Untitled Flashcards Set

Week 1: Course Overview and Orientation

• Why are people bad managers?

  • 1 out of 5 employees feel their performance is managed in a motivating way

  • 67% of employees worldwide are not engaged

• (Textbook) “Google’s Quest For a Better Boss” 

  • What was Google’s approach to identifying the critical skills?

    • Google adopted a data-driven methodology to pinpoint the essential skills of effective managers 

    • Data collection: gathered data regarding performance evaluations, employee surveys and interviews

    • Data analysis: patterns and correlations were identified between managerial behaviors and team performance metrics 

  • What steps has Google taken to ensure that it will indeed “build a better boss?”

    • Training programs

    • Feedback mechanisms 

    • Performance evaluations 

    • Ongoing support 

  • Did any of these elements surprise you? Would you have omitted any? What ingredients would you have added?

  • Slides Notes:

    • A leader should… (8 critical behaviors)

      • Be a good coach

      • Empower the team and do not micromanage 

      • Express interest for team members’ success and personal well-being

      • Be very productive/result-oriented 

      • Be a good communicator-listen and share information 

      • Help the team with career development 

      • Have a clear vision/strategy for the team

      • Have important technical skills that help advise the team 

• What do leaders really do? Leaders vs. Managers

  • Setting a direction vs. planning and budgeting 

    • Leaders create a vision long-term

  • Aligning people vs. organizing and staffing 

    • Leaders embrace the company mission and vision

  • Motivating people vs. controlling and problem solving 

    • Leaders motivate employees by recognizing their contributions 

  • Leaders focus on vision, inspiration, and long-term goals.

  • Managers focus on execution, structure, and problem-solving.

• Why should anyone be led by you?

  • Selectively show their weakness 

  • Rely heavily on intuition to gauge the appropriate timing and course of their actions 

  • Manage employees with tough empathy

  • Reveal their differences and uniqueness 

• Knowing where to go is easy, but get there is hard because

  • Lack of precise self-awareness/where to improve 

  • Lack of motivation to make the change 

  • Habit/behavior change takes continuous self-regulation and feedback seeking

• Self Awareness + Management skills is critical for:

  • Your success in working with people and getting things done in the organization; which influences your chance of leadership promotion 

  • Upward management with your supervisor(s) and relationship management 

Week 2: Building Effective Teams

• 4 aspects of Awareness

  • The science-validated management skills 

    • Ex. communication, emotional intelligence, decision-making 

  • Yourself and your behavior

    • Self awareness of your own strengths, weaknesses, values, and behavioral patterns 

  • Others and context: adaptability 

    • Being aware of others’ emotions, behaviors, and needs

  • The need for practice 

    • Self-awareness and management skills require consistent practice

• Self management: ability to regulate and control your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors 

  • Positivity and Happiness

    • Rethinking the relationship between positive emotions and career related success

    • Understand that gaining more tangible assets doesn't necessarily mean great happiness

  • High Quality Relationships

    • In the ted talk, a study was conducted where senior men in happy relationships that had physical pain remained happy whereas senior men in unhappy relationships that had physical pain felt more physical pain.

• Groups vs. Teams

  • Examples of successful teams

    • The Miracle on Ice - US Hockey beat Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics 

    • Apollo 11 Moon Landing - 400,000 people involved in the moon landing

• Team Effectiveness Model (Prof. Li’s): framework that improves how well a team functions and achieves its goals 

  • Knowing Your People

    • Abilities of members - varied skill set

      • Technical skills 

      • Problem-solving and decision-making 

      • Interpersonal skills 

    • Personality and values of Members

    • Diversity - focus on similarities and differences

    • Motivation of members

    • Set up behavioral norms and managing interpersonal conflict

  • Structuring the Task

    • Setting up agenda 

    • Structuring roles and task independence 

    • Matching people to roles

    • Task clarity and accountability (reduce ambiguity) 

  • Managing Your People as Individuals

    • Performance evaluation and reward system: evaluate and reward individual contribution (prevents social loafing and establish fairness)

    • SMART goals

      • Specific 

      • Measurable

      • Achievable 

      • Realistic

      • Time-bound 

    • Provide resources, feedback, and support 

    • Work design: autonomy, task variety, task identity, task significance

      • Autonomy: the degree to which a job provides an employee with freedom and independence over their work methods 

      • Task variety: the extent to which a job requires a worker to perform different types of tasks (jobs with high task variety can be more interesting and reduce monotony)

      • Task identity: the degree of completion that a job requires an employee to do (jobs with high task identity require workers to do all the work within a task and see their corresponding outcomes) 

      • Task significance: the extent to which a job has a meaningful impact on the lives of others or organization (jobs with high task significance can give workers a sense of purpose) 

  • Transforming Your People as a Team

    • Team efficacy: belief in team effectiveness and success; setting up small wins

    • Common vision and purpose: provides directions, momentum, and commitment 

    • A strong culture that people truly believe in

    • Climate of trust - relational and professional

• Types of Interdependence (4)

  • Pooled Interdependence 

    • Members all directly report to output 

  • Sequential Interdependence

    • Member 1 reports to Member 2 who reports to Member 3 who reports to Member 4 who reports to output 

  • Reciprocal Interdependence

    • Member 1 reports to Member 2 and vice versa

    • Member 3 reports to Member 4 and vice versa

    • Member 2 reports to Member 3 (member 2 and 3 report to output) 

  • Comprehensive Interdependence

    • All members report to all members and then to output 

• Marketing vs. Management: analysis should be management-focused (ex. Inadequate employee motivation) vs marketing-focused (ex. Inadequate promotions/advertising)

• Interviews: tend to be more effective and targeted survey questions 

• Data effects: small organizations may not allow for generalization across findings

  • Organizations bigger than 10 people: organization structure can resemble larger organizations with defined roles, hierarchy, and communication patterns so research findings can be more generalizable to other organizations

• Conflicts of interest (ex. Parents at the organization may give biased feedback for the sake of their children): ensure anonymity keeps the identity of participants hidden which helps encourage honest feedback and improve credibility of the data

Week 3: Understanding Self & Others

• Case 1: Harry & The Learning Team #28

  • Personalities/backgrounds have profound effects on team dynamics

    • Careful about “faultiness” and subgroups

    • Power structure and assertiveness

    • Need to confront when necessary 

  • Discuss early on about norms, expectations, and goals

    • Its difficult to set up norms to cover all potential conflicts, so it's important to set up norms about HOW TO address conflict when occurs

  • Call an “honesty meeting” to address a problem out loud, avoid finger-painting 

• Emotional Intelligence (5)

  • Self-awareness: having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, needs, strengths, weaknesses, values, and goals 

    • Strategies for improving self awareness  (4)

      • Self-analysis

        • What are my strengths and weaknesses?

        • What are my values and goals?

        • How do I behave?

      • Analysis/tests

        • Big five personality test (OCEAN)

          • Openness

            • High: inventive/curious 

            • Low: consistent/cautious

            • Openness tends to be valuable in jobs that require high levels of creativity  

          • Conscientiousness (wanting to do one’s work well and thoroughly)

            • High: efficient/organized

            • Low: careless/procrastinating 

            • Conscientiousness has the biggest influence on job performance

          • Extraversion

            • High: outgoing/energetic

            • Low: solitary/reserved

            • Extraversion is moderate to significant influence on performance and leadership emergence (most effective in sales)

            • Extraverted leaders enhance group performance when employees are passive but lessens group performance when employees are proactive 

              • Extraverted leaders prefer dominance and top-down communication

          • Agreeableness

            • High: friendly/compassionate

            • Low: cold/aggressive

            • Agreeableness is beneficial in service jobs (may be bad in certain circumstances)

            • Agreeable leaders develop good long-term relationships but their leadership style is less effective in crisis management (in crisis, you want a decisive and tough empath leader)

          • Neuroticism (tendency to experience negative emotions)

            • High: sensitive/nervous

            • Low: secure/confident

            • Neuroticism can disrupt work due to high stress levels

        • Emotional intelligence test

        • Myer-Briggs Type Indicator Test (MBTI)

          • Introvert vs. Extravert

          • Judging vs. Perceiving 

            • Judging: order and structure in decisions 

            • Perceiving: flexible and spontaneous 

          • Sensing vs. Intuitive 

            • Sensing: detail oriented

            • Intuitive: focuses on big-picture 

          • Thinking vs. Feeling

            • Thinking: decisions based on logic, reason, and objective analysis

            • Feeling: decisions based emotions and values 

        • Value Essay: a self-reflection exercise used for individuals to become aware of their core values

      • Others’ perceptions and feedback 

        • Others can see things about you that you may be unaware of- especially negative traits that are hard to admit like narcissism, lack of humility, machiavellianism (manipulative tendencies or only interest in self)

      • Diverse experiences

        • Expose yourself to new environments, cultures, and challenges to broaden your self-awareness

  • Self-regulation: ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods

    • Strategies (2)

      • Internal regulation (science of habit changing):

        • Small changes and rewatching yourself for the change (ex. If you procrastinate, set a timer for 20 mins to get work done, then reward yourself with a snack after) 

        • Announce your intended change to others and seek support (ex. Find someone to exercise together with you)

        • Repeat and seek feedback (ex. If your working on being more social, ask friends if they noticed a difference in how you initiate conversations)

      • External Regulation: bring in people who you trust and who you think can help address your weaknesses (ex. If you have trouble meeting deadlines, ask a coworker to set deadlines for you and check in regularly)

  • Empathy: ability to understand and share the feelings of other people

    • Tough empathy: balancing compassion with objectivity and strategic decision-making; involves understanding others’ emotions but making hard choices that benefit the organization in the long run

      • Ex. Nadella transformed Microsoft by making tough decisions 

  • Motivation: work for reasons beyond money or status; pursue goals with persistence; strong drive to achieve 

  • Social skills: proficiency in managing relationships and networks

  • Emotional Intelligence = twice as important as technical skills and cognitive abilities for jobs at all levels

    • 90% of difference in profiles of “star” vs “average” performances was due to emotional intelligence

• Power and Ego-related personality

  • Power: research suggests gaining power often brings out people’s true nature

    • Ex. Stanford Prison Experiment (1971): power/situational dynamics could alter behaviors

      • People were randomly assigned as guards or prisoners and the guards quickly began displaying abusive behavior while prisoners became submissive or distressed 

  • Humility

    • Acknowledging one’s weakness

    • Recognizing others’ contributions 

    • Open to learning from others 

  • Machiavellianism 

    • Manipulative, power-driven, acts in self-interest

  • Narcissism

    • Sense of self-importance

    • Need for excessive admiration and special treatment 

    • Thinking others as less of themself 

Week 4: Culture and Managing Diversity 

• Emotional Intelligence: awareness of emotion (self and others) and regulation of own emotion

  • Time management - plan and prioritize

  • Stress management - identify your stressors and stress levels

  • Take breaks; change physical location

  • A mind for positivity 

Week 5: Culture and Managing Diversity 

• Cultural Dimensions 

  • Collectivism

    • Low: group is more of a context in which they work; focusing on one’s own interest than the interest of the group

    • High: group has important social and psychological meaning; has tendency to put the group’s interest above the interest of them self

  • Power Distance

    • Low: despite ranking and status, everyone is entitled to share their opinions; managers are to coordinate not dictate 

    • High: expect social inequality and that those higher in rank make decisions and give orders to those in lower rank (hierarchy) 

  • Context of Communication

    • Low: straight forward communication

    • High: implicit communication, need to infer intent behind words

  • Work-life Balance

    • Low: live to work, work is life

    • High: work to live, work is a way to get the things to make life enjoyable 

• Diversity

  • Types of Diversity

    • Surface-level diversity: skin color, race, gender, age

    • Deep-level diversity: work style, personality, education, talents, etc.

  • Benefits to Diversity (CANNOT be achieved without INCLUSION and INTEGRATION)

    • Complimentary information, perspectives, and skill sets

    • Higher quality and creativity in decision making 

    • Better understanding of serving all customers 

  • Inclusion 

    • Inclusion challenges with Diversity

      • Stereotyping: assigning identical characteristics to any group of people

      • Discrimination: decisions and opinions made based on one’s group affiliation 

      • Microaggressions: the everyday slights, indignities, put downs and insults that those who are marginalized experience in their day-to-day interactions with people 

        • Can be intentional, negligence (lack of care), subconscious bias, and insensitivity 

    • Managing inclusion

      • As a manager

        • Explicitly convey the benefits of diversity

        • Act on fairness

        • Inclusive workplace culture: explicitly conveying to team

      • As an individual

        • Enhance sensitivity and awareness

        • Less assumptions

        • Stand up for what's right

  • Integration

    • Integration challenges with diversity 

      • Similarity attraction and fault-lines: subgroups that emerge naturally within teams, typically along various demographic lines 

        • Limits knowledge sharing

        • Creates perceptions of “in groups” and “out groups”

        • Creates tension/conflicts between subgroups

      • Surface level diversity is what makes group integration difficult in the short-run 

      • Deep level diversity is what makes group integration difficult in the long-run

    • Managing integration 

      • Surface-level integration: intentionally connect communications/interactions among members/subgroups 

      • Deep-level integration: set up norms and expectations where people should be on the same page, despite their individual preferences 

• Values: core beliefs or desires that guide motivation attitudes and actions

  • Types:

    • Meaning of work: tangible vs. intangible

      • Tangible: to buy materials 

        • Leadership for people with this value: people work to get paid and focus on compensation based on their contribution  

      • Intangible: ideals that you strive for (ex. relationships, impact, fun, growth)

        • Leadership for people with this value: people look for meanings, growth, impact, and fun at work

    • Ethical/moral vs. unethical

      • Ethical/moral: what is right and proper (ex. Respect, justice, fairness)

        • Leadership for people with this value: integrity is important as a person and as a business

      • Unethical: the outcomes we desire or find important (ex. Status, money)

        • Leadership for people with this value: “get things done, bring me results, idc how you did it”

    • Assumptions about human being 

      • Theory X: human beings are by nature, lazy and untrustworthy

        • Leadership for people with this value: control and monitoring

      • Theory Y: humans are by nature, motivated and trustworthy

        • Leadership for people with this value: autonomy and empowering and coaching and supportive

    • Task vs. Relationship Oriented 

      • Task: team success is defined by efficiency and output; task is more important than relationships 

        • Leadership for people with this value: efficiency and effectiveness come first; competitive

      • Relationship: a family-oriented atmosphere where team success is in part defined by member happiness and satisfaction

        • Leadership for people with this value: family-orientated and compassionate culture; mutual helping and collaborations 

• Values, cultures, and leadership

  • Successful leaders act in ways that are consistent with their values 

    • Identify the values that guide your behaviors, attitudes, and decisions

    • Explicitly convey the values you want your team to have

    • Select employees based on value similarity 

• Ethical breakdown

  • Ill-conceived goals: we set goals and incentives to promote positive behavior but they unintentionally promote unethical actions 

  • Motivated blindness: we ignore unethical behavior when it benefits us or aligns with our interests 

  • Indirect business: we tend to hold others less accountable for unethical actions when they are carried out through third parties (ex. A company doesn't interfere with the illegal activities another company they work with has done because they are not directly related)

  • The slippery slope: we become less aware of unethical behavior when it happens gradually over time 

  • Overvaluing outcomes: we justify unethical behavior it the outcome is positive 

• On voicing one’s values

  • Values-conflict situations are common in organizations

  • Ways to voice your values

    • Make assertions

    • Persuade

    • Negotiate 

  • Some techniques work better than others (depends on situation and your comfort level with the person(s) involved)

    • Emotion control

    • Observe leader type and take different actions 

    • Generally it is best to avoid confronting and speaking up to the leader in public

    • Build coalitions: process of bringing together groups of shared goals to work together 

Week 6: Motivation

• Individual differences

  • Emotional intelligence (self awareness, self regulation, empathy, relationship management)

  • Personality (agreeable, extraversion, openness, etc.)

  • Cultural Values (collectivism, power distance, work-life balance, etc.)

  • Individual value (tangible and intangible, ethicality, theory x/y, etc.)

• Types of motivators

  • Intrinsic: comes from inside the individual

    • Nonquantifiable rewards like personal satisfaction or sense of accomplishment

  • Extrinsic: comes from outside the individual

    • Rewards like promotions, bonuses, prizes

    • Extrinsic motivation integration

• Effort:

• Expectancy: if i work harder, will i have better performance or fulfil my goals?

  1. Goal setting theory: clear and challenging goals lead to higher performance 

     1. SMART goals

  2. Self-Efficacy theory: individuals’ beliefs in their own abilities influence their motivation and performance

• Performance

• Instrumentality: will the better performance or meeting the goal result in good outcomes or avoid bad outcomes 

  1. Performance Evaluation: objective or subjective evaluation by supervisor/peers/customers

  2. Organizational Justice 

     1. Distributive: employee judgments about the appropriateness of resource allocation decision (ex. The fairness of the levels at which resources are distributed among parties; “did the most qualified person get promoted?”) managers tend to emphasize 

     2. Procedural: employee judgements about the appropriateness of how decisions are made and implemented (consistency, bias-free, representative, accurate) employees tend to emphasize 

     3. Interactional: employee judgements about the appropriateness of how one person treats another (does one treat others with dignity and respect?) employees tend to emphasize 

• Outcomes 

  Valence: do I value these outcomes

  1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

     1. Psychological 

     2. Safety/security 

     3. Social belongingness

     4. Esteem

     5. Self-actualization 

  2. Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory

     1. Hygiene factors (extrinsic): factors that prevent dissatisfaction but do not create motivation

     2. Motivators (intrinsic): factors create job satisfaction and motivation

  3. McClelland’s Theory of Needs

     1. Achievement: desire to excel

     2. Power: desire to influence and lead

     3. Affiliation: desire for relationships 

• Happiness/Personal goal