FOR SEMINAR 2 (04/09/2021)

CASESTUDY 1

Using Social Media to Your Advantage

As you know, social media have transformed the way we interact. The transparent, rapid-fire communication they
make possible means people can spread information about companies more rapidly than ever.

Do organizations understand yet how to use social me- dia effectively? Perhaps not. As recently as 2010, only 19 of
the top 50 chief executives in the world had Facebook accounts, only 6 had LinkedIn pages, and only 2 regularly
used Twitter or blogs to communicate. Many executives are wary of these new technologies because they cannot
always control the outcomes of their communications. However, whether they are directly involved with social
media or not, companies should recognize that these messages are out there, so it behooves them to make their
voices heard. And social media can be an important way to learn about emerging trends. André Schneider, chief
operating officer of the World Economic Forum, uses feedback from LinkedIn discussion groups and Facebook
friends to discover emerg- ing trends and issues worldwide. Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer of Cisco,
has used social media to refine her presentations before a “test” audience.

The first step in developing a social media strategy is es- tablishing a brand for your communications—define what
you want your social media presence to express. Experts recommend that companies begin their social media
strategy by leveraging their internal corporate networks to test their strategy in a medium that’s easier to control.
Most companies already have the technology to use social media through their corporate Web sites. Begin by using
these platforms for communicating with employees and fa- cilitating social networks for general information
sharing.

As social networking expert Soumitra Dutta from Insead notes, “My advice is to build your audience slowly and be
selective about your contacts.”

Despite the potential advantages, companies also need to be aware of significant drawbacks to social media. First,
it’s very difficult to control social media communications. Microsoft found this out when the professional blogger it
hired spent more time promoting himself than getting positive informa- tion out about the company. Second,
important intellectual capital might leak out. Companies need to establish very clear policies and procedures to
ensure that sensitive information about ongoing corporate strategies is not disseminated via social media. Finally,
managers should maintain motivation and interest beyond their initial forays into social media. A site that’s rarely
updated can send a very negative message about the organization’s level of engagement with the world.

Questions

1. Do you think organizations need to have a social media presence today? Are the drawbacks sufficient to make
you think it’s better for them to avoid certain media?

2. What features would you look for in a social media outlet? What types of information would you avoid making
part of your social media strategy?

3. Which social media sources do you think are most useful for organizations to send communications to external
stakeholders, like stockholders or custom- ers? Are different social media more appropriate for communicating with
employees?

4. What do you think is the future direction of social media? How might emerging technologies change them?

CASESTUDY 2
Should Companies That Fire Shoot First?
In the recessions in the early 1990s and after the 2001 terrorist attacks, layoffs were fairly private affairs. News often
leaked out to local and national media outlets, but companies did their best to keep it as quiet as possible. Given the
growth of the Internet in general, and of social networking sites in particular, that’s no longer possible.

When Starbucks laid off employees in 2008 and 2009, the Web site StarbucksGossip.com received a barrage of
posts from disgruntled employees. One 10-year employee wrote, “This company is going to lose every great partner
that it has. I am sick and tired of being blamed for not meeting my budget when the economy is in a recession.

I used to be proud of my company... now I am embarrassed and feel physically ill every time I have to go to work.”

Some companies are taking a proactive approach. When Tesla Motors laid off employees, its CEO Elon Musk
posted a blog entry about it just before announcing the layoffs internally. “We had to say something to prevent
articles being written that were not accurate,” he said.

“Today, whatever you say inside a company will end up in a blog,” says Rusy Rueff, a former executive at PepsiCo.
“So, you have a choice as a company—you can either be proactive and say, ‘Here’s what’s going on,’ or you can
allow someone else to write the story for you.”

Illustrating the perils of ignoring the blogosphere, when newspaper giant Gannett announced it was laying off 10
percent of its employees, it posted no blog entries and made no statement. Jim Hopkins, a 20-year veteran who left
the company just before the layoffs, writes the unofficial Gannett Blog. “I try to give the unvarnished truth. I don’t
think the company offers the same level of candor to employees,” he said. Gannett spokeswoman Tara Connell
replied, “We attempt to make those personal communications happen as quickly as possible.”

Says blog expert Andy Sernovitz, “There are hold-out companies that still wish there was traditional P.R. control of
the message, but that day is long over.”

Questions

1. Do you think Tesla CEO Elon Musk did the right thing when he blogged about impending layoffs just before
announcing them to employees? Why or why not?

2. Do you think employees have a responsibility to be careful when they blog about their company? Why or why
not?

3. Do you think employees who blog about their com- panies have an ethical responsibility to disclose their
identities?

4. How can a company develop a policy for handling communication of sensitive issues inside, and outside, the
company?

CASESTUDY 3

Leadership Mettle Forged in Battle

In 2008, facing a serious shortage of leadership-ready employees at the store management level, Walmart decided to
recruit from the U.S. military. The company sent recruiters to military job fairs and hired 150 junior military
officers, pairing them with store mentors to learn on the job. The result: Walmart claims that it’s been able to bring
in world-class leaders who were ready to take over once they had learned the retail business that Walmart could
easily teach them. Other organizations that have heavily recruited from the military in recent years include GE,
Home Depot, Lowe’s, State Farm Insurance, Merck, and Bank of America.

It’s not really surprising to see companies turn to the military for leadership potential. A long tradition of books and
seminars advises leaders to think like military leaders ranging from Sun Tzu to Norman Schwarzkopf. And military
veterans do have a variety of valuable skills learned through experience. General David Petraeus notes, “Tell me
anywhere in the business world where a 22- or 23-year-old is responsible for 35 or 40 other individuals on missions
that involve life and death . . . They’re under enormous scrutiny, on top of everything else. These are pretty
formative experiences. It’s a bit of a crucible-like experience that they go through.” Military leaders are also used to
having to make due in less than optimal conditions, negotiate across cultures, and oper- ate under extreme stress.

However, they do have to relearn some lessons from the service. Some may not be used to leading someone like an
eccentric computer programmer who works strange hours and dresses like a slob, but who brings more to the
company’s bottom line than a conventional employee would. Indeed, in some companies like Google, there is
nothing like the chain of command military leaders are used to. Still, most forecasts suggest there will be an ample
supply of battle-tested military leaders ready to report for corporate duty in the near future, and many companies are
eager to have them.

Questions

1. Do you think leaders in military contexts exhibit the same qualities as organizational leaders? Why or why not?

2. In what ways not mentioned in the case would military leadership lessons not apply in the private sector? What
might military leaders have to re-learn to work in business?

3. Are specific types of work or situations more likely to benefit from the presence of “battle-tested” leaders? List a
few examples.

CASESTUDY 4

Multicultural Multinational Teams at IBM

When many people think of a traditional, established company, they think of IBM. IBM has been famous for its
written and unwritten rules—such as its no-layoff policy, its focus on individual promotions and achievement, the
expectation of lifetime service at the company, and its requirement of suits and white shirts at work. The firm was
one of the mainstays of the “man in a gray flannel suit” corporate culture in the United States.

Times have certainly changed.

IBM has clients in 170 countries and now does two-thirds of its business outside the United States. As a result, it has
overturned virtually all aspects of its old culture. One relatively new focus is on teamwork. While IBM uses work
teams extensively, like almost all large organizations, the way it does so is unique.

To foster appreciation of a variety of cultures and open up emerging markets, IBM sends hundreds of its employees
to month-long volunteer project teams in regions of the world where most big companies don’t do business. Al
Chakra, a software development manager located in Raleigh, North Carolina, was sent to join GreenForest, a
furniture manufacturing team in Timisoara, Romania. With Chakra were IBM employees from five other countries.
Together, the team helped GreenForest become more computer-savvy to increase its business. In return for the IBM
team’s assistance, GreenForest was charged nothing.

This is hardly altruism at work. IBM firmly believes these multicultural, multinational teams are good investments.
First, they help lay the groundwork for uncovering business in emerging economies, many of which might be
expected to enjoy greater future growth than mature markets. Stanley Litow, the IBM VP who oversees the program,
also thinks it helps IBMers develop multicultural team skills and an appreciation of local markets. He notes, “We
want to build a leadership cadre that learns about these places and also learns to exchange their diverse backgrounds
and skills.” Among the countries where IBM has sent its multicultural teams are Turkey, Tanzania, Vietnam, Ghana,
and the Philippines.

As for Chakra, he was thrilled to be selected for the team. “I felt like I won the lottery,” he said. He advised
GreenForest on how to become a paperless company in 3 years and recommended computer systems to boost
productivity and increase exports to western Europe.

Another team member, Bronwyn Grantham, an Australian who works at IBM in London, advised GreenForest about
sales strategies. Describing her team experience, Grantham said, “I’ve never worked so closely with a team of
IBMers from such a wide range of comp- etencies.”

Questions

1. If you calculate the person-hours devoted to IBM’s team projects, they amount to more than
180,000 hours of management time each year. Do you think this is a wise investment of IBM’s human resources?
Why or why not?

2. Why do you think IBM’s culture changed from for- mal, stable, and individualistic to informal, impermanent, and
team-oriented?

3. Would you like to work on one of IBM’s multicultural, multinational project teams? Why or why not?

4. Multicultural project teams often face problems with communication, expectations, and values. How do you think
some of these challenges can be overcome?

CASESTUDY 5

Why Don’t Teams Work Like They’re Supposed to?

Despite years of promises that teamwork will serve as a cure-all for the problems of business, many managers have
found that even teams with highly motivated, skilled, and committed members can fail to achieve the expected
results. Professor Richard Hackman from Harvard University has been studying teams for years and believes that
more often than not, failing to establish the groundwork for effective team performance leads teams to be less
effective than if the leader simply divided up tasks and had each individual work on his or her assigned part. As
Hackman notes, “I have no question that a team can generate magic. But don’t count on it.”

What are the main factors Hackman has identified that lead to effective teams? Teams should be kept small and have
consistent membership to minimize the types of co-ordination tasks that take up valuable time. Too often,
organizations set up project-based teams and then reconfigure them, without considering the stages of group
development that might have to occur before the team can achieve full performance. Supports need to be in place,
like group-based rewards and clearly defined group responsibilities. Surprisingly, in his study of 120 senior
management teams, Hackman found fewer than 10 percent of members agreed about who was even on the team!
Successful teams also have assertive, courageous leaders who can invoke authority even when the team resists
direction. Similar lessons were derived from the failure of Ghana Airways, a state-run organization that experienced
frequent changes in top management that were disruptive to establishing a consistent leadership team. As a result of
excessive turbulence and lack of strategic vision, the 40-year-old air carrier that was once an emblem for the country
went bankrupt.

Do these weaknesses mean teams are never the answer to a business problem? Obviously, it is often necessary to
bring together and coordinate individuals with a diverse set of skills and abilities to solve a problem. It would be
impossible for all the management tasks of a complex or- ganization like Ghana Airways to be done by disconnected
individuals. And often there is more work to be done in a compressed time period than any one individual can pos-
sibly accomplish. In these cases, it is wise to consider how to best heed the advice provided above and ensure your
team isn’t less than the sum of its parts.

Questions

1. What do you think of the elements of successful teamwork Hackman has identified? Do you believe these
elements are necessary for effective team performance?

2. Can you think of other conditions necessary for teams to be effective?

3. Imagine you’ve been asked to assemble and lead a team of high-potential new hires to work on the de- velopment
of an international marketing campaign. What specific steps might you take early in the team’s life to ensure that the
new team is able to avoid some of the problems Hackman identified? Is there any way to break down the overall
group goal into subtasks so individual accountability can be enhanced?