Author Archives: ap162832

My people,

As some of you know, I’ve been reading the autobiography of Alex Ferguson–quick background for those who don’t know him: He managed British football club Manchester Utd. His success makes him, arguably, the best football manager in the history of the game.

On Saturday while seating in Starbucks and drinking a tasty hot chocolate, I ran into this two interesting lines on his book. They read, “The moment the manager loses his authority, you don’t have a club. The players will be running it, and then you’re in troubles” “The authority is what counts. You cannot have a players taking over the dressing room.”

What’s your thought on this?

I personally agree with Ferguson. In the football world, managing big egos is a challenge and keeping them under this check is a must.

Now, I believe this can be applied in the office or organization management as well. In this case, the name of “boss” or “manager” etc is irrelevant, it is how subordinates accept this person and ultimately granted him/her the right to delegate them. Let me get this crystal clear, an authority should not mean neither oppression nor total freedom within any team, which I believe both oppression and total freedom seat at the extremes of the spectrum. There’s got to be a balance. Assuming that in  team X, all its members know what their task is and how to go about it. But if they do not know who the authority is and who is setting the direction, not matter how good they are, it is possible that chaos may arise as a result of conflict of interests or power struggle etc. There’s got to be some sort of  reference point.

Authority also shows that the person who is the authority is doing a good job staying at the top of a team, because the moment you see someone as authority, it is implied that you have given him/her power over you. Why did you decide to give him/her power? who knows!… but its implied that you have given up some of your power to that person because you respect, believe him/her in some capacity and that your hard work will contribute to an ultimate goal. This is different from power, power is all the way around. It is exercised by the other party without your consent, the minute someone has a gun over you, it has power over your by coercion e.g. Saddam Hussein. Authority is exercised because you have given that consent previously e.g. governments running a democratic society–as explained in Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.

Cheers!

Andres

Due to school, these days I have been juggling with many readings, assignments and other school-related stuff. However, this has not prevented me to allocate a few minutes a day of reading Alex Ferguson’s auto bio–a book that has just come out. Alex Ferguson was the Manager of Manchester United Football Club (English football league). Ferguson was the manager of Manchester United for about 27 years in which he won 49 trophies. Because of all the trophies, his game style, great players he coached, and the transformation that the club undertook during his reign, he is regarded as one of the most successful football coach in British history and, arguably, the most successful football coach in the world. Whatever the case is, he is up there.

It is a real thrill to read his book. As I was reading this book, on the early pages of his book, I got caught on a line that reads “I decided right away that in order to build trust and loyalty with the players, I had to give it to them first.” I feel this line is loaded and would like to elaborate on this, which is also related to what we’ve seen in class.

Teams are something interesting to watch–for better or worse. Prof. Hackman (from the class reading “why teams fail”) reveals that working in teams doesn’t guarantee efficiency. They are as likely to under perform themselves, if they are not certain measures to be taken. Yet, putting the right pieces together can make teams amazing such as the case at hand.

One aspect in teams I want to point out is loyalty—which I think it is crucial for the development and efficiency of the team. Prof. HAckman does not elaborate much on this matter, but here are a few thoughts to build upon his material.

The dictionary tells us that loyalty means to be “faithful to one’s oath, commitments, or obligations. ” Loyalty is not only to be loyal to others but to ourselves as well. When Ferguson wrote this, it took me to a journey of self-reflection. Being loyal is to show one’s commitment not only for the well-being of the group but for the well-being of oneself. Ferguson showed his commitment not only to other aspect of the club but also to every single player, to the development of the player and the relationship between him and the player.

It is interesting to see that Ferguson is the one that initiates the contact with the player first and not all the way around. I find that very interesting because in a team and in life, taking the initiative to anything in life is eventually rewarding. In this case, players are human beings as well, and having Ferguson (as the boss) initiating the relationship and shows care to his players, players responded with the same actions. Since teams are formed by people, it is important to keep that human aspect in the back of our minds. This also show us that regardless of the structure, both parties (the leader and the leading need each other) People are reciprocal and appreciative towards those who help them—although this may not always apply, it is, more often than not, true. In a team, when you help others, you are indirectly helping yourself anyways, creating a win-win situation.
Moreover, having a sense of loyalty in the team is an important asset because it keeps the team members focused and bounded towards thesame goal. Ferguson also mentions “trust.” Trust is like the fuel needed to keep on going. The fuel that tells you to continue on regardless of adversities. When you have loyalty and trust mixed together towards the right goal, amazing things are likely to happened as Ferguson showed us for the past 27 years. Any thoughts on this to further develop it?

Andres

Hi all,

I want to share something that is related to what we are seeing in class this semester. I recently got admitted into a program called Lincoln Center Student Advisory Council. The program is composed of about 15 graduate students—although we have 2 undergrads amongst us—most of us are in our twenties and are pursuing advanced degrees.

As you may imagine, Lincoln Center is a well-known cultural institution. It has thousands of performing art events throughout the year, events in all forms such as dance, theater, opera, music concerts etc. Unfortunately, for the past decade or so, Lincoln Center has been losing its appeal towards younger generations—college students and young professionals etc. Unlike people of my generation, older generations have been able to develop a better appreciation for these arts. For this reason, Lincoln Center has brought this group of students together to brainstorm ideas and design strategies on how to attract younger people.

Please keep reading, there is a purpose of why I am sharing this.

Recently, we received a survey in regards to the structure of our council. This question really made me think of our class indeed! We have been learning about organizations’ structure, team dynamics, leadership etc. The options were:

Collective (1 vote per person on every major issue)

Committees (Everyone signs up and advances their mini-group’s work)

Hierarchical (Select chair and tell me what to do)

Other

Now let me describe the scenario in which this council will operate. As far as we know, the environment will be unpredictable and fast as students in NYC, like everybody else, are usually rushed, busy; they usually have some sort of responsibilities and so on. For this reason, I picked Committees because in an unpredictable and fast changing environment, different committees will focus on different responsibilities of the marketing process–in this case Adhocracy comes to mind. I argue, these committees have to be autonomous enough. This autonomy will create creativity and allow the flexibility necessary to deal with unpredictable cases while ensuring communication among us. Committees should not be too autonomous because too much decentralization may trigger extreme division among committees. A proper decentralization should avoid some sort of machine bureaucracy and centralization in the vertical sense. Hierarchical will create a fixed, top-down approach and will lead to the same questions and answers in a changing scenario–not suitable.  I did not advocate for collective because we are a team of 15 folks. According to the article by the title of “Why teams fail,” Prof. Hackman from Harvard University said that “as team gets bigger, the number of links that need to be managed among members goes up… It’s managing the links between members that gets teams into trouble.” I understand that as the team gets bigger, there is more opinions on the table and can create confusion. But honestly, I do not understand what “link” mean in this context, somebody?

Do you agree or disagree with me? Please share your opinions.

This case reminds me a lot of the Preventing Pollution in Massachusetts: The Blackstone Project and the type of structures explained by Mintzberg, by the way!

In essence, the mission is to reach out students who don’t know what Lincoln Center offers or have a misconception of it. In other words, educate them and attract them. Our next challenge is how we will design our group structure. I’ve shared this with you because I was told I should as it is actually very relevant to class. I would like to know what you have to say based on what we have read in class. Any suggestions or disagreements are welcomed! I look forward for some candid and insightful discussions. 🙂

Thanks everybody,

Andres

Hi all,

Before going to bed, I wanted to finish this day with some glorious thoughts that may lead to a potential discussion. So the fact that our upcoming class (10/17) will focus on the complexity of employee relations and how leadership style and the changes of style can improve the effectiveness of staff management, I told myself, “before proceeding, I should start by drawing the line between the concepts of leadership and management. Are they the same? Or are they different? Or better yet, how different or similar are these two definitions?” As I was doing some research to answer this question, I bumped into an interesting article I found in the Wall Street Journal. The article begins with a blunt statement “Leadership and management must go hand in hand. They are not the same thing. But they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Any effort to separate the two is likely to cause more problems than it solves.”

Then, in a 1989 book by Warren Bennis “On Becoming a Leader,” the article lays out the following differences in a very clear way:

– The manager administers; the leader innovates.

– The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.

– The manager maintains; the leader develops.

– The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.

– The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.

– The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

– The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.

– The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.

– The manager imitates; the leader originates.

– The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

– The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

– The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Based on what I’ve learned in class, this makes sense. For instance, in class we have seen the structure of organizations, groups etc. The person at the top usually holds a managerial position, but does that make him a leader? Structure may be the design in which the organization is built upon, but I would say that people are the energy, the spirit that gives life to the organization. Given these thoughts, I can connect it with the following: “manager focuses on system and structure while the leader focuses on people.” Both managers and leaders are some sort of compasses suited for different functions. The manager focuses on the necessary design and builds the road to direct and facilitate the work and the goal of the team. A leader is the one that sparks the necessary spirit to make the organization work appropriately while also keeping a sense of purpose. Without management, a driven team may not have direction, without a leader, a well-deigned structure may not have the power for which it was built for in the first place. Just like “management go hand in hand” I think structure and people go hand in hand as well. If we have two concepts, therefore I believe that there is a relationship between these two actions,  there’s got to be an interesting balance between the two. Too much focus on the structure may create a negative bureaucracy, compromising the efficiency of the institution, while too much focus on the people may create conflict and unnecessary politics. These are thoughts that came up to mind, and I will appreciate anyone who can bring their own thoughts. Whether there is an agreement of disagreement, anything is appreciated!

Thanks a lot, best always!

Andres