Author Archives: jonathan.mohan

The family business course was an enjoyable experience and was the class which made me think most this semester.  Its format of a roundtable discussion on the reading of Bennis sometimes verged on a debate on ethics and culture as they pertain to leadership constantly and I feel wiser for it. While my core belifes were not swayed it did give me more context into how others view leadership and their supporting reasons for it. I also gained insight further insight into my own approach to leadership in thinking about the topic and finally understand the distinction between mangers and leaders.

My participation in CUNY IVE was much like what I think my experience in starting an entreprenurial endeavor would have been and I am thankful for learning the lessons in this low cost environmental. As I started the semester I thought I could strike it out on my own, near single-handedly creating an idea, quickly finding myself insufficent, I sought a team. Which was Ronnie and the real-estate endeavor, I quickly found the team dissolving from a lack of passion and communication and  finally found a niche for myself in the lazy Place as Eugene’s’ marking guy. I enjoyed Eugene’s leadership style which was willing to accept any level of feedback and see if ideas could be incorporated into the Lazy Place idea. During the second deliverable when we were discussing models for the Lazy Place we discussed turning the lazy place into an online platform for connecting people with apartments with people who would scedule reoccuring naps, much in the same way that airbnb.com does it however after much discussion we found this model impractable for even if it works then our competitor airbnb would just copy the model and out execute us, which reverted lazy place back to its inital viable idea of a brick and mortar store. Juan was great with his analytical thinking and ability to drum up accurate numbers for  what it would realistically cost to start the lazy place. Overall Juan and Eugene are individuals I find I could really partner with and do business with and incidentally I took great amusement in how much of a night owl Eugene is as most of our think-tank sessions started at 1am.

How I Incorporate this experience into how I view leadership is that if I try to start a venture on my own without first identifying a team, it will most likely fail. Further when identifying partners I should do more due dilligance on their motivation for the idea that they are presuing to avoid a partnerhsiip which would be dissolved later due to a misalignment of desired outcomes. I believe if I had followed these steps I would have partnered with Eugene from the begining as he had the most fleshed out idea with the greatest passion for actually achieving it.

The comic above illustrates the missinformed zitgiest of the public on the topic of outsourcing. Cost efficiencies through divison of labor only creates an aggrgrate growth in output due to specializtion, this notion created by every half-rate news anchor and parable about bugs, continually reminds the American public about all the industrial jobs being lost to China, completely ignoring the reality that we are both richer for it.

Bennis discusses the technological globlization of the twenth century and its implicatiosn for the twenty first centuary as can be seen in its first decade in this chapter. These thoughts on globalization are further explored in Thomas Friendmen’s The World is Flat . Friedmen discusses how technology is creating a “flat world” where now one must not simply be the best in New York but the best globally as geogrophic distinctions are becoming incresingly irrelivant and while there are many who view this change as something to be feared, Friedman says it’s for the best and not only that a flat world is here to stay.

Bennis succinctly sums up the argument to globalization on page 167 when he states “Change cannot be viewed as the enemy – instead, it is the source of both personal growth and organizational salvation. Only by changing themselves can organizations get back into the game and get to the heart of things.”

Bennis speaks for a breif moment in chapter two on the idea that people will accept the vision of a leader regardless of their own convictions (or belief in the falsehood of the leader’s claims) based upon how adamant and sincere the leader states their case for their vision. This reminds me of Bryan Caplin’s The Myth of the Rational Voter, where he discusses this quirk of humans the one Bennis discuses being just one of them and how it plays out in the political landscape of a democracy. For the less reading inclined here is a video ofCaplin summing up the main points of his book.

Another idea that Bennis gets into that struck a cord is discussed at the end of the chapter when he discusses the study done on regret retarding pursuing ones dreams. Sumed up the study found that men who pursued their dream even if that dream failed, were happier later in life than those who never tried at all, for having the self-satisfaction of knowing that they tried. I personally found this the most powerful idea in the entire chapter and would have prefferd he spent more time discussing it.