May 2002 Flash Points

Deep Pockets, Open Minds (p. 32)
FC Article

How should a large corporation like General Mills or DuPont go about developing an 'out of brand' product? What are the risks in separating yourself from your trademark name? Is there a level of deception in this? What would make an ideal employee for a spinoff brand, someone from within the original corporation or an outsider?
Explore the relationship between corporate parent and offspring. Consider the family metaphor used in the sidebar of the story. Try and draw examples within your group of conflicts within families and within corporations. What conflict resolution techniques that work in one of these areas might work in the other?

What if you worked at Enron? (p. 102)
FC Article

Which of the actions that the five people mentioned in this article did do you agree with? Which did you have issues with? Compare the different answers in your group to what positions group members hold in their company. Is there a relationship between whistle-blowing and where someone stands in management?
What role can the people in the middle play in maintaining corporate responsibility? Discuss at what point the people in your group would have alerted authorities about corporate wrongdoings. And most importantly, what would you have done if you worked for Enron? Ask group members to compare themself to one of the five people mentioned and determine in which they see their own values.

Five Habits of Highly Reliable Organizations (p. 124)
FC Article

Try and glance through Weick's books before your next meeting to better understand his theories on organzation behavior. Invite an organizational psychologist or behavior theorist in your area to come to your next group meeting. Have him or her analyze your group from an organizational perspecptive and also pick his or her mind about the makeup of the company's your group members represent.
Weick says HROs are able to confront the unexpected with efficiency. Survey your group members to see what unexpected developments their companies have recently dealt with and if they think they handled the matters responsibly and efficiently.
Invite a pilot from a military base to talk about 'leemers' -- the feeling that something just isn't right. In what situations is it acceptable to change plans simply based on gut feelings? What climate usually exists to create leemers?
Weick mentions the organizational failure of the Mann Gulch smokejumpers. Author Norman Maclean has also written an excellent account of this incident. Try to get some of your group members to read Weick's account of the incident and some to read Maclean's account. Compare what your group members learned about the tragedy from an organizational perspective and from a journalistic one.

Are All Consultants Corrupt? (p. 139)
FC Article

Are they? Ask consultants within your group and invite some from firms not represented to analyze the points that Webber makes.
Webber argues that the days of well-organized consulting firms are gone and cash-hungry firms took their place. Try and draw examples from your group members' experiences of working with a well-disciplined consulting firm and with a cash-focused firm. At what point did consulting take a turn toward the bottom line?
Conduct Webber's survey on job satisfaction among your group members. Do the results match what he hypothesizes? Can you find any correlation in your group between industry and job satisfaction?

Daniel Richards contributed this month's Flash Points.

May 2002 Connexus | Flash Points | Next Steps