At first when I started reading the article I was hoping that a part of the article would draw some kind of an analogy to “group think” on this topic as well.  I kind of get the feeling that these two might be related in a way, maybe a distant way.  This is because it seems that if no one is asking questions or providing feedback, no one else will want to be the first to do so either.  Breaking this silence is almost like changing a culture that has been built up within a corporate environment, or even within a small team operating within a larger environment.

                Another important aspect that the article didn’t touch on, was what exactly constituted silence?  Personally I feel that I can talk to my boss about anything, even decisions that he made or is contemplating, but that’s person to person.  I wouldn’t dare call him out on an email with 3 – 4 other people on it and start questioning him or throwing him under the bus.  Nor would I try to make him look bad in a meeting in front of people.  If I have something to say to him that I feel would reflect negatively on him in anyway, then I would keep it between me and him, and I think he can respect that.  So my question would be, would that be considered Organizational Silence?  I don’t think it would.

                Finally, I did like the breaking the silence section as well.  I think some of the points made are valid, the only problem with this is that they make it too much a one way street, where the managers are the ones who have to invite feedback.  I think that to a certain extent the employees have to have the courage to step up and speak out as well.  Just doing so in a respectful and not in there self-interests, but rather the interests of the team and the business.

                The principles of ACT section starts out saying, “Our initial insights into ACT came from our examination of the similarities between Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  I don’t think it is logical to deduce a theory by looking at three similar figures in history.  Also none of these figures have anything to do with business management either.  It may show how these people influenced others with their power, but even that isn’t necessarily related to change either. 

                Continuing in the article I do think that some good points are made about what an individual himself needs to look at in order to start the domino effect of change.  I think that the first point, the foundation of the pyramid, Seeks to Create an Emergent System, was the most important.  This step is similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous first step of accepting that there is a problem.  The first step is recognizing that it is the system that needs to change.  This means putting all focus on the system, and no focus at all on self- interests.  

                However one of the main problems I have with this article is that it is composed of very detailed and specific principles.  It’s almost as if there can be an infinite amount of specific principles.  You can just pick out something that Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Jesus all had in common and call it another principle.  I prefer the high level goals that people should strive for, such as those that are detailed in the 7 habits of highly effective people, for instance being proactive.  It’s almost like whoever created this sat down and said, “Let’s pick out 10 things that these three figures had in common and call it the ‘Advanced Change Theory’”.

                   The previously mentioned quote and that mindset that Zimmer has is what I think has made the Men’s Warehouse as successful as it is, especially in such a niche market; a market which is already covered by all the department stores.  It can almost be comparable to opening a store that specializes in just cereal or something, where cereal is already available in every grocery store.  Yet Zimmer has been able to be very successful in this industry.

                   Another idea that I really like of Zimmer’s was that of servant leadership.  His definition of this was to treat your employees and coworkers like they are your customers.  I think this is a real good way to put it.  To me a servant leader is someone who provides help to his directs or his coworkers, rather than someone who just delegates then sits back.  If you treat everyone like a customer, this takes you out of the “I’m the boss” mentality and makes you help people, which is what a servant leader does.

                   I also think that the Men’s Warehouse had a good system in place to promote team work.  In a system in which sales people are paid commission, there will be a lot of cutthroat activity going on between them.  However the Men’s Warehouse they knew that this would happen and would fire people who were doing large transactions yet producing smaller bills, as these people were just trying to get as many customers as they could, rather than trying to sell them more items.  They would go as far as firing their top performers if they were stealing customers and not practicing good team work.

                   In the end I think that the Men’s Warehouse has been most successful because of the long term, close knit relationships that began it and have continued.  A lot of the decisions that they make seem to be to preserve that family oriented workplace.  Practicing teamwork is a real good example of this.  They were also real big on promoting from within, which I think is another sign of keeping together that family like atmosphere.   Finally there was also hiring based on personality rather than on experience.  They weren’t looking for the best sellers, but rather people who could work together well.

                The whole setup of Treadway just seems wrong to me.  There appears to be hopelessness in every job role.  There is a very limited means of advancement; most workers will feel that they are in a dead end position.  This is true at the laborer level who probably will feel that they won’t ever get the foreman position, because they either don’t have a college degree and/or there are few foreman positions compared to laborer positions.  The foremen in turn likely don’t have too much hope of getting a general supervisor position as those are incredibly scarce.  Also since Lima has become there main plant, transferring to a different plant seems out of the question.

                Another problem lies with education I believe.  I have worked in these types of laboring jobs where some unproven college graduate comes in and tries to manage laborers who have 5+ years of experience.  Usually even a laborer with one year experience will have a problem with an unproven college graduate coming in and trying to manage him.  Usually a college grad will also feel that they don’t have to prove themselves laborwise as they already proved themselves by going through school.  They get into the mindset that they deserve this supervisorial position since they have a degree.  This can cause a lot of tension within the organization.

                With the problems that exist at the foreman level at Treadway, providing proper training to the foreman should be one of the highest priorities for Treadway.  Yet they have done away with their foreman training program due to budgeting.  If they aren’t willing to contribute money into this area, then they aren’t serious about fixing this turnover issue.  To be honest though, this issue should be able to be solved without having to allocate money to it.  Since foreman already have a tough time being caught between the laborers and the general supervisors, I think that more of a burden should be placed on the general supervisors to be on the floor helping develop the foreman.  This attitude that general supervisors have of, “I don’t have a lot of time to devote to hand-holding” is completely flawed.  If they aren’t willing to help new foreman then the blame should go on them.

                The most interesting part of this case study to me was who gets laid off and what the repercussions are of the different scenarios.  One scenario in particular was laying off the older people since they were ready to retire anyways.  Age discrimination was an important factor that was brought up, that these people might sue like the IT workers for a different company had.  On the other end of the spectrum was the last in first out scenario.  Where you layoff the newest people first, expecting them to be younger and being able to find new jobs easier.  Personally even though I am young, I like this approach.  Younger people are also less likely to have families or mortgages and also won’t have too much attachment to the company.   However the downside is mainly on the company’s side in this situation, as was mentioned in the article these might be the people the company had to fight tooth and nail for to recruit.  Also at times when layoffs happen, a company has a reason to layoff those people who have become complacent in their role and have been with the company a good while, and keep the younger more energetic people.

                Laying off the people who did worst on their performance reviews is also an interesting situation.  I think it was GE, not sure though, who made this approach popular.  There are also pros and cons to this approach as well.  Personally I like this approach as well.  Even though there are a lot of issues with performance reviews, I think in the end we are all given the same circumstances at work, everyone gets a performance review and is evaluated the same way their peers are.  Also from the eyes of a manager or owner of a company, I think that it would only be fair to cut the least performing people when time for layoffs came.

                As mentioned earlier, layoffs are a touchy subject.  As much as I’ve heard about layoffs in the past year with the recession and all, I still have no idea how a severance package works, how much money is offered, if it is paid up front or in payments.  I haven’t heard of these things personally because I don’t like to think about layoffs either.  Someone’s life can be ruined due to them being laid off.   Layoffs can cause depression; someone can lose their house, even lose their families if marital problems are raised due to someone not bringing home money.  Layoffs are something that no one wants to talk about, however I think that it is good to, so we can help each other when these times arise.

                Maybe not so much the middle ground of the two extremes, but the right way to do it, is to be the servant leader.  The servant leader should give his team the freedom to work and trust their work and judgments.  However he should also be knowledged in the work that they are performing.  He should be like the architect and they should be like the constructors.   If they have questions on how things should be implemented, he should be able to guide them so and provide them proper coaching.  He himself should also be getting work done, as this is how he gains the knowledge to help his team when they need it.  He can’t just pass projects down to his team and have them complete the projects.  He would likely be involved especially in the early phases of the project so later on when his subordinate comes to him with questions he will already have an understanding.

                Servant leaders are very rare to find.  Most fall into one of the two buckets described earlier, however maybe not to the extreme that I mentioned.   To be honest, I’ve never even heard the term servant leader until now and I’d wonder if 90% of managers out there have even heard of it.  But it makes perfect sense to me, maybe because I am one of the few lucky ones who works for a servant leader.  Servant leaders are probably also the most respected of leaders within an organization.

                The sad thing is that from this article, the honest things that Mr. Leven does usually just make things more difficult on him.  He lost his job with Days Inn because he was trying to do the right thing, which then led him into the grips of depression.  Then later on in life as chairman of U.S. Franchise Systems he again wanted to do the right thing but was looked down upon for doing so by his fellow employees.

                I do like Mr. Leven’s thoughts on how executives shouldn’t be accepting compensation when their employees are taking pay cuts.  I think this is something that we have been seeing a lot of during this recession.  Executives leading failing companies dependent on government money (aka our money) to stay afloat, then accepting million dollar plus bonuses is just wrong.  It seems that for every ten of these executives that do this, there is only one that says reduce my pay to $1 for this year’s salary because people in my company are losing their jobs.

                There is a difference between being a good leader and making decisions that will lead to success.  I don’t think that releasing your hunch that you are going to miss the forecast is necessarily what a successful leader would do.  Actually it may not even be what a good leader would do.  But I do think that a good leader wouldn’t be accepting large bonuses and compensation, while the lower level workers are being laid off or taking pay cuts, especially considering the executives are already making five or more times what the lower level workers are making.

                Lt. Withers had nothing to gain and everything to lose if he would’ve been caught helping out Pewee and Salomon.  He would have lost his GI Bill and his dreams of getting his Phd. would have gone down the drain.  However Withers’ was a good man from the start, an educated man, the type that didn’t curse, drink, or smoke.  He was also someone who himself had already faced a lot of racism.  I think these things are what lead to him risking his future to help Pewee and Salomon out.

                Even after everything Salomon and Pewee had been through, losing their families, being treated like animals in concentration camps, I thought it was interesting how they both still kept a good, positive attitude.  They both would sing and clap to the gospel music, they were interested in getting rich and America, and they wrote uplifting poems even.  I think that this shows that if people can be positive through the worst of situations, it is possible for a lot of us who are fortunate to be in much better situations to be positive as well.

                Overall this was a good story with a good ending.  I thought it was good to see Pewee, who had and knew no one, and could barely speak English, build himself into the person he became at the end.  He must have come to America with nothing, and in the end he owned houses, had a big family with grandchildren even.  This story gives hope that if Pewee could have done all of this with his past experiences, then it should be possible for anyone to.

                When I say there are a lot of details that are left out, I think that one of the main things is his decisions whether to cross through or go around each of the two cites he had to make this decision at.  It seems odd to me that as prepared as the military usually is, from top to bottom, they would have already had a plan to deal with expected resistance when crossing through any city.  I realize that Dowdy was a high ranking member of the marines, but the article also stated what a great plan Gen. Mattis had drawn up and I don’t believe that situations like this weren’t included in Mattis’ plans.

                A second thing that I don’t quite understand about this article is the speed vs. safety issues.  I’ve never been in the armed forces but from all the movies I’ve seen, or from talking to all my friends who’ve served, safety and looking out for your mates is always priority number one.  After seeing in the movies where people are always carrying their mates out after they’ve been shot or hurt, I don’t believe that the highest ranking of the marines would not consider safety of our troops over speeding to Baghdad.   It just doesn’t make sense to me.

                I think we only get one side in this article.  It makes Dowdy and his men out to be saints, and everyone else within the Marine Corp to be evil and wrong.  I have a tough time believing this even though it could be true.  In the end I think that it came down to two things:  1) Dowdy was just caught doing the wrong things at the wrong time.  2.)  Dowdy wasn’t performing his job duties properly and was more of a friend then a leader to his troops.

                This article was a real good read as it built upon the previously noted evidence based decision making.  Harrah’s combines the data driven patterns they see, with customer satisfaction.  Combining these two different entities is really business at its finest.  This is a good topic for me as this is what my job is as I work on a Business Intelligence team, and we are the centralized data keepers within the organization.

                Customer satisfaction is something at first that you wouldn’t think is tangible, it is almost theoretical in a way.  However customer satisfaction is really important to how a business is run, especially in the casino industry where a lot of people will leave after losing money and being unhappy.  How can you understand if your business is providing customer satisfaction?  This is where the data comes into play.  Using the data you can see patterns that you wouldn’t normally pick up on just by watching people.  A prime example of this was in the article where they noted a large percentage of their revenue was coming from everyday local people who wouldn’t care much for a free night’s stay, as they may already live nearby.

                Using the data didn’t just help Harrah’s with customer satisfaction.  It also created perks for the employees as well.  They used the data to create metrics that would determine customer satisfaction, which came through the form of customer surveys.  Good satisfaction scores led to bonuses for the employees as well.  From past reading we have already seen that happy employees are the drivers within all of the successful organizations, and these bonuses I feel created this within the Harrah’s organization as well.

                Using the data mining tactics was really important to Harrah’s, not only because they didn’t have the extravagant shows and features of other casinos, but they put a system in place in the form of reward points that got them ahead.  This was such a successful system that just about every casino now–a- days uses this as well.                Not only does this system create a motivating factor for customers to play at Harrah’s or at casinos in general, it also allows casinos to keep an eye on what customers habits are and to continue to evolve with what customers want.  Using this system Harrah’s has not only helped their own company but has helped gaming in general, as well as helping the Nevada economy.

Gary Loveman and Harrah’s Entertainment

                The case of Gary Loveman was an interesting case, mainly due to him being hired as the COO and CEO in waiting without him having any previous management experience.  This almost seemed like an experiment to see if someone who teaches and preaches in academia could be successful in an actual business environment.  Personally I’ve never seen a case of this being tested in such a manner until this.  I think this is a big deal as well, since in both my undergraduate and graduate classes, I’ve had conversations with students where discussions go on about how these professors don’t know how the real world works, how they just recite what they’ve been taught without actually testing it in the real world.

                I think it’s difficult to conclude how Loveman actually worked out.  A couple of reasons for this, the first being that the previous CEO Satre, had created a system in which he had put people with leadership skills in all the positions.  So a successful system had already been created for Loveman to come into.  Secondly Loveman himself accepted this system, not micromanaging and leaving people to do their jobs which they had been trained to do.

                One reason Loveman can be seen as a success is because he did come in and change the culture, which is difficult to do.  He brought in the fighting competitive culture, where marketing would fight tooth and nail to gain market share.  Even though he created this culture, the article didn’t really mention if this was a good change within the organization.  We can only assume that it was.

                Even though the article as well as myself mentioned that Loveman didn’t interfere with peoples job duties, he seemed eager to replace people who weren’t performing.   He believed that each job belonged to the shareholders and not to the individual.  He fired the whole marketing team as well as potential future COOs.  This tells me that he wasn’t afraid to make decisions though.  There were also other numerous positions that they mentioned that Loveman had replaced.

                The article makes it hard to determine whether Loveman was a success or not.  I’m guessing the article was written right around the time that Loveman actually took over as CEO.  Personally I think some things he did, for instance putting the data they had gathered to use, were good for the company.  Other decisions such as firing most of the staff, the article doesn’t really talk about how these decisions worked out.  Even if I looked at how Harrah’s has done now it would be difficult to assess his success, since a large market of gaming has been taken by Indian Casinos and online gaming now.