Williamson-like Critique

When it comes to attendance I believe that an attendance requirement would be a good idea to get more students to come into lecture regularly and participate. From personal experience, I find myself attending courses that have required attendance more than the ones that don't. When attendance is not required I have the mindset that I can learn the material covered in class on my own by simply reading the book and doing assignments. Also, as the year progresses I get more and more lazy and required attendance is a good incentive to get me to go to class so I don't miss on points. I understand that attending lecture and learning from a professor first-hand is much more efficient, but towards the end of the semester I get overcome by laziness. As far as bonus points, I see that as a bit ineffective. The students that attend lecture regularly are in no need of those points and the ones that are in need of those points, cannot be bothered to get up for a class with no required attendance even though it would benefit them. If a class has mandatory attendance, a student is bound to pick up on and learn some course material wether he/she likes the class or not.
With this attendance requirement I believe it would be consistent with teaching about gift exchange. A student would find himself attending lecture more and picking up on things that he otherwise would not have had he not attended lecture. The inexplicit gift that the student would receive in return would be a better overall grade in the course. The course and professor overall, would see a more diverse discussion that would benefit everyone that is in attendance more than with an emptier lecture. With the student realizing that he/she received a better grade in the course than if he had not attended, he would also get a better understanding in how gift exchange works.

I find that not being able to use portable devices causes the students that would either-wise be on them if this rule was not enforced to pay more attention on the discussion or maybe even participate in it. I think it is a good strategy to encourage more participation from students that would normally wouldn't at all. If a professor offers all the notes online, then I believe that a student has no need for electronic devices during lecture mode. He/she can simply take notes on paper and pen. This would discourage students from going on social media or other such websites during lecture. They would also benefit from this by picking up on something the professor mentions is important or crucial and what is not important.
Personally I benefit from such implemented or proposed rules stated above. One, because I am forced to pay attention and take notes on material I do not know and two, because it prevents personal distraction from other students watching videos, going on social media, or playing games on their electronic devices. Even though I try not to be distracted such things, they are bound to catch my eye's attention.
Overall I believe that like the most efficient organizations, a lecture should have a balance between strict and lenient rules that will lead to more efficient results by students as a whole. A professor can learn the balance of such rules by taking and comparing data of different rules from previous years and come up with the most efficient combination. 

Triangle Principle

The closest thing to a triangle arrangement that I have been a part of is when I was a student worker in my current apartment complex working as a housing consultant. I worked for an hourly wage but also received commission for any lease I signed. For corporate, their primary goal was to sign as many contracts as possible. They constantly expressed the need to close on anyone that walked through the door or called us for a tour. They always reminded us that constant following up with a prospect was the best way to get them to sign, even if we got annoying with the constant emails or phone calls.
For the most part the student workers and corporate principles seen eye to eye but there were several instances where it seemed like the tactics that they wanted us to use got to be a bit excessive and overwhelming. Corporate could not really relate to the students searching often for their first apartment like us, the student workers could. Most of the workers were attending university and have been on the other side of leasing so we understood the pressures and commitment of renting our first apartment. Although we wanted to earn commission as well, there were often times where the students we were touring were simply not ready to sign the lease. They also did not deserve to be constantly bombarded with frequent phone calls and emails that were expected of us by corporate. In my case, I put myself in the student's shoes and decided to do what I thought was the right thing and not pressure them into doing something they were not yet ready to do, even though I was very good at it. I sometimes ignored the policies that I was told to do and lied about it to corporate. In some cases the students picked up on me being genuine and ended up signing. In others, the prospect was simply lost; possibly to me not following up enough. At the end of the day, I understood that it was impossible to always keep both sides happy and made decisions based on my best judgment on what I thought was right and most efficient.
The times when I was ordered to do constant following up, often ended badly for both sides. A student would get fed up with the constant emails and phone calls and would tell us to stop contacting them and that they did not want to sign with us. I often expressed that this happened to management and they said they understood but there was nothing they could do because that is what corporate wanted.

One possible way to have resolved this issue would have been that instead of having a general policy for all prospects, to put more trust in the student workers themselves and allow them to make their own judgements based on the observations they noticed while giving a personal tour. Either way it is now I went against the common policy most of the time when I worked there and that worked for me. If corporate wants to become more productive and efficient, they should listen more to the hands on workers that they are currently employing and maybe they'll receive better results with new and improved policies.

Conflict in the Worksite

Working for/with my brother and his company it seems as if there is always some sort of conflict going on. There is never a moment where he isn't yelling at someone for something that he does not agree with or simply because he just wants to. On this particular day we were working in a home in Chicago and my brother had tasked another worker, Chuy, and myself with finishing the tile in a bathroom and grouting it afterwards. I was to assist him in making cuts, grouting, and whatever else he needed. Where the conflict arose was with my brother having pre-expectations in how he had wanted the grout work to be finished. Since it was white wall tile, he expected the white grout to be smooth and even all around with no thick joints or pinholes. He had not expressed this beforehand for it was expected.
Since the grout work is supposedly the easiest thing to do and it was towards the end of the day, we simply rushed the job and didn't really double check our work because we just wanted to move on to the next task. From a distance, it looked perfectly fine to us. We figured that although it was not perfect, the untrained eye would not notice a thing. When my brother came up to inspect our work, he was completely disappointed and angry at us to say the least. He thought the work was complete and utter "shit", saying it was not passable and completely unacceptable. We argued that it was not really noticeable to anyone that did not have "tile eyes". This got him even more pissed off and caused him to really go off on us letting us know that that kind of work did not represent the quality of his company, we knew better and just did a rushed sloppy job, we were worthless, my younger sister could do a better job than us even without any prior knowledge, as soon as he found other workers we were both fired, and a ton of other nasty things. He then prompted us to remove all the grout work we had just done and do it all over again but right this time. Knowing how my brother is and acknowledging that he had a point, I did not take anything to heart and proceeded to follow his instructions and this time making sure I didn't slack off and did the work right.

As we were working we heard, "Hey dumbasses, come down here so I can show you how to properly do your job." A bit annoyed, I didn't question him and simply went down to see what he had to say and show me. After all, I had never really been trained properly. I had kinda learned grout work on my own by simply seeing how it was done as an observer. To my defense, that day I really was just being sloppy and did not do my best work.

My coworker and family friend Chuy still offended and humiliated by the recent ass chewing that we had just gotten, did not take lightly to my brother's somewhat sarcasm and questioning of his work. He fired back at my brother stating, "I know how to do my job, I don't need you to tell me or show me how to do it." To which my brother replied, "Obviously you don't because we wouldn't be having this conversation if you did or listened to me from the start." Chuy replied, "I don't need to take this shit from you" and left. Chuy being too prideful and still upset at the way my brother yelled at us, never admitted that my brother had a point. My brother being my brother,  did not even think about apologizing for the tone he used on us and way in which he told us we had done a bad job, stating that there is no room for "pussies" like that in his company and anyone that had a problem with that could go join him. Things between them two never ended up getting resolved.

From my brother's perspective, I completely agree with him. We should have not slacked off and should have done the job right the first time. Our quality was not all there and at the end of the day, our work did not represent his company's par andexpectations. I see why he was upset and understand why he made us redo our work. From Chuy's perspective, I see why he left. He was not used to anyone speaking to him like my brother just had. And for him and others that aren't familiar with my brother's attitude, things like that pushes them to the breaking point. My brother could have definitely gone with a different nicer route about telling us that our work did not meet his expectations that would have prevented Chuy from leaving and making him realize that we really did drop the ball, but at the end of the day my brother is my brother. Those of us that realize this and understand that this is just how he is, learn to work and put up with him. We don't let him get to us and realize that if we just work to his expectations, everything will be fine at the end of the day and everyone will get paid. Having a common goal and working towards it is what is best for everyone.

At the end of the day we end up laughing it off and even end up giving him shit too, neither end taking what we say to the heart.

Future Risk

I first began to think about my future when I took an online survey to see what major best suited me while still in high school. That major turned out to be engineering which also turned out to be one of the only majors I was interested in or even knew about at the time. I looked more into the major and discovered that it had been and still is, one of the more financially secure majors out there. I did a few more research on other majors but nothing really interested me at the time. My other options were becoming a homicide detective, a chef, or a professional poker player. The choice I ended up making seemed to be the wiser and more secure choice. I had been pretty set on attending UIUC since middle school since being exposed to it by my math teacher as well as being attracted to the big sports teams and school spirit. While researching schools I also found out that UIUC conveniently had a top 5 engineering program in the nation and also ended up narrowing down my major more specifically to Mechanical Engineering. That decision was based on the idea that once graduated, that major would have a wide variety of companies to work for since it is pretty general in the things you can do with it. There weren't many limitations like an aerospace, industrial, or electrical engineer would face. That was my thought process.

I ended up getting accepted to the program in high school and had that same thought process since being accepted. That being that ME would offer the most stable financial future. So there I was coasting along taking all the general education courses required which presented slight challenges but were still completely doable. It was not until junior year first semester that I started to come across courses actually related to what I'd really be doing as a mechanical engineer. At that point I started to realize that what I was doing was not really what I wanted to do but it was just something that I thought would present minimal risk in my job seeking opportunities. That along with my head not really being fully committed to these new tougher courses such as thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and materials is what ended up causing me to reevaluate my future and major.

My brother did not end up going to college and decided to join the construction work force. He worked for many years  gaining experience and not until a few years ago he decided he had had enough working for someone else and decided to become his own boss. He ended up creating his own company and is the primary worker/brains of the operation. Whenever I have breaks I help him and have been learning more of his craft (ceramics) as well as business management. Although it started off really risky, he managed to get through it and has even seen his company make decent profits in his first year. Seeing him take that risk is of creating his own business from relatively no experience with business is what caused me to change my major and ultimately pursue an MBA with an economics degree. I now hope to one day start my own business or to help small businesses, like my brother's, to become more efficient and productive to increase their profits.

Although it seems a bit counterintuitive as to what my plan initially was, my head is now more invested and dedicated in order to soon achieve that goal. It seems like a good choice to me and it is what I'm rolling with now.

Connecting The Dots

Looking back at old posts one starts to realize that these posts go hand-in-hand with one another. They all fall under the common theme that makes an organization run more effectively and productive. Wether it is through a bad example or a good one, one is able to realize what contributing factors allows for an organization to succeed. For example, my opportunism post ties to my management posts because bad management can be the cause of a person being opportunistic which can lead to increased transaction costs and in effect be the result of poor team success. A reader can learn from my team success post and apply it to their management in their individual organization if they believe it will help them achieve success in it. They may be also be able to see a decrease in opportunism if they read the team success post and understand that with trust and a common goal in mind, higher success will come if they work as a team while getting rid of some opportunism along the way. Transfer pricing can be related to transaction costs in such a way that makes efficiency of funds increase or decrease. Students that pay for popular classes with illinibucks will more likely pass that class the first time and not have to pay again to repeat it, leading to a decrease in transaction costs. If illinibucks were to start a black market, we would see how transfer pricing would cause an increase of opportunism amongst students.

I see now how these posts are all related to the course themes and more specifically the Economics of Organization. At the time of writing these posts I did not really think of relating them to one another but now it is clear how they are all related and allow for better understanding of how and why different organizations work better or worse by exploring these related themes. Applying these connections and understanding how they affect one another can allow a reader to see what works more efficiently in his/her organization and what he/she should avoid.

Writing these posts is slowly starting to become more natural. I am beginning to be able to apply the concepts to past experiences or new ideas more easily now. Most importantly, I am starting to see how these posts are all related to one another which is what this posts was intended to do. From this point forward, I will be able to relate future posts more to older ones and elaborate why something may or may not work with examples from older posts. Understanding this will allow me to see how the post I am writing, along with older ones, paint a bigger picture and will lead to overall understanding of the course.

In terms of writing the prompt, I would like to see more prompts that have a cause and effect as well as a takeaway message. More specifically, I would like to see prompts asking for further explanation of an obstacle that was encountered and the solutions that were done to overcome that obstacle. This way we can look at differing ways different people were able to cope with hardship and be able to take that and apply it to future obstacles in future organizations if they arise.

Transfer Pricing

If the University began to implement some sort of currency in order for students to skip the line or wait, I believe the most popular option would be registering for classes. More specifically, registering for classes with a preferred time slot (after 10am and before 3pm) or registering for classes with a popular/sought-after professor. The price would be set according to previous popularity of the class as well as demand. 

Say the price is set high for a popular class/required and not as high for other non-required classes, then students would have to prioritize which class to spend most of their illinibucks on. This would add value to the required classes since they are so sought-after and cause grades in that class to increase. This would happen because those students would not want to repeat the course since the price to get the class initially was so high. Also, they would have less classes to take that semester due to the currency allocation if they register for a popular/required class. On the other side, free electives/general courses would not see much change since their demand is not as high. One possible outcome would be that courses with low popularity might see a slight decrease in grades for the same reason as stated before and lack of value of the class. Another effect that would happen is that we would see that decrease in overloading classes to find the best suited ones as talked about earlier in the semester. This would be due to limited currency available. Students that would be in actual need of a class would find those classes more accessible than before due to this new policy. 

If a price for a popular class is set too low then we would see similar things happening that are currently happening. Students would overload their classes and there would be a shortage of that class for students that are in actual need of it. There would be excess classes taken by some students and it would be hard for them to prioritize their time with many classes leading to an overall decrease in grades and GPA. 

Another possible outcome that would rise if the price is set too low for a popular class is the emergence of a black market. Students would exploit the system and register for classes they know are popular and don't actually need in exchange for a high bidder of illinibucks. The price being set too low would make a few lucky fast people take advantage of the situation which would lead to a big increase in opportunism. Laws like price gouging would have to go into effect and a whole new set of policies would have to come into effect in order to prevent this from happening. To prevent this, the school would have to act as the market in order to correct the price. Simple economics would allow for this to happen. Paying attention to supply and demand would cause the most accurate prediction of the price needed for any class and would eliminate the black market almost completely. 

Overall the system that is currently in play is one that is mostly adopted throughout the entire U.S education system and has worked fine although it is not perfect. So if it is not broken, don't fix it. 

Team Success

When it comes to being part of a team that was successful, my varsity soccer team was a perfect example of that during my junior year. The main reason for this, which became most evident the following year, was the boss or the coach in this case. The following year the coach had to leave because he was moving to a different job in Colorado. Because of this, the team saw an immediate impact in performance due to the change in management. Although the team was not horrible after the new coach, things were never the same after that.

The team structure and hierarchy is what made the team very successful. What made the success of the team unmatchable the following years to come was the level of respect that we all had towards the coach and the clear head figure of the team. Following him, was the assistant coach responsible for being there for the players when the main coach was not there or had to focus on half of the team at a time. After that we had our team captains that were responsible for lifting the team morale in time of need, communicating to referees when we disagreed with them, leading some drills, and making sure the team was warmed up before the game began. Following them, were the players that had been part of the varsity team in the previous year. These players had previous years of experience and new varsity players, like me, looked towards them for any advice that would help us fit in and make the team perform well overall. These different mixes of expertise agree with Bolman and Deal and add to high perfomance in a team.

This clear sense of hierarchy is what made the team so successful. The team as a whole was able to communicate with one another if we had disagreements and it allowed us to overcome any problem that was thrown at us. We all respected one another and had a specific goal in mind; to win as many games as we could while giving it everything we had. This also agrees with what Bolman and Deal believe makes a team perform well. "High performing teams translate common purpose into specific, measurable perfomance goals."

The head coach was so well respected because he presented himself as an authoritative, assertive figure but he also gave everyone the respect that they deserved. He was genuine and had no favorites. In his eyes, we were all equal which allowed the players to get that sense of not only a team, but something much more. We all picked that up from him and because of that, we did not want to let him down or disappoint him in any way. That sense of respect is crucial and a big motivator when being part of a team. Whenever he had a problem with someone, he pulled them over to the side and worked out whatever needed to be worked out instead of exposing that player's business to everyone on the team.

Overall, what made this team so successful was the sense of communication and respect that we all had towards one another. We were able to overcome disagreements and help each other work towards a common goal which was winning. Everyone felt welcomed and understood that they were crucial for the team's success. Unfortunately, the following year the new coach did not present this sense of making someone feel welcomed and ultimately caused the team's success to drop drastically.

Opportunism

Instead of talking about a circumstance about a time when I didn't act opportunistically, I'm going to give a more realistic example and talk about an instance where I definitely took advantage of the situation I was put in.

A few summers ago I worked as a summer intern for my local city along with another coworker. We were each tasked the same job and were expected to complete the same amount of work. The job consisted of taking a list of properties around the city and surveying their plot of land to see if they were suitable, under city standards, to have some tree planted in their property by the city. We were also inspecting if the tress which had been planted the previous year had survived the winter or not. We were each given a book of which had sections of the city mapped off and let you know exactly where the tree had been planted. We were also given the list of the locations we were supposed to visit and finally a city car that got us there. 

The first day, we each surveyed about the same amount of properties at about the same amount of time. Where the opportunism started to take place was once I discovered that the method they told us to use to locate these properties was, to say the least, very inefficient. They had the properties in alphabetical order instead of grouping them by locations that were near one another. Basically, had I not discovered this, I would have been going back and forth to opposite ends of the city time after time instead of clearing sections at a time. The obvious faster method. I ended up taking the list and categorizing the locations by section so that way I could finish all the locations that were in one area of the city without having to come back to it. I also edited the excel list so I can travel to neighboring sections in order. This method cut my time by a factor of 3. To add to this, once I had organized the list, I stopped using the map of sections that they had given us and just started using my phone's GPS. Since I knew where the general section was once I used the GPS, near locations were easy to remember without the need of the book which was very confusing. 

Ideally a "good citizen" would share this information with his coworker but for me, it did not even cross my mind. At first using this newly self discovered information made me look like an all-star compared to my not-so-fast coworker. Once I found out that there was no benefit in finishing early and that there would be no further work if I completed the list for the summer, I ended up taking advantage of the situation even further. I would finish my day's in a few hours or so and go home to take a nap and eat. At the end of the day, I would still come back with more locations surveyed than my coworker and in the eyes of my boss I was an ideal intern. I could only imagine what he would've thought had I not been so opportunistic. 

At the end of the day, I chose not to be a "good citizen" because in this specific case it would have worked against me. I would've completed all my tasks much earlier than expected and would have been out of a job early in the summer. I was in need of saving money for the upcoming school year and simply took advantage of the situation that was presented to me. 

Management and Transactions Costs

About two and half  years ago I began working for my local apartment complex where I lived as a student. I got an interview as a sophomore in college and immediately started working about a week after my interview. Working for this organization really gave me an understanding how big management and transaction costs are related and affect an organization overall in terms of effectiveness and productivity.

The first few weeks we can say were a bit rough and unproductive. The main reason for this was due to the leasing manager (my superior) that was in charge of training me (a housing consultant). My job consisted of opening up the models and making sure they were well kept, opening the leasing office, preparing coffee and cookies, answering phone calls, persuading people to sign a lease, explaining the lease agreement, entering new prospects into the computer software, following up with prospects, creating folders for people that signed, giving prospects tours of the apartment, filing paperwork, making keys, receiving packages, closing, and always trying to resign current residents. Let's such say that the housing consultants had more than enough work to do. Because of this, we can say that the Leasing Manager had quite a bit of training to do with new employees. In my case, however, that was not the case at all. I pretty much had to learn everything by myself with hardly any training. When I did have questions, I had to ask my fellow housing consultants because there was a bit of tension between my manager and myself at the time that arose because of a lack of communication. All of this led to this slow productivity in my first weeks of "training".

This personal example allowed me to understand transaction costs a bit better. Had I been properly trained in a much timelier manner, I would have been able to close leases a lot better and sooner, instead of losing a prospect for good and not signing a potential lease at all. This would have added to faster and more revenue to the organization in a shorter period of time. Also, the fact that once I got the hang of things meant that I was almost at the same level of knowledge as my Leasing Manager. Meaning that she often did not know common leasing knowledge and had to ask us for help leading to a further lack in productivity and time management.

Had this manger been more qualified and had the interview process been more selective, this domino affect of transaction costs could have been avoided. This lack of leadership also caused tension and lack of motivation which made for a pretty tense working environment overall.

A couple months later, this manager was finally let go for a silly mistake she had done and was rightfully replaced by one of the housing consultants. Immediately after this we saw an increase in closing effectiveness and an immediate increase in productivity. We eventually started reaching and passing our leasing goals which were previously hardly met. All in all, we see here how management plays a big role when it comes to increasing or decreasing transaction costs for an organization.