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This article speaks of the very control function that module 8 spoke of, it explains how this function works in management and how managers use it.

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1. See H. Koontz, C. O'Donnell, and H. Weihrich. Management, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980). p. 722.

2. See W. D. Brinckloe and M. T. Coughlin, Managing Organizations (Encino, CA: Glencoe Press. 1977). p. 298.

3. See P. F. Drucker. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (New York: Harper & Row. 1974). p. 497.

4. A recent summary of many of the findings in this area (illustrating such cognitive limitations as conservative revision of prior subjective probabilities when new information is provided. and the use of simplifying decision-making heuristics when faced with complex problems) is provided by W. F. Wright, "Cognitive Information Processing Biases: Implications for Producers and Users of Financial Information," Decision Sciences (April 1980): 284-298.

5. A similar scheme is presented in W. G. Ouchi, "A Conceptual Framework for the Design of Organizational Control Mechanisms," Management Science (September 1979): 833-848.

6. See H. Klein, "At Harley-Davidson, Life without AMF Is Upbeat but Full of Financial Problems," Wall Street Journal. 13 April 1982, p. 37.

7. See N. Babchukand W. J. Goode. "Work Incentives in a Self-Determined Group," American Sociological Review (1951): 679-687.

8. For a summary of criticisms of return-an-investment (ROI) measures of performance, see J. Dearden, "The Case against ROI Control," Harvard Business Review, May-June 1969, pp. 124-135.

9. See D. Mitchell. Control without Bureaucracy (London: McGraw-Hill Book Company Limited, 1979), p. 6.

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After strategies are set and plans are made, management's primary task is to ensure that these plans are carried out.

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This article explains how you can keep up your productivity at work even if you feel yourself petering out of energy after a couple of hours.

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Take control of your time at work. We’ll outline productivity techniques that can be adapted to your personality and working style.

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This article gives tips on how to manage yourself so you can be more productive for your company.

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Many CEOs I've encountered say, "Here are the top five priorities for the company. Who would be the best at carrying out each one?" Then they propose themselves for all five areas. That might be the right answer, but it's the wrong question, because it's based on a self-centered concept of comparative advantage. It focuses on what an executive does best rather than on what the organization most needs from him or her.

The correct question is, "Which functions can only you as the CEO perform?" You may be the only executive who can meet with a top regulator or persuade a key client to stay. You may also be essential to recruiting senior staff. But a CEO has to hold back from taking on other responsibilities even if he or she excels at delivering on them. When CEO Rob Manning recruited me to join MFS as chairman, in 2004, we explicitly divided the high-priority functions. Although I had run the investment management group at Fidelity, Rob is a talented investment guy and a natural leader who wanted to take charge of that group at MFS. We agreed that I wouldn't even show up on the investment floor.

The same applies to midlevel executives. You may be outstanding in finance and solid in marketing, but if your company is stacked with good finance people and very weak on marketing, your highest and best use is probably in the latter. So don't focus just on what you do best. You're more likely to succeed if you look around and gauge how you can be most useful.

Many executives also spend too much time on operational details, such as the best flight to take or the seating plan at a corporate dinner. Such tasks should be delegated, if possible, to an executive assistant. Of course, the boss must be able to rely on this person to get the tasks done correctly, quickly, and politely. Once confidence is established, he or she should go to great lengths to support and retain such an assistant, who is crucial to being productive.

Listen to an interview with Bob Pozen.
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Principle 2: It's Not the Time You Spend but the Results You Produce

Most executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs put a huge amount of time into their jobs. In a crisis it may be necessary to burn the midnight oil, but the ambitious have a tendency to stay late every night. This tendency arises from the implicit assumption that more hours equal more value added. That is too simplistic. Your success should be measured by the results you produce, not the number of hours you log.

When I joined a law firm in Washington, DC, I soon realized that charging clients for the number of hours worked made no sense. That billing method encouraged lawyers to work lots of hours rather than to get good results quickly. After a few years, my clients knew that I was efficient, so I ran an experiment. I sent them a letter explaining that in the future I would bill them for double the time I actually spent on their work-unless they objected. Not one client did.

Focusing on results rather than hours has the added benefit of allowing a better balance between family and work. When I had young children, I came home most weekdays at 7:00 to have dinner and spend some quality time with them. Later in the evening, if necessary, I would work in my home office. On the weekends my children usually slept late, so I would work from 7:00 to 11:00 in the morning and have most of the day left to be with my family.

Of course, work and home lives sometimes conflict, but that can often be managed. For example, I was working at the Securities and Exchange Commission when mortgage-backed securities started to become big, in the 1980s. There was an intragovernmental task force on the subject with staff from the SEC, the Treasury, and the Fed. I was asked to head part of the task force, which was supposed to meet from 6:30 to 8:30 several nights each week in order to avoid interference with the agencies' normal work. I said, "Well, I'm sorry, I won't be able to do it." They asked why. I said, "Because I go home and have dinner with my kids." So they scheduled the meeting for 5:00 to 7:00-which, of course, didn't interfere with the day's work.

Principle 3: Think First, Read or Write Second

Many people feel overwhelmed by the huge volume of reading and writing they have to do for their business. They don't realize that the key to faster and more effective reading and writing is more-rigorous thinking in advance.

I'm not talking about reading novels for pleasure. I'm talking about the mound of business material that piles up on your desk and clogs your computer. To be a speed reader, you have to be very clear in your own mind about why you are reading. For example, in reading the Financial Times after the Wall Street Journal, I am looking for international issues not covered by the Journal.

Here's an exercise I used with my children and nephews. When I saw them doing dense reading in a history or science textbook, I would ask, "When you get to the exam in a month or two, what do you want to remember from this chapter?" Then I'd say, "After reading this chapter, please write no more than the one or two paragraphs you want to remember for the exam. Then go back and see how you could read more efficiently to obtain that paragraph or two."

With e-mails, the first thing to do is to decide which ones need to be read. Second, if any of them are important, I try to answer them right away. If I can't, or they have lengthy attachments, I have them printed out. The next morning I have hard copies of them on my desk and know what I need to respond to.

When it comes to writing something longer than an e-mail, the key is to first figure out your argument. If I don't fully understand my line of argument, I cannot write even a paragraph. To do this, compose an outline before writing. For an article or a memorandum, that means just four or five key points with a few subpoints under each. I've seen many executives realize what they wanted to say only after they had written a lengthy draft. That is unfortunate. You should know where you will end up before you start.

Try this: After composing an outline, write the concluding paragraph. That will tell you whether you really know where your article or memo is going.

Principle 4: Prepare Your Plan, but Be Ready to Change It

Most executives must give talks to various groups. They often prepare by writing out the full text of their remarks. But that makes them feel compelled to deliver the whole speech even if the audience is not receptive. Speaking is very different from writing. You need a much clearer line of argument, and you have to connect with your listeners at a given time. They may be bored or excited-you won't know in advance. To prepare for a speaking engagement, you should jot down on one page a list of your four or five key points and a concluding paragraph. Then try to arrive early enough to hear the prior speaker or to chat with people during a break. That will allow you to grasp the mood of the audience and tailor your four or five points to its state of mind.

I once spoke after James Carville, the Democratic political consultant. He is a folksy raconteur with a wicked set of jokes about his childhood in Louisiana. The crowd was in a boisterous mood after Carville's speech, so I introduced myself as "Billy Bob" Pozen and the audience exploded with applause and laughter.

The same approach can be applied routinely at work. I'm a big advocate of preparing in the evening for the following day. In reviewing each item on the schedule, I'll write down a few words about what I want to accomplish. I'll also compose a list of tasks in order of priority. At the end of the day I'll review what I've gotten done and decide what I need to do in the future. However, I often have to revise my schedule as events progress. Sometimes a meeting is canceled or added, or I'm asked to comment on a news show. So I just revise my to-do list and reset my priorities.

Many top executives fill every hour of their workday calendars with meetings or phone calls. That leaves little room for dealing with unanticipated developments. I try to keep at least one hour open each day so that I can respond quickly to new events or issues.

Principle 5: Let Others Own Their Space

It is important to be flexible not only in your own plans but also when listening to your employees. Many executives begin meetings in a directive manner: "This is my view about where this project should head. And here are the key steps I believe we need to take." That gives a meeting focus, but it may also discourage participants from voicing concerns.

Exercise

With exercise, the key is actually doing it. Many successful people have a daily routine that involves running, biking, swimming, or fitness machines. I am bored by such activities, so I play doubles tennis two or three times a week.

It's easy to skip your workouts when traveling. The facilities may not be good, or your schedule may be too tight. But those are the days when you need exercise the most.

Healthful Eating

Similarly, it's easy to break healthful eating habits when you're on the road. I know a private equity executive who puts on 10 or 15 pounds every time his firm raises a new fund. Here are three tips for avoiding this fate: Follow your normal breakfast menu even at breakfast meetings. Avoid all desserts at lunch or dinner events. And try to limit alcohol, which is quite caloric, to one glass of wine.

Sleep

Finally, let me give a sermon on the importance of sleep. Some executives say they can get along on four or five hours a night, but I doubt they are as mentally sharp as they could be. Seven or eight hours a night, plus a brief nap during the day, will make your waking hours far more productive.

Again, it can be challenging to stick to this routine when on the road. Evening flights from the East Coast of the United States to Europe last only six or seven hours, so I eat before getting on the plane and go right to sleep as soon as I'm in my seat. The key to sleeping on planes is a blindfold and earplugs, which create the sense of being in a cocoon, cut off from the rest of the world. This feeling is easier to create in a window seat than in an aisle seat, where it's hard to avoid the commotion of the plane's staff.

I take a different approach-the rebuttable hypothesis, which is designed to encourage debate. I might say, "Here is the area where we really need to do something. It is a difficult area, and there are several ways to address the problems. Now, this is my tentative view of the path we should take, but I could be wrong. I want you to feel free to disagree and offer alternatives." Then I have to be willing to discard or modify my hypothesis if someone comes up with a better approach.

At the end of a meeting I will always ask, "What are the to-dos, who's going to take care of them, and when will they be delivered?" I want the participants to agree on the deliverables and to set their own timetable. Then they will have an ownership interest in the follow-up, rather than just going along with my directions. And they often select a more aggressive timetable than I would have had the nerve to suggest.

More broadly, I've become messianic about the general principle that people should own their own space. Under this principle, every employee in a large company is viewed as the owner of a small business. The boss's role is to provide reports with resources, give them guidance, and help them do battle with other people in the broader organization.

You can reinforce the principle of ownership in many ways. For instance, instead of assigning detailed tasks, you can present general priorities for the upcoming year and let your reports formulate specific ways to implement those priorities along with the metrics for measuring success.

When you apply this principle, you must be prepared to tolerate mistakes. If employees own their unit, they must be given leeway to try out new strategies. That invariably means that they will sometimes drive to a dead end or incorrectly assess a market's potential. If you fire them for making such mistakes of judgment, you will undermine the culture of ownership. Of course, your tolerance for mistakes should not be unlimited. You should not ignore illegal or unethical actions. Nor should you tolerate repetition of similar mistakes by the same people. One of my favorite sayings is, "Let's make a new mistake."

Principle 6: Keep Things Short and Simple

On a daily basis, I try to keep the material aspects of life as simple as possible in order to maximize productivity. I get up every morning around 7:00 and have shaved, showered, and dressed by 7:15. Then I read two newspapers while having breakfast and leave home around 7:30. The night before, I set out what I'm going to wear. I have five winter outfits and five summer outfits. And I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning-a banana and a bowl of cold cereal. I'm very boring in the morning.

For lunch I have a chicken salad sandwich and a diet soda, unless I'm attending an outside event. I try to take a nap every day after lunch-I just close the door, put up my feet, and I'm out like a light for almost exactly 30 minutes. I feel refreshed and energized for the rest of the day. When I'm on the road, I usually have meetings at breakfast and lunch, but I still try to sneak in my afternoon nap.

I also have a travel routine. I take the same carry-on bag with a prepacked plastic bag of toiletries. That bag fits on overhead racks, but it's big enough to carry clothes for four or even five nights away. I carry a canvas bag instead of a briefcase, because it's lighter and holds more. In that bag I keep my passport, a set of pens, a blindfold, and earplugs. Plus I have a little flashlight, so if I'm in a taxi and the light is bad, I can still keep working.

The keep-it-simple rule applies equally well to other aspects of work life, such as meetings. Almost any meeting can be completed in an hour or at most an hour and a half. After 90 minutes, people turn off-they get tired and stop paying attention.

The presenter at a meeting should circulate materials in advance to all participants. These should always include a one-page executive summary, and the explicit norm should be that everyone reads at least the summary before attending the meeting.

In a productive meeting, the presenter takes five or 10 minutes to set the stage and tee up the key questions. That leaves the rest of the time for discussing issues and formulating an action plan. But we have all attended unproductive meetings. We sit quietly and politely as the presenter reads every word of 20 or 30 PowerPoints-many of which were included in the advance materials for the meeting. Instead, after the first 15 minutes of slides, we should collectively rise up and exclaim, "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take this anymore!" Wasted time and effort are the ultimate productivity killers. They should not be tolerated.

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Many CEOs I've encountered say, "Here are the top five priorities for the company. Who would be the best at carrying out each one?" Then they propose themselves for all five areas. That might be the right answer, but it's the wrong question, because it's based on a self-centered concept of comparative advantage.

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This article talks about the benefits of production control within manufacturing, which I think the most production control happens anyways.

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Discussing the Benefits of Production Control

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Manufacturing companies use quality assurance programs to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace and reduce defect rates on the production line. Production control is a critical part of such programs, because it aims to remove waste from manufacturing processes through planning and organizing. Its many ...

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Finally, I made it to the final module, after a long and work filled seven weeks I've finally reached the end of this particular class, I learned many things while I went through this class and I hope to put what I learned to good use in the future, but now to finish my reflective comment. Module 8 was about controlling information and technology and production and control, controlling is basically the same as planning in a sense because it insures that events occurs as planned, so taking that into account with technology ad production, it means that those things will also go as planned. Taking this to account myself, being able to control certain things myself will be a great tool as a manager or owner of a company, so if can learn how to utilize this tool I would be able to make sure my company succeeds in its endeavors.

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I found this article great to include because its giving tips on how to demonstrate successful leadership skills, which in honesty helps a lot when your trying to show off leadership capabilities.

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As with all skills, some of us are more adept at leadership than others. However, if you find yourself lacking in this area, keep in mind that your current struggles may be taking you down the pathway to eventual success.

After all, you can leverage the key fundamentals of successful leadership in order to impact your team and become the leader you desire to be.
Understanding Effective Communication
Successful leaders are effective communicators. In fact, communication will most likely be the major building block of your success in leadership. What makes a communicator effective, exactly? Through my experiences as a business and leadership coach, I have found the following guidelines to be helpful:

* Always consider all angles before crafting your message. Think about the "who," "what" and "how" of the situation. Keep the following questions in mind: What is the issue at hand? How can it be solved? Who am I asking to take action? What are the possible obstacles? What tools will I need to provide to make the process easier?

* Make sure your message is understood. Anyone can deliver a message, but not everyone confirms that the message is understood. Don't hesitate to repeat yourself to make a point. Always ask your team members if they have any questions or comments. Wait five-to-10 seconds before moving on in order to give your team time to process the information and formulate responses.

* Manage and prevent conflicts with consideration and purpose. Handle conflict between employees immediately. Otherwise, you risk the creation of a toxic environment where employees fail to see you as a capable leader. Stay a step ahead and strive to prevent conflict by observing your employees and learning their emotional triggers. For example, consider your employees' working styles: some are very methodical, plugging along to the end. Others procrastinate and then rush to accomplish everything at the last minute. A way to avoid conflict is to pair employees with similar working styles.

* Give specific and appropriate praise for individual and team efforts. When you specifically state what you appreciate, your praise should translate as being authentic, not as an empty gesture. For example, "The candid testimonials you gathered gave us valuable insight on the product that we wouldn't have had otherwise." This conveys exactly what impressed you, and offers the bonus of reinforcing desired behavior.

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How To Demonstrate Successful Leadership In The Workplace

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As with all skills, some of us are more adept at leadership than others. However, if you find yourself lacking in this area, keep in mind that your current struggles may be taking you down the pathway to eventual success.

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This article explains different ways to motivate your employees with more of a friendly tone, I mean its better to motivate while being nice than angry right?

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There are seemingly countless varying and even contradicting methods and theories on how to achieve a solid and consistent state of employee motivation in the workplace. The real question we're concerned with, however, goes beyond a simple view of base motivation, and into an in-depth analysis of the fundamental states and causes of one who is actively motivated.

Motivation itself is a result; we need to discern what underlies the surface to get at the causation. For instance, among the most desired results of a truly and consistently motivated employee - for both managers and executives alike - is increased productivity. How can this be achieved with any degree of consistency?

In this piece, we will discuss clashing paradigms of old and new business practices, the current models that receive the best regard, and older ones that are the most staunchly, and perhaps erroneously, defended.
The Direct View
According to a February 2017 Gallup study, just more than half of all U.S. employees are either actively searching for, or open to, new job opportunities. It's safe to say this is a direct reflection on the current state of employee engagement within many workplaces. Some of the most common reasons cited for moving on are:

* Issue(s) with manager/management

* Looking for a better job fit

* Need for more desirable company culture

* Seeking better growth prospects (including salary and benefits)

From this unambiguous perspective, there is one question we must ask ourselves:

Is it possible that the vast majority of employees, at every level, are merely lazy or disproportionately unsatisfied? Instead, perhaps, management paradigms are in need of an overdue adjustment.

Either way, something, somewhere, is very wrong.

Now, under current models, we can easily acquire some immediate tips to somewhat improve the situation:

* Remember that an educated individual needs to be engaged at a level at least somewhere near his or her degree of intellect; a job that falls below this standard is inevitably going to produce boredom.

* Be aware that aggressive micromanagement is as hostile to the productive and happy employee as is a fox in a henhouse.

* A feeling of insecurity - of being expendable - is going to make for an alienated and discontent employee, at any level. Take steps to reassure people of their value and place.
The Culture Route
Under a direct, unambiguous approach (classically and colloquially known as the carrot-and-stick approach), the long-standing status quo has always been the following formula: incentive plus reward equals an increase in productivity. And certainly, why should it not? It makes perfectly grounded sense, even to the degree that this methodology was so fundamentally accepted and hardly questioned at all, nearly back to the inception of the Industrial era itself - perhaps, even beyond.

A slew of modern research, however, has cast a glaring and irrefutable contraindication upon this long-accepted paradigm.

Perhaps most well-known among them is the work of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA), which has a 260-years-and-counting mission statement that surrounds the enrichment of society through ideas and action. The RSA produced an exceptionally well-researched (yet intentionally easily assimilated) video expressing their conclusions in examining the essence of workplace motivation which, naturally, goes far deeper than is first apparent. The RSA research delves into aspects of sociology, psychology and economics - fundamentals which form and mold the aspects of an individual's aspirations, performance, engagement, and all those vital tangents that combine to form motivation.

While an entire series of articles could be - and indeed have been - devoted to the research and conclusions of the RSA video in question, here's a brief summary: The old paradigms are demonstrably and unequivocally wrong. They have led us astray into counterproductive habits and systems.

If we want the nearly 90% increase in production and value that an engaged employee produces, we have to decide to make some intentional changes.

Again and again, the research shows that employees want:

* To be treated as individuals

* For their work to have some measurable, positive impact on other's lives

* The room and space to create and innovate

* To be respected and valued

It's no under-sell to say that most companies within even the most progressive cities and markets fall into the structures that flatly don't work. What is less easy is taking all of this and restructuring your business, its culture, its hierarchical systems, and its departmental structuring, into an environment that fosters genuine motivation.

It is never easy to determine a full-coverage solution in one sit-down session and it can be extremely challenging to plot the correct course forward for a particular company and its ethos. But what we do know is that few things are more important to begin working toward.

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The Employee-Friendly Way To Actively Motivate Your Work Staff

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There are seemingly countless varying and even contradicting methods and theories on how to achieve a solid and consistent state of employee motivation in the workplace. The real question we're concerned with, however, goes beyond a simple view of base motivation, and into an in-depth analysis of the fundamental states and causes of one who is actively motivated.

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Had to go back to the great Steve Jobs for this one, here in this video he breaks down the top three leadership skills.

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Even in sports leadership is a trait that is used, as you already know, Michael Jordan was one of the best at the time when he played, he led his team with an iron fist.

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Module 7 is a recent module that I had completed, this module was about leadership and motivation. Leaders are something more than a manager, a leader is someone who leads others, someone who works alongside the employees, while at the same time being able to motivate them to complete tasks, honestly module 7 taught me the importance of being a leader, you have to be emotionally mature and dependable when it comes leading people, and with motivation I learned that having this skill is also the key to success in a business setting, if you can motivate someone to work then the job will be done quicker. After reading module 7 I felt like I could take what was given and I could apply it to life if I  ever become a manager, I would want to be more than just a manager I would want to lead my subordinates and motivate them any chance I get.

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For some reason I feel like this picture just screams great communication, it just seems like this group of people are involved with each other through great communication skills, everyone seems focused on what each other has to say.

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I chose this video because it gives 5 skills that employers should have before being hired to a company or if they are within a company, these 5 skills are very essential.

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I chose this article because it talks about the power of talking to people in the workplace and the positives of communication.

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4 - Good Communication Results in a More Productive & Talented Workforce

Employee engagement is a significant factor in the productivity of a workforce. But besides contributing to increased employee engagement, communication skills can also help foster a more productive and talented workforce in many other ways:

Understanding team talents & skills. In a company culture focused on connecting with others, managers better understand the talents and skills of their workforce. Some communication patterns aren't forthcoming with their talents and skills, or express them in ways a fast-paced or high-level-thinking communicator won't naturally notice. Mastering the identification of communication patterns empowers a leader to better understand the skills and talents of their team.

Achieving more buy-in. With the right communication tools, a leader can influence initiative buy-in from their team.

Innovation and creative thought. A workplace that communicates more effectively establishes a "safe" place for people to think creatively and express their ideas. It helps employees feel more comfortable taking ownership for challenges and projects, and typically results in more creative brainstorming or problem-solving initiatives.

More strategic team building. Understanding communication patterns gives a leader more information about their employees, and often information they would have otherwise overlooked. This powerful insight lets the leader make more strategic decisions on delegation, employee development, team development, and strategic initiatives to drive business success.

What's the Bottom Line?

The bottom line is that good communication isn't just about being able to more accurately and concisely present information and ideas. It's also not just about mitigating conflict or creating a more positive team environment. Communication is integral to sales, client relationships, team development, company culture, employee engagement and buy-in, and innovative thought.

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The Power of Good Communication in the Workplace | Leadership Choice

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In the workplace, good communication isn't just about mitigating conflict (although that is an important benefit of communicating effectively). Good communication in the workplace is also an important factor in client relationships, profitability, team effectiveness, and employee engagement.

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I know this was the most obvious choice but yes, even sports have to have good communication and teamwork because without it championships wouldn't be won and sports wouldn't be as interesting either, but I decided to use this article to demonstrate something other than companies using teamwork or communication.

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The U.S. Marine Corps has a very select group of leadership characteristics for every Marine. Using that set of adjectives as a template, we thought we'd come up with a group of five top-tier players who use those values to both unify and lead their teams. It's an ability to play well within a larger group while providing direction that's most important on an NBA hardwood, and these players work not just to look good on the court, but drive the whole team to win.

* * *
5. Jamal Crawford
The single nicest NBA player we've ever spoken with. A player who is respected almost universally around the Association by players of all different sorts. He's loyal to his team, and will willingly sacrifice individual accolades for the betterment of the team - witness his pair of Sixth Man of the Year awards after taking home last year's hardware.

And it's not like Crawford is just a cog in the machine, like the role he inhabits for the Clippers. He's got the one-on-one skills to be the primary scorer; he shows the courage to hit the court and go for the win either on his own or working together. But it's his ability to put team first that soldifies his inclusion, and it's why he continues to be in discussions for Sixth Man of the Year at the end of the season. It's rare you find such a gifted player who also wants to win as badly as Crawford does, and his godfather status around the league comes in handy for resolving any sort of inter-unit squabbling.
4. Stephen Curry
This MVP candidate can do it all on the basketball court, but he's got the tact to know it takes more than a single player to win in the NBA. A team needs an everyman, and Steph is starting to morph into the league's best without ruffling any young feathers in Golden State.

Witness the smooth assimilation of rookie head coach, Steve Kerr, despite the termination of a former coach, Mark Jackson, who owned the undying respect of his former troops. There's no way Kerr gets this year's Warriors team to buy in without the support of Curry.

Stephen is perhaps the deadliest offensive player in the NBA today, but he's been taking the initiative to expend just as much energy on the defensive side of the ball because that's what Kerr asked of him; that's part of what the Dubs needed for the best start in the NBA earlier this season.
3. John Wall
Wall, since he was drafted by the Wizards, is all about teamwork. Wall has brought the Wizards to the playoffs because consistently, and constantly, he sets his teammates up for the shot, hitting a career high of 18 assists against the Knicks before breaking the hearts of Raptors with 17 assists in the first round of of playoffs, putting the Wizards up 2-0. Wall doesn't care if he wins: He wants the team to win.
2. Tim Duncan
The consummate professional and leader, Tim Duncan actually asked to mentor the No. 1 player on our list. Duncan is getting old, but a prime Duncan would have been No. 1 going away. He's one of the few players on this list who hit all the right notes of leadership, from the dependability his teammates rely on to the unselfishness he's shown building them up.

We're not even going out on a limb by saying he's the best leader in the NBA today, capable of coddling, or excoriating teammates and peers to his team's desired ends, which always centers around getting a win. The fact that he's strung together five titles over a 15-plus year career, including a seven-year gap between titles from 2007 to last year's win, speaks volumes. His leadership is inexorable.

Duncan might not say much on the court except for the occasional bug-eyed reaction to an official, but he's got his finger on the pulse of the Spurs like no one else not named Gregg Popovich. His role as San Antonio's on-court leader could be coming to an end when this season reaches its conclusion, but we like to think such a natural-born leader will give it one more try, especially with No. 1 waiting in the wings to take over.
1. Kawhi Leonard
The soft-spoken - or better yet, almost mute - Kawhi Leonard has flourished learning within a narrow Spurs blueprint. While Popovich plays a drill instructor on TV, we all know he's just as demanding behind the scenes. But that type of structure is perfect for a player who lacks any pretension; a player who is so seamlessly fits with the group. That's Leonard, who has morphed into one of the better all-around wings in the league and he just turned 23 in June of last year. There's no way that happens as quickly outside the sometimes stringent realm of the Spurs.

It's his ability to use his best judgement and align his own skills with those around him that makes him the ideal teammate; He embodies all a teammate's best virtues. Leonard's potential to evolve into whatever his team needs is the secret that lies at the heart of any Spurs success. Kawhi - as he exemplified by winning the Finals MVP last summer - will do the repetitions and lead his unit with an unshakeable belief the system will get him ready to perform in the most arduous of circumstances.

Kawhi out-performed the clear-cut best player in basketball last June while on the biggest stage. That's a player others can count on to get the job done when it matters the most. For Kawhi, that's his time to shine, so he might not ever got an All-Star invite, but he's gonna be playing deep into the summer every year.

* * *

To lead in the NBA is the toughest task in sports. The interplay between the various discordant players, with their own personalities, can blend into one autonomous squad with the right leadership. Sacrificing for the betterment of the team is often the hardest part, but whatever niche your team needs to succeed is how these players exemplify their teamwork.

Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.

Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.

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5 NBA Players Who Put The 'Team' In Teamwork

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The U.S. Marine Corps has a very select group of leadership characteristics for every Marine. Using that set of adjectives as a template, we thought we'd come up with a group of five top-tier players who use those values to both unify and lead their teams. It's an ability to play well within a larger group while providing direction that's most important on an NBA hardwood, and these players work not just to look good on the court, but drive the whole team to win.

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Doing work on module 6, this module taught me about Human Resources, influencing and communication, and groups and teams. Looking back I learned that the purpose of Human Resources is to help companies hire the right person, the four steps of this is recruitment, selection, training and performance appraisal, so basically what I picked up from this is that HR is the one who handles hiring people, then what I also picked up was how essential communication can be in the workplace, having a strong sense of communication while working can help everyone stay on page within the company, honestly while reading this section of the book, I realized how my communication skills need improving, I feel as if it is my weakest asset and if I would want to be a true leader I would have to work on it tremendously. Alongside this I learned about team skills which also coincides with having good communication skills, but having good team skills as a leader is something that is needed because you have to work with other people to succeed and with that, I feel as if I'm a team player already, I cooperate with others and give others the chance to show what they got.

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Ok, so now I found a list of companies who take on those four cultures that was apart of Module 5, this is a very interesting read, I even learned about companies like Twitter and Google, who have a culture within their companies that they use.

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Every company has a culture that can heavily impact its productivity, employee morale and overall brand reputation.

Companies with positive, vibrant cultures attract the best talent to their teams and produce better products and services since their employees are more motivated to give 100% daily. A stellar workplace culture leads to a better work environment, improved employee engagement, and a better representation of a company's mission.

In contrast, poor company culture can negatively affect company performance and employee results. Employees are more likely to leave companies with poor, draining cultures and produce less than stellar products.
The bottom line: it's critical to understand how to cultivate a strong company culture in your enterprise, whether you run a small business or a larger firm.
There are various initiatives you can consider to foster different types of cultures, ranging from enhancing the onboardingemployee experience to improving employee satisfaction and mental health.

With so many different types of companies with distinct sets of values and mission statements, brainstorming the right kind of organization culture for your business can be challenging.

Fortunately, many world-renowned businesses offer excellent examples of company culture and key takeaways you can implement into your organization.
Related: The 4 Steps Needed to Instill an Entrepreneurial Mindset Into Your Company Culture
By examining these examples, you can live your company values and reinvent your corporate culture to attract top talent and boost employee retention.

1. Zappos

Zappos has become almost as well known for its culture as it is for the shoes that it sells online. What does that culture look like?

It starts with a cultural fit interview, which carries half the weight of whether the candidate is hired. New employees are offered $2,000 to quit after the first week of training if they decide the job isn't for them. Ten core values are instilled in every team member. Employee raises come from workers who pass skills tests and exhibit increased capability, not from office politics. Portions of the budget are dedicated to employee team building and culture promotion.

Great benefits and a workplace that is fun and dedicated to making customers happy all fit in with the Zappos approach to company culture -- when you get the company culture right, great customer service and a great brand will happen on its own.

Takeaway: Zappos hires according to cultural fit first and foremost. It has established what the company culture is, and fitting into that culture is the most important thing managers look for when hiring. This promotes the culture and happy employees, which ultimately leads to happy customers.

2. Warby Parker

Warby Parker has been making and selling prescription glasses online since 2010. It designs its own glasses, and sells directly to customers, cutting out the middleman and keeping prices low.

Company culture at Warby Parker instigates "culture crushes," and one reason for that level of success is a team dedicated to culture. That team means that a positive culture is on the forefront, setting up fun lunches, events and programs. The company makes sure that there is always an upcoming event so the entire team has something to look forward to, and it uses methods to make sure the entire team works well together by insisting everyone helps keep break areas clean or sending random employees out to lunch together.

Takeaway: Warby Parker has made company culture deliberate by creating a dedicated team tasked with coming up with events and programs to promote community. Great company culture doesn't happen on its own.

3. Southwest Airlines

The airline industry is often mocked for grumpy employees and poor customer service, but Southwest Airlines bucks those trends. Customers loyal to Southwest often point to happy and friendly employees who try hard to help.

Southwest isn't new to the game. It's been in operation for 43 years. Yet somehow, during all that time, the company has managed to communicate its goals and vision to employees in a way that makes them a part of a unified team. Southwest also gives employees "permission" to go that extra mile to make customers happy, empowering them to do what they need to do to meet that vision.

Takeaway: Employees who are convinced of a larger common goal are people who are excited to be part of a larger purpose.

4. Twitter

While Twitter used to be on the list for its incredible culture, it's unfortunately serving as an example of how a change in culture can change where a company stands in the public eye.

Recent developments in Twitter's ownership and management changed what Twitter once was.

Before Elon Musk, employees of Twitter couldn't stop raving about the company's culture. Rooftop meetings, friendly coworkers and a team-oriented environment in which each person was motivated by the company's goals inspired that praise.

Employees of Twitter could also expect free meals at the San Francisco headquarters, along with yoga classes and unlimited vacations for some. These and many other perks are not unheard of in the startup world. But what set Twitter apart?

Employees couldn't stop talking about how they love working with other smart people. Workers raved about being part of a company that was doing something that matters in the world, and there was a sense that no one leaves until the work gets done.

All of that said, Elon Musk's Twitter takeover has led to adverse shifts in Twitter's workplace culture, as revenue issues have led to mass firings, more intense workloads, and cutbacks on the old employee amenities.

Takeaway: While these changes may be temporary, the current state of Twitter HQ is not the tech oasis it once was, and that change in culture has led to a massive change in how the public views (and feels) about the company as a whole.

5. Chevron
Related: Design Your Office to Fulfill Employees' Most Basic Needs
While oil and gas companies are prime targets for a lot of negative PR and public ire, Chevron employees responded favorably towards the company's culture. Employees compared Chevron with other similar companies and pointed out " the Chevron way" as being one dedicated to safety, supporting employees and team members looking out for each other.

Chevron shows it cares about employees by providing health and fitness centers on site or through health-club memberships. It offers other health-oriented programs such as massages and personal training. Chevron insists employees take regular breaks. In other words, the company shows it cares about the well-being of employees, and employees know that they are valued.

Takeaway: Your company culture doesn't have to be ping-pong tables and free beer. Simply providing employees with a sense of safety and well-being and creating a policy where everyone looks out for each other can easily suffice.

6. SquareSpace

This successful startup is regularly voted as one of the best places to work in New York City. Its company culture is one that is "flat, open and creative." A flat organization is one where there is no (or very few) levels of management in between staff and executives. This approach is more common among startups, and can be tricky to maintain as a company grows larger, generally requiring groups to form.

SquareSpace also offers robust benefits and perks, including 100 percent coverage of health insurance premiums, flexible vacations, attractive office space, catered meals, stocked kitchens, monthly celebrations, relaxation spaces and periodic guest lecturers. Solid benefits such as these help a culture, but are not the sole instigator of successful culture. Down-to-earth leaders and direct access to management have a great deal of impact.

Takeaway: Employees feel their voices can be heard when they aren't muffled under layers of management. This level of freedom and empowerment creates confident employees and improves morale.

7. Google

It would almost seem wrong not to mention Google on a list of companies with great culture. Google has been synonymous with culture for years, and sets the tone for many of the perks and benefits startups are now known for. Free meals, employee trips and parties, financial bonuses, open presentations by high-level executives, gyms, a dog-friendly environment and so on. Googlers are known to be driven, talented and among the best of the best.

As Google has grown and the organization has expanded and spread out, keeping a uniform culture has proven difficult between headquarters and satellite offices, as well as among the different departments within the company. The larger a company becomes, the more that culture has to reinvent itself to accommodate more employees and the need for management.

While Google still gets stellar reviews for pay, perks and advancement, there are also some employees who note growing pains that you'd expect from such a huge company, including the stress associated with a competitive environment. Hiring and expecting the best from employees can easily become a stressor if your culture doesn't allow for good work-life balance.

Additionally, for all the venerable aspects of company culture that Google offers, the company is far from perfect. Many employees report an abundance of overqualified workers, paired with many in managerial roles who lack the skills required to lead teams.

As with many other tech giants, many employees also report unreasonable workloads and the regular cancellation of projects without adequate rationale.

Moreover, reports of sexual harassment, hate speech, and other patterns of workplace misconduct have circled around Google for years.

Former Google employees, including an anonymous executive, have reported that when employees speak out about difficulties with a colleague, Google's HR officers are expected to direct those employees to the 20 free therapy sessions offered annually as a benefit by the company.

When dealing with workplace harassment of any kind, this type of response is woefully inadequete. One lesson you can take away from Google's culture issues is this: offering benefits, no matter how competitive, is not a cure for a broken culture.

Takeaway: Even the best culture needs to revisit itself to meet a growing company's team. The most successful company culture leads to successful business, and that requires an evolving culture that can grow with it.

8. REI

For outdoor enthusiasts, REI has long been the company to turn to for great gear. Employees of REI, a cooperative where profits benefit its member-owners, also agree that this is a place where greatness happens, even beyond the beloved camping and outdoor products. REI's mission is to equip both customers and employees for the outdoors, not just to have fun but also in promoting stewardship of the environment.

REI says that its employees give " life to their purpose," firmly attributing company success to workers. The CEO of REI has acknowledged that employees can get benefits anywhere, but allowing outdoors-oriented employees to immerse themselves in REI culture is what makes it unique. Employees can win equipment through "challenge grants" where they submit a proposal for an outdoor adventure that would be challenging. Regular townhall-style meetings are held where employees can submit questions anonymously to help management understand what's happening in the company.

Takeaway: When your employees are completely immersed in the same interests as your company, the culture propels itself forward almost on its own. Culture that is owned and propelled by the same people puts value in their voices.

9. Meta

Just like Google, Meta - formerly known as Facebook - is a company that has exploded in growth as well as being synonymous with unique company culture.

Meta offers, as do many similar companies, lots of food, stock options, open office space, on-site laundry, a focus on teamwork and open communication, a competitive atmosphere that fosters personal growth and learning and great benefits.

Yet, Meta has the same struggles as similar companies: a highly competitive industry leads to a sometimes stressful and competitive workplace. Additionally, a free and organic organizational structure that worked for the smaller organization is less successful for the larger one.

To meet these challenges, Meta has created conference rooms, has separate buildings, lots of outdoor roaming space for breaks and has management (even CEO Mark Zuckerberg) working in the open office space alongside other employees. It's an attempt at a flat organizational culture using the buildings and space itself to promote a sense of equality among the competition.

Of course, Meta has recently been in the headlines for its massive swath of layoffs. In November 2022, Meta laid off 13% of its workforce (over 11,000 employees) in an effort to cut costs. Starting in February, Meta began a steady decline that continued throughout the year.

Perhaps the core of company culture is a sense of job security, upon which a healthy workplace environment can be cutlivated. In the face of enormous layoffs, it's safe to say that Meta has a culture problem (to say nothing else of their business woes).

Takeaway: When your company depends on new hires who excel in a competitive field, your company culture and any associated perks will likely be the tipping point for applicants. You must stand out from other companies vying for attention.

10. Adobe

Adobe is a company that goes out of its way to give employees challenging projects and then provide the trust and support to help them meet those challenges successfully. While it offers benefits and perks like any modern creative company, Adobe's is a culture that avoids micromanaging in favor of trusting employees to do their best.

Adobe products are synonymous with creativity, and only through the avoidance of micromanaging are the people who create those products truly free to create. For example, Adobe doesn't use ratings to establish employee capabilities, feeling that that inhibits creativity and harms how teams work. Managers take on the role of a coach, more than anything, letting employees set goals and determine how they should be assessed.

Employees are also given stock options so that they know they have both a stake and reward in the company's success. Continual training and culture that promotes risk taking without fear of penalty are part of Adobe's open company culture.

Takeaway: Putting trust in your employees goes a long way towards positive company culture, because trust leads to independent employees who help your company grow.

How you can create an excellent company culture

Many of these companies offer similar perks and benefits, but those do not determine the culture completely. The approach taken with how employees are treated and what level of ownership and trust they are given is also a key part of company culture.

One word of caution: focusing on company culture to the exclusion of other workforce considerations (safety, laws, regulations) can lead to abuses or create situations where employees aren't comfortable. Even the best examples of culture on this list have detractors.

Remember that the best culture makes all employees feel safe and welcome, never excluded or uncomfortable. Focusing on "culture fit" alone makes it difficult to hire and welcome employees who are different than the prevailing culture, even if they'd be an asset and great counterbalance at your company. Your company culture needs adjustment if it causes you to end up with a homogenized team who think and act the same.

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10 Excellent Company Culture Examples For Inspiration | Entrepreneur | Entrepreneur

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Company culture can help boost employee retention and create a safe workplace community. Here are 10 real-life examples to learn from.

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I found the way that Microsoft organized their company to be very inspiring, this could be very helpful for upcoming companies. Following in the organizational foot steps of Microsoft.

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Microsoft Corporation's organizational structure enables the business to grow, especially following the firm's structural change implemented in 2015. A company's corporate structure refers to the anatomy and arrangement of the organization and its components. In Microsoft's case, the organizational structure stresses the importance of business output. As a dominant player in the IBM PC-compatible operating system market, the company uses its structure to maintain competitive advantage, in accordance to its strategies [Read: Microsoft's Generic Strategy & Intensive Growth Strategies]. The company's long-term success depends on the suitability of its corporate structure to market conditions and industry forces.
Microsoft Corporation's organizational structure reflects the needs of the computer hardware and software business in response to market dynamics. A responsive organizational structure ensures the company's long-term success.
Features of Microsoft's Corporate Structure

Microsoft Corporation has a product type divisional organizational structure. This structure involves divisions that are based on certain computer hardware and software products, or organizational outputs. The following characteristics are significant in Microsoft's organizational structure:

1. Product type divisions (most dominant structural feature)

2. Global corporate groups

3. Geographic segments

Product Type Divisions. Product type divisions are the primary characteristic of Microsoft's organizational structure. In this characteristic, the company uses product or output as the main criterion for grouping personnel and related resources. For example, the organization has a self-contained division for Intelligent Cloud products and separate divisions for other products. This structural feature contributes to the company's organizational capacity for product innovation. The following are the product type divisions in Microsoft's corporate structure:

1. Productivity and Business Processes

2. Intelligent Cloud

3. More Personal Computing

4. Corporate and Other

Global Corporate Groups. Global corporate groups are a secondary characteristic that defines Microsoft's organizational structure. These groups are based on the functions essential in the computer technology business. For example, the Human Resources group addresses the company's workforce needs and related concerns. This structural characteristic ensures that the organization functions as a whole. The following are the global corporate groups in Microsoft's organizational structure:

1. Office of the CEO

2. Worldwide Commercial Business

3. Marketing

4. Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations

5. Corporate Strategy and Operations

6. Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group

7. Human Resources

8. Finance

9. Business Development

10. Applications and Services Group

11. Windows and Devices Group

12. Technology and Research

13. Legal

Geographic Segments. Microsoft Corporation's corporate structure also involves geographic segments as the least significant characteristic. These segments are used to group operations in the company's financial reports. The following are the geographic divisions in Microsoft's organizational structure:

Microsoft's Organizational Structure - Implications, Advantages & Disadvantages

The main implication of Microsoft Corporation's organizational structure is the ability to focus on product development. For example, the company uses its Intelligent Cloud division to offer cutting-edge cloud computing services. A corresponding advantage of this corporate structure is its contribution to the competitiveness of Microsoft's products.

A disadvantage of the company's organizational structure is its minimal consideration for regional market differences. Regions have varying preferences with regard to Microsoft's computer hardware and software features, such as in the case of smartphones. Thus, a recommendation is for the company to integrate regional market differences in its organizational structural design.

References

Liao, C., Chuang, S. H., & To, P. L. (2011). How knowledge management mediates the relationship between environment and organizational structure. Journal of Business Research, 64(7), 728-736.

Markides, C. C., & Williamson, P. J. (1996). Corporate diversification and organizational structure: A resource-based view. Academy of Management journal, 39(2), 340-367.

Martin, R., Muuls, M., de Preux, L. B., & Wagner, U. J. (2012). Anatomy of a paradox: Management practices, organizational structure and energy efficiency. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 63(2), 208-223.

Menguc, B., & Auh, S. (2010). Development and return on execution of product innovation capabilities: The role of organizational structure. Industrial marketing management, 39(5), 820-831.

Microsoft Corporation, Form 10-K.

Microsoft Senior Leaders - News Center.

Tang, F., Mu, J., & MacLachlan, D. L. (2010). Disseminative capacity, organizational structure and knowledge transfer. Expert Systems with Applications, 37(2), 1586-1593.

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Microsoft Corporation's Organizational Structure & Its Characteristics (An Analysis) - Panmore Institute

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Microsoft Corporation's organizational structure enables the business to grow, especially following the firm's structural change implemented in 2015. A company's corporate structure refers to the anatomy and arrangement of the organization and its components. In Microsoft's case, the organizational structure stresses the importance of business output.

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This article is one I found to be helpful as it explains some Organizational skills in the workplace that could potentially be helpful.

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Key organizational skills in the workplace include meeting deadlines, scheduling resources and delegating tasks to subordinates or contractors.

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Zappos is one of the examples of clan culture that was in the book, Zappos is the perfect example for this module also because it fits the description, and I just enjoy how fun loving the business is.

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The thing about Zappos is that it really might be a model for a new way to build and run a business.

Okay, now that seems like a stretch at first glance for an on-line etailer who's major claim to fame is that they sell a ton of shoes. But if you read the Zappos CEO's new book, Delivering Happiness, you may come to believe that Tony Hsieh (pronounced: Shay) is really on to something.

It all began with worms, before shoes.

Are entrepreneurs born or made? In Tony's case the urge started young. "I think that's one of the things I've noticed in a lot of other entrepreneurs is they all have usually done all sorts of crazy things, and just tried a lot of things especially at a pretty young age. Growing up, whether it was garage sales, lemonade stands, and yeah, the idea of selling earthworms and making lots of money from that was one of my childhood dreams."

While earthworms didn't work out, a teenage button-making business turned a profit, and Hsieh was hooked on building businesses.

"I think entrepreneurs view the failures as getting one step closer to the success. As opposed to oh, like I'm a failure."

After a few attempts, and a big win at LinkExchange, Tony was looking for his next thing. "I used to wear one pair of shoes for two years," says Hsieh. But then he saw the future of feet. "The paper mail-order shoe catalogs back in '99 were 5% of the $40 billion-dollar market, so 2 billion dollars. So in our mind, at the very least, the Qeb was going to surpass 2 billion dollars."

Today, of course, Zappos is way more than shoes. "Without being super fashion focused, we know that many of our best sellers are brands that even you and I know, but we definitely have the long-tail customer as well."

For the book, Delivering Happiness is a chronicle of the journey, and of Tony's early life as an entrepreneur.
In many ways, it's two books for the price of one.
It's a funny, wry, honest autobiography of a striving Asian American who's got the drive and ambition of his family deeply ingrained, and at the same time the irreverence of a slacker college student who's looking to create a "vibe" that makes the people around him feel like they're part of something special.

Tony's childhood is a textbook entrepreneur's trial and error. His first job, raising and selling worms isn't a huge success. But then, from the back page of Boy's Life magazine, Tony tries first greeting cards, and then selling custom buttons. The button business takes off, becoming something of a family legacy handed down from brother to brother, and making hundreds of dollars a month as the mail-order business grew.

Early on the postman was Tony's friend. And in many ways the success at Zappos today can be tracked back to that feeling that Tony had as a child-of wanting something magical to come in the mail, and enjoying the feeling of getting that mail-order burst of pleasure when the mailman delivers his anticipated gifts.

Of course, Tony isn't the only entrepreneur who started out of the back of Boy's Life, or who dabbled in magic as a way to both understand human emotions and put on a show. (Yes, I had doves, and he didn't-but the impulse is the same).

But what you begin to understand as you pore over his immensely readable book is that Zappos today is rooted in Tony's youthful pleasures and passions.
In fact, Tony found a lot of inspiration in the rave scene, throwing massive parties and embracing the music, lights, and smoke that turned many individuals into a communal, and connected gathering. It's kind of hard to think of Tony as a raver, but then again, what does a "raver" look like?

Says Hsieh "It's actually really funny. I've had people come up to me and say oh, I used to go to raves. I would never have guessed that about them. So I don't know what a raver looks like 10 years later in general."

But today Zappos has an employee culture that seems very much of one mind, focused on customer service and not in some sort of cookie-cutter corporate way. Zappos really cares that you're happy, and it's baked into their beliefs, their customer interaction, and even the way they hire.

"When we hire people we do two sets of interviews. The hiring manager and his or her team will do the standard fit within the team, relevant experience, technical ability and so on. But then our HR department does a second set of interviews purely for culture fit."

"We've formalized the definition of our culture into 10 core values. Basically what we're looking for are peoples whose personal values match our corporate values. They're just naturally living the brand. Wherever they are whether they're in the office or off the clock."

The Zappos Core Values are:

1. Deliver Wow Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More with Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

And the thing that Zappos figured out, and continues to deliver on,is the idea that people who don't fit the company culture are better off being paid to leave.

"Everyone that's hired, it doesn't matter what position-you can be an accountant, lawyer, software developer-goes through the exact same training as our call center reps. It's a four-week training program and then they're actually on the phone for two weeks taking calls from customers. At the end of that first week of training we make an offer to the entire class that we'll pay you for the time you've already spent training plus a bonus of $2,000 to quit and leave the company right now."

Paying new hires to leave may seem counter-intuitive, but for Tony, it makes simple sense. "Really, the goal of that originally was to weed out the people that are just there for a paycheck."

In the end, the culture is about more than money. "It's not me saying to our employees, this is where our culture is. It's more about giving employees permission and encouraging them to just be themselves.

For Tony, building Zappos hasn't been easy. In fact, the story has more twists and turns than you might imagine as in the early days when Sequoia Capital was ready to throw in the towel, "I think they just assumed the company would either go out of business or possibly get funding from someone else. But this was back in what 2002. So the dot-com crash had just happened, Pets.com went out of business, and e-commerce in general were not looked favorably upon. So I don't think it was Sequoia. I think VCs in general at the time weren't making investments."

Tony had to sell his prized party loft (at a significant loss) just to make payroll, but they made it round the bend.
"Our customers didn't know that we were struggling with cash flow and so on. So, customers kept coming. Our revenues were going up, and so we knew that there was definitely a potential business here. So, it was never a question of whether the idea would work. It was just whether we could get over that cash flow hump."

In some ways the trends happening today in social networking seem like they were designed for the uber-transparent CEO. Twitter, for example, was a no-brainer for Zappos.
But other trends, like virtual offices, don't work for Tony. He says a community needs proximity, and for him Vegas was the right place to locate and build Zappos. Zappos isn't virtual, it's physical. "We really wanted to build the company around culture, company culture being the number one priority. And it's much easier to build a culture when it's actually in person versus remotely by email."

And while Zappos remains the company that will pay you to leave, Tony reveals that they haven't had to write a check like that in almost a year. Zappos, it seems, is a place folks aren't in a hurry leave once they get in the door. Tony says it's about Happiness.

"So many people when they go to the office, they leave a little bit of themselves at home, or a lot of themselves at home. And they have to put on this different persona in the office, especially in corporate environments. And our whole...there's a lot of talk about work life separation or balance and so on, whereas our whole thing is about work life integration. Its just life."

As you read Delivering Happiness, it's clear that Hsieh is talking about customer happiness, but also employee happiness, and even his happiness. He says the goals of Happiness aren't mutually exclusive.

"There's a lot of talk about work life separation or balance and so on, our whole thing is about work life integration. Its just life. And so the ideal would be if you can be the same person at home as you are in the office, and vice versa. And when people actually feel comfortable being themselves, so much creativity comes out of that."

So, if you believe Hsieh, there really is a change in the wind. A change in the way companies think, and act, and those that understand that will survive and thrive.

"I think we're just at the beginning where companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. People are becoming...just because the information is everywhere and it's pretty hard to control now. So I think moving forward it's going to be only the authentic companies or people can win because everyone else will eventually be outed."
Can it be that Happiness is profitable?
The book is titled Delivering Happiness and the subtitle is A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose. Tony Hsieh says in the book that research found that the best companies in terms of long-term financial performance are ones that are able to combine profits, passion and purpose.

If that's true, then we're standing at the edge of a new Happiness Culture, and it all began with selling shoes online.

"There's three types of happiness and really happiness is about being able to combine pleasure, passion, and purpose in one's personal life. I think it's helpful and useful to actually think about all three in terms of how you can make customers happier, employees happier, and ultimately, investors happier."

Watch all the Tony Hsieh interview videos on Curation Nation.
Follow author Steve Rosenbaum @Magnify

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The Happiness Culture: Zappos Isn't a Company - It's a Mission

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Tony Hsieh sold earthworms, greeting cards, and slices of pizza. Along the way, he never considered that a failed business meant he was a failure. Then, the guy who wore the same pair of shoes founded Zappos. Today, Tony says it's all about Happiness, and he's got the business to prove it.

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Module 5 was when I had to buckle down and do a bit of research, because here in module 5 was where I had to learn about the fundamentals of organizing, responsibility, authority and delegation and about managing organization culture. I learned organization within an company is crucial, without a good structure a company can possibly effect the way a company does its job, after reading chapter 8 I learned that the new CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella reorganized the structure of Microsoft creating four different branches which are Applications, which deal with Microsoft office and skype, Cloud and enterprise which deals with storage space and business technologies, Devices and studios which deal with the Xbox and tablets along with videogames and Operating systems which deal with connection between phones, Xbox and computers. With this he single handedly changed the out look of Microsoft, while reading this I learned that having an organized structure will keep things running fluidly throughout a company and I intend to do the same with my classes and as such a business of my own one day. But that's not all I picked up, I also learned about responsibility and authority, traits which are useful in being a manager also, being responsible is one way of being a great manager, a responsible manager takes complete charge in groups, accepts criticism and is able to identify with his group of subordinates. I also took this to heart because I for one have to be responsible, not even for just being a manager, being responsible in life is one of the keys to success. I also picked up on the types of organization cultures which were, Clan culture which is where a organization is characterized by a strong internal focus with a high degree of flexibility and discretion. The clan culture derives its name from the fact that this organization culture seems much like that of a family, Adhocracy culture is an organization culture characterized by flexibility and discretion along with an external focus,  Hierarchy culture which is an organization culture characterized by an internal focus along with an emphasis on stability and control and Market culture which is an organization culture that reflects values that emphasize stability and control along with an external focus. An organization with a market culture is oriented toward all stakeholders in the market, not just customers. And with these four cultures I thought of myself as someone who would want a clan culture, because I would want my employees to be like a family and help each other out when needed.

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Hopefully this pertains to planning, the reason I chose this article was because it gave you questions to whether or not your ideas for a company is good or bad, which I think is equal to planning because you would have to plan out these ideas beforehand.

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Image credit: Hero Images | Getty Images

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It's frustrating to watch: So many innovative individuals and teams come up with new business ideas, yet struggle with how to screen the good ones from the not-so-good ones and articulate their concepts to potential customers, investors or partners. As a consequence, good startup or new product ideas too frequently fail to see the light of day.
Related: 6 Entrepreneurs Share the Bad Idea That Led to a Success
For innovators, what's often missing is simply knowing what questions to ask and how to go about addressing them. That's why there is tremendous value in taking the time early on to clearly define, screen and communicate a new business concept. I created the "Launch Lens" framework to do just that.

Developing the Launch Lens has been an iterative process. Personal entrepreneurial experience combined with more than 15 years' worth of teaching MBA students at the University of Michigan has shown me that there are reoccurring challenges founders face in getting a new venture off the ground. Over time and with further development, application and refinement, the Launch Lens emerged, and I recently published a book by the same name. The series of 20 questions is a simple yet powerful framework that takes innovators through a structured process to distinguish good ideas from the weak ones, and lay the cornerstones for the startup planning process.

Before diving head-first into a new business, entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs, too) should ask and answer at least these five questions from The Launch Lens:

Who are your customers?

Describe the types of customers you plan to serve and be as specific as possible. If your product is a football-oriented mobile game catering to 18- to 24-year-old "gamer" males, say so. Stating that your potential customers could include anyone with a mobile phone is too broad and nonspecific as to be unhelpful. If you plan to produce fancy designer jeans, are they skinny jeans targeted toward hipsters? Dad jeans targeted toward guys like, well, me?

If your new business is a B2B product such as a CRM (customer relationship management) app, the same solution could theoretically be targeting ecommerce companies, big-box chains or Main Street retailers; which is it? A healthcare product might be targeting standalone health clinics or large hospital systems; decide. And importantly, with B2B customers, you need to specify not just the type of enterprise that would use your product or service, but the job description of the individual who would be the typical user. Would the end user be a warehouse manager or a forklift operator? A teacher or an administrator? A clinic director, a physician's assistant or a billing specialist?
Related: How to Find Your Next Big Thing in 3 Simple Questions
What is your customer's unmet need?

Put another way, what is the customer's "pain" that your product or service is designed to address? This could be an acute or dramatic unmet need -- for instance, the inventors of the pacemaker saw an unmet need for individuals whose hearts were beating slowly or unpredictably, thereby endangering their lives. In other cases, some businesses fulfill unmet needs that might be less of a need than a want. For instance, when my daughter took a gap year during her education and launched a business producing hand-sewn, leather-bound journals, the "unmet need" was the desire on the part of some writers and diarists for a more personal, unique notebook.

Generally speaking, you'll encounter greater customer demand for your new product based on the extent that it's addressing a more burning need. So ask yourself, would your solution be solving a "shark-bite pain" (your target customers must have this solution) or more of a "mosquito-bite pain" (it'd be nice to have your solution but by no means critical)?

How are your customers addressing this need today?

It's never OK to say, "My customers are not addressing this need today." Of course they are, albeit perhaps by using another, less elegant method. Before antibiotic cream, for instance, people still tried to remove germs from their cuts and scratches by washing with soap and water. Prior to the advent of antilock braking systems, drivers pumped their breaks manually. Prior to CRM systems, businesses tracked customers by keeping lists and spreadsheets.
Related: How to Avoid Wasting Time on Dead-End Business Ideas
What is your solution?

What product, service or product/service combination will you be offering? And remember, you ought to be able to describe your solution in a single, clear, unambiguous sentence. Run your brief solution description by several people who don't know your business to see if they all come away with the same understanding. I can't tell you how many times I've read or heard an entrepreneur's product description and come away confused: Is it a service? A mobile app? A physical product?

How will your customers benefit?

Related to our second question -- "What is your customer's unmet need?" -- asking how customers will benefit from your solution helps to clearly articulate the "value proposition" of the business. With our previous designer-dad-jeans example, the benefit I might realize as a customer would probably be tough to quantify and somewhat marginal: The new product makes me seem like a cooler dad (oxymoron alert!). With our pacemaker example, by contrast, the original inventors could have quantified the customer benefit in very concrete terms of number of patient lives saved and lifespans extended.

The foundational question when a new product or business idea comes to mind is, "Is this worth pursuing?" Some ideas that may appear strong at first prove sketchy -- and the converse. From my personal experience as an entrepreneur and in advising thousands of others, I've seen that asking these rigorous "filtering" questions and others in the Launch Lens (helping define market size, business model, fundability, etc.) brings clarity. When a quick 20-minute screen shows an idea to be weak, abandon it and move on. For others that show preliminary promise, you may find them worth a more detailed "drill down" exploration on some of the questions, developing your thinking for a stronger business plan.

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5 Questions You Should Ask to Find Out If You Have a Good Business Idea or a Dud

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. It's frustrating to watch: So many innovative individuals and teams come up with new business ideas, yet struggle with how to screen the good ones from the not-so-good ones and articulate their concepts to potential customers, investors or partners.

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I forgot to mention the importance of SWOT in my module 4 reflection, but yes SWOT is one of the planning tools that can be used, SWOT for what it is, is very important to businesses and this video explains how important it can be.

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How to Carry Out a Personal SWOT Analysis

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I found this article to be helpful, which is why I wanted to include it. The reason why is because it gives good essentials when it comes to strategic planning.

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Strategic planning is not just a functional exercise. It means the difference between being a struggling nonprofit and an innovative, cause-driven organization changing the world. Creating a culture that believes in planning is paramount not just to survive a project, but to thrive long after the project is complete. Strategic planning takes ideas, inspiration, and down-in-the-dirt hard work to make transformations.

As discussed in Dana O'Donovan and Noah Rimland Flower's Stanford Social Innovation article, " The Strategic Plan is Dead. Long Live Strategy," today strategy must break free from a static plan that just sits on the shelf; it must become more adaptive and directive.

A number of nonprofit organizations have developed successful strategic plans that inform both their current activities and their long-term vision-notable ones include The Brooklyn Public Library, American Kidney Fund, and Habitat for Humanity International.

At Longwood Gardens, strategic planning helped our organization grow from a working farm in the 1700s to one of the best-in-class horticultural display gardens in the world-a place that aims to inspire its more than 1 million annual visitors through excellence in garden design, horticulture, education, and the arts.

We have methodically established "The Longwood Way," a culture of strategic planning that provides us with a framework for aligning priorities, making decisions, allocating resources, and measuring our impact. Astounding results of this approach include: absolute clarity about our organization's mission, identity, and direction; significant revenue and visitation increases; value-driven performance reviews; a visionary site master plan; and increased collaboration and satisfaction among staff.

Here are the five essentials of strategic planning that nonprofits large or small can employ to transform their organization.

1. Begin at the top. For us, it was about preserving a legacy by allowing us to propel forward, thinking bigger but within the context of a unified vision, mission, and values. The commitment to "The Longwood Way" begins with the board, CEO, and senior leadership; the senior-most leaders live, breathe, and demonstrate actionable commitment to the planning process. Strategic planning will never succeed if leaders delegate it. It begins at the top. In year one of our strategic plan, we set on accomplishing more than 150 tasks associated with strategies that fell under five core objectives. With executive and senior team leadership driving the strategy and explaining the "why" behind each task, we accomplished all that we aimed to do 12 months.

2. Be inclusive at all levels. Everyone's voice matters. Across the board, staff, and volunteer ranks, we pull great ideas together and gain valuable insights throughout planning phases; we also gain practical knowledge about making the plan a reality. This ensures that the passion of our internal community runs deep for both the place and the people doing the work. Getting buy-in at all levels helped us mobilize and gave everyone a stake in the organization's future. To develop our 40-year master plan, we had hundreds of staff and volunteers gather for a town hall brainstorming session. One central idea of the plan came from that session-from people working on the ground, in the gardens-and we are actively exploring the feasibility of it now.

3. Remember that skill of the hand is important to vision. A thorough understanding of the expertise needed to accomplish your goals is paramount. Without this, you may not be asking the right questions or you may not get the right answers. Surround yourself with talent and differentiated skill sets-from craftsmen to strategists, planners to designers, and those that understand risk and analysis to those who can dream big and show-off their work to the world. In hiring West 8, an urban design and landscape architecture firm, to lead our master plan for 1,077 acres, we achieved a perfect balance of skill, imagination, and passion.

4. Create the guidebook for decisions of all sizes. Think of your strategic plan as a guidebook for any decision your organization makes. It should be the most important tool in your management toolbox. Are the opportunities you are considering aligned with your values? Will a decision advance your organization toward its vision? Your mission, values, and vision should always be front and center in all that you do. We keep our strategic plan top of mind, and we refer to it daily. We also review it twice annually to reforecast timelines and budgets.

5. Understand that flexibility is critical. Things change every day. Your strategic plan is a guidebook, but it is also a fluid, ever-evolving document. Out of the hundreds of tasks we initially outlined to accomplish over the last five-year period, many changed and evolved, just like circumstances changed due to economic fluxes and shifting priorities. But we always kept track of where we were, referring back to the plan and looking ahead.

Done well, strategic planning can honor the past while looking toward the future, and create a unique and inclusive culture. It can be the key to significant social impact.

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Five Essentials of Strategic Planning (SSIR)

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Strategic planning is not just a functional exercise. It means the difference between being a struggling nonprofit and an innovative, cause-driven organization changing the world. Creating a culture that believes in planning is paramount not just to survive a project, but to thrive long after the project is complete.

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I found this article when I searched up planning in business, and I think this explains how important business planning is in a whole and how relevant it can be.

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In my experience leading dozens of business planning workshops in countries all over the world, I'd say only about 10% to 15% of teams I've encountered have an effective business planning process. Sounds low, doesn't it? What many business owners fail to understand is that good planning equals good management.

Let me explain. Planning is about managing resources and priorities in an organized way. Management is related to leadership, and it's related to productivity.

Here are three steps to get you planning better and, in turn, improving your management.

1. Devise a plan. As the business owner, you start by writing important details down. You don't need to sweat every detail of creating a long document. Instead, jot down essential points as bullets, and tables, and bare explanations. The strategy element of planning is to focus on what you're good at, what matters, which people are most important to you and what you can do for them. It's about positioning, determining your target market and product focus.

It's important to document these details in order to communicate your vision to employees. If you don't have a team, there's value in referring back to your original thoughts regarding the path for your business and comparing them to actual results.
Related: 5 Ways to Kick-start Your Business Planning
2. Define success. In order to chart your path, you'll need to define long-term goals. Think broadly about how you see your business in several years.

From there, get specific. You'll want to establish milestones for when you want to accomplish certain goals, and know who you will want to carry them out. Go beyond sales, costs and expenses, and look at what really drives your business. It might be conversions, page views, clicks, meals, trips, presentations, seminars and other engagements.

Then, establish a review schedule -- when you and your team review changed assumptions, track results and make changes as necessary.
Related: Are You a Goal-Getter?
3. Put it in motion. Can you see the management brewing? Tracking and analyzing numbers can help you manage the work behind the numbers. You'll be in a better place to recognize and highlight what's working and what isn't working for your business and your team.
Suppose traffic is up, but conversions are down. You collect your data, review it with your team and develop a plan to make changes toward reaching your goals. That's management.

Managing your business successfully requires more than just praise and pats on the back. Sometimes it means focusing attention on problems, helping people solve them if possible, discussing and embracing mistakes, and, in the worst case, weeding out people who don't care about bad results. This can all be accomplished more efficiently when you have a plan in place.
Related: How to Become a Master Problem Solver
Either way, whether results are better than expected or worse, the planning and tracking makes your follow up easier. The process itself adds commitment and peer pressure to the team. Highlighting good performance is easier when there are agreed-on numbers to define it. And, probably most important, dealing with poor performance is always hard, but not quite as hard when you can focus on the specific numbers instead of personalities or office politics.

Which brings me back to where I began: Planning is management. Without planning, your management is at a real disadvantage.

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How Business Planning Leads to Better Management

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. In my experience leading dozens of business planning workshops in countries all over the world, I'd say only about 10% to 15% of teams I've encountered have an effective business planning process. Sounds low, doesn't it?

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Here in module 4 I was introduced to the process of planning, planning tools and strategic planning. What I took from this article was the types of plans I could use, ways I could potentially have great communication with employees and being able to make managerial decisions, one of the things that I found to be particular useful from this module was procedures. As explained in chapter five of the book, a procedure is a standing plan that outlines a series of related actions that must be taken to accomplish a particular task, and I thought "if I ever own my own company I should come up with a full proof procedure that could potentially help out." What I also took from this module was how important planning is, without planning so many things could go wrong within a company. I learned that having a very decisive plan will help me in the long run whenever I build my own organization or if I'm apart of one.

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Even Burger King? Oh my goodness, I didn't know this at all and I did a little research and found out that the Japanese Burger King has different food from the one's here in Florida, they have a black burger and a burger that has fondue cheese, I have to visit one day to tryout these extraordinary burgers.

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Remember when I said I didn't know Dominoes was a global company? Yeah, I was not lying I'm honestly shocked to know this and its fascinating how Dominoes is somewhat on par with McDonalds globally.

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When I found this video I had to include it, having a look inside another countries McDonalds is very interesting, seeing how the people work and the different way that the people in the country do their job is so cool.

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McDonald's in China | Inside China | CNBC International

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McDonald's business have grown in China over the past few years. CNBC goes behind the scenes to find out how McDonald's in China is the same as McDonald's in the US. Subscribe to CNBC International: http://bit.ly/1eiWsDq The golden arches of McDonald's are an iconic symbol in the U.S. and now, China.

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I found this article to be somewhat interesting because it was mentioning how Multicultural Managers are rising for a companies need of them, having a manager who is skilled in a different language or culture is great for a company.

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By Yves Doz INSEAD Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management; and the Solvay Chaired Professor of Technological Innovation
Many multinational companies have hidden, unrecognised multicultural gems within their ranks. To find these and get the most from their unique skills means taking the time and trouble to carefully develop and deploy multicultural managers in critical positions.
Multicultural managers can make a huge, positive difference to the success of global innovation projects and processes. The research of Hae-Jung Hong, now an assistant professor at the Rouen Business School and co-author of our article ( "How L'Oreal masters multiculturalism" in the June 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review) on cosmetics giant L'Oreal shows how unique features of multicultural minds enable them to play five critical roles better than their monocultural counterparts.

These roles are:

1. Making creative associations and drawing analogies between geographical markets, allowing L'Oreal to develop global products and build global brands while remaining sensitive to local market differences.

2. Interpreting complex knowledge - i.e. tacit, collective and culture-dependent, hence impossible to simply "explain"_ across cultures and contextsan essential skill when marketing products like cosmetics, where much of understanding is tacit and culture-dependent.

3. Anticipating cross-cultural conflicts, and addressing them, something critical to the effectiveness of global teams.

4. Integrating new team members from different cultures into teams that quickly develop their own norms of interaction and a strong "in or out" identity, making joining the team once it has been in existence for a while particularly difficult.

5. Mediating the relationship between global teams, with a high level of cultural diversity among their members, and the senior executives they report to, or their interaction with local subsidiary staff they collaborate with, who are usually monocultural.

In short, their ability to be creative, to share complex knowledge across locations, contexts and cultures and to manage global innovation and product development teams effectively is precisely why multiculturals in integrative roles in the innovation process do make such a positive difference.
Multiple Cultures Means Creativity
Indeed, using lab experiment methods (with students or executives performing revealing exercises), INSEAD Professor Will Maddux and his colleagues found that the experience of multiple cultures favoured creativity. In addition, they identified intercultural, cognitive integration (one's ability to simultaneously hold and apply several culturally different schemas and thus to think as a member of one culture or another depending on need and context, or to think simultaneously as member of several cultures) as the key to creative, adaptive and leadership skills fostering their career success. As one of the managers Hae-Jung Hong interviewed put it:
The most important skill I need in order to develop and launch this product line successfully is to exploit what I've got from one part to other parts of the world, which brings something innovative in the market. I am able to do this because I have references in different languages- English, Hindi, and French. I read books in three different languages, meet people from different countries, eat food from different countries, and so on. I cannot think things in one way only. That's not my way. (Indian-American-French project manager)
Observing multiculturals in action, a monocultural executive at L'Oreal commented:
"Multiculturals have a kind of gymnastic intellectual training to think as if they were French, American, or Chinese and all together inside them." "Being There" is Not Enough
Yet not all multiculturals are equally skilled at integrating across cultures at work. Personality plays a role: Being extroverted, assertive, and sociable, contributes to effective multiculturalism. A balance of integration strength between cultures is also a required condition for effective bridging. If in the self-representation of a multicultural person one cultural identity "wins" to the detriment of the others, the person cannot actually be effective as a multicultural!

And not all organisational contexts are equally propitious for multiculturals to play effective roles. Organisational culture, human resource management policies and cultural value conflicts in the organisation reduce or enhance a multicultural's willingness and ability to be effective. Being appreciated and trusted by their colleagues and peers in global teams is also a must but colleagues may zero-in on one of their cultures and make the development, or maintenance, of balanced integration skills harder, and multicultural managers' roles less effective.

Some individuals are multicultural by ethnic background and early childhood experiences. But, can one become multicultural through expatriate assignments as an adult in a multinational company, or just by living and working in multiple countries and cultures? The experience of living in multiple cultures obviously helps, but just "being there" is not enough. One needs to have strong on-going interaction with people belonging to the local culture, and become embedded in the local culture. Expatriate "villages" will not suffice. Beyond mere language fluency, actively learning about the local culture and creating opportunities to experience it first-hand are also needed. Just understanding the behavioural adjustments - for instance in decoding polite "no" answers, or in giving feedback to others without offending them- is not enough, one needs to delve into the underlying "whys", i.e. the meanings not just the manifestations of culture.

Despite all these efforts, though, "born multiculturals", for instance with parents from different cultural origins, may still enjoy an advantage: They can bring recollections from childhood to bear on experience later in life. Studying and working abroad as an adult, immigration, or an international marriage may provide the quality of interaction required, but becoming multicultural takes time and effort as several cultures need to be internalised. Further, some immigrants may strongly aspire to adopt the culture of the country they move to, or feel under social pressure to do so, or alternately, find they stay hostage to the culture they came from - for instance by living in an immigrant community and not mastering the local language. Neither can achieve the integration balance so critical to effectively develop and use unique skills as a multicultural manager.

Although the length of exposure to different cultures is not a strong determinant of multicultural skills (beyond a minimum of two years), frequent "rotational assignments" in multinational companies may be detrimental to the development of deep multicultural skills. Long ago André Laurent, the pioneer of this line of research at INSEAD, studied expatriate executives at IBM and other major multinationals. His findings were reported in an evocatively titled article "Once a Frenchman, always a Frenchman". He observed that experienced expatriates learned to behave as a "global" executive, but this learning effort actually reinforced their identification with their culture of origin. Their social identity (a "global" executive) conflicted with their deeply felt inner personal identity (a member of a "local"--national--culture).

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By Yves Doz INSEAD Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management; and the Solvay Chaired Professor of Technological Innovation Many multinational companies have hidden, unrecognised multicultural gems within their ranks. To find these and get the most from their unique skills means taking the time and trouble to carefully develop and deploy multicultural managers in [...]

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In module 3, I was introduced to global management, something I knew about for a long time with companies such as McDonalds and even learned that Dominoes are even on a global scale. I learned that there are three types of definitions for global organizations which include Domestic Organizations, which are organizations who reside in only one country with less of a international impact, a International Organization which are primarily based in a single country also but has meaningful transactions on a global scale and a multinational organization where a organization has a big impact in a global scale such as McDonalds who are, like I said before, is in a majority of different countries. Alongside this I also learned how complex and different being a manager is in a different country because you have to take notice of having to learn a new language, a new culture and many other things. While reading and doing work in this chapter I took a big interest in global management since I really want to travel to other countries such as Asia or the UK.

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I found this video very interesting, this woman broke the very barrier of the automobile industry.  Its not everyday that you see a woman work on vehicles, and seeing this video where she is basically empowering women to take on a new role such as this is awesome I love it.

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Female Mechanic Educates Women On How To Own The Auto Industry [Owning It]

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This article that I found on entrepreneur.com talks about the ways you should embrace diversity and destroy workplace norms. I found the article interesting due to the tips that the author came across in the article.

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4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The business landscape will look dramatically different in coming decades. By embracing people's differences, we can spark innovation, better understand and serve our customers and gain competitive advantage.

Driving a successful diversity strategy begins with the senior leaders, but to be fully sustainable it needs to be lived by every one of us. If that seems challenging, think about this: many leading researchers and social scientists have proven a link between diversity and productivity. In the United States, management researchers found that when people work directly with someone with at least one diverse trait, it challenges them to prepare more and work harder.

By embracing diversity in your business today, you can adopt an intrapreneurial mindset and sustainable skills that will help you succeed. Here's how you can start:

1. Learn to think like an intrapreneur.

Intrapreneurship, or disrupting internal processes or cultural norms, is at its heart about innovation. One group of innovators in particular figured out how to advance their industry through the way they approach challenges - these are open-source software engineers, and they use design thinking. It's a good example of what intrepreneurship can be: pick a diverse team with a range of experiences and perspectives; make your mistakes early and be open about them. Without the diverse and constant input, these engineers would be less successful in the way they solve challenges. When faced with a difficult task or situation, seek out advice from new and diverse sources, most likely you will find an improved approach.
Related: 5 Must-Have Skills of Intrapreneurs Inside Their Grown-Up Startups
2. Discover new places to network.

As collaboration with diverse individuals provides new points of view, networking accomplishes this on a larger scale. By going to events for closely related professions, or simply connecting through social media channels such as Twitter or LinkedIn where you can virtually engage in conversations with anyone, you put yourself in a position for growth. Inside your organization you can join or organize a powerful employee network with a diverse set of peers. While interacting with your network, look for, accept and appreciate differences. Friction leads to heat, and our heat makes the atoms move faster!

3. Focus on the strengths everybody brings to the table.

We are brought up in the Western World to focus on what doesn't work or what is different. Challenge yourself to appreciate the differences of others and see them as potential drivers of change. The more opinions, the more variety, and the more diversity we bring to the table the more we can unchain our creativity, which is hidden in every one of us.

People with different communication abilities, for instance, can be diverse. Autistic people are known for thriving in repetitive tasks, which is an especially valuable skill set in today's data-driven work environments. These skills help uncover insights into customer behavior and business trends, and can lead to discoveries that alter how a company operates. In the future of work, diversity will not be an option, but an imperative to sustain in our global, fast paced economy, where never just one person owns and knows the truth.
Related: The Myriad Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace
4. Stand up to discrimination.

Stand up if you see or experience discrimination. Raise your voice for the unheard opinion. Help others appreciate how every person has a different strength and realize that in that strength there is opportunity to grow and be more productive. For instance, if a colleague comments that a women aren't as capable of understanding technology, remind them that CEOs Meg Whitman at HP and Marisa Mayer at Yahoo! have both outlasted their male predecessors. By being critical of someone's weakness you miss the chance to appreciate and benefit from their strengths.

The need for new perspectives becomes especially important when we examine the future workplace. As our world gets smaller, diversity doesn't only mean differences in gender and race, but age and geography as well. Our world has become ultra-connected - successful companies find that to harmonize these connections relates directly to how fast they innovate. The implications are key for our global workforce because innovation thrives when we are faced with the unfamiliar. Diversity is what makes business more sustainable.
Related: When Company Culture Becomes Discrimination

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4 Ways to Embrace Diversity for Workplace Success

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4 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The business landscape will look dramatically different in coming decades. By embracing people's differences, we can spark innovation, better understand and serve our customers and gain competitive advantage.

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This video that I found through YouTube explains the very importance of having a diverse workplace, she makes a great point in this video which is why I chose it. Its important to have a diverse workplace because that diversity also comes with different work ethics which is helpful for an organization.

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The Importance of Diversity in the Workplace

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When I first began this class, I knew I was in for a ride when I seen the calendar of activities and the amount of work that was there. But I can't deny that I learned a lot of things in this class for instance, in module 1 I learned about the four basic management functions which were Planning, Organizing, Influencing and Controlling. Utilizing these four functions will make for a great manager, and while learning about them I planned on using them in my career after school, Planning before I take on a task to consider the right way to face the task at hand, Organizing or assigning the right people or myself to a specific part of the task that I know the group of myself can handle, Influencing others with my leadership skills to help motivate them to produce excellent results and Controlling where I gather information and see that the organization takes the right strides.

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Module 2 spoke about diversity within an organization and about a companies ethics, from this chapter I learned that a diverse workplace is for the most part great to have for a company, I even learned about the many generations of workers that will always be present such as the generation of millennials or baby boomers. But what makes diversity good for a company is the fact that those older workers will most likely take a millennial under their wing to help them rise up within the company. What I can take from that is in the future for whomever company I will be apart of I should look for the help of another generation of worker to show me the ropes. Accompanied with that I learned how important ethics are for a company, without ethics the workplace can be very vile, meaning no rules followed a gigantic amount of injuries and treachery of any kind. But I took this understanding to heart because now I know that once I have the chance to one day create my own organization, my ethics must be great and my organization should be accompanied with a diverse set of people from young to old to black to white.

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I chose this artifact due to how motivating it is. I remember viewing this video while doing this discussion in module 1 and hearing what he said, I have to be honest this was a great video.

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Since basketball is sort of my thing I chose this video, I don't know if it's as relevant as the other stuff I will use but even though coaches aren't exactly managers, they show leadership skills and even use management functions when leading there players.

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This article speaks on traits that a good manager will have, well according to google standards.

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20 years ago, you probably would've laughed if someone said your life would one day be irrevocably changed by a company called Google. What's a google?

But, as you know, Google's become the largest entity in one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And it's giving you a glimpse inside its robust research on what makes a great manager.

It's no secret that being a good manager can make all the difference in how happy your team is and how well it performs. Google not only proved this to skeptics years ago, but also identified eight (later updated to 10) behaviors of its best managers. So why not learn from one of the most successful data-driven companies out there?

1. "Is a Good Coach"

Employees need and appreciate a manager who takes time to coach and challenge them, and not just when they're behind.

As Muse contributor Avery Augustine put it, "When it comes to clients, the squeaky wheel usually gets the grease." The same is true, she said, of employees you manage.

But "I realized that every employee needs to be managed-star performer or not," she wrote. "And simply leaving some employees to do their jobs without any type of feedback or guidance was detrimental to their career development."

2. "Empowers Team and Does Not Micromanage"

Micromanaging's a common mistake managers make without even realizing it, one that discourages and frustrates employees.

But Google's research found that its best managers don't, instead offering the right balance of freedom and advice, showing they trust their direct reports, and advocating for the team, according to a sample breakdown from an internal presentation included in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article.

3. "Creates an Inclusive Team Environment, Showing Concern for Success and Well-Being"

In the first iteration of the list, this was described as "expresses interest in and concern for team members' success and personal well-being."

Several years later, the company's updated this entry to reflect research on psychological safety that allows for risk-taking-which Google identified as an important characteristic of effective teams-and unbiasing, or the process of becoming aware of and combatting unconscious biases.

It's not enough just to have a diverse team, good leaders and managers strive to create an inclusive environment every day.

4. "Is Productive and Results-Oriented"

Employees don't want to work for a lazy boss. They'd rather be part of a team that's productive and successful, and that's hard to do if the leader doesn't set the tone.

Former Muse editor Adrian Granzella Larssen explained that becoming a boss means you have to be on model behavior.

"As a manager, you'll be looked to as a role model," she wrote. "You can't expect people to give their best at work if they don't see you doing it, so be sure you're always on your A game." That means putting in the effort and getting results.

5. "Is a Good Communicator-Listens and Shares Information"

Communicating effectively is one of the basics of being a good manager (or a good employee for that matter). But it's also important to remember that great managers prioritize listening.

"Focused, curious listening conveys an emotional and personal investment in those who work for us," according to Muse contributor Kristi Hedges. "When you listen to people, they feel personally valued. It signals commitment."

6. "Supports Career Development and Discusses Performance"

Google recently added the "discusses performance" component to this behavior. The company pointed to research from Gallup that found only half of employees know what expectations they should be fulfilling at work.

"To free employees to take initiative and inspire high performance," Gallup concluded, "managers need to set clear expectations, hold employees accountable for meeting them and respond quickly when employees need support."

In other words, managers should not only help their team develop skills and advance their careers, but also be clear about expectations and give honest feedback about performance.

7. "Has a Clear Vision/Strategy for the Team"

Stephanie Davis, who won one of Google's Great Manager Awards, told HBR that feedback reports helped her realize how important it was to communicate team vision in addition to company vision.

"They wanted me to interpret the higher-level vision for them," she said. "So I started listening to the company's earnings call with a different ear. I didn't just come back to my team with what was said; I also shared what it meant for them."

A clear and shared vision can also help members of your team work well together.

8. "Has Key Technical Skills to Help Advise the Team"

When Google first released its list of behaviors, the findings were somewhat anti-climactic. "My first reaction was, that's it?" Laszlo Bock, then the Vice President of People Operations, told The New York Times in 2011.

The entries on the list may've been obvious, but their relative importance wasn't, as Bock's team found out when it ranked the behaviors.

"In the Google context, we'd always believed that to be a manager, particularly on the engineering side, you need to be as deep or deeper a technical expert than the people who work for you," he said. "It turns out that that's absolutely the least important thing. It's important, but pales in comparison."

So all hope isn't lost if you find yourself managing people who know more than you.

9. "Collaborates Across Google"

Google recently extended its list by two when its employee survey found that effective cross-organization collaboration and stronger decision-making were important to Googlers.

Whether you're at a large corporation, an early-stage startup, or a nonprofit, managing your team and leading it to success can depend at least in part on how well you can work with other teams.

Muse contributor Rebecca Andruszka gave some tips for improving communication with other departments for "the collective betterment of the company" (and, as she wrote, to avoid feeling like you work in Congress).

10. "Is a Strong Decision Maker"

Google's last addition is a reminder that while it's important for a manager to listen and share information, employees also appreciate one who can make decisions.

Muse Founder and President Alex Cavoulacos urged managers to go one step further and tell their teams not only what decision they've made, but also why they've made it. The small extra effort helps the team understand context and priorities, improve their own future decision-making, and stay engaged as well as informed.

One of the reasons this research was so effective was that it used internal data to prove what makes managers great at Google (and the company's re:Work website provides some first steps for others who want to try to replicate its approach).

But that doesn't mean the list isn't helpful for people who don't work there. After all, Google did go from being a made-up word to a household name in just a few years. People and companies now look to it as an example, not only in innovation, but also in its approach to management.

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10 Traits of a Great Manager, According to Google

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Google has invested in research to prove that managers matter (they do!) and to identify the behaviors of its best ones. The company used internal data, but that doesn't mean the list isn't helpful for people who don't work there. Here's what you can learn from the tech giant's great managers.

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This article is speaks of how your leadership behaviors will encourage team trust with your subordinates.

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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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I chose this picture because it honestly represents Module 2 in its entirety, the diverse people in this picture perfectly represents module 2.