Waste Management's New Strategy

            David Steiner, CEO of Waste Management, started off his work career as a lawyer. When he moved to New Orleans, he had to find a new job. He had job offers from many companies in the area including Waste Management. Even Enron, which was doing great at the time, wanted him to join their organization. However, Steiner took the job at Waste Management as the Deputy General Officer and within 3.5 years, Steiner was the CEO.

           

            Now that Steiner is the leader of this great organization, he has learned that he has to listen to his customers. Waste Management needs to build around what the customers want inorder to create value for them. He is currently working on building up these positive relationships with his customers using a competitive strategy. To extract more value out of the materials Waste Management uses, Steiner plans to lower the customers’ cost of service, which will ultimately raise profits for his organization. Steiner described this strategy as a “win-win” situation.

           

            He also went on to describe how Waste Management tried to protect their customers by taking the risk when oil and commodities were high. He now wants to share the risk and work together through trust. Steiner also described how Waste Management uses their website to help communicate with their consumers. This helps them interact with their customers to create a better experience for both sides. The style of leadership that Steiner is demonstrating during this situation is transformational leadership.

           

            A transformational leadership is the process when a leader engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and moral in both the leader and the follower. Steiner is currently trying to involve his customers to work with the organization so they both benefit from this new strategy. He is trying to help his followers reach their fullest potential by creating a value for them.

           

            According to Kouzes and Posner’s Transformational Perspective, Steiner exhibits the five fundamental practices that enable leaders to get amazing things achieved. This practice includes: modeling the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart.

           

            Modeling the way is when the leader role models his values and philosophy to others. He sets an example for others through his behaviors. Steiner performs this practice when he took the risk from his customers when the oil prices went up. He did not raise their prices, he just continue to cover the costs for them. This shows how Steiner will stick to his word and not let go of his promises. He is modeling the trust that he wants his customers to also have in him.

           

            He also inspires a shared vision with his followers. This is when a leader is able to visualize positive outcomes in the future and communicates it to others. Steiner does this by listening to what his employees want. He realizes that they want lower costs and a trustworthy company. Steiner shows his customers how their dreams can be met through his shared vision of creating a value for Waste Management, along with his consumers.

           

            Challenging the process is another practice for a transformational leader. This is when a leader changes the status quo and steps into the indefinite situation. Steiner challenges the process of the waste industry by using an interactive website. His company is the first waste company to use this strategy and try something new. He wants to find a better way to communicate with his employees so why not create a website that both parties can benefit from using.

           

            Steiner also enables others to act, which is building trust with others to promote collaboration. He wants to create a team-like business where the customers can use Waste Management for lower costs, and Waste Management can use their consumers to raise their market share and profits. This helps create an environment where people can feel comfortable about their teamwork and how it benefits each other.

           

            The last transformational practice that Steiner displays is encouraging the heart. This is when a leader rewards his followers, which are his employees in this situation, for their accomplishments. Steiner praises his workers for jobs well done when they gain more market share. He makes sure he verbally rewards his workers for their hard work and dedication while working through this new strategy of listening to the customers.

           

            Overall, Steiner exhibits all of Kouzes and Posner’s fundamental practices of transformational leadership. Through his drive to change Waste Management’s current strategy, Steiner is on the right track to accomplishing his goal for his organization and customers. Do you guys believe that this leadership style will provide Waste Management with the “win-win” goal they are trying to achieve?

 Source:  http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2011/04/06/ls_waste_management_info.fortune/ 

Posted by: Genise Logston

Chipotle's CEO Steve Ellis Shares Chipotle's Secret Ingredient

http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/2010/09/steve-ells.html

Chipotle Chairman and Co-CEO Steve Ellis opened the first Chipotle Mexican Grill in Denver, Colorado in 1993. Ellis had the idea of creating fast food that could also be good food, not only in taste but in the integrity of the ingredients. Chipotle uses chicken without antibiotics and beef without hormones. Ellis developed Chipotle this way because he felt so many food producers cheaply exploited animals and the environment and he wanted to prevent this.

Ellis believes the future of fast food should show respect for people's taste buds, for their health, for the environment, for animal welfare, and for traditional farming methods. He is working to transform our generation of fast-food eaters and prove to them it is possible to eat fresh, high quality, sustainably raised ingredients that are delicious, without paying more. Ellis believes the future of fast food will see more concepts like Chipotle and fewer of the old concepts that are serving cheap, highly processed food.

When asked about America’s obesity in an interview Ellis stated that, “The problem with fast food is that the traditional fast food model is built on buying the cheapest ingredients. What people do not realize is the possibilities out there for serving fast, inexpensive food with quality ingredients.”

Ellis believes a great restaurateur is someone who's truly passionate about what they do. It is someone who is not in it for the money, but for the love of the food. The very best restaurateurs he says “Are leaders who empower their teams to carry on their mission or start their own restaurants.” He encourages others to share the importance of his natural ingredient mission.

Ellis can be considered a transformational leader because he is a charismatic, enthusiastic, self-confident leader whose personality and actions influence people to behave in a certain way. In this particular case, Ellis is encouraging his followers to take part in a healthier lifestyle and choose to produce or eat fast foods that are not harming consumers, animals, or the environment.

Ellis is a transformational leader because he demonstrates the ability to effectively challenge the process. His idea for using sustainably raised ingredients was an innovative move he made to improve the health risks associated with fast foods. He also inspires a shared vision by challenging others to open their own restaurants and introduce higher quality ingredients. He believes it could impact Americans in a whole new way and create a change for the better.

Ellis communicates high expectations for Chipotle’s food and service standards and this is reflected by how successful his business has become and how quickly it has expanded. Ellis models the way by expressing his high standards of moral and ethical conducts. Followers see what an authentic leader he is from the way he shows concern for the health of his customers. He takes social responsibility very seriously.

Do you believe Ellis possesses transformational leadership and influences his followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected?

Posted By: Christine Burklin

Jim Mulva's push for change in Alaska's oil tax sturcture

ConocoPhilips’s current CEO, Jim Mulva is a very competitive leader in the highly competitive oil industry. During the current economic downturn many industries saw a decline, but the oil business has only seen the demands increase while the price has increased as well. Mulva is currently faced with a big organizational change opportunity with a possible expansion into Alaska. Mulva feels there is a big opportunity for success in Alaska, but first change must be made in Alaska. He must also consider the values and morals of Alaska and make an ethical decision to create the greatest good in the greatest amount of people. 

  

Jim Mulva has recently stated in a news conference in Alaska if the state can change their current tax law structure he will invest in the state and bring operations into Alaska. Jim is faced with an ethical decision and his leadership style may be impacted by his decision. Under this current economic downturn, many states could use the help of investors to help bring in some revenues and create jobs. With this ConocoPhillips expansion and investment in the oil fields of Alaska, the whole state of Alaska may benefit. Mulva’s leadership and decision making can create the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. According to the theological theories in leadership ethics the focus is on the consequences of the leaders actions. Mulva’s actions will create positive consequences in the state of Alaska.

Mulva is currently making a critical decision that exemplifies utilitarianism. This decision is balanced between the interest of his organization (ConocoPhillips) and the interest of others, mainly the state of Alaska in this case. With that being said the biggest impact on the state of Alaska will be the increased job opportunities. Mulva said “Change is needed first,” which is impacted by the tax decision. Once the taxes are cut ConocoPhillips will begin to invest in the oil fields and potentially increase production from 600,000 barrels per day to 1 million barrels a day. Jim Mulva was faced with an ethical decision that could have impacted his organization in wither a good or bad way. Do you think Jim made the ethical choice when he agreed after a tax cut he will invest in new operations in Alaska?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ConocoPhillips-CEO-urges-apf-4087536398.html?x=0&.v=1

Posted by: Sean Gremillion

Google's CEO

It is said that Larry Page is going to be reclaiming his position as Google’s CEO in early April.  There are many ways that a leader can lead a group of people.  But, the way he wants to make a difference in the company and be a strong motivated leader is through Transformational Leadership. Page has stated that he wants to figure out ways that “the company can act more like a start-up than an incumbent.”  Therefore, he is determined to change attitudes as well as behaviors of people inside the company.  This type of leadership is impossible to accomplish without trust.  I think that because he is doing many things to help his company be the best they can be and becoming involved in all types of management, this is going to show employees that he is trying to be a better leader in the best interest of the company.

There are four main steps in transformational leadership; consisting of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.  Page is using all of these factors in his leadership in many different ways at Google.  Idealized influence is when a leader acts as a role model and makes others want to follow the leader’s vision.  Page’s vision is to bring back the elements of the early days of the company.  In order to do this, he is sending emails to different managers and asking them to write about what they are working on in a short paragraph.  By doing this, he is getting a good idea of what major projects are going on and then evaluating what is important.  With today’s fast pace environment combined with technology, there are times when projects get to be more complicated rather than simple.  He is also going to go through the projects and prioritizing them to make sure they are focusing on the most important goals.

Another factor of transactional theory is inspirational motivation.  This element is when a leader communicates high expectations and using symbols to focus group members to achieve more than self-interest.   I believe that Page is setting high expectations in his company by keeping up with the competition.  He is setting expectations of his company to start working on driver-less car technology and scanning all books to be able to put them search engines.  He is creating a large goal in order for the company to become a whole and achieve more than self interest.

The third factor of transactional leadership is intellectual stimulation which is when a leader stimulates followers to be creative and innovative.  Page has recently has been traveling to talk to managers about problems that they are facing.  In order to help fix these problems he “has asked that employees develop new practices for meetings, such as designating a decision-maker and refraining from working on their laptops.”  His goal through this is to create an atmosphere where there is new stimulation for new ideas.  The last factor in transformational leadership is the individualized consideration.  This portion of the model deals with when a leader listens carefully to the needs of followers as well as helps them through personnel changes.  In order to conquer this part of the leadership, Page has taken top executives and gotten them to work in every day public area, so the employees can directly approach them on matters.  Page is creating an atmosphere for the employees to become more comfortable in talking one on one with the people in charge about their issues and successes.

I think that this form of leadership describes many goals that Page wants to accomplish in the next few months and years.  Do you think that this form of leadership is appropriate or do you think that there is better one that fits well?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703784004576220902706041400.html?mod=WSJ_mgmt_LeadStoryCollectionSecond

--Posted by Devan Pritchett

An Unleveraged Hotel Chain

            Marriot International has been facing a slump within their industry, along with their competitors. There is pressure from the competitors, but it is not “life threatening” as Arne Sorenson, President of Marriot International, puts it. This is because the Marriot has a slightly more effective strategy. Arne Sorenson explains how franchises are more than half of his company. This creates a safer bet for the organization when occupancy rates are low. Since most of the drastic slumps and booms affect the franchisees, the Marriott Corporation does not take the hit as hard. Sorenson explains how the national lodging industry is still performing just as badly as they were after the 9/11 incident. Consumers are changing their habits and technology is affecting the need for lodging. Business people now have the ability to use video conferencing for their meetings, rather than traveling to them just to attend.

            Sorenson’s leadership style for this situation consists of Complexity Leadership. The Marriott organization is a complex adaptive system. They are able to adjust and adapt to certain environmental changes, unlike their competitors. Within this system is an adaptive tension, which is the resource differentials within the system, and between the system and the environment that can lead to can improve performance according to the same measure. The adaptive tension for the Marriott is opening more franchises in an unstable economy. Sorenson creates a disequilibrium to create this change from the traditional lodging industry. In this situation, the franchisees are Sorenson’s enablers. These are the people who are led to facilitate connections. Sorenson allows these franchisees to take their own risks with the wicked problems caused by the environmental changes.

            Overall, Sorenson uses a Complexity Leadership style. His organization is a complex adaptive system which allows enablers to facilitate it. For everyone who is reading this blog post, do you believe this is the correct leadership style to apply to Arne Sorenson’s behavior in this situation? Also, do you believe that the franchisees are the enablers?

http://audiovideo.economist.com/

Posted by: Genise Logston

The Business of Obamacare

            Michael McCallister, CEO of Humana, has faced many challenges with the new health care reform law. It is said that health insurance companies have been immoral all along, and this new health care reform law is suppose to help Americans. Obama even stated, “Americans are being held hostage by health insurance companies,” meaning that the health insurers are the bad people. McCallister hates that people feel this way because all his employees wake up every day trying to do good things for people such as getting them through illnesses, protecting them from financial disaster, and preventing them from being sick. McCallister explains in his interview that the reason for rising premiums is from the aging population, new technology, and new drugs, not them just charging a high premium for no reason.

            Due to these issues, McCallister is trying to create stronger relationships with his consumers. McCallister loves the Medicare Advantage division of Humana, because it allows his employees to talk directly to the people. Humana loves the individual health insurance market because it allows them to talk to the people directly and receive feedback. Being able to talk to the customers and helping them is what drives the company to work hard. They are also trying to find ways to motivate behavior change with incentives and rewards such as fitness programs and other products.

            When looking at this situation, it is clear that McCallister is using the Contingency Theory leadership style. When looking at the Contingency model, it is shown that McCallister has poor leader-member relations. McCallister and his employees are currently trying to repair these relationships with the customers to by developing relationships with them. The customers currently feel betrayed by health insurance companies include Humana.

            McCallister’s situation also has low task structure. There are no clear cut requirements on how to create these relationships with the customers. There are also many different pathways McCallister can take to achieve the task of persuading the customers that his company is only there to help them, and not just to make a profit. They can make the customers happy through incentives, personalized conversations, friendly employees, and more. This task structure is also low because the completion of the task is unclear. Unless all the customers verbally state that they are happy and satisfied, McCallister will never know when he successfully completed his task. And lastly, McCallister has low task structure because there are many correct solutions to the task. Not all the same solutions will make every person happy, thus making individualized solutions for everyone.

            The position power that McCallister has is strong. Since he is the CEO of Humana, he has the legitimate power of holding a top position in the organization. He has the amount of authority a leader needs to reward or punish employees. It will motivate his employees to work hard on fixing this situation because he is the one signing their paychecks.

             After looking at these three situational factors, it is evident that McCallister’s preferred leadership style is at a 7. This means he is relationship motivated (high LPC), and is effective in moderately favorable situations. Based on the Contingency theory, McCallister is very concerned about relationships. Although many people believe that McCallister’s company is just trying to steal their money, he is taking the correct leadership style to help try and change their mindsets. I believe that this is the most effective leadership style for McCallister in this situation.

Do you guys believe that McCallister could be more effective if he used a different leadership approach to this situation?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/17/news/companies/leadership_michael_mccallister_humana.fortune/index.htm 

Posted by: Genise Logston

President Obama's Unfavorable Situation

President Barack Obama told reporters in Brasilia, Brazil that he has authorized the beginning of “limited military action in Libya” and stated that the U.S. is acting as “part of a broad coalition”. However, he did not specify exactly what he meant.  He said that the U.N. Security Council was dedicated to protecting the Libyan people and that he would keep the American people fully informed.

President Obama said all this after the U.S., France, Britain, Canada, and Italy began attempts at taking out Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s air defenses.  While the president repeated several times that the U.S. would not be sending in troops, he did say that the Libyan leader was given the chance to avoid their invasion. However, Moammar Gadhafi continued to attack his own people and the danger of the Libyan people increased. President Obama said he was acting on the best interest of the United States and the world.

Taking a deeper look at this decision, President Obama uses the contingency theory of leadership to address the current situation. First of all, the president’s leader-member relations are considered good. He has a high degree of subordinate trust and liking, and he also maintains many positive relationships with his followers. However, the task structure in this situation is low. Given the fact that Libya’s government raises a lot of uncertainty, President Obama and his allies’ path to accomplishment has many alternatives and is quite ambiguous. Also, task completion cannot be clearly demonstrated or verified because although Obama currently says no troops will be sent to Libya; there is a possibility that they will be needed there if a bigger crisis should occur. Lastly, President Obama has strong position power because he possesses the authority to reward or punish his followers by firing or hiring them, as well as offering raises in rank or pay.

Based on the contingency model, President Obama is most likely to receive a low LPC (least preferred coworker) score and would therefore be most successful as a task-motivated leader in this particular situation. Task-motivated leaders are concerned primarily with reaching a goal, which in this case is helping to save the oppressed Libyan people.  Fortunately, lower LPC scores like Obama’s tend to be most effective in very unfavorable or very favorable situations. The current situation with Libya causes Obama to lead in a very unfavorable situation. While many followers are opinionated about whether or not the U.S. should be involved in this crisis, the contingency theory of leadership helps prove that Obama can be an effective leader in this particular setting.

Do you think Obama is really doing what is best for the United States and for the world?

Posted By: Christine Burklin

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/03/19/obama-on-libya-we-are-part-of-broad-coalition/?KEYWORDS=ceos

Bob Stoffel's "greener" vision for UPS

Bob Stoffel, the current CEO of UPS, has begun to create a new “greener” vision for his fortune 500 company. In the midst of many organizations converting to more “green” and environmentally friendly ways to operate, Stoffel is coming up with a new plan to make UPS the model company in the multi-international package shipping industry. Bob feels with the support and mentoring of many external technology experts he will be able to turn UPS into a more environmentally friendly and sustainable company, despite the company consisting of 100,000 trucks and 550 planes.

He started this project off just experimenting with just about every green technology on the market and now he is beginning to reduce UPS’s carbon emissions by millions of tons of waste per year. In this particular case Bob is experiencing a situation in which his actions are impacting the leaders, followers, and the situation at UPS. Stoffel’s leadership approach for this particular case and event can best be described in the path goal theory. Stoffel expects a great amount of effort from his subordinates(followers) to impact the overall performance of the company in hopes of obtaining a sustainable competitive advantage in the industry.

Stoffel must motivate all internal components of UPS to stay focused on making UPS a greener company, but he must remove any obstacles his followers face along the way.  Bob must be able to get his leaders and followers together on the new strategies that will help obtain the new vision of what the situation should become. Stoffel has set out clear, defined goals for his subordinates to follow along the path to become a more sustainable and environmentally friendly company. The subordinates have a high external locus of control in this situation as the outside competitors are competing to become more environmentally friendly as well. All of these characteristics and UPS’s already well established company, require an achievement oriented style of leadership. UPS has always help high standards and expectations for the company as they have always been able to excel. Now they are going down a path they have never ventured do before, do you think Bob Stoffel will be able to make UPS a more environmentally friendly and “greener” company?

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/16/news/companies/csuite_ups_bob_stoffel.fortune/index.htm

Post by: Sean Gremillion

Obama's Dinner with Technology Executives

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704900004576152254129083120.html

As president of the United States, Obama has a lot of different jobs to take on.  One job that has become important to Obama is making sure that he works with private sectors to help boost and lift the economy.  In order to do this, he had a dinner with multiple technology executives such as Mark Zukerberg, Steve Jobs, and Eric Schmidt.  This dinner was set up in order to discuss topics that are going help combine the government and private sectors to work together and how they can all collaborate to help encourage kids to study math and science.

 I think that the LMX theory comes into play at this dinner.  Given that Obama is the President and these executives are CEO’s of large technology companies, it is easy to see that Obama has a large impact on these companies and vice versa.  Obama’s goal it seems is to keep these companies in his in-group to help create jobs for the people in the U.S. and expand the economy.  If they put their efforts together they are going to be able to be more effective.

At this event, it was a more laid back atmosphere and allowed Obama to talk to the executives as a whole as well as one-on-one.  I think that the contingency model also comes into play at this dinner.  As previously discussed leader-member relations in this situation are good and positive.  Because the atmosphere is at a dinner, the structure is low and the discussions may not always be about all business.  But, in this case, the position power is high because of Obama’s position in society and placement in government.  This rates Obama’s preferred leadership style at a 3 (low to middle LPC’s).  Therefore, I believe that Obama used the right style of leadership in this situation.  This is the biggest strength of this theory that it takes into consideration the impact of situations on leaders.  There is a right time and place to use different styles of leadership.  Obama knew that he had a good relationship with these executives and he invited them into a laid back atmosphere.

Do you think that the right type of leadership style was used?

--Posted by:  Devan Pritchett

Groupon Tibet Viedo Controversy

When the word Superbowl comes to mind football, parties, and commercials come to mind.  Companies pay millions of dollars to receive just one slot in the commercial line up.  A company that has been trying to build their name and used humor appeal to gain attention was Groupon.  The commercial that drove a lot of controversy is the one about Tibet and they were trying to create humor and raise awareness issues. But, this did not go over well for many people and they expressed their feelings in many ways such as blogs and twitter.

The CEO of Groupon, Andrew Mason, obviously had to take a lot of heat for this uproar.  Therefore, Mason gave sent out an apology to those he had offended.  But, this didn’t seem to satisfy people because they did not feel it was a sincere apology.  From a marketers point of view the bad publicity that was caused met the goal of increasing brand awareness but in a negative way.  But from a leadership point of view, especially a CEO, it is your responsibility to lead toward a positive change.  The fact that Mason was trying to point fingers at other people in his apology did not help his case.  According to the trait approach, there are five distinct traits that help describe a leader.  I think that Mason lost some of his integrity through the commercial choice and the “non-apology” letter.  Because of these commercials and the response that they got employees might start having a hard time trusting their CEO.  This can be a dangerous place to be as a leader because as I have learned if you do not trust the person running the company, how can you trust that you are working for a reputable company.  Not only are employees going to question their place in the company but potential consumers are going to have a hard time trusting the company and wanting to be a part of it.  I think that Groupon could have raised awareness with humor in a different way then they portrayed.

This also makes me think that why didn’t anyone in the company think about how offensive the commercials might be.  Is Mason leading in a way that does not give a chance to other people to express their ideas and thoughts? The employees were able to make the commercial, but were they willing?  This leads into the Situational Approach as to what kind of leading is he doing inside the company.  Because Mason would have wanted his employees to be both able and willing, he must have been leading in a directing style.  If they were not willing, this possibly could have allowed other people to speak up and give other ideas for the commercial.  This would have allowed more feedback to be given and possibly a different result would have came from the company.

The question that I raise to you is do you think that Mason could have earned some integrity back by taking the blame instead of defending himself and what type of development level do you think Mason was leading his team?

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/02/07/groupon-ceos-non-apology-apology-letter-for-super-bowl-ad/?KEYWORDS=ceos

Video Commercial:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFT2yjk0A

--Posted by:   Devan Pritchett