Throughout grade school I participated in a program called Future Problem Solvers (FPS). This was an extracurricular activity that was sort of similar to a scholastic bowl. Our goal was to be able to identify potential problems with some imagined scenario and then find solutions to the problems we found. We would hold practice once a week to prepare for a regional competition against other schools with the hopes of making it to the state competition. My teams would usually preform pretty well but I had never made it to the state competition. This changed when I entered 7th grade and found myself on a new team.
FPS teams consist of 4 people and a coach. The coach was able to provide us with practice scenarios and advice, but, similar to any sport, couldn't actively participate in the competition. Once we entered the classroom with the future scenario, we had only our team members to rely on. The competition consisted of two different parts: a written portion and then a skit. For the written part of the competition, there were a number of different tasks to complete.
Communication is extremely important in FPS, as well as time management. Our team was structured as an All-Channel Network. In such a structure, all members of the team can talk to one another. This was extremely important to us because all of the tasks we had to complete were interrelated. My main task was to identify problems with the scenario we are given. I have to be in communication with the person who was in charge of creating solutions for the problems. Since we are all communicating with each other, more often than not, something that one person said would spark an idea for someone else to contribute. Even though I was put in charge of identifying problems, anyone could contribute problems that they thought of and some of our best thoughts came in this way. If we had used a different team structure, for instance the Circle Network, we would lose our open discussion of the scenario and miss out on all the ideas that come from collaboration between everyone. I was very good friends with everyone on my team, this definitely was an advantage for communication because there was no hesitation in our communication. If our team wasn't friendly, I believe communication would have been more difficult and that would severely impact our performance. The need for constant communication in competition made our All-Channel Network team structure the logical choice.
Katzenbach and Smith are the authors of The Wisdom of Teams. This book tried to find common characteristics between successful teams. Katzenback and Smith interviewed many members of numerous teams and identified six characteristics of high-functioning teams.
"High-performing teams shape purpose in response to a demand or an opportunity placed in their path, usually by higher management." In my case, the opportunity was making it to the state competition, which involved missing a day of school and getting to stay overnight at Illinois State University with no parents (this all sounded very appealing to my younger self). Our coach acted like the upper management of successful business by providing us with the opportunity to get to the state competition by registering us for the competitions and giving us practice materials. The coach gave us lots of leeway in creating our plan of attack for the scenario, which made us very enthusiastic and determined because success or failure was completely up to us.
"High-performing teams translate common purpose into specific, measurable performance goals." My team's purpose was to preform well at the competitions to make it to state. We practiced at least once a week. Each time we met we would have a new goal; whether that was to finish a few minutes quicker or come up with a couple additional problems compared to the last scenario we looked at, each week we would attempt to improve. Setting these small weekly goals gave us some reassurance that we were moving in the right direction and putting ourselves in a position to succeed.
"High-performing teams are of manageable size." An exceptionally large team allows individuals to blend into the background and not be held accountable to meet their individual responsibilities. My team only had 4 people, including myself. This small size kept us all very accountable. It would be very easy to tell if someone wasn't contributing to the team. Our constant communication and close ties made sure this was never the case.
"High-performing teams develop the right mix of expertise." Teams that achieve success have members that have complimentary skills and enough diversity so someone on the team is able to tackle any potential issue that the team could face. Each of my teammates had a task that they could complete at a high-level of quality. For instance, one of my teammates was unbelievably comfortable with performing onstage and had the ability to keep a crowd engaged. He was a huge asset to the team because the competitions included a portion where you chose one of your solutions and had to demonstrate it through a short skit. His aptitude for stage performance would make up for the rest of the team's struggles with public performance (mine included).
"High-performing teams develop a common commitment to working relationships." There has to be agreement in a team on each persons responsibilities and how decisions are made. The good communication we had between teammates made dividing up tasks a very easy proposition. Our practice sessions helped us figure out who was exceptionally good at each of the different portions of the written report for the given scenario. Each teammate was tasked with what they were best at, but also had the help and support of everyone on the team if it was needed.
"Members of high-performing teams hold themselves collectively accountable." Successful teams consist of members that will take responsibility for not only their own actions but also the teams actions. My teammates and myself were very dedicated to the team. We had the goal of the state competition in our minds and nothing would stop us. We took extreme pride in our work. If our team did poorly, we all shared the blame and worked together to solve the issue.
My team went to the state competition when I was in 7th grade and then we made it again the next year. My FPS team was a successful team.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Opportunism
Opportunity is a situation that you can find yourself in with two choices: take advantage of said opportunity or choose an alternative to the opportunity. Opportunity is important for doing well in school. Opportunity is important for landing your first job, as well as subsequent jobs. Without opportunity, I wouldn't be writing this blogpost about opportunity for an economics class at a competitive, highly ranked university. And even with opportunities, if I didn't take advantage of them, I wouldn't be writing this blogpost. When given the chance to put yourself in a better position, why wouldn't you take advantage?
While opportunity can put yourself in a better position than you were before, it's often a choice between something ethical and something unethical. Imagine you find a wallet on the ground. This wallet contains $100 in cash and the license of the person the wallet presumably belong to. You have a few option in this scenario. You could take advantage of the situation, do the unethical thing and find yourself with $100 more than you had before. You could do the right thing and contact the person who the wallet belongs to. Or you could just leave the wallet and pretend like nothing happened. The opportunist choice would be to take the money and find yourself in a better position than you were before. However, I'd imagine most people would go against what is "best" for them and find the person who the wallet belongs to and return it to that person. I can give several reasons why you should choose against opportunity: it's the right thing to do, you would want someone to return your wallet if you lost it, bad karma (if you're into that sort of thing) and maybe the person will reward you for returning the wallet with more than what was in the wallet in the first place. These reasons, not counting the last one, boil down to acting ethical. The last reason, however, is passing up a current opportunity for the possibility of something better in the future.
I found myself with a choice this past summer that was basically a choice between taking advantage of an opportunity right in front of me or waiting and choosing something that would probably help me out to a greater extent in the future. My choice was between taking a few summer courses for a minor that wouldn't really improve my resume or accepting an internship that would look very good on my resume and help me secure a job after graduation.
After a few weeks of applying to internships, while figuring out what classes I would have to take and what my future class schedules would look like, I made my choice. I decided to pursue a minor in atmospheric sciences and continue my summer job that has no relation to economics rather than accept an internship that would help me build my resume and appear more attractive to companies after graduation. Looking back a few months on my decision, I do not regret it in the slightest. I may change my mind once I enter the job market after graduation, but for now I am very glad I pursued a minor in atmospheric sciences. The summer class that I took was a once in a lifetime opportunity to chase storms. I made a decision that wasn't ethical but rather a choice between having an experience now versus being in a better position for my future.
Opportunity is a very important element for success in our lives. Opportunity can be boiled down to a choice between two ideas, almost opposite in nature. On one hand, you can choose to do the ethical thing or the unethical thing. On the other hand, you can choose between now and the future. Either way the decision comes down to you and your values that have been shaped throughout your entire life.
While opportunity can put yourself in a better position than you were before, it's often a choice between something ethical and something unethical. Imagine you find a wallet on the ground. This wallet contains $100 in cash and the license of the person the wallet presumably belong to. You have a few option in this scenario. You could take advantage of the situation, do the unethical thing and find yourself with $100 more than you had before. You could do the right thing and contact the person who the wallet belongs to. Or you could just leave the wallet and pretend like nothing happened. The opportunist choice would be to take the money and find yourself in a better position than you were before. However, I'd imagine most people would go against what is "best" for them and find the person who the wallet belongs to and return it to that person. I can give several reasons why you should choose against opportunity: it's the right thing to do, you would want someone to return your wallet if you lost it, bad karma (if you're into that sort of thing) and maybe the person will reward you for returning the wallet with more than what was in the wallet in the first place. These reasons, not counting the last one, boil down to acting ethical. The last reason, however, is passing up a current opportunity for the possibility of something better in the future.
I found myself with a choice this past summer that was basically a choice between taking advantage of an opportunity right in front of me or waiting and choosing something that would probably help me out to a greater extent in the future. My choice was between taking a few summer courses for a minor that wouldn't really improve my resume or accepting an internship that would look very good on my resume and help me secure a job after graduation.
After a few weeks of applying to internships, while figuring out what classes I would have to take and what my future class schedules would look like, I made my choice. I decided to pursue a minor in atmospheric sciences and continue my summer job that has no relation to economics rather than accept an internship that would help me build my resume and appear more attractive to companies after graduation. Looking back a few months on my decision, I do not regret it in the slightest. I may change my mind once I enter the job market after graduation, but for now I am very glad I pursued a minor in atmospheric sciences. The summer class that I took was a once in a lifetime opportunity to chase storms. I made a decision that wasn't ethical but rather a choice between having an experience now versus being in a better position for my future.
Opportunity is a very important element for success in our lives. Opportunity can be boiled down to a choice between two ideas, almost opposite in nature. On one hand, you can choose to do the ethical thing or the unethical thing. On the other hand, you can choose between now and the future. Either way the decision comes down to you and your values that have been shaped throughout your entire life.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
A Fraternity
A fraternity is a formally organized group of people that share some sort of common interest. The structure of a fraternity could be compared to any manufacturing business, except the product is intangible and the consumers are also the people running the company. In a sense a fraternity acts like a business that is owned by the workers. This sense of self-ownership helps push workers of employee-owned businesses to improve the business in order to hold on to and attract new customers, which will lead to more money for the workers. Similarly, the members of a fraternity want to improve their house in order to attract new members to increase their profit, which in this case could be more friends or more fun times.
How do fraternities go about adding to their membership? Well, a parallel can again be drawn between a business and a fraternity. Businesses attract new customers by providing better service, cheaper prices, unique products or a number of other possibilities that makes their store more attractive to potential customers. A fraternity's product is fun, but fun is something that is difficult to advertise. Fun is a feeling and in order to sell a feeling to potential members, you must create it. This is done through a process called rush, where fraternities open their houses to potential new members to sell them on the fun they could have if they join that fraternity.
Sport tournaments, BBQ's and parties are the ways fraternities show new potential members of the fun they could have if they joined. These all have concrete costs associated with them, along with risks. If a fraternity throws events for potential new members, but none of those potential members decides to join the fraternity then it loses, not only the cost of the food or drink, but also the time the members put into trying to convince the potential new members to join.
Time is a very valuable resource to fraternities due to the limited time they have to convince potential members to join. Time is the largest transaction cost that a fraternity experiences. The lack of time demands a fraternity to be well-structured. Without a solid plan of how to attract new members, a fraternity can dwindle down to the point where they cannot afford their house and must close the chapter. In order to prevent this, fraternities have a formal structure that assigns members different tasks that are required for successfully gaining new membership. To ensure the most qualified and enthusiastic members of the fraternity are assigned to the correct tasks, fraternities hold elections.
Elections provide an opportunity for the membership to vote for who they believe would best complete the different tasks necessary for the survival of a fraternity. Each candidate is allowed to deliver a short speech that should convey the reasons that they would be the best person for the task at hand. However, more often than not, it turns into a popularity contest, and the person best suited for a particular job may not end up being elected. The election system also runs into issues when people do not show up to vote. The structure of a fraternity is set up in such a way that there is one person that has the final say in all arguments or plans: the president.
The president relies on the other positions to plan events or teach new members the rules of the fraternity, but has the ability to overrule any of decisions made by the position holders. Outside of the president and the other position are the general members in the fraternity. They may live in the actual fraternity house or in apartments. This is where having a large membership becomes an advantage. All members have to pay a certain amount of money to the fraternity each semester, called "dues".
The dues help fund the cost of different events, the maintenance of the house and lunch/dinner on certain days. This is why attracting new members is such an important part of a successful fraternity. The more members that belong to the fraternity, the more money the fraternity will receive that will eventually help fund events to provide the members of the fraternity with the product they want: fun.
How do fraternities go about adding to their membership? Well, a parallel can again be drawn between a business and a fraternity. Businesses attract new customers by providing better service, cheaper prices, unique products or a number of other possibilities that makes their store more attractive to potential customers. A fraternity's product is fun, but fun is something that is difficult to advertise. Fun is a feeling and in order to sell a feeling to potential members, you must create it. This is done through a process called rush, where fraternities open their houses to potential new members to sell them on the fun they could have if they join that fraternity.
Sport tournaments, BBQ's and parties are the ways fraternities show new potential members of the fun they could have if they joined. These all have concrete costs associated with them, along with risks. If a fraternity throws events for potential new members, but none of those potential members decides to join the fraternity then it loses, not only the cost of the food or drink, but also the time the members put into trying to convince the potential new members to join.
Time is a very valuable resource to fraternities due to the limited time they have to convince potential members to join. Time is the largest transaction cost that a fraternity experiences. The lack of time demands a fraternity to be well-structured. Without a solid plan of how to attract new members, a fraternity can dwindle down to the point where they cannot afford their house and must close the chapter. In order to prevent this, fraternities have a formal structure that assigns members different tasks that are required for successfully gaining new membership. To ensure the most qualified and enthusiastic members of the fraternity are assigned to the correct tasks, fraternities hold elections.
Elections provide an opportunity for the membership to vote for who they believe would best complete the different tasks necessary for the survival of a fraternity. Each candidate is allowed to deliver a short speech that should convey the reasons that they would be the best person for the task at hand. However, more often than not, it turns into a popularity contest, and the person best suited for a particular job may not end up being elected. The election system also runs into issues when people do not show up to vote. The structure of a fraternity is set up in such a way that there is one person that has the final say in all arguments or plans: the president.
The president relies on the other positions to plan events or teach new members the rules of the fraternity, but has the ability to overrule any of decisions made by the position holders. Outside of the president and the other position are the general members in the fraternity. They may live in the actual fraternity house or in apartments. This is where having a large membership becomes an advantage. All members have to pay a certain amount of money to the fraternity each semester, called "dues".
The dues help fund the cost of different events, the maintenance of the house and lunch/dinner on certain days. This is why attracting new members is such an important part of a successful fraternity. The more members that belong to the fraternity, the more money the fraternity will receive that will eventually help fund events to provide the members of the fraternity with the product they want: fun.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Dale Mortensen Biography
Mortensen grew up in Oregon and received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics from Willamette University of Salem, Oregon. He earned his ph.D. in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh. He has been with Northwestern University since 1965, becoming a full professor in 1975.
Mortensen was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics, along with Peter Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Christopher Pissarides (London School of Economics and Political Science). They created a new way to analysis markets, called search theory. This search theory, called the DMP model after its creators, explains the friction in situations where people are looking for employment and firms are looking for people to employ. This theory changed the way that economists and policymakers view labor markets. Colleagues credit Mortensen with a key role in the work done to understand changes in unemployment during Business cycles. The search theory has not only advanced thinking about the labor market but has also been applied to other fields.
I had never heard of Dale Mortensen prior to taking Econ 490. Mortensen's contributions to the field of economics will definitely play a part in our learning this semester, as his analysis of frictions in labor markets can advance our understanding of the motivations of organizations.
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