Leadership

Having good leadership in business can make the difference between a good company and a bad company. Leadership is a must need quality for a manager to have, it allows for the manager to guide his employees through their assignments, and motivate them to work their butts off. Leaders must show dedication, if the leader shows that he/she is dedicated to the task on hand, then it will set a good example for the workers. Leaders should show openness, which basically means that they need to be willing to listen to the employees ideas without criticising them on the spot. Openness is able to build respect between the leader and his followers, would you have more respect for a person who trashes every idea that you have even before you tell him about them, or one that listens to your ideas and has a further discussion with you about your ideas?

Confidence goes hand in hand with leadership. Confidence gives people the feeling that you know what your talking about, its much easier to understand people that speak with confidence than it is to understand someone who seems like they aren't really sure how what they are talking about. People generally look up to people that have confidence, and workers are supposed to look up to their leaders, so as you can see confidence is needed by managers in order to be looked up at.

These are qualities that required in order to be a successful Leader in the business industry. Without having a good leader, employees can become misguided and lack motivation to get their work done.

The Glass Ceiling

I recently did a post in class about how the Glass Ceiling effect was present in the finance industry in the UK, and it motivated me to make a blog post about how there should be enforced laws that deal with this kind of crap. The article dealt with how women in the finance industry specifically in the UK were making 20% less in their salaries then men, even with the same qualifications. When I presented it in class, I was given some good feedback on how to get rid of the glass ceiling. The one that stuck out the most was how the only way that we can fix this, is to have people that think that it needs to be removed in charge of the companies that have these sort of things happening in them. Having a women in charge of one of these companies in my opinion would get rid of the salary differences between men and women. People shouldn't get payed more or less because of their gender, its morally wrong and we should have moved past this point a long time ago.

Another way that we could get rid of the Glass Ceiling is by introducing laws that force companies to pay fair salaries or give companies incentives to pay fair salaries like a small tax break for companies if they are able to prove that they pay all of their employees equally, and provide equal opportunity for their employees. It is hard to deal with the glass ceiling because it's hard to prove that companies are actually avoiding promoting certain employees of a different gender or race. It seems like there are always people suing because of the glass ceiling effect, so why haven't we made laws that can combat this horrific problem? I think that if we were able to get rid of this burden on people's jobs we would see many more people show their true potential, and it would allow for people to get their ideas shown.

Walmart's competetive advantage

Wal-Mart is one of the, if not most successful retail stores in the world. Wal-Mart is able to hold a competitive advantage over other retail stores because of how effective they are at managing the massive company. The company is actually so big now that they basically dictate at what price the suppliers are going to sell them products at. Wal-Mart is always looking for ways to cut costs to keep improving their advantage over their competitors, something that maybe RIM should have though of when they were leading in the Mobile industry. The strategy that Wal-Mart uses in order to keep their competitive advantage is outlined by the following:

1. Low Cost - Wal-Mart is able to sell their products for very low prices, because of how good they are at lowering their operating expenses. The major way that they cut costs is virtually because of how good their distribution capability is, which includes their store locations. Competitors can't keep up with how low Wal-Mart is able to sell their products at giving them a huge advantage on where people go to shop.

2. Service - Wal-Mart puts the customers needs first. They use the mindset that the worst thing a customer can do is spend money at another store and that customers don't need you, you need customers. As a result they will do anything in order to get more customers, this includes having great customer service to influence repeat business, allowing customers to virtually return any product that they bought (excluding food) as well as having low prices. Having a workforce culture that is very customer-oriented greatly helps increase the loyalty from customers and as I mentioned before it helps bring back customers to the store.

3. Leadership - Wal-Mart was able to create a culture within their managers to put the company first. Sam Walton was able to inspire leaders to focus on the company instead of their own egos. This is similar to how the Japanese run businesses, by creating a team atmosphere that motivates workers to do a good job so that they won't let the team down. Wal-Mart holds yearly meetings for their managers that are apparently full of spirit and from what I've heard they sound pretty awesome.

Wal-Mart is making sure that they stay on top, and they are doing it the right way. They sell basically anything but they also make sure to focus on the important things like ways that they could reduce operational costs and how they can make Wal-Mart better for the customer.

Disney's Brand loyalty

Everyone has heard of Disneyland , and knows of to be a prestigious place that is awesome to go on vacation to. the Disneyland in California is considered to be one of the best amusement parks in the world, allowing you to even stay at hotels that are located close to the park. Disney is also renowned for having great customer service, and providing great entertainment, whether its from having a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume entertain your kids, or from how they have people that go around picking up garbage all day, in order to make their parks spotless. One thing that is notably strange about Disney employees, is how they still work at Disney despite receiving a relatively low income. Employees build trust in Disney, which allows Disney to build internal Brand Loyalty, and in turn their employees work insanely hard to please their customers. Disney uses the Loyalty Profit Chain, which basically puts their workers over their profit as shown by this picture:

This way employees feel more valued and are willing to work harder for the company.


Many customers will refuse to buy specific businesses goods or their services because they feel like the company doesn't care about them as a consumer, but Disney is able to do just the opposite of that. Disney makes Consumers feel cared about and is able to make them feel special, this helps because it lets people have a great time at their parks and hotels, and increases the chance for them to return one day. This is exactly what happened to my Sister, when she came back from Disneyland, all she would talk about was how everyone there treated her so well, and how she wanted to go back again sometime soon. Disney's strategy for repeat business is actually very well done, they are for the most part easily ahead of their competition in regards of customer service, and in my experience from when I went when I was younger, it makes other amusement parks seem much lesser, and it makes you feel like they just don't seem to be nearly as good as Disney land is.

Hard work pays off

Today in class we watched a documentary on the fast food chain restaurant Mcdonalds, and we learned how the food giant is able to gain a competitive advantage over its competition. The documentary started off by showing us two employees, one who owned 6 Mcdonalds restaurants, and his partner who looked over all 6 of the restaurants. What surprised me the most was that the guy who owned the 6 Mcdonalds actually puts in 14 hour days at work, even doing things like serving customers and cleaning the windows. You would think that once you own 6 Mcdonalds that you would never have to go to work again as you would have people doing all the dirty work, but it wasn't the case for the Mexican American guy. His partner had been working at Mcdonalds for 18 years, and was actually promoted into a relatively high up position which allows him to make over one hundred thousand dollars a year. The partner was projected to own his own Mcdonalds at some point, which would make him very wealthy, even when the interviewer asked him if he would be surprised if he would become a millionaire, he firmly stated that he would not be surprised.

The documentary had recorded footage of both men at work, and the second guy was shown encouraging workers and telling them that they were doing a great job, even while he was checking up to make sure that everything was okay. When asked about what the most important thing about Mcdonalds that would appeal to the customers, he stated that the biggest factor was that the wash rooms always had to look and be clean. The reason being is because who would ever want to go to a restaurant that had a disgusting wash room? People don't like dirty things, and having a dirty wash room is memorable for customers. It makes them think that its a dirty restaurant, and they won't go back there to eat. Both men showed that hard work pays off, as they are both making boatloads of money, and even setting themselves up for the future. I guarantee that if that guy didn't work hard for 18 years then he definitely wouldn't have gotten an opportunity like this.

Lobbying...

It doesn't really make sense to me how Lobbying is still allowed, its basically open bribery and causes basically what I would call corruption. It seems like large corporations can basically run our governments and make laws that favour their cause. Look at what the Entertainment industry tried to do with laws such as S.O.P.A and P.I.P.A, its almost as if the Entertainment industry was controlling the government to make such stupid laws that seemed as if they were hardly even thought out. Lobbying is driven by greed from big corporations, they seem to somehow pay their way into having things go the way that they want them to. Lobbyists are honestly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to sit in Washington to become friendly with policy makers and insure that the best interests of their clients are looked after. It crazy to think about how much money Lobbyists make considering what they do should be a federal offence. Lobbying makes sense for some things, but its not like citizens have enough money to ensure that bills are being passed in favour of citizens. Its disgusting to see how many of the people who pass laws end up working for the companies they passed the laws for, its completely corrupt and yet it seems like there is nothing that we can do about it. None of this stuff is fair, but if your on the right side of it, you will gain massive benefits. You can't fight the system because you'll never win, but if you go with the system you'll be extremely well off.

We pretty much saw how corrupt the government is when we watched both Food Inc and when we watched the Documentary on the housing market crash. The government personnel that passed the patenting laws for Monsanto either worked at Monsanto or has a guaranteed high paying job at Monsanto. Its like they don't even care how badly the laws the approve of affect normal citizens, its all about money and its brutal how they get away with this crap. The only way that I think we can stop things like this from happening is by launching complete FBI investigations against these people to show how badly they screwed others just to get their own benefits. They are completely taking advantage of people without repercussions, it goes to show how if you have money you can basically do anything you want.

Motivation

Motivation is key to success in the business world, if a company is able to motivate their workers to work hard they will obviously produce great results. It turns out that workers actually become more motivated when they find their work interesting, are faced with increased challenge and when they have an increased amount of responsibility. With the way things are looking at school right now, I could see a big change in how people are motivated to do good work, because it seems like whenever we are faced with an increase in challenge we still don't do much about it, it doesn't seem to motivate us it rather irritates us. Young people now a days seem to complain much more than the generation before us, or so I'm told. This small seeming dilemma could actually be a big obstacle in the future workforce. I also think that school/work motivation comes as you grow up, because I noticed that I didn't have the most motivation to try as hard as I could when I was younger playing sports, but ever since I realised that I didn't have many years left of competitive sports at the rep level, I started to try a lot harder, and grew out of the mindset that not trying was cool.

A big problem that many managers face, is how do you get your employee to become interested in his work? Many times the way to increase motivation is by offering them a salary raise, sometimes a promotion and giving them a new title will actually have relatively the same effect. People like having things to show off, so if you give them a prestigious sounding title, it will make people proud of themselves and they will make sure to work harder to keep the title. People have needs for personal achievement and growth, and most of the time motivation comes from the persons own free will. Stories that are passed down through companies are often motivational, for example take the guys who started Google out of a garage, sharing their story with Google employees shows them that anything is possible if they put their mind to it which will help motivate them to be like the founders. Sometimes you just need to ask employees what they want, you have to get to know what motivates them and then use it to your advantage to maximize their motivation. The last thing that I'm going to touch about is how reward systems can help boost motivation in the workforce also. When  employees work their butts off, they can become motivated when receiving rewards to show that their efforts are appreciated.

Gung ho

After watching Gung ho in class, the biggest lesson that I learned from the Movie was that motivation is incredible if you are able to harness it from the companies employees. The Japanese failed to motivate the american employees because they wouldn't let them stay used to their own customs, this produced unhappiness from the workers, as they were forbidden to listen to music, smoke cigars and even had to change positions while they worked. The main american character who played the role of a manager at the plant was able to motivate his employees multiple times, whether it was from telling an old story of his about his success in basketball, and how they need to work like it was the 4th quarter of the championship basketball game, to questioning the employees pride about how the Japanese were better workers than the Americans were. His motivation led to the American workers working overtime and even on weekends in order to try to reach their misguided goal of 13 thousand cars. The Movie also showed how the guy was also a pretty bad manager because he blatantly lied to his own employees about the deal that the Japanese made with him, and then tried to blame it on the Japanese after the employees came after him. He sort of learns from his mistake and ultimately motivates the workers again by trying to fulfil the deal by working with the Japanese manager in front of the employees, even after their plant had been announced that it would be closing down, and he made it seem like he wanted to save their jobs, which made them want to get back to work to try complete the deal.

The Movie was actually pretty good, and it showed a good understanding of the differences between the Japanese and American business cultures. The Japanese are all about teamwork and putting the company first, while Americans don't work as hard as they could, and spend more time with their families instead of putting the company first. It was interesting to see how they mixed, and how the Japanese reacted when they realised that the american workers did not work in the same manner as the Japanese workers. It was pretty funny about how insensitive both the Japanese and the Americans were to each other, at one point as the Japanese were arriving from their flight, the Americans were celebrating outside, which the Japanese generally don't like, but they also had a Chinese dragon (which is offensive because its not even their heritage) and a bunch of kids dressed up in karate uniforms.

Overall it was worth watching Gung Ho because it showed us the culture differences between the Americans and the Japanese.

Good Management

Good management is something that is definitely necessary in today's work place, managers are used in order to direct the activities of employees and play a major role in how efficient the employees work. A managers job is to maximize the effectiveness of his team or organization so that they can reach the organization's goals. I think that a good mindset for a manager to have is for them to view their work as achieving their objective through the work of others. This mindset works because it forces managers to try to make the employees to work the hardest that they can get them to, so that they can achieve their goal. There is endless evidence of how bad management can screw over a company, and produce less then good results, while having good management can motivate workers to get the best work out of them, and provide a good workplace. People wont enjoy going to work if their manager is awful, and seems to always be against them. Places like Google, where employees are basically catered to show good management and have amazing results to back it up.

Good managers will have to have certain skills that help them motivate others to work hard. Probably them most important skill that they need to have is to be a good communicator. Its incredibly hard to do something for someone when you have no idea what they are asking you to do, or they ask you to do something but meant another thing, but with good communication employees will know exactly what to do and how to do it. Managers that are good at their job will often plan ahead for things that could possibly go wrong, its normal human nature for people to make mistakes, so planning ahead will help solve the situation hastily and effectively.  Managers that look for solutions instead of looking for people to blame are actually much more effective because blaming people only wastes more time, while looking for solutions helps get rid of the problem. Being able to put trust in your employees is also a great skill to have, because it your workers not want to dissatisfy the manager and it can also spark creativity in the work force, as they know its okay to try something new as long as it doesn't hurt the company.

Why Facebook shouldn't make a phone

Today in class we talked about how Facebook wants to create a smartphone of their own, but the general conclusion from the class was that it was a stupid idea. Part of the reason that Facebook wants to get into the mobile device industry, is because of how investors were hesitant to invest in Facebook because they are worried about the lack of a strategy to make money from users on mobile devices. There is no way that Facebook would be able to compete against Apple, and now potentially Google. Apple products work hand in hand with each other, so the more that you have the more compatibility you have with them. RIM a company that was fully engrossed in mobile devices couldn't, and still can't compete with Apple in the market, and they were once dominating the market! So why does Facebook think that their phone will sell over other phones that have already established their presence in the market? In fact there are already existing Facebook applications available for phones that use the Android or the Apple market. Google is a new dangerous looking competitor after their recent acquisition, but even then nobody can predict if they will have success against the leading giant Apple.

I feel like Facebook is responding to Google, because Google created Google+ in order to combat Facebook and other social media sites. Buying Motorola actually made sense for Google, because of how many other things they have than the Google search engine. Google already has their own email service, as well as Google docs, Android Operating System and their own web browser Google Chrome, while Facebook has.... Facebook? Facebook will have to come out with a complete WOW factor if they want their smartphone to sell, because I don't think that their brand name alone will help them with sales, even as their image is currently tarnished from their unfortunate stock drop after the company went public. The poor strategic planning that initially scared investors will be much worse if Facebook actually decides to continue with their plan of creating their own Smartphone. Another reason that Facebook could be trying to enter the mobile device market, could be the result of Mark Zuckerberg's ego. His movie The Social Network sort of showed how he created Facebook just because his ex-girlfriend bashed his ego, and if this is the case, then he could simply ruin Facebook because of his ego.

Google's Work culture

Google is widely known for being a great place to work, and it's success seems to prove that Google is in fact one of the most well run companies in the world along with Mcdonalds and others. The thing that makes Google stand out, is how their managers allow for employees to have 20% of their work time each day to work on their own work related projects. This allows for employees to show off their true creativity and provide efficient work for their company. It allows employees to become more motivated, because Google basically allows them to work on things that they want to work on. This idea is also great for morale in the work place, because it employees will be happier with a work environment that is different from all the others. Think about how much Google has improved from just a search engine, into email, Google docs, their own web browser, and even now they are getting into their own mobile market, with the recent purchase of Motorola for a hefty 12.5 Billion dollars. Google goes against the norms, and actually allows employees to ask questions through email or  regarding company issues straight to Google executives including Larry Page and Sergey Brin who are the founders of the company. This allows Google's executives to recognize and sort out issues that its own employees have with the company. Google also has free use of laundry machines, a child care centre, free cafeteria meals which are done by professional cooks and their offices are actually dog friendly! As long as your pooch behaves in a fashionable manner, and your co-workers aren't allergic to your pet.

I personally think that the reason Google created such a cool and relaxing atmosphere is because it makes it much easier to lure talented people into their company for work. Who wouldn't want work for a company that has access to use slides or firemen poles to descend from floors, or have their lunch already made for them by  professional cooks? The design of Google's offices is insane, its definitely a dream job that doesn't come easy, as Google is notorious for having very difficult job interviews. Google has done a great job letting the world know just how astonishing their work environment is, making a job at Google seem even more prestigious as many articles praise Google's workplaces.

The perks that come with working at Google are limitless, its a great strategy to motivate and reward workers for the hard work that they put in. Employees won't want to leave Google because of how much more friendly their work environment is. Other companies need to realize what Google is preaching, and allow for employees to be well rewarded for their work, as it has proven to work for Google.

Old Spice

Creativity and marketing are a deadly combination when it comes to presenting . Companies generally want to create an image that is different from their competition, because it makes people view them as a unique company and they become more mainstream and popular. Old Spice created a series of commercials that were very random and creative resulting in the commercials to become extremely popular, and as a result more people began to purchase Old Spice products. Most of the success that came from these commercials was because of the charming and persuasive Isaiah Mustafa who played his role perfectly. My Dad, my Mom and my Sister would actually wanted to watch these commercials to air, they enjoyed them as they found them entertaining, funny and creative. Since my mom buys my deodorant and my body wash, awhile after these commercials aired I noticed that the products that she began to buy for me were Old Spice products. The company didn't stop at only making commercials on TV, but they actually created a series of YouTube videos, in which they answered peoples questions from popular websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. The series was actually well done, and they were able to get several famous people to ask questions as well, which greatly helped boost the entertainment of the whole thing.

The way that they came up with the miniseries on YouTube was amazing, and it truly proved that if you can motivate your employees to think creatively, you can truly hit the jackpot with good ideas. I think that more companies should give employees time to be able to come up with their own ideas that would help their company because you can't go wrong with an extra opinion or idea.

Unfortunately other companies began to copy their commercial ideas, and it just wasn't as funny as the other ones that were full-blown classics. I think that in order for Old Spice to keep a competitive advantage of being well known in the deodorant and the body wash industry, they need to keep coming up with creative and funny advertisements, since it’s a market that basically allows marketing to control the market. Axe and Old Spice are the two big

Mcdonalds Hamburger University

Mcdonald's is if not the most, one of the most successful fast food restaurant chains in the world, and it amazes me how much time and effort they spend on training their managers. In 1961, Mcdonalds opened their first corporate University, called,  Hamburger University in Illinois, going with the motto " Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow" which they still currently use. I found it pretty funny how they they came up with the name for the university, and before I had done any research on it, I thought that it would be sort of a joke university, but I was wrong. According to this Hamburger University is actually more selective than the ivy league school, Harvard, as they only allow key employees to attend the university. There are an astounding 28 different languages that the staff has the ability to teach in, and more than 5000 students attend the university each year.

I think its extremely smart how Mcdonald's implemented a university in order to get the best out of their managers. Mcdonalds thought ahead and realized that they could gain a competitive advantage over their competition if they were able to give their employees a decent future career path, while having them trained to benefit their own restaurants. Giving this type of opporunity to employees helps create brand loyalty, because not only does it help educate them but it also helps advance their careers while allowing them to adapt to the culture which helps in making employees feel loyalty to Mcdonalds.

Corporate University's have been becoming more common, in 1993 only 400 companies owned a Corporate University, but because companies found that they were successful, more companies started to create their own, and in 2001 the number increased to 2000 companies. The goals for Corporate Universities usually include: Getting the most out of their employees by giving them an education, Retain employees, Gain a competitive advantage with their key employees and obviously to organize training for their selected employees.

Culture Presentations

This Monday, we presented our presentations about the different business cultures around the world. The countries that were presented included: Japan, India, Columbia and one more that I can't remember. I found it fascinating on how different each respective countries culture in the business world is, especially from the culture that we are used to in North America. After my groups presentation on Japan, I actually learned more from my teacher Mr. Perosevic than I learned from reading articles that I found online. One key thing that I learned was that Japanese citizens are taught in school that they need to work as a team instead of individuals. I think that this is a great mindset to have, because it allows for their citizens to agree on things that would benefit their society, unlike what the United States has with the democrats and the republicans, who both just try to screw each other over as much as possible. It also encourages workers to work to their fullest potential, because they don't want to let the other employees down.

I found it stunning how similar some of Japan's habits are to the business culture of investment banks on wall street. Both cultures work extremely hard and lug insane amounts of hours, and then they party as hard as they can right after work, and of course  the crazy drinking habits that they develop are disgusting and very unhealthy. I also think that its very strange how Japanese men find it offensive when women wear pants in business related matters, as I don't understand how its offensive or why its only offensive in business related matters. I found it quite cool how much manners are important in Japan, they wont single people out, because it causes them embarrassment, and they also wont outright reject deals, because they think that it is rude and that it is embarrassing for the person or company that is getting rejected. Instead of outright rejection, they will say something along the lines of "We'll consider it".

All in all it was a fun project to work on, and I definably enjoyed learning about the different cultures.

America Vs Canada customer service

Last week I went on the school trip to Washington, and the customer service in the stores in the states blew my mind. Every store that I walked into I was greeted by friendly looking people that looked happy and willing to help. I found that the good customer service actually made you want to buy products that they had at their store. Even at Mcdonalds the employees were very friendly and even thanked us after we bought food, it sort of made me want to go back to a Mcdonalds restaurant again.

I think that the main reason that the managers enforce their employees to act in such fashion, is because of the vast amount of competition in the United States. The competition forces businesses to try to attract more customers, and one way to do that is to have good customer service. Ontario doesn't seem to have a competition that is even close to the amount of competition that the United States has, and as a result people in retail don't seem to take their jobs as seriously, and seem to be less friendly.

The Canadian government needs to allow more competition in the country, by either allowing more American companies to enter markets like the telecommunication or making laws that can help prevent oligopolies and monopolies. Stores in Canada also need to increase the effectiveness of their training programs, or enforce employees to go through more training programs, because in my experience the customer service in stores are pretty bad in Canada.