Graziadio Business Report Blog

Wayne Strom, PhD

Today’s harsh economic realities continue to impact everyone. Hundreds of thousands have been losing their jobs each month. In California, even firemen and policemen are being laid off (California firemen are being laid off even as we approach fire season!). It does not matter if you work for a private enterprise or a tax-supported agency.

Everyone is somewhat at risk. Everything is somewhat on the line.

An attorney friend once told me, ‘When you have a fire, you get to choose: you can pour on water, or you can pour on gasoline.’ This is absolutely true in our business relationships.

When people feel at risk, they become anxious and can easily rise to defensiveness. Negotiations, even over the smallest issues, can become brittle.

But to pour on gasoline does not mean that one is operating from a position of strength and confidence! It does not signal the other person that you are competent to deal with what is happening. If I anxiously enter a business conversation, or if I am even just a little apprehensive (a form of defensiveness), or perhaps a little pushy, I may be setting the stage for a defensive push-back or confrontation. Continue reading ‘The Business Imperative for Staying Calm During Stressful Times’

Can’t see the video above? Click here to watch or you can read the transcript.

In this video interview, Kurt K. Motamedi, PhD, Professor of Strategy and Leadership at the Graziadio School of Business and Management, discusses strategy, strategy execution, leadership styles (including neurotic managers and their impact), keeping employees motivated, and the shift away from economic opportunism occurring in the U.S. and worldwide. Continue reading ‘The Art of Strategy During a Recession’

Can’t see the above video? Click here to watch or you can read the transcript.

In this video interview, Kevin S. Groves, PhD, Assistant Professor of Organizational Theory and Management at the Graziadio School of Business and Management, discusses his research on executive development and succession planning, managerial thinking styles, social and emotional intelligence, and organizational change.

Dr. Groves’ article, “Integrating Leadership Development and Succession Planning Best Practices,” earned him a Highly Commended Award for Outstanding Paper from the Emerald Publishing Group as part of the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2008. Continue reading ‘Values-Centered Leaders More Successful in the Long Term’

If you were anywhere near Dodger Stadium on March 23 for the World Baseball Classic (WBC) finals, you heard the drums and the thunder sticks of 45,000 South Korean fans drowning out the 5,000 Japanese fans—not to mention the 4,816 Americans there just to watch a good ball game. And a good ball game it was, a nail biter ending in the 10th inning when global superstar Ichiro Suzuki (Japan) singled home the two winning runs.

ESPN broadcast the game with expert commentary and the dialogue shifted toward Team USA—why weren’t they in the finals? And what can Major League Baseball (MLB) do to change the attitude of the team owners who refused to part with their best players during the spring?

“It’s our egos that refuse to believe that anything coming from a foreign country can be better than our own,” sports commentator Steve Phillips claimed during a previous game. His colleague Orel Hersheiser responded, “I wouldn’t call it that. It’s just that we have different priorities.”

Or maybe it’s as commentator Joe Morgan said: Hey, this WBC stuff is great, but it’s just an exhibition. Meanwhile, down on the field, the Korean base stealer slid into second base head-first coming up with a cracked helmet and a splitting headache. Just an exhibition game indeed.

In that earlier game, the announcer asked Orel if he had had a chance to pitch for the USA in the WBC during his MLB days, would he do it? When Orel answered, “No,” the announcer probably wished he had some of those thunder sticks to drown out the silence in the booth.

A Corporate Culture of Self Interest

In business, we throw around the word “corporate culture” like it is the magical explanation for anything organizational that we don’t understand.

“AIG had a culture of corruption.” “Citigroup had a culture of overspending.” “Lehman Brothers had a culture of taking unnecessary risks.”

Today, we live in a real-world corporate culture of self interest, and nowhere is it more obvious than on Wall Street.

Continue reading ‘The World Baseball Classic, Corporate Culture, and Short-Sightedness’

The results of the first GBR poll on the economy and workplace productivity are in!

• The majority of participants said their workplace has been affected in some way by the stress of the down economy
• 56% say that people are working harder to keep their jobs
• 15% say that people are too obsessed with what’s going on to focus on their work

The GBR Blog asked Charles D. Kerns, PhD, Associate Professor of Applied Behavioral Science, at the Graziadio School of Business and Management, to comment on the results and offer some practical advice on coping with workplace stress. He wrote:

Continue reading ‘5 Tips to Boost Workplace Happiness During these Tough Times’

The GBR Blog wants to know:

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What’s going on at your work? Tell us in the comments.

UPDATE: This poll was closed on March 30, 2009. Read our analysis of the poll and get “5 Tips to Boost Workplace Happiness During these Tough Times,” by Charles Kerns, PhD, Associate Professor of Applied Behavioral Science.

Kurt K. Motamedi, PhD

Managers are critical resources for national and global economic and social prosperity. They play a significant role in setting direction, executing strategies, and creating success. Their styles, along with their other competencies, impact the productivity and well-being of their employees, peers, superiors, and consequently firms.
 

Our observations lead us to categorize four managerial styles at work:

• Type I: Champion, produces great business success and aspires and maintains high levels of morale and well-being.
• Type II: Driver, produces business success, but inflict human costs and lower well-being.
• Type III: Lenient, produces questionable results with high, but short-lived morale.
• Type IV: Negligent, neither provides great business results nor satisfied employees
  

Continue reading ‘What Price Neurotic Managers?’

This is a guest post by Charles D. Kerns, PhD, Associate Professor of Applied Behavioral Science

If an organization does not perform and sustain performance it will decline over time and perhaps die. To sustain performance, a sufficient level of happiness needs to be introduced to an organization. Performance and happiness partner to help assure an organization’s long term success.

High performers will drive the achievement of key results in an organization; happiness will help sustain and maximize performance over time. I encourage you to increase the number of people in your organization who are both happy and high performers. There is good reason to pursue this goal: Happiness research, conducted largely outside organizational settings, suggests that happy, high-performing workforces relate to greater employee satisfaction, productivity, and profits!

Continue reading ‘Bring Happiness to Work!’