Good to be Great

After reading Good to be Great I found plenty of great examples of companies who have had leaders whom have remained dedicated to their company. I saw some contrast though in the companies that they claimed were good-to-be-great. Only because some of these companies have now failed. Looking at the models provided by Collins, I feel that I work for a good to be great company, Apple. This company empowers employees to make difficult customer service decisions to provide the best experience. Their investment in new technologies have allowed them to stay on the leading edge. Steve Jobs has done an excellent job in my opinion acting as the CEO of this company. Based on the book have you found that you would agree with my claims or do you maybe have a better example?

Unit 5

I found a portion of chapter 3. On page 49 under the headline “It’s who you pay, not how you pay them”.  Interestingly enough we would assume that in top good to be great companies that there was lots of bonuses and stock incentives. Yet, among the companies it was statistically recorded that “good-to-be-great executives received slightly less total cash compensation ten years after the transition than their counterparts at the still-mediocre comparison companies!” This made me realize that you really do have to have the best executives and they will benefit a company. You then wonder about companies such as Apple Inc. who I currently work for. They offer amazing incentives, yet after a few months after the initial hype of a new Apple Store, you can see the people beginning to dissipate slowly into the shadows. What Apple does is creating that initial hype by offering such incentives and offering the ultimate incentives to whom they believe are the right people. Now, on the other hand they have people that want to stay with the company for years on in because of the treatment they receive, while others just milk the system long enough until the next best thing comes along or they find more coat-tails to ride. Do you work with people that act this way? How do you react? What do you want to find in a company, anything from 401k to adoption incentives? You tell me. I know that I want to work for a company that rewards me for my loyalty and gives me a reason to work harder such as stock options. I need input!

Unit 2- Sorry guys posted Unit 3 earlier!

When I reviewed the chapters I took a strong interest in chapter 5. In particular The Big 5 Personality Model. The reason I took such a strong interest is because I know that with my future aspirations I need to perfect my personality skills. Sales requires you to have a strong personality and the ability to be emotional intelligent. Being able to have an extroverted personality and openness to experience encompass the agreeableness, conscientiousness and are followed up my emotional stability. So here is a small diagram based on my opinion.

                                                         Extraversion----------------Openness to Experience
                                                             ^                                      ^
                                                         Conscientiousness            Agreeableness
                                                                                      ^
                                                                          Emotional Stability
Thats why I like this model because each one plays perfectly into the others and if you can practice valuable examples of these different traits then you can be a successful leader and have a good personality that exemplifies magnetism, drawing people to you.

Unit 3

In unit 3 I really enjoyed the first chapter 9 and the begin of the chapter actually kept me interested. Defining and classifying groups was extremely interesting. I for one have always had a hard time defining what a group is. I notice that I have a tendency to want to be known by the formal groups that I associate with. Groups founded by my work environment or school environment. Command groups are easy for me to recognize because I feel like there is usually a hierarchy to every situation, where as task groups have a tendency to be lead by the leader of the command group, odd how they correlated so well. In summary the reason people join groups has never been something that I have deeply though about. The social identity theory gives us a clear explanation to why we want to be part of groups. Based on the first few pages of this chapter I feel enlightened and have a better understanding of what it means for me to be a group member in more ways than one.

Unit I

Organizational behavior is well defined in Chapter 1. The book does a great job of identifying the importance and necessity for understanding organizational behavior. Mintzberg's Managerial Roles are clearly defined by the example and the clear exhibit that is located on page 7. Each role: interpersonal, informational, decisional, are all necessary for a good leader. Overall, organizational behavior helps us identify the different aspects in an organizational. Each concept ties into one another and seamlessly integrates.