Month: October 2011

Sustaining Creativity and Innovation

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 When I arrived at Southern University A&M, I looked forward to my new engineering journey. I had envisioned myself being like Scotty on Star Trek, providing Captain Kirk with life-saving innovative solutions for any galactic jam.  However, I was quickly awakened to the systematic and predictable sides of engineering. 

In fact, faculty advisors would frown upon us deviating from the engineering catalog to take business or non-traditional courses.  Sadly, it wasn’t until my senior year that I was allowed to use creativity. Yet, this reality was not out of the norm for most engineering schools. 

Today, U.S. engineers are fighting to maintain dominance as engineering tasks are now being outsourced to countries all over the world.  In fact, America is increasingly losing its pioneering edge because it lacks the human capital resources necessary for success.

Several key factors illuminate the downturn of America’s competitiveness across the globe: (1) several key agencies for U.S. scientific research and development will face a retirement crisis in the near future; (2) less than 6% of high school seniors are pursuing engineering degrees, down 36% from a decade ago; (3) the number of China’s undergraduate degrees in the hard sciences were 56% compared to 17% for the United States in 2000; and (4) in the next several years, China will likely produce six times the number of engineers as the United States. 

Currently, there is a national loss of between 40% and 60% of undergraduates from science, mathematics, and engineering majors into non-science disciplines. Traditionally, engineering schools have taught engineers to build their skills in a linear fashion over time. Sometimes organizations can be too rigid in their organizational design; they lose their mission.

Therefore, the consequences of overly emphasizing structure can be dangerous. Universities cannot afford the same old strategies. An environment needs to be created where these working parts can co-exist in an information era.

Today’s engineering organizations, including academic institutions, must instill students and employees with innovation and creativity for a competitive advantage.  Twenty-first century engineering and science departments must address the needs of students as they relate to globalization and future opportunities in an international market. In 2004, the United States graduated roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers while other countries such as China (600,000) and India (350,000) are graduating far more engineers. 

Creativity can provide this economic weapon. Creativity is defined as the “generation of novel ideas that may be converted into opportunities.” Gareth Morgan, author of Imagination, argues that empowering people in organizations stimulates imagination and innovation.  James Gibson, John Ivancevich, James Donnelly, and Robert Konopaske,  authors of Organizations: Behavior, Structure, and Processes, suggest that organizations can foster creativity in the following ways: (a) managers can look for ways to absorb the risks of creative decisions made by their employees; (b) organizations can give people time off to work on a problem and allow them to think through them; (c) managers can give half-baked or unsophisticated ideas a chance; (d) organizations can encourage everyone to think of ways to solve problems; and (e) organizations can let employees see and interact with many managers and mentors. New strategies like these need to be utilized to turn today’s engineering organizations into global innovators.

Describe how traditional organizations such as engineering organizations can infuse creativity into their organization and how to sustain these activities.

 © 2011 by Daryl D. Green

Sustainable Nonprofit Organizations

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Any student can tell you I set high expectations for them, regardless of their backgrounds and college classifications.  Yet, any time you ask some people to go beyond their comfort zone and stretch themselves a bit mentally, a professor is going to get some backlash. 

Nevertheless, I designed a new final project called Real World Application based on one of the top tiered business schools.  The objective was to provide students in my Operations Management course some practical applications from the course and assist  local organizations with their problems.   This is when I fully understood the challenges that many nonprofit organizations faced in this economic climate.

Most students selected private businesses while a few opted for nonprofit organizations.  Noriko Chapman, the past guest blogger, got me involved more with her project since she complained she needed to do well in my course.  Her project entailed assisting the Tennessee Vocational Rehabilitation Center (TRC’s), located in Maryville, to be more efficient and effective. TRC’s mission is to provide services that help lead individuals who have a physical and/or mental disability to employment and are designed to meet individual needs.  

Her employer, DENSO, had been working to assist this nonprofit organization with a contract that allowed disabled workers to earn income.  Her research helped TRC become more efficient.  Noriko’s final project was the main inspiration for her new book, Second Chance: An In-depth Case Study on Nonprofit Organization’s Resource Allocation and Operational Maximization.

During the economic crisis this year, the organization nearly lost $72K from government funding.  It was clear to me that nonprofits needed to get their act together and create more value to the sponsors and customers or face extinction.

With shrinking funds for programs and a more competitive environment, nonprofit organizations will need to rethink their corporate strategies for future success. In 2005, there will be approximately 1.4 million nonprofit organizations registered to the IRS.

The majority of nonprofits depend on volunteers at various levels.  In fact, 74% of all public charities and 83% of all foundations are small; they have less than $500,000 in expenses and limited staff. 

Nonprofit organizations are different from traditional organizations and require special considerations in their operations. Operations management (OM) has been a vital instrument in the pursuit of greater productivity in the business sector.

OM includes planning, coordinating, and executing all activities that create goods and services. Robert Jacobs, Richard Chase, and Nicholas Aquilano, authors of Operations & Supply Management, suggest that implementing OM assists organizations to be more competitive: “Compared with most of the other ways managers try to stimulate growth – technology investments, acquisitions, and major market campaigns, for example – innovations in operations are relatively reliable and low cost.” Today’s businesses have built elaborate systems for better efficiency and effectiveness. Yet, most nonprofits are forced to rely upon low-end technologies and outdated practices.

Demanding contributors and the public in general are demanding more accountable and efficiency after several high profile scandals.  Nonprofit organizations are often influenced by their stakeholders that include clients, board of directors, committees, government officials, community leaders, staff, and volunteers.  

However, most nonprofit organizations haven’t completely embraced this rigor due to various reasons (i.e. limited resources and the lack of knowledge).  Yet, nonprofit organizations have a greater need for increased effectiveness in their processes during this economic crisis.   

Describe your professional experiences with nonprofit sustainability issues.

© 2011 by Daryl D. Green                                    

 

 

Guest Blogger: Global Economy Affected by Natural Disasters

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On 3/11/2011, my younger son, Zane, and I were enjoying a beautiful early spring afternoon in Japan during our spring break. After strolling around the city of Kumamoto, we went back to my sister’s home where we were staying. As soon as my sister heard us come in the front door, she asked if we had heard the news about the earthquake that had just happened in the northern Japan.

 “Oh no, a tsunami is taking over the Sendai airport!” she screamed.  

My son and I rushed to the TV. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing live. There were people being washed away while still in their houses and cars. Houses and cars were on fire. Fishing villages were completely under water. Feeling helpless, we were afraid and shed many tears as we watched the natural disaster unfold.

How about my friend in Tokyo? Tokyo and Ibaragi, where the Narita International Airport is located, were the major cities directly affected by the earthquake. We saw people evacuating from buildings and rushing to the closest evacuation sites.

Is she safe? Where is she? I dialed her cell phone and home phone numbers, but received “out-of-order” messages. The telecommunication was out. It seemed that the whole nation was paralyzed and devastated. All the planes were rerouted to other airports rather than Narita, Haneda and others in the northern region.

How would our returning flight from Narita to the US in three days take place if the airport was temporarily closed? By watching the sad images on TV, we learned that the infrastructure damage was too severe in the north and east of Japan to recover and resume.

Water and power supplies, roads, and telecommunication were cut off at some point (and are still limited in certain areas). I soon remembered that many electronic components companies who supplied automotive components to our company were located in the area.

Some materials that were ready for departure could not be moved because air or ocean transportation was not operating. With this huge impact, I could only imagine that thousands of business properties and manufacturing sites would most likely be hopelessly damaged.

I wondered, will we soon see the parts supply shortage in the US, too? Manufacturing locations and warehouses wouldn’t be able to function right away. The parts inventory would be exhausted very soon. Will it be in two weeks or three weeks?

For two months after I returned to the US, my work days were consumed by evaluating and trying to restore the global supply chain as quickly as possible. More than 20,000 innocent people’s lives were lost in the Japan earthquake and tsunami. 4000 more people are still missing.

The disaster also tested the vulnerability of the global economy affected by the major disaster and left us with many questions on how we can best prepare for unexpected catastrophes. One isolated country’s disaster can have huge impact on the global economy. Recently, we’ve seen where hurricanes, tornados, floods, wildfires, and ice storms have affected the local or global economy.

How can future managers establish effective risk management to prepare and find the best investment options and alternative ways to maintain operations without interruptions?

© 2011 by Noriko Chapman

About Noriko Chapman:

Noriko Chapman, who is a native of Japan, is an international traveler and a role model to millions of women looking to overcome extreme obstacles in life. She is a production control supervisor for DENSO Manufacturing (TN).  A mother of two, she has over 16 years of experience in the automobile industry and is a cancer survivor. She is also a Lincoln Memorial University MBA student. Noriko led a successful campaign to assist the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center (TRC), which works with disabled adults to secure employment, with securing its government funding of $72 K.  Her new book, Second Chance, was inspired by the TRC. For more information, you can visit her on Facebook.com.

 

 

Sustaining Ethical Behavior

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Americans are increasingly worried and cynical of today’s leaders. Traditional institutions are losing favor, leaving citizens unable to trust their neighbors, churches, and government.

Additionally, America has a history of unethical behavior by leaders. The private sector has been riddled with tons of examples (i.e. Enron, Exxon, etc.) of unethical behavior on Wall Street. Furthermore, political parties market family values and personal integrity like they are selling used automobiles.

In the quest for power and their own personal ambition, many government officials have been drawn to deadly vices that have led to their personal self-destruction. Graham Tomblin, The Seven Deadly Sins, notes this natural selfish behavior has destroyed families, friendships, happiness, and peace of mind.

These moral break downs can seep into other factions of the political landscape. For example, in 1998, the media reported the sexual exploits of Democratic President Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky. However, political scandals are nothing new for the federal government. During the months of May to August of 2007, Republican President Ronald Reagan’s administration was suspected of trading weapons for hostages in the Iran-Contra hearings.

This topic explores the American political environment and how amoral behavior associated with ‘seven-deadly sins’ impact contemporary organizational culture.   For this discussion, we evaluate Congressman Mark Foley’s scandal. Foley was a Florida congressman, who was reported to have sent sexually explicit emails to male pages who were high school students.

He abruptly resigned on September 29, 2006, which set-off a political landmine. House Republicans had to do damage control, whileDemocrats went on the attack. Some Democrats claimed that some House leaders knew for months of Foley’s inappropriate behavior. House SpeakerDennis Hastert found himself on the political hot seat. Hastert declared he knew nothing about Foley’s actions, but others disagreed with his proclamation. Hastert continued his claim of innocence as he asked the JusticeDepartment to investigate this matter.

Because of Foley’s resignation, he couldn’t be punished by his peers. Foley also apologized publicly, sought treatment for his alcoholic addicted, and pointed to a childhood abuse experience by a priest as a cause of his problem. Once again, Americans were asked to address another ethical issue among government officials.

In many cases, unethical decisions made by individuals who allow their ethical principles to influence their decision-making, led to laws being broken or the compromise of organizational values.  Moral principles, values, or beliefs about what is “right” or “wrong” are known as ethics.

Consequently, individuals who make decisions outside of the organization’s values sustain their moral principles internally. Ethics and organizational culture can impact the success of an organization. In fact, ethical behavior is directly related to culture.  

In the long-term, unethical behavior impacts an organizations ability to function effectively.  Employees watch what leaders do more than what they say.  Therefore, organizations that want to sustain future success must pay attention to their ethical behavior, at all levels.

Describe your professional experiences with ethical behavior by executives as well as others in the organization. Discuss what can be done to instill good ethical behavior throughout the organization

© 2011 by Daryl D. Green

The Designful Leader

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Last night I was reviewing the Design School Boot Camp Bootleg, an interesting document put out by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. In the opening of the 36-page PDF is the “Design Mindset” or “D. Mindset” (supposedly because everything looks cooler when you shorten a word to one letter and add a period). As I read them again, I started to wonder if they couldn’t also apply to leaders. The D. Mindsets are as follows, with my leadership commentary below:

Show, don’t tell

We all know how frustrating it is to receive “orders” from a leader who is solely focused don telling, especially if what we need is to see the action, behavior of value from the leader first before engaging in it ourselves.

Create Clarity from Complexity

Much of the role of leadership is sense-making, reducing the complex system they view to a tangible action or behavior that followers need to understand. Leaders make sense.

Be Mindful of Process

While making sense of complexity for followers, leaders also have to juggle their attention on the overall process of their objective. In addition, leaders need to know that their development and the development of their followers is a process.

Collaborate across boundaries

In most organizations, the leaders who get things done are often those who step outside the lines of hierarchy to do so. Collaboration is becoming increasingly more vital…and that doesn’t even consider the effects of globalization.

Take Bias toward actions

In the end, leaders influence others toward action. Leaders who can get to that action the quickest (with sufficient background knowledge) are of distinct advantage.

Get experimental, and experiential

As the literature on innovation grows, our understanding of the need to experiment grows with it. Leaders need to let followers experiment, and experiment themselves. In addition, leaders ought to consider the experience of what it is like to work on their team and build a positive experience.

Focus on human values

I’d love to think this one is obvious, but many “tactical” or “transactional” leaders are focused on accomplishing the objective first and appealing to human values second. While this may work in the short-term, it is not sustainable.

Seven mindsets billed as required for engaging in proper design. Still, I can’t help but wonder if they ought to be re-billed as the “L. Mindsets.

Please provide comments or feedback to our guest blogger.

David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab, a community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. He is a consultant, a speaker and an adjunct professor of business at several universities. David focuses on developing leaders putting leadership and organizational theory into practice.

David is a graduate of Oral Roberts University and holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Oklahoma. David is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Strategic Leadership from Regent University. He can be reached at david@davidburkus.com.