This course provides an overview of the theories and research findings relative to human in organizations, with particular emphasis on implications for managers and leaders. The specific topic areas covered include individual differences, motivation, group dynamics, power and politics, organizational culture, emotional intelligence, stress management, mindfulness, and more. The course will also rely on a number of self-assessments and experiential exercises to provide students with a pragmatic sense of how the concepts are relevant to real world organizational problems, as well as to provide students with self-knowledge relative to their managerial and leadership competencies.

 

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Team Minipaper 1: Virtual Team Building

 

Team Mini Paper 1 – Team Building

Team 6, aptly named as a team with a Navy man in our ranks, is a group of individuals assembled by chance and given the challenge of developing trust to facilitate the learning of Organizational Behavior and its applications with respect to management and leadership. This is our story.

Because many elements of Stage 1 for Creating and Sustaining Trust weren’t present (such as an introduction by our team creator and vouching for our skills with respect to individual team roles), swift trust was developed through the external source of our Penn State statuses. All of us began the Penn State OMBA program in August 2018, attended the same Residency Week in State College, PA, successfully completed three semesters of the program, and completed MBADM 810 with Dr. Kreiner and therefore, understanding and have experience within virtual teams.

Through two Zoom meetings, we developed the cognitive and affective elements of trust. Our initial meeting leaned towards the cognitive, wherein we introduced ourselves and shared our professional backgrounds and formal education achievements. A few of us had worked together in OMBA teams before and quickly endorsed each other’s past performance. This vouching and the fact that we all thrive in our respective industries bolstered our sense of each other’s ability. Both meetings were easily coordinated through email and text and everyone arrived on time, even with one on a golf course and another calling in from work in her scrubs and stethoscope. This punctuality even in the face of busy life commitments underscored everyone’s competence to support the team and our endeavors, ensuring that the swift trust developed early on did not dissipate.

Our second meeting was our team building exercise, a virtual adaptation of Greenberg, Greenberg, & Antonucci’s (2017), where we reviewed each other’s OMBA Badges and presented something funny or interesting about one another’s profile. We made jokes about our future interactions based on MBTI makeup, talked about aquariums, and remarked at how geographically spread our past and current homes are. Clearly, we took ample opportunity to pepper in non-task related social interactions, thus supporting the affective trust.

We came away from this exercise with a high level of trust. To quantify on a trust scale of 1 (being no trust at all) to 10 (representing full faith in the team for one’s grade), we assigned ourselves an average score of 8.9. Individual scores ranged from a full 10 from a teammate who is predisposed to trust early – but acknowledged trust can erode quickly with cause – to an 8. Lower scores were attributed to our team lacking any significant challenge to overcome together as well as to general prematurity since we have not yet been graded on any task for which we have been assembled.

(462)

Works Cited
Greenberg, P. S., Greenberg, R. H., & Antonucci, Y. L. (2007). Creating and Sustaining Trust in Virtual Teams. Business Horizons.

 

Lesson 2 Discussion: Big 5 Inventory – 816 Discussion Group 3
From MBADM 816, FA19, Merged 001/002
59 59 unread replies. 60 60 replies.

Everyone has taken the Big Five inventory, per the lesson. Share your results, trying to touch on not only the basic results, but also at least one element of your behavior/habits/persona that appears to be validated (or invalidated, as the case may be) by these results. In other words, reflect on your results: Do they make sense to you? Why or why not? Answer in 200 to 250 words. Please make one main post, and respond to at least one classmate’s post.

Discussions are not graded individually (which is why the discussion is set to zero points). But these are required, and they form the basis of your Individual Participation grade, which will be awarded at the end of the course.

 

 

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Open-Mindedness: 87th percentile

You enjoy having novel experiences and seeing things in new ways.

 

Conscientiousness: 96th percentile

You are very well organized, and can be relied upon.

 

Extraversion: 47th percentile

You are neither particularly social or reserved.

 

Agreeableness: 78th percentile

You tend to consider the feelings of others.

 

Negative Emotionality: 16th percentile

You probably remain calm, even in tense situations.

 

The Big Five Project Personality test reflected many of the aspects of my personality that I am aware of. I do tend to be open-minded, conscientious, and agreeable. I found it interesting that the test registered a degree of negativity. Although this is low, it was still a surprise for me. I also see myself as more extroverted than introverted and I would have expected a slightly higher rating towards extroversion. In the end, I do think that some of my greatest features are also my flaws. I tend to be overly agreeable and consider others often before myself. This can get me into challenging situations at work because I have a hard time delivering bad news or saying “no”. I would say that this is one of my greatest challenges as a leader and one that I have to work on more consistently. I have to remember that being liked is not always as important as being respected and dependable.

 

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Open-Mindedness:          58 percentile     “You typically don’t seek out new experiences.”
Conscientiousness:          99 percentile     “You are very well-organized and can be relied upon.”
Extraversion:                       79 percentile     “You are relatively social and enjoy the company of others.”
Agreeableness:                   44 percentile     “You are neither extremely forgiving nor irritable.”
Negative Emotionality:  71 percentile     “You tend to become anxious or nervous.”

 

Upon completing the Big Five Project Personality Test, the results aligned with how I generally view myself and my self-perceived behavior. In fact, when comparing my results to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test from Residency, the results were eerily similar – especially the Conscientiousness element. My MBTI classification was ENTJ – Commander with 76% Extraverted (Mind), 58% Intuitive (Energy), 65% Thinking (Nature), and 94% Judging (Tactics). Both personality tests paint the picture of a strong-willed, confident extrovert that can have difficulty managing emotions (my wife and kids confirm this). I found it very interesting that the overall picture was consistent despite the differences in test foundations. The MBTI approach is based upon Jung’s work that proposes that people experience the world through four cognitive functions – sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking (Jung, 1971). In contrast, the Big Five test uses factor analysis of verbal descriptors of human behavior to create elements describing an individual’s personality (Matthews, 2003). Based on several studies, some believe that there is some cross-over between the two. For example, the Conscientiousness element correlates with Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving (Furnham, 1996). As expected, my Conscientiousness score of 99% aligns with Judging (94%) and Thinking (65%). Both tests seemingly validate that particular element of my personality.

 

 

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Lesson 3 Discussion: Lost at Sea

14 14 unread replies. 14 14 replies.

Project Team 1: Matthew Barbee, Sarah Bo, Susannah Hunter, Chukwuemeka Nwabuokei, Devina Parmar, Graham Stream.

Group Scores:

1. A) average individual accuracy- 57
2. B) group accuracy- 42
3. C) best individual accuracy- 37

During the beginning of our Zoom session our team went through the organizing stage because we had never had a task of this nature as a group before (Greenberg & Greenberg, 2007). Through trial and error, we were able to determine a method that worked best for our group.  If our team was faced with a similar challenge in the future, we would first identify our priorities for the situation we have been put in. For example, being stranded in the middle of the ocean our group referred back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and determined that the basic needs are food and water. Agreeing on a set of priorities helped us to ensure our collective scoring made logical sense rather than a randomized compilation of our individual scores. Also, appointing a group leader for group discussions to this nature would help to drive the discussion, keep us focused on our goal, and ensure all members shared their thoughts.

In order to be successful in our group exercise, we had to navigate and dissect the individual biases that each of us brought to the meeting. Research has found that though “individuals are not aware of their own biases, does that mean that the biases cannot be neutralized at the organizational level” (Kahneman, Lovallo, Sibony). Though we cannot control our bias and intuition, we used our group members, to improve our judgement and reach unanimity.  Our newly formed group is experiencing fragile trust and understanding personalities, which may result in groupthink to avoid conflict. Through our process we were able to explore possible alternatives, apply rational thinking, minimize the bias, and ultimately decide on which objects we would prioritize while stranded at sea.

(Word Count: 298)

References

Greenberg, P. S., Greenberg, R. H., & Antonucci, Y. L. (2007). Creating and sustaining trust in virtual teams. Business Horizons, 50(4), 325–333.

Kahneman, D.  Lovallo, D. Sibony, O. (2011). The Big Idea: Before You Make That Big Decision. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2011/06/the-big-idea-before-you-make-that-big-decision

 

 

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Project Team 11: (Robert Lenius, Gabriel Mejia, Amit Pandit and Seth Spillare)

Average Individual Accuracy: 69
Group Accuracy: 72
Best Individual Accuracy: 56

With challenges due to internationally spread team members, finding a common team meeting time was difficult. But we got creative with consensus-based decision-making. For this exercise, we got math (variance and averages) to help us understand where we agreed as a team and areas with differing perceptions. We effectively used communication tools like WhatsApp and Box to keep our discussions lively and real-time. As a starting point, our alignments helped us understand each other’s mindsets. We constructively debated on areas where our individual rankings differed. We asked questions to get deeper insights into individuals’ frames of mind and encouraged the sharing of dissenting opinions to mitigate group-think. Most of our differences revolved around items which potentially had more than one use, for example, the mosquito net as an alternative to fishing net. Arguments and counter arguments led to an overall solid team alignment.

For similar exercises in the future, we agreed to communicate our schedules early-on thereby allowing us to overcome time zone challenges. One of our learning was that different individuals view the same issue with a different lens and bias. Working as a team to reduce this bias can lead to more consistent and successful consensus building (Kahneman et al., 2011). We could start off by framing the problem to have the same team perspective and understanding instead of differing assumptions on the undefined parts of the exercise. This will help avoid shortcuts in the perceptual process and deficient decision-making or sub-optimal outcomes. Another way to reduce bias would be to have a functional expert (like a ship-wrecked survivor) to lean on for guidance. Finally, putting together a robust quality control to check on biases will help critique recommendations effectively while avoiding group-think (Kahneman et al., 2011).

(300 Words)

References:

Harvard Business Review: Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.

 

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Project Team 6:

Average Individual Accuracy: 60

Group Accuracy: 28

Best Individual Accuracy: 40

We identified intuitive bias in regards to the Sextant. The majority of the team considered navigating to shore important and individually ranked the Sextant high; however, on group discussion the Petty Officer in our group explained that without additional tools, training and skill, the Sextant would be useless. As a result, our group improved our overall accuracy, ranking the Sextant’s importance fairly low.

In contrast, we made a cognitive failure in regards to the Shark Repellant and did not recognize intuitive bias. The notion of a Shark Repellant seemed ridiculous – if an efficacious repellant existed, there would be no shark attacks – thus, we deemed it fictitious; a distractor to throw us off and subsequently ranked it of low importance. In this case, we lost points and decreased our overall accuracy.

This exercise showed us first-hand the importance of reducing bias, lending to more quality decisions. Kahneman et al explains that we may not recognize our own individual biases because they are subconscious, but we can reduce or eliminate them by employing a group decision making process. Teaming is not only important for drawing on various areas of expertise and skills, but also to recognize team members’ faulty intuition by using rational thought and improve their judgement when it comes to decision making.

We can improve in the future by utilizing a more systematic approach to decision making, taking steps to detect bias and minimize its effect such as assigning a team leader for each task to perform a systematic review, asking the questions described in the reading. Our group was collaborative and respectful of each team member’s viewpoint; however, in future decisions, we should consider and tease out possible bias. Even a simple pause for dissenting opinion can help avoid falling into bias, as we experienced with the Shark Repellant. (300 words)

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.
Edited by Constance Berk on 13 Sep 2019 at 18:40
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James Stockdale
James Stockdale
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 19:25

Group 8: Eric Landry Ekobeni Mbekem, Jesse Hampsher, Cody Holt, Peter Mazaran, Lisa Pritchard, James Stockdale

Accuracy Scores

Average Individual Accuracy: 57 | Group Accuracy: 38 | Best Individual Accuracy: 34

Part A.

The decision-making process we implemented as a team allowed us to consider everyone’s views and reach consensus; however, it may have helped to formalize a process prior to ranking the items as a group. As an example, it would have been more beneficial if each team member gave a brief, high-level overview of their individual strategy first, prior to delving into the team exercise, allowing team members to better understand each other’s points of view beforehand. In the future, once aligned on our approach to decision making, enforcing discipline is critical, as “partial adherence may be a recipe for total failure” (Kahneman and Sibony, 2011). This exercise provided our team with insights on how to communicate more effectively, as our future approach to decision making will consist of more in-depth dialogue around differing opinions to combat availability bias and foster creativity.

Part B.

This exercise gave us the opportunity to experience the two modes of decision making discussed in the article “Before You Make That Big Decision”. During the individual portion of this exercise, each member unknowingly experienced the intuitive (System 1) mode, where “thinking, impressions, associations, feelings, intentions, and preparations for action flow effortlessly” (Kahneman and Sibony, 2011). While efficient, this approach is more prone to personal biases and decision-making errors. Despite each member instinctively prioritizing water, food, and navigation, our own cognitive biases affected the items we chose individually to support these priorities, given the diversity of our backgrounds and experiences. That said, our diverse backgrounds proved beneficial during the group portion of this exercise, as we moved towards reflective (System 2) thinking, where “thinking is slow, effortful, and deliberate” (Kahneman and Sibony, 2011). During the group discussion, our individual heuristic affects were successfully challenged as team members sought reasoning behind each other’s ranking based on their experiences, allowing dissenting opinions to be fully articulated and, at times, even embraced.

[310 words]

References

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before You Make That Big Decision. Harvard Business Review
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Tori Gilbert
Tori Gilbert
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 20:11

Team 3 Team Members: Tori Gilbert, Ryan Murphy, Jeremy Russell, Jeff Witmer
Metric Score
Average Individual Accuracy 54.5
Group Accuracy 46
Best Individual Accuracy 40

A) Each team member thought about the ranking differently and what was most important to him or her, whether it was rescue, food rations, a way to produce more food, or finding land. All members seemed to compile their lists by way of intuition decision making (Robbins, 2017). No one had previous knowledge of survival techniques or researched into what would be the proper course of action. If we had a similar task in the future, we would have set a goal so that we could arrange the list of items into an order that would help the team to accomplish an objective before moving to another one (Robbins, 2017). Had we used this approach, we could have set that our first course of action would be signaling for help, agreed on what items would help us to accomplish that and then move on to what was next most important. We believe this would have made our list flow better; although the answers may not have lined up completely with the expert, at least a plan of attack would have been more apparent.

B) In the article “The Big Idea: Before you Make that Big Decision”, the authors discuss how individual bias can affect your decision making and “distort reasoning in business” (2011). The article discusses questions to ask yourself or the team as decisions are made to ensure that bias is not affecting team decisions. For this exercise, it is critical to avoid personal biases. This bias was most evident in the form of groupthink (the tendency of groups to minimize conflict by converging on a decision because it appears to be garnering support) when discussing the item of “shark repellant.” Many were strongly opposed to listing this item towards the top because it seemed unhelpful, while one team member was emphatic about this item being important. In the end, the team ranked shark repellant as 14/15, compared to the expert ranking of 10/15. Had the team asked questions like “Were dissenting ideas explored adequately?” the team may have arrived at a better decision. Moving forward, it will be critical to assess not only the decisions being made, but if there are any underlying biases affecting those decisions.

(367 Words)

References:

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.

Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A. (2017, January 04). Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 14th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9780134524719
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Rohit Anand
Rohit Anand
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 20:17

Project Team 2 – Jordan, Tony, Fletcher, Jonathan, Osvaldo, Rohit

Group Accuracy = 32

Average Individual Accuracy = 71

Best Individual Accuracy = 54

Initially, the team started going through the ranking exercise without a defined purpose. After a lengthy discussion, a plan was suggested to align our assumptions and goals so that we could rank the items more effectively. Aligning our assumptions and goals gave the team one frame of reference to evaluate the items for ranking, which established cohesion among the members. This is one area we would change in future teaming situations. By framing our thoughts upfront, we can better articulate why we ranked the items as we did. Another challenge the team faced involved understanding the “why” behind our rankings. Explaining the individual “whys” allowed the team to understand the pros and cons of each item listed while addressing our assumptions and goals. In our next group session, we want to provide better justification for our individual decisions. Using this approach will ensure we are capturing everyone’s perspective in order to make the best decision.

Groupthink was not an issue, ideas collided and the group was comfortable challenging each other. There were strong opinions on the importance of some items since the instructions were being interpreted differently. To overcome this, we decided on a set of ground rules for assessing each situation. We used this as an opportunity to grow and be open-minded in the future, while checking for cognitive biases. To address “anchoring” bias, we debated whether anyone knew how to use a sextant. Ultimately, the benchmark was set that none of our members knew how to use the sextant and thusly re-ranked it accordingly. We applied this benchmark to the MRE as one member had experience. As a result, our average individual score was twice as high as our group accuracy, indicating that our power to make decisions was more effective as a team.

Reference

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before You Make That Big Decision… Harvard Business Journal, 50-61.

Total word count: 296 words, excludes reference and the first section

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Joanna Tu
Joanna Tu
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 20:56

Team 12: Jennifer Hood, Samir Kalavar, Andrew Leary, Max Tarshis, Joanna Tu

Group Accuracy: 26

Average Individual Accuracy: 58.4

Best Individual Accuracy: 24

Based on our team’s experience with the Lost at Sea activity, if faced with a parallel decision scenario, we would begin by framing our strategy from the onset, leveraging System Two thinking which is “slow, effortful, and deliberate” (Kahneman, Lovallo, & Sibony, 2011, p. 52). We learned that we can better establish consensus-based decision-making when aligned in our overarching objective and perspective, as it is easy for our intuitive behavior, System One, to drive us to immediately and instinctively act, before we know what our true course may be, leading us astray (Kahneman et al., 2011, p. 52). As a team with limited survival expertise, availability bias also influenced our decision-making. The lack of knowledge regarding radio transistors for example, which require an associated transmitter for usability, inflated our ranking beyond the expert’s opinion. By building into our process a step to identify required or missing data, rather than assuming what is presented is all-encompassing, we can reduce availability bias. Pocket insights from team members, such as oil’s buoyancy or the lack of mosquitos on open water, allowed the team to consider credible alternatives and ensure that “other alternatives [were] fully evaluated in a fact-based way” (Kahneman et al., 2011, p. 55). Moreover, the limited survival expertise of the group also led to us presenting rankings apprehensively. A process improvement to best embolden team member contribution and reduce risk aversion could include vocalizing discomfort with open lines of communication. Through uncovering each participant’s strengths and weaknesses a team can best determine how each member adds to the team’s overall productivity. As we move forward, the group will utilize these “lessons learned” to facilitate effective interactions so our deliverables incorporate a uniform team strategy that all stakeholders can endorse. (299 words)

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before You Make That Big Decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50–60.
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Dara Lynch
Dara Lynch
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 21:03

Team 7: Sally Cogan, Tamekia Daniels, Frank D’Ambrosio, Jason Harnish, Dara Lynch

The accuracies from the Lost At Sea assignment are listed below.

Average individual accuracy = 69.5
Group accuracy = 76
Best individual accuracy = 56

If your team were faced with a somewhat parallel type of decision scenario in the future, is there is anything relative to your group decision process or consensus building process that you would change or modify the next time around?

First, the team determined the most and least important items and came to a consensus score after discussing each other’s points of view. To rank items that fell in the middle (i.e. the score was neither high nor low), the team reviewed each other’s individual scores and looked for consistencies to create the group scores. Any differences were lightly debated but consensus came quickly in order to move the assignment along. If faced with a similar scenario in the future, stronger arguments could have been made if people felt passionate about choosing one item as more important over another. The team should spend an allotted amount of meeting time to respectively question individual selections that dissent from the majority, to learn more about that team member’s thought process. Doing so will reduce the chances of falling prey to groupthink and confirmation bias.

How might all of this relate to the assigned article (Kahneman, Lovallo, and Sibony, “Before You Make That Big Decision”)?

The article discusses how bias can distort the decision making process, and lower the quality of decisions. Similar to the article, the team’s accuracy scores from the exercise could have been more precise if each teammate incorporated decision quality control questions. For example, a question from the assigned article was, “Were there dissenting opinions within the recommending team?” If the team asked one another this question, new rationale may have been uncovered from team members that could alter the group’s final decision. Meaningful disagreements should be considered a healthy part of the decision-making process and not a sign of conflict or hostility (Kahneman et al., 2011). Furthermore, walking through the checklist would have made the team aware of its own biases. The team became anchored on the idea that survival on the raft would be a long time, rather than a short amount of time. However, the experts advised planning for a quick rescue. Taking time to systematically reevaluate the team’s assumptions could have uncovered a different mindset to recovery.

(399 words)

Works Cited:

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard

Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.
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Jesse Hampsher
Jesse Hampsher
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 21:26

Looking for dissenting opinions is always challenging. Many times it is because someone doesn’t speak up, so how would anyone know? It is especially difficult to know about other opinions because silence is taken as concurrence in almost everything we do. In our 810 class we talked about roles each of us play in a group. Your paper reminds everyone of those roles, such as Devils advocate. If your group finds itself making decisions so easily, maybe you guys could just assign someone to do that? Good paper though!

Team 8
Edited by Jesse Hampsher on 14 Sep 2019 at 10:40
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Matthew Quiocho
Matthew Quiocho
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 21:30

Project Team 9: Fara Greene, Cornelius Daley, Rubina Haroon, Cailin Teagan, Erich Boersch, Matthew Quiocho

Calculated Assignment Scores:

A) 64.3 – Average individual accuracy
B) 38 – Group accuracy
C) 40 – Best individual accuracy

Part A

The group’s decision making accuracy was substantially better than the average individual accuracy. Despite such positive results there is ample room for improvement. The group would have benefitted taking time to set up ground rules, define roles and responsibilities, and create an evaluation framework prior to starting the activity. More open-ended, deliberative acceptance criterions would have allowed the discussion activity to run more efficiently1.

While the group was relatively successful in reaching consensus, the lack of evaluation criteria could have caused the group to struggle had the discussion topic been more personal or controversial. The general ease of consensus may also indicate that the prevalence of groupthink2, something the group did not readily try to mitigate, with members perhaps preferring to eschew conflicting views in order to appear as “team players”. These are just a few of the trouble areas that could be improved with more pre-activity planning.

(Word count: 148)

Part B

Groups are naturally subject to the many known and unknown biases of its individual members. Identifying those biases is the first step in developing an efficient decision-making process3, something the group failed to do, instead jumping straight into the exercise. However, a number of decision-making biases were eventually revealed over the course of the exercise discussions, highlighting differences between system one and system two thinking3.

Certain group member’s prioritization of water, food and shelter consistent with immediate survival needs reflected system one thinking3. While other member’s prioritization of potentially long term rescue efforts, reflected system two. The group was able to reach consensus on most points by openly considering alternatives and maintaining an open platform for dissent3. By inviting individual inputs first and then debating possible outcomes, the group established a healthy environment for decision-making that overall limited individual biases from impeding group decision making.

(Word count: 146)

References:

Lumen Learning. (2019). Boundless Management – Managing Group Decision Making. Retrieved from www.lumenlearning.com: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-management/chapter/managing-group-decision-making/ (Links to an external site.)
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2016). Essentials of Organizational Behavior. New York: Pearson.
Lovallo, K. D. (2011). Before You Make That Big Decision. Harvard Business Review.

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Bingchuan Wei
Bingchuan Wei
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 22:15

816 Project Team 5

Timothy Biggs, Archibald McMichael, Connor Mills, Daniel Strachan and Bingchuan Wei

Score Reporting:

Group Accuracy: 26

Average Individual Accuracy: 46.4

Best Individual Accuracy: 38

Retrospective:

While our group did have a great discussion on how we rated the salvaged items, we determined there were several ways we could have better structured the discussion. The first thing we should have done was to establish assumptions we could all agree upon prior to the actual discussion. During the discussion, we found out many of us approached the problem differently. Some of us were anchoring which influenced our individual rankings heavily. As a result, it was hard to come to an initial consensus on what would be the most important items for survival. Agreeing on assumptions up front would have saved us some wasted time. Second, it also would have been helpful for us to express our intended use of each item in the raft. This would have helped us have a more productive discussion from the outset. Finally, once our group agreed upon the rankings, we compared them to the expert rankings but did not do much of reflection on the differences. We should have spent more time reflecting on how our thought processes may have differed from the experts in order to learn new angles to approach the problem.

This whole discussion related to the assigned article in many ways. Before any of us even began the discussion, we should have checked for self-interested biases (Kahneman, 2011). For example, if everyone just wanted to come to an agreement as quickly as possible, it would hinder the fruitfulness of the exercise. We also could have assigned a group member the role of making sure we were not falling into the groupthink fallacy. If people all started agreeing too quickly, this group member would be responsible for soliciting dissenting views. We also could have challenged if our assumptions were overly optimistic or if we made the worst case bad enough (Kahneman, 2011).

References:

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.
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John Glasgow
John Glasgow
13 Sep 2019 13 Sep 2019 at 22:29

Team 10: Davendra Brijlall, Edward Peter Merenda, John Glasgow, John Pace, Kyle Rademaker

Scores:

Average Individual Accuracy: 55
Group Accuracy: 44
Best Individual Accuracy: 18

Our team approached this task by itemized all 15 items into specific categories, in order to add value to each selection. This enabled us to have a more fluid conversation on each item, as well as helped us debate how to rank each selection. We ultimately prioritized items which were categorized as “Substance” (MREs, water, items to harvest food) and “Rescue” (gasoline, mirror) while making our team ranking. This method enabled us to think holistically about the assignment and is a process we would adopt for future parallel team-based decision-making activities.

During the decision-making process, our team relied on two members with maritime survival experience – Kyle a Navy pilot who has flown search and rescue operations, and John, a survival instructor for the Navy. As they shared examples of rescue missions they performed (like one where a Father and Son were located seven days after a shipwreck, surviving off the food and water they were able to ration until discovered) the group decided to value substance over signaling. As this shows, the group fell into a reflective bias as we relied on our backgrounds and past experiences to make decisions. Not all examples were as accurate as some people saw the mirror for signaling rescue vessels while others saw it as a potential cutting tool. Although, originally reflective, when in the group this changed as almost everyone had a moment where they felt like something was wrong in their initial assessment because we were able to distinguish the salient stories from the superfluous ones by referring to our checklist/classification system.

Lastly, when viewing the expert’s opinion, we were hesitant to accept this opinion, which is part of an affect heuristic. We still prefer our logic than the experts, which makes it challenging to give alternative approaches an impartial judgment.

(word count w/o scores: 300)

Kahneman, D. Lovallo, D. Sibony, O. (2011). The Big Idea: Before You Make That Big Decision. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2011/06/the-big-idea-before-you-make-that-big-decision

 

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Team Assignment: Lost At Sea

Average Individual Accuracy: 60

Group Accuracy: 28

Best Individual Accuracy: 40

 

We identified intuitive bias in regards to the Sextant. The majority of the team considered navigating to shore important and individually ranked the Sextant high; however, on group discussion the Petty Officer in our group explained that without additional tools, training and skill, the Sextant would be useless. As a result, our group improved our overall accuracy, ranking the Sextant’s importance fairly low.

 

In contrast, we made a cognitive failure in regards to the Shark Repellant and did not recognize intuitive bias. The notion of a Shark Repellant seemed ridiculous – if an efficacious repellant existed, there would be no shark attacks – thus, we deemed it fictitious; a distractor to throw us off and subsequently ranked it of low importance. In this case, we lost points and decreased our overall accuracy.

 

This exercise showed us first-hand the importance of reducing bias, lending to more quality decisions. Kahneman et al explains that we may not recognize our own individual biases because they are subconscious, but we can reduce or eliminate them by employing a group decision making process. Teaming is not only important for drawing on various areas of expertise and skills, but also to recognize team members’ faulty intuition by using rational thought and improve their judgement when it comes to decision making.

 

We can improve in the future by utilizing a more systematic approach to decision making, taking steps to detect bias and minimize its effect such as assigning a team leader for each task to perform a systematic review, asking the questions described in the reading. Our group was collaborative and respectful of each team member’s viewpoint; however, in future decisions, we should consider and tease out possible bias. Even a simple pause for dissenting opinion can help avoid falling into bias, as we experienced with the Shark Repellant. (300 words)

 

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.

 

 

 

Lesson 4 Discussion: What Motivates You? – 816 Discussion Group 3

From MBADM 816, FA19, Merged 001/002

87 87 unread replies. 90 90 replies.

Many institutions motivate people through reward systems that pay off behaviors unworthy of rewarding. Examples of rewards for doctors and college students indicate that these systems will be counterproductive in the end (Kerr, 1995). By continuing to diagnose well patients as sick, doctors can lose their credibility and patients may eventually take their business elsewhere. Similarly, if too much emphasis is placed on grades and not enough on actual knowledge gained, professors risk releasing an unqualified work force that will negatively impact our economy and global status.

Kerr points out that focusing on numbers as indicators of success deprives the growth achieved through challenging objectives (Kerr, 1995). In the military, performance evaluations are generally focused on numbers to quantify and compare accomplishments. Impact is calculated in amounts of hours/dollars saved. The bigger the number, the more impressed leadership tends to be with the evaluation statement, and ultimately, the higher rating employees get. In this process, the bigger picture contribution becomes less significant than the associated number. This prioritizes quantity over quality, whereas the focus should be on rewarding more significant contributions that increase long-term work center efficiency. Another extrinsic reward for us is higher pay for any service member that reaches certain year marks in service, regardless of contributions.

Pink elaborates on the significant impact autonomy has as an intrinsic reward. I believe people in my field would be most motivated by greater autonomy. Because the military decides so much of what happens in our lives, the potential for greater autonomy would spark a genuine desire to perform better. Pink further explains that extrinsic rewards are outdated, and intrinsic rewards are conversely more effective in today’s business world (Pink, 2009). Greater independence, self-motivation, and serving a greater good are more realistic drivers of plausible performance.

(Word count: 295)

References:

Kerr, S. On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. The Academy of Management Executive. (1995), 9(1), 7-14.

Pink, Dan. “The Puzzle of Motivation.” TED, July 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/up-next.

 

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The TED talk really hit home for me due to my recent career change. I had worked in sales for my entire career, and as Dan Pink alludes to, the commission reward system was not as significant of a motivator as I expected after a while. Sure, high commissions are alluring to the position and are nice to earn. However, the positions lacked a purpose as Mr. Pink mentions. The positions were focused on personal achievement and nothing greater than that.

My new company motivates people in different ways. The rewards are evenly split with two being focused on personal performance (merit raises and bonuses) and two on company performance (company performance bonuses and stock options). This diversified reward system fights some of the issues Kerr points out in the article. It motivates employees to focus on their own job performance but also how their job effects the company as a whole. Employees are focused on using their individual success to drive the company forward, instead of solely focusing on their own performance. Kerr gave a sports analogy that I believe translates well to the business world with players being rewarded only for individual performances but coaches focusing on team successes. Having a mix of rewards, helps to alleviate this issue.

My current role has a slice of Google’s mindset, where for roughly 1-2 hours a day I have time to do whatever I want. I use this time to try new things, create tools that allow me to do my job better, and dive into the nitty gritty details of the job and the company. This autonomy allows me to take more ownership of my role, do side projects, and present new ideas to my direct supervisors and directors. These opportunities give me a sense of purpose within the company that I had not felt before.

 

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After completing the readings for this week, my job might be in the minority, but I believe that my work’s systems of reward are properly aligned with management desires. As Pink presented in his video, “[t]raditional management concepts are great if you want compliance, [but] if you want engagement, self-direction works better” (2009); this line of reasoning has been a guiding principle for my site as the facility has developed over the past several years. In the past, operators and engineers were rewarded at year end with raises and bonuses for hitting metrics such as production targets and quality goals. Although it was important to acknowledge these accomplishments, this sole means of reward did not help foster a culture of employee process ownership, which was management’s long-term goal at the time; that is, leadership wanted operators and engineers to not only be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the plant but also for the continuous improvement (CI) and optimization aspects of production. Thus, knowing that “[f]or an organization to act upon its members, the formal reward system should positively reinforce desired behavior, not constitute an obstacle to be overcome” (Kerr, 1995), management set out to reinvigorate the motivation and reward structure. In this regard, several changes were implemented:

A new CI tool was implemented and tied to the sites homepage; submitted ideas were easily visible to all employees
To foster engagement and adaptation of the new CI tool, a monthly and quarterly contest were held in which personnel voted on the best ideas whose owners were then given monetary rewards. This change quickly developed a positive sense of competition at the site; employees wanted their ideas to be the best ideas
Engineering reviewed the submitted improvement ideas with the plant manager on a weekly basis in order to ensure proper recognition; the plant manager subsequently recognized some of the more ingenious ideas in meetings with his superiors thereby giving division- and company-wide prominence to hourly employees who typically did not get much “face-time” with senior leadership (333 words)

Kerr, S. (1995). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. The Academy of Management Executive, 9(1). Retrieved from https://www.ou.edu/russell/UGcomp/Kerr.pdf (Links to an external site.)

Pink, D. (2009). The puzzle of motivation [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation

 

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This week’s readings focused on a multitude of early and contemporary theories that all touched on various perspectives on how we are driven to perform. In addition, many of these theories were also dependent on cultural influences which can also affect how people respond. In Daniel Pink’s discussion of intrinsic and extrinsic motives (self-determination theory), he proposes that monetary rewards can play a role in motivating performance if the goals are relatively straightforward (Pink, 2009). This contrasts rewards for complex, highly cognitive activities where such actions can hamper performance (Pink, 2009). This theory is rooted in the assumption that appropriate goals have been established and don’t re-direct the individual to unwanted behavior (Kerr, 1995).

My company was acquired a few years ago and saw a drastic shift in culture. Prior to the acquisition, I was responsible for Operations, so I implemented a system of monetary rewards that differed depending on one’s role. For manufacturing and other non-exempt positions, there were frequent performance bonuses based on achieving goals established for throughput. We also required a minimum standard of quality, regardless of the volumes, to avoid Kerr’s “folly of rewarding A (high volume/low quality), while hoping for B (high volume/high quality)”. For exempt employees, we used annual performance reviews to award bonuses based on achieving mutually accepted objectives. We also provided continuous education and additional training (on whatever the employee wanted to pursue) to build perceived management support. This all disappeared when we were acquired. Now a small part of a large corporate entity, the monetary rewards were focused on seniority and achieving site goals. Although the amounts were much larger monetarily, the distribution was highly focused on a few individuals (myself being one). In addition, most of the training initiatives required significant ROI justification. This cultural change and resulting disconnect between corporate management and individual contributor led to a situation where most employees lost motivation. Many, including myself, left. I preferred the system we established prior to acquisition where I was rewarded monetarily as a basis and had the ability to grow professionally with company support. Being “in charge” of the system also helped!

 

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Lesson 5 Discussion: Job Design – 816 Discussion Group 3

From MBADM 816, FA19, Merged 001/002

22 22 unread replies. 74 74 replies.

 

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My job scoring details are below:
Motivating Potential Score (MPS) = 87.5
Skill variety (SV) – 4.0
Task identity (TI) – 4.5
Task significance (TS) – 4.3
Autonomy (AU) -4.8
Feedback (FB) – 4.3

I consider my job “High” on the motivating potential relative to the Job Characteristic Model. On each of the 3 characteristics (Meaningfulness, Autonomy and Feedback), I assessed my job at greater than 4. I would agree with this assessment.

In individualistic culture like US, job motivation and hence MPS can be further increased by job redesign for better person-job or Growth-Need-Strength (GNS) fitment (Robbins and Judge, 2016). My job involves working with data quality and governance to support the commercial division in a pharmaceutical industry. I have a high GNS and my job allows enough self-direction and autonomy in terms of decision-making, planning and prioritizing tasks. Even then, there are opportunities to challenge the potential by incorporating advanced analytics skills. This would also provide for integrative view via cross-functional team collaboration. Doing so would help improve the job’s meaningfulness.

Relational job design involving pro-social motivation (Robbins and Judge, 2016) could include a preceptor-ship program with the sales management to get first-hand feedback on my job effectiveness. This is like job-rotation which helps understand how my work contributes to the organization (Robbins and Judge, 2016). In addition, Patient Connection programs would allow for patient ambassadors to talk about our work.

Lastly, professional training and conferences help keep abreast with latest trends and bring industry expertise to enhance jobs.

 

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Lesson 6 Discussion: Carter Racing Case

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• Project Team 2 – Jordan, Jonathan, Osvaldo, Derek, Tony, Rohit

  We began the exercise with each team member providing rationale behind their individual decision to race or not. Processes involved data utilization, outside resources regarding temperature, pros / cons of racing, and calculated risk. As part of our group decision-making process, we focused on the facts presented in order to avoid useless arguments (Eisenhardt, 2019). Although the ultimate decision was simply “race” or “don’t race”, we worked in a collaborative manner using humor to minimize any tension amongst the team members (Eisenhardt, 2019). We were not subject to Groupthink as each member felt comfortable voicing their differing opinions (Eisenhardt, 2019).

   

  Rohit looked at the data in the study and suggested that no correlation between temperature and engine failure existed. Osvaldo focused on calculated risks, where the rewards outweigh the threats. Tony and Jordan felt the risk of a blown engine was lower than the risk of losing sponsorships. Jordan determined that we had a 71% success rate versus 29% failure rate (7 failures out of 24 outings).

   

  In contrast, Derek did not want to race. In his opinion, the high rate of engine failures (7 out of 9 times have been attributed to gasket failure) and the fact that the team has already made a name for themselves, he felt it would be better for the team to resolve their engine issue prior to racing. Jonathan also did not want to race, organizing his process into what happens if we win the race, what happens if we lose the race due to blown engine, and what happens if we do not race at all.

   

  After discussing all individual thought processes, we decided to race. Each individual rationale provided insight to the final group decision. Through utilizing clear communication and healthy discussions, the team members who did not want to race felt comfortable with the majority vote despite their doubts. As a team, we used constructive discussions, reasoning, and allowing members to voice differing opinions in order to arrive at a consensus.

  (Word count : 331 words)

  References:

  1. Eisenhardt, K. M., Kahwajy, J. L., & Bourgeois, L. J. (2019, March 18). How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://hbr.org/1997/07/how-management-teams-can-have-a-good-fight (Links to an external site.).

   

• Group 8 – Jesse Hampsher, Peter Mazaran, James Stockdale, Lisa Pritchard, Cody Holt, Eric Mbekem

   

  Carter Racing will proceed with the race as planned. We employed a risk to benefits analysis, using our reputation, financial considerations, and mechanical diagnostics to come to a consensus. Ultimately, we determined the temperature could not conclusively tell us which way to go. Rather, it led to changes in our engine design that suggest positive improvements over the last two races. Furthermore, the contracts we currently have and those yet to earn are the lifeline of our team, and simply too much to turn away. Knowing that anything could happen, not just an engine failure, we finally decided that we will run the race, but not with the intent to place in the top five. This is an internal decision we made and will not share with our sponsors. Our goal is rather to finish the race without blowing the engine. At that point, we will use our reputation to deal with our sponsors, and feel certain that we will win the contracts anyway.  

  To start out, we simply polled the audience to see where everyone was. Then we began to debate to find out where everyone stands. Our team has some strong personalities and expectations. Just as in the article, we had to deal with who could talk the loudest and most convincingly. The best thing we did though was give everyone the pedestal and let them fully explain their position. While that took some patience for the “Robins” in our group, just as in Carter Racing, it did allow us to hear the information from someone else’s perspective. This was important because it dispelled some misconceptions about what we thought we read, which lead to our varying positions. As a team, this did reduce some aggravations building up because we are working together but remotely. Overall, we are starting to move from the well-known storming phase to a norming phase according to Tuckman’s Five-Stage Theory of Group Development.   

   
• Project Team 12 – Andrew Leary, Jennifer Hood, Joanna Tu, Samir Kalavar, Max Tarshis

   

  Following considerable discussion and thought-process clarification from all stakeholders, we decided to race. In incorporating decision-making process improvements, prior to discussing the available options, we focused on framing the conversation. Initially, two frames of reference were presented; an analytical approach, wherein data and the potential profits and losses held the most weight, or an emotional approach, focused on personal feelings and character interactions. We opted to start with the analytical approach with a transition into opinion-based discussion. First, we evaluated the opportunity costs of each option, how they may impact the bottom line, and the effects on future growth potential. For example, tarnishing a relationship with a sponsor may exclude Carter Racing from future sponsorship consideration, and the team may not win enough races to return to this position next year. Subsequently, we found that most of our team did not want to race due to inherent risk mitigation preferences derived from current workplace environments. An in-depth discussion on personal risk aversion, “the tendency to prefer a sure thing over a risky outcome,” sparked a discussion on bias recognition (Robbins & Judge, 2018). An unchecked proclivity to “inject biases and prejudices into the decision process,” can pose a serious threat to any organization (Robbins & Judge, 2018). In recognizing the existence of bias and discussing it openly, our group was able to move past some of the effects. A decision point that allowed our team to come to a consensus was adopting the roles we were cast, instead of inserting ourselves into the exercise. We viewed the case from the perspective of a racecar owner, comfortable with risk, since an investment into the racing industry is inherently hazardous. Following a shift in mindset, we discussed the two expert opinions and determined that Tom, the innovative system designer of the turbo-charging system, and chief mechanic, may be demonstrating overconfidence, but the willingness to stand by his opinion was valued over Paul’s ambiguity. By understanding each person’s reasoning and allowing all parties to openly challenge each other, we came to a consensus and are willing to accept failure or fortune. (348 words)

   

  Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2018). Essentials of Organizational Behavior (14th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

   
• Project Team 11 –  Robert Lenius, Gabriel Mejia, Amit Pandit, Seth Spillare

  Our team jointly decided to Race in the Carter Racing case. While everyone had individually decided to race, as a team we wanted to reach consensus on the why we made that decision.

  Before arriving at our decision, we talked through the inherent risks and consequences of an engine failure. We agreed it was worth racing only if the odds to finish in the top five were substantially high. We deliberated on the facts and data provided by Tom – “…[they] have finished 62.5% of the races, and when [they] finished [they] were in the top five 80% of the time”. We reasoned those were impressive odds for winning and leaned towards the decision to race.

  Paul Edwards, the Engine mechanic, did not have data to support his argument to not race.  While Tom Burns, the chief mechanic, was able to discredit Paul’s belief using data and his experience.  The Carter Racing Team had a strong business need to race for critical sponsorship and recovering costs. Financially, there was a $800,000 sponsorship on the line if they failed versus a $2 million new contract if the team finished in the top five. We believed this race was a defining moment for the team. Given the need to make a quick decision and thrive in a competitive environment, the Carter team was prone to rally around challenges and cohesively work to meet high performance standards (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). We believe this race would empower the team for future success.

  In retrospect, our team decision-making involved great deal of collaboration and planning. We started early-on to allow team members from US and Germany to participate live. Aligned with our team charter, we kept our reasoning in check by playing devil’s advocate and what-ifs to avoid Group-think and support critical thinking (Robbins & Judge, 2016). While the team was divided in acknowledging the additional confidence the new gasket seating provided and the fact that losing the Pocono event could mean a blow to reputation, we ensured arguments were supported by facts and encouraged sharing of diverse viewpoints. In looking at the overall trend and socio-cognitive aspect of racing as a ‘risk-inherent sport’, we leaned towards the conclusion that Carters had a good chance of pulling this off. (367 words)

  References:

  1. Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (1993). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
  2. Robbins, S. and Judge, T., Essentials of organizational behavior. Boston: Pearson Education, [2016]
• OMBA 816 –Carter Racing Case

  Project Team 1:  Matthew Barbee, Sarah Bo, Susannah Hunter, Chukwuemeka Nwabuokei, Devina Parmar, Graham Stream.

  The decision-making process for our group started with members presenting their individual decisions. 4 group members revealed that they wanted to race, and 2 members did not. Next, our group explored the reasoning behind each of the decisions. Members listed their rationale to race as: Tom’s technical background and data, the lack of data associated with Paul’s “gut feeling”, the racing team’s past wins, the monetary benefit, as well as the rewards that come with risks. One member who worked with an automotive supplier did not want to race due to the risk to the company’s reputation and the race. The other member that did not want to race came from a regulatory background and did not feel comfortable with taking risks.

  The conflicting opinions were handled respectfully between all group members as the group acknowledged vital contributions (Robbins & Judge). Additionally, our group was aware of the concept of groupthink and understood that we “may not be able to control our own intuition, but we can apply rational thought to detect others’ faulty intuition and improve their judgement” (Kahneman, Lovallo, & Sibony,).

  As the discussion progressed, our group demonstrated that we had reached the performing stage (Robbins & Judge) because the group structure was stable enough that all members spoke in an organized manner, and we quickly discovered that the decision to race or not depended on the risk to benefit ratio. Ultimately, consensus was reached as our group realized that even if the engine were to fail, the racing team should take risks while they are new to the scene (as this will not impact their reputation as it would a well-known team). Reflecting on our first team assignment, it is clear that our team has moved from the Stage 2 (Inception) to Stage 4 or 5 (Transition and Accomplishing the Task), as group members are aware of the ability of teammates from past assignments, and are now more focused on benevolence and integrity (Greenburg & Greenburg).

  (Word Count: 349)

   

  References:

  Greenberg, P. S., Greenberg, R. H., & Antonucci, Y. L. (2007). Creating and sustaining trust in virtual teams. Business Horizons, 50(4), 325–333. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2007.02.005

  Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 50-60.

  Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2013). Organizational behavior (15th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

• Project Team 6 – Connie, Daniel, Euri, Jennifer & Patrick

  Despite beginning with 3 members in favor of racing and 2 not in favor, the team eventually came to a consensus and has decided not to race.  While the arguments in favor of racing certainly had their merits, with some group discussion the 3 members who wanted to race quickly came around to the more conservative approach.  These arguments mainly included pointing out the lack of data behind the presumption of temperature factors on engine performance, the spirit of taking risks in racing and even a decision tree based on the probabilities cited and potential return on investments of each outcome.  The arguments against racing focused on trust in the experience of the engine mechanic, the dangers of not having a root cause identified for the engine failures, and the loss of a sponsorship that has already been secured in the event of another failure.

  The team took on a roundtable discussion approach in which each of us had an opportunity to share our decision and reasoning, after which the debate came naturally.  Throughout the discussion, team members were enlightened to points made in the reading that were missed and different ideas that they may have not considered initially.  This helped to keep each member engaged and gave the meeting a conversational feel rather than argumentative.  In the end it was the overall lack of information that led the group to a consensus rather than the personal opinions of each member.  By focusing on the data, or rather lack thereof, the group was able to limit interpersonal conflict (Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, & Bourgeois, 1997).  During discussions, the group noted that the temperature data provided is incomplete. Knowing the temperatures for every race day would provide additional background into the engine mechanic’s hypothesis and show if there was a skew in the distribution of temperatures.  Thus, the group disqualified the data previously debunking the temperature hypothesis and decided that more experimentation was needed before the car could safely race again.  If the data is not strong enough to disprove the theory of a well experienced mechanic, then the group agreed that it was not safe to race in unexperienced conditions.

   

  References:

  Eisenhardt, K. M., Kawhajy, J. L., & Bourgeois, L. J. (1997). How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://hbr.org/1997/07/how-management-teams-can- (Links to an external site.)have-a-good-fight.

   

• Project Team 3: Jeremy Russell, Tori Gilbert, Ryan Murphy and Jeffrey Witmer

  After reviewing the Carter Racing case study, our team met to discuss our individual decisions on whether to race or not, along with the reasoning behind those decisions. After each team member had their chance to tell the group what their decision was, we each gave our argument supporting that decision. Jeremy, Tori and Ryan were in favor of racing, while Jeff decided not to race. The reasoning behind each decision had a common theme of how much risk each person could tolerate.

  Jeff argued that there was too much risk of not completing the race, which would result in losing the $800,000 Goodstone sponsorship. Tori argued that the mechanic’s data and advice should be considered, which supported a decision to race. Jeremy and Ryan argued that the potential rewards of racing outweighed the risk. To support this argument, we examined the data given in the case. We calculated the percentage of top 5 finishes and blown gaskets and multiplied the prize money gained or lost. We came up with $1,040,000 for racing by multiplying $2,000,000 * (.80 * .52). The team came up with a potential cost of $232,000 based on the risk of racing and blowing a gasket, and this was calculated by multiplying $800,000 in lost revenue by 29%, which was the number of races that ended in blown gaskets.

  The empirical data seemed to support a decision to race, but we still didn’t have a group consensus. To remedy this, we decided to examine the temperature data given as it relates to blown gaskets and determine if temperature’s effect on blown gaskets should factor into our decision. By looking at the temperature data we were not able to find any correlation between cold temperature and blown gaskets, so we decided that temperature would not be a factor in our decision. With temperature taken out of the equation as a risk, we decided to take another vote to see if we could come to a consensus. With this added analysis, Jeff determined that the potential reward was now worth the (reduced) risk, and we were able to come to a consensus to race.

  References:

  Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2018). Essentials of Organizational Behavior (14th ed.).

   

• Team 9-Cailin, Matthew, Erich, Carney Rubi, Fara

  Our team began our discussion by each taking a turn at sharing our individual decision whether to race or not, as well as a high-level rationale for the decision. The majority of our team agreed that the Carter team should race; however, one member disagreed and argued that the Carter team should not race. We circled back to this group member and allowed him additional time to state his point of view and rationale. His decision not to race was largely based upon the safety risk—he did not want to endanger the driver. He thought the statistics around blowing an engine 29% of the time, and only finishing 62.5% of races were dismal, and left too much risk of injury. A few members reminded him that racing cars  is inherently a risky business, and that the information states that Carter had successful statistics compared to their competition. One member asked this individual to set aside his own risk-averse mentality, and put on the mentality of someone who would be in the car racing industry. This shift in viewpoint enabled him to agree that a decision to race is logical.

  We did eventually reach a full consensus and concluded that Carter should race, primarily based on the below criteria:

  • The information provided did not mention any safety risk associated with engine failure. We can assume that the car is equipped with appropriate safety equipment to minimize risk of injury due to engine failure.
  • The Carter team is in a “start-up” mode, they are still relatively new to the arena, and will be required to take risk at some point in order to grow sponsorships and recognition. They stand to gain more by racing compared to what they could lose.
  • No definitive reason for why the engine has failed in the past—data does not back up the cold weather hypothesis.
  • If race goes well, they could use the sponsorship money to hire an expert to definitively determine what is causing the engine failures.

  Word Count: 333

   
• Team 10: Davendra Brijlall, Edward Peter Merenda, John Glasgow, John Pace, Kyle Rademaker

  When our team began discussing whether to race or not, it initially felt that we were going to have a unanimous decision to race. Each member reiterated similar facts such as cold weather causing engine failures which were not backed by data, the monetary reward outweighed the risks, and the team’s ability to finish in the money 80% of the time they finished a race. The Asch theory of conformity seemed to be in full effect until our final member played “the devil’s advocate” unbeknownst to the group. (McLeod, 2018) He pushed back against the already accepted norms and questioned whether it was possible to cut this year’s losses until new tests on the engine could be performed. This simple act of pushing back against the “group-think,” led our team into more detailed discussions about the granular information provided in the reading, instead of merely coasting through our zoom session with the possible illusion of unanimity. During this phase of our analysis, this did create a sense of conflict. However, the focus was spent on gathering more facts to find better information.  The additional information was able to establish a consensus, which we then decided to corroborate.

  As we worked through our decision-making process, we ultimately adopted the brainstorming technique (Robins, Judge, 2018). This technique was evident when group members started listing pros and cons for the Carter Brothers to race by going around the table and asking each member to discuss a different aspect. We discussed elements of personal wellbeing, sponsorship and financial loss, and the impact on the Carter Brother’s business if the team were to have another blown engine. Each member brought up “what if’s” scenarios and obscure out of the box ideas. The purpose of doing this in the session was to breed conversation and generate ideas, but ultimately we focused on the facts that were presented to us in the case to make our decision (Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, 1997). Understanding the benefits outweighed the risk; our utilization of brainstorming for our decision-making process reinforced our team’s decision to advise the Carter team to commit to the race.

   

  (word count excluding in text citation: 343)

   

   

   

  References 

  Saul McLeod. (2018) Asch Conformity Experiment | Simply Psychology. Retrieved October 02, 2019, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html (Links to an external site.)

  Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2018). Organizational behavior (15th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

  Eisenhardt, K. M., Kahwajy, J. L., & Bourgeois, L. J. (1997). How management teams can have a good fight. Harvard Business Review, 75(4)

• Team 7: Sally Cogan, Tamekia Daniels, Frank D’Ambrosio, Jason Harnish, Dara Lynch

  Initially, the team was split with two of the members wanting to race, two not wanting to race, and one member abstaining from a decision.  Frank and Sally thought Carter had the potential for a greater loss by not racing, and the data presented was not enough to conclude that temperature was the cause of the gasket failures.  Tamekia and Dara thought there were too many financial and safety risks to take the chance and race.  Jason had completed the exercise before, so he facilitated the conversation and provided extra commentary and supplemental notes after the remaining team members made the final decision to race.  Groups where members have opposing values and opinions can have more conflicts, but group leaders can mitigate this by making sure the team focuses on the task and group learning (Robbins & Judge, 2018).  Having a facilitator helped the team navigate the case to come to an agreement.  Jason urged the team to think about what information was given and what data was possibly missing, which caused each team member to reflect on how he/she came to the decisions.  The team’s views were influenced by team member’s backgrounds and experiences, which were relied on to make a decision due to the absence of important data.  The more facts provided at the beginning of the case analysis, the easier it is for a team to make fewer inferences based on opinions and personalities (Eisenheardt, Kahwajy, & Bourgeois, 1997).

  It was quickly realized that the team would not come to an agreement without looking at the case through the same lense.  We did not want to fall into any of the weaknesses of group decision making, like conformity pressures or one opinion dominating the others (Robbins & Judge, 2018).  After careful debate, the team came to a consensus to race by agreeing on one frame of mind set: treating this case strictly from a professional athlete point of view.  The team agreed that there is an inherent risk with many sports, and athletes do not win by refraining from competing.  As a result, the team came to the consensus that Carter should race.

  (343 words)

   

  Works Cited:

  Eisenhardt, K. M., Kahwajy, J. L., & Bourgeois III, L. J. (1997). How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight. Harvard Business Review, 75(4), 77–85. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=9706292947&site=ehost-live&scope=site

  Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2018). Essentials of Organizational Behavior (14th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

• Project Team 5 – Timothy Biggs, Archibald McMichael, Connor Mills, Daniel Strachan and Bingchuan Wei

   

  For the Carter Racing case, our team gathered via Zoom to discuss our thoughts like usual. We started the discussion by having each person explain why he believed the Carter Racing should or should not take part in the race at Pocono. Although we each had slightly different thought processes, all five of our team members suggested that the Carter Racing should enter the race! The fact that the Pocono race offered significant prize money, sponsorships, and national TV exposure was at the center of our reasoning. This race provided the opportunity to capitalize on potential sponsorships, including a $2 million-dollar year-long deal with Goodstone. Earning this sponsorship would provide the Carter brothers the money to fully fund their current team for another season as well as add a second car to the team. Adding a second car would unlock additional sponsorship and prize money opportunities. We dismissed the main counter-argument to entering the race, which was a “gut feeling” that the ambient air temperature was the cause of the previous engine failures. Instead, we trusted the chief mechanic, who had been in the racing business for over 20 years. The data provided suggested that temperature was not the main cause, and that the cool temperature race at Pocono was not an added cause for concern. In one way or another, everyone expressed that racing is a risky business and we all believed racing and taking a shot at success was the best choice for the business in the long run.

  Given that all of us agreed and had similar reasoning, perhaps the most critical aspect to this assignment was our ability to acknowledge that we have 5 like-minded people on our team. We discussed the fact that potential groupthink on assignments in the future is a risk for our team. We need to make sure that we are able to play devil’s advocate and assess all positions to an argument before moving forward. After we acknowledged this opportunity for improvement, we decided to discuss all the counter arguments and possible reasons as to why we shouldn’t race at Pocono. The main counter argument that we assessed was the risk associated with engine failure. Engine failure would lead to the Carter team losing the oil sponsorship, which was vital to the team’s survival. After discussing all of the counter points, we stuck to our original decision to race.

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