Team Case #1

This case was a great and practical way to show the stages of team development, and had great examples of exactly a team could unravel, even after producing such great results. After reaching their success as a high performance team, obvious problems presented themselves. Their maverick idea man was being wooed by other divisions, and the corporate affairs guru was burned out. The amount of success the team had created these difficulties, and the team didn't take the proper measures to keep themselves operating at a high level. The mundane daily activities of seeing their Ageless Vigor line through to it's final stages lost the interest of Josh, and the high workload wore down Sandy, and Peter didn't take any actions to combat these problems. In order for continued success, I though Peter should possibly have found someone reliable to take the reigns of Ageless Vigor, and handle its daily operations. This would have allowed the "Fearsome Threesome" to do what they excel at, think of an exciting new product, and see it through its developmental stages until it is ready for retail launch.

In Class Case

After learning what the figures in the case really representing, the failures of O rings on the space shuttle, it leads one to question how the shuttle was ever allowed to launch. After learning in one class the proper ways to evaluate risks and decisions, we were able to come to the right judgement in the case. After the data showed no success under 65 degrees, an attempt should never have been made with the temperature around 40 degrees, especially with the risks involved. The amount of intelligence the space program had should have been able to see this data and stopped any attempts at launch.

Multicultural Teams

Doing international business is something I hope to experience eventually, but learning to properly work with people from other countries and cultures sounds like a challenging task. Culture is an important part of our lives, so learning what is important to other people and learning the proper social protocols is very important. Offending someone or making them upset by using improper communication channels isn't a good way to build any kind of team cohesiveness and can delay working efficiently as a group. Experience is the best way to get past this issue, so I hope to deal with some other group of people enough in business to be able to learn and become involved in a completely new culture someday.

Groupthink

After reading "Groupthink" and analyzing the real examples they gave I finally realized quite how dangerous the concept is and how it has already caused debacles. The examples of the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis show how groupthink led to poor decisions being made, and any opposition ignored. When the decisions being made are that important, all group members should think independently and not just go with the status quo. People should be aware of the groupthink symptoms and always be aware to not simply jump on board without asking any questions.

Labeling Personality

The concept of putting people through tests and being able to gauge the aspects of their personality sounds like a good idea, but the results will always be fundamentally flawed. While the results may be somewhat accurate, people are impossible to be fully understood by a simple test. As hinted to in "Personality Plus" tests can't be 100% accurate of a person's personality, because people change throughout their lives. People are too complicated and can change throughout the course of their lives, so making them take a test now to determine their personality and traits can offer you short term information, but the information can't be totally accurate, and is not necessarily going to be true a few years down the road. Personality tests are also fundamentally flawed in that most tests' questions are leading, so if a potential employee knows an employer is looking for, they can answer questions in a way that they create the desired results. While some people may put stock into personality tests, I don't believe that they should have too much emphasis put on them throughout the course of selecting a new employee.

"All Powerful" GPA

 I agree with the New York Times article "These Low Grades in College May Haunt Your Job Search," in that one's G.P.A. is not always an accurate picture on how good of a student you are. I think employers put too much emphasis on this single attribute, and ignore many other qualifications a student may have. From personal experience, I know just how inaccurate a low G.P.A. can be. In high school, because I played sports and took mostly advanced courses, my G.P.A. never went above the 3.2 mark, and mostly hovered around 3.0, portraying me as an average student. Now that I am in college, and not playing sports anymore, I have put my free time to good use and my G.P.A. is higher now than it ever was during my high school career. While a student's grades are important when browsing resumes, I think employers should take more time and focus on the things a student chooses to do outside of the classroom.