MBA 715 – Reflections on Module 5 Concepts

Week 5 is wrapping up, only one week to go!  This week was spent mostly finalizing our team’s business proposal.  It’s a very challenging process, but I believe our team is doing a great job pulling things together.  Here’s the questions from this week’s review…

How does an effective leader ensure that projects or proposals align with the vision, mission, and goals of the organization?

A truly effective leader will be aligned with the vision and goals of the organization to begin with.  In utilizing the Vantage Leadership model, this leader will be passionate about the goals of the organization.  He will instill the same passion into his reports and bring them into alignment.  It is important that the leader constantly review the mission and vision and keep it readily in front of everyone on the team.  This will serve as a reminder to everyone and keep them focused on the vision.

How does an effective leader ensure that projects or proposals conform to the strategic, operational, and tactical plans for the organization?

Again, the most important factor is that the leader keeps these plans current in his own portfolio.  He needs treview each project against the strategic, long-term initiatives of the company and make sure that those ideas/projects brought forward fit into these goals.  If not, then he needs to pass them on.

Why is it important for a leader to be familiar with intellectual property when identifying and acquiring resources? What issues can occur in regards to intellectual property?

Today’s business world, not to mention personal world as well, is extremely litigious.  We live in a society that is ready to impose lawsuits quickly.  Intellectual property is the information a company or person “owns”.  The info could include things such as marketing plans, trade secrets, formulas, or product ideas, to name a few.  A leader needs to be intimately aware of intellectual property.  For example… the leader hires a competitor to his team to help in developing a new product and this person uses marketing plans from his former company.  If the leader was not aware of what’s being done, the organization could develop an entire product line only to have it shut down due to court injunctions.  All the cost of R&D, marketing, and implementation lost… not to mention potential compensatory damages.  A lot of expense to the company, simply because the leader failed to keep tabs on intellectual property.

April 29, 2007 | Filed Under MBA 715 | Leave a Comment 

MBA 715 – Reflections on Module 4 Concepts

Week four is coming to a close and it’s been a bit less hectic this week. Next week is going to be very busy as I prepare to finalize a business proposal with my two teammates. This week’s focus was about identifying resources necessary for business creation and evaluating those resource needs. Here’s the questions to address…

How does a leader obtain resources from within the organization?

Leaders can obtain resources in many ways. One of the simplest methods is just asking for them. Often it is just a matter of knowing the right person to ask to get the resources needed. Sometimes, it may involve pursuing supervisors if the necessary person can’t (or won’t) provide the needed resources. There may also be protocol in place for certain types of resource acquisition. If this is the case, then the leader needs to be educated in the proper protocol and follow it.

As a side, other resources that will be needed that come from outside the organization.  These most commonly are financial resources.  Often these may come from angel investors or venture capitalists.

What role does social capital play in obtaining these resources?

As can be seen in the previous question, social capital can be very important to acquiring resources. An age old saying goes “It’s not what you know but who you know” and it holds true in the business realm. One of the most important things I’ve learned in my years of business is to develop relationships with as many people as possible in your circle of influence. In the job realm, I’ve found it especially beneficial to develop these relationships with administrative assistants. These are the people who can get papers signed quickly, get dates into an apparently full calendar, and usually know a lot of people. By keeping them in your social capital, you can often get things pushed through the red tape much quicker.

Why is it important to look at resources through the 4-Lens Perspective when reviewing resource needs for a project?

Leaders are usually strong in one or maybe two areas. It is possible that critical points may be overlooked unless the leader takes time to view all four areas. This is why it’s important for a leader to know what areas he might be weak in, so that he can add the proper people to his team to have a solid review of projects.

April 22, 2007 | Filed Under MBA 715 | Leave a Comment 

MBA 715 – Reflections on Module 3 Concepts

Well, week three is coming to  close and that means I’m halfway through MBA 715.  This week’s focus was on understanding some of the data that business has to deal with on a daily basis.  Financials and pro formas were just a couple that were addressed.  Here’s this week’s review questions…

How can a leader collect and access effective data?

From an internal perspective, a leader is going to build his social capital in order to know the right people and have the right connections to get the data he needs.  It’s important that the leader knows who the right contact people are and utilizes them to get the necessary information.  From an external perspective, a leader is going to stay current with reading from his areas of expertise.  This may include newspapers, trade publications and journals.  The leader will be able to stay abreast of current trends and happenings in his field and use that information for improving his team/organization.

How does a leader determine what information is relevant to overall leadership of the functional area?

More than anything, I think a leader learns this skill with time and experience.  The more he is exposed to a functional area, the more understanding he has of what that area needs and utilizes.  By gaining this understanding through experience and also communication with the team, he is able to determine which information is the most critical and important.

How can a leader “stay focused despite uncertainty” and “remain conceptual” when dealing with the details of data analysis?*

The leader has to let the vision/mission be his driving force.  His role is to keep the focus on the end result.  If the data gets to the point of analysis paralysis, he will return to the vision and reset his and the team’s focus on the end result.  He will sometimes make  decisions on the recommendation of his team, allowing them to deal with the details and summarizing the results so that his vision isn’t clouded by the detail.

April 14, 2007 | Filed Under MBA 715 | Leave a Comment 

MBA 715 – Reflections on Module 2 Concepts

Week two is wrapping up, and it’s been challenging. Our focus this week continued further into understanding the creation phase of a new business. We also looked at ethics in the workplace. Here’s this week’s questions to address…

What can a leader do to promote innovative ideas from workers? What role does a leader play in generating creative ideas? Explain why you believe this.

The most important thing a leader can do is empower his employees to be creative. The employees also need to be incentived in order to encourage innovation. In a previous company, this was encouraged by the leadership of the company by providing bonus checks each quarter to employees that came up with innovative ideas. There was criteria set up for this and employees knew how the judgments were made. Leaders, as visionaries, need to encourage their employees to “take an idea and run with it.” Employees who are encouraged to run with ideas and develop them will often become leaders themselves, as their esteem is built through the process.

Why is it important for an effective leader to be cognizant of the functional content areas of business when they are not his or her area of expertise?

An effective leader is aware of his strengths and weaknesses. He needs to have at least a basic understanding of all the areas in his realm. If it’s not an area of expertise, he still needs to have a general understanding in order to know if things are getting done or not. It is also helpful so that he can pull in the people with strengths in those areas so that he can get more accomplished.

You and your coach discussed tactics of obtaining information and data from within an organization. What can a leader do to strengthen the informal culture of an organization to make data more easily available to those within the company?

The leader needs to encourage people not to be siloed. People need to feel secure in their position enough that they are comfortable not keeping information to themselves. The leader needs to strengthen the employees comfort level so that they will openly share information between the team members. It is also important for the leader to educate his team about the importance of sharing info and how it makes the whole team more effective.

What is the impact on obtaining needed data if you were working in organizations in each of the four different waves. Is the ability to obtain data in companies that operate in different waves of change a challenge? Explain how data access or collection may vary between the waves of change.

I work in a company that has information spread across a couple of different change waves. We have acquired a number of companies over the years, and sometimes when you bring in these companies, their legacy IT (or complete lack thereof) can take some adapting to bring into our technology. Some of our companies still work in the industrial wave and do everything off of paper. Most are working in the information wave and moving towards the judgment wave. In the retail sector, many of our retail customers are providing large amounts of data electronically in the understanding that we will share our industry data back to them so that we all have a better understanding of the marketplace.

April 8, 2007 | Filed Under MBA 715 | Leave a Comment 

MBA 715 – Reflections on Module 1 Concepts

This week marked the start of MBA 715, which is all about the creation stage of a business. Throughout the next six weeks I will be studying and understanding all the elements that go into the making of a business.

Three questions are on my list to answer in this weeks blog:

In what stage of the business lifecycle is your current or former organization?

There are six key stages in business development. They are Creation, Launch, Growth, Maturity, Renewal, and Closure. I would say that my current organization is in the renewal stage. Our business started out as a steel processor in 1955. That market has matured over the years and seen a lot of dynamic ups and downs. The reason I say we are in renewal is because we are constantly looking for acquisitions or redefining product lines in order to continue to meet the current needs of the marketplace. We do things to keep us out in the front while maintaining our core product line. This allows the business to be renewed on a regular basis.

Why is it important for a leader to identify environmental trends at his or her organization?

It’s critical to know the trends because a leader is expected to take his followers through each change and hurdle that comes down the path. The leader should always have a sense of what is happening around him in the workplace. By having a good team working with him, he is able to have a good understanding of the environment and how his team is fitting into that environment.

Would you consider yourself a manager or a leader at this stage in your MBA career? Explain your reasoning.

I consider myself stepping over the fence from managing to leading. Management is usually focused on getting the job done while maintaining the bottom line focus. Leaders are more visionary and look at ways to pull their team along with them in order to get the goal accomplished. I have some skills for leading well in my grasp, but one particular area I need to improve on is communicating my idea in a way that encourages buy-in. While I have no trouble speaking to people, I am sometimes challenged at making the communication efficient and effective.

March 30, 2007 | Filed Under MBA 715 | Leave a Comment