Last Blog as a Billy Goate

Wow, time flew by this semester. For my last blog post I just want to take some time to reminisce you might say. When I started this class I was shocked by the first announcement being that it was an honors course which I previously had no idea of. Then the second bombshell hit, no exams. A joy for sure but definitely left some worries of what would replace it. Luckily, the class was actually one of the best classes I have had and I am glad it all worked out how it did. This blogging was at times very interesting and also on the other hand very time consuming as well. The readings uhhh wow were some of them long and I would read them in the morning and by the time class started I would forget what was in them. The book report was probably the most interesting outside of class thing because it forced me to read and the book was actually one of the most intriguing books I have read. With the activities I learned a lot of lessons, some the easy way and some the hard way. Every single person is different and that's what makes this class so interesting because the theories and reactions to those theories when applied vary from person to person. So, to close out this class, Dr. Goates, it was a pleasure and keep doing what you are doing.

Stay Classy,
Kyle

About the Presentations

All of the presentations went fairly well and I must say that 20 minutes goes a lot faster than what you would think and especially being the last person to talk has its disadvantages. I was standing up there and right as I began to talk the 1 minute sign came up and I was like oh shit time to throw the notecards away. But i'm still pleased with my own group's presentation and I thought everyone did a great job on it too. It was definitely a time consuming project but beats a final any day.

Power Differential

I thought it was very interesting how power is held within the separate groups of society. You think that with the few numbers that the upper groups have the lower groups could easily overtake them and reign free. I mean we pretty much did the same thing against England to gain our independence. The question is why and I think (strictly opinional) that they middle class is really the deciding piece to this. The lower group by far has the numbers and motive to overtake and claim what they want from the top group given they act as a collective whole. But without the helpful hand from the middle group they can't take that step. And I look at it as the middle group yes wants more power but not at the expense of the lower group coming to the same level or rising above them. So instead the middle mediates and does all it can to keep the lower group either low enough that they can't rise or content enough with where they are. The Union is just a way of satisfaction but they don't realize they are also being controlled by the union. Unions unite and also de-unite at the same time. It allows lower class peoples to feel connected but at the same time they are being taken further away from the other unions which contain the rest of their numbers and power.

I just kind of rambled there and i'm not sure if I even said anything worth it but its what was at the surface so i went with it.

A Revisit

After the discussion in class about the exercise we did i was still really confused for some reason. I don't know maybe i'm just use to things that are done like this activity to have an answer like of how it was supposed to go or not go. But Goates made it seem like it could have gone a numerous number of ways and that it was more for his pleasure. It was an experience for sure but I don't think that we (top group) could have changed the outcome unless we turned to a communist style of leadership. I have a feeling that age and experience is going to be the biggest thing to combat in the workplace because most people under you will be with the company longer and probably much older than the new kid fresh out of college. I guess you just gotta stand your ground early prove your power which is primarily what this class as a whole aims to instill within us. The power to lead.

Book Report Segment #5 - The World is Flat??

In the last report for this book (finally 630 pages is a lot), Friedman starts off with a section about the effect of a flat world on culture. The commonly believed effect is that globalization will cause Americanization where everyone speaks English and adapts to American culture but Friedman points out that this is likely not to be the case. I agree and understand what he is saying. He is saying that as countries enter the flat world and begin to “play” that there will be less pressure or need for people to leave their home countries in order to get proper schooling or opportunities so that culture of those people has a better probability of being retained. In the past it was only America dealing globally so their culture was being injected into other countries but now with more players in the game more countries can inject bits of their culture while protecting it by not being pushed to leave for the benefits of education and opportunity. Not only is culture being equalized and diversified but so the flow of investment. Gone are the times where it was only America and Europe investing their capital globally but other countries like India and China are now doing that as well. The next section is titled, if it’s not happening it’s because you’re not doing it. This was kind of complicated but I think it just means that in order for something to happen you have to get the initiative to do something. They talked about Wal-Mart and McDonalds and how with their respective reputations they have the ability to help the world by instilling standards that provide the best quality and safeness for the environment. Friedman also mentioned how social entrepreneurs could now with the flat world easily access the global collective that they need to get their message out there and accepted by that collective. Once the belief gets accepted by enough then it almost forces the company to make the change requested in order to stay afloat. Continuous improvement within collaborations will help to improve quality standards as well as efficiency within the companies supply chain. The next section brings up how that with so many uses of technology that we may be far away when we are very close. For example say you’re sitting right next to someone but you’re both on your phones, doing separate things when you’re really close together. It’s interesting because this can already be seen and it raises another issue, law. As the ease of access to the world increases and the ability to post your thoughts and anything to the internet, the current legal system that we have isn’t built to handle the technological copyright and infringement occurrences that are so readily seen today. Friedman stresses that as the internet and global technology continues to increase in its importance and availability the legal system will have to make the necessary changes in order to be sustainable. Friedman next talks about some of the things that are keeping the world from becoming completely flat. He labels them the too sick, too disempowered, too frustrated, and too many Toyotas. The too sick are those who can’t access the flat world because they are too sick to do so. The too disempowered are those who live within a flat world but don’t have access to the tools, skills, or infrastructure to make in impact. The too frustrated are those who feel threatened by the flat world and therefore act out, like suicide bombers for example. The too many Toyotas group is a tad different, Friedman describes this as the most crucial downside to the flattening of the world, and that is the waste. With everyone coming up to the same level then per capita consumption and waste will be at an all time high which will threaten our natural resources and environment. Friedman then turns to a theory he has developed called the Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention. He states with this that if two countries are intertwined by a supply chain and that both countries rely on each other that they will never come to war against each other because of the risk of damage to their resources. I found this interesting but yet as far as never happening is hard to believe. I’m sure that under a certain set of circumstances something could cause a war between two intertwined countries. The biggest test of this theory is currently Taiwan versus China and how their economic relationship is preventing war currently.  With the book now over I just want to take a little time to discuss how I felt about the book. I thought it was highly theoretical, inspiring, and brutally honest. I believe in the content of the book and Friedman did a great job proving his points. The world is changing and America needs to be ready. We can’t let 9/11 close our doors and cause us to fight the flat world; we will be left behind. There are good and bad things that come along with the flattening of the world and while we need to embrace the good we also need to protect against the bad which I feel like as a country we can do. We just need to get our infrastructure under us to support the things that we need it to.

All About the Benjamins, I mean Goate Bucks

Well of course a simple class exercise is Goates class was more than it seemed. I was in the top group and thought that we were all together as part of an organization but obviously I was mistaken. Everything was running smoothly aside from the time constraint but when it came down to getting the order placed. We, the top group, were stabbed in the back by those below us. Although I still made some money out of the deal, I was disheartened at the lack of organizational commitment. To do this to a real employer would leave you out on the street for sure and i'm not sure of the rational behind the actions but who knows what was on their papers. Eager to see how Goates expands on the exercise cause I'm speechless to what went down.

Book Report Segment #4 - The World Is Flat?

This next section looks at how America isn’t in place to make all the advancements that it needs to so sustain its place in the world for the years to come. He refers to a scientist, Dr. Shirley Jackson, whom discusses how without the proper education systems to promote innovation and scientific advancement like we had while Kennedy was in office, we may not be able to live up to our innovative standard that we have seen in the past 50 years. The flattening of the world along with the triple convergence has allowed everyone to access information and become relevant. Gaining a sustainable edge can only be acquired by the talent which is within the company. Right now, America doesn’t have the right base tools to make outstanding wealth in this flat world. Friedman points to three things which will allow success in the flat world. They are the proper infrastructure to get information out and in quickly and as efficient as possible, proper education programs to empower innovation within our own people, and the right governance to enhance and manage the flow with the flattened world. He explains six dirty little secrets that America has which will keep us from being the head power in the flat world. The first is that all of the scientists that were inspired by Kennedy and the space race are reaching their retirement and there haven’t been enough interested people to fill their places. So, in the years to come we will see a shortage in scientists which will definitely slow down our innovative engine. The second is our lack of education. Our country doesn’t recruit enough kids into the more advanced math, science, and engineering fields to keep pace with the other countries. Friedman talked about China and how they have a fair to lead into the global international science fair. China gets around 6 million applicants just to that while we only sent 65 thousand to the international fair. Bottom line is that if we can’t change our education system and get young minds interested in changing the world scientifically, we won’t be able to rely on our own innovation. We will have to play catch up to the new powers entering the flat world; China and India. The third secret is the ambition gap. It has been proven that when companies outsource they save money and increase efficiency, but they also see an increase in the quality and productivity of the workers. The point here is that when a country is lacking in natural resources they look within themselves to make a difference by tapping into the energy, creativity, and intelligence of their own people. This means that they, in turn, work harder and use their leisure time more wisely. Instead of playing video games and falling into pop culture, the people of China and India are reading and doing more productive things so that they can better themselves and their country as a whole as well. The next secret is the discrepancy between the top and bottom of our education system. We need to find a way to better educate all of our young people regardless of wealth or demographics. The fifth secret Friedman describes is the funding gap. The main idea is that we cannot expect to compete with China and India for jobs without a well rounded and educated workforce, something we are clearly lacking in as seen in the previous four dirty little secrets. The last secret is our insufficient web infrastructure. We don’t have people connected to the web as we should and therefore we aren’t getting our educated people connected to each other. The better connected we get, the more automated innovation can become because people have more time and energy to innovate. A quote in the book from Craig Mundie of Microsoft sums this up. “If the flat-world platform makes innovation and production so much more efficient, but your people can’t take advantage of it, because they don’t have the infrastructure or the education to do so, then sooner or later you are going to get hosed.” Think about that. Moving on, Friedman lists five crucial areas to which the American government can instill in us as its people to succeed in the flat world. These areas are leadership, muscle building, cushioning, social activism, and parenting. Leadership, social activism, and parenting are self explanatory but the other two are not. Muscle building refers to building the “muscle”, or the tools within a job that allow one to retain that job. Cutting the “fat”, or the things that induce slacking off, are what we need to eliminate in order to be a power in the flat world. Cushioning means to set yourself up so that if you lose a job somewhere you have the tools instilled within you to retain a job elsewhere. Basically, Friedman is stating that the days of people working one place for a lifetime is over. The next section goes into how developing countries fit into this flat world. For developing countries it is all about knowing where you are in the world and being willing to develop in the way to success. It all goes back to the four basic things Friedman has professed throughout this whole book; infrastructure, education, governance, and environment. After those things it then is about having the right economic policies that can open your countries doors to easy import/export trade. Learn from the policies of other successful nations in the flat world and adopt what they have done. Striving to put your country alongside the world’s top flat-world countries will aid in successful development. Get your stuff straight the first time so the transition is clean and efficient. Instill within your country the correct culture and mind sight to put yourselves at the top of the chain. Your culture must be open and willing to change and mold itself into the flat world. If self interests must be put aside so that the economy and country as a whole can prosper, then so be it. Friedman sees globalization as having the potential to lift many people out of poverty if done right and this has been seen in China and India. The key is to instill within the country virtually everything discussed in this book and always be adaptable to change. The last section that I read for this part of the report is on companies and the flat world. He provides nine rules that companies will need to look to and abide by in order to stay afloat within the flat world. As I read through the section and the rules they all dealt with virtually the same common theme. Basically to sum up the section Friedman is saying that a company must be open to change, willing to change, strive to stay ahead of the curve, do whatever it must, compete with itself as well as with others, and have a sense that you are never at the full capacity of your imagination and can always, continuously improve. This section really resonated with our in class discussions lately because it all ties to proper leadership and culture. Determining which leadership roles and societal culture to run with in order to make your country/company the best it can be to flow with the flat world. The organizational behaviors of the people within the organization or country are the key pieces of the puzzle. Have the right pieces in the right place and you will succeed.

Leadership and Culture

With the recent developments from Penn State we see how culture can be turned to fool us and while all the facts are not known about the University involvement or lack of involvement, I believe that a cover up existed. The Leadership structure from the President to the Grad Assistant all squandered their right to their job when they refused to tell law enforcement about the attack. The "leaders" whose fiduciary right is to act in the best interest for the stakeholders in the university. They did not do this by shushing the information brought forward. Penn State's values are to be honest and have a strong moral code. The reality of this culture is exactly opposite by what they actually did. The Board had to clear house in order to try and recapture those morals which won't happen for a long time. Many have labeled this as a lack of institutional control which reflects how the leadership of the university had to be changed. All had to go.

The rioting of the students on the basis of Joe Paterno being fired doesn't help the university image one bit. They are rioting because their "father" has been excused of his duty. If they see him as a "father" figure then they should expect more from him and that would have been stepping up and speaking out to enforcement.

Now on a side note I believe that McCreary ( who witnessed the anal raping of a 10-12 yr old boy) should be fired as well and i'm sure he has a weight of grief and regret on his shoulders as well but hindsight is 20-20. I guess the old saying "don't shoot the messenger" applies.....

I'm not trying to spark up a debate, just trying to understand the organizational behavior behind the problem. I guess that this all goes to Leadership Structure, Culture of the Organization, and now with the clean up will include Crisis Management.

Continuation of A for B

I’m sitting in class and thinking about our discussion in class on Monday. Professor is caught in the middle of rewarding A while hoping for B. In class we are rewarded by attending when he really wants our attention. He leaves the computer unlocked for note taking but he is not rewarding us for paying attention in class in the short term. So, by keeping the computers open during lecture, and only rewarding for attendance more than half of the class isn’t paying attention to him. An easy fix is to just be the power of the class and lock the computer completely. But, because a few students emailed him saying how they take notes on the computer he succumbed to their wants when they can just as easily take notes on paper and he would attain much more of the class in his lectures. Just found that interesting while I was sitting here.

Equity Theory

In equity theory, we are motivated by a sense of fairness in our interactions and when this fairness is breached we look for reasons to why it is that way and try to recreate the equality. I found it interesting that even the side on the better end of the equality would look to make the equation equal again. And that subconsciously we go through the input output thing in our head in a matter of seconds without even realizing it. So in order to equalize the equation we change these input/outputs and balance. This is virtually impossible to use as a motivational technique because someone will always see it as unfair and someone will always be left with no motivation by money when they reach the top bracket, which is why the video we watched in class was important. It put the emphasis of motivation on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Take the Australian company for example and how when they were given just one day to do whatever they wanted, the most innovation was achieved. This shows the power of this system where employees on their own have a willingness to innovate based on their own inner drive. I don’t exactly understand how it works but I definitely found it very interesting.

Rewarding A, Hoping for B

When I first read the article I was baffled by the title. Why would reward something while what we really want out of it is something completely different. Then I read on and it all made a lot of sense. The politics example was great because as voters we pick candidates by what they portray to us about their beliefs and plans while in office. As we know politicians think we are stupid and it is because we allow it. Candidates realize that they don’t have to tell us all the gibberish behind their plans just the general idea. We reward for official goals but hope that issues will be discussed operatively even though we don’t reward that aspect. With the war example the difference between lengths of the stay was the key to obedience. In WWII soldiers were only going to go home when the war was won so it was in their best interests to obey their officers and fight. But instead of rewarding the victory, in Vietnam they rewarded based on tour of duty and soldiers were sent home after their tour was up. So, they were rewarding the soldiers time spent there, while hoping for obedience along the way. In medicine, I didn’t find this surprising at all, of course doctors have the pressure to not make a type II error but I’m sure the board of directors profit most from type I errors. It isn’t as bad to make a type I error in a sense because the risk is lesser, so doctors would slack in this error in order to lessen chance of type II error. These examples all show us how behavior A is rewarded, while we just expect that behavior B will follow. This is not true, and I feel that the reward should be made to benefit morality and equity like the article states. In medicine, a doctor should be held to the same standards no matter what the type of error. The soldier should be rewarded for obedience rather than just being there for their time. Politicians should be rewarded for their objective goals instead of allowing them to make us look stupid time and time again by spoon feeding us.

Book Report Segment #3 - The World Is Flat?

The next section of the book deals with chapters 3 through 7. Chapter 3 starts with what Friedman calls the triple convergence. He classifies this as the coming together of three specific things that allowed the most recent globalization to flourish. The first convergence is considered to be the culmination of the ten flatteners. This is called one of the convergences because of the importance it had on global collaborations. It took time for these flatteners to all come together and combine themselves into the global network that they are now. The second convergence includes the new business software that was invented and how that by adapting that software altered business practices. The convergence of these new practices with the global world will take time to become universal and fully implemented in relations. Friedman labels the third convergence as the most critical to global economics and politics. The main idea that makes this third convergence work is horizontal collaboration. Never before were so many people able to connect and compete with their thoughts and ideas. Now with the establishment of the internet highways and software that could speak back and forth people who weren't able to connect before now had the access and ability to input. The biggest new player to the playing field in recent years has been India. India has led the way in developing to fit into the global economy, adapting to the culture of business in the playing field and a new generation has risen which is labeled as the zippies. After moving away from a government of socialism, India's next generation pushed itself into the global information market. The zippies are defined as the young adults with the strive and "zip" to work towards a destination not a destiny and having the mindset to succeed. India isn't concerned with being on the receiving end of the criticism by Americans about jobs being outsourced to there and they believe that Americans shouldn't be either. They believe we should focus on the raising our bar and continue innovating or we will be left behind. China has its own set of zippies that are striving to be better and better. Bill Gates said something in this section that really got me thinking. He made the point that with the world being more flat now there was a much better chance for raw genius talent to succeed. It is no longer enough to just be average and born in a well developed area because right beneath our eyes the number of well developed places is ever increasing. Friedman makes it important to note that this triple convergence that has taken place over the last 25 years is only the warm-up and that what's in store for the future will blow all of this right out of the water. These convergences move us to a new reality which will take the world by storm and that is the sorting out of companies and communities now that they have the means to communicate and collaborate no matter where they set up shop. Foreign companies have done a good job at diversifying their locations of business so that they can succeed in the flat world but on the other hand, America has not positioned itself in good terms to succeed in the flat world. The old way the vertical world where companies commanded and controlled the global market is now being overtaken by the horizontal world where it is now crucial to collaborate and connect in order to be a contender in the global market. Everything will have to be sorted out to determine who owns what, and where everyone stands within that. The next section looks at how Americans are affected by the likings of this flat world. With China and India entering the global markets, Americans have seen an increase in unemployment. Wipro president, Vivek Paul said it best when he compared the connection of these two powers to the global market. He said that the first thing we see is the influx of capacity, followed by an increase of unemployment elsewhere. The capital is soon reallocated though and in the end everyone will benefit. Friedman states that instead of cutting ties with the “railroad” we should embrace it, and improve on the tools the country needs in order to have its share of the capital. He then points to the broad groups of people that will be necessary to make our economy stand tall with the world. He lists them as the great collaborators, synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, adapters, green people, math lovers, and localizers. He makes it clear that these are categories that which a person may full under more than one and that there will be more and more developing along the way. Learning how to fall into as many categories as you can is the key to making yourself more adaptable to succeed in this flat world. Friedman then turns his focus to education and the competition of education. The question arises in the flat world as to what course of education is most needed in order to survive. The answer isn’t clear cut and, as seen throughout different cultures, can be interpreted in many different ways. The most important is to learn how to learn. By learning how to learn you can be more adaptable to change because you have the knowledge to go out and better yourself and constantly absorb new information. Navigation is also a key because the internet is a vast place and without proper knowledge of reliable sources or validated information we could come up wrong on many topics. Friedman also spends some time on the passion and curiosity quotients. He puts so much into these numbers because he feels that these provide you with the most amount of difference. This makes you stand out, and by having these tools; you have a much better shot of solving problems and succeeding in the flat world. The flat world puts a lot more into the horizontal passing of information and along with that we must have the creativity and brain power to interpret and improve in order to flourish. We have to mold our students and younger generations to have all these tools to succeed by pushing the importance of them through their secondary years and making the tools key to admission and success in college/real world. We have the country; we just need the willingness of the people and the strength of their minds to adapt to the new world. We have done it before and we need to do it again. The world is changing and we cannot be stubborn to think that we can just cruise through it. We must change our ways of learning, our abilities as people, and fight to succeed. 

Culture Socialization

The paradox article provided us with seven steps to socialization. Companies socialize so that things are done the way that they wasn't them done within their organization which is perfectly understandable. But it's almost like brainwash. In college your given the general way of how to solve problems that are related to your field. Then once you go out into the real world the culture changes and the company wants to instill in you the wills to win so to say and in order to keep their reputation they must breed you into the bread winner they need. Kinda demeaning if you think about it. Sort of like saying the way you work isn't working for us and no matter how successful you aim to be you must do it within these parameters whether they are limiting or not. But on the other side I guess we have been socialized our whole life so this time it shouldn't be any different. We aren't kids anymore and now I see the reality of the socialization and I'm not sure if I am really to fond of it. Success involves compromise so I suppose I will have to succumb to it at some point.

Employee Uniforms

From our discussion in class I felt like everything about the uniforms effect on the employees was true. It does make you feel degraded wearing a cheap uniform. So the new uniform probably does help to boost morale. One point that I would like to add relates to the topic of pressure. With the old smock, the words "How may I help you?" are emblazoned right on it. This adds pressure to the employee to help the customer because their uniform strictly labels them to do that. With the new uniform that pressure is alleviated because the words are gone so now the employees can walk through the stores and blend in more than they have in the past. This puts the responsibility of reaching out to customers in the hands of the employees which from the Walmart employees I've seen isn't the best idea to do.

The Joys of Researching

From our class in the Library Lab we got the usual lecture on searching the internet. Usually I go at it as to just find what I need as easily as possible. This time though I looked at it differently and I think a great deal of that is credited from the book I’m reading for my book report, “The World Is Flat”.

We think about the internet and it’s such a large database of information, babble, and nonsense. Every time I have to do research for a paper I run into the issue of sifting the meaningful from the meaningless. My book talks about the internet and how with so much information in one place the world is a much more level playing field because more and more people can access it. The beauty of the internet is also its biggest problem, how to access what you need and what you need alone. This is one of things that I got out of my book so far is that in order for the world to continue to flatten, there needs to be ways of searching the internet and finding what you need from a reliable source, say a scholarly journal for instance.

Enter Aaron Dobbs, many see him as a simple librarian but, after connecting the lessons in my book to him, I see him as a flattener of our world. Look at what he did just for our class. He set up a site where we could access certain databases of information narrowed down to the business sector. Every angle we needed to hit was readily available by the simple click of a tab or link on his site which saves me a substantial amount of time. He had database after database where the outside topics of “nonsense” could be eliminated from our search. This made searching the internet much less frustrating and time could be made more efficient by getting to the meat of the information out there. The key to flattening the world is to make information easily and efficiently accessible and at the same time get only the information you are looking for.

So, thanks to the database companies and Aaron Dobbs for being together responsible for the flattening of the world and making the internet a much more user friendly place to conduct research. I mean without these innovators we’d still be searching through pages and pages on Google looking for “scholarly journals”. 

Decision-Making Biases

From the quiz that we were given in class we were introduced to certain biases that lead us to forming decisions. The first two questions I got right. I’m not saying I understood the bias behind that questions as I read them but I saw the five companies I knew and thought I know them all but none from the other group so I figured it was to trick us and I picked the ones I didn’t know. As with question 2 I went at it the same way. The information fit a stereotype very closely so I went with the opposite answer. Then problem 3 came and I fell into the ease of recall bias without even thinking about it. In problem 4 as we can’t 100% determine the correct answer to the # of words it’s obvious that there can’t be less words in 4b than 4a.

Anyway I found it interesting how tough it is to make decisions without bias. It’s like society hands us the wrong tools for life. Between stereotypes, recall, past experiences, and accessibility it’s easy to see how these can get in the way of making correct decisions or jumping to the “easiest” answer based on the things I mentioned. The real test of leadership and decision making I guess is to how well you can eliminate these biases and come to the straight, rational, correct answer. Sticking to probabilities, means, and avoiding conjunction fallacies all help to come to these rational decisions. Knowledge is key: knowing of these biases helps you to avoid them or at least keep an eye out for them.

As I’m sure the biases that are instilled in us help in some ways throughout our lives I feel we should be weary of them in the business world.

Book Report Segment #2 - The World Is Flat?

In this next section of the book Freidman describes his 10 reasons that the world is flattened. The first flattener he attributes to is the falling of the Berlin Wall. He sees the wall as a roadblock in connecting the world and that the wall separated the communist from the capitalists. As the wall falls down this opens up the roadways and ground routes for the information highway to expand. This now takes the world from being to separate spheres and turns it into a whole body reaching toward a connection. The next flattener he mentions is the invention of the WWW and Netscape. He sees the World Wide Web as a great innovation but something that was not easily operable by the common person. It wasn’t until Netscape came along and made the internet more user friendly that people started to latch onto it and it began to grow. This invention allowed anyone and everyone to put their opinions and ideas on the internet for anyone and everyone to see. This flattened the world because people could now pass information easier than ever. This, though, was only the beginning. The next flattener is the invention of work flow software and its effect on the internet. It created a commonality of standards that made it easier to pass information to one another. The standards allowed companies to change their focus from making their product singular to opening up the power of their products because quality was now more important due to the playing field being so very similar. The fourth flattener deals with the topic of uploading the reasons for it flattening the world. This trend allowed everyone to be producers of software and information rather than just consumers. It left people striving to develop new and advanced things and leveled out the world. Not only were the technology companies developing software and websites but now the simple user could develop his or her own sites/software that they could upload to the internet for other users to see and operate. Freidman brings up the topic of community developed software which commonly gets the name open source community. This is fairly complicated to understand but it is generally just the programming instructions that make the software run.  This offered competition to the major corporations to always produce the best quality software but also to provide it at a reasonable price. Friedman lays the most room for more flattening if that makes sense on uploading. It has the most room to succeed or be disruptive. Things such as blogging and Wikipedia are often user opinion and even in our course of research Wikipedia cannot be trusted but I feel like it kind of goes along with what Dr. Goates said in class about the theory of multiple people laying out information will be right in the long run. I see how uploading can turn bad, but I feel as if with the proper education and adoption and simple overlooking ethics we can keep uploading a positive thing for people to do. Flattener number five is outsourcing. Outsourcing has flattened our world because business people see that they can make more profits by taking the less challenging work to cheaper labor countries. This in turn provides and opportunity for that country to become more educated and therefore increase their stance in the global economy. Look at India and how they have developed and China too. These countries are and will overtake the US and Europe because of their rapid increase in education. By outsourcing labor positions elsewhere we have flattened the world because with the opportunity to learn comes an economic boost. The next flattener is off shoring which is different from outsourcing because it isn’t just contracting out a single part of your business it is actually taking your whole business elsewhere.  He contributes the flattening that has occurred from this to the entrance of China to the WTO. Ever since then every other country has had to work faster and faster to keep up with the development that China was seeing. The scary thing is that China just isn’t cheaper from the labor standpoint but their innovation and technologies have seen steady improvements over the past decade or so which is something the US and Europe need to be aware of. The seventh flattener deals with supply chaining and how that has flattened the world. The reason that this is such a flattener is because when a company takes advantage of a supplier on a global level they are interconnecting the world in a way that hasn’t been seen before. The goal of low cost makes this so important because companies are now looking anywhere they can in order to get a better deal than their competitor thus creating a flattened world. Flatteners eight and nine are insourcing and informing. These both go a long way as to making the world a flatter place. As far as insourcing goes the leader here is UPS. They have gone from merely delivering packages to now setting up complete supply chain systems for companies all over the world and bringing together companies all across the world like never before. UPS helps small companies broaden their reach because UPS has the means to deliver and receive from anywhere and everywhere. I find this fascinating because it allows the world to flatten more and more due to an ever increasing number of companies reaching globally thanks to UPS’s help. Informing relates to Google and Yahoo mainly. The two major search engines, they allow anyone with internet access the ability to find anything they’re looking for by simply typing it into the box. This has flattened the world mainly because so much information is readily accessible whenever wherever by whoever. The last flattener is simply the new advances and the shrinking and accessibility of the technology. Inventions such as the sd card, iphone, tablet, laptop, etc. have all provided more access to the information available on the internet. The fact that everything I need is available on my smart phone makes all the difference. For the world to be flat the accessibility has to be there and this is the recent push we have seen between competitors today.

Integrative Negotiation

The topic of integrative negotiation intrigued me in class. I thought about what it takes to come to an integrative decision. I think its something that you develop over time with a party as your relationship deepens. I don't believe that you jump to working out a negotiation in an integrative way right out of the gate because this leaves you vulnerable. If the other party doesn't reveal their true intentions you run the risk of being manipulated into a decision not best for yourself. 

It kinda plays off human nature. Competition is everywhere in our world and for two random, stranger parties to decide on an integrative decision takes a great set of morals and ethics. Competition usually prevails in a first time negotiation because the parties feel the need to win, unknowing that both parties can "win".

If two parties come to an integrative decision together I believe that that has to go a long way in developing a long term relationship in dealing with that party.

Prisoner Theory

On Tuesday we did the exercise of the stores being open or closed. Chris and I led the class with the most profit. We determined that our best option was to stay open because of the lesser loss applied and the hopes of winning big. After negotiation we determined that together if we stayed closed that the biggest profit with the least amount of risk would be applied. In order to eliminate risk of backstabbing we sat down and agreed to fill in the remaining weeks in whole so that a change would be eliminated. Little did I know that there was a theory behind how a decision should be made. The prisoner theory determines that we should pick the result that gives us the least consequence given each decision by the other person in the mix. This theory definitely makes sense because it is in human nature to thrive competition and by the rational reason to pick that both compete goes along with that. I guess in order for this theory to work for you then you need to eliminate your morals and ethics going into this situation because you can't look at it like this is how I am so I cant rat the person out because it isn't in the best interest for you. You have got to look at it like this will get me the best thing given the circumstance that I don't know what the other person will do. In other words, you must become the homoeconomicas man.

Negotiating

From reading both the article and the book I've found that you have to be pretty clever to negotiate well. You can't just walk in blind and hope to lock down the best deal. The exercise in class put us in this situation with the unknown knowledge of our oppositions needs and situation. As this is the case in most business transactions, it still does not make the negotiating process any easier. The biggest goal that a negotiator should try to achieve is acquiring the reservation price and BATNA of the people on the other side of the deal. Although in doing this there are probably some legal issues that usually arise. Without this information there are other tactics to take which are discussed in the article that was on d2l. The most important tools of negotiation I believe is the initial offering and the counter offer. If you set your aspiration price too low then the hopes of getting your goal price may be out of luck. As well as with the counter offer, if you allow your opponent to define the ballpark then you are stuck in their terms. If you provide a counter far enough away from the initial offer, you may be able to meet further down in the middle. These tools provided for negotiation are a very crucial part of business leadership and decision making. With mastering these tricks and being clever in how you approach your negotiation you're bound to win more than you lose in deal making.

Book Report Segment #1 - The World is Flat??

                The book I’m reading is The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. The author is a journalist who was on a job in India with Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, when he came to the conclusion that the world is flat. By “flat” he means that with globalization the whole world is becoming a more level playing field. More and more countries have access to information and technology. He starts looking more in depth at the outsourcing of tasks and jobs to Indian companies. He talks with workers and managers at call center headquarters throughout India and they show him how it’s more efficient to have the call centers in India because of the cheaper labor price and because of the time zone difference. Outsourcing extends further than just with calling centers too. Simple tax returns are done by employees sitting in cubicles in India and then sent back to accountants in the US. Also, one can hire a personal assistant that, because of the time difference, can be given a task and then complete that task while the American is sleeping, having it ready for that person in the morning. One think that has recently picked up is sending x-rays and other medical images overseas to be reviewed by Indian doctors and then sent back with results to the US. This is convenient because they are up while we are asleep and we are awake while they are asleep allowing a 24/7 availability of someone who can read these medical images. News is being made more efficient by limiting the number of employees in the field and finding the news out fastest, remotely. In the call centers in India, they offer training for accent reduction so that the American feels more comfortable with whom they are speaking too. The thing that I found most interesting is that with all this work they have, there is still time made for them to take classes to further their education and that they make that a goal of their companies to do. I found it alarming that there were so many graduates there because one would think that in time this surge of employment will balance out and India will have some economic and unemployment problems.

                After visiting India and coming to the assumption that the world is flat he decided to write this book. He then began a journey throughout the world stopping at places like Tokyo, Dailan, Baghdad, Colorado, and Bethesda. In Tokyo he discovered that Japan was beginning to outsource lower paying jobs to call centers in China. In Dailan there is a wide spread economic increase throughout the whole city. The city has grown rapidly in the high tech industry. In Colorado he was on vacation and called up the company JetBlue to see if they traveled a route from Washington to New York. He spoke with a lady whom which was working from home. The founder of JetBlue called this homesourcing. He stated that it is a great way to keep their costs down and still allow for women to stay at home with their children but provide for their families financially as well. In Baghdad he spoke with an army unit that had an predator drone flying over a Iraqi village. This aircraft was being flown by someone in the states and being analyzed by experts all around the world. This all shows ways in which the world is flat and although it doesn’t directly tie into what we have discussed in class so far I believe that for this flattening to occur there has to be a large amount of cooperation and information transferred from country to country.

                I think that the main thing Friedman is trying to show in this first portion of the book is that the world isn’t just leveling in certain places. The world is leveling all over in places that we haven’t seen it level. The spread is much wider and more rapid than any advance that I’ve seen happen in history. I see this as the beginning of a world completely different from the one at which we are comfortable with now. The economic crashes seen here and in Europe are indeed in line with this flattening because as other countries are developing technologically there is a demand for jobs and because of the cheaper costs of outsourcing American and European corporations are more or less abandoning their economies. The world is essentially shrinking its mountain peaks and valleys of technological and economical differences between countries. I cut this section of pages for the report short of its “equal length” from the rest of the book because next Friedman goes into the ten forces that flattened the world and I wanted them all in one post. 

Long article: Committees, Juries, Teams

The term group polarization came up in this article and I found it interesting.

It's saying that when placed in a group setting an individual will introduce a more radical course of action to a problem in order to gain group acceptance. Then they make whats called a risky or choice shift to that more extreme result and go from there. This is interesting because after further research I found some real life applications of this issue of group polarization.

First is the holocaust and Hitler brought together a group of people who disliked Jewish people. As this group came together they polarized to that hatred of the Jewish peoples and their way of dealing with them became much more extreme which we all know.

Another is in government, say the president (democrat) lays a new bill down in the senate. The republicans get together and discuss it. Someone speaks up saying why they disagree with the bill and then another and then another and then the group polarizes around their disapproval of the bill making radical changes that would not have originally taken place if not for the polarization.

Group Polarization is a crucial topic that can produce devastating results and while the understanding of this topic is not fully acquired it is still something that has been observed to have happened within teams and is something we should be aware of for the future.

Making Decisions

In class we talked about making decisions and what that entails. The case we went over talked about a race team and whether or not they should race given the circumstances. It seemed like a valid question, and the figures were all on paper. The emotional and instinctive response removed I decided not to race.

I saw this case as just a in class real world example that was just set up in order to be exercised in class. Honestly, I didn't have a real emotional feeling on whether or not they should race. It was only a difference in money that decided whether to race or not. Little did I know the reality of the situation.

On a cool morning in January the space shuttle Challenger took off for the last time. This data was questioning a part of the space shuttle that was dysfunctional at certain times. This data now holds a whole new meaning.When you have 7 american astronauts lives at risk knowing what that data entails how could you let that shuttle attempt take-off that morning. I, being far removed from the situation, said just alone when the loss was merely money that the event should not happen and now when the lives of others are at stake this should make the decision even easier...right?

Then Dr. Goates said the point about it being in their nature which is understandable. They were astronauts and that's what they were. I question whether or not the astronauts even knew that this data existed or were brought aware of it. I'm sure there is a general understanding that yeah they are going into space and that the risk of not coming home is there. But the specifics of this, whether they were or were not brought to the attention of the astronauts, should have been. Or, a higher power should have stepped in and shut the operation down. But, anyway it did happen and I for one would rather die attempting to explore a place where so few have traveled than dying in a car accident. Both of these have great risks. Most of us drive in a car everyday and many using our cellphones at the same time even though we know it is a big risk. So I guess what i'm saying is: Are the scientists and astronauts ignorant because they decided to fly anyway or are we ignorant because we make a great risk every time we use our cellphones and drive? Is it really any different?

Efficiency and Teams

Efficiency: we hear it in pretty much every business class we take. The more efficient production or organizational tasks can be accomplished the more time and money is saved. With teams this comes into play just as it does elsewhere. When a team is created and they connect to a level where they are  one unit then they are efficient, or a high performance team on the team performance curve. The curve shows the levels a team goes through and the efficiency that goes along with that. The main thing I think is important to consider with a team is that if it doesn't prove to be more efficient than why waste the time trying to fix it. Assemble a group that shoots through the projections and raises your companies sales or production output. With a team I think that once a personal relationship is bruised within the team that team cannot operate at an efficient level and therefore must be fixed in a way that is outlined in the team performance curve article. They can either add members, get rid of members, or place responsibilities elsewhere. Just to wrap it all up that without running on. The main goal of creating a team should be to improve efficiency, without this the team does not help the company grow.

Multicultural Groups

With different cultures working together their will always be bridges to cross. I mean we look through history and its easy to see why. Their has been so much animosity and wars fought because one group of people disagrees with another's way of living. Like with the small discussion of Palestine in class. The cultures have been placed their and split so awkwardly that there is bound to be disputes. The Israeli people and the Palestinians don't particularly like one another as is and having them work together to form a peace treaty is difficult. But by using the tools in the article managing multicultural groups maybe this problem could be solved. If adaptation doesn't work by fixing it on their own which hasn't happened since they've been placed there. Outside nations stepping in would be an issue as well so structural intervention doesn't seem to be a good idea. Managerial intervention seems like the best plan with the U.N. being that managerial body that steps in. If that doesn't work maybe the exit must occur where this just runs its course. This would be sad to see cause in the end without compromise, war would most likely occur.

The Low Grades

All our lives we have been conditioned to believe that grades are the most important thing. In high school it was oh you better not slack off or else you won't get into college. From my experience I think high school was a cake walk as long as you did the work and even if you slacked off which I know I did it is still easy to get through it. As far as getting into college, sure the first applicants that schools will look at will be those top GPA high school kids. But there always seems to be those kids in your dorm or gen-ed classes where your like how did they get into college. This is because high school grades don't carry over to college and the monkey on your back of everyday teachers and parents are gone.

As far as this article is concerned yeah it is most important to be above a 3.0 for a meaningful field of study if you  want to stand out. The first interviews employers will give will be with those who put in the effort on an independent basis to get to where they are. It's only fair that students who work their tail off to get that high GPA get rewarded by getting that first interview.

But, in my opinion the GPA is only their to get in the door and that the rest of your resume or even just your attitude and personality in general will get you the rest of the way. One employer I had even asked us (the employees) to take a personality test just to see how well we fit our jobs.

From the employer perspective I think yes they should interview those top GPA students but also allocate time for the lower GPA students as well because extra curriculars definitely affect someones GPA and you never know when you'll find that diamond in the rough.

Discrimination

In relation to the walmart case we talked about in class I have a few comments I want to put out there.

Walmart has around if not over 4500 stores in the U.S. and almost double that worldwide. With that many stores and an improper infrastructure to detect these things it is understandable that this could happen. I am in no way saying that this sort of discrimination is an alright thing. With the number of employees and managers that headquarters has to manage, along with all other aspects of the Walmart culture, it is not a foolproof plan and there are sometimes mistakes which they have now discovered. And as long as Walmart fixes this issue going in to the future and compensates those who were discriminated against then it is a step forward.

Check this story out:
       I was watching undercover boss one week and it was with the hooters organization. As you can imagine they have their fair share of discrimination. The one manager that this boss shadowed was a jerk to his employees to say the least. He forced them to do contests when it came to letting people off early. The one contest was eating a plate of baked beans with no hands. Yeah this guy was a creep. Anyway, later when the manager had the meeting with the boss. The boss said how he knows that this sort of management style is wrong and that he's sure there are a few bad eggs in the company but that he would do what he could to find them and prevent this from happening again. The manager was fired instantly.