Management Assignments | Online Homework Help
- Being hired on to Dunder Mifflin as a management consultant has been a dream of mine for a long while. I have been watching over “The Office” for many years. All the while I have been observing Michael Scott and picking up on many instances in which Michael hasn’t been managing his team in the best and most effective way possible. Michael Scott is the regional manager of the Scantron Branch of Dunder Mifflin. Dunder Mifflin is a paper company in Pennsylvania. I have been in charge of watching over Dunder Mifflin and noting some of the things I could be of help on in terms of improving the quality of work going on in this office as well as helping lead Michael in a better direction when leading and managing his team.
Starting off with “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory” which is a theory that proposes that people are going to be motivated by five categories of types of needs. From bottom to top, these needs are physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and lastly self-actualization (pg.521). Being able to fulfill the lower levels of needs and progressing forward to the higher levels is something that most people are working towards on a daily basis. According to Saul McLeod in his online article, “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” McLeod addresses, “Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualization. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. Life experiences, including divorce and loss of a job, may cause an individual to fluctuate between levels of the hierarchy”(McLeod 1). In season 1, episode 1, Michael is trying to show Ryan Howard (a temporary employee) the type of environment that Dunder Mifflin displays and how they like to mix work and play together throughout their everyday work days. So, when Pam Beesly comes into Michael’s office to drop off a fax for him he asks her to take a seat in his office. He starts out with addressing that the company has to do some downsizing, as well as informing Pam how much easier she has been making Michael’s life as the office’s secretary. Just after his praising of Pam and all the help she gives Michael, he tells Pam that he is going to have to let her go because she has been stealing. Pam then questions Michael on this issue and he explains that she has been stealing post-it notes. Pam then begins to cry, which then results in Michael starting to laugh and revealing that her being fired was all a joke. This circumstance is a prime example of life experiences making an individual fluctuate between levels of the hierarchy. Being told she was fired, Pam’s safety needs had just been stripped from her for the time being. Making her reconsider even her physiological needs. As Dunder Mifflin’s management consultant, I cannot allow Michael to jokingly tamper with employee’s needs just for the fun of it. This is terrible managing and quite frankly just rude. No manager should put their employee’s and member of their team to reconsider their life’s needs and whether or not they have a secured job.
In every workplace environment, as well as everywhere you go in today’s world, ethics seem to be a very large issue that is impossible for people to see eye to eye with. Ethics is the code of moral principles and values that governs the behaviors of a person or group with respect to what is right or wrong. In episode 2 of season 1, there is a very big ethical issue that I had to address with Michael so that something like this would never end up happening again. The scenario began when Michael was leading a diversity training program in hopes of improving the teams’ ability when dealing with diversity and tolerance. Michael begins his diversity training with an insignificant video then proceeds to have the team stick index cards on their foreheads. These index cards are cards with a certain race on it. He then instructs them all to treat others however they might treat people of those races that have been displayed on one another’s foreheads. When his employees don’t talk to each other how he envisioned them to, Michael gets irritated and decides to demonstrate what he wants people to do by himself. Michael then proceeds to turn around as Kelly (an Indian woman) has just got back from a separate meeting. Michael who is trying to prove some sort of point begins throwing himself into a really offensive Indian stereotype making Kelly uncomfortable until she decides to slap him in front of everyone in the office. Michael gets visibly upset. He then tells the employees how now Kelly knows what it’s like to be a minority. This act displaying extreme racism and stereotypical behavior teaches the members of the office how not to act. Michael is one of the main reasons that this diversity training was required for their crew in the first place. Having good ethical practice in the workplace is very important. Discrimination and disrespect towards one and their culture can have many negative effects. In Yin Paradies and Amanuel Elias’ article, “How racism and a lack of diversity can harm productivity in our workplaces,” they explain that “A review of multiple studies indicates exposure to racism is detrimental to performance. This is due to its impact on job attitudes, mental and physical health, as well as organisational behaviour. Research also indicates that, by inflicting job stress, racism can reduce productivity”(Paradies 1). Not only does this harm productivity, but it also goes against “The Four Types of Ethical Manager Behaviors” addressed on page 149 exhibit 4.2 of the textbook. As the manager, Michael should be enforcing and communicating ethical standards through behavior, being fair in decisions and distribution of rewards, he should be displaying honesty and integrity as well as showing kindness, compassion, and concern for the needs and feelings of others. With this example of Michael displaying a racist act towards Kelly, he is displaying zero of the four behaviors he should be displaying in regards to managerial ethics. In this circumstance, I had to advise Michael in thinking about how his actions reflect his ethics and the ethical code he should be following as the manager. An ethical dilemma like this can be prevented. I worked with Michael and helped him understand how to avoid creating ethical dilemmas like this one with Kelly.
The next problem I had to work on with Michael was in regards to his decision making. Decision making is the process of identifying problems and opportunities and then proceeding to resolve these problems. On page 242 exhibit 6.3 shows the six steps in the managerial decision-making process. The first step in this managerial decision-making process is recognition of decision requirement. The second step is diagnosis and analysis of causes, third being the development of alternatives, the fourth step is the selection of the desired alternative. The fifth step is implementing the chosen alternatives, and the sixth and final step is to evaluate and give/receive feedback regarding the decision that was made. In season 1 episode 3, Michael is put in charge of choosing a health plan for his employees. With downsizing possible, it’s crucial that Michael chooses an inexpensive plan for his employees. Michael being Michael, wanting to be liked, isn’t very enthusiastic about cutting everyone’s benefits. When Michael’s boss Jan tells him that part of being a manager involves giving unpleasant news, he seems to panic. Michael decides to give the job of choosing the office’s healthcare plan to Jim who isn’t qualified to do so. Jim denies Michael and instead suggests that Dwight should choose the healthcare plan. Dwight, who doesn’t have any health problems and who also strongly believes in cutting costs, chooses the cheapest plan with little to no benefits. Michael in effort to avoid his employees’ complaints then hides out in his office. Where Michael went wrong here was when he didn’t even attempt step one of the managerial decision-making process. Decisions like these are very important to himself as well as the employees at Dunder Mifflin. For him to not even attempt to decide what healthcare plan to choose proves that maybe Michael hasn’t had to make many managerial decisions at this point in his career. Michael initially was able to identify and recognize the decision requirements but that was as far as he went then he handed the responsibility first to Jim, and then to Dwight. In, “6 Reasons Leaders Make Bad Decisions,” author Glenn Llopis identifies, “Leaders that don’t trust themselves enough become desperate and make abrupt decisions. They don’t think about the consequences when they make their decisions for the wrong reasons”(Llopis 1). This is a prime example of Michael not trusting himself enough to make the right decision for his employees so instead, he makes a rash choice in allowing Dwight to choose for him. The way I went about helping Michael in his decision-making process was by telling him not to just give away the responsibility of making the decision to someone else, just because the decision was a hard one to make. I walked him through the six steps as well as went in depth on how to work through those steps. Hopefully, when a new decision is needing to be made, Michael will have the trust and confidence in himself to perform the act of making decisions and using the steps provided to do so.
- I have been hired as a Practice Manager at Head to Tails Veterinary hospital. The hospital is a day time practice where the doctors will see appointments, however, we also have a 24-hour emergency aspect to us creating a very fast-paced, high-risk decision-making environment. While we have appointment doctors Monday through Saturday, we also always have an emergency doctor ready to see hospitalized pets or any potential incomings. Heads to Tails is located in a small town making us a smaller hospital, much smaller than the corporate veterinary hospitals. My staff of 40 includes appointment and emergency doctors, nurses, client service representatives, and department leads.
As of right now, each department is in its own universe, meaning the departments rarely work together. With the emergency aspect, the staff has gotten used to an unorganized, chaotic environment. The doctors are slightly unethical when it comes to the financial aspect. They are currently going off of whether the owner has enough money to afford the treatment needed for the sick pet. They will have the client service representatives turn owners away, creating tension in the client service representative department. The nursing staff is underpaid and over-worked. The nursing staff attempts to recruit the help of the client service representative staff, however, the client service lead does not have enough staff members to spare to nursing. With the exception of two doctors, the hospital staff is fairly young. Many of the nurses are aspiring veterinarians. My overall assessment of the hospital staff is I can tell the staff wants to improve, there are just no steps to help them grow. So far, Head to Tails staff is hesitant towards my hands on, ethical, participative style of management. The last practice manager was very laissez-faire type of leader who did not interfere with attitude, work ethic, or how comfortable the hospital staff was, thus creating an unorganized chaotic environment.
Ethical Manager:
Before deciding how I will manage the Head to Tails staff I will need to decide what type of manager I want to be, and what I need to do to fulfill that role. There are four types of ethical management behavior: display honesty and integrity, show kindness and compassion, fair in decision making and reward distribution, and communicates and enforces ethical behavior throughout the organization. I believe this will assist the staff to be more open to each department and other opinions regarding the which course of medicine to take. Which will, in the end, create a cohesive flow throughout the hospital. I am aware that the ethical management approach is not the most common. In a recent Gallup Poll regarding Honesty and Ethics in different professions, only 17% of poll-takers rated business executives ethical standards as “high” or “very high”. This is because ego and greed get in the way for some managers.
Organizational Mission: (Chapter 5, see exhibit 5.3)
A mission statement is meant to describe the organization’s values, aspirations and reason for being. A well-defined mission statement is a foundation for creating goals and starting the planning process. A mission statement should be well-defined and easily understood amongst staff members. As of right now, Head to Tails mission statement is not being upheld to its fullest. Their mission statement is “Our mission at Heads to Tails is to save pets lives and heal pet owners hearts.”. The doctors are immensely talented at what they do, proving the first half of the mission statement to be accurate. However, the healing of pet owners hearts is not where the hospital could be. I plan on bringing the focus back to the mission statement. By making the staff see the importance of the statement. I will start by having an all-staff meeting to start redirecting the hospitals’ overall mission to provide the best medicine to save lives and the show the most compassion to heal hearts. By doing so this will, in theory, begin to rewire the scattered money hungry mindset into the best veterinary care Head to Tails staff is able to provide.
Goal Setting and Planning: (Chapter 5, see exhibit 5.1)
Since I have begun putting the hospital staff and myself on course to focus on their new goal, I have to set a personal goal for myself. My goal is to get the hospital relationship with each other comfortable and friendly. The less tension there is throughout the hospital, then daily hospital operations will run smoothly. I will begin creating clear, small, attainable goals for each department. If a goal is unclear then employees are unsure what they are working towards halting all goal progression. This will make inter-department relationships stronger and eager to work together to reach additional goals, maybe even encourage the department leads to create goals for their team. Once the small goals have been achieved throughout the departments I will then work with our financial manager to see if the funds are there to add nurses and client services representatives to make those departments fully staffed. I plan on starting all staff events and gatherings to hopefully boost morale with the organization and to better staff relationships. Goals and planning will also set a standard of performance. Since they define desired outcomes, this will create performance criteria which will help me measure whether the hospital is on track or off track.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards: (Chapter 12.2)
Managers who understand the motives that push employees to change undesired behavior, alter or to continue desired behavior are considered to be successful motivators. Since starting in my position, it is evident that no one has been given any feedback regarding how they are doing. It is very cut and dry. If the pet lives then they’ve been successful, if the pet dies then they’ve been unsuccessful. I will begin changing that mindset by pointing out what could have been performed better during saving the life of a pet and what successful things the team executed after losing a pet. Delivering pleasure and growth to employees who just finished dealing with a difficult, high tense situation is an example of an intrinsic reward. I want to remind the nurses and doctors why they do what they do. With the client service representatives, I believe they deserve an extrinsic reward, as they are the front linemen to handle all frantic, terrified, and tough clients. Giving the client service representatives a small raise will increase their motivation to work together and tackle difficult clients as a team. By making giving feedback and establishing a reward system, this will in time encourage a natural intrinsic motivation. This occurs when one is acting without any external rewards, simply enjoying an activity or see it as an opportunity to explore and learn. Working in a veterinary hospital can be very morbid. This means keeping staff morale high is important and to do so I will establish a simple recognition program which will go as follows: anytime another staff member helps one out, makes one smile, or shows exceptional care and compassion they can give that person a star next to their name on the Employee Board. This will keep it anonymous which will eliminate any hesitation in rewarding stars. At the end of every month, the staff member who has the most stars will get a small prize i.e gift card, one hour of sick pay, etc. When people are not expecting a reward it can have a psychological impact. While extrinsic rewards are initially exciting, they can loose their power as a motivational tool. Which is why I enjoy the idea of the employee board. It encourages staff members to acknowledge each other’s accomplishments and give a sense of belonging which would incorporate an intrinsic and extrinsic reward. Even if only one staff member receives a physical reward, the rest of the staff will feel supported and accomplished by seeing how many stars they’ve been rewarded.
Types of Culture: (Chapter 2, see exhibit 2.7)
A large influence on an organizations culture is the external environment. The internal culture should reflect what it takes to succeed in the environment. Being a day practice and an emergency veterinary hospital the staff is used to expecting the unexpected. One moment will be calm and serene and the next moment a client service representative is having to run a hit by car cat to nurses and doctors. All of Head to Tails staff members need to be willing to drop everything and jump to a new task dealing with different decisions that need an immediate answer. Head to Tails is a whirlwind of requiring fast responses and risk-making decisions. There are four types of cultures which are based on two dimensions: (1) the extent where the external environment requires flexibility or stability and (2) the extent to which the organizations’ strategic focus is internal or external. The four cultures are adaptability, achievement, involvement, and consistency culture. Head to Tails Veterinary Hospital has an adaptability culture based off of the culture’s values. The staff has this ability and autonomy to rapidly detect, interpret, and translate subtle signals to adapt to new behaviors to cater to the environment at that moment. The client service representatives are encouraged to act freely to meet the needs of clients, which requires constant decision making on behalf of that staff member. I will actively promote growth and change by rewarding creativity and intuition.
- Analyzing Michael Scott
Michael Scott and basic management principles (Chapter 1)
Some may say that throughout the series Michael Scott is a bad boss or downplay his performance as a manager due to his silly or at times ignorant actions and comments. However, after taking a closer look Michael Scott has several managerial qualities. Before diving into Michael Scott and his performance of being a manager, let’s take the time to discuss what the core purpose of what a manager is to do. “Management” is defined in the text as the attainment of organizational goals in an effective and efficient manner through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling organizational resources. In “The Office” the mission state of the company is quite lengthy but is as follows: “Dunder Mifflin Incorporated provides its customers quality office and information technology products, furniture, printing values and the expertise required for making informed buying decisions. We provide our products and services with a dedication to the highest degree of integrity and quality of customer satisfaction, developing long-term professional relationships with employees that develop pride, creating a stable working environment and company spirit” (All, 2014). Essentially the organizational goal of the company is a quality experience for the customer provided by valued employees. The idea that if you take care of the employees, and respect them they can and will work hard.
While under Michael’s management the Scranton branch lives by the mission statement of the company. This is supported by the fact in episode sixteen and seventeen of the fifth season titled “Lecture Circuit” (IMDB), Michael is asked by the heads of Dunder Mifflin to go to the other branches and speak about what makes his branch so successful. Michael leads his office with a people first style where he puts his employees first. For example, Jim and Dwight are leaders of the party planning committee and when they fail to create a personalized birthday for Kelly Michael later comments on how much the party sucked. Michael believed that by pouring into the employees they would pour back into the company. Michael spent much of his time planning and organizing parties and conferences based around issues or events that one or multiple members of his staff were experiencing. Though these moments could be seen as offensive or even cringy; one example being when Michael kisses Oscar to show he was OK with an homosexual in the workplace it shows how far Michael is willing to go for his employees (Kubiak). During the episode titled “The Merger” (IMDB), the Stamford branch is shut down and the Scranton branch not only takes in all of Stamford’s clients but does not lose a single client in the merging. This shows that Michael is well adept with managing organizational resources. By Michael’s successes in The Office it is clear to see that at the base level Michael is a great manager because he runs his office by the companies mission statement in an effective and efficient way through planning, organizing, leading, and managing organizational resources.
Personal Communication Channels (Chapter 13)
As stated in the text on pages 574 to 575 it is important for a manager to have a well developed personal network because it allows for smoother, more direct, and efficient communication. Taking Exhibit 13.6 Michael is comparable to Sharon where he has a tie to at least one person in every department. For example Michael does not spend a lot of time in the warehouse, however, he considers Darrell (the warehouse foreman) to be one of his close friends and highly respects Darrell’s opinions on what is “hip” or “slang”. Though Darrell knows of Michaels lack of cultural knowledge he gives Michael some leeway with some of the politically incorrect statement Michael makes, and in turn gives Michael fake or incorrect information. This sense of informality gives Michael the comfortability to converse with Darrell. The comfortability earns Michael’s trust so that if he had a request of the warehouse he can depend upon Darrell that it will be completed. Michael states that his best friend in the office is Jim Halpert, despite spending the majority of his time at work conversing with Dwight. These personal relationships that Michael created with his coworkers allows him to depend on them if he would ever need to. For example if they were trying to get a big client Michael would ask both Dwight and Jim to nail the sale. If there was ever a need to Michael would go in himself to help with the sale since he was a former salesman. Thus creating this place where both employee and manager could depend on one another. However, having these close impersonal relationships have had their costs.
There has been a few times where Michael’s informality has “nipped” him in the butt, and either ended with him or some of his employees feeling hurt. One example is in the episode titled “gossip” in which Michael desperately tries to be apart of a network chain he is not apart of (the gossip chain). Michael decides to spread a rumor that one of the coworkers was having an affair. When Michael finds out that the rumor is true after confronting Stanly about it, Stanly begs Michael to not tell anyone. In a desperate fury, Michael returns to the office and randomly starts making rumors about everyone so that people will discredit his gossip. One rumor he spreads is about Jim and Pam in which they are pregnant. After calling a meeting to discuss all the “gossip” that has been going around Michael said there was one true rumor going about. When Jim and Pam own up and say they are pregnant Michael steps in and confesses to the office about Stanley’s affair.Michael has this innate desire to be seen as a friend and be liked which took preference over Michael being seen as a manager. Michael should have been well of aware of his strengths and weaknesses. Michael should have acknowledged the potential repercussions of gossip and stepped in the moment gossip changed from work related to employee related. This is because though it’s healthy to discuss rumors or even growing concerns in the company, it is toxic for the work environment for rumors to be spread about fellow employees.
Empowering People to Meet Higher Needs (chapter 12)
One thing that Michael does very well is motivating his employees. Though some are not motivated by his tactics such as Stanly, there are some that are significantly motivated. One such employee that comes to mind is the salesman Dwight Schrute. Michael does this by empowering Dwight which in result leads to Dwight being the most successful salesman in the company. Empowerment is defined in the text by the delegation of power and authority to subordinates within the organization. The Text also states that empowering employees gives them 4 elements that aide in the completion of their jobs. These 4 elements are as follows: 1. Employees receive information about company performance; 2. Employees have knowledge and skills to contribute to company goals; 3. Employees have the power to make substantive decisions; and 4. Employees are rewarded based on company performance (p. 542). Dwight experiences all four of these elements throughout the series.
Michael makes Dwight “The Assistant to the Regional Manager” which is a made up position in Michael’s eyes, and yet it is a source of motivation for Dwight to keep top tier performance so that his title is not revoked. As “Assistant to the Regional Manager” Dwight experiences all 4 elements. An example of element number one is that he is able to receive information about company performance since several of the meetings that Michael has with the CEO David Wallace, Michael allows Dwight to listen in on. Because of Dwight’s imaginary position he spends a significant amount of time conversing with Michael which sets the stage for element number two where Dwight brings many ideas to Michael on how to improve efficiency and productivity. Michael more often than not, disagrees with Dwight’s ideas and declines them, but still listens to the majority of Dwight’s ideas. The third element Dwight experiences is the power to make substantive decisions. Michael gave the decisions that he did not want to make or that he did not want to take the fall for, to Dwight who gladly accepted any task he received from Michael. One example is in the episode titled “Healthcare” Dwight is tasked with setting up healthcare for the office. At the end of the episode Michael takes over the task but Dwight did enjoy the opportunity he was given and was fairly grateful. Michael supplies the fourth element throughout the series via the Dundies where Dwight is rewarded with a salesman of the year award in Dunder Mifflin’s version of the “Grammies”. By Michael giving these four elements to Dwight it served as a source of motivation for him to be the top salesman in the company.
- Michael Scott: Worlds Not So Great Boss
Michael Scott from “The Office” is a very well known boss who is loved, but at the same time makes some very questionable decisions. Before I delve deeper into specific situations where Michael was out of place, I wanted to talk about how unethical he is at times. In chapter four I took the liberty of taking the “Ethical Maturity” test for Michael, and he did not do very well. He got a score below five which shows that he avoids difficult issues and when faced with ethical situations he does not act in an appropriate manner. This is exactly what you can gather from watching this show.
Season 6: Episode 21 “Happy Hour”
At the very beginning of the episode Michael is seen doing 26 push ups. He then asks Jim how many he has done today and Jim responds with, “I made a sale”. A good boss would’ve said “Good Job” or “That’s even better than push ups” but Michael makes the comment, “Oh yeah, sitting on your big fat butt”. He then challenges the whole office to a pushup contest and whoever wins gets to go home. This caused the whole office to stop doing their work and start doing push ups. Stanley was the only one actually answer Michaels challenge with 27 push ups. He got up while everyone clapped, and calmly walked out.
You could tell Stanley was struggling to finish all of those push ups, but his hate for his job pushed him to keep going. If someone truly enjoyed their job and their boss did a good job of motivating them, they wouldn’t feel the need to try so hard to go home a few hours early. Especially if it will cause their paycheck to be lower than normal. The concept from the book that I think is important in this situation is in chapter 12 entitled “Motivating Employees”. Michael has strange ways of trying to motivate the office and this one I think he used a combination of two of the four from exhibit 12.2. He used a Negative approach of Intrinsic and pain/fear, as well as a positive approach of extrinsic and pleasure/growth. I believe it’s both because he did get the office motivated for something, but he did it in a way that had nothing to do with their job. The competition wasn’t who made the most sales which would have maybe been more appropriate for this reward. Also the reward he gave out would allow for sales to drop even more. He should’ve used both positive approaches, a friendly competition to see who can maximize sales and whoever gets the most gets a bonus, an extended lunch, or even a lunch paid for by the company. This would have gave the office a sense of accomplishment as well as a reward that they would have enjoyed without damaging the companies profits.
Season 5: Episode 26 “Casual Friday”
Towards the end of the episode Michael sits Pam down in his office. She had been talking to Michael about joining the sales team and was very excited and eager to start. She walks in initially happy thinking she got the job, but Michael had a sad look on his face and told her she did not get the job. She looked shocked and distraught. Pam was about to walk out the door when Michael finally told her she actually did get the job. Then he has her send in the receptionist Erin in. Erin sits down and Michael immediately tells her that no one likes her, she needs to leave, and the security guard is going to walk her out. Right before it seems like she is going to cry he tells her he is just kidding.
If someone was in this situation in real life it is not funny at all. People depend on their job to survive and to mess with someone like this is very unethical, especially if you are their boss. It is inappropriate and is not how you should act to and in front of your employees. Chapter four talks about ethical behavior in a manager, in exhibit 4.2 “Four Types of Ethical Manager Behavior” it shows how an ethical manager should act. Just in this very small portion of this episode Michael goes against two of the four behaviors. He does not show honesty and integrity because he looked at them in their face and lied to them. He also doesn’t demonstrate kindness, compassion, and concern for needs and feelings of others. In this situation he should have tried the Individualism approach by acting moral and keeping Pams and Erin’s best long term interests in mind. He should have brought Pam in and been very excited to tell her the good news. Then just told her without cutting around it. For Erin, that should’ve just never happened. He shouldn’t have brought her in at all because that is not how a manager or any person should act.
Season 1: Episode 3 “Health Care”
Michael has to pick a health care plan for the entire office. He was put in a tough place because he was tasked with picking a provider and choosing the cheapest plan. His boss told him that a boss sometimes has to suck it up and deliver bad news, but he doesn’t like when people don’t like him and they would be very mad when they found out they had a terrible health care plan. So instead of just doing it and getting it over with Michael gave the task to Jim who is not qualified with choosing a plan for everyone in the office. Jim turned it down and he gave it to Dwight who is also not qualified and instead of picking a logical plan that was cheap, but not terrible he chose one that would lose the company the least amount of money and give the least amount of benefits to the employees.
When Michael found out that he needed to make changed to the health care plan he should have never involved Jim or Dwight. It was a task given to him and he was the only one who is supposed to be qualified to make a decision like that. In chapter 6, exhibit 6.3 it shows the six steps in a managers decision making process. Michael didn’t even make it past step one because the only thing he did was recognize there was a decision that needed to be made, but Dwight was the one that actually did the rest of the steps. Earlier in the chapter in talks about a “classical model”. This is what I think Michael should follow from now on for all future decisions that need to be made. This approach is meant to accomplish goals, strive for conditions of certainty, gather complete information, select alternatives that maximize the return to the organization, and uses rational and logic to make the decision.
Season 5: Episode 19 “Golden Ticket”
Michael comes up with what he thinks is the greatest idea he has ever had. He based it on the movie Willy Wonka, where he slips five golden tickets into random boxes of paper. Whoever gets those tickets will get 10% off of their total order of paper. Instead of five different companies getting the five different tickets, one of their biggest clients gets all five in the same shipment which means they would lose 50% on a huge client. He then avoids his bosses because he is trying to deny that it was even him that came up with the idea. He blames the whole entire thing on Dwight so Michael would not get in any trouble. It turned out to be a great idea because that client was so pleased with the discount that they made Dunder Mifflin their exclusive provider of paper. That means that even though they did lose some money they will make much more in the future. Dwight got a ton of praise so Michael took the idea back just to make himself look good again.
In chapter 10 the topic of discussion is “Understanding Individual Behavior”. On page 439, it talks about a personality behavior called Machiavellianism. Michael blaming everything on Dwight then taking the idea back when it turns out to be good, is a classic case of Machiavellianism. It is because Michael manipulated Dwight and his own boss to look good for his own personal gain. Then did it all over to try and look good again. I did Michaels Mach score for him which is exhibit 10.8. Machiavelli believed successful management behavior required you to be considered manipulative and ego-central. That is what Michaels score showed and he clearly demonstrated that in this Golden Ticket situation.
