Exam 2

law of crappy people

Bad managers hire very very bad employees because they are threatened by anyone who is anywhere near as good as they are.

idiosyncratic jobs

hiring someone who you think can grow and then teaching them

The person who tells the lie and the listener who signals he wants to be lied to

how does it take 2 to tell a lie?

Without social promotion there are higher drop out rates, though it seems counter intuitive it seems to work well to get students completely through school

social promotion in schools

the A and B cultures had about the same mistake rate. The A's weren't telling people about their mistakes and the B's were trying to work to fix the mistakes. "encourage people to be nosy and noisy"

what was learned from the nursing home studies?

They succeeded in reducing overtime but the program wasn't a success, raised other costs

what was the result of the garbage truck overtime program?

Why effective management innovations aren't copied and adopted more quickly

• Depends on tacit knowledge • Depends on implementation skills • Resistance due to power of precedent • Resistance due to power of ideology

obstacles to implementing evidence based management

• Not a quick fix, it is a journey rather than a destination • Using data changes the power dynamics • People often don't want to hear the truth • The Marketplace for ideas is messy and inefficient

benefits to keeping work/life seperate

• Reduction of role conflict • Objective decision making • Control and maintenance of organizational boundaries

pay dispersion

"variable pay" people who do the same job get paid differently based on performance

law of crappy systems trumps law of crappy people

-A company is not merely an aggregation of the people, the system is more important in some cases than the people -if you have good people with a bad structure you won't succeed

Why decisions are often faulty

-Based on fear -Based on hope -Based on what others seem to be doing -Based on what executives believe has worked in the past -Based on "dearly held" ideologies

benefits of integrating work/life

-Builds commitment through inclusion -Recruitment of family and friends as employees, customers, consultants

things to watch out for to make sure that sound logic and analysis are used in making decisions and evaluating data

-Is this relationship cause and effect or merely a correlation? -Does the timing of the data collection make sense? -Is data collected by sampling only successful companies? Or, are unsuccessful failures also studied?

evidence based recommendations regarding strategy

-Listen to your customers. Do what they tell you. -Don't confuse operational problems with the need for changing strategy -Keep it simple -Learn as you go -Balance attention to strategy with attention to the details of implementation

6 guidelines for evaluating management ideas and knowledge

-Treat old ideas as if they are old ideas -Be suspicious of "breakthrough" ideas and studies -Celebrate and develop collective brilliance, not lone geniuses or gurus -Emphasize both virtues and drawbacks -Use success and failure stories to illustrate sound practices, NOT as a valid research method -Take neutral, dispassionate approach to ideologies and theories

What questions should be asked before trying a business idea or practice?

-What assumptions does the idea make about people and organizations? -What would have to be true about people and organizations for this idea to work? -Which of these assumptions seem reasonable and correct? -Which of these assumptions seem wrong? -Could this idea still succeed if the assumptions turned out to be wrong? -How can we quickly and inexpensively gather some data to test the reasonableness of the assumptions? -What other ideas can you think of that would address the same problem and be more consistent with what you believe to be true about people and organizations?

advantages to a company of letting people be themselves

-constant pressure to display false emotions leads to dissatisfaction, alienation, less organizational commitment, more burnout, greater desire to quit job -creativity happens when people draw on what they know, who they are, and say what they think -More authentic leadership

extrinsic incentive bias

The tendency to overestimate how much employees care about extrinsic job features such as pay and to underestimate how much employees care about intrinsic features such as being able to make decisions.

costs of strategic planning

1. The resources consumed throughout the organization in planning and budgeting 2. Leadership attention spent on strategy that is not spent fixing operational problems.

extrinsic motives bias

The tendency to overestimate how much employees care about extrinsic job features such as pay and to underestimate how much employees care about intrinsic features such as being able to make decisions.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

What did Einstein say about things that could and could not be counted?

IQ test, 16%

What is best predictor of future employee performance? How much of variability in performance is explained by this predictor?

Southwest gained market share

What were the results of United's benchmarking of Southwest Airlines in the California shuttle market?

They reduced felonies charged but didn't reduce crime, only charged people with felonies that committed the worst crimes

What were the results of the New Orleans Police Department program?

smart talk trap

When organizations that use planning and talking about strategy as substitutes for action

Following Deeply Held Yet Unexamined Ideologies

Which of the poor decision practices is the most difficult for managers to change?

Talent isn't fixed, Talent is a moving target that depends on experience, motivation, how it is led, how it is defined by a culture in a given era. Talent depends more on effort and having access to information and techniques.

does the war for talent assumptions make sense?

"If doctors practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there would be far more sick and dead patients, and many more doctors would be in jail"

How do managers compare to doctors?

evidence based management

Is a way of seeing the world and thinking about management. Characteristics: Using better, deeper logic and employing facts to the extent possible permits leaders to do their jobs better

half truth

Partly right and apply at certain times but not all times

wisdom

Reflected in the attitude people have toward what they know, not in how much or how little they know

brain vacuum syndrome

The people that are hired are really smart until they get put in the new position and then they get dumb for some reason

benchmarking

Using other companies' performance and experience to set standards for your own company

More than 80% of all U.S. companies have some type of pay for performance/financial incentive plan

What % of U.S. companies have financial incentive programs?

-Don't permit behaviors in the workplace that would not be tolerated elsewhere -Recognize and accommodate the needs of the whole person

What are evidence-based recommendations to integrate work life with the rest of life?

-Motivational effect - inspire more effort -Informational effect - clear what the organization values -Selection effect - attract the right kind of people

What are the 3 effects that financial incentives help or hurt an organization? (MIS)

-Sometimes less is more effective - Don't try to solve every problem with financial incentives -Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it -Worry about comparisons and distributions, not only individuals or levels

What are the 4 guidelines for the use of financial incentives?

-People copy the visible, obvious, and often least important practices -Companies have different strategies, competitive environments, and business models

What are the advantages and disadvantages of benchmarking?

• Casual Benchmarking • Doing What (Seems to Have) Worked in the Past • Following Deeply Held Yet Unexamined Ideologies •Out of fear •Out of hope

What are the poor decision practices that managers engage in?

-Is the cause of your past success really the practice you are about to repeat? -Is the new situation so similar in every way to the past situation that you can expect old practices to be effective in new situations? -What is the logic behind the past practice leading to past success? Can you explain it clearly and easily?

What can be done to prevent bad decisions made because it is the way things have been done successfully in the past?

-Is the success you observe in the benchmarked company the result of the practice you intend to copy? -Why does a particular practice cause performance improvement? What is the logic? Does it hold? Can you explain it easily? -What are the downsides and disadvantages of implementing this new practice? Can you minimize these problems?

What can be done to prevent problems caused by casual benchmarking?

-Is your preference for a particular management practice mostly because it fits with your intuition? -Do you require the same amount of proof and data whether or not the issue is one that you believe in? -Are your beliefs clouding your willingness to gather and consider all data pertinent to your choices?

What can be done to prevent problems caused by decisions based on unexamined ideologies?

Cisco

What company discussed has been most successful in integrating acquisitions?

7-11, took advice from a book and their sales went down

What company wasted millions of dollars on a customer service initiative rather than testing it first?