2-2 -- Forces and Competition

For today's Blog entry I have decided to write about "Mountain Equipment Co-op" (MEC) and the company's task environment. In particular I will be discussing customers and suppliers as well as Mountain Equipment co-op's managing of opportunities and challenges.

Source: http://www.fritzcartoons.com/camp-food/

The way it all started for the six founders of Mountain Equipment co-op is probably the biggest secret to the company's more than 40 year success story. All six of them started the company because they had to procure their outdoor gear across the Canadian border in Seattle. There was no competitive supplier in Vancouver to be found so they decided to start a Co-op. Being customers themselves, they understood from day one what outdoor enthusiasts are looking for and, more importantly, missing out on! 
By starting a co-op where every customer is a owner at the same time, they got customers involved in the business and sharing a common goal - to have the business succeed. This way of doing business allows the organization to be in touch and close to it's customers, knowing exactly what they demand.
It had given MEC the kind of word-of-mouth advertisement early on among outdoor fans to grow rapidly. Students who were short on cash and looking for great weekends and summers in the woods were able to participate in the co-op at a very low cost and get their gear at fantastic prices. A win-win situation if you will.

Source: Youtube.com

The founders of MEC used the store from which they used to purchase their gear from as the company's supplier. Great emphasize was, and still is, put on products that is manufactured in a sustainable way. The procurement policy of MEC focuses on factories with safe working conditions, legal working hours and reasonable pay. Suppliers and factories are audited on a regular basis and results are reviewed by the board of directors. I was positively surprised how honest MEC reports about problems in factories. They do not hesitate to say that there are many problems in asian factories, but even Canadian operations have their problems as well. I like the attitude of the company to openly share problems, and tell it's stakeholders that they are aware that conditions aren't perfect, but they do offer help to continuously improve these conditions.
One of the initiatives by MEC is a confidential hotline for factory workers to report infractions.

Driven by enthusiastic volunteers who gave the company a big push in the first three years, MEC has grown to 3.3 million members and a stunning $261 million in annual sales.
From what I have researched about MEC, I think this company is going in the right direction. I find it amazing how this company has evolved over the past 40 years and with society becoming more aware of environmental issues and making sustainable choices, MEC is doing the right things while facing this new thinking of it's customer as can bee seen in this video:

A recent smart move by MEC was to team up with Parks Canada to bring the world of camping closer to people who are not yet outdoor enthusiasts but might find joy in this kind of activity.
While most people are still tight on money after the recent recession, this could be a great opportunity to attract new clients who will spend future vacations in Canada, in a tent instead of flying to a far away beach and spending big bucks on all-inclusive vacations.

See the canada.com news article here.

As far as challenges go, I am impressed how this company started with a capital of only $65 and it shows us how determined the employees and managers are, to make things work even if the odds might be against them. As mentioned above, MEC is refreshingly honest about the challenges they face with suppliers and manufacturers, which proves that they are committed to face challenges and change things for the better.

Sources:
www.mec.ca retrieved June 5th, 2012
www.canada.com retrieved June 5th, 2012
http://www.fritzcartoons.com/camp-food/ retrieved June 5th, 2012

1-3 -- Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

In this post, I attempt to explain Emotional Intelligence. By searching the Internet, I have found “the periodic table” of emotions:

Source: http://www.feelingfacescards.com/

But fun aside, there is much more to emotional intelligence…

Emotional intelligence is about someone’s awareness of his or her own emotions, interests and the ability to manage these emotions. During my research about emotional intelligence I came across a great website which explains signs of high emotional intelligence, as well as low emotional intelligence. (Signs of emotional intelligence).

It took me a while to understand the difference between personality and emotional intelligence. Finally, I found my explanation on a dictionary website (Link to Dictionary) where the definition of personality is “the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual”. This makes sense, as personality is made up of various parts and emotional intelligence is one part of it.

According to Daniel Goleman (Interview on youtube here) emotional intelligence skills can be learned and the best way to do so, is by asking our peers and find out what our own strengths and weaknesses are. As individuals we have a hard time perceiving our real strengths and weaknesses, let alone our actual personality. We constantly strive for our goals and can easily misjudge ourselves.

Related to emotional intelligence is social intelligence. Rather than knowing and controlling our own emotions, social intelligence is about reading others, finding out what they feel, think and want. Having social intelligence allows a leader to effectively influence followers. Without knowing what someone’s feelings and desires are it is hard to motivate this individual.

Looking at the managerial grid, according to Mr. Goleman “Country Club” and “Team Leader” type leaders are the most effective since they pay close attention to the relationship with their subordinates and therefore will strive to “read” employees and find out what they feel, desire and interests.

Source:http://finntrack.co.uk/leadership/competence/lead5.html

1-1 -- Evolving Management Positions

In the first chapter of our text book “Essentials of Contemporary Management” (Jones, George, Rock, Haddad) I have learned what the “opposable thinking” management style is all about.

I like to think that I am a very logical guy and usually make my decisions on an "either-or" approach. However, over the course of the years I have recognized that this is not always the best way to come to a decision. I can think back of my time in the unarmed forces in Switzerland where I served as a lieutenant and had to manage 3 teams of 8 soldiers each. I could quickly see an improvement of the team's motivation and production when I allowed them to give some input before decisions had to be made. One good example is, our policy demanded that soldiers need to wear the issued boots at all times while on duty. As a lieutenant I obviously wanted everyone to follow these rules with no exceptions as there were insurance and safety concerns related to this rule. One soldier approached me one day and asked if he could wear his sneakers while driving and my initial answer was no, since this would be against the rules. He then mentioned that the shoes are dangerous since they wouldn't allow as much sensitivity while driving and he would be somewhat scared driving a team bus (which he doesn't drive most of the year) up and down the mountains with these shoes. Now this made a lot of sense to me and I haven't thought about this before, so from that day on I have allowed all my soldiers to wear sneakers while driving. They would still have to wear the safety shoes at all times, except for driving.

Since I started working in 2000, I have been working for 3 companies with 5 different managers on 2 different continents. Looking back at these 5 positions, every manager was different. So far, I worked as an Aircraft mechanic, as a Material Coordinator, a Maintenance Technician, a Buyer and again as a Material Coordinator. Given the very diverse jobs I had, it is hard to compare all these managers. They all had to be very different since the tasks for these positions were very different:

As an Aircraft Mechanic, for every bolt I tightened, every inspection I did, there was a piece of paper explaining what tools to use, what task to do first, second, third and so on. In order to change fan blades on an engine for example, there wasn’t much room to do the task different or incomplete. So our supervisor had to make sure we are motivated and work well as team. The task structure was extremely high and all of us were absolutely able to perform our tasks since we all had very specific training. So all our supervisor had to do was “Participating” and “Delegating”. Most days we would just each get our package of paperwork at shift start and not see our supervisor again until the end of the shift since we all were passionate about aircrafts and the paperwork told us exactly what and how to do our tasks.

As a Material Coordinator / Buyer things aren’t always as straight forward. I am still at the beginning of my administrative career and my purchasing limit is fairly low. So every time a bigger purchase has to be done, my supervisor needs to be “Selling”. I might be willing to complete the purchasing task, but unable, since I have a lack of experience (for example in setting up contracts and negotiating) and I also don’t have the authority to go about it on my own. This is where I need to work together with my supervisor and learn from him as I complete tasks with him.

Given my past, it is hard for me to say how much management roles have changed since I started working, but in my particular case, I have definitely seen different types of management styles, which where appropriate for different situations and environments.

One thing I have noticed is that many companies become flatter with fewer Managers. This means that more Managers have to empower their employees in certain areas and hand down some of the responsibilities in order to fulfill their new responsibilities.

The step from an employee to a First-Line Manager seems to be the most challenging. Because the technical skills required for such a position are very high, it takes many years of experience before this step can be taken. Once in Management, I do think it won’t be as much of a step anymore to move up to a middle management position, since technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills have been developed for many years by then and the individual will be much more mature.

Welcome to my Reflective Blog for MNGT-255

Hi fellow students,


Welcome to my Blog for the SAIT course MNGT-255.
I will post Blog entries here on a weekly basis and am looking forward to learn about Management with all of you.


Stephan