Building Trust and Creativity

Part I - Our products

1. A multi purpose Pot

- that can provide fast and efficient cooking experience.

- With one pot, it contains different layer (self customize) that can cook different dishes, soup and sauce at the same time.

Creativity: Yes, it is a product that could attract alot of individuals in the hectic environment we live today, since it could save time dramatically

Marketable: No, does not have enough differentiating gap with similar pre-existing product already in the market

2. 'Home-bar' a new service concept

“If woman can have a walk-in closet, why can’t man have a walk-in fridge?’

 ‘Home-Bar’ - we redefine what is important in kitchen!

- It opens a new realm to men, a sense of belongingness in the kitchen, no longer bound by spouse control of food, and beer

Creativity: Yes, it is an attractive service that brings BAR LIFE to home,

Marketable: Yes, a new concept that brings no boundary and no pre-existing sales from other competitor

Part II - Situation that were not helpful

Situation 1: Everyone must check in with the supervisor when they have an idea

Impact:    It shows down the process and kill creativity: all of the other team members were only sitting and waiting to be 'next'

Situation 2: The supervisors instructed the rest of the team on the next direction

Impact:    We all adopt a 'wait and see' approach:  Waiting for the next instruction

Situation 3: No laughing

Impact:    We were all seriously thinking about a product that will make money.. and nothing else..

Situation 4: One positive comments follow by two negative comments

Impact:    Similar to the 'yes... but' effect, we only focus on the negative comments

Part III - Situation that were helpful

Situation 1: Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with everyone

Impact: (i) Able to generate different and as many ideas as possible.  Free-wheeling was welcome.  The whackier  the idea, the better.  Building on others' ideas was encouraged.

(ii) Each team member has his/her own idea.  Having chance to express one’s opinion feels to be accepted and respected in the team. More opening and acceptable atmosphere in the team nurture a more creative environment.

Situation 2: It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas

Impact: Allow brainstorming.  Everyone was not afraid of being criticised of their proposing ideas.  Members did not feel embarrassed to produce fancy ideas resulting in creativity enhancement.

Situation 3: The team collectively presents the pitch

Impact: Enhance the team spirit, everyone was equal to accountable for the results.  Therefore, trust and respect were flourished and unleashed everyone's creativity.  Collaborative Partnership formed.

Part IV

a)    Condition 1 – Decision Making Hierarchy inhibited the Product Development Process

1: go through a proper channel of communication

- a team member have no rights to share with other member unless the supervisor approved it

2: Decision making hierarchy (reduce time efficiency, having to check for permission)

- Whether the idea/product or the concept is good, it must be reported to the supervisor, and he/she will decide

3: Limited boundary of creativity

- The creativity is only restricted to the knowledge of supervisor

4: Lack of creative results that could require partnership of both left-brain and right brain individuals

-Lack the appropriate human resource that needs to produce new ideas.

b) Condition 2 – Pixar Operating Principle Facilitated our Product Development Process

1: Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with everyone

- Separate the communication structure and decision-making hierarchy.

- Trust your staff to work out problems themselves without having to check for permission from supervisors.

- Approach other staff across departments to solve problems directly without go through “proper” channels.

- The Supervisor/Manager should accept that he/she is not the first one to know the problem/issue. He/She should understand that it is the issue related to be respected by the team member or not. Instead, it is just a way to facilitate the communication among the team members and enhance the creativity in the team. This means that the Supervisor/Manager should have a higher E.Q. level.

2: It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas

- Encourage everyone to offer feedback to every ideas proposed.  What they liked and disliked and why.

- Provide a constructive and “free-flow” platform for ideas generation.

- Not to make comment on some immature idea especially in the initial stage of sharing.

3: The team collectively presents the pitch

- Enhance the team spirit, everyone was equal to accountable for the results.

- Enable collaborative partnership to strive for excellence.  People's overwhelming desire to make sure their work is good before they show it to others increases the possibility that their finished version would exceed the supervisor's expectation.

Why Pixar’s Condition Worked Well

1.  Diversity encourages different ideas

- Get people with different backgrounds, social experiences and expertise working together can generate different ideas by taking account into different considerations/perspectives.

- For example, some members were very socialised.  They liked to hang out for drinks in bar.  Some were homely.  They liked cooking.  With different backgrounds, we came up a pitch to sell “Home Bar” eventually.

2.  Enable Collaboration

- Members in the team can talk about the past experiences, metaphors, analogies and their stories to help the teams conceptualize together.

3.  Define a Partnership-Friendly Structure

- Motivated with a shared common goal

- In a “voice-free” environment and team members are highly motivated with team-spirit, ideas can be brainstormed without having been criticised. 

- Assessment only on whether the teams are making progress rather than banning others' ideas to create trouble.

Part V - Our reflection

"Management's job is not to prevent risk... To act in this fashion, we as executives have to resist our natural tendency to avoid or minimize risks, which, of course, is much easier said than done" (Sep HBR 2008)

Our reflection: Often, management focuses on preventing risk by setting instruction from our existing knowledge on how each step should be done. However, it blinds us from the possible improvements that come with the risks. In order for the company or the team to have the ability to engineer new ideas, management should not put too much rules or barrier on how each process should be completed. Instead, the team should implement a better approach, “freedom within the framework”, give flexibility to employee to produce ideas.

A peer culture - "This works because all the participants have come to trust and respect on another" (Sep HBR 2008)

Our reflection: In forstering collective creativity, the team have a good level of trust and respect is very important, team does not see each other as judging, but instead, everyone is taking a supportive role to build and elaborate on each one's idea.  In our team, we have the advantage because 3 of the team members have been working for another 6 months in previous semester, so that we have already established a good level of trust.

In the team dynamic cycle - because of this trust, we have jumped over the Forming-Storming stage and enter straight to the Norming-Performing stages that help us a lot...

"Left brain vs Right brain approach" (June HBR 2009)

Our reflection: Our school and our education system (esp in HK) mainly focus on the left-brain analytical ability, so our natural tendency is to analyse and judge; however, we realize through the experiential activity that too much judging and analysis in a pre-mature stage indeed kills creativity...

Here is an exercise to test if you are left-or-right brain dominant...

"Many companies allow left-brain analytic types to approve ideas at various stages of the innovation process.  This is a cardinal error." (June HBR 2009)

Our reflection: This is the most challenging part, because many managers or seniors get promoted because of their analytical ability and much of those skills are associated with the left-brain, and because of their authority in the company, they are the ones who judge and make decision.  In our earlier experience, Kim, who acted as the supervisors, provides many judgements that have apparently killed our creativity... so we are thinking what we need is a more balance style of both personality in the innovation process, with this, perhaps the MBTI can help... a good mix of the N (Intuition) type and the S (Sensing) type may bring a good balance..

MBTI:

Ross - ENTJ

Jeff - ENTP

Brian - ESFP

Kim - ESFJ

References

Amabile T.M., & Khaire, M. (2008, October). Creativity and the Role of the Leader. Harvard Business Review, 100-109.

Catmull, Ed (2008, September). How pixar fosters collective creativity.  Harvard Business Review, 65-72.

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (2010). Putting the pieces together comprehensive school-linked strategies for children and families.  Retrieved Jan 25, 2011, from    http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envmmnt/css/ppt/cjap1.htm

Rigby, D.K., Gruver, K. & Allen, J. (2009, June). Innovation in turbulent times. Harvard Business Review, 79-86.

Thompson, L. L. (2009). The mind and heart of the negotiator. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall.

Getting to Yes!! (& Getting past No!)

Week 2 Employer and Employee Negotiation Exercise - Getting to Yes!


Think You Can Win-Win Negotiate With Your Boss

Modern Tool Manufacturers have given me opportunity to learn and grow, immediately out of graduation.  It has been six years now, three years since my promotion, but I’m still at the bottom of the list for salary out of unit heads.  I ask once, my Boss countered it with the usual, let see how this works out.  It became so irritating recently after everyone receives their bonus, yet I’m not qualified for it.  This time, it was actually different, this is what happened …….

Salary Negotiation Blog

Employee (Big 4):     Boss, I have been working in the Company for 5 years.  I am very please that you give me a lot of chances to grow and to contribute.  Even 3 years ago, you promote me to be the Unit Head.  I am really very much appreciated of you!  But something I am confused is my salary package.  I know my current salary is far behind those other colleagues with my same title.  So I am a bit disappointed!

Boss:        Hey Big 4, you know what? There is a salary scale in our company which counts many things like amount of experience, contribution, performance, competencies etc.  That’s why!  I know you a clever boy.  You are very hard-working and work best for the company.  I admit it!  The point is you are still young in the position.  Compared with other unit heads, they have more experience than you.  In fact, you did excellent job in the past.  That’s why even you are now 28, but you can take up the post of unit head in our company.  All the other unit heads are 40s something. 

Big 4:       Thanks Boss, I know you did try your best to grow me and build up my career ladder.  I really thank for your appreciation.  But honestly, I have my financial burden as well.  I need to take care of my family and feed up my living.  That’s why I open my frank dialogue with you for a justifiable pay.  After getting the promotion of being a unit head, I contribute all my time to work for the company.  I managed to increase the marketing and sales promotion for the company in order to boost up the sales volume, to manage and develop the marketing team to strive for the excellent quality of our work, and to assist the sales team to develop new accounts for the business expansion, so on ….I know you gave me a lot of chances to build up myself.  But am I deserved more for my current compensation package?

Boss:        Right!  If you were not deserved, I would not have promoted you with salary increase every year.  Remember what I said 3 years ago when you got promoted?  I have no doubts about you handling the job, but I would like to wait until you are able to achieve it.  So what is your expectation of your future achievement?

Big 4:       My future achievement expectation?  Of course, to help the company to grow more business, to increase the company branding, to enhance the company profits by reducing unnecessary costs…so on. 

Boss:        Good! So far, I am pleased with your performance.  I will devise those achievement targets with you in the coming year.  That will be used to justify your salary package!

Big 4:       I agree.  I am sure if I can show excellent performance for achieving my performance target, you will even promote me?! Right, haha!  You are a good boss, you would not let me down.  But so far, for the past 3 years of what I have done to fulfill my role of being a unit head, as you mentioned, I did fairly good too.  That’s why I have salary raise every year to catch up the “gap” with other unit heads.  But still, I am underpaid!

Boss:        hmm….ok…I understand you have the financial burden.  You have to support your family living.  But the company has a salary structure which measures against the incumbent working experience, his/her achievement, job commitment, so on.  I promise to review your salary to a “level” you will be satisfied next year based on your achievement target set out this year.  I will give you a special bonus if your performance exceeds my expectation.  I will tell you the measurements later on.  As I mentioned earlier, if you do excellent, I will consider promoting you too!

Big 4:       Thanks Boss!  I will do my excellence for my career promotion and would not miss this chance!       

Road to Success

In our negotiation, there are a number of tactics that didn't do well, however, there are also some tatics that we learnt from the lecture and from the readings that did help us to achieve a better negotiated outcome, here are some of them:

Learning 1. Adopt an Integrative (collaborative) approach
Why?  He is my boss and we have to work together.  This relationship have to be handled very well.  Have to be assertive about the issue (Hard on issue, Soft on People).

Learning 2. Separate the person from the problem
During the process of negotiation, it is easy to see the other party as our 'enemy', while reflecting on our negotiation process, we acknolwedged that there are both the 'rational' elements and the 'emotional' elements of the negotiation.

There are times when the 'emotional elements' overtake the rationality and we start to have internal dialogs, and our face get heated... e.g. 'he is really a bad boss', 'he really treats me very badly...'...

During this moment, what helps is really a conscious effort to separate the person from the problem - don't see the other party as our enemy but as a negotiation partner.  When we acknowledge our emotion and manage it accordingly, it is easier for us to focus back on the issue.

Learning 3. Develop objective criteria 
One other learning involves working with my boss to develop objective cirteria.  We realize that merely arguing over who is right and who is wrong is not moving the issue forward.

So, 'What is the criteria that the company establish to justify for a salary raise?', 'What is the competencies and capabilities and KRA required of me, so that when I am able to demonstrate that, I will be justified for a raise?'

We discocver that the process of developing objective criteria from the employer actually helps us to better understand his interests and expectations.

Learning 4. Develop multiple options & alternatives

Rather than very harshly focusing on the X amount of pay rise, we find that inventing options and alternatives with the employers a good option.  This opens up a more objective view over the issue and prevent us from dwelling too much into the corner.

Some of the options that we have invented are:

- A combination of pay rise and variable bonus which links to my performance
- How about an increase in number of AL days?
- Or enlarging the portion of employer's contribution to my MPF?
- How about a flexible work pattern for me (to better suit my study?)

Learning 5. Actively listen to explore and inquire about other's interests and priorities

To deliver above and achieve a win-win, we find that active listen to the counterpart is key.  By actively listen we mean to listen to all the facts as well as the emotion, and listen for the hidden message.

Also, another key aspect of active listening we find useful is to clarify, explore & check back our undrestanding, rather than assuming what we have heard is complete.

Learning 6. Don't Push: Build Them a Golden Bridge

Boss is boss, when I argue to heatedly with him, it does me no good.  Our reflection at the end of the negotiation process is that we have to 'save his face' and build him a golden bridge so that he can reconsider my options.  When I push too hard, we will both be defensive and it is likely to create a loss-loss situation...

This is especially true for Chinese Boss - Give them Face!!

 Neotiation Roadblocks to Avoid

Learning 1.  False Conflict

Incompatible Interests lead to lose-lose effect

Application :

EE: Boss only add more responsibilities without reasonably and fairly increase the salary even not getting the same as of other unit heads
               
ER: Staff only fight for a higher salary restlessly without being satisfied (especially for a pretty young and inexperienced guy)

RESULT : Hinder the possibility of better-off outcome.  Employee may get a better total remuneration package even higher salary than other unit heads if he/she can demonstrate excellent performance satisfying the Employer


Learning 2. Fixed-Pie Perception

A misbelief that the Employer's interest's are directly and completely contradictory to the Employee's interests.  It's about pie-slicing.

Application :
EE: Want a big jump of HKD5000
ER: May spread the increase over a longer period of time

RESULT : Miss the incentive to create value.  For example, to devise package deals, not single issue offer which can benefit both parties for long term result in boosting up a marketing and sales activities to generate more profits for the Co. while for a higher salary even greater than HKD5000 and promotion to the Employee.

Learning 3.  Compromise

A mid-range concern for goals and relationship (5/5).  Considered as a distributive orientation, not a win-win solution.

Application :
EE: If insists to ask for a big increase of HKD5000, but not accepted by the Employer and ruins the relationship.

ER: If totally reject to increase salary, he/she would quit the job.

RESULT : Try to compromise rather than to create a bigger pie!

Learning 4.  Illusion of Transparency

Happens when "negotiators believe other have access to information about them when in fact they do not."  They "overestimate the transparency of their objectives."  (Thompson, 2009)

Application:
EE: He/she maybe very upset emotionally and assuming that his boss to understand his emotion during the salary negotiation process
ER: Boss did not aware of his/her dissatisfaction and boss may have other consideration in mind but didn't share ......

RESULT: Delay the settlement and many misinterpretation arise.

Understanding the Differences

Understanding the differences stated from both sides provide very important set of information that could help the employee. The employee can now evaluate what are the essentials and tradeoffs which can help develop packages that could result in a win-win outcome. In simple terms, it helps to make the “right offer”. Furthermore, the available information allows the employee to aggressively present the first offer to set the standard of agreements. Therefore, it situates the employee in a strategic advantage position. This is implied in the proposition 5 of psychological influence in negotiation, “the party that creates the first draft of the agreement or contract will have a strategic advantage” In addition, as stated in the establishing and building relationship readings, “win win agreements are those that maximize whatever negotiators care about” Therefore by considering both parties’ need, the employee becomes aware of other options in expanding its pie. 

References:

Fisher, Roger and William Ury (2nd ed). (1991). Getting to yes. New York: Penguin Books.

Malhotra, D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2008).  Psychological influence in negotiation: an introduction
long overdue. Journal of Management, 2008 (34), 509-531. doi: 10.1177/0149206308316060

Thompson, L. L. (2009). The mind and heart of the negotiator. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall.

Ury, W. L. (1991). Getting past no: negotiating with difficult people. New York: Bantam Books.   

Wertheim, E. (1996, Nov 21). Negotiations and resolving conflicts: an overview. Retrieved from      http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/DAS/interneg/training/conflict_overview.html