Professor Mark Weber

Having worked for 14 years in large organizations, I was not sure about how the classes on
Applied Business Leadership Skills for Entrepreneurs would really add any value to my life.
And on the very first class, Professor Mark Weber dissipated all my notions. He provided a
brilliant introduction to decision making and introduced us to “A Primer on Decision
Making: How Decisions Happen”, the work of James March, a renowned American
polymath. Decision making is a central human activity fundamental to individual, group,
organizational, and societal life. The discussion emphasized how decisions are actually made,
as opposed to how they should be made. I was drawn into the discussion both as an observer
and as a participant. Little did I know, that this discussion, would turn out to be one of the
most important lessons that I will perhaps take with me way beyond the length of the MBET
program. I have been an avid reader of biographies and in one of the classes, Professor Mark
threw a new light on the way I look up at these leaders whose lives have been a source of
massive inspiration for me. The lucidity with which Mark presented the reasons why some
leaders are successful while some are not is very impressive. He compelled us to think how in
a contest between the individual and the situation, the situation generally wins. The
discussion revealed that the real power of leadership is that people who have leadership
opportunities are the architects, the designers, the custodians, and the maintainer of situations.
And recently an incident in the class made this revelation even more clearer. I recently
proposed an idea that we start a speaker series for our class where we would invite some of
the industry leaders and entrepreneurs from multiple domains to share some of their insights
and learnings with us. The idea was discussed with Professor Chris Holt after which I created
a shared document where people could propose names of people they would like to have for
the Speaker Series. Our class is diverse with people from across geographies and multiple
ethnicities. In what I would call as a “moment of truth” discussion, one of the classmates
asked me how my so-called “extra-curricular” activity was going on. I told him that I had
created a shared document which I had circulated on the class WhatsApp group. Surprisingly,
I was meted out a rude response. The said person told me that he was not obliged to checking
the group and how I need to do the job more effectively. I tried to reason with him and I was
rather shocked when he told me that women don’t look graceful when arguing. What added
to my surprise was that the person was absolutely inconsiderate and spoke these words in an
aggressive tone in front of two other classmates. We had scheduled a meeting for discussing
the next steps which was only a couple of minutes away. That was the moment when I
realized that I cannot afford to react with aggression. That the situation demanded that I take
it in my stride as I wanted to have a successful meeting and did not want an unpleasant scene
in the class. I told him that I would create an email group and would welcome his thoughts to
make this endeavor a success. Had I allowed my ‘old’ self to address the situation, I would
have probably shouted back and condemned him for not looking at the group’s conversation
thread. But here I was, in absolute awareness thinking the question, “What does a person like
me do in a situation like this?”
The discussions on logic of consequence and logic of appropriateness dawned upon me. I
thought to myself that my aim is to make my endeavor a success and an iota of rancor or
bitterness can be detrimental to it. Mark had mentioned that good leaders are the ones that
have the opportunity to shape the situation in which people are going to function. Following
my learnings from the class and the readings, I recalled the discussion on why people do what
they do. My classmate is someone who has been in senior roles in organizations. He probably
is used to getting data in a more structured manner. Maybe he comes from a highly
patriarchal society. There could be multiple factors. As Mark had suggested, I kept going
back to these questions as my explanatory variables and was able to think about and reflect
on deeply. I was highly situation sensitive. The other thing that struck me in that moment was
one of the quotes by Ambrose Bierce that Mark had used in one of his classes. “Speak when
you are angry and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.”
Looking back at my career, I now recognize what my failures have been. And most of them
revolve around me being insensitive to the situations and making horrible speeches. Situation
sensitivity plays a pivotal role for anyone to be an effective leader. This insight, I now
understand impacts teamwork, collaboration and more importantly, ingrains in me the
principles that will help me become an effective leader. I have attended multiple leadership
coaching sessions but this class is different. Every session is an eye-opener exposing me to
the deeper realms of how a human brain functions.
There have been two other critical learnings for me from this class.
First, that we are incapable of being completely objective when forming perceptions about
people. This became clearly evident after the exercises we did in the class on Carter Racing
and the hiring decision based on limited facts available. More often, what we would like to
believe is fine-tuned by a wide variety of transient and intangible factors, thus leading to
incorrect assumptions and correlations. While forming perceptions is human nature, choosing
to have an open mind to possibilities that do not necessarily align with our perceptions is
definitely within our control and failure to do so can sometimes mean closing our mind even
to the truth.
Second, the lesson on biases. “Task conflict is conceptualized as differences in opinion
relating to work or business decisions, while relationship conflict pertains to personality
differences and interpersonal tensions.” [Amy C. Edmondson Diana McLain Smith, Too Hot
To Handle? How to Manage Relationship Conflict]. I was able to see how my brain tricked
me on multiple occasions contributing to self-serving bias. The second bias is fundamental
attribution error, a concept famously documented by a Stanford social psychologist named
Lee Ross.

To be honest, it would be correct to say that I entered the program with some preconceived
perceptions about some of my teammates. One of our teammates was extremely quiet during
the team meeting for one of the other tasks, so I assumed that she must be very shy and an
introvert and hence will take a back seat and would not be able to contribute much to the
class assignments. I can now easily see the primacy effect of the perception principles in
action. My perception was built solely on that one meeting and I failed to comprehend that
there could be several other reasons for that behavior. My perception was further solidified
by the observation that I had always seen her with books or on the laptop and had hardly ever
seen her engaging with her peers outside the class environment. It was maybe because I was
subconsciously looking for cues that helped me keep my perception constant while constantly
ignoring the ones that went against it. However, to my surprise, it turned out that she played a
key role during a group assignment. I was shocked to witness how perception can leave a
person incapable of being objective. The biggest surprise came when throughout the
preparatory work, she took an added responsibility of managing roles and responsibilities of
all the members in the group. Also, she made substantial efforts to ensure that she expressed
her opinions from time to time during the assignment to ensure we stayed on track. The
situation made me realize that I may have been a victim of the fundamental attribution error
and I overemphasized the dispositional explanations while at the same time ignoring the
situational context. My assumption that she was too quiet, shy and an introvert and hence
won’t be able to contribute to the team was proved largely wrong by this incident. I was
impressed by the way she was able to keep track of various moving parts in the assignment
and suggested strategies to make the best of the given circumstances. With added feedback
from each of the team members and increased level of group cohesiveness, the team was
finally able to deliver an impressive report.
Retrospectively, as I am writing this paper, I feel that the classes that I was most reluctant to
attend have taught me a lot more than I thought. Infact, this class has made me look forward
to Mondays. I have made a lot of mistakes in life and the scope for improvement is
humongous. Reflecting on all the class discussions, I feel I am better equipped to handle
difficult conversations. Mark’s suggestion that we must paint with the narrowest possible
brush is a lesson I will keep for my lifetime. I see myself working in a leadership position
wherein my decisions and actions will have the potential to change the lives of the people
involved. My key take away is to strive to be an able leader who can create an atmosphere
wherein my colleagues feel valued and have a high sense of perceived organizational support.
Only then will the true potential of the team can be unearthed and the team can realize its
objectives. I am still amazed at how these classes have managed to teach to me several
crucial things. I feel fortunate to be a part of the class.

REFERENCES

1. Course Reserves. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.reserves.uwaterloo.ca/ares/ares.dll?
Action=10&Type=10&Value=133947 Article: Hammond, Keeney & Raiffa,
“The Hidden Traps in Decision Making”

2. Course Reserves. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.reserves.uwaterloo.ca/ares/ares.dll?
Action=10&Type=10&Value=133943 Article: Gratton & Erickson, “8 Ways to
Build Collaborative Teams”

3. LIBRARY. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://go-gale-com.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/ps/i.do?
p=AONE&sw=w&u=uniwater&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE|
A21114518&asid=d2d756c568e7d05ef9ff0e757cf631a6. Article: Katzenbach
and Smith, “The discipline of teams”
4. Edmondson, A. C., & Smith, D. M. L. (n.d.). Too Hot to Handle? How to
Manage Relationship Conflict - Amy C. Edmondson, Diana McLain Smith,
2006. Retrieved from
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/41166369?journalCode=cmra.