Golden Gate University MBA

Nguyen Nhu Tam Binh _ Short Answer Questions

Question 1 As you think about the manager or leader you currently work for or with, how
does the information presented this week help explain some of what you have
experienced? What is one specific thing that you will apply at work based on
what you learned?

Response Recently, we had to make a personnel change for head of a sales department.
During the announcement meeting, several middle managers expressed
negative reactions in support of the manager being replaced. I took this
opportunity as good chance to apply and observe leadership
implementation.
Firstly, I analyze the situation to understand what the source of the problem
is. Why did those managers have such emotional reaction? Do they really like
their former leader so much that they could express their opinion in such un-
professional way? Besides the reason of emotion, have any other reasons that
causes the strong resistance to change like that? Do they know the new
manager before? How did the information on personal changing delivered to
those people before the meeting conducted? These are some questions I use
to dig deep and collect information to analyze the situation. What I found is
that people didn’t buy in and resist the change because they don’t
understand the source reason for this important change and as the result,
they had some negative assumptions based on their personal perspectives.
These restraining forces, in another way, clearly reflects the wrong
management way applied among the team by the former manager. He did not
train people to have mind-set of adaptability and tended to protect his staffs
in stead of improving their spirit of continuous learning and passion. Secondly,
instead of sharing my opinion to the new manager, we give him time to
understand his new team and to observe how he implements his leadership
style.

Question 2 Do a cultural audit of your workplace. Think about these things:

● What are the artifacts?
● How do people dress?
● How are decisions made?
● What are the values?

Response My workplace is modern, well-equipped with the latest Microsoft license for
each employee. People have enough space for their working and relaxing.
People are free to dress but when having important events such as
teambuilding or anniversary, people will have uniform. However, matters come
from leadership style, decisions making, and these issues causes
inconsistency among the company. First, CEO did not implement and
communicate clearly about the vision. Most of the time what are focused on
are effectiveness not efficiency, how much we can gain every year, how target
 achieved and how to increase the target. No communication about the future,
why do people gather here for working everyday. That's why sub-cultures
within all departments are separated and not aligned with the common
culture. People don't want to share their true thoughts among the meetings
and afraid of making mistake because leaders do not take responsibilities.
Many times, decision announced, or new policies issued but people do not
follow and accept. We cannot go further and long-term with such a situation.

Question 3 In today's economy, many companies may need to shift between exploitation
and exploration at different points in life cycles and as a dynamic capability. A
company and its HR practice must translate ambidexterity into its leadership
function and leadership succession planning practices.
How does your company imbue the culture with ambidexterity?

Response Our company is a local distributor of ICT products, which is strongly impacted
by the technical development all the time. It means dealing with change is our
constant situation in business during nearly 20 years. Therefore, balancing
between exploitation and exploration are skill that our leaders must be expert
in. Firstly, we continuously improve and apply the latest technical elements to
our operational systems, from warehouse management to sales tracking and
reports. Secondly, the performance evaluation, including KPIs system and
Rewards will be updated period to align with situation and motivate employee.
Thirdly, we conduct training-on-job activities for our managers and
employees to provide them with updated knowledge and new working tools or
systems, such as Odoo, Power BI and Copilot. At the same time, we determine
to maintain our sales philosophy of nation-wide coverage, expanding
distribution scale instead of depending on master dealer’s layers. It means
we need to build larger system with local warehouses and local-based
professional sales representatives. This direction will establish a healthy
competition for local distribution market, ensure small retailers to receive
fairly price policies and avoid price dumping. Under circumstances of
economic recession after Covid-19, to maintain revenue and profits with
such a sustainable development philosophy is true challenge, but it’s the
right way and mission we have chosen for years. With such a consistent
approach, each leader in our company must implement the ambidexterity
culture every day. We must explore new opportunities and innovation
without disrupting our sustainable business foundation. We must recruit
new leaders who are innovative with modern mindset, but those values must
be matched with our long-term vision. We encourage small but continuous
improvements rather than big and costly changing project. Those are some
examples of how we imbue the culture with ambidexterity in our company.

Question 4 Consider the three organizational archetypes presented: functional,

matrix/hybrid, and divisional. Also, consider the multi-dimensional model
discussed in the reading. Share the pros and cons of each
Response Functional structure is focusing on specialized departments, such as sales,
marketing, finance and HR. This is suitable structure for company with medium
sized and low complexity in business running. For example, a local distributor
in ICT products is best fit for this kind of structure. Their business is only one
chain starting from purchasing products from manufacturers, then
warehousing and selling to local retailers for earning profit. Hence, a smooth
coordination among specialized departments is key point to run the business.
However, this is also one of the cons for this structure. Any ineffective
cooperation among departments may cause big effect on the business
running. The pro of this structure is high specialization not only in function but
also in human resources.

Divisional structure is type of organization focusing on market, products,

services or area. Each division will have their own business including function,
resources and separate revenue stream. In another words, each division can
have its own structure. This structure is suitable for large or international
corporation. The advantage of this structure is high productivity in terms of
strongly focusing on a specific target such as on developing a certain product
or a certain market. All resources are organized to develop one product, and
one product can contribute high revenue into corporation. The disadvantage
of this structure is that sometimes, a division can grow too big that it seems to
be separated from the corporation. For example, Otsuka Japan has
established Pocari Sweat division in different country. They established
company in Vietnam to sell only Pocari Sweat. The company has its own
functions including sales, marketing, warehouse, activation and HR
departments in local but within Otsuka Japan corporation, it is only a division.
One of the matters for Otsuka Japan is that Pocari Sweat Vietnam may go far
away from the philosophy of the corporation, but if they apply much control, it
may be obstacle for the development of the division.

Matrix/Hybrid structure is a combination of Functional and Divisional. For

example, a local distributor could have sales department, and that sales
department includes different division located in different areas because the
strategic goal of the distributor is to expand its distribution channel. As the
result, sales team in a division may report to more than one manager. The to
leader of the department and the local leader of the division. This way is helpful
for flexibility and closed coordination among teams despite their geographical
distances. However, it also can cause a complicated report lines and
sometimes, hard for consistency leading.

Question 5 Draft a Goals Grid for your current organization.

Response Our company’s Goals Grid:
Achieve Preserve
▪ Trust of Partners, Customers ▪ Keep coverage distribution
during years because we always philosophy while chains and key
committed to following the rules retailers are becoming stronger
of the market and relevant and dominating the market
partners ▪ Maintain added value providing
▪ Nation-wide customers network for partners and customers.
and coverage distribution
system
▪ One of the 3 biggest local
distributors
Avoid Eliminate
▪ Losing customers, becoming ▪ Short-term business mindset
dependent on chains, retailers which focuses on sales pushing
▪ Providing less value towards and trading whilst losing
partners in terms of building and customers and market.
expanding sales channel, which ▪ High and waste operation cost
consequence is lower gross due to inefficient operation
profit management
▪ The success trap mindset which
makes leaders have decision
based on experiences in the past
rather than using critical
thinking and learning
continuous attitude.

Question 6 Let’s go back to the Leslie Brinkman case. Does Leslie need more employees?
Should she take on less work? What’s your best advice?
Response From my point of view, Leslie needs to re-structure her report line. It doesn’t
mean she needs more employees (number of people depends on business
scale and profit status); however, she needs to expand layers direct report to
her so that her workload will be reduced and then it can help to reduce the
micro-management applied across the company. Leslie is some kind of
workaholic woman, and that style put much pressure on employees when she
expects people to be able to work like how she works. This style also made her
dis-connected with employees and have no engagement with them. Even
though she wanted people to be happy, but they didn’t feel happy when
working with her because they saw no empathy, an important connection
among human beings, from their boss. If Leslie can spend more time on not
only her life but also their personal lives and explore more humanities aspects
within relationships with her teams, her vision would be naturally delivered,
accepted and supported by them. Leadership is not pushing people to do
things they don’t understand or get buy in. Leadership is to inspire people and
let them follow you because they trust in you. People are now having mindset
of working for Leslie, but they don’t feel belong to the company. If her vision
is effectively delivered deeply through engagement programs and benefits,
people can realize how much involved they are to contribute the company,
how respect they receive from their CEO, in that time they will fight for a
bigger thing, not only to survive and satisfy their CEO like the way they’re
doing now.

Question 7 Describe the best meeting you have attended and the worst. What was good
about the best? What was bad about the worst?

Response The best meeting I have attended

They are monthly meeting with my ex-boss in a Japanese company about
operation status of HR department. The meetings were usually conducted
around 45mins to 1 hour. There was a basic outline for the report I need to
make and clear criteria on the outcome of each HR activity. We also set the
limit of time for reporting part and rules of gathering data. During the meeting,
my ex-boss would raise questions to make clear some points or to explore new
aspects of the issues. What good about the best was that I was always clear
about next steps to do. All instruction given at the meeting are detailed
enough with precise timeline.

The worst meeting I have attended

They are monthly meeting with all Board of Directors and managers of
departments in my current company. The meetings usually last for more than
3 hours, with many but general information throwed from departments. We
must listen to many details and arguments that we didn’t really understand or
feel engage with and it became boring after long duration. People tended to
avoid raising their ideas and try to finish their report as quick as possible.
Instructions were given so general without clear outcome expected and
 timeline. Same issues would be raised over and over the meetings without a
completed solution. What bad about the worst was that everyone was
confused about what to do next and attending such meetings were like a
suffering and wasting time.

Question 8 Share a personal change you experienced: the stressors, and their link to
SCARF.

Response When working for my ex-boss in a Japanese company, one of the stressors I
had experience is his micromanagement. He’s talented with foresight. He gave
me much lesson learnt through his methodology of solving problem and
making decision. However, he applied a micromanagement among the
company and his managers sometimes feel offended. All decision made must
revolve around his perspective. Managers feel afraid of making mistake and
made him disappointed. We must inform him of all information related to daily
operation, if not he would criticize the manager for hiding the information. All
our decision in leading team must be reported to him. In some big projects,
even though I was project leader, all the decision must be aligned with him
before I could confirm with the third parties.
This way of management triggered the SCARF mechanism in me for all the
times I worked there. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it was
stressful and made me unhappy because I wanted myself to be able to take
bigger responsibilities in future. I need experience in making final decision
instead of just indirectly implement decisions from superiors. If working under
this style of management for long time, I will no longer have confidence in my
own opinion, prediction and perspective and become depended on my boss. I
feel uncomfortable because I didn’t know whether my personal point of view
was matched with him or not. While to gain long term develop, an open
environment where different perspectives should be freely to discuss and
consider.

Question 9 Share your experience with organizational tracking. This doesn't have to be at
a senior level. It could be any organization (team) level. What was tracked?
Were those the right things? How was the data used?

Response The organizational tracking we are applying here is a set of performance

indicators updated Realtime through ERP system and Power BI integrated.
There are following key indicators tracked:
▪ Revenue and operation cost monthly, quarterly, yearly and YoY growth
▪ Market shared period, benchmark with competitors
▪ Profit every 6 months of each product lines
▪ Employee’s performance metrics
To increase to accuracy and intime of the data for making decision, we invest
 much on technology and operation system. We are now able to track the sales
revenue and performance, frequency of meeting customer of each sales staff
in each business unit. This helps in making timely decisions as well as
rewarding effective employee accordingly. We also use the data to analyze
comprehensive competency of a certain employee. Before having real time
data report system such as Power BI, we only can rely on sales result
extracted in the end of the month. It caused many issues on evaluating people
for years because the effectiveness is not enough for evaluating and
developing people. After having the real time data system, we can gain more
figures on other aspects related to efficiency, productivity and long-term
sustainable growth such as customers development and ability to commit to
the target of different employee.

Question 10 Share your experiences of a personal performance review process. What were
your observations? How well was the information communicated? What do
you think you'll do in the future when both giving and receiving feedback?

Response One of the disadvantages of back-office jobs are qualitative evaluation. Not
like in sales evaluation system, the definition of what meeting the
requirements and what does not in back-office function are vague most of the
time. This leads to the common consequence, which is sense of unfairness,
one of elements of SCARF mechanism. This is my conclusion through many
years observing from a position as staff until being leader of a team.
Because having no clear definition on outcome, the communication during
evaluation process is ineffective and mostly misunderstood. Some managers
try to avoid the conflict by downplaying the seriousness of the situation or
satisfying ego of the person being evaluated. Some managers are too
straightforward and harsh, that may hurt the employee and demoted
motivation or worse, raised a silent resistance. The reason is different people
will have different standard and perspective. Which you think is good
sometimes is not good from my point of view and even bad in comparison with
standard of higher manager. And some time the reviews came long after the
facts.
What I can do in the future when both giving and receiving feedback for
performance review process include following 2 points:
Firstly, I must build a measurable system for back-office team. It’s not easy
but it’s possible. Based on that system, we can set detailed and transparent
definition of performance out put, which people can have same understanding
irrespective with their background or position.
Secondly, I will apply SCARF knowledge every time when giving feedback to
my staff. Continuous, honest and straight-to-the-point feedback are key to
improve my staff mindset and their ability to deal with problems.