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You can use the time in travel,
waiting for meetings, lunch time, small breaks or at home usefully. |
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Through these tools, the
learning bytes are right sized for ease of learning for time challenged
participants. |
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The content starts from
practice and connect to precept making it easy to connect to industry and
retain. |
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They can be connected to
continuous assessment process of the academic program. |
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Practitioners can use their
real life knowledge and skill to enhance learning skills. |
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Immediate visualization of the
practical dimension of the concept will offer a rich learning experience. |
AN INTRODUCTION TO DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING TOOLS
Participants in flexible learning programs have
limitations on the nature of the time they can spend on learning. Typically
they are employed fully or partially, pursuing higher studies or have other
social and familial responsibilities. Availability of time is a great
constraint to these students.
To aid
the participants, we have developed four unique learning tools as below:
·
Bullet Notes : Helps in
introducing the important concepts in
each unit
of curriculum, equip
the student during preparation of examinations and
·
Case Studies : Illustrate the concepts through real life experiences
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Workbook : Helps absorption of learning through questions based on real life
nuggets
·
PEP Notes : Sharing notes of practices and experiences in the Industry
will help the student to rightly perceive
and get inspired to learn concepts at the cutting edge application level.placementinterviews
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Why are these needed? |
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Adults learn differently
from B. School
or college going |
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students who spend long hours at campus. |
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Enhancing analytical skills through application related learning |
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kits trigger experiential learning |
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Availability of time is a challenge. |
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Career success increasingly depends on continuous learning |
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and success |
What· makes it relevant?
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How· is it useful?
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Where· does this lead to?
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Easier to move ahead in the learning process.
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Will
facilitate the student to complete the program earlier than otherwise.Helpsstay
motivated and connected.
When· is it useful?
·
© The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE),
Hyderabad, May, 2015. All rights reserved
No part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a
spread sheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from
The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), Hyderabad.
Ref. No.
BC&SS, CS-IFHE – 052015
For any clarification regarding
this book, the students may please write to The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education
(IFHE), Hyderabad giving the above reference number of this book specifying
chapter and page number.
While every possible care has
been taken in type-setting and printing this book, The ICFAI Foundation for
Higher Education (IFHE), Hyderabad welcomes suggestions from students for
improvement in future editions.
ii
CONTENTS
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1. |
Open Communication Culture at Avery Dennison |
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2. |
IPad2 launch by Steve Jobs |
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Social Relationship Management through Listening |
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iii
Introduction to the Case Study
Participants in ICFAI University
Programs are eager to apply theory into practice. They realize that application
orientation can enhance their learning and subsequent usage of management
precepts and practices. Picking out the principle behind real world events is
critical to this learning.
To fulfil this objective the
institution has introduced the Case Study methodology as a learning tool. A one
page case is developed for learning a concept/topic from an illustration of a
real world occurrence. The case illustrates a situation pertinent to an
individual/a company/an industry or an economy in relation to a concept or
issue covered in the curriculum. The illustration is specific to the point
being discussed.
The case depicts the knowledge
which can be applied as illustrated in the practice of the real world. These
experiences can be distilled to look at a core principle at play by the
participant. While there could be multiple principles at play, the illustration
of each case helps in its better understanding of the concept at a very
fundamental level.
The
learning outcomes expected are:
1.
Real
world is illustrated and connected back to one concept/topic for better
theoretical understanding.
2.
Application
based approach, which significantly enhances absorption and retention.
3.
Exposure
to specific business situations and developments improves perspective.
It may be used for Assessment.
iv
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Open Communication Culture at
Avery Dennison |
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Avery
Dennison, a Fortune 500 company based in Glendale, California began its
operations in 1935. The
company, a global leader in
labelling and packaging materials and solutions registered sales worth $6.3 billion in 2014. The company‘s applications
and solutions form an integral part of products in every industry. The company‘s 30000 employees were based in 50 countries.
Heather Rim,
Vice-President and Kristin
Wong, Senior Specialist,
Global Corporate Communications
initiated an innovative program for ideas to
originate internally. Rim and her Internal Communication (IC) team had introduced a ‗Peer Ambassador‘
program to improve employee engagement wherein opportunities
were provided to employees to
participate more during town hall meetings and convey ideas to their peer
ambassadors. An overwhelming response was observed
with 85% of the employees speaking regularly to their ambassadors. The IC team then brought forth ‗The Beat: A Reverse
Ambassador Program‘ to exploit
power of
the ambassadors (The Beats). The
Beats would converge once in a month to take part in the
‗Mission‘
and give feedback of one of the business units or functions to the Clients. The
Clients would work on the feedback of the Beats, conduct polls one or two times
(‗Quick Takes‘) of 60 seconds to further
develop the initiative.
Rim and Wong worked hard to ensure the Beat Members
were involved in suggesting strategic initiatives.
The
Clients were asked to fill a ‗Project Request Form‘ and work on the ‗Mission‘
which would impact Avery Dennison‘s goals and objectives. Wong sent out Missions on the 15th of every month and Members
were
given 48 hours to 2-weeks to think of new initiatives and convey to their peer
ambassadors. The peer
ambassadors submitted the new
proposals to the Clients who worked on it and regularly updated their decisions in the ‗Feedback Blog Post‘. In
this way, the Beat Members knew how their ideas were adding value to the
organization. In Rim‘s words it ―is about shaping the future of the company,
challenging conventional wisdom,. And delivering
business value.‖
The IC
team took care to ensure that the program was not forced on the employees and
innovative value
propositions were appreciated. The Beat helped in
global networking among its employees, to assess new initiatives and had the prospect to ‗Be Heard‘. The employee needed to
invest only two hours per month and
the leaders would convert unique
ideas into strategies, identify drawbacks and encourage employee engagement.
The IC team was extremely successful in its first three Missions: Validating
the goals of Avery Dennison Foundation, Sourcing content for Avery Dennison
Employer brand, and Obtaining feedback on key Financial Objectives.
The IC team also wanted the Beat
to cover every employee. They teamed up with the HR department and maintained a
record of which business, function and location each Beat member belongs to.
This also aided the Clients to focus on the opinions of a specific segment of
the employee base. The Beat was run digitally through intranet and only 1/3rd of the
employees were covered. It consulted the other 2/3rd of the
employees who were unwired like factory workers through live offline meetings.
The Beat had covered employees from the level of Administrative Assistants to
Vice-presidents.
The Senior Leadership had
appreciated the program and started a video blog to develop the relationship
between the outspoken employees and the management. The Beat had proved in more
ways like the management decisions were supported and accepted by the employees
since they were involved in the idea-generation, easier to course-correct if
any pitfalls by the collaboration of influential leaders and highly energetic
participants. The initial cost of the program was $10000 which went in
developing the web page in the intranet and a video. The IC team spent 20% of
their team to the program. The result was that 100% felt that their voices were
being heard and the Beat had created an open-communication platform and culture
at Avery Dennison office.
‘Effective communication’ within an organization helps in fulfilling the
organizational needs, improves employee engagement and contributes
significantly to organization and the employee growth. Avery Dennison has
initiated the Beat program which has evolved further to meet the organization
needs and provide the best creative solutions.
5
Discussion
Questions
1.
Why
should companies adopt an internal communication program?
(Hints:
effective interaction among employees - employee engagement - management
practices)
2.
How did
the Beat program improve employee engagement at Avery Dennison?
(Hints:
value propositions - communication culture and gap between leaders and
employees)
Course Reference: Concept- The importance of communication /Unit 1-Fundamentals of
Communication/Subject-Business Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Heather Rim and Kristin Wong, “Connecting employees to
leaders through brand ambassadors at Avery
Dennison”,
www.melcrum.com, Nov/Dec 2012
ii. “The Big
picture”, www.averydennison.com
iii.
Kristin Wong, www.linkedin.com
Other Keywords: Business
Communication, External and Internal Communication, Marketing Communication, OB
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IPad2 launch by Steve Jobs |
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Apple Inc, an American
multinational located in Cupertino, California was involved in designing,
developing and marketing consumer electronics and computer software like
iPhone, iPad, iCloud, and iTunes. The company disclosed record quarterly
revenue of $74.6 million for its fiscal 2015 first quarter on December 27,
2014. As per Forbes list of most valuable brands, Apple stood first. Apple with
80000 employees was the first US Company to be valued at $700 billion in 2014
Apple recorded a sale of 15
million iPads in 9 months with a staggering 90% market share in 2010. Meanwhile
Steve Jobs took an indefinite medical leave in January 2011, after a relapse of
cancer, which was first diagnosed in 2004. It was a pleasant surprise when
Steve Jobs rose on the stage to launch the second generation of iPad: iPad2 in
March 2011. The presence of a frail and thin Steve Jobs during the launch
instantly enhanced the stock
price by 1%, i.e., by $3. He was given a standing ovation by the executives and
industry‘s prominent persons at the
Yerba Buena Centre in San Francisco.
Steve Jobs, one of the greatest
management gurus, was very well known for his exemplary presentation skills, audience connect and the passion
with which he launched Apple‘s products. But body language
experts observed that Steve Jobs
was not his usual self during the launch of iPad2. Though the passion was very
much visible, his facial expressions showed the pain he was facing.
Observations of Steve Jobs body language during iPad2 launch:
1.
During
his 9-minute presentation, 17 times Steve Jobs held his hands at the back -
which indicated that he was hiding something.
2.
Hands in
ball formation – denoted that he was
still interested in developing new gadgets and was unable to control his
creativity impulses.
3.
Frequently
looking down and a serious facial expression – traditionally unobserved in his earlier presentations, indicated
the effort being made to speak and enthuse the public and trying to withhold
his discomfort and loss of energy.
Usually Steve Jobs used expansive
hand gestures like outstretched hands, emblems and illustrators. His minimal
upper body gestures and hands tied at the back, stressful facial expressions
and deep sad eyes signaled that Jobs was trying to conceal his disease, felt
uneasy and apprehensive. Steve Jobs expired on October 5, 2011, barely six
months after the launch of iPad2.
‘Nonverbal communication’ primarily conveys emotions and attitudes. They can
contradict, substitute, emphasize or regulate verbal
messages. In this case, we observe that Steve Jobs, who is renowned for his
presentation skills, depicting his infrequent gestures during the launch of
iPad2.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the characteristics of nonverbal communication?
(Hints:
communicate emotions – attitudes – continuous – ambiguous – regulate -
reliable)
2.
Explain
the change in kinesics in Steve Jobs during the launch of iPad2.
(Hints:
hand movements - facial expressions –
posture – gestures – regulators – illustrators - eyes)
Course Reference: Concept- Kinesics /Unit 2-Nonverbal Communication/Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Carol
Kinsey Goman, “The Gesture that gave away Steve Jobs”, www.forbes.com, March
2011
ii. Cory Bortnicker,
“What Steve Jobs‟ body language means for Apple Stock”, www.minyanville.com,
March 2011
iii. Penny
Goldsbrough, “The Baseline in Body Language”, www.goldsbrough.biz, March 2011
iv. Charles
Arthur, “iPad2 announcement: Steve Jobs launches updated tablet”, www.theguardian.com,
March
2011
v. “Apple
Info „, www.apple.com
vi. “Apple
Market Cap, www.forbes.com, April 2014
vii.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/02/ipad-apple
Other Keywords: Nonverbal
communication, kinesics, Marketing Communication, HRM
7
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Social Relationship Management
through Listening |
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Oracle, an integrated and fully
optimized hardware and software solutions company had more than 4 lakh customers,
which included 100 of the Fortune 100, and had its presence in more than 145
countries globally. The company with 120000 employees declared revenue of
US$38.3 billion in FY 2014. Oracle, dedicated to innovation by simplifying IT,
provided reliable and secure hardware and software products and applications
that helped to manage complex business processes through high performance at a
low cost.
―Social
marketing is rapidly evolving into a sophisticated set of capabilities that
enable real-time awareness
and responsiveness. Oracle SRM,
which already lets companies listen to social buzz in a dozen languages, will support even more languages and social
platforms…‖—John Foley, Director, Strategic
Communications, Oracle.
Companies try to maintain strong
customer relationships and design innovative marketing campaigns. However,
constant change in market trends and technology requires real-time marketing
strategies and real-time listening to customer feedback. Social Relationship
Management helps to engage, respond, handle queries and disseminate marketing
messages to customers through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social
platforms. Oracle has introduced the Oracle Social Marketing and Social
Engagement and Monitoring Products for companies to employ modern marketing
techniques like cross-channel marketing automation, content management, social
engagement and analytics. It is observed that 90% of the customers discontinue
communication with the company
because of irrelevant information and messages. Hence companies prefer Oracle‘s Products for ―Social-listening.‖
Social listening provides seamless
user-experience to customers as
companies respond in
real-time by
providing customized solutions,
delivering information, developing the right content and promotions in the
existing customer‘s channel. Oracle
SRM is a cloud-based platform that helps companies listen to social
buzz in 19 localized languages and advanced
listening in 31 languages. It is evolving aggressively to
introduce more languages and many more social
platforms. For example, Oracle is already tapping data from
China‘s
Sina Weibo and Baido and Latin America‘s Reclameaqui and Vostu networks. In
other words, this application helps to reach,
listen, learn and engage customers irrespective of which channel they are into.
This application acts like a collaborative and connection strategy between
people, processes and technology.
At any point in time, millions of
messages keep flying across various social channels. Oracle SRM listens to
about 700 million messages every day at a high speed from paid, owned and
earned media content from social media platforms, blogs, message boards, video
messages, chat rooms, consumer review sites, etc.
Oracle‘s
―Latent Semantic Analysis‖, a high technology tool then converts it into
meaningful information which provides insights to
companies to take suitable action. Thus
Oracle‘s SRM is the only solution for
industries to listen, publish, engage and create
content through analytics and a single user interface.
‘Listening’ can improve work quality and boost
productivity. In this case, Oracle‟s
products helps a company to succeed globally by listening,
engaging, learning customer expectations, developing better products through
valuable social insights, and designing innovative marketing campaigns
irrespective of location and language barriers.
Discussion
Questions
1.
Mention
the different approaches to listening and how listening can improve customer
engagement. (Hints: discriminative-
comprehensive - active – critical - better relationship with customers)
2.
How has Oracle used Listening as a tool for Social
Relationship Management in ‗Social Marketing‘ and ‗Social Engagement &
Monitoring‘?
(Hints: social listening - converting noisy data into
meaningful messages - modern marketing
techniques)
Course Reference: Concept- Approaches to Listening/Unit3-Listening/Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills Sources:
i. John
Foley, “How Social „Listening‟ enables real-time
marketing”, www.forbes.com, May 2014
ii. “Oracle
Social Cloud – Social Relationship Management”,www.oracle.com
iii. “Five
Ideas: Social Strategies”, www.oracle.com
iv. “Welcome
to Oracle”, www.oracle.com
Other Keywords: Listening,
Marketing
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Alan Mulally – One Ford |
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Ford Motor Company, based in
Dearborn, Michigan, were manufacturers and distributors of automobiles in over
six continents, with 63 plants worldwide, known for brands like Ford and
Lincoln and 167,000 employees reported a pre-tax profit of $6.3 million for
2014.
Ford was undergoing the biggest
loss of $12.7 billion in its 103-year history in 2006, loss of 25% in market
share since 1990, huge labor costs at $76/hour, and was on the brink of
bankruptcy when Alan Mulally was named the President and CEO. Ford rebounded to
growth with increased profits and stock prices since 2009 under his
transformational leadership and adoption of a new organization culture.
Alan Mulally, in 2006, as soon he
became the CEO, borrowed $23 billion instead of declaring bankruptcy. This wise
decision helped Ford, because during the 2008 economic recession, other
companies like General
Motors and Chrysler found it difficult to raise
money. Alan could develop new products that customers wanted, by leveraging Ford‘s automotive expertise and assets.
Electric cars like Transit Connect Van, was
rolled out in 2010, Focus in 2011
and Energi (C-MAX MPV) in 2012. Ford shifted its focus from trucks to cars with
Tauras Sedan and Fusion.
Alan
Mulally viewed the conflict brewing within the company and identified the
challenges of diversity and
high employee turnover. He
discussed the conflict openly and worked on developing the interpersonal relationships among employees through ‗One
Ford‘:
·
‗One Ford‘ strategy integrated the entire organization from product quality, fuel
efficiency, manufacturing plants,
corporate culture and balance sheet –
called ‗sponsor spine‘.
·
Converted Ford to a ‗Mobility company‘ by taking control of the entire
global operations and working on one agenda – ‗The cars and trucks are two different
visually but can be built on the same
assembly line‘. This led to manufacturing of 10 Ford different models but
having 80% common parts leading to huge economies of scale. Ford also
reduced from 97 automotive products to 20 thus improving excellence in
manufacturing, product development and customer service.
·
In ‗Traffic Light Meetings‘, he shared his ideas,
goals and reports every Thursday morning.
Employees were given specific
direction and responsibility through color-coded cards and to update progress. The cards contained expected
behaviors on one side and the company‘s business plan on the other. Red
card indicated a problem, yellow meant caution and green signified good
progress. Alan wanted complete transparency and team collaboration.
Interpersonal relationships developed due to freedom of two-way communication,
assertion and fewer conflicts.
·
Alan was
very supportive of his employees that resulted in renewed confidence,
enthusiasm and loyalty. He negotiated with the United Auto Workers on
$55/hours; wages down by $20/hour.
·
Business
Plan Review Meetings were held every week to understand the external
environment, opportunities or risks, with global leadership team, business
leaders, and functional leaders either connected in person or remotely. A few
such meetings led to MyFordTouch Entertainment panel being introduced in Ford
cars which was later copied by other automobile manufacturers.
Alan Mulally led One Ford to One team through
strategic vision, improved financial health, workforce competitiveness, new
product development and sustained the momentum.
‘Interpersonal Skills’ emphasizes
to be open and empathetic to build positive relations in an organization, deal
with
criticism and conflict. In this case, we observe that Alan Mulally could grasp
„Complexity‟ by framing difficult
concepts easily, analyze data to gain new insights, and build teams that
can innovate to transform driver experience, and realign the product portfolio
for the 21st century.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the different approaches to handle conflict in an organization?
(Hints:
avoiding – accommodating – competing - collaborating -
compromising)
2. ‗Alan Mulally steered the company to the path of
growth through positive relationships.‘ Explain
(Hints:
employee inclusion - open communication culture – empathy - team collaboration)
9
Course Reference: Concept- Building Positive Relationships/Unit 4-Interpersonal Skills
/Subject-Business Communication and
Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Larah
Miller Caldicott, “Why Ford‟s Alan Mulally is an innovation CEO for the record
books”, www.forbes.com, June 2014
ii. Rik
Kirkland, “Leading in the 21st
Century:
An interview with Ford‟s Alan Mulally,” www. mckinsey.com,
November 2013
iii. Theo
Legget, “How Ford‟s Alan Mulally turned around its fortunes,” www.bbc.com, June
2014
iv. “The role
of leadership and how it can impact organizational performance, based on Alan Mulally,
CEO, Ford
Motor
Company”, http://jananomba.blogspot.in, August 2011
v. “Our
Company”, http://corporate.ford.com/company.html
Other Keywords: Communication,
HR, Operations
10
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Twitter acquires ZipDial |
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Twitter Inc. acquired ZipDial on
January 20, 2015. Twitter, incorporated in 2007, an online social networking service where users could send
and read 140 character messages called ‗tweets‘ had 3600
employees globally, 50% of them
being engineers. Twitter had 288 million active monthly users with 500 million
tweets being sent every day. 80% of those were mobile users and 77% users
outside of US. Tweets could be sent in 35+ languages.
Zipdial,
a mobile marketing company began its operations in 2010 at Bengaluru, was
founded by Valerie
Wagoner, Amiya Pathak and Sanjay Swamy. It
specialized in connecting people who do not own a smartphone to the internet. It designed products using the behavior of
‗missed calls‘ for brand engagement.
The company had achieved one
billion connections with brands across 60 million users in South Asia, South
East Asia and Africa. Their 50 employees became a part of Twitter R & D
team after the acquisition. It had around 500 clients like Airtel, MakemyTrip,
Ola cabs, Mattel, etc.
The
negotiation deal was estimated to be
between 30 - 40 million dollars. Twitter‘s VP of Products
Christian
Oestlien and Market Director, India & South Asia, Rishi Jaitly along with
Zip Dial‘s Valorie Wagoner,
CEO through their blogs informed on how the companies could complement each
other in making the negotiation a win-win.
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Twitter |
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ZipDial |
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Accessibility of
Twitter and content
to more |
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Easy to
engage the mobile user with the brand |
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people who
become smartphone users, mostly in |
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through SMS,
voice messages, missed
calls, |
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Brazil,
India and Indonesia. Reducing the cost of |
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and apps.
Useful to people who do not have |
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data for subscribers. Exclusive Twitter experience |
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data connection
or intermittently use
data |
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to both
mobile users and Indian publishers jointly |
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through wifi
networks. Bridges the
gap |
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with ZipDial. |
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between online and offline mobile users. |
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Tested
the success of
campaigns with ZipDial |
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Indians use only 60MB of data/month against |
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which include Indian elections @BJP4India and |
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1.38GB/month
in US with
no difference in |
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@INCIndia, |
Bollywood |
Film promotions, |
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speeds between 2G and 3G. It also means one |
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@MTV India‘s
#RockTheVote ―Dial the |
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billion
or 25% of
population do not
have |
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Hashtag‘ |
@iamsrk, |
@SrBachchan, |
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access to the internet and 68% only use feature |
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@SuperstarRajani,
@SriSri and improve twitter |
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phones, may be tapped to use ZipDial Services. |
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experience. |
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Twitter has 33
million users in
India, Increase |
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The
founders to continue to evolve the ZipDial |
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investment
as it is an emerging economy. Utillize |
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products; work
on specific integration
and |
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the
ZipDial engineering office. Later drive user |
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product
roadmaps.With Twitter, develop |
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3 |
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acquisition in
India and other
emerging |
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tailor-madesolutionsandutilizethe |
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economies where
ZipDial has already
made a |
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opportunities
mostly in the emerging markets |
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for clients. |
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focus on advertisers and generate revenue from
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The global companies were on the
lookout for new opportunities in the Government‘s
Digital India programs. They were interested in companies that were
incubated in India, providing India-centric innovative solutions; but were
relevant to the whole world.
11
‘Negotiation’ plays a vital role in business and must result in providing solutions to
the parties involved. It is a delicate process and requires a lot of thinking and analysis to
adopt the best approach and gain a win-win. In this case, Twitter is utillizing
ZipDial to make content accessible to offline customers and reach developing
markets which have low internet penetration.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the different approaches to negotiations?
(Hints:
bargaining orientation – loses –lose - compromise – win-win)
2.
‗Negotiations will come into effect only when
both partices consider solid facts and human dimension‘. Explain this statement taking into account the above case
of Twitter acquiring ZipDial.
(Hints:
complementing each other in specific areas and expertise – explore new opportunities)
Course Reference: Concept- Approaches to negotiations/Unit 5 - Negotiations
/Subject-Business Communication and Soft
Skills
Sources:
i. Deepthi Choudhary,
“Twitter acquires Indian mobile
marketing firm ZipDial‖, http://www.forbesindia.com,
January 2015
ii. Valorie
Wagoner,‖ZipDial is joining Twitter‖,
www.zipdial.com, January 2015
iii. Yogendra Kalavapalli, ―Twitter to buy ZipDial in
first Indian start-up
acquisition‖, www. livemint.com, January
2015
iv.
Saptarishi Dutta, ―Twitter just bought a Bangalore start-up to reach every Indian without smartphone, www.qz.com, January 2015
Other Keywords:
Negotiations, HRM, Online Marketing
12
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6 |
Interviewing at McKinsey |
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|
McKinsey,
a global firm comprising of 17000 consultants employed ‗research and
information‘ professionals
across 60 countries. The company followed a consistent approach in recruiting
and developing people, irrespective of their origin, to provide the client the
right team with the right experience and expertise. The company invested in
enormous resources to identify the right people, develop their skills and train
them to take leadership roles.
McKinsey was known to conduct the
toughest interview process with a difficulty level of 3.9 out of 5. The company
conducts structured interviews to identify the skills and experience of the
candidate for the most suitable· career.
Experience interview: Discover skills to survive in McKinsey through questions on
·
accomplishments
and challenges and key actions taken to handle crisis
Case
interview: Assess
problem-solving skills through a real McKinsey business problem in a limited time. This helps the company
to understand how the candidate:
O
structures the tough, ambiguous business problem
O decides on the issues that need focus
O
deals with facts and data and their implications
O formulates recommendations and conclusions
·
O articulates his thoughts in a
speedy discussionProblem-solvingtest:Verifyanalyticalskillsofthe
candidate through 26 questions based on
McKinsey clients and require no business knowledge.
The candidates should be relaxed
but not anxious, take time to answer questions, clarify if in doubt. The
interviewers can be asked questions about the company, work culture, people and
values. Sample cases and problem-solving tests are available on their websites.
62% of
the candidates felt that they had a positive experience while 13% reported
negative. The candidates
felt it was worthwhile to attend
the stressful interview, since employee satisfaction is 4.1/5 at McKinsey.
According to Sumantha Zupan, a spokesperson
of Glassdoor (a career website), ―This denotes the fact that the company has a clear correlation on the
candidate‘s fitness for the job, what can be expected from him, his interests
being leveraged for both the candidate‘s and company‘s growth.‖
McDonald, author of ‗The firm‘, a book on McKinsey wrote that McKinsey
finds it easier to identify the potential and mold a young mind than an old
one. The company has perfected the art of personnel management; hiring
youngsters from top-tier B-Schools (like Harvard and Yale), after a rigourous
selection process, at a trifle, providing atrocious reviews that make them
perfect to handle secure data and take
business decisions. The candidates, now called
consultants, are given wide exposure and access to a wide network of clients and alumni, once the company realizes the candidates‘
potential and possible options and
interests.
‘Interviewing’ requires planning like purpose, structure, physical
setting, knowledge of the candidate, possible interview rounds and
questions. In this case, McKinsey has created a high business standard in
hiring culture by demonstrating that by hiring and training cost-effective
capable youth into consultants who outperform expensive experienced candidates.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
differences between a structured, planned interview and an unstructured, random
interview process?
(Hints:
large pool of candidates – specific
parameters – factual info – candidate‘s views – opinions on
issues)
2.
The job
interview process tends to be nerve-racking and frustrating at McKinsey. Explain
(Hints:
structured - experience – analytical
– articulation – time management –
problem-solving)
Course Reference: Concept-Planning an interview/Unit 6-Interviewing /Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Jacquelyn
Smith, “The companies that give the toughest job interviews”, www.forbes.com,
July 2012
ii. Max
Nisen, “How McKinsey turned the MBA into an elite degree”,
www.businessinsider.in, September 2013
iii. “About Us
– Who we are”, www.mckinsey.com
iv.
“Careers – Interview Process”,
www.mckinsey.com
v. “Careers
– Interview prep”, www.mckinsey.com
Other Keywords: Interviewing,
HRM, T&D
13
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7 |
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Kite Ventures, a company with
no meetings |
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Kite Ventures, a venture capital
firm was founded in 2008 by Mr. Edward Shenderovich, in Moscow, Russia. The
company specialized in making investments in start-up companies in the field of
technology and internet like Delivery Hero, Tradeshift, Auctionata, Fyber and
Made.com in Europe and Plated and Merchantry in New York.
The
uniqueness of the company was because: it was an investment company with no
‗committed capital‘ and a
dozen investment partners, who worked on a deal-to-deal basis and
profit-sharing agreement. The partners did not pay management fees on the investment
capital, the company did not charge management fees and the company was
frugally managed with minimum number of employees and without an expensive
office or private jets. However, the company made $2.5 billion worth of
investments in the companies mentioned above (as of December 2014), had a
strong investment base and a good growth curve; obtained support from the
investors and entrepreneurs (who were backed by the company and then later
turned investors). The company was expecting the coming five years (2015 – 2020) to be more productive than the
previous five years (2008 – 2014).
Mr. Edward Shenderovich,
co-founder and MD, sixth among the top ten Russian venture capitalists, states
that the company had been highly productive due to:
1.
„No-meeting‟ culture:
The company could not build a ‗meeting‘ culture though,
the founders tried to bring in weekly meetings; by sending invites to the
participants a week in advance. It just became a routine and participants
started giving excuses from attending the meetings. The founders also found
that the meeting time was spent with presentation of reports and was hardly
productive. Kite Ventures consisted of a small team and hence communication
could happen in real-time. The highly motivated
team of employees had an intense drive to perform. Hence the ‗no-meeting‘ culture actually made the
company more efficient.
2.
„Transparency‟
in operations:
Kite Ventures aligned interests
on returns by delivering products; treating investors and entrepreneurs as
partners in decision-making process; by maintaining transparency and thus
became successful. It empowered the investors and small teams of employees to
focus on tasks and not
‗manage‘ them
the customary way. The company followed Peter Drucker‘s principle, ―Management
is doing things right; leadership is doing right things,‖ in not managing
people or asking reports, but on driving employees to do work and obtain
results.
3.
Better
relationship with stakeholders:
The
company did not believe in the traditional ‗limited-partner‘
and ‗general partner‘ relationships with its stakeholders; but a more open
communication culture in real-time. Entrepreneurs, employees and investors
belonged to the same team, and their main aim was to build companies and help
promising people to grow in their jobs.
‘Effective meetings’ improves communication between the group members in
an organization. In recent times, meetings are considered to
be time wasters with nothing fruitful being achieved. Kite Ventures is one such
company which drifted towards a meeting-free world and successful in achieving
better results from all its stakeholders.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the steps to have effective meetings?
(Hints:
planning – why -what type – who – where - when –
notice-agenda-minutes - follow-up)
2.
How did
Kite Ventures remain productive even without conducting meetings?
(Hints: relationship
with stakeholders –
open communication in
real time –
empowering to
perform)
Course Reference: Concept- Effective Meetings /Unit 7-Group Communication/Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Edward
Shenderovich, “Managing a 250000000 company without meetings”, www.knote.com,
December 2014
ii. Marie
Ashley Kummerlowe, “Forbes identifies Russia‟s top 10 venture capitalists”,
www.ewdn.com, October
2013
iii. Edward
Shenderovich, www.crunchbase.com
iv. Kite
Ventures, www.kiteventures.com
Other Keywords: Business Communication, External and Internal Communication, Group
communication
14
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8 |
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Transformation of Bill Gates’
communication skills |
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Bill Gates, Co -founder of
Microsoft, was known as a philanthropist, investor, computer programmer and an inventor. The American business magnate was
consistently considered in the Forbes list of the world‘s
wealthiest people. He stepped
down as Chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 and took a new role as a
Technology Advisor to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella.
People observed a radical
transformation in the presentation skills of Bill Gates after he stepped down
from the post of CEO. Bill Gates had become a persuasive speaker who could
handle complex subjects in a clear and concise way. A lot of change was
observed from 2006 when he left his day-to-day functions at Microsoft to
concentrate more on the Bill & Melinda Gates Charity Foundation. He wanted
to connect to the common people by simplifying subjects like poverty,
healthcare and childhood mortality by communicating in a comprehensible way. He
also wanted to grab the attention and persuade the stakeholders to take action
or donate part of their wealth for the greater good.
An effective communication strategy that Bill Gates
employed for communicating through the Foundation was the rule of 3:
·
Writing skills – focus on the issues of poverty, foreign aid and philanthropy – Title: „3 myths that
block the progress for the poor‟:
poor countries are doomed to stay poor, foreign aid is a big waste, saving
lives lead to overpopulation. Impact was the letter garnered millions of views
on TV and social media. In a 2-minute
video on the website, Bill Gates described ‗How the world has
·
improved since 1960‘ using simple circular drawings to illustrate
complex issues.
Speaking skills – don‘t overload the listeners with
too much information – 3 ideas are enough to
·
support
an argument, to remember, and feel overwhelmed.
Presentation
skills – use live
props to make the talk memorable, photographs on slides and context from statistics – for a concrete, unexpected, humorous, interesting, engaging,
passionate and concise (20 minutes) message.
O He used a jar of live mosquitoes to drive home the point on ‗Mosquitoes,
Malaria, and
Education‘. In another talk on energy crisis, Bill Gates
brought fireflies as examples to
demonstrate the gimmicks that people offered as
solutions.
O For a
presentation on global warming, entitled ‗Innovating to zero‘, his slides
contained the right
balance of words and pictures –for
example he had used real photographs of poor children from an African village.
O For a talk on percentage of kids completing high
school in US, he linked the actual context to the statistics.
Bill Gates developed the art of
delivering memorable and engaging speeches in a limited time frame uniquely and
not by selling ideas through facts and figures. He built anticipation among the
audience, made it easy for everyone to see, explained the relevance, brought
the attention of the audience to the real issues, and used live demonstrations
to drive home the point in an easy way. Bill Gates proved that a mediocre
presenter was now evolved into a persuasive presenter.
‘Speeches’ are given either to inform, persuade or to
entertain in both public and private communication. A specific speech
concentrates on one central idea, is clear and concise and obtains the desired
action from the audience. Bill Gates knew that to inform, inspire and educate he
should address the complex problems in a simple, visual and compelling way.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the requirements that a specific speech should meet?
(Hints:
central idea - clear and concise –
desire action from the audience)
2.
How did
Bill Gates radically transform as a persuasive communicator for the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation?
(Hints:
focus on issues – direct connect
with audience – 3 ideas principle – live props – slide management)
15
Course Reference: Concept- Speech purposes, Specific /Unit 8 –Making Presentations –
Getting Started/Subject-Business Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Carmine
Gallo, “How Bill Gates transformed his public speaking and communication
skills, www.forbes.com,
July 2014
ii. Andrew
Dlugan, “How to choose and use speech props: A speaker‟s guide”,
sixminutes.dlugan.com, August 2013
iii. “Is Bill
Gates a great speaker”, www.confidentvoice.com, September 2014
Other Keywords: Business
Communication, Public Speaking, Presentation Skills
16
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9 |
|
Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule
for presentation |
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Guy
Kawasaki, an author, speaker, investor and business mogul, became the chief
evangelist of a Sydney-
based company called Canva, an
online graphic designs service company in 2014. He had also worked with Apple
and Google. He has authored more than 10
books, out of which ‗The Art of the Start‘ and ‗Enchantment – The art of changing hearts, minds, and actions‘ were
quite popular.
Guy Kawasaki, a sought-after speaker, brought a
combination of experience, great content and a fabulous engaging style through his ‗zen approach‘ in presentations. The ‗Kawasaki
rule of ten‘, a trademark to his speeches
and the ‗10/20/30 rule‘ for PowerPoint presentations became a kind of standard.
According to him,
|
this
rule worked for any presentation; for raising capital, making a sale or
forming a partnership. |
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· |
10 slides:
A normal human being cannot understand more than 10 concepts in a
presentation. For |
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example; a venture capitalist
pitch contained topics like problem, your solution, business model, |
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|
technology, marketing,
competition, team, projections and milestones, status and timeline and call |
|
· |
for action. |
|
20 minutes: The explanation for the 10 slides was
completed in 20 minutes. He stressed
each idea |
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on the slide as required. Guy remained the focus,
not the slides – which only
complemented his |
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speech and aided in audience
retention of the key points. He captivated the audience through his |
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· |
charishma and sheer knowledge
on the topic. He used the remaining time for discussion. |
|
30-point font size: His slide contained only one
concept and visuals. He argued that if more text is |
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put on the slide, the audience
figures out the content and the speaker loses synchronization with the |
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audience. He also said if content is used more on
the slides, the presenter is either unaware of the |
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|
content or they think more content convinces the
audience; which is untrue. |
The
structure Guy Kawasaki followed not only enchanted his audience but gave
something meaningful to
|
them. |
Apart from following the 10/20/30
rule he: |
|
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|
· |
Customized the introduction (when he had to give
a talk to LG people, he had used the picture of |
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|
· |
his LG washing machine and his
sons in the introduction slide). |
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Personalized his talk by beginning with a genuine
Duchenne smile (created a spark of confidence |
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· |
and joy). |
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Dressed in formal attire (built
a good first impression). |
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· |
Told a story and brought relevance to his
products (emotionally engaged his audience on how these |
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· |
products and services enable
the world to be a better place) |
|
|
Explained the salient points through context
(instead of mentioning the gigabytes for storage, he |
|
linked with the number of songs/documents/photos
that can be stored).
Well-known presenters like Steve
Jobs, Warren Buffet, Howard Schultz, and Chris Anderson always took care to
speak with enthusiasm, passion and interest; structure their presentation
logically to make it appropriate, memorable and influential but not to distract
or confuse or lose rapport with the audience.
‘Organizing a presentation’ allows the speaker to combine his ideas to suit the
audience and achieves the purpose of speech. Visual ideas
complement the speech and the right medium should be selected based on the size
of the audience. As per Guy Kawasaki, the influence of a presentation is 7%
words, vocal input 38% and visuals 55%.
Discussion
Questions
1.
Visual aids increase the audience‘s ability to absorb and remember information. Justify
(Hints: grasp data and complex info – road map to audience – right medium – variety – save time)
2.
Explain how you would employ Guy Kawasaki‘s
10/20/30 rule of presentation on a topic chosen by you.
(Hints: 10 slides information –
20 minutes speech preparation –
30-point font size and visuals) Course Reference: Concept- Visual Aids /Unit 9 –Organizing
and Presenting the Speech/Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Guy
Kawasaki, “The 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint”, www.guykawasaki.com, December 2005
ii. “Guy
Kawasaki – Presenter extraordinaire”, presentationzen.blogs.com, September 2005
iii. Claudio
Sennhauser,“Guy Kawasaki explains How to enchant an audience”, sennhauser.com,
April 2011
iv. “Power
point with no „power‟ and little point”, www.businesstrainingdirect.co.uk
Other Keywords: Business
Communication, Public Speaking, Presentation Skills
17
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10 |
|
P&G’s CEOs’ letters to the
employees |
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Procter & Gamble, an 1837
company with headquarters in Ohio, Cincinnati, recorded $83.1 billion in sales
in 2014 and announced removing of 100 of its brands to concentrate on the remaining
80 brands that brought
95% of
the company‘s profits.
Bob McDonald, the earlier CEO
dissatisfied the investors and analysts due to declining profits. He was asked
by the investors to cut overhead expenditure and improve manufacturing
productivity which resulted in a $10 million cost-cutting campaign and
elimination of 6250 office jobs. His over-aggressive plan tightened the
operations in emerging markets and concentrated on those 40 products that
brought majority of profits. The result was low sales in the first three
quarters of 2013. Bill Ackman an activist investor with
$1.8 million stake in P&G, started to urge the
company that Bob McDonald had been given a few quarters to prove himself and a quarter of the CEO‘s time was wasted in serving various
corporate boards. His argument
was to
re-assign A G Lafley the post of CEO because during his reign as CEO from 2000 – 09, he was
instrumental in building the beauty business,
acquiring Gillette for $53 billion in 2005, launching successful products like Swiffer and Febreze and
expanding business in emerging markets. Bill Ackman‘s campaign
was successful and the Board appointed A.G Lafley
as the new CEO replacing Bob McDonald in May 2013.
The contents of Bob McDonald‟s parting letter to
his staff after having served P&G for 33 years by addressing them as
„P&G friends‟ included:
·
His
retirement from P&G which was a difficult decision but taken for the best
interests of the
·
Company.
His thankful
gesture to A.G Lafley, with whom he
had collectively worked to strengthen the
·
company
and its business.
He, facing distractiondue to high focus and
attention from the management and investors; wanted a
·
dynamic
change.
Thanked the staff for all the
accomplishments during the previous four years in expanding business in new
geographies, categories, and launching innovations which brought an excess of
40% in sales
·
and 45%
in volume.
The confidence he had in his staff and his
availability if required in the future.
A. G Lafley after being appointed the new CEO of
P&G in May 2013 also wrote a letter to the ‗P&Gers‘ –
The contents were
·
He was
looking forward to
work with them
again in what
the company does
best – to win
·
customers.
Thanked Bob McDonald for his 33 years of service to
the company, his leadership, his passion for
·
doing
what he thought was right in improving the lives of customers all over the
world.
Thanked the staff for their work
in winning customers and assured them on future growth strategies to speedily
strengthen the core market, maintain strong momentum, develop a strong
innovation
·
pipeline,
save on costs and drive results.
He insisted that every P &
Ger was an owner and a leader; with innovation as their lifeblood; who worked
as one team with one dream of collaborating internally and competing
externally; which
·
built
brands that improved consumer lives.
He requested the cooperation from the P & Gers
for the days ahead.
P&G‘s
management believed that A.G
Lesley would further improve the
company‘s performance by implementing productivity plans and facilitating
further succession processes.
Businesses
need to communicate with their
customers, suppliers and business partners to conduct business; more often in the written form like letters. The writer should have a good knowledge of the subject,
clear purpose, and target audience. A G Lesley, the new CEO wanted to convey in
his letter on his plans to streamline the organization into a much simpler,
less complex company of leading brands which could be better operated and
managed.
18
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the steps that a writer should follow before drafting business letters?
(Hints:
understand the target audience –
organize the type of message – ‗You‘
attitude - deductive pattern)
2.
Read Bob McDonald‘s and A G Lafley‘s letter points
and compare on how they have organized the message.
(Hints:
central idea and minor ideas –
sequencing – interpretation – reception and action)
Course Reference: Concept-Business Letters/Unit 10–Letter Writing: Writing about the
Routine and the Pleasant / Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Jeremy
Bogalsky, “Congrats, Bill Ackman: Bob McDonald out of P&G, A.G.Lafley
returning as CEO,” www.forbes.com, May 2013
ii.
Jim Edwards, “P&G CEO Bob
McDonald Steps Down After Pressure From Bill-Ackman, Activist Investor”, www.businessinsider.in, May 2013 for full text of the letters
iii. Ellen
Byron and Joann.S. Lublin, Embattled P & G Chief replaced by old boss. www.wsj.com,
May 2013
iv. P&G
india, www.pg.com
Other Keywords: Written
Communication, Business letters
19
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11 |
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Flipkart’s apology letter to
customers |
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Flip kart, a leading e-commerce
website, launched in 2007, headquartered in Bangalore, started by Sachin Bansal
and Binny Bansal sold 20000 products in 70+ categories in 2014. With 20000
employees, 26 million registered users and 8 million daily page visitors, the
company with 13 state-of-the-art warehouses, and technology that enabled 5
million shipments per month became the first billion dollar company in
e-commerce valued at $12 billion.
On 6th October 2014 after the ‗The Big
Billion Day Sale‘, Flip kart claimed it created a history in e-commerce by selling products worth Rs. 650
crore on a single day. Though the sale led to the company‘s
cash registers ringing, it was a PR nightmare for
the website as its servers crashed due to the pressure of heavy customer
traffic followed by random errors. The
company‘s hard-won reputation on good customer service suffered as the customers faced technical problems in placing
orders on the company‘s website.
Angry reactions and
disappointment on pricing and availability of products, time taken to complete
orders after adding items on the cart were written on social media pages. The
apology letter by the founders is discussed below:
·
The text of apology began with ‗Dear Customer‘, saying that the Big
Billion Day was conducted to be a
pleasant day for both; the company and the customers but turned out to be
unpleasant. The
·
company
could not live-up to its promises and was truly apologetic.
The second para consists of the
preparation and pain-staking efforts made by the employees of Flipkart over
several months to work beyond their capabilities and systems to fulfil the
dreams of
·
millions
of customers to offer the best deals, offers and discounts.
The third para highlights the unprecedented
interest of the customers for which the company was
|
|
ineffectively prepared as they
did not expect the event to happen in such a large scale. The |
|
|
company failed to cater to the customer‘s requirements as
it could not source enough products and |
|
|
inform
the deals in
advance. The servers
crashed and impacted
the customers‘ shopping |
|
· |
experience. |
|
The fourth para points out that 1.5 million
people shopped on that day; and the company felt |
|
|
|
astounded by the customer‘s faith but was unhappy to
cater to the expectations of a few millions of |
|
· |
customers. |
|
The fifth para informs the priority of the
company since its inception was to delight and win the |
|
|
|
trust of
each and every customer but failed the trust on the Big Billion Day. They conveyed that the |
|
|
company learnt valuable lessons and would work
doubly hard to address all the issues that occurred |
|
· |
during the sale. |
|
In the next four paras, the letter focused on the
major issues faced by the customers and the |
|
|
|
company‘s
promise to address each one of them, which were: |
|
|
O Price changes
– Undiscounted rates
were observed for
a few hours which
made the |
|
|
customers lose trust. |
|
|
O Out-of-stock issues – Some
products ran out-of-stock in a few seconds of the sale going |
|
|
live. Though the
company had made
arrangements for a few lakh
units for various |
|
|
products – the demand was much higher than the supply. |
|
|
O Cancellations – Large
number of people buying specific products simultaneously which |
|
|
led to over-booking. |
|
|
O Website issues – Unavailability
and errors on the website. The company
had installed |
|
|
5000 servers and had prepared
for 20 times the traffic growth; the volume of the traffic |
|
· |
was on a much higher scale. |
|
The closing para emphasizes that Flipkart‘s achievements
were only due to the customer‘s faith and |
|
|
|
trust and would work
incessantly to provide the best possible customer experience. The letter |
|
|
closes with their failure to match up to their
promises on the Big Billion Day and apologies to each |
|
|
and every customer. |
Flipkart,
considered the destiny child of India‘s e-commerce industry attempted to create frenzy to attract new customers and make the existing
customers buy more; but poor strategic and operational incompetence left the
company red-faced and got battered in social networks, which prompted the
company to issue an open letter immediately on the next day.
20
A business may lead to unpleasant situations, wherein a skilful
manager should handle well in communicating
through diplomacy and tact without evoking negative feelings but leading to
their cooperation. In the case
mentioned above, flip kart‟s letter emphasizes the need to maintain a positive
tone, by presenting facts and reasons with realistic explanations.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What
steps should a manager take while conveying unpleasant news?
(Hints:
empathy – sequence of ideas – style of approach - buffer – inductive approach – persuade)
2.
Flipkart‘s letter follows the inductive approach in
conveying the inconvenience caused to the customers. Explain.
(Hints:
positive tone – buffer statement – facts, reasons – realistic explanations - persuasion)
Course Reference: Concept-Writing for the Reader/Unit 11–Writing about the
Unpleasant /Subject-Business Communication
and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. RanjitBehera, “Does Flipkart‟s Big Billion Day Sale disaster mark the
biggest tipping point in Indian e-commerce?” www.linkedin.com, October 2014
ii. Anupam
Saxena, “Flipkart apologizes to customers for mega sale glitches”,
timesofindia.indiatimes.com, October
2014 for full text of letter
iii. Ravijot
Singh, “Open letter to the Flipkart Bansals, missionsharingknowledge.com,
October 2014
iv. Ashish
Magotra, “ Flipkart‟s heart-felt apology is too little too
late”, tech.firstpost.com, October 2014
Other Keywords: Written
Communication, Business letters
21
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12 |
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Satya Nadella’s email to
Microsoft employees |
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Satya Nadella was appointed as
the third CEO of Microsoft in February 2014. On 8th October
2014, Satya Nadella wrote an email to Microsoft employees (with the subject
line: Empowering others) about his imminent participation at the annual Grace
Hopper Conference with hundreds of Microsoft employees and 8000 female
engineers to learn, to listen and to inspire talented female engineers to
continue to pursue their
careers in technology and try to
make valuable connections with potential candidates for Microsoft. He also informed about the interview that he would
face with Marie Klawe, a member of Microsoft‘s Board of
Directors and President of Harvey Mudd College on
the discussion of women in technology.
During the interview, Marie Klawe
posed a question to Satya Nadella on what would be his advice to women who were
interested in career advancement but were uncomfortable in asking promotions or
pay
raises. Nadella answered that his thoughts on the
matter were based on a discussion he had with former Microsoft executive, Mike Maples that all HR systems were ―long-term
efficient and short-term inefficient‖.
It was unnecessary to ask for the
raise as the system took care of it and that women should embrace their
superpowers and expect a raise from good karma. A person who turned out to be
trustworthy and efficient in the long-term would definitely be given additional
responsibility. Klawe disagreed and replied that she always felt discomfort
while asking things for herself, but was much better in rewarding people who
worked for her. She continued saying that he should do some homework on what a
reasonable salary was if offered a job and sit down with a trusted person and
practice negotiating the salary he felt he deserved. This was received with
much applause from the audience.
Nadella‘s
swift answer to Marie Klawe‘s question triggered a lot of storm in Twitter.
Lauren Schaefer, an
IBM software engineer who was at the Hopper
conference tweeted that there were a lot of murmurs in the crowd about Satya Nadella‘s statement -―If you don‘t ask for a raise, then you would get a fair pay.‖ Many
people cited the study by the
American Association of University Women about how women earn 78% of what
equally qualified men are paid for. Anonymous employees of Microsoft reiterated
that a senior software development male engineer earned $137000 per year as
compared to $129000 earned by a woman in the same position at Microsoft.
Nadella
immediately wrote in Twitter that he was inarticulate while answering the
question and the industry
should try to minimize the gender
gap with no bias. He then wrote in the Microsoft website that his answer to Marie Klawe‘s question was completely
wrong and he wholeheartedly supported programs at Microsoft
and the industry that brought
more women into technology and closed the pay gap. He further elaborated
that he believed that men and women should get
equal pay for equal work and if they feel deserved for a raise, then they should follow Marie Klawe‘s advice and just ask for
the raise. Satya Nadella closed the letter
by writing that he learned a
valuable lesson at the Conference and was ready to answer any questions during
their monthly Q&A session with the Microsoft employees.
Marie
Klawe, who later attended an interview with E-Commerce Times told that Nadella
was concerned
about improving women in tech
careers as evidenced with his answers for the remaining interview questions but
failed only on that question. It also
proved Satya Nadella‘s good intentions through his apology
statements made after their speech.
Persuasive
writing is used to gain support
of colleagues favorably without using force. Persuasive letters adopt
an inductive approach and follow the AIDA model. In the case of Satya Nadella‟s
letter, it was
shorter, written inductively with the aim to
convince and get a favorable response from his employees.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What is
the basis of writing persuasive messages?
(Hints:
organizing the message –AIDA model – convince the readers with evidence)
2.
Discuss
how Satya Nadella responded persuasively after he realized that he was wrong
while answering an interview?
(Hints:
purpose of writing – target audience
– what results was expected – convince the readers)
22
Course Reference: Concept-The Basis of Persuasive Sales Messages/Unit 12–Writing
to persuade/Subject-Business Communication
and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Amit
Chowdary, “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella apologizes for comments on women‟s pay”,
www.forbes.com,
October 2014
ii. Chitra
Nayak, “Don‟t ask for a raise, trust karma”, www.linkedin.com, October, 2014
iii. Microsoft
News Center, “Satya Nadella email to employees: Re: Grace Hopper Conference”,
news.microsoft.com,
October 2014 for full text of the
letters
iv. Gregg Keizer, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella backs off „karma‟ advice to
women about pay”, www.computerworld.com, October 2014
v. Mike Snider and Elizabeth Weise, “Clamor continues over Microsoft CEO‟s
women‟s pay comments, www.usatoday.com, October 2014
Other Keywords: Written
Communication, Business letters, Persuasive Communication
23
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13 |
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McKinsey’s expectation of a résumé |
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McKinsey, became a successful
global firm, because of its reputation, people, 17000 consultants and 50% of
MBA professionals. Talented freshers who possessed problem-solving skills,
intellectual curiosity, business knowledge and experience in a sector or a
function were preferred for the positions of Associates, Generalists or
Practice Consultants in the fields of consulting, research & analytics,
digital & data services and internal services where their leadership skills
and capabilities gets polished. Every year, the company reviewed thousands of
résumés from the top MBA colleges to maintainsufficient numbers in the company.
An objective and consistent, highly qualitative
process was followed for the résumé reviews from time to time ·which
included the following steps:
Step1: Résumés‘ got dropped – during the
‗fall‘ season (June to August) for full-time hires. It was
·
observed
that more than 50% of the class of top business schools in USA dropped résumés.
Step 2: Résumés‘
reached Reviewers – the résumés‘ were assigned in batches; usually to
a pair of
·
consultants who scored the
résumés‘ individually and then compared
results and calibrated.
Step3: Résumés‘ read
and scored - résumés‘ were scored
based on a standardized framework on a scale
of 0 – 4. A rubric was used that
clearly defined objective criteria and examples to provide a
·
score on
each dimension. (For example: the score for leadership experience could be 3)
Step 4: Résumé scores compared - Every reviewer compared scores with hispartner
to confirm that
they were well – calibrated. For any deviation,
the rubric was
again used as
a guide and
·
recalibration
done.
Step 5: Résumé review meeting held – The
scores were submitted to the recruiting team to stack them from the highest to the lowest score. A review meeting via a
conference call was made to shortlist
candidates to be invited for the interview. Candidates with highest scores were
‗clear passes‘ for whom the
interview invitation was sent and candidates with lowest scores were ‗clear
turndowns‘
for whom the interview invitation was not considered. 80/20 rule was applied in
most of the cases to discuss
candidates who stood in the middle of the stack.
A candidate was expected to have knowledge of how
scores were awarded if he drops his résumé ta McKinsey:·
Listing down his significant achievements; For
example: President of a consulting club, owner of a start-up company, a summer
internship at a brand-name firm, inventor of a new technology, or PhD
·
in a new
emerging field.
Not using the words
‗structure‘, ‗credibility‘, or ‗credentials‘ – reviewers‘ attention was
received when written about a real-life
problem faced and the ‗structured‘ approach taken or best practices adopted to solve it; a ‗credible‘
internship at a Fortune 500 company or having participated in a non-profit
volunteer program; ‗credentials‘
like MBA degree from Harvard, a Fulbright scholarship
·
winner,
Olympic medal, merit awards and industry accolades were given points.
Highlighting adaptability and eagerness to work cross culturally, language
skills and international
·
experience
Structuring the entire résumé in black and white
and restricting it to one page withcontext and
·
impact
with not too many bold, italics fonts or confusing formatting techniques.
Emphasizing his knowledge in specialization subjects and the general subjects.
A‟ résumé’is a summary of one‟s academic profile, work history that also
reflects one‟s personality and creates
the first impression about the person. In the above case since résumé screening
was usually qualitative and was prone to subjectivity, McKinsey trained
consultants to review résumés by applying objective criteria, standardized
scales, and scoring rubrics and thus minimize subjectivity.
Discussion
Questions
1. What care
should be taken while planning and structuring a résumé?
(Hints: Concise; easy to
read; error free; formatting; visually appealing; chronological /functional/
skills based)
2. In McKinsey, the résumé review is done based on therésumé‘s content? What does the résumé content consist of? (Hints: Heading–Career goals and objectives–Education–Work Experience–Achievements- Honours)
Course Reference: Concept- Content of the résumé /Unit 13– Communication for
Employment - Résumé /Subject-Business Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i.
Working with McKinsey,
workingwithmckinsey.blogspot.in, March 2013
ii. “Careers
MBA”, www.mckinsey.com
Other Keywords: Résumé,
Written communication
24
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14 |
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An application letter to an
investment banking company |
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Moneywise, an investment banking
company evolved the entire spectrum in the global banking and financial
services; introduced the concept of relationship banking and was known for
doing business in a highly efficient way. It turned out to be an industry
leader with assets of worth more than $2 billion, 40000 employees, 45 offices
worldwide and was one of the most admired companies in the world for some
years.
The
company‘s commitment to the employees‘ success and growth was based on development, accomplishment, association, obligation and conviction; they
preferred employees who can design their
career by taking new opportunities, utilizing their
potential, accepting challenges, innovating, showing dedication and trustworthiness. Every year, the end of January was the
deadline for candidates to ‗drop‘
their applications for both internship and full-time
opportunities.
George, an American University
student forwarded a cover letter to this investment bank which got noticed by a
dozen other investment banking companies. George was a triple major in
Economics, Mathematics and Computer Science which looked impressive but had
applied with a terrible six- paragraph long application letter. It contained
sentences like:
·
―Once I realized I could achieve a perfect GPA while holding a part-time job at the university, I decided
to redouble my effort by placing out of two classes, taking two honors classes,
and holding
two part-time jobs. That semester I achieved a
3.93, and in the same time I managed to bench double my bodyweight and do 35
pull-ups.‖ – lacked focus,
conciseness, displayed a casual
·
approach
and an arrogant tone.
―In fact,
one of the supporting reasons I chose Investment Banking over any other
division was that I know it is difficult. I hope to augment my character by
diligently working for the professionals at another company, and I feel I have much to offer in return.‖ –stated
another company, indicated cut
·
and paste option, more of „I‟
attitude and not on what he can contribute to
the firm.
―In fact, my most recent employer has found me so
useful that he promoted me to a Research
Assistant and an official CTED intern. This role is
usually reserved for Masters Students, but my
employer gave the title to me so that he could give me more work.‖
–
commented on another · employer, awkward phrasing, unprofessional letter
writing, careless and sloppy.
―Please realize that I am not a braggart or
conceited, I just want to outline my usefulness. Egos can be a huge liability, and I
try not to have one.‖ – bad closing where the candidate tried to justify
himself.
George‘s
application was rejected by Moneywise and also did not disclose the reasons for
the rejection.
An ‘application letter’ must
arouse the employer‟s interest in the résumé and improve the chances of
being
called for a personal interview. An application letter should be written from a
reader‟s point of view by following the „YOU‟ attitude and convincing the reader
on being fit for the job. In this case, Moneywise required an application letter to
contain the candidates‟ interested business area and
reasons for choosing, right
contact details, clarity and conciseness, the qualities that distinguish from
others, indication of teamwork, interpersonal skills, drive and creativity, no
copy and paste and the motivation for applying for the post.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the qualities of a well-written Application letter?
(Hints: The ‗You‘ attitude – length – addressed to person and not to title – knowledge of employer and job needs)
2.
What
things should the candidate mention while writing an application letter for
Moneywise?
(Hints: interested business area and why – correct contact details – clear and concise – exceptional
qualities –
soft skills – motivation for
applying for the company)
Course Reference: Concept- Qualities of well-written application letters /Unit 14–Writing for employment – Application Letter/Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Other Keywords: Written
Communication, Cover letters, HRM
25
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15 |
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Jeff Bezos unique method to
obtain business discipline |
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Amazon Inc, an American
e-commerce company, founded in 1994, headquartered in Seattle, USA became the
largest internet based retailer across 15 countries in 2014. It was started as
a bookstore and later diversified into music, video games, software, apparel,
electronics, furniture, food, toys and jewellery. The company, a major
cloud-service provider manufactured Kindle e-book readers, Fire tablets, TV and
phone.
The
company‘s revenue stood at US$88.98 billion in 2014.
Jeff Bezos, founder, CEO and
Chairman of Amazon ranked 17th in the Forbes Billionaires list - 2014, known for
his attention to details took an old approach to manage his company – ‗write it down‘. In
executive meetings at Amazon,
even before any discussion or conversation began, everyone had to read 6-page
printed memos in complete silence for 30 minutes. Jeff Bezos believed that
reading together in the meeting helped in gaining undivided attention to each
of the issues that required innovative thinking. The
preparation of the memo started
with the author who was forced to think hard on what to write in the memo. In the words of the CEO, ―There is no way
to write a six-page narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.‖
The ·narrative memo consisted of at least 4 elements:
· the context or question
· approaches
to answer the question (by whom, which method, and their conclusions)
· the attempt of answering the question
different or same from previous approaches
The author was thus forced to
think of tough questions, devise the memo to get clear and persuasive answers
that would be interpreted through the structure and logic in the entire
process. The end result expected would be the resolution of conflicts, happy
endings for the company through innovative solutions and satisfied customers.
Andy Grove, CEO of Intel also
approved of this management approach followed at Amazon, as he felt that the
author was compelled to write precisely and thus effectively communicated which
would not have been possible if he had verbally communicated. He considered the
process of writing as a medium of business discipline than just a way used to
communicate information. His ultimate conviction was - writing the report was
important, reading it often was not.
Imposing
employees ‗to write down‘ by these two CEOs turned self-discipline and personal reflection as a distributive process. Reflection led
to feedback which was rather scarce in the workplace but became an integral
component to improve quality and action. Reports that encouraged in bringing
reflection helped each individual autonomously to gain expertise in his job,
share, collaborate and lead at work.
A memo is a written message to
provide personnel in an organization with a quick and effective way of
communicating with each other. A persuasive
memo has to be worded carefully to obtain desired action. Memos can be
written through both deductive and inductive approach depending on the purpose.
In the case mentioned above, Jeff Bezos has outlined 4 elements that brought
focus and direction, and in narratively writing a memo which normally consisted
of 6 pages.
Discussion
Questions
1.
How
should a persuasive memo be written?
(Hints:
inductive approach – positive tone
and language – clear and logical – tact – well worded)
2.
What were
the fundamentals of effective memos being followed at Amazon?
(Hints:
formally written – well organized – clear – persuasive)
Course Reference: Concept- Persuasive Memos /Unit 15– Writing effective
memos/Subject-Business Communication and
Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Walter
Chen, “Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos‟s peculiar management tool for business discipline,
www.linkedin.com,
July 2014
ii. Adam
Lashinsky, “Amazon‟s Jeff Bezos: The ultimate disrupter”, www. Fortune.com,
November 2012
iii.
http://www.amazon.com/
Other Keywords: Written
Communication
26
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16 |
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An open letter by Starbucks
CEO |
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Starbucks Coffee Company, an
American global coffee company, with more than 21000 stores across 66 countries, started its operation in 1971 at
Seattle‘s Pike Place Market. Starbucks product range included
more than 30 blends and
single-premium coffees, hand crafted beverages like Frappuccino coffee,
merchandize like mugs and accessories, fresh foods like sandwiches and salads,
and various consumer products of coffee and tea under the branded names VIA,
Teavanna, Tazo Starbucks Doubleshot and many more. The company maintained
highest standards of quality as it employed ethical standards while sourcing
coffee from farms in Latin America, Africa and Asia that brought out the rich
flavor and balance of the beans through their signature Starbucks Roast.
Howard D
Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, normally considered as a progress agent faced
pressure when gun
control advocates chose Starbucks as a meeting spot
for pro-gun rallies on August 9th, 2013 which was known as
―Starbucks Appreciation Day‖. Gun activists, en-masse stormed the Starbucks
nationwide stores
in US with their weapons, posted hundreds of photos
on social media accompanied by captions of thanking the coffee chain to have supported the Second Amendment. This led to
customers‘ expressing their ire on the company‘s
Facebook wall. To control the damage in reputation, the billionaire Head, Mr.
Schultz, who did
not want
these events to
re-occur, wrote an
open letter to
Americans on September
17, 2013 asking
customers not to bring firearms
to the stores, even in those states where they were legally permissible. By
writing this letter, he risked incurring the anger of a larger segment of the
US population. The letter‘s
structural and content details are:
·
|
· |
The letter
began with the day and date – Tuesday, September 17, 2013 |
|
Salutation – Dear American Friends, |
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· |
Content contained in the 8 paragraphs - |
O Informed that Starbucks was being dragged in the
debate and requested the customers not to bring firearms into the stores or
outdoor seating areas.
O Explained the vision of the company and insisted
that the values of the company was on building community and not on dividing
people; and the store was meant to provide a safe and comfortable respite to
the customers, away from the concerns of daily life.
O Expressed that the company had listened to the
customers, partners, and community leaders
on the complicate issue of ―open carry‖ of guns.
O Confirmed that Starbucks allowed guns to be carried
only in those states where it was permissible and that approach was taken only
to avoid discomfort to the customers by being sent away. He stressed that the
gun policy should be addressed by the Government and law-enforcement agencies
and not the company.
O Reiterated that Starbucks was being used by pro-gun
activists as a political stage which portrayed
Starbucks as a champion of ―open carry‖ while in reality it was not.
O Underlined the 6th paragraph, requested the customers to no longer
bring guns to the stores and only law-enforcement personnel would be treated
exceptional.
O Clarified two points – the letter was a request not a ‗ban‘ and that they could not satisfy
everyone. He re-emphasized that Starbucks was a place to relax and enjoy and
the presence of guns was creating tension among the customers.
O Stated that he was proud of his country and its
culture of open debate where mutual respect and being responsible was
encouraged among citizens and neighbours.
·
Complimentary
Closing – Sincerely, Howard Schultz
The ‘structure of a letter’
creates a first impression on the reader. Good quality paper, personalization,
proper content placement and punctuation make the letter look professional. In
this case, StarBucks CEO follows the block format, closed punctuation, and the
standard letter parts like date, heading, salutation, body, complimentary
close, signature block and reference initials.
27
Discussion
Questions
1.
What do
you mean by punctuation styles and letter formats?
(Hints:
open, closed and mixed – block – modified block – simplified block)
2.
What are the standard letter parts observed in
Starbucks CEO‘s open letter?
(Hints: date –
heading – salutation – body – complimentary close –
signature block – reference
initials)
Course Reference: Concept- Standard Letter Parts/Unit 16– Structure and Layout of
letters/Subject-Business Communication
and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Clare O‟Connor, “Starbucks CEO Howard
Schultz tells customers to leave guns at home.” www.forbes.com,
September
2013
ii.
Joe Weisenthal, “Read the full
letter from the CEO of Starbucks asking customers to stop bringing guns into
stores, “www.businessinsider.in,
September 2013
iii. Howard
Shultz, “An open letter from Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks company”,
www.starbucks.com/blog/,
September
2013 for full text of the letter
iv. Starbucks
Company Profile, globalassets.starbucks.com, January 2015
Other Keywords: Written
Communication
28
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17 |
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How stress is affecting
America |
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National Public Radio and Harvard School of Public Health sponsored by
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conducted
a survey on ―The Burden of Stress in America‖ and the report was released
on July 4, 2014. The
survey was conducted to examine how stress affects
personal and professional lives, the perceived effects of stress and its
causes, and stress management techniques.
The methodology employed to conduct the survey was:
· The research team consisted of 5 professionals from Harvard School of Public Health, 3
·
professionals
from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and 2 from National Public Radio.
Interviews
were conducted by telephone
(both landline and mobile)
by SSRS of Media (PA)
·
between
March 5th and April 8, 2014 among a sample size of 2505
respondents of age 18 and older.
·
The interviews were conducted in
English and Spanish.
The margin of error was +/ - 2.4%
points at 95% confidence level. 633 revealed that they experienced a lot of
stress during the past one month where the margin of error was +/- 4.6% points
·
at 95%
confidence level.
Sample data was weighted by
household size, cell phone/landline use and demographics (gender, age, race/
ethnicity, education, marital status and census region) to compensate for
unresponse bias. Random digit dialing, replicate subsamples, and systematic
respondent selection within households were used to ensure that the sample was
representative.
The key findings were tabled as below:
·
Target
audience felt high levels of stress in the one month prior to the survey had
considerable impact on their lives:
O 49%, reported of the respondents
reported that they experienced major stress, of which
45% said the stress was caused by health problems,
54% on many overall responsibilities, 53% due to financial problems, 38%
because of their own health problems and 37% due to health problems of family
members.
O 63% felt bad effects on emotional well-being which was the most common
health problem, 56% had
sleep disorders, 50%
had difficulty in
thinking, concentrating and
making decisions, 53% experienced chronic health issues and stress
aggravated those symptoms
and 52% found it harder to manage their illness.
O 45% of them indicated that they found it harder to
get along with family members while 44% told that stress prevented them to
spend their time with family.
|
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O 41% said
stress made them
avoid taking additional
responsibilities that could
have |
|
· |
advanced
their career. |
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Stress management efforts taken
by those who experienced high levels of stress in the past one |
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month: |
O 9 out of 10 (94%) respondents said they spent most
of their time outdoors, 93% on hobbies, 71% spent more valuable time with their
family and friends, 57% said they managed stress through meditation and 55% ate
healthy food. Only 49% followed stress management techniques recommended by
experts; exercising and 46% reduced stress
levels by
getting a full night‘s sleep.
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, RWJF
president and CEO said that recognition of stress, its causes and effects could
help to create healthier environments at homes, workplaces and communities and
build a culture of health in America.
The ‘text of a report’
consists of the introduction, body which consists of sections that present,
analyze and interpret findings, recommendations and conclusions, and
bibliography. In the above case, the report concentrated more on the problem at
hand, conduction of survey, methodology adopted and survey findings .
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the basic elements of a report?
(Hints:
a letter of transmittal – title page
and title fly – abstract/ executive
summary – table of contents – list of illustrations – glossary – list of symbols –
appendix)
29
2.
What does
a report containing a survey or research concentrate on?
(Hints:
objectives/ problem – scope -
methodology - survey – limitations – key findings – presentation through data analysis and interpretation – recommendations – conclusions)
Course Reference: Concept- The Text of a Report/Unit 17– Framework of a
Report/Subject-Business Communication and
Soft Skills
Sources:
i. NPR/
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/ Harvard School of Public Health, “The Burden of
Stress in America”,
www.rwjf.org
, July 2014 for full text of the survey report
ii. “NPR/RWJF?HSPH
finds health most common major stressful event in Americans‟lives last year”, www.hsph.harvard.edu, July 2014
Other Keywords: Written
Communication, Report Writing
30
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18 |
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Survey Report – ‘Global
leadership Forecast – 2014/15’ |
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Development Dimensions International (DDI), was one of the top innovative talent management
consultancies, with objectives to transform the way
the companies, hire, promote and develop their leaders and workforce. DDI‘s ‗Center for Analytics and Behavioural Research‘ (CABER) in collaboration with
The
Conference Board, a global,
independent business membership and research association worked across three
main areas of Corporate
Leadership, Economy and Business Environment and Human Capital, released the „Global
Leadership Forecast – 2014/15‟ in December 2014.
The report included survey
responses from 13,214 leaders, 1528 global HR executives, and 2031
participating organizations. The leader demographics consisted of 4 leader
levels, both gender, 48 countries, 32 major industries, and multinationals vs
local corporations. The report also provided the insights for
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Indian
leaders which consisted of 836 leaders and 244 HR executives based on gender,
generation and leader |
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levels.
The report was divided into: |
|
|
· |
Table
of Contents - the
chapters and sub topics along with page numbers. |
|
· |
Introduction
and Problem Discussion: Present state
of the leaders and whether they are
able |
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to deliver: |
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|
O Brought
forth the top 4 leadership challenges and explained how leadership skills was |
|
|
critical in developing the human
capital apart from retaining, improving performance |
|
|
management processes
and accountability, leading
change and managing
complexity. |
|
|
‗Working
with the VUCA Vortex‘ mentioned that leaders lacked competencies to handle |
|
|
challenges like Volatility,
Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. |
|
|
O Discussed
on why the leadership development efforts failed, how millennial are moving
up |
|
|
the career ladder fast, the
presence of high quality leaders in India with many more ready |
|
|
to
handle leadership roles, retail and energy sectors required good quality
leaders and |
|
|
critical leadership skills like
risk taking, networking and generating new ideas were being |
|
· |
ignored. |
|
Discussion
on how the HR had evolved during recent times: |
|
|
|
O The
evolution of HR from a partner to an anticipator, how the HR can use big data
to |
|
|
provide big value and
leader-focused talent-development programs helped in balancing |
|
· |
both global and local
corporations. |
|
Suggestions
on how leaders can improve: |
|
|
|
O Leaders
learnt from on-the job: learning from others: formal learning with Indian
leaders |
|
|
having the ratio of
54:26:20. Three skills that leaders
developed as they grew were |
|
|
building consensus
and commitment, communicating and
interacting, and developing |
|
|
networks
and partnerships. The report emphasized that 72% of Indian organizations had |
|
· |
programs that identified and developed high
potential leaders. |
|
Reasons
for companies facing difficulties in enchasing leadership competencies |
|
|
|
O The leaders‘ time management in managing (33% in
India) than interacting and those |
|
|
companies
where leaders spent more time in interaction benefitted more. Leaders who |
|
|
viewed on-the-job learning more
like formal learning and formal learning like on-the-job |
|
|
brought more
leadership outcomes and
value to business.
The report mentioned
that |
|
|
companies who had women in
30 – 40% leadership roles benefitted and thus gender |
|
· |
diversity was also important. |
|
Recommendations
on the talent management practices that companies should employ |
|
|
|
O Developing
leaders internally provided leadership strength to the company along with |
|
|
three times improvement in
financial performance. The report conveyed that reviewing |
|
|
leadership
development plans and facilitating smooth transitions among leadership roles |
|
· |
benefitted the companies in a huge manner. |
|
Conclusion |
|
|
|
O Organizations
with highly developed leadership programs had 7.4 times quality leaders |
|
· |
who were engaged. |
|
Appendix |
|
O Demographics
considered for the survey.
31
‘Reports’ are business tools that assist managerial decision
making and problem solving. Writing a report includes four steps which
are defining the problem or purpose, identifying and organizing the issues for
investigation, conducting research, analyzing and interpreting data, drawing
conclusions and developing recommendations. In the case mentioned above, the
report is a long formal analytical external report with the structure following
the four steps in writing a report.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What is
the difference between an informational and analytical report?
(Hints:
objective information –
annual/personnel – attempts to solve
problems – feasibility/consumer
behaviour)
2.
Discuss
how the four steps in writing the report has been used in the case mentioned
above. (Hints: defining the purpose – identifying the issues – conducting research – analyzing and
interpreting data – recommendations –
conclusions)
Course Reference: Concept- Four steps in writing the report/Unit 18– Writing the
Report/Subject-Business Communication
and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. “CEOs‟
Top Challenge, Leaders aren‟t ready”, www.ddiworld.com, December 2014 for full text of the report
ii. “Global
Leadership forecast”, www.ddiworld.com/glf2014
Other Keywords: Written
Communication, HRM
32
|
|
19 |
|
Visually impressive Shopify’s
annual report |
|
|
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|
Shopify, a Canadian ecommerce
company, headquartered in Ottawa, began its online store in 2006 for
snowboarding equipment. Later the company developed computer software for
online stores and retail point-
of-sale systems. The company had
150,000 active stores with sales turnover of $7 billion in 2014. The company‘s CEO Tobias Lutke won ‗The Globe
and Mail‘ CEO of the year award in 2014.
A
company‘s annual report is used to highlight the milestones achieved during the
previous financial year and the
projections for the coming year. Usually an annual report is a huge document
with a lot of tables and figures. But now-a-days with more emphasis on creative
presentations, annual reports are being
uniquely designed using the right format to engage
the stakeholders and win loyal customers. Shopify is one such company which has presented its annual report in an
interactive way. Shopify‘s application of visual
|
aids in presenting the annual
report for 2013 is discussed below: |
|
|
· |
The heading of the annual report – 2013 Year in Review |
|
· |
Brief letter by the CEO highlighting the – |
|
|
O Achievements – over 80,000 of the world‘s best online stores
which sold a huge number of |
|
|
products and generated
record-breaking revenue. |
|
|
O USP – became
easier to create an online world, focused on including a physical store, and |
|
|
launched
Shopify payments, Shopify POS and Shopify mobile; distinct requirements to |
|
|
run an ecommerce business in
one amazing product where merchants sold their products |
|
· |
online, in-store and on the go. |
|
Accomplishments – interactive with info-graphics,
pictures, charts, geometrical figures throughout |
|
the document
O Sold $1.7 million worth of products in 121
countries worldwide having 81939 stores covering 62% of world domination
O 22.7 million Orders placed, 15 million published
products, 14.9 million customer accounts with at least 1 adult in every 9
adults in US having shopped from a Shopify store.
O Brands added to Shopify store like The Chive, Black
Milk Clothing, and Herschel
O 436, 494 million queries through Shopify reports,
4.7 million page views of their Ecommerce university.
O Increase in the
number of the experts‘ team to 620 people who received a 90.6% average
smiley rating and earning $18 million in contracts.
O 22083 phone support hours, 3.6 times more than in
2012.
O 449000 support tickets, 90.6% satisfaction rating
and 10,859 forum topics
O 271 new apps –
528 in total
O 84 new themes designed for the Theme Store, $2.14
billion paid to designers of these themes
O Month-wise accomplishments listed in their blog
posts
The annual report is so impressive that it compels
a customer to shop – which he can
actually do!
‘Visual aids’ clarify and simplify data and also is used to
summarize, reinforce, attract, impress and unify the content of a report. The
most common visual aids are charts, tables, flowcharts and images. In the case
mentioned above, the entire report has minimalist format with a lot of easily
comprehendible data, key information being presented interactively by a
combination of readable graphs, pictures, animations, images, in a
chronological pattern that keeps the audience engaged.
Discussion
Questions
1.
When are
visual aids used in a presentation?
(Hints:
strengthen the text –
clarifying/simplifying – engage readers
– reinforce/unify the content)
2.
What are
the multimedia applications used to present the annual report in the above
case?
(Hints: charts - pictures – still/ moving images –
animation – info graphics)
Course Reference: Concept- Selecting a suitable visual aid /Unit 19– Managing data and using
graphics/Subject-Business Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Ross
Crooks, “5 brands that nailed their annual reports”, www.forbes.com, September
2014
ii.
Shopify 2013 year in review,
www.shopify.com
iii. The first
shopify store was our own, www.shopify.com
Other Keywords: Written Communication/ Report writing
33
|
|
20 |
|
Good Grammar skills lead to
good income |
|
|
|
|
|
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|
Grammarly Inc,, a company whose main functions
included proofreading, plagiarism checks and verification of the writer‘s adherence to 250 grammar
rules, conducted a research study on 100 LinkedIn profiles of
native English speakers in the
consumer packaged goods industry who had not worked for more than three
employers in their 10-year work history, found that only half of them were
promoted to the director level. The main reason why the other half could not
move up their career ladder was that they made 2.5 times more grammatical
mistakes. It was also observed that professionals with 6 – 9 promotions made 45% fewer grammatical mistakes as compared to
those who had 1 – 4 promotions.
Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, wrote
in 2013 that he recruited candidates with good grammar skills as they led to
positive workplace traits. According to Brad Hoover, the CEO of Grammarly Inc.,
the positive traits
included attention to detail
(credibility, professionalism and accuracy), critical thinking (analyzing
complex problems) and intellectual
aptitude (like difference between its and it‘s/ there and their). For Chris
Aisenbrey, director of global
university relations at Whirlpool Corp, it was highly challenging to find MBA
candidates with good writing skills. He found application letters were
collections of incoherent thoughts,
with both typo and grammar
errors. The informal tone of the application letters made them look like that
the candidates‘ were writing to a friend
rather than a recruiter. However, there were no spelling errors seen
because of the availability of spell-check in
almost all software programs.
The ten most common grammatical
mistakes observed and the correct usage with the help of examples was provided:
|
Who, which and that |
There, their, and they’re |
|
Jairam was the one who wrote a good essay. |
There
are many issues
that need immediate |
|
Brendon
McCullum was the captain of the New Zealand team |
attention. |
|
that moved to the World Cup 2015 finals. |
It was their mistake, let them solve it
themselves. |
|
This is
the book which I choose to buy now. |
They‘re always complaining. |
|
Loose vs lose |
Anyone and any one |
|
The bolts on the tyres became loose and caused
the accident. |
Please use any one of those tools to repair it. |
|
I
somehow lose my files stored on the desktop. |
Did
anyone complete the project due next week? |
|
Your and you’re |
Affect and effect |
|
Your presentation was appreciated by the
authorities. |
Swine
flu has affected
nearly 2000 people
in |
|
You‘re going to work on the automation project. |
India. |
|
|
The
effect of the
new law banning
drunken |
|
|
driving
is welcome. |
|
Its and it’s |
Lay and lie |
|
The bird built its nest on the tree in our
garden. |
The children will lay their toys on the floor and |
|
It‟s a great
app that helps us to purchase books online. |
play. |
|
|
Let‘s lie down for two hours. We have to drive |
|
|
another 200Km. |
|
Then and then |
Who’s and whose |
|
I didn‘t take a loan then. |
Who‟s nominated
to be the project coordinator? |
|
The cost of petrol was cheaper than Rs. 75 a
liter. |
Whose assignments are these? |
‘Writing skills’ are important for managers to communicate both
internally and externally in an organization. Effective writing
skills include sentence structure, paragraphs, compositions, punctuation and
grammar skills. Effective grammar skills in writing persuasive emails, memos,
letters, sales pitches and business proposals help an employee to create an
impact and grow in an organization.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What do
you mean by punctuations? Name a few and explain their usage.
(Hints:
extract meaning – apostrophe – comma – full stop –
semicolon/colon)
2.
How do
good grammar skills help a professional lead to good income as per the above
case?
(Hints:
write effectively – communicate – complex issues in a easy way – attention to detail – critical thinking – intellectual aptitude)
34
Course Reference: Concept- Sentence Structure/Unit 20
– Review of writing
skills/Subject-Business Communication and
Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Cheryl
Conner, “Report: How grammar influences your income”, www.forbes.com, March
2013
ii. Ronald,
J. Aslop, “MBA Recruiters‟ No. 1 pet peeve: poor writing and speaking skills,
www.wsj.com, January
2006
iii.
“Study of LinkedIn profiles shows
those with fewer grammar mistakes get promoted more often”, www.transcriptionoutsourcing.net, May 2013
Other Keywords: Written
Communication
35
|
21 |
management |
|
|
Alan Mulally, ex CEO of Ford, envisioned Ford as a ―Mobility company‖ and not merely a car
company.
Mr. Alan R. Mulally served as the Chief Executive
Officer and President of Ford Motor Co. from September 1, 2006 to July 1, 2014.
During his tenure, mulally, mortgaged all of Ford‘s assets to avoid bankruptcy and transformed a languishing Ford to one of the world‘s most competitive
automakers once again. He masterminded and implemented the ―One Ford‖ plan
where all the components necessary for enterprise wide
innovation effort were integrated
and all of his employees were brought together as a global team to work on the
same agenda.ONE FORD model thrived on collaboration and efficiency.
Mulally emphasized working
together. He showed that each person and each constituency had a vested
interest in the success of Ford. He energized his workforce and obtained
sustained results. He inspired and enriched his team and stakeholders to come
together for something greater than them. .He defined the blueprint of success
and supported and drove the agenda with a continuous communication network
which bound his teams together and renewed and supported their commitments. He
instilled total teamwork, insisted on rigorous reliance of facts, supported
honest communication and forged a shared direction towards reaching the goals.
·
He implemented leadership meetings called ―business
plan review‖ every Thursday of the week to establish peer accountability system where each leadership team
presented a concise color coded update of their accomplishment of key company
goals.
·
All of his team members had a stake in the outcome
of Ford‘s operations including decision-making process by being involved and accountable and so problems were
discussed clearly and the whole team were enlisted to help find solutions.
·
He established an environment of ―working together‖
behaviours through One Ford plan, that enabled effective collaborative decision-making.
It took tremendous adjustments, work and attention
to create and sustain the alignment of Ford into one global team to ensure Ford‘s values were put to work
through the culture he instilled. He ensured a
consistency in the purpose of Ford across his
people thereby nurturing a cooperative environment that enabled employees to
collaboratively address problems at the earliest.
‘Effective managers’ exhibit qualities that build personal relationships
among employees; motivating them to achieve individual and
group goals. Alan Mulally demonstrated these characteristics at Ford.
Discussion
questions
1.
Why is
emotional intelligence at the workplace gaining importance in management? (Hints: emotions of
self-employees-managing-recruitment)
2.
What was
the biggest impact made by Alan Mulally among his people to turn around Ford?
(Hints:
employee emotion- involvement- participation- common agenda-support in work)
Course reference- Concept- Characteristics of effective managers/Unit 21-Managerial effectiveness-a conceptual framework/Subject-Business
communication and soft skills
Sources
i. Tony
Rutigliano, “ How to replicate Alan Mulally‟s corporate alignment success”,May
2014, www.executive.net
ii.
Sarah Miller Caldicott, “Why
Ford‟s Alan Mulally is an innovation CEO for the record books”,June 2014, www.forbes.com
iii. Chip
Conley, “The top 10 emotionally intelligent fortune 500 CEO‟s,” 03/08/2011,
www.huffingtonpost.com/
Other keywords: Effective management,
Emotional quotient of corporate leaders, People management
36
|
|
22 |
|
Well at Dell- Stress
management practices adopted in Dell |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michel Dell
started a new computer business in 1984 as PC‘s Limited and completed his IPO
in 1988 raising $30 million. Recording global sales of $ 56.9 billion, Dell
again became a private company in October 2013 which merged itself with Silver
Lake Partners. Dell valued its employees as their most crucial assets and
believed that their performance was dependent on them being healthy. Dell
launched a comprehensive health and wellness initiative, Well at Dell, to support the health and wellbeing of its team
members. The program focussed on holistic stress management and health
improvement among its workforce to enhance
their productivity through a single portal. Dell
encouraged healthy food choice in their cafeterias globally. It launched an initiative ―connected workforce‖,
encouraging working remotely to save commute time and
increase flexibility. Dell
promoted the practice of corporate yoga in their campus locations to combat
stress related health issues among its employees.
Dell also paid attention to
creating a physical environment in its campus locations that are stress
busters. Some of the stress management techniques adopted by Dell are-
·
Carefully
chosen wall colours with bright lighting
·
Special
events like food festivals at their cafeterias
·
Sufficient
number of bunks in resting areas to take short rests and television sets in
corridors
·
Quarterly
tours, gaming stations, sports like table tennis, cricket etc were maintained
·
Mentoring
the new recruits and helping them settle down
·
Best
performers were rewarded along with a party
Well at Dell, fostered a healthy
work environment, providing support to participants to access the right health
care resources at the right time, thereby ensuring team members health and
productivity. Dell team members and their families were encouraged to
participate in periodic wellness challenges where Dell
leaders and champions shared their success stories.
The program was designed to build camaraderie and enhance motivation supporting Dell team‘s health and wellbeing. Being
an integral component of Dell‘s overall healthcare strategy and important
component of Dell‘s business strategy, Well at Dell supported
company growth and feasibility.
The initiative helped the team to devote time to
health and family thereby creating better balance.
‘Work-life balance’ is crucial in determining the growth of a company
and the productivity of its employees, the benefits being
enjoyed by both, employer and the employee. By creating a healthy work environment at Dell, employees were able to manage
stress.
Discussion
questions:
1.
What are
the benefits and ways to achieve work-life balance in organizations?
(Hints:
vacations-wellness programs-flexi timings-physical environment-relationships)
2.
What are
the key initiatives adopted by Dell to maintain work-life balance among its
employees to maintain productivity?
(Hints: yoga-flexi timing-wellness
challenge-cafeteria-spouse support)
Course reference-Concept-work-life balance/Unit 22-Stress Management/ subject- Business
communication and soft skills
Sources
i. Prof.Jayanta
Banerjee, “Managing stress at work”, www.indianmba.com
ii. V Siva
Subramanian, Dr.Rajandran K.V.R,” Significance of Stress Free Environment for
Sustaining
iii.
Business in India”, Volume-3, Issue-11, Nov Special Issue -2014 • ISSN No 2277 – 8160, www.globaljournals.com
iv.
Tre‟McAlister,”Creating a Culture
of Health through Well at Dell”, A Work
& Life Integration Case Study for the Society of Women Engineers
(SWE), www.societyofwomenengineers.swe.org
Other Keywords: Stress
Management, HRM
37
|
|
23 |
|
Steve Job’s time management as
a leader at Apple |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Steve
Jobs, Apple co-founder and a tech visionary, implemented revolutionary
management philosophy.
Under his demanding leadership,
Apple pioneered and churned out stream of breakthrough products that made it
the most innovative company in the
world. He had the vision of ―a computer for the rest of us‖ that sparked the PC revolution and launched
Apple as the world‘s best and innovative brand.
Steve Jobs ensured that Apple
invested the time of its top talent strategically, which in turn accelerated
the speed of innovations at Apple. He micro managed his day by delegating work
and also being closely involved in scrutinizing their work to the perfection,
producing dramatic flawless results. He commanded attention to detail to ensure
superior performance. Steve communicated with his employees with subject line
STEVE REQUEST to solicit immediate attention. Steve Jobs was intensely focused
to take risky leaps as a tech innovator and leader. He had an effective modus
operandi and challenged his teams with deadlines, he envisioned and delivered
breakthrough products in a rapid fire way. Some of the effective time
management practices he imposed are-
·
Meetings
were as short as possible with focus, reviewing every single product under
development
·
and
ensured everybody stayed on the same page.
·
Avoided unnecessary board meetings and emphasized
only on short in-depth review meetings.HeensuredthatatApple,employeesdidn‘tstrayawayfromAppleandlimitedtheirextra-
·
curricular
activities.
Allocated
time considerably at Apple‘s industrial design‘s lab to understand specifically
where the product designs were heading,
where his company was spending its energy and how things were
·
connecting.
Delegated traditional duties of CEO to second in
command and eventual successors of his executive
·
team and
he focused at what he was best at –creating
products, recruiting etc.
Product was developed immediately after an idea
that got conceptualized which is why he sought
·
innovative
products even before customers realized they needed it.
Prudent in avoiding impositions
on his time and made it a culture among his team members to manage time
effectively by removing all the unnecessary, extraneous and value less activity
and stressed on ―focus‖.
He emphasized on a sense of urgency
that pushed Apple towards success though his management style and leadership
ways were considered eccentric and being brutally demanding and created a
compelling vision of what might be.
‘Effective Time management’ plays a vital role in the productivity of an
organization by identifying the priorities and time wasters.
Discussion
questions:
1.
How is
time management important in determining the productivity of an organization? (Hints: priorities-time
wasters-goals-action plans)
2.
One of
the key attributes of Steve jobs as leader of successful Apple is time
management. Explain.
(Hints: focus-avoid time wasters-time in lab-short
meetings)
Course Reference: Concept-importance of time management/Unit23-Time
management/subject-Business communication
and soft skills
Sources
i. Ben
Gran, “ management lessons from Steve Jobs and Apple, www.kabbage.com
ii. Michael C
Mankins, “ Your scarcest resource”, May 2014, www.hbr.org
iii. Fortune
editors,” How Steve Jobs get things done”, January 2011, www.fortune.com
Other
Keywords: Soft Skills, Time Management, HRM
38
|
|
24 |
|
Apple’s Innovations- reason
for its success and growth |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Apple Inc.,
based in Cupertino, California, maintained its Number 1 position as the world‘s
most innovative company for past several years .It had a unique capability
of being innovative in designing and developing
its own operating systems, hardware, application
software etc in an integrated fashion. The company saw itself as a new-ideas laboratory that churned out the most
innovative tech products. Apple‘s commitment
towards innovation was part of a
culture among their teams and was not process driven. It built very
effective innovation systems by harnessing the
creativity amongst their teams, stimulating new ideas, streamlining processes thereby launching many successful new
innovations. Apple, didn‘t conduct market
research nor followed their
competitors but solely focused on technology push approach combined with
intuition and perfectionism.
In 2015, Apple launched its most innovative,
futuristic, forward thinking iPhone 6 and 6 plus, with fingerprint sensor Touch
ID combining clever technology with simplicity and ease of use, that propelled
its sales to over $ 10 billion worldwide. They refocused on their Mac products
and targeted customers with an improved Mac offering. Apple focused on
developing what mattered the most rather than wasting efforts and capabilities
on matters that were less critical. Apple harnessed on the following strategies
to be a leading
innovator every time and differentiating itself clearly from peers-
·
· Focused on
innovating products that are needed by customers
· Intuitive user
interfaces
· Used their external and internal resources of knowledge
base
· Allocated dedicated budget for venturing and testing
concepts.
· Sleek product design
Adhered to the belief to ignore what
the market says it wants today.
Apple sustained as an innovator
with consistently increasing R&D budgets and launched new products and
upgrades in rapid-fire manner. It adopted
an ―integrator‖ approach wherein they brought together and
integrated different parts of an
ecosystem with meticulous attention to detail. They refined customer
capabilities in a very approachable offering with immense appeal leading to a
unique reputation in the consumer electronic industry and a loyal customer
base.
‘Innovations’ are creative ideas put to practice. Apple
consistently used innovation to launch new categories of products
consistently.
Discussion questions:
1.
Why do organizations need to be innovative?
(Hints:
creative ideas-revolutionary-capture market-leader)
2.
How has Apple consistently retained its position as a leader in
Tech products?
(Hints: innovative products- resource
management-customer needs-ventures)
Course Reference: Concept- Innovations/Unit 24- creativity Management/subject-Business
communications and soft skills
Sources:
i. Leaders,
print edition, “lessons from Apple”, June 2007, www.economist.com
ii. Samantha
Nielson,”why innovation could be the key to Apple‟s growth”, January 2014,
www.marketrealist.com
iii. Elizabeth Anderson, “World‟s 50 most innovative
companies”, October 2014, www.telegraph.co.uk
Other Keywords: Marketing, Marketing communication, Business Communication
39
|
|
25 |
|
Emotional Intelligence leading
to performance at Amadori |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amadori, an industry benchmark
and innovative agro-food sector Italian company, founded forty years ago, had a
turnover of 1.4 billion Euros in 2014. The Amadori group with 6 hatcheries, 4
feed facilities, 6 food-processing facilities, 16 branch offices, and 3 primary
platforms handling 300,000 crates per day, catered to 20000 customers per day
with 500 products and 1700 items to the Italian market. Amadori supplied
poultry to McDonalds in several countries that required constant innovation due
to intense pressure.
An analysis in 2007 revealed that
a strategic priority was required in the human development and management.
According to the then HR Director Paolo Pampanini, the company wanted to
develop their personnel and integrate business areas through better internal
communication, information sharing and thus support management growth. After
the performance appraisals in 2008, The HR team decided on including
real-time practical training and deduced that
success could be obtained with the integration of emotional intelligence into
leadership culture. Their two main goals
were to apply the company‘s competencies and
develop employees through feedback and individual
development plans.
In 2009, Amadori partnered with Six Seconds, a
global network supporting people to create positive change
and teach the skills of Emotional Intelligence, to
develop people-leadership skills through emotional intelligence training. Their purpose was to inculcate new ‗emotional
intelligence skills‘ to their leaders and
managers for the expected changes
in the future. In 2011, employee engagement was measured in all Amadori‘s plants with OVS (Organization
Vital Signs – trust, motivation, change, teamwork, and
execution), a statistically
reliable research process to determine areas assisting and interfering with
growth
and bottom-line success. Normed scores were
generated for each factor on a scale from 50 -150 with 100 as a mean. ‗Engagement Index‘ another OVS
benchmark measured on a scale of 0 – 100%, with 50% being
the mean score; which was the
ratio of the number of employees actively engaged vs neutral vs disengaged (not
committed). The performance evaluation based on how those competencies led to
results was also calculated.
38 managers, 120 intermediate managers, sales
managers and high-potential employees underwent the customized Six Seconds EQ Management Certification through a ‗Change
MAP process‘ in three phases;
engage (readiness), activate
(capability building) and reflect (solidifying learning) with six days of
classroom training, individual coaching, assessment through SEI (Six Seconds
Emotional Intelligence) and SEI 360 degree, distance learning and outdoor training.
Emotional intelligence training
affected individual performance, employee engagement and organizational
performance by 47%. Plants with more emotional intelligent managers had higher
employee engagement; higher employee engagement led to improved performance
which proved that emotional intelligence and organizational engagement were key
drivers of performance. A drastic 63% reduction of personnel turnover in their
sales force was also observed – the
key drivers being motivation, retention and productivity.
In
Pampanini‘s words; managerial competencies in the middle management witnessed a
high improvement. The training affected the
corporate culture and management approach towards change and complexity; and in
driving managers to employ leadership skills and best personnel development
practices in the long run.
‘Emotional Intelligence’ is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings
and those of others, for motivating the self and for
managing emotions in internal, external relationships and in the workplace.
From the above case, we can observe a correlation
between emotional intelligence and business performance – a strong link between “hard
outcomes of results to the soft skills of EI”.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What is
meant by Emotional Intelligence? What are the characteristics of people with
high EQ?
(Hints:
recognizing feelings and emotions of self and social – committed – gregarious
– balanced – engaged)
2.
How does
Emotional Intelligence help an employee achieve success at the workplace?
(Hints:
personal and social competence –team
building – leadership skills -
career development)
Course Reference: Concept- Application of EI at the workplace/Unit25–Emotional Intelligence
in Management / Subject-Business
Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i.
Lorenzo Fariselli, Joshua Freedman,
Massimiliano Ghini, Fabio Barnabè and Erika Paci, “Linking bottom line performance
to emotional intelligence and organizational climate,” www. 6seconds.org, April
2013
ii.
Amadori Company, en.amadori.it
Other Keywords: Emotional
Intelligence, internal communication
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Mary Barra’s recovery of GM |
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General
Motors, with prominent car and truck brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac and Isuzu,
and a presence in
six continents with 2-lakh
employees in 396 facilities appointed Mary Barra as their new CEO in January 2014. In April, 2014 she was summoned by
the ‗Congress – US House committee On Energy and
Commerce
on oversight and investigations‘ to explain the 21 deaths caused due to faulty
ignition switches of Chevrolet
Cobalt model. This led to a recall of over 30 million cars but did not deter
the confidence and poise of the new CEO. Instead she conveyed that GM was
looking for a 10% operating margin in North America and would restore profits
in Europe by 2016. In September, 2014 she conveyed that GM was trying hard to
gain customer trust and the 2017 Cadillac would be a driverless car.
GM was mired with bureaucratic
issues and the problem of faulty ignition switches in the Chevrolet Cobalt
model for over 10 years with no action being taken. Mary Barra, who became the
first woman CEO of a major giant automaker, started feeling the bruises
rippling in the company within months of joining. Her working style was very
different from the others. She fired 15 employees, some of them being senior
legal advisors and disciplined 5 engineers who were involved in the design and
procurement of those switches which made GM to spend $1.7 billion on repairing
those faulty switches, $35 million fine to settle a US-safety investigation,
recall of 30 million vehicles since 2005, thereby losing on customer trust. Her
first tough reaction to a 10-year long problem led to an effective change and
increase in her reputation.
GM‘s
organization culture consisted of GM nod (during meetings, the employees nodded
that action had to be taken), GM salute (employees indicated that responsibility was not
theirs but someone else‘s) and believed in ‗silos‘ style of functioning
especially in the engineering operations department that failed to
communicate the safety concerns
to their senior executives. Though the problem of the switches was known as
early as 2001, the managers did not redesign the switches to save on the cost
which signified their incompetence, neglect , lack of responsibility and low
employee engagement.
Ms.Mary
Barra, who took responsibility and felt sad for the lost lives due to GM‘s
missteps, created a new operational risk-management committee, with clear
lines for reporting, to monitor how the manufacturing department handled
potential risks. She tried to address the communication problems by
reorganizing the engineering operations by appointing a global safety chief,
Mr.Jeff Boyer, with immediate access to her and
the legal department, 35-product-safety
investigators to identify and solve product-related issues, ‗Speak-up for safety
program‘ to report safety issues quickly, and Global Product Integrity organization
to enhance
safety standards. Compensation
expert Kenneth Fienberg was appointed to give advice and suggest measures to
compensate accident victims.
Ms. Barra, then attempted to
refocus the customer on the new releases of their brands by quelling the fears
of the previous models and reassuring
the company‘s efforts in making the safety processes world class. Through all
these measures, GM‘s auto sales increased by 13% in May 2014 over its
previous year with
share prices improving by 3.7%;
much higher than its competitor, The Ford Company. She outlined her business practices by saying, ―Our job
is not just to fix the problem. Our job must be to set a new industry standard for safety, quality, and
excellence.‖
‘Interpersonal competencies’ essential for managers are self-awareness, control, motivation,
acknowledging interests of subordinates and
communication skills.. In this case, we observe that Ms. Mary Barra took the
Chevrolet Cobalt issue as an advantage and treated it as a catalyst to change GM‟s
organizational culture to be direct, responsible
and transparent.
Discussion
Questions
1.
What are
the steps to develop interpersonal skills?
(Hints:
assertiveness – accepts
responsibility – manage conflicts)
2.
‗Managers need to understand others‘ behavior and
develop skills to drive results,‘ Justify from the case.
(Hints:
employee engagement - open communication culture – accountability - competency)
41
Course Reference: Concept- Developing Interpersonal Skills/Unit26 -Interpersonal Skills
/Subject-Business Communication and
Soft Skills
Sources:
i.
Sarah Miller Caldicott, “Crash
Test: Can CEO Mary Barra repair GM‟s defective corporate culture,” www.forbes.com, June 2014
ii. Geoff
Calvin, “Mary Barra‟s (unexpected) opportunity”, www.fortune.com, September
2014
iii. Jeff Bennett
and Joann S. Lublin, “GM recall probe to blame cultural failings – Auto maker‟s
investigation to highlight poor communications, but clear top
bosses”, www.wsj.com, June 2014
iv. “Forbes –
The world‟s most powerful people - #62: Mary Barra”, www.forbes.com
v. About GM: Our Company, www.gm.com
Other Keywords: Communication,
Interpersonal competencies
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Leadership development at
Goodyear |
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The Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Company, started in 1898 by Frank Seiberling, were named after Charles
Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized rubber. Goodyear was one of the largest
tyre companies, with 67000 employees and manufacturing units in 52 facilities
spread over 22 countries. The company had two innovation centres at Ohio and
Luxembourg that develop state-of-the-art products and services that set
standards for the industry in technology and performance. Goodyear manufactured
tyres for automobiles, trucks, SUVs, airplanes, farm equipment and earthmover
machinery.
In 2007,
Goodyear restructured its business from volume-supplier-model to focus on being
a premier tire
manufacturing unit to cater to
the target market segments. The company realized that new leadership profiles
need to be developed to adapt to this change of focus. Gary Vander Lind, VP of HR of Goodyear‘s North
American division hired Amy Alexy
as the Director of Learning and Development in 2011. The management at Goodyear
decided that instead of hiring external persons in leadership roles, it was
better to
train and develop internal employees. A training-need
analysis was done through a survey of 1800 emerging leaders who manage the company‘s North American division. The leaders
were asked to rate their skills which formed the basis of selecting the
training topics. Goodyear‘s Great Leader Academy was formed to develop leaders at all management levels.
‗The Senior Leadership Development Program‘ was introduced
with the curriculum design and program
implementation being provided by Harvard Business Publishing.
The program highlights are:
·
To equip
the organization with teams who develop strategies for a fluctuating market.
·
To create
a leadership development strategy for two sets of employees: High potentials
who can accelerate business transformation and bridge the gap with the senior
management and emerging leaders and line-level managers who can encourage
learning among all levels in the organization.
·
To
develop 10 competencies of its executive team and 5 leadership traits;
financial acumen, accountability, strategic planning, change leadership,
visionary, continuous process improvement, talent management, team
collaboration and relationship building, decision-making and challenging the
status-quo.
·
In 2012, the one-year program
began with 50 participants with 70-20-10 model of learning delivery. 70% on-the
job, 20% through informal conversations and 10% through formal learning
platforms.
·
Virtual
lessons, readings from thinkers on select modules, webinars, and case studies
were used for training by Harvard Business School Faculty covering topics like
financial analysis, drivers of profitability and value, and evaluating
opportunities.
·
For
informal learning, the participants were allowed to choose the areas they
wanted to focus and develop, identify internal and external sources that could
help them learn something new. After identifying their learning partners, the
plan and the frequency was decided. In the first year 41% had one learning
partner, 19% had two and 40% had three or more.
·
For
on-the-job training, two methods were taken; action learning projects and
leadership career path management. It
was developed by Goodyear‘s executive team on real business decisions and the duration
was 9-months.
Results
of the ‗The Senior Leadership Development Program‘:
·
850
participants – 50% have received new
assignments or increased responsibilities, 28% moved laterally and 22% received
promotions.
·
Transparency
in learning, individual development plan –
all users can access the curriculum –
50% are active users.
·
Profitability
of the company increasing from 2012 onwards, $691 million operating income from
NA division in 2013.
·
Effective
communication, openness, collaborative culture and learning culture in the
organization.
43
‘Leadership skills’ like long term vision, persuasion, and change
management and crisis management skills are those that differentiate
a successful organisation from others. In this case, Goodyear did an assessment
of already existing leadership skills and prepared a leadership program to
enhance those skills in accordance to its new business focus.
Discussion
Questions
1.
How is a
leadership development plan done in organizations?
(Hints:
leadership audit – plan – dedication – evaluation - perform)
2.
―Goodyear develops its leaders by becoming a
learning organization‖. Justify
(Hints: Leadership
Development Programs - theoretical
and practical training
- learning and
collaborative culture)
Course
Reference: Concept-
Leadership skills/Unit 27-Leadership and Change Management
Skills/Subject-Business Communication and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Ladan Nikravan,
“Where the Rubber Meets the Road:
Goodyear‟s Quest to Build Leaders”,
www.clomedia.com, June 2014
ii.
Frank
Kalman, “Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.: Optimas Gold Winner for Training”, www.workforce.com, December 2013
iii. “Goodyear develops its leaders by becoming a
learning organization”, www.harvardbusiness.org
iv. “Goodyear to announce fourth quarter 2014 financial
results”, www.goodyear.com, February 2015
Other
Keywords: Leadership,
HR
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28 |
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An American guest in China for
a business dinner |
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According to the 2015 AmCham
Shanghai China Business Survey, nearly one-third of American companies considered
China as their number one country for investments because of profitability,
growth in revenue, positive cash flows and a stable market share. The priority
ranged from producing goods in China for the Chinese market to manufacturing
and production in China for the US market. New opportunities in untapped
international markets were captured who appreciated culture and
multilingualism. A common shared language reduced the language barriers in
bilateral trade between 75% - 170%.
The major
difference observed between American and Chinese culture was the attitudinal
difference in
individualism versus
collectivism. The Chinese culture, for centuries, believed in the collective
good over individual ambitions. Chinese valued maintenance of harmony and the ‗face‘ (Mian zi). Jonathan Story,
Emeritus
Professor of INSEAD and author of the book, ‗China Uncovered: What you need to
know to do business in China‘, described ‗face‘ as a ―mix of public perception,
social role and self-esteem that has the potential to either destroy or help build
human relationships.‖ For conveying the right message in the
complex business landscape of China, awareness of
the cultural norms and actions was a necessity.
Carson Tavenner, a member of the
National Committee of US-China relationships and Executive Director of Tai
Initiative, a non-profit corporation which encourages the development of
trusting communication between USA and China in building sub-national
relationships offered some insight on the importance of food in the Chinese
business culture.
·
Dining
together developed trust and respect among the Chinese business people.
Building loyalty, trust and value among the Chinese business partners did not
materialize if dining was treated just as a waste of time or a formality or not
indicating that the food was enjoyable.
·
Importance
was given to rank and status of individuals even during dining. The Chinese
hosts sat farthest from the door during the dining and it was important for an
American to pay attention to these minute details. The esteemed American guest
sat right to the host. The staff anointed for payment of the bill sat closest
to the door.
·
The
American served the tastiest dish to another honourable person (who sat near
the host) and displayed his graciousness and thoughtfulness.
·
Americans
leave a clean plate after the meal indicating satisfaction, but in China; a
clean plate shows that the guest is still hungry and the hosts did not provide
him enough food. The American in China left a small portion of the meal on the
plate indicating the generosity of the Chinese host and that he could not eat
all the meal served to him.
·
One
American guest sang a folk song and another recited a portion of the poetry
with a small explanation as a cultural exchange gift to the Chinese host which
made him immensely pleased about the
guest‘s genuine nature.
Cross-cultural awareness has
proved to be complex, as a small oversight in keeping a clean plate to a small
amount of food on the plate might create offences to the host and end up in a
hostile relationship. As communication advanced in reducing business frontiers,
it became important for multinational companies to consider cultural fluency
and linguistic diversity in networking in sub-national communities and
developing character-based leadership behaviors and skills.
‘Cultural fluency’ is based on the ability to identify, understand,
and apply cultural variables that influence the communicative
behavior of members of different cultures. Companies looking for international
expansion should consider the ROI, study the demographics, recruit multilingual
employees, and work on getting multilingual in creation of website, company
documents and social media.
45
Discussion
Questions
1.
What do
you understand by cultural fluency?
(Hints:
bringing together of people from different cultures - conduction of business – transfer of technology)
2.
‗Chinese give importance to face‘ – Does this
also imply in India? Describe. (Hints: name – fame – prestige – social status – respect – self-esteem)
Course Reference: Concept- Cultural fluency/Unit 28
–Multi-cultural Communication
Skills/Subject-Business Communication
and Soft Skills
Sources:
i. Eryn
Paul, “Food, the secret of Chinese business Culture”, www.knote.com, January
2015
ii. “China
uncovered: What you need to know to do business in China”,
storybookreview.wordpress.co, October
2012
iii. “Building
a bilingual organization”, taiinitiative.org, May 2014
iv. Amcham Shanghai 2015 China Business Report, www.amcham-shanghai.org
Other Keywords: Business
Communication, Cross-cultural communication
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