Domino’s Boogergate

By: Natalie M Antonio

 

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RTDdBGawZN8/maxresdefault.jpg

Domino’s Pizza is a pizza company that was founded in 1960, by brothers, Tom and Jim Monaghan. Back then it was not called “Domino’s” it was started under the name of DomiNick’s. With about in 8,000 stores in about 54 different countries. It wasn’t long after that Domino’s Pizza is the number two pizza chain restaurant in the North America. 1973, Monaghan guaranteed that the customers would receive their order 30 minutes after ordering, or they would receive their order for free. This was soon changed in the mid 1980s to the customers receiving three dollars off of their order. In 1992 Domino’s settled with a family from Illinois, because a woman was killed by a delivery driver. Domino’s settled with them for almost 2.8 million dollars. Again in 1993, a Domino’s delivery driver struck a woman in her van, after the driver ran a red light. Domino’s settled with the woman for almost 80 million dollars. This was also the year that Domino’s took away the “30 minutes or less” delivery guarantee because it gave the perception of reckless and and irresponsible driving. The “you got 30 minutes” campaign was brought back in 2007 (Ravi, 2015), which could imply reference to their earlier slogan, but not promising delivery in 30 minutes or less. One of the slogans from the Ann Arbor, Michigan based company got the best review of them all, “This slogan differs from all the others in a number of ways,” Huber said. “First, it is comprised of two syntactically complete sentences instead of phrases. Second, it includes an attention-getting command that speaks to the reader/listener directly. Third, this slogan uses the name of the brand, Domino’s. In that way, it stands out and is, perhaps, ‘stickier’ despite the extra words (‘the’ and ‘it’s’) and lack of syntactic or semantic or rhythmic balance.”

I am a person who enjoys a good prank every now and then, but there comes a time when those pranks turn dangerous and bad for that person’s personal brand. Some people can be pranksters but there is a fine line of when the pranking either becomes dangerous, stupid or discrediting to the person performing the prank. Especially when it comes to commercial food preparation. This is what happened to two Domino’s employees from North Carolina, Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer. At the time of the incident the two employees were in the kitchen, preparing orders for customers. In 2009 the pizza company faced a large PR and social media scandal. Hammonds can be quoted saying “ There’s Michael”, *achoo* “Making someone’s perfect cheese sticks with a big booger on it, then we’ll watch him box it and send it to the heat rack to be served to some unlucky customer, that is in need of some snot.” While Hammonds is saying this, we can see her filming Setzer sneezing on the cheesy bread then poking at the “booger” in the bread. Later in the same video, Setzer can be seen taking a sponge, that was used for washing dishes; wiping himself with the sponge, then using it to wash dishes. In the video Hammonds, makes a comment about how their boss is none the wiser because he is back in his office “reading the paper, like he always does.”

This scandal is obviously a consumer’s and a company’s worst nightmare. There is always a level of trust associated with the people who work in the food industry. As a company Domino’s saw that they had a very large crisis brewing for their personal brand. Tim McIntyre, Domino’s  corporate vice president, who is also a member of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). McIntyre tells us about how Dominos reacted to the video going viral after the first 24 hours it had been posted. One of the first emotions that he felt was anger, because he like many others loved this brand, trusted this brand and loved the franchises that they worked with. At first McIntyre thought that this video was a hoax because he could not believe that his employees could film something so real, so reckless, and put it on the internet. Without knowing what the repercussions would be. McIntyre had said almost immediately “You know what, this is a bad one — they’re in uniform, they’re in the store. We need to do something about it.(PRSA 2009)” The next step that the corporate team made was to make still images of the two employees in the video to distribute them to their franchises across the country. This lead to the identification of the two employees. All of that happened within two hours of the video being posted. Some readers of The Consumerist helped narrow down which store that this video was filmed at This video was filmed on Easter Sunday, because the employees were bored and there were very few orders coming into the store at that time. The Tuesday morning after this had happened the corporate team had identified the employees, contacted the local health department, the store owner and the police department. At the end of this day the video had more than 250,000 hits on YouTube. Along with YouTube, this crisis also hit it big on the Twitter front. That same evening at about 7:30 pm, Domino’s social media team looked into what people were saying on Twitter. The initial conversation that was happening involved people saying how horrible the video was, but more about what Domino’s was going to do about this scenario, or if Domino’s knew what had happened. What is even more interesting to me is that Domino’s social media committee had met almost a month prior to this incident, the committee was working on strategies to move Domino’s to the next level, the social media level. the committee was working on moving Domino’s onto Facebook, Twitter and more relevant social media sites. According to McIntyre, the team had a plan in place, they did not want to go into the situation blindly, they wanted to implement the solution correctly, and were going to implement the new social media program only a week after the crisis happened. The social media platform was released in the middle of the “boogergate”.

Because this video was released on a Sunday, especially Easter Sunday, most of the corporate leadership was away on vacation with their families. By Wednesday the president, Patrick Doyle, had come back from Florida to be briefed, because the whole leadership team, was aware of the situation, because of text messages, and E-mail. By the middle of the day on Wednesday, the video had reached almost one million views on Youtube. For the first time ever, in 2009 terms, Domino’s had passed “Paris Hilton” in a word search on Google. This is what ultimately brought this video to the media’s attention. Even though this news broke fast, McIntyre said, “This is fast, but there are 307 million people in America. There are a lot of people who don’t know about it; let’s focus on talking to the audience that’s talking to us. (PRSA, 2009)” In response to this they put a statement up on Domino’s website. It is known that the first 24 hours after a crisis are the most critical ones. McIntyre and the rest of the social media team had to perform a lot of damage control to accomplish. The target audience for this was YouTube, since this is where the crisis first started at. The main problem for the company was to identify the individuals, contacting the customers, ensuring that no one received contaminated food, as well as making sure that no crime had been committed. This was working in conjunction with the police, because the corporate team wanted the employees charged with a crime, because of the visual evidence and the claim that they were going to feed this contaminated food to consumers.

Domino’s wanted to make sure that their point was driven home, in a strong manner, that they do not tolerate this type of behavior. McIntyre had said that it would be different if the employees were teenagers, but the employees were two people in their mid 30s. This is why Domino’s got some flack for initially not responding very quickly. McIntyre also said that they needed to learn perspective on things, by using the analogy of not needing a fire hose to put out a candle. Someone else related the way Domino’s responded in the first 24 hours to a “grocery store with 30 isles but there was only a spill in isle five, and that they didn’t need to mop the whole store because there was a little spill in isle five. But while the spill was happening it was leaking to isle six, seven, four and three. if the same spill were to happen again, we would rope off the surrounding isles.” This was a great analogy of what happened with this crisis. McIntyre also said that this would include posting on the website a little sooner, as well as posting on Twitter a little sooner as well, and communicating to the senior leadership team quicker.

This crisis with Domino’s can be related mostly to the Communication Accommodation Theory. The Communication Accommodation Theory was first initiated in 1971, by Howard Giles, a professor at the University or California, Santa Barbra. This theory was first known as the Speech Accommodation Theory. Giles wanted to find the reason for the shifts in people’s speech patterns, as well as find the consequences of their behavior. Giles was mostly interested in finding they underlying thought process and emotions that can be involved with convergence and divergence during conversations. This theory explains that when people talk to each other, those people can change the way he or she talks to match the way the listener talk. This change can be conscious or unconscious, the person matches their accent, the speed, the rhythm, the vocabulary, as well as the stance and gestures that the person makes.

The reason that the person performs this theory is because he or she wants to agree or want the other person to like him or her. This theory can also come across as the person being fake, or too familiar with the topic being talked about. Sometimes the speaker can use convergence to show that he or she has more power than the listener, the speaker comes across as too patronizing. This the theory is considered sound, because researchers have been able to challenge the different scenarios. Sometimes the conversations can be too complex to break down into the different convergence and divergence scenarios (Communication Accommodation Theory)

This theory can be related to the Domino’s pizza crisis because the leadership team with the corporate team used accommodation to change the way that they responded to the crisis at hand. The team turned to the YouTube platform to record and broadcast their response to the crisis. They figured out that because this crisis first broke on the YouTube front, that the team needed to resolve the problem with the same form of media. With this situation at hand the senior leadership team could have chose to move quickly and deliver false information. They chose to take the time to gather information before confirming the accusations against these two employees, and ensuring the public safety.

As a consumer and someone who has worked in the food industry before, when I found the idea for this case study, I was appalled at the level of carelessness of these two employees. A few years ago Domino’s changed up their formula for their pizza and my family stopped ordering it because their pizza makes me sick. After watching this video I find it hard to order any type of food. As someone who has worked in the food industry at Panera Bread,  I know what goes into keeping a restaurant up to the health codes, and how employees are supposed to treat procedures with food preparation. At Panera Bread we had specific quality assurance protocols that had to be performed a few times a day, for example, we had a special cutting board and knives that had to be used when we made anything with peanut butter, or anything with the tuna salad. We also had protocol for when a food item or utensil hit the floor, as well as protocols for washing the dishes, there was a separate sink for anything that could be considered an allergen. Social media has always been a touchy subject because the older population usually does not want anything do to with social media, where the younger generations are usually glued to what ever forms of social media is on their given mobile device. Especially with my generation, older adults are always telling you “be careful about what you post on social media, it never goes away!” This was true of the video as well, I was able to find the video that was initially posted in 2009 all the way in 2016, with only a few keystrokes. I think that Domino’s did a decent job at maintaining the safety of the public while managing this crisis. They waited until they had the proper amount of knowledge before they implemented their plan to fix the current crisis. This was how I related this case study back to the Communication Accommodation Theory. Other companies can take point from Domino’s leadership team, by keeping cool in the face of crisis, and using social media to apologize and explain themselves to the general public. 

References:

Agnes, M. (2012, March 22). Domino’s Pizza: A Look At the Timelessness of A Social Media Crisis Plan. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from Melissa Agnes website: http://melissaagnes.com/dominos-pizza-a-look-at-the-timelessness-of-a-social-media-crisis-plan/

Communication Accommodation Theory. (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2016, from COMMUNICATION STUDIES website: http://www.communicationstudies.com/communication-theories/communication-accommodation-theory

Clifford, S. (2009, April 15). Video Prank at Domino’s Taints Brand. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from The New York Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media16dominos.html

Dominos Pizza on the Today Show – Workers fired for Dominos prank video. [Video file]. (2009, April 17). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaNuE3DsJHM

Higgins, C. (2015, June 27). 11 Facts About Domino’s Pizza Founder Tom Monaghan (in 30 Minutes or Less). Retrieved October 30, 2016, from Mental Floss website: http://mentalfloss.com/article/65604/11-facts-about-dominos-pizza-founder-tom-monaghan-30-minutes-or-less

Jacques, A. (2009, August 17). Domino’s Delivers During Crisis: The Company’s Step-by-Step Response After a Vulgar Video Goes Viral. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from Public Relations Society of America website: http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/TheStrategist/Articles/view/8226/102/Domino_s_Delivers_During_Crisis_The_Company_s_Step#.WBc9kOErL-Z

Ravi, S. (2013, January 5). Domino’s Pizza. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from Slogan Smith website: http://slogansmith.blogspot.com/2013/01/dominos-pizza.html

SOS Marketing. (2015, May 8). Handling a Social Media Crisis: Domino’s [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llnZn7vLV20

York, E. B. (2009, April 20). What Domino’s Did Right — and Wrong — in Squelching Hubbub over YouTube Video. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from AdvertizingAge website: http://adage.com/article/news/crisis-pr-assessing-domino-s-reaction-youtube-hubub/136086/

   

October 31, 2016November 7, 2016 by nataliemarie623

USAA: More Than Just Insurance

By: Tyler Starr

 

Introduction

There are a lot of insurance companies throughout the country, and for the most parts they are all ran very similarly. USAA does not choose to conform to the rest of those insurance companies. In this case study we will look at the way that USAA trains their employees to handle and deal with the unique wants and needs of their clients. At more than 13,000 employees they have quite a large workforce (McGregor, 2005). They have a different clientele than most, since they work with former and current members of the US military.

Photo Credit http://www.volvoofcorvallis.com 

Organizational Culture

The USSA Standard is the main set of goals that they want their employees to operate under (USAA, 2015). The first of these six goals is to keep their membership and their mission first. This means that the biggest factor when making a decision should always be what is best for the member and the mission of the company, not themselves. The second and third goals go hand in hand with their four values of service, loyalty, honesty and integrity, followed by their will to build trust with the members. If the members can fully trust the employees investing their money then they will have a much stronger relationship with the employees. The fourth, fifth, and sixth goals can be summed up by saying that they want their employees to always be looking for improvements (USAA, 2015). Whether that is adapting to a change in their customer’s needs and modifying their tactics or just being innovative for the company. Just like any large corporation, USAA is always looking for the next best thing.

The USAA standard follows the relationship-based perspective of ethical decision making. This is because the choices that the employees make are to help develop a stronger bond and relationship with the members. Having strong employee to member relationships within the company is something that USAA holds very highly and it has helped them to be as successful as they are. Each one of their members has very different needs than the next so knowing the member well is an important aspect of their policy. If the policy needs to change in a short amount of time the employee will be ready to make the adjustment.

The training that goes into becoming a USAA employee is vastly different than the training of almost any other company. The employees are put through a boot camp for 10 weeks to give them a little bit of a look into what some of their customers go through being in the military (Fleurke, 2009). They do everything from wearing ten pounds of gear to eating MRE’s for lunch. They are also put through a normal PT workout that includes pushups, sit-ups, and running (Shevory, 2014). This is to give the employees an idea of where their members are coming from. This helps the employees to make the right decisions for the members because they gain an added understanding of where the members are coming from and what their specific needs are.

Critical Analysis

Working at a golf course on the grounds crew is a job that I have worked at previously that, like USAA, has a very specific group of people to work for. The people that you are trying to satisfy are the members of the golf course and your mission is to make their experience on the course as nice as possible. The four ethical standards that I would put in place at the golf course would be to always put the members’ wants before your own, always treat any member like they are your superior, always conduct your job in the most respectful way possible, and to build relationships with the members of the course that will last a lifetime.

I would instill these 4 ethical standards in training by making sure that the employees knew who a lot of the members of the course were before they were sent out on solo jobs around the course. I would also make sure everyone has proper training on any job that a member of the course could ask them to do and not just the job that they are sent out on. Finally, I would train every employee the absolute best way to do each job on the course so they would make the smallest mess that they could. With those standards put in place, the relationship between the members and the grounds crew would greatly improve. The course would be run a lot smoother than it is today.

References

Fleurke, X. (2009, January). Walking a Mile in the Shoes of Your Customer. Retrieved from http://www.corporate-ethics.org/walking-a-mile-in-the-shoes-of-your-customer/

McGregor, J. (2005, October 1). Employee Innovator: USAA. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/53782/employee-innovator-usaa

Shevory, K. (2014, September 1). Boot Camp for Bankers. Retrieved from http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/boot-camp-for-bankers/

USAA. (2015). The USAA Standard. Retrieved from https://www.usaajobs.com/docs/USAA-Standard.pdf

 

 

October 19, 2016October 19, 2016 by tylerstarr1

Netflix Case Study

By Torin Wetzel

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eliot-borenstein/no-netflix-no-chill-in-ru_b_10636080.html

 

This case study is meant to analyze Netflix, and their organizational culture. Netflix has a very interesting culture because they give their employees a great deal of freedom, but also select those employees very carefully. Netflix as a company only hires what they call “fully formed adults”, which means putting the company first, realizing the company’s best interests, and being able to communicate. Communication is huge within Netflix because they expect employees to be able to say who they think is doing a good job or not, and describe what is going well with the company and what is not. Being able to understand what is best for the company, even if it means letting goo people go who have talents that are no longer needed. Netflix has a very open environment with its employees, but does it in a way that keeps the company moving very sufficiently.

The seven aspects of Netflix culture are, “Values are what we value, high performance, freedom and responsibility, context not control, highly aligned loosely coupled, pay top of market, and promotions and development” (Hastings). Netflix does not use what they call “nice-sounding values for the company, there values are the actual behaviors and skills that they value in employees. They hire and promote people who exhibit specific values that benefit the company. The nine values that they want their employees to emulate describe how they want the company to run. High performance is another value of Netflix. This value speaks for itself in that every company wants people who work well and have solid performance. Netflix tries to hire “stunning colleges”. They believe that it is not fair to the current workers if they hire someone that is not up to their standard. “The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else” (McCord, 2014). This statement is another foundation for how Netflix runs.

Freedom and responsibility are another value help closely by Netflix, and for a very good reason. Freedom comes from responsibility. When a person is seen as a responsible employee, they can have more freedom, because you know they will still get the work done. This ties in with the hiring fully formed adults statement, an adult is supposed to be very responsible and with that comes the freedom that an adult should also receive. The Netflix vacation policy that requires not tracking is an example of the freedom that the employees receive. Context, not control as a value means that manages create environments that do not set binding schedules and harassment, but are loose and goal oriented. At Netflix, the managers do not “control” the employees. Highly aligned, loosely coupled means to have clear goals and trust between teamwork. This is another value that is important to Netflix success because this stresses high performance, with teamwork and a good environment.

“Pay top of the market is core to a high performance culture” (Hastings). This value means to be able to pay a person what they deserve, and what the company can afford. This takes into consideration how effective the employee is in the workplace. People with similar titles may be payed differently because of work ethic or skill. Employees at Netflix should feel as though they are getting paid well for their job in relation to other jobs in the market. Promotions and development is the last value described by Netflix, and focuses on the opportunities for growth and also the cuts that need to be made in certain circumstances. Promotion comes when an employee is outstanding in multiple facets of their work and also is a great role model at Netflix. Development comes from individuals having the opportunities to develop themselves which in turn makes the company better off as a whole.

Netflix culture makes for a successful organization because they take core values of what they want for employees and use them to create and environment that run smooth and causes profit for the company. They do this all while making for a great and enjoyable job for employees. The communication at Netflix is so important, as it should be at many other companies, and that is what helps drive them to the next level. They know what they are looking for in an employee and help the employees that they do hire to develop.

Netflix culture is much different that most of the culture I have been involved with in organizations. Usually, what I have experienced is more of a structured culture, with many rules and regulations. Also, most of the managers I have had are more restrictive of ideas and seem to be shut off to comments regarding the organization. I have experienced some of the seven values talked about with Netflix. The values are what we value is interesting because most organizations I have been a part of have had values. Some of them follow those values in a strict way of some have had very fake values that are just put there because they look good. I have experienced some of the promotion and development value with organizations as well. If you do well with jobs and work usually you will be rewarded and sometimes receive promotions. I believe this value is prominent in most organizations. I believe that I would be a more effective employee under Netflix than previous jobs. I believe this because the way that the culture is formed suits my personality very well. I struggle when hard work does not receive recognition, and I also enjoy freedom in order to get work done. I think that another part of the culture that I would enjoy would be the top-down communication. The fact that it is okay to openly discuss things with your boss and your colleagues. That is a very nice environment to be a part of in the workplace. Also, the vacation policy is very nice.

 

Hastings, Reed. (2009). Seven Aspects of our Culture. Retrieved October 07, 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/3-Seven_Aspects_of_our_Culture

McCord, P. (2014). How Netflix Reinvented HR. Retrieved October 06, 2016, from https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr

(2016). The Woman Who Created Netflix’s Enviable Company Culture. Retrieved October 06, 2016, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3056187/the-future-of-work/the-woman-who-created-netflixs-enviable-company-culture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 7, 2016 by quickmovieblog

Case Study 2 (Google)

Torin Wetzel

 

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2076623,00.html

 

In this case study, the way groups worked with each other were looked at as well as the organization of google. This study, Project Aristotle, looked at effected ways to get work done through group work in the workplace. It compared and contrasted many different styles and different people to try and find the best group work possible. Project Aristotle started in 2012 as a way to form the “perfect team”.

The purpose of this study was to find out what a team that would perform very well in the work place would consist of for google. They were trying to figure out why some teams performed better than other teams and also seemed more satisfied with their work than other teams. The initial response was very blurry and didn’t give a definitive result. It was very hard for them to see a pattern with these employees to tell why they worked well with each other or vice versa.

After initial trial and error they looked deeper at what made the successful groups work. They saw that the some successful teams were friends away from work, but some were successful with people whom knew little about each other in the group outside of work. They continued studying and finally came to a consensus about why the groups were performing the way they were. They found a trend with psychological safety. This is where people feel safe to express their opinions and ideas and also get a chance to do so. No matter whether these people in the successful groups knew each other outside of work or not, they all felt safe in their group because of the atmosphere in the room. These groups showed great respect for one another and they found that every person in the group was getting talking time and a say on every topic that they had an opinion on. This helped to explain the fact that it didn’t matter if people were friends in other teams or if individuals in the other group may have been a little smarter. The whole is bigger than a couple of pieces and parts, and the groups that performed the best had great unity and safety.

These results mean that putting the right people in a group can make for a very valuable team. It was very enlightening to know that groups can work that efficiently if working the right way. Groups and teams are involved in everyday life, and if you can work well with others you are valuable. I believe that they study’s findings are very accurate. I know that if I am in a group project for a class and have all of my buddies in my group we will put work off and not do a great job on the work because we will be talking and doing other things. To form a team that has great security and safety to it without having just a bunch of your friends is hard, but doable, it just takes the right personalities. I’ve been on teams in sports where it has been awkward and hard for people to speak up because of other personalities on the team or even the coach. I’ve also been on teams where we are like a family and everyone has a say with everything, and those teams always are more fun to play on and usually succeed more than the other teams. These study findings would make me be a leader that is very open to everyone’s opinion and to give everyone a say and feel welcomed. Having everyone feel like they are part of the team and that they mean something to the team is very important.

Duhigg, C. (2016, February 28). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?_r=1

National Geographic – Inside Google (High-Definition). (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2016, from https://vimeo.com/55885729

Re:Work – Guide: Understand team effectiveness. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2016, from https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness/steps/introduction/

 

 

September 30, 2016 by quickmovieblog

Googling the Perfect Group

By: Sabrina Mills

The purpose of this case study was to look at Project Aristotle. It analyzes group atmospheres to see how well certain groups work together with different aspects. Project Aristotle was meant to improve work group environments by finding out what works and if it depended on who, and in this case study, we look at the results of these experiments. And determine what kind of groups and group environments work best, and what contributes to these environments.

The purpose of Project Aristotle was to figure out why some of Googles teams did well, and why some did not. Google wanted to create the perfect teams, and did so by studying everything about their employees, from who the ate lunch with, to which of the best managers share what traits. They studied whether it was better to put similar people in groups together, or whether they would thrive with people from all over the company. They looked at 180 different teams across the board, with different aspects such as personality, or background skill, but no real patterns emerged, even in the overlap. The who of the equation didn’t seem to matter (Duhigg, 2016).

Some of the key finding of the study were interesting. There were several very successful groups. But the studies found that some of them were friends outside of the group, and some who were almost strangers outside the groups (Duhigg, 2016). Some wanted strong managers, while others wanted a less hierarchal structure. While struggling to find similar patterns, the researchers came across “Group Norms”. Group norms are traditions, standards, or unwritten rules that a group follows (Duhigg, 2016). Even if members acted differently outside the group, the group norms strongly influenced how they interacted with the group. But not all group norms were the same (Duhigg, 2016). Some had free and open conversation, while others had very structured discussions. Some groups would celebrate birthdays or began with chitchat about the weekend. Others got right down to business and didn’t like to gossip (Duhigg, 2016). Another thing researches found interesting is that if a team did well on one thing, they did well on most of the projects. But if a team failed to succeed at a task, they usually failed at others as well.

Researchers for Project Aristole then wanted to find out what was most important to these groups or what they valued most in their work environment. All teams had 2 things in common. Everyone usually got turns to talk, and had equal speaking time. The other is that the good teams had “average social sensitivity”. This means that they could gauge how others in the group were feeling based on mostly nonverbal cues, such as their voice or expressions (Duhigg, 2016). Researchers sometimes refer to this as Psychological safety. This is defined as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (RE:work). Some other group needs that were looked at are Dependability, Meaning, and Impact. Dependability means that the team members want to know that when someone says they’ll do something, they will follow through. Meaning refers to the work that an individual is doing. They want to do something for the group that also has meaning for them personally(RE:work). Impact is understanding how the work your team is doing contributes to the whole organizations goals.

When forming effective teams, the study results are helpful. This way you can look at the results and help form effective teams based on what certain groups value most. If some prefer structured meetings or free-flow interactions. A structured meeting would have more of a closed system. Where only a few ideas are shared. And a more free-flow group would have an open system where lots of info and new ideas are being discussed.

I believe that the study’s findings are accurate. I would personally prefer to be part of an open group that has lots of ideas and info being shared. I want to be able to know who my teammates are. I was once part of this study group for a class. We would get together to study and do homework, but we’d also talk about other things and tell joes and it was very easy to get along with them.

These finding would influence my leading of a team in a few ways. I’d make sure that everyone got an equal chance to share and do their part so that they felt that they were an important part of the team. I would also want to be able to talk about outside things with the team so no one felt like complete strangers and were comfortable in the environment.

Citations

 

Duhigg, C. (2016). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. Retrieved September 30, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?_r=1

 

Re:Work – Guide: Understand team effectiveness. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2016, from https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness/steps/introduction/

PHOTO: http://www.premedhq.com

 

September 30, 2016 by sabrinamills

Working in Teams and Google’s Experience

By Seth Ansell

Working together in groups is essential to almost every job, especially jobs within large corporations. Google conducted a study called “Project Aristotle” that studied over 100 teams within the company to identify characteristics that make an efficient team. They wanted to find what made some teams mesh well together and what caused other groups to flop. This case study will review the research, analyze the results, and add my own personal experience and opinion.

Project Aristotle began in 2012 and studied over 100 teams within the Google company. The study included top employees within Google, such as statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, and engineers. At first, the study seemed stagnate; no pattern was found in what could cause a team’s success or failure; the composition of the members of the team did not seem to effect anything. The researchers then looked at past research and found that past studies by psychologists concluded that groups had norms which they followed. Norms are defined as “the traditions, behavioral standards and unwritten rules that govern how we function when we gather” (Duhigg, 2016). Another study by Harvard that the Googlers looked at found that group success was not dependent on the overall IQ of the members, and that a group full of average intelligence individuals could out-perform groups with all high IQ members (Duhigg, 2016).

Example of casual team setting at google. Photo Credit: BusinessInsider.com

 

Eventually the researchers found a major trend within the high performing groups in Project Aristotle; they all had high psychological safety. Psychological safety meant that people felt safe to express their ideas and that no one was afraid to contribute. This explained why a group of average IQ teammates could outperform a group of individuals with above average IQs. Another characteristic that usually led to success of a team was their connection to one another; for example, a team leader named Sakaguchi told his team members about his struggle with cancer. This allowed others to bring up personal issues in their own life and allowed the members to connect and bond which lead to more success (Duhigg, 2016).

It also was found that if one finds their teammates dependable, found a purpose or meaning in their work, and felt that their personal work was making a positive difference resulted in more efficient groups. Google also found factors that had no relevance on group performance: location of teammates, extroversion of team members, workload, seniority, team size, and individual performance. Even though these variables were not important within Google’s culture, they still may be prevalent in other groups in other organizations; “these variables did not significantly impact team effectiveness measurements at Google, that doesn’t mean they’re not important elsewhere. For example, while team size didn’t pop in the Google analysis, there is a lot of research showing the importance of it” (Re:Work, N/A).

While Google’s Project Aristotle puts positive light on group work and seems to suggest as long as teams connect they can work well together, research at Harvard shows some of the cons and current complications of group work, specifically lopsided workloads. Their research suggests that one third of collaborations come from 3-5% of employees, which shows that teamwork can give credit to a group of people when only a small portion are making valuable contributions (Cross, 2016).

I agree with the results from the Aristotle Project; I think that it is no surprise that teams that have a high psychological safety and connection between members will outperform those that do not. I think the big surprise from Google’s study is the characteristics that seem to not have a large impact on performance; such as individual IQ of participants, team size, and extroversion of participants. However, when it is kept in mind that this study only looked at employees of Google, the results are less surprising. A possible solution on why IQ does not make a big difference is because Google is already selective on employees that it accepts. Google is known to only accept the best of the best; which may mean there is a smaller range of IQs than the regular work place. Google also puts large focus on group work; which may explain why the team size and extroversion of participants did not have a large effect. The employees may already be used to working in an assortment of group-sizes and may be accustomed to group work whether or not they are personally extroverted or introverted. I personally have experienced both effective groups and ineffective group, and while I agree that knowing your teammates on a personal level helps; it is not required for an effective group. I have worked within many groups were discussion was limited but yet the work got done; this is usually prevalent in class groups.

While I believe the work that the researchers conducted in Project Aristotle was insightful to Google’s workplace culture and their dynamics, I do not believe their characteristics for a “successful” team will always result in success. Because Google hires a specific type of thinkers and is honed in on group work, their results are not indicative of results for all organizational groups, specifically because other research puts importance and success on variables that the Google study may not find important. I believe further research should be conducted for insight on different work-place cultures and how different work-place culture changes the characteristics and variables for group success.

 

References

Cross, R., Rebele, R., & Grant, A. (2016, January/February). Collaborative Overload.                     Retrieved September 30, 2016.

Duhigg, C. (2016, February 27). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the                         Perfect Team. Retrieved September 30, 2016.

Re:Work. (N/A). Understand team effectiveness. Retrieved September 30, 2016.

September 30, 2016 by sansell418

Holocracy: A New Look for Zappos

by Tyler Starr

There are many styles of management that people use to run companies. With so much competition between corporations in the current market, businesses will do anything that they can to get a slight edge over their competitors. There are some companies that are moving to a new style of management known as holocracy. Like anything, there are pros and cons to moving to this style of management and Zappos went all in when it came to switching to holocracy.

The holocracy style of management is a way of getting rid of the traditional chain of command where there is an ultimate decision maker that will have the absolute final choice about what happens to the company. This also means that even if someone has an idea that they would like to try they have to run it passed others within the group before it can be put into use. The others in the group have to be on board with the idea as well. This system completely does away with the position of a manager and all employees must be ready to give their input on the things that are going on. If they don’t serve a purpose or help out with the tasks at hand within their group then they are not needed and could be let go. Holocracy allows for all of its people to assume a managerial role from time to time and lead certain projects. Any employee could set the agenda for a meeting if they feel that it is a necessary item to be discussed.

Zappos adopted this style of management because the man in charge, Tony Hsieh, wanted to change things up and take a new approach to the way that the company was run. Hopocracy was something that hadn’t been done very much in the past and it would be a complete overhaul to the company’s current situation. As always, when there is a drastic change of that magnitude, the results are going to be just as drastic as the change. Whether that would be for the better or for the worse is the problem at hand when trying to make such a choice about how your company is run.

Hopocracy, just like any other style of management in the workplace, has its advantages and its disadvantages. One of the advantages that hopocracy holds is that it gives lower level employees that usually give little to no input into projects or situations the chance to present what they would like to say. This is good because you never know what kind of ideas or plans somebody might have been keeping to themselves because they weren’t in a position that allowed them to feel comfortable expressing themselves to the rest of their coworkers. Now that they have the same amount of authority as the rest of their fellow employees they will feel much more comfortable putting themselves out there in front of everybody.

With the good side of switching to hopocracy, comes the bad side. It is going to take longer to get ideas put into motion with this plan because even if the idea is amazing it has to be passed through the process of talking about it to your group and that takes a longer time than if somebody in a management position were to just assign people to getting their job done. Another drawback of switching to a hopocratic work environment from a traditional hierarchy is that there are going to people who have worked a long career to achieve a management position. When the switch occurs, these people will be, in a way, demoted back to a much more equal level as the rest of the employees. Although they will probably emerge as some of the best group leaders when the hopocracy is in full swing, they will have lost a lot of their authority.

Gelles, D. (2015, July 17). At Zappos, Pushing Shoes and a Vision. Retrieved September 21, 2016, fromhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/business/at-zappos-selling-shoes-and-a-vision.html?_r=1

How It Works. (n.d.). Retrieved September 21, 2016, from http://www.holacracy.org/how-it-works/

Markman, A. (2016). The Unseen Consequences Of Hypocritical Leadership. Retrieved September 23, 2016, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3060838/do-leaders-have-anything-to-gain-by-being-hypocritical 

Reingold, J. (2016, March 4). How a Radical Shift Left Zappos Reeling. Retrieved September 21, 2016, fromhttp://fortune.com/zappos-tony-hsieh-holacracy

September 23, 2016September 26, 2016 by tylerstarr1

Zappos: Holocracy Style of Organizational Management

by Ally Knapp

Zappos is being defined as a “holocracy” style of organizational management which is defined as a “complete, packaged, system for self-managements in organizations (Bernstein, 2016).” Zappos, being an online shopping website, where they sell about every name brand idem and much more online. Being a website where you buy the idem on the one day and the very next day it is on your doorstep with free shipping. This type of strategy of holocracy, is being used by over 300 users.

When in a normal job setting, each person has one job and is assigned that job in traditional companies while in a holocracy, roles are defined around the work and not the people (Bernstein, 2016). Getting a better understanding of what this type of strategy is, is when your able to take forces with one customer and be able to say what needs to be said and what you want  to say to that specific customer at that time. It’s a one on one conversation with this type of company. You’re just working with the one individual who is buying the product or products. You have no title, and or no boss to tell you what your tasks are. It is just up to you. Traditional job setting, you would have a boss, and a manager and you would be able to move up by positions as you go about getting better at your job and became more accountable for the tasks you were and are doing.  Photo Credits: http://us.mullenlowe.com/mullen-wins-zappos/

Strengths given about this type of work of holocracy are you being able to feel you have just as much power and one or another person and no one can be better at your position (Denning, 2015). Weaknesses found in this strategy is it being a job where things might get out of line just due to the fact you don’t have a boss or someone who is in charge to bring forth what needs to be dome and keep everyone in line which can get I believe a little unorganized at times. For me I couldn’t work in that type of job setting knowing that I don’t have a specific boss. Yes it would be great to be my own boss but I feel in a work force you have to have some type of organization and form of communication to make sure all your employees are on the right track.

Tony Hsieh, chief executive of Zappos has been pushing this holocracy strategy for years now trying to make Zappos the best it possibly can be. He wants to make his workplace where everyone has a voice and bureaucracy doesn’t stifle innovation (Gelles, 2015).  Using the form of holocracy a lot of employers are not used to this type of work and it’s a major adjustment from them probably working at say a store like Old Navy then coming into a company like Zappos transitioning from two different styles of work.

Many different styles of management are obviously out there and holocracy isn’t just the only one used in the work force. Talking about many different other strategies and how work can be done within classes we went over a couple of others. Another one that I believe could be used within the Zappos Company is an organizational culture called Contagion. This is the process through which attitudes and or behaviors are either adopted or barred by people, based on the number of others who have created similar attitudes or engaged in similar behaviors, as they make both collective and individual decisions. Being a different strategy yet though so very  similar with the people having their own stance on specific things within their company.

 

References:

Bernstein, E., Bunch, J., Canner, N., & Lee, M. (2016). How it works. HOLACRACY. Retrieved from

http://www.holacracy.org/how-it-works/

 

Denning, Steve. (2015, May 23). Is Holacracy Succeeding At Zappos?. Forbes. Retrieved from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/05/23/is-holacracy-succeeding-at-

zappos/#4b4fc48a40bb

 

Gellles, David. (2015, July 15). At Zappos, Pushing Shoes and a Vision. The New York Times.

Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/business/at-zappos-selling-shoes-      

and-a-vision.html?_r=1

 

Reingold, Jennifer. (2016, March 4). Fortune. Retrieved from

http://fortune.com/zappostonyhsieh-holacracy/

 

September 22, 2016September 26, 2016 by aknapp6