MSLD 632 Moduel 3 - Framing Complex Decisions

Framing Complex Decisions

            The environment of business has become a maze of information and Internet-driven change, resulting in a significant increase in the complexity of business decision-making. (Hoch, 2001). Time is a constant factor in the current decision-making process, being crucial in different way. Decisions, often, need to be made faster or the competition “win the race”, contracts last less than in the past, and most important, information changes so often, changing with the same frequency and time, the decision itself.

            There are several tools to deal with the complexity of the current reality in organization. Below are described the three tools I believe to be of extreme importance in the organization I work for nowadays.

1.      Strengthening organizational capabilities

The organization is extreme diverse in employees background (culture and professional experience). This is possibly our main strength but apparently not well diffused. High leaders state diversity is great, but when an opinion is challenged from the bottom line to a high leader, their statement does not match reality.  Another capability is our structural/ physical resource (training area, simulator, IT hardware and software, capital and so forth). Allowing diversity to flourish through training and workshops for suggestions and opinions, would bring a great value to our organization.

2.      Adaptability/ Flexibility

As all organizations, the one I work for is highly impacted by the frequent changes of the business environment, trends, markets, and partnership and competition. Being adaptive and flexible in a reality like that is key to succeed in the maze of complexity. Very often, the changes required in the company take long to be implemented due to the amount of trials and the entire burocratic process. Being ready for quick decision with high impact could have saved a great amount of money in the company. The main issue is that the process is not as simple as it can be the solution. there are a lot of variables to be taken in consideration as stakeholders and department difference on interested, so adaptability should be rooted in the company’s philosophy/ mind set.

3.      Value human cognitive ability

As Hoch said, models are great to permit a more accurate decision making, but sometimes, data mining and warehousing present a blindness along with it. The author mentions that the combination of machines and man are crucial of the decision making process, and important is to capture, due to the accountability and ownership of a given issue.   

Given the relentless development of technology, complexity can only be expected to increase. This promises to lead to more intense and complex challenges for decision makers, but as the discussion above indicates, will also put more powerful tools into their hands for addressing these decisions. Continued changes will also mean that flexible approaches will become even more crucial for managers as the environment of decision making becomes so complex that working out all the details of decision contingencies before the fact is neither feasible nor desirable. (Hoch, 2001)

Managers will increasingly need to prepare the groundwork and capabilities for choice and use these capabilities to confront and deal with the moving targets as they appear in real time.

Reference

Hoch, S., Gunther, R., Kunreuther, H. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. New York, NY: Wiley.

MSLD 632 Module 2 - How to Make Choosing Easier

How to Make Choosing Easier

Psycho-economist and author of The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar, through her research at Columbia Business School, shows one common issue people often face while making choices: the choice overload. She stated that nowadays, this became a common disturbance on the decision-making process.

For that problem, Sheena Iyengar propose four potential solutions:

1.      Cut, getting rid of the extraneous alternatives;

2.      Concretize, making the choice more real;

3.      Categorize, with less choices and more categories;

4.      Increase gradually the complexity, to keep the chooser engaged.

Summarizing, and defining the four techniques/ methodologies in one word, I would say “simplify”. The simpler it is, with less alternatives, quantitative and qualitative speaking, the easier and more probable it is a potential chooser to choose, according to the research.

These techniques, in my perspective, can be applied in every choice to make, not only as a consumer or customer, but also in daily personal and professional choices.

Cut and My Personal Implications

Hoch (2001) mentions experiments suggest that if there is too much stimulation, decision makers may try to simplify their behavior and thus choose less variety, or exhibit less creativity and openness to new ideas

This week I was listening to a podcast with Brian Tracy, speaking about building confidence and time management, and he mentioned that lack of focus or distraction is the main barrier to achieve success. I personally believe that information technology heavily affects the choices I make towards my personal success, due to the several choices I can make with an electronic in my hand. Every communication channel in a mobile phone, tablet or computer, nowadays, offer hundreds to thousands of links to click.

For an instance, I choose to distract while having my coffee in the morning, watching videos online (informative comedy), looking at my personal email, replying to my close friends and family, playing an easy game (sudoku, solitaire) and so forth. While doing so, I often realized that I spent more time that I planned to do so, just distracting before starting my day. Knowing that, last year I canceled all my social media accounts. It helped me to get less distracted and decreasing my procrastination, however I am still in the process of avoid distraction and alternatives that will not help me on achieving my personal and professional goals. The next step I made was deleting all game, news and video apps from my mobile phone, and in case I want to access something specific I do so through the website.

I believe these are potential practical solutions to cut extraneous alternatives, however I also defend the idea that cutting alternatives involves the little and often neglected choices one makes daily, as checking a device first thing in the morning for example or choosing to occupy your mind while having breakfast.

Concretize and My Professional Implications

Making my choices more real would imply in focusing my attention and work in one thing at a time, and automatically improving the quality of the results. For example, when people ask me what I want to do with my master’s degree, or what is my professional goal, I reply that I have short, medium and long terms goals. My short goals are working as a leadership trainer in a commercial airline for employees in the front line, my medium term in participating in researches and assisting coaches to get more experience to achieve my long term goal, which is being a Leadership Coach for Leaders. Because I aim the top of the stairs, I struggle to feel my short-term goal real, and I do not spend time working on it.

I know it is a step to achieve the long-term plans, but because I do not see it concrete, I cannot feel it. A possible solution would be doing researches and making a structure plan to enable me to climb the first step, and gradually achieve goal by goal, which brings me to the fourth methodology shown by Sheena, when trying to avoid complexity.

My own potential solution

Stop procrastinating and looking for distraction, I believe is a powerful way to increase my ability to make decisions. Even knowing the benefits of the two current I have, I realized they regress my learning and development process.

References

Hoch, S., Gunther, R., Kunreuther, H. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. New York, NY: Wiley.

Iyvengar, S. (2011). How to make choosing easier. https://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_choosing_what_to_choose. Retrieved on January 19^t, 2019.

Tracy, B. https://play.google.com/music/m/D6mdy5xirse3nhcmgoabujegz2y?t=Brian_Tracy_on_Building_Confidence_-_SUCCESS_Talks

MSLD 632 Module 1 - Multistage Decision-Making

Multistage Decision-Making

Multistage is a dynamic decision-making itself. Multiple-stage decisions refer to decision tasks that consist of a series of interdependent stages leading towards a final resolution. The decision-maker must decide at each stage what action to take next in order to optimize performance. (Johnson & Busemeyer, 2001).

Critically thinking about my own decision-making process, I concluded that I am by far of using dynamic program models, listed by Hoch (2001) or any other models at all. I am often led by emotions and intuition, however, being aware of that and realizing I am neglecting rational steps to make decisions, from the smallest and routinely to the greater ones, I usually step back and try to think through it.

Even though I do not use any specific formulas and calculations, or plan forward and look at the far future, I reflect deeper of my decision, especially the ones will have a greater impact, and I have time to think before making it. The 6 steps to make a better decision listed by Brodie (2007) are often the ones I follow: (1) problem definition, (2) assess the implications, (3) explore different perspectives, (4) get clear on your ideal outcome, (5) weigh up pros and cons, (6) decide and act. I believe I fail on a good definition of the problem and still procrastinate on the decision to make, but I clearly can see a progression on my decision-making skills along the years.

I think the best way I could apply optimal dynamic decision analysis to predict the future impact of today's decision, is to check for personal data (looking at the past, my mistakes, and learning outcomes) and external data (researches) to benchmark for a better decision. Another factor I believe is extremely important and I fail on it, is to look at the far future, and all the long-term implications my decisions could bring along. Organizing all the data and the outcomes of my critical thinking, in a structured written record, could be an effective tool to optimize the process and the results.

Surviving without dynamic programmers, as Hoch’s (2001) concluded, can be effective perhaps in majority of the situations, however, can be drastic in higher stakes decisions, as there is no ground base and parameter, therefore no reaction plan in case of failure. Thinking this way, it improves my decision-making process since I clearly can see, following my readings and not just obviousness, the importance (although not absolute) of a dynamic programmer.

In my perspective, the most important point Hoch (2001) made, is at the beginning of the book, when he said:  

We have an opportunity to be more proactive. We need to make these decision processes conscious, to be aware of when we are cutting corners and when we need more thorough analysis. Building this awareness of the process-especially given the new complexities of decision making in our modern age-is crucial to successful management. We cannot always guarantee positive outcomes; many factors that affect these outcomes are out of our control. This awareness, however, ensures that we follow a coherent and conscious process that leads to better decisions.

References

Brodie, D. (2007) 6 Steps for Better Decision Making. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?6-Steps-to-Better-Decision-Making&id=817450, on January 12, 2019.

Hoch, S., Gunther, R., Kunreuther, H. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. New York, NY: Wiley.

Johnson, J.G. & Busemeyer, J.R. Theory and Decision (2001) 51: 217. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015507110940

MSLD 633 Module 7 - Leader Follower Relationship

Leader Follower Relationship

Complex Adaptive Leadership (CAL), differently from other leadership approaches, shows how different behaviors and strategies can be blended for greater effectiveness. (Obolensky, 2014). At a first stage, a leader needs to diagnose the problem/challenge in order to direct the strategy. There are technical problems (where the solution is “known how”) and adaptive challenges (where people are part of the problem, forced to a collective response, when only technical solutions is not enough). (Heifetz, 2009).

Although Coutu and Kaufman (2009) show through researches that coaches, nowadays, are hired primarily to work with executives on the positive side of coaching (developing high-potential talent and facilitating a transition in or up), which I believe is great for the continuous progress, I also believe that a coach on the diagnosis process would play a crucial role, in most of the organizations, especially those where a leader is directly involved on the challenge, and might miss the chance of being more often “on the balcony” seeing the big picture, the important fine points, and keep the goal at the center.

After identifying the depth of the challenge, through a meticulous critical thinking evaluating all the 8+ elements (Nosich, 2012, p. 48), a leader needs to define the strategies to be used to deal with it. Obolensky (2014) says that there are mainly four strategies (telling, selling, involving and devolving), but the most important strategy is being able to shift around the strategies effortlessly and constantly, according to the needs, and allowing flexibility on the decision made throughout the entire process.

Analyzing the strategy I tend to apply (in a scenario with a high killed and motivated team), I found that I would rather be involving when challenges arise than using other strategies. It would depend on the occasion, but most of the times I would allow others to discover the solution, when time is not pressing and there is a good opportunity to educate and develop people’s knowledge and skills further (Obolensky, 2014). This matches with the main passion I have (training and teaching) so I believe the questionnaire results were accurate.

I think my perspective changed throughout the past six weeks, mainly when related to devolve strategy, where a follower has high skill and will, and is already living in the fifth level of followership. Although I ask for opinions and suggestions, I usually do not encourage shared opinions while making more difficult decisions. I rather talk to another formal leader asking for advices and showing my point of views, and then gather the team for direction and guidance. Heifetz (2009) says that people are part of an adaptive challenge, and as so they need to be a direct part of the solution, for embracement and ownership, as a collective decision. I still struggle to apply the art of inaction (“wu wei”) when any challenge arises, and this trait is shown on the results of the questionnaire as well (the second most scored strategy: “telling”).

Although I do not know the source of my behaviors (if is the nature of my job or my personal nature), I believe that telling is a rooted trait, and comes from the desire to educate and develop people of the involving strategy. The issue is that telling is not necessarily the best way to do so, even though it is the traditional way. So this is a perspective changing as well.

So far, the main theoretical learning point of the course, is the importance of having the ability to step back when a challenging situation arise. As I like control and I am very active per nature, I intend to step over and act. For the future, I want to put this learning in practice, not only for technical problems as I already do, but for challenging ones. In my current job, I find it hard as I do not have time to know my “subordinates” well enough, and I do not have time to build a collective and adaptive culture (Heifetz et al., 2009) due to job nature. I strongly believe that building this type of culture is crucial for the effectiveness of any other strategy used in challenging situations. In my opinion, if the adaptive culture is not built, it will affect, sooner or later, the flow of the changing process, if the goal is achieving a collective adaptability.

On the collective subject matter, Hill (2014) presented examples of her researched made along the years,  stating that visionary leaders understand the importance of collaborative problem solving, they know how to do discovery-driven learning and they know how to do integrated decision making, nurturing the bottom-up and not let it degenerate into chaos. A leader must set direction and make sure that no one deviated from it, while aggregating viewpoints and creating the space where people are willing and able to share and combine their talents and passions.

Going away from a traditional view of leadership, contemporary and visionary leaders should stop giving answers and providing solutions. Instead, leaders should see the people at the bottom of the pyramid, the young sparks, the people who are closest to the customers, as the source of innovation (Hill, 2014). The role as leaders is to set the stage, not perform on it, creating the space where everybody's slices of genius can be unleashed and harnessed, and turned into works of collective genius.

In my case , I find it hard to change a culture in a team, when the organization keeps reminding through actions the strong authority, and how it plays in the system in order to get what expected. Punishments, cut-offs, favoritism, so forth, go against the idea of CAL if applied to extract behavior from employees. Changing policies and procedures, improving structure, enhancing technology and many other fixing solutions will not solve an adaptive challenge. They are all a response for technical problems, which will not last (Heifetz, 2009) and will not change the mentality of the organization as a whole.

As I cannot change the organizational culture only in small operational team, it makes hard for me to apply any adaptive strategy, but this teaches me another lesson: the best way to apply CAL is to have all its traits applied from the beginning, still when the organization is just an embryonic project.

References

Coutu, D., & Kauffman, C. (2009). What can Coaches Do for You?. Harvard Business Review,87(1),91-97.

Heifetz, R. (2009). The nature of adaptive leadership. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfLLDvn0pI8&feature=youtube, on October 21, 2018.

Hill, L. (2014). How to manage fro collective creativity. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity/transcript, on October 24, 2018.

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2^nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

MSLD 633 Module 4 - Should the "Boss" always know the answers?

Should the "Boss" always know the answers?

Leadership is not necessarily a formally ranked position, it is a choice you make (Sinek, 2014). Often the "bosses" pretend to know the answer, while people on the bottom line knows it well, and pretend they do not know, constructing a system a leadership charades. (Obolensky, 2014).Since I watched Sinek’s video, two years ago, I started sharing that with my team members on my current job (including or not people on higher rank than mine, since the people I work along changes every day). The reactions are all different (eyes tighten, brief smile, nodding, or staring) but have a common background: curiosity. I concluded that because at this point everyone starts listening in a different way, willing to listen, and afterwards they often come to me to talk about it.

Since I got the sense of curiosity I started elaborating my sentence. I explain to my team members that there is no boss in our relationship, and that everyone can lead any situation. I work with inflight service as supervisor, in a large airline, where this mentality is not common seen in an organization on this field, neither within a conservative culture where the company is based. My job requires me to be adaptive, due to its dynamism and the variety of cultures that I deal with (including coworkers and customers), but more than that, requires me to count on the leadership capacity of every and single one of my team members.

Dudley (2010) explains that every single moment you decide to create an impact, you are leading. Working with safety, security and medical situation, and being accountable and responsible for every consequence, made me hesitate to “pass the torch” of leadership to my “followers”. With time and studies, I understood that a job which requires me adaptive solutions, requires me automatically an adaptive leadership approach. Northouse (2016) says that one of the behaviors of an adaptive leader is to protect leadership voice from below. I would add a behavior on this subject matter which I believe to be powerful: protect and VALUE leadership voice from below. The author explains that an adaptive leader allows low-status members to be more involved, independent, and responsible for their actions. This will lead to more engaged people, with a sense of accountability on the planning and decision making. Since I realized all this, even in high challenging scenarios, I give my team member the opportunity and the trust they need to lead.

I am always around in challenge situations, and I set this clear during every pre-meeting when talking about leadership as an equal responsibility. I am there to guide or take over if needed, to be able to report the real facts to the office, and as an extra hand in case they need me, but one risk I am always ready to take: back up my team member on their decisions.

The impact on people’s performance, since I changed my approach, and the down or upwards feedback I get is always positive. I have faced situations where higher ranked leaders disapproved my approach, and sometimes after a long conversation, if there is no agreement on my decision, I end up the conversation with a conclusion that frequently leaves them with no reasonable argument: “whatever happens I will take the consequences”.

This brings me to the Harvard article “How to Lead When You're Not the Boss.” Leading my team and need to be under a responsibility of a boss or a leader is not always an easy task. I make my decisions, knowing that the consequences will not please, and in fact will impact upwards.

To be able to lead this way, I follow some guidelines which is mentioned on the article plus some adaptive behaviors required from a leader, mentioned by Heifetz et al. (2009) and Obolensky (2014). I have my goals clear to everyone (up and downwards), and I am constant flexible for changes, based on experiences faced at the moment, or in outcomes of my decisions. I try to think systematically, getting on the balcony and looking at all possible perspectives, diagnosing in what I believe to the most accurate reality we are facing. Afterwards, through engagement and focusing on the diversity of my team I open up for opinion and any valuable inputs, for a collective creativity on decision making or problem solving (Hill, 2014; Clinch, 2015). When the day is over (or in times of lower workload) I either ask or provide feedback as a form of gathering important information, paraphrasing positive impact, motivate the lateral leadership approach, and to avoid misunderstanding from the boss of the day.

I am aware that directly I impact in a very small portion of the work force, the human beings whose run the organization, but I believe that being an adaptive leader is not giving up on solution which can be lasting, no matter how far your attitudes can reach, and how demotivating can be when the system (or the people within it) not always backs up you actions. Clinch (2015) says that people is often a solution for problems and adaptive changes, and I believe that the way I lead every day, even my small team, will have a greater impact than policies and procedures impacts, because our challenge is adaptive and not technical, and changing peoples mind and behavior towards a more horizontal leadership, will define the long term success of our organization.

References

Clinch, M. (2015). Adaptive leadership. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xxvqwv_p2g&feature=youtu.be, on September 30, 2018.

Dudley, D. (2010). Everyday leadership. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership/transcript, on December, 2016.

Heifetz,R. A., Linsky, M., Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for changing your organization and the world. Business Harvard Review

Hill, L. (2014). How to manage for collective creativity. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare, on January 2, 2018.

How to Lead When You're Not the Boss. (2009). Harvard Management Update, 14(3), 1-2.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice. (7^th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2^nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

Sinek, S. (2014). How great leaders make you feel safe. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_why_good_leaders_make_you_feel_safe, on October 5^t, 2018.

MSLD 633 Module 1 - Leadership Gap

LEADERSHIP GAP

I believe leadership requires a two-ways relationship between leaders and follower. Since childhood I unconsciously faced leaders as teachers, parents and older relatives in an approachable way, not as hierarchy.

I can recall one phase that my own attitude toward a leader changed my life. I started in a company as a trainee, and due to my experience in the field and commitment I became a full-time employee. Each day my relationship with my manager was getting stronger and more personal. We became friends, and with that I conquered full trust from her. I started, informally, taking over her roles, and slowly doing her tasks. While people were labeling her as lazy and opportunist, I was taking the opportunity to learn new things and to show what I was capable of. After resigning she recommended me to the directors to fill the gap as manager since she was leaving, and the director accepted her recommendation. Although it was stressful, challenging and overwhelming at that point, it was my first leadership direct experience and I carry my lessons to the current days in my organization.

While considering leadership traits differences across generations I can think of one major trend, which leads to other: communication. The communication channels are more variable and more open. Slowly, people started having freedom to express themselves in all senses. Even in traditional families, the dialogue between generations are more frequent and wider. This trend leads to the point made by Obolensky (2014) when he mentions the transition from anarchy to oligarchy and then to polyarchy. As the relationship across generation become more opened, consequently the leadership attitudes become more polyarchic.

The main reason behind this trend, in my perspective, is the general discussion and fights for freedom, equality and technology, which make younger generations think they have more knowledge, and with that they have something to add, to teach and consequently being able of decision making, even if partially.

This, as many other questions are hard to answer precisely. For an instance, why we have an apparent gap in the quality of our leaders, if we live in a world with more information about leadership and leadership practices?

The reason I can think of, is the fact that leadership studies is something new, comparing with other business subjects. Still, people in the corporation environment are more concerned about technical knowledge than subjective one. We still live in a world task-oriented when comes to business. As all effective changes, a good and contemporary leadership approach will happen in a slow process. One way to close the gap in the quality of our leaders, is the educational leaders (consultants, trainers, coaches, so forth) change their mindset first. Changing their selves f to be able to change organizations effectively. (Heifetz et al, 2009)

References

Heifetz,R. A., Linsky, M., Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for changing your organization and the world. Business Harvard Review Press.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty (2^nd edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

MSLD 520 Module 1 - Self-Awareness Blog

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is a subject studied and mentioned over that past millennia, as described by Whetten and Cameron (2016). Understand oneself is the key to understand the world that surrounds and consequently be able to lead anyone and anything.

The same authors list Five Core Aspects of Self-Awareness. Core self-evaluation which assist on identifying underlying personality attributes, values that identifies personal standards and moral judgement, cognitive style which is an aspect that enable to identify information acquisition and evaluation, attitudes towards change relates to adaptability and responsibility, and emotional intelligence which in linked with emotional awareness and control. (Whetten & Cameron, 2016).

With respect of these five core aspects, I can easily say that my level of self-awareness increased for the past month, since I started the MSLD (Master of Science in Leadership) program. There main reason behind this progress is the self-value in this course. While a lot of Master programs prepare the students with either a professional (business) or scientific perspective, this program focus mainly on self-leadership (so far). At the beginning I was surprised and wondering how effective would be the course, however I realized along the way that self-leadership, which is intrinsically related to self-awareness, is essential towards any human interaction.

The group discussions, the self-reflection blog and mainly my conscious daily interaction with others, assisted me on evolving my self-sense. These activities helped me understand how my personality affects my decisions, how my emotion is inherent to my actions and reactions, how my values interfere on the way I see the world around me, and how I act towards this point of view. On my personal and professional environment, I keep evaluating myself, on a daily basis, trying to understand what led me to, for and from a situation. It happened naturally in my mind, but looking back, before I started the program, I did not have the knowledge to evaluate myself. As my knowledge increases, my conscious self-evaluation evolves.

It is interesting how my co-workers react to my leadership skills, and my self-sense when dealing with a situation. I work with a different team every day, or every three days, and I rarely meet the previous co-workers ever again. Working with new people constantly is challenging, however, as usually, it has its down and up sides.  I get the opportunity to see directly and indirectly, how people act and react to my blended personal and professional performance, not based on any outside aspects but almost entirely to my skills, to the self-awareness of my objective and subjective responsibilities.

My personal relationships improved as well, since understanding myself allows me to take conscious decisions, build conscious relationship and work constantly on my weakness, which is always appreciated by the ones whose surround me. The most amazing part of this program, is that it is applicable for any purpose, no matter in which aspect oneself desire to apply the knowledge. Self-awareness progress and self-leadership development is an open door to any way towards the success.

References

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking

        across the curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson

 Whetten, D. A. & Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills,

        9^th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.