between profit, social impact, and a moral obligation" to do everything possible "to enhance the lives of our employees and the communities we serve."

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Module 2: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: What Not to Do

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Module 2: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: What Not to Do

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Chick-fil-A has been in the news for giving money to organizations that participate in the abusive practice of "conversion therapy." It is difficult to say that this company abides by the rule of corporate social responsibility because it was reported that "they just said [Chick-fil-A] was changing its philanthropic giving model". Chick-fil-A "never explicitly said it would permanently stop donating to anti-gay groups or organizations that discriminate against LGBTQ people and that "it wouldn't rule out giving to religious groups in the future." This is shocking since the concept of conversion therapy directly comes from religious anti-gay groups. Chick-fil-A's continued indifference or apathy runs antithetical to the idea that corporations need to be ethical and socially responsible to thrive.

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This story is part of a group of stories called

Chick-fil-A is arguably best known for three things: its juicy chicken sandwiches, its employees' perpetually chipper attitudes, and its long history of donating to charities with anti-LGBTQ stances.

But one of those things seems to be changing next year. The fast-food chain is changing its charitable giving approach in 2020 - and says, in an oblique way, that it will no longer donate to such organizations.

The Chick-fil-A Foundation will instead take "a more focused giving approach," Chick-fil-A announced in a Monday press release. The foundation has set aside $9 million for 2020 that will be split between three initiatives: promoting youth education, combating youth homelessness, and fighting hunger. Those funds will be distributed to Junior Achievement USA, Covenant House International, and local food banks in cities where the chain opens new locations.

The release didn't outright say the biggest change to Chick-fil-A's philanthropic giving plan: In 2020, the chain won't give any money to charities that take anti-LGBTQ stances. In an interview with real estate publication Bisnow, however, Chick-fil-A's president and CEO Tim Tassopoulos made it clear that the company's new donation strategy is at least partly related to the constant backlash Chick-fil-A has faced over its donations.

"There's no question we know that, as we go into new markets, we need to be clear about who we are," Tassopoulos told Bisnow. "There are lots of articles and newscasts about Chick-fil-A, and we thought we needed to be clear about our message."

Notably, Chick-fil-A never explicitly said it would permanently stop donating to anti-gay groups or organizations that discriminate against LGBTQ people - it just said it was changing its philanthropic giving model. Chick-fil-A didn't respond to The Goods' request for comment, but a company spokesperson did tell VICE that it wouldn't rule out giving to religious groups in the future.

"No organization will be excluded from future consideration-faith-based or non-faith-based," Chick-fil-A President and COO Tim Tassopoulos said in a statement to VICE.

Chick-fil-A's controversial donations don't seem to have made a dent in its profits - as of late 2018, it was on track to be the third-largest fast-food chain in the United States - though it's hard to know for sure since the company is still privately held. Still, Tassopoulos's comments suggest that the company's reputation has suffered even if its bottom line hasn't.

LGBTQ groups are "cautiously optimistic" about the change

LGBTQ rights groups like GLAAD say Monday's news is a step in the right direction for Chick-fil-A, though they warn the chain is still far from inclusive.

"Chick-fil-A investors, employees, and customers can greet today's announcement with cautious optimism, but should remember that similar press statements were previously proven to be empty," Drew Anderson, director of campaigns and rapid response for GLAAD, told The Goods in an emailed statement. "In addition to refraining from financially supporting anti-LGBTQ organizations, Chick-Fil-A still lacks policies to ensure safe workplaces for LGBTQ employees and should unequivocally speak out against the anti-LGBTQ reputation that their brand represents."

As Anderson's statement suggests, Chick-fil-A has promised to cut ties with anti-LGBTQ charities before.In 2012, the Chicago-based Civil Rights Agenda issued a statement claiming that Chick-fil-A had promised to "no longer give to anti-gay organizations, such as Focus on the Family and the National Organization for marriage."

Chick-fil-A declined to comment on the matter at the time, instead issuing a boilerplate statement to BuzzFeed News:

"We have no agenda, policy or position against anyone. We have a 65-year history of providing hospitality for all people and, as a dedicated family business, serving and valuing everyone regardless of their beliefs or opinions. The genuine, historical intent of our WinShape Foundation and corporate giving has been to support youth, family and educational programs."

But the company's donations to anti-LGBTQ groups continued. As ThinkProgress reported in 2017, Chick-fil-A continued to bankroll anti-gay groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Salvation Army, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home through its foundation. Recent tax filings show that Chick-fil-A's foundation donated $115,000 to the Salvation Army and $1.65 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in 2018, though a company spokesperson told Bisnow that those donations were the result of multi-year commitments to each organization.

This time around, though, Chick-fil-A announced the change to its philanthropic plan itself instead of letting the news trickle out through a third party. But it didn't quite promise to end all donations to anti-LGBTQ groups. Instead, the Chick-fil-A Foundation will begin doling out donations through annual grants, Tassopoulos told Bisnow, and it will reevaluate the charities it donates to each year.

Chick-fil-A's business model is largely rooted in its owner's religious beliefs

S. Truett Cathy, a devout Baptist, opened the first Chick-fil-A in Atlanta in 1967, and the chain has remained in his family's hands ever since. Today there are more than 2,300 locations across the country - all of which are closed on Sundays. ("Having worked seven days a week in restaurants open 24 hours," Chick-fil-A's website reads, "Truett saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest and worship if they choose - a practice we uphold today." A previous iteration of the website reportedly claimed the restaurant was closed on Sundays as a "testament to [Cathy's] faith in God.")

"It was not an issue in 1946 when we opened up our first restaurant," Dan Cathy, Truett's son and the chain's current CEO, said in a 2012 interview with the Baptist Press. "While developers had no identity whatsoever with our corporate purpose to 'glorify God and be a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and have a positive influence on all that come in contact with Chick-fil-A,' they did identify with the rent checks that we wrote to the mall, based on our sales."

That 2012 interview, in which Cathy was quoted as saying that he believes in the "biblical definition of the family unit" - i.e., that marriage should only be between a man and a woman - was the catalyst for a major national controversy. Cathy later tried to clarify his point in a radio interview: "As it relates to society in general," he said, "I think we are inviting God's judgement on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you do as to what constitutes marriage.'"

The backlash to Cathy's comments was swift. First a New York woman named Carly McGehee planned an LGBTQ kiss-in at Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country. It was scheduled for August 3, 2012. Then came the backlash to the backlash: Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee responded to McGehee's plan with a "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" scheduled for August 1. Thousands of people across the country bought chicken sandwiches in support of the Cathys and their mission, and Dan Cathy himself made an appearanc e at a Chick-fil-A location in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to thank customers for showing up.

But the 2012 incident wasn't the first time the Cathys were accused of homophobia. A year earlier, a Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A's decision to donate food to a marriage seminar conducted by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, a group known for its anti-gay advocacy, prompted a nationwide boycott of the chain. Cathy issued a video statement in response to the boycott, in which he claimed the company "serves all people" and that, while he personally believes in the "biblical definition of marriage," his company doesn't have an "anti-gay agenda." And back in 2002, a former employee of a Houston Chick-fil-A sued the chain for discrimination. The employee, who was Muslim, alleged he had been fired because he refused to pray to Jesus with other employees. The suit was settled out of court.

These controversies also shined a light on the fact that the Cathys regularly made donations to charities known for discriminating against LGBTQ people.

In 2011, the same year a Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A franchise donated food to a local anti-gay organization, the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Matters obtained tax records which revealed that the Cathy family had donated more than $1.9 million to anti-gay groups in 2010 through the WinShape Foundation, the Cathy family's charitable giving organization founded by Truett Cathy in 1984. Those donations included a $1.1 million gift to the Marriage & Family Foundation, a group that promoted so-called traditional marriage and opposed both gay marriage and divorce; $480,000 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, an athletic organization that requires applicants to agree to a "sexual purity statement" that condemns LGBTQ people for living "impure lifestyle[s]"; and $1,000 to Exodus International, a group that promotes anti-gay conversion therapy.

For Chick-fil-A's opponents, the problem was bigger than Cathy's anti-gay comments, it was that he was apparently putting his money where his mouth was, and he had a lot of money to go around.

Petitions and boycotts didn't hurt Chick-fil-A - the chain continued expanding across the country despite people's opposition to the Cathys' views on marriage - but they did potentially contribute to making the Cathys somewhat less vocal about their political beliefs.

In a 2014 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cathy admitted he regretted getting involved in the gay marriage debate. Cathy didn't claim to have regretted what he said, just that he said it. "I think the time of truths and principles are captured and codified in God's word and I'm just personally committed to that," he said at the time. "I know others feel very different from that and I respect their opinion and I hope that they would be respectful of mine. ... I think that's a political debate that's going to rage on. And the wiser thing for us to do is to stay focused on customer service."

Chick-fil-A's controversies somehow haven't been bad for business, but they are bad PR

Though Chick-fil-A never managed to fully shed its reputation as a homophobic purveyor of delicious chicken sandwiches, it continued to expand its national presence, especially above the Mason-Dixon line. New York City's first Chick-fil-A, a 5,000-square-foot behemoth in Midtown, opened in 2015. (It was met with resistance by locals but opened anyway.) Three years later, Chick-fil-A added another New York City location, a five-story, 12,000-square-foot restaurant that, according to ABC News, is "nearly twice the size of any existing Chick-fil-A." (This location, like many other Chick-fil-As across the country, is an independently owned franchise. It is not open on Sundays.)

By the end of 2018, Chick-fil-A was slated to overtake Subway and become the third-largest fast-food restaurant in the country after McDonald's and Starbucks, according to a report by Kalinowski Equity Research. It's reportedly the most profitable fast-food chain in the country on a per-location basis, and has been the number one fast-food restaurant on the American Customer Satisfaction Index for three years in a row.

In a 2017 interview with Morning Consult, Thomas Ordahl, chief strategy officer of the brand consulting firm Landor, succinctly explained how Chick-fil-A has been able to weather these constant controversies. "What's interesting about the paradox of Chick-fil-A is that, in many ways, it's probably one of the most socially advanced companies in terms of treatment of employees and its role in the community," Ordahl said, "and yet its founder has a position that is quite dissonant with most people in the U.S."

As Rachel Sugar previously wrote for The Goods, part of Chick-fil-A's popularity is due to a pretty simple fact: people eat there because they like the food, even if they don't like what the Cathys stand for.

The Cathys' "dissonant view," as one brand consultant called it, may have finally hurt Chick-fil-A's bottom line - especially now that a popular, non-homophobic alternative to Chick-fil-A's sandwiches has emerged. Earlier this year, Popeye's temporarily began selling chicken sandwiches at its locations across the country. The sandwiches were so popular that the chain declared a national shortage in August.

Popeye's sandwiches are now back for good, and a promotional video announcing their return even made fun of Chick-fil-A's long standing policy of keeping all its locations closed on Sundays.

The popularity of Popeye's sandwiches means Chick-fil-A no longer has a virtual monopoly of the chicken sandwich market, but increased competition doesn't entirely explain why the company is finally changing its philanthropic giving plan. It's also possible that the Cathys' politics are finally hindering the company's expansion.

In July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a controversial piece of legislation that supporters dubbed the "Save Chick-fil-A" bill.The law, introduced in response to the San Antonio City Council's decision to remove a proposed Chick-fil-A location from its airport concession agreement, forbids government entities from taking "adverse actions" against businesses because of their religious beliefs or actions.

San Antonio may not have fully succeeded in kicking Chick-fil-A out of its airport, but the city's decision seems to have sparked a new wave of backlash to Chick-fil-A. In September, the airport concession company Delaware North kicked Chick-fil-A and a few other big chains out of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport in favor of local restaurants.

Across the pond, protesters managed to get the landlord of a Chick-fil-A location in Reading, England to opt out of renewing the chain's lease just 8 days after it had opened. (A Chick-fil-A spokesperson told VICE that the lease was never supposed to last longer than six months.)

Martin Cooper, the head of Reading Pride, told a local publication that the Cathys' charitable giving influenced the group's opposition to the restaurant.

"We're here to inform the community in Reading what has been allowed to set up in our town. It's a business based on anti-LGBT beliefs," Cooper said. "If it was just beliefs, we probably wouldn't be here protesting. It's about the active engagement and where their profits are going."
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Chick-fil-A has long had a reputation for anti-LGBTQ donations. Now the company says that will change.

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This story is part of a group of stories called Chick-fil-A is arguably best known for three things: its juicy chicken sandwiches, its employees' perpetually chipper attitudes, and its long history of donating to charities with anti-LGBTQ stances. But one of those things seems to be changing next year.

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What do the terms on the axes mean?
Global integration-the degree to which the company is able to use the same products and methods in other countries
Local responsiveness-degree to which the company must customize their products and methods to meet conditions in other countries

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Global Business Strategies Illustrated (Module 3) 

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Global Business Strategies Illustrated (Module 3) 

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Standardization, Illustrated
An Apple in the US would be the exact same iPhone in the UK, barring different cell services.

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Global Business Strategies Illustrated (Module 3) 

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Global Business Strategies Illustrated (Module 3) 

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"A multidomestic strategy customizes products or processes to the specific conditions in each country."
In Japan, 7-11 lets customers pay their utility bills at the store. But here in the United States, that's not an option requested, so 7-11 customizes their operation per each locale.

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7-Eleven is an American-Japanese international chain of convenience stores, headquartered in Irving, Texas, that operates, franchises, and licenses some 56,600 stores in 18 countries. The chain was known as Tote'm Stores until renamed in 1946. Its parent company, Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd., is located in Chiyoda, Tokyo.

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Decision-making often goes hand-in-hand with one of the four basic management functions called planning. In the business environment, planning is defined as "process of setting goals and defining the actions required to achieve the goals."

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SWOT analyses is one of the most powerful tools regarding planning for a business. It is scalable, it doesn't matter the size of the company, and it can suss out whether or not a business is performing up to par with regards to goals and benchmarks. SWOT analysis are also incredibly versatile. They can be used to evaluate the business itself, or it can be used to evaluate an upcoming project (ad campaign, for example).

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Decision making as it relates to business can get very detailed. But this is a very basic overview of the steps needed to effective in making a decision.

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Biases Interfere With Decision Making (Module 4)

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Biases Interfere With Decision Making (Module 4)

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The thumbnail to the link going into more detail regarding cognitive bias illustrates quite succinctly just how much a cognitive bias can negatively affect analysis when in the process of making a decision.

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A decade ago, Gokul Rajaram, then a product management director for Google AdSense, was presenting an idea to Google's CEO Eric Schmidt.

As the discussion got heated, Schmidt's voice thundered, "Stop. Who's responsible for this decision?" Three people - including Rajaram - hesitatingly raised their hands.

"I'm ending this meeting," Schmidt said. "I don't want you to return to this room until you figure out who the owner is. Three owners mean no owner." This said, the meeting was put off, and the team dismissed.

Since then, Rajaram's decision making process has fundamentally changed. He's set up a decision making framework that he and his team apply to every important (and minor) inquiry.

(We're going to share the framework later in the article.)

Decision Making Speed vs. Outcome

Dave Girouard, CEO of personal finance startup Upstart, and former President of Google Enterprise Apps has said:
"All business activity really comes down to two simple things: Making decisions and executing on decisions. Your success depends on your ability to develop speed as a habit in both."
In today's wildly competitive business landscape, staying up to speed can make or break a company.

It's imperative that business leaders and project managers make decisions fast and stick to them in the long perspective.

But with rush comes a new danger - when rushing to outpace the competition, we're more prone to cognitive biases, hampering our ability to arrive at reasonable conclusions.

It's not just one or two tendencies that make a flop out of many strategic meetings. Business Insider has listed as many as 20 cognitive biases screwing up your decisions.

So how can you as the CEO or team lead ensure that the decisions made on your watch stay untouched by the human tendency to bias and error?

It all starts from the top, the leadership - you. The craft of smart decision making requires that you gather input and perspective from your team, and push toward a final decision, ensuring all voices were heard.

1. Availability heuristic - avoid magnifying low-priority issues

Many leaders are bound by the availability heuristic - a cognitive bias that makes us overestimate the importance of things that are most available.

Just because an issue is currently visible and readily available, doesn't mean it should be treated as a priority. In fact, this type of self-restriction can obliterate key objectives and alternatives crucial to making the most profitable decisions.

University of California Los Angeles professor Craig Fox asked half the students to suggest 2 ways to improve his class (an easy task) before handing out evaluation papers. Then, he asked the other half to suggest 10 ways to improve the class (a much more difficult task). The students who struggled to come up with 10 improvements gave Fox higher course evaluation ratings than the rest. Why? Because they misinterpreted the difficulty of recalling a huge number flaws as evidence that there were few flaws to consider.
Read on: 52 Motivational Leadership Quotes for Every Week of 2018
When prioritizing one decision over the others, managers often run into the mistake of preferring readily available low-importance issues to feebly graspable yet high-importance ones.

To overcome the bias, Rajaram suggests that you employ a decision prioritization framework that parts urgent and important issues from the likes of "Selecting a Flavor of Kombucha".

This basic chart can help establish shared definitions of priority and determine how you'll invest resources to make the decision. By running each question through the framework, you'll be able to uncover the critical decisions that could make or break your business or projects.

You shouldn't pick the decision that seems like the easiest way out but focus on tangible long-term gains.

2. Confirmation bias - don't get stuck with existing beliefs

Imagine a project meeting where a deadline extension's being discussed. The team's unanimously agreed that the deadline should be stretched by two weeks.

Suddenly, a team member takes the devil's advocate role and draws attention to the fact that maybe, just maybe, the deadline shouldn't be extended at all. That's new, the idea had not once crossed your mind before.

The reason you didn't consider far-fetched alternatives lies in the confirmation bias - our natural tendency to only hear and consider the information that aligns with our beliefs.

According to Psychology Today, we pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions.

Naturally, this kind of predisposition brings no fresh approaches to the table when needed most desperately - while making pivotal decisions.

To overcome the confirmative bias, the responsible person - the decision maker - should give their best to introduce a set of alternatives to consider, rid of any bias. Every new alternative should be realistic and cover the entire problem scope.

Don't forget to always answer the "Why"s of any plan you introduce to the game. If you aim to get team members on board with a new idea, it has to have strong arguments working in its favor.

Tip: If you find it hard to agree on important questions, e.g. in marketing, you can always A/B test your assumptions.

3. Ostrich effect - don't hide from the unpleasant facts

Before you even start to elaborate on possible decision outcomes, it's important to define the decision and capture the "What".

Often, it turns out there's more than one decision to be made. To be exact, a single decision could extend into multiple dimensions, ranging from several stakeholders to different implementation channels.

There's a substantial likelihood that you're not going to like all the aspects of a difficult decision making process. However, it's ever more important to tackle the unpleasant and demanding qualities of the decision, as they frequently result in the greatest insights.

Avoid getting struck by the ostrich effect - a cognitive bias that makes us want to hide our heads in the sand whenever encountering a difficult issue.

As reported by Psychology Today, the ostrich effect often appears in the business setting, following a similar pattern every time:

If you let the ostrich effect slip into your decision-making process, not only will your team lose their focus on important questions, they'll also turn on each other's (potentially brilliant) ideas.

During business negotiations, try to keep an open mind toward all interested parties and not feel immediately injured by opposing points of view.

1. People have difficult moments with one another

2. Something about those moments makes them anxious

3. People avert their gazes from the source of their discomfort

4. They fasten instead upon compelling distractions that allow them to express emotions triggered by the difficult

5. moments-but not have to deal with those emotions or moments

6. This sets in motion waves of counterfeit problems among people whose sources and solutions remain unknown

7. People then work on the wrong problems, which escalate and spread to involve others.

The more new perspectives you can bring to the table, the more material for further consideration you'll have.

Read on: Artificial Intelligence: Everything You Want to Know

4. Survivorship bias - focus on failures instead of success stories

In his 2001 book Good to Great (more than 3 million copies sold), Jim Collins chose 11 companies out of 1,435 whose stock beat the market average over a 40-year time span and then searched for shared characteristics that he believed accounted for their success.

What the book couldn't predict was that from 2001 through 2012, the stock of six of Collins's 11 "great companies" did worse than the overall stock market.

Similarly to Collins, we're all prone to the survivorship bias.

The survivorship bias is one of the most common misconceptions in the startup and business world, resulting in the overwhelming focus on success.

Without sufficient insight, we tend to assign high attention to success stories and tales of survival while ignoring the failures that go untalked about.

According to Bloomberg, survivorship bias becomes insidious in that the winners may not even know why they came out on top. In fact, luck and timing probably played larger roles than most realize or will admit, especially those busy praising their incisive strategy and bold leadership.

When it comes to decision making, the survivorship bias makes us overvalue the examples of past successes without acknowledging the rate of similar strategies failing.

Bring on board authorities who have sufficient knowledge to weigh both optimistic and pessimistic points of view. Every time a stakeholder seems to prefer a solution due to a few past successful experiences, look for counterarguments and examples of this approach failing to bulletproof your decision against possible biases.

Read on: How to Apply the Grit Psychology to Your Work

5. Choice-supportive bias - avoid over-justifying past decisions

All things concerned, nobody wants to look confused or wrong in the eyes of their colleagues.

That's why, during the decision making process and at high-level meetings, we tend to stick with the arguments we've previously supported. On that premise, it might not always result in the best outcome for the business.

A study from the University of Iowa found that once people reach a conclusion, they aren't likely to change their minds, even when new information shows their initial belief is likely wrong and clinging to that belief costs real money.

That's why it's critical to regularly introduce new perspectives to the table by entering new agents in the course of the decision making process. Resist the urge to include all stakeholders to the procedure right from the beginning and invite some experts to enter halfway to the final solution.

The newcomers won't be familiar with the facts and disputes you've previously held, freeing them from biases lurking around the table.

However, make sure that the decision maker's present throughout the discussion, having the full spectrum of arguments to shape the final decision.

Read on: How AI is Changing the Way We Work

Overcoming your decision making biases

Beating your cognitive biases as a team and amending your decision making procedure starts by acknowledging the problem's existence.

Rajaram, now the Product Engineering Lead at Square, suggests a simple tactic for ruling out possible biases towards any one solution:

When it comes to decision making meetings, make reversible decisions quickly and don't ponder for too long on any specific question. However, when tackling complex issues, develop a playbook for battling the human error and executing the most profitable long-term decisions.
"For each alternative, list out the pros and cons, as well as the parameters behind the quantitative model. There are no shortcuts. Get into the numbers as much as possible. It can be very hard with ambiguous decisions to get down into the numbers, but it's very valuable to do so."

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How to Root Out Bias from Your Decision Making Process | Scoro

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A decade ago, Gokul Rajaram, then a product management director for Google AdSense, was presenting an idea to Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. As the discussion got heated, Schmidt's voice thundered, "Stop. Who's responsible for this decision?" Three people - including Rajaram - hesitatingly raised their hands. "I'm ending this meeting," Schmidt said.

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20 Cognitive Biases: An Illustrated Reference (Module 4) 

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20 Cognitive Biases: An Illustrated Reference (Module 4) 

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Module 5: Organizational Structure and Processes

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Module 5: Organizational Structure and Processes

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To be effective, everyone needs to know what their job is within an organization. This is visually represented by a flowchart and can describe multiple ways an organization can be structured, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and overall goals.

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Specialization and Division of Labor: A Real World Example (Module 5) 

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Specialization and Division of Labor: A Real World Example (Module 5) 

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One process crucial to an effective organizational structure is the concept of specialization and division of labor. Mass production of cars on an assembly line is a perfect real world example of this. Before Ford pioneered the assembly line process, a machine was built by one person. Now, one person specializes in one part of the manufacturing process, thus dividing up the labor and heavily specializing that worker. This allows a very efficient way of mass producing goods.

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This is one of the more common types of organizational structures. "This type organizes people by function, for example, sales people are grouped together with each other. Functional structures allow for specialization and deep expertise in the employee's respective field. However, these structures can lead to job dissatisfaction due to that very same specialization benefit."

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Matrix Organizational Structure (Module 5) 

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Matrix Organizational Structure (Module 5) 

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"These types of structures lend themselves well to organizations that require focus on two domains. For example, product and geography. This type combines the benefits of localization benefits of the geography structure and the benefits of the functional structure (responsiveness and decentralized focus).

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A Note on Organizational Structures (Module 5) 

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A Note on Organizational Structures (Module 5) 

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There are absolutely more types of organizational structures, each trying to address different organizational aims. Each with their strengths and weaknesses. It is important to choose one that best suits the organization's goals and to acknowledge any weaknesses inherent in the organizational structure. No organizational structure is perfect, but an organization can choose the one that best fits their needs.

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Module 6: Managing Human Resources and Communications

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Module 6: Managing Human Resources and Communications

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It's easy for businesses to just want their employees to do their jobs well without complaints or problems, but that just isn't the reality. Businesses that succeed rely on their employees to communicate well and for any problems that arise to be dealt with professionally and satisfyingly. A disgruntled employee can cause a bevy of problems and good communication and a competent HR department is crucial towards achieving those goals.

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Benefits of Effective Business Communication (Module 6) 

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Benefits of Effective Business Communication (Module 6) 

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Effective communication keeps the team together and focused. Businesses fail or aren't effective without proper communication!

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Methods of Business Communication (Module 6) 

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Methods of Business Communication (Module 6) 

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These different methods have different rules. For example, to have a richer experience, have a face-to-face meeting. For quick and to the point information to just communicate facts, use e-mail or social media. Each channel has a level of richness and ability to convey facts effectively. The question that must be answered is "which one is appropriate for this situation?"

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Fiction Imitating Life: When HR and Effective Business Communication Aren't Valued (Module 6)

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Fiction Imitating Life: When HR and Effective Business Communication Aren't Valued (Module 6)

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While Office Space is a work of fiction, many people have these same thoughts leading to a disgruntled worker. In fact, at the end of the movie, the main character's place of work burns down. But before that, he just did not care. He hated his boss, thought his work was boring, and with his coworkers, got up to a whole movie's worth of shenanigans. Not all of them strictly speaking, legal. HR's job is to help manage and prevent these types of things from happening.

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Office Space It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care

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Motivation comes from leadership and leadership comes from motivation. A self-actualized person is motivated because their basic needs are met (see Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs) and that same person can be seen as motivating by their subordinates. Leadership and motivation often go hand in hand to achieve the same result, keeping employees happy and able to work towards organizational goals.

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Every leader has their own style of leadership. Sometimes, leaders use different styles depending on the circumstance. I have seen some leaders who use a style where the situation may not have called for a more authoritative style where a more coaching or democratic style could have been more appropriate.

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I wasn't quite aware of how leadership and management differed. I am glad to say that with this course, that's been cleared up and explained satisfactorily. In a nutshell, leadership is more about inspiration and "pushing people to take risks", "the sky's the limit" while management is more focused on process and "what could go wrong and how do we avoid that?"

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs directly relates to how much motivation an employee may have to do their job. The factors at the bottom must be achieved before moving higher up the pyramid. While there are other models of motivation, the essential things discussed by Maslow are restated and paraphrased. Employees generally speaking are motivated by needs. Though some models of motivation are designated as process-based. Which tries to describe motivation as a more "rational approach" through equity and expectancy theory respectively. These theories rely on defining needs as "inputs and outputs" and describe the concept of fairness. I'd argue that these process theories achieve the same goal of describing motivation through needs as well.
People need fairness in their lives. Which is why Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is one of the most illustrative ways to articulate motivation as it is very descriptive and encompassing.

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Module 8: Controlling Performance and Operations

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Module 8: Controlling Performance and Operations

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This module discusses how organizations self-evaluate, measure performance, and perform quality control. While I was under a more simplistic notion that control just meant defining and allocating resources, through the reading and research, it is actually much more complex and nuanced than just "telling people what to do."

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One of the most effective ways to achieve the control aspect of management is through a performance review. This is an effective way to assess where an employee is at, what they can improve upon, clarify things, and where their strength lies.

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This is a management method to "control and continuously improve products and processes."

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Six Sigma "focuses on improving the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects while minimizing the variability in manufacturing and business processes.

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While this is in no way a comprehensive look at what I've learned in Principles of Management, this is a succinct look at what principles of management are. I definitely feel like I can apply what I've learned to my life and that many of the perhaps unfair depictions of management and office work didn't quite depict what management and office work in general is really like. Pop culture can be very influential on how an individual views the world and I am happy to report that my views have become more moderate as a result.
That's not to misrepresent that management and office work are perfect, just that it underlines how important it is to avoid making employees disgruntled. I tried to choose the best visuals and topics to convey a wealth of information efficiently.