Week 4 - Discussion Question II

The recently discussed two phase approach of the CE from a metal manufacturer mentioned in Pyes (2005) article apparently was fruitless and led to his termination. The second Discussion Questions should now determine if The CE did not have the right focus on certain points And if the resilient questioning from Margolis and Stoltz (2009) would have helped in his situation

To answer the above questions, Id like to point out what the CE did to solve the companys problems, and how he should have acted in my personal opinion. As Margolis and Stoltz (2009) mention in the very beginning, every new challenge for an executive might be overwhelming and create a mere of psychological situations and outcomes. One might feel excited for the new challenge, see opportunities for the general career, but also encounter fear and anger when actually being put into a problem-solving situation and see how the previous employee left the company behind. The CE in our case study was clearly focusing on his leader position, reporting to all executives and board members, but hardly involving the subordinates. Furthermore the CE did not consider all the involved stakeholders of the company, which might have helped him earlier to discover the actual issues before failing with his first phase attempt. This in the end led to the point that he missed crucial points. Although it depends from person to person, how someone sees adversity, the CE should have clearly focused on the described four lenses by Margolis and Stoltz, and in addition shift from cause oriented thinking to response oriented thinking with questioning each lens through Specifying, Visualizing, and Collaborating. 1) Control: The CE did focus on ongoing business running, but stakeholders of the company governmental institutions, and environmentally. ways to improve the current performance, keep missed to focus on identifying all involved like employees, retailers, consumers, local all parties which are involved or impacted

S: Can my sole idea be the solution? V: How would the board or my mentor have solved it? C: Are there members on the team, within each hierarchical level, how could contribute to or against the idea to find the best approach? 2) Impact: The CE was clearly convinced that his vision was the only one upright and best solution, without accepting or looking for other, possibly better ideas from the inside and outside of the company. At a later stage he just noticed that he

should have had a better approach and involved other managerial employees and form groups to find a solution. S: Can I influence all parties solely? Are there limitations on stakeholders I can influence? V: How will the others think about my idea? Will they share the idea? C: Which parties or stakeholders can I focus on, which were left behind from my predecessor? 3) Breadth: When looking into this aspect, there was no focus on a long-term solution, but the CE focused solely on a short term fix of the problem to continue business as usual. S: Will the change work in the future? Are the numbers going back to normal or meant to increase? V: Can everyone involved gain from the current situation? C: How far could each stakeholder, inside or outside the company get involved for their own part, and for a collective part on solving the problem? 4) Duration: As mentioned on 3) we cannot see a long-term approach from the CE but rather a quick fix. Business and economy is driven by growth and not declining or stagnating performance. S: Do I want to stay in the company after I solved the problem? Is it just a temporary job or a life-task? V: Can I ultimately change something within minutes, hours, weeks, or months? What is the timeline on the problem? C: Which parts of the timeline are solved by each stakeholder, not only myself? Given all the questions above should have provided the CE with several ideas on how to work on the actual problem, instead of just finding possibilities to solve some facts. Having these questions constantly in mind, it would continuously provide the CE with options. The wicked problem would not have to be solved in a linear approach, from issue to solution, but most likely gathered enough information, ideas and further possibilities on the general performance of the company and the overall improvement not only for the company, but all involved stakeholders. Using the Adversity Quotient Profile (Stoltz, 2001) and my given outcome, I should reassign myself with more specific examples on an ongoing basis to deal better with this situation, and improve on the CORE score.

Control: Given the lowest of four rates in this aspect, I usually find myself in a position where I cannot control a situation. I might want to try to influence situations I usually feel overwhelmed with, by using additional help from a mentor, or involved my colleagues on their opinion. A situation should never scare one, but rather show the opportunity and new challenge I am given to control. Ownership: With clear given tasks one should be held responsible for wrong doing or failure of a certain task. In case a task was performed poorly, planned in a timely manner, there should always be time for finding a new and good solution. As a leader or CE, and being almost on top of the hierarchy, one should mentor the team, top to bottom as much as possible and forward this idea to all his subordinates. Reach: By organizing tasks and projects well, my or the CEs personal life should always have enough time or energy for a good work-life balance. Being the CE, I should also assure that this applies for all my subordinates and act immediately if I discover one is suffering from a work overload as this might lead to a bigger problem in end and results in the employees and companys bad performance. Endurance: Although dealing with the biggest issues, the light at the end of a tunnel should always be focused on, and a clear vision for the time afterwards set. This vision for endurance should not only be in the leaders mind, but also brought to all staff members so it assures a good performance and hopefully keeps a good working environment. With the above mentioned points I would be certain the CE could have handled the situation in the first attempt to solve the problem, and also led the company into a better performance trend again.

Works Cited
Margolis, J. D. & Stoltz, P.G. (2010) How to bounce back from adversity, Harvard Business Review, 88 (), pp.8692. Pye, A. (2005). Leadership and organizing: sensemaking in action, Leadership, 1 (1), pp.3149. Stoltz, P., 2001. Your Adversity Quotient. [Online] Available at: http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article_index/articles/501550/article517_body.html [Accessed 01 July 2013].