Facilitating Progress in Industry

Industries have facilitated progress in the United States for years. The railroad industry established safeguards and standards for transporting explosives in the early twentieth century, then advocated for inclusion of those standards into federal regulations. Although this was done primarily due to railroad safety issues, concern for people who did not work for the railroad was also an issue (Aldrich, 2002).
Since then, companies have come to realize they are not only employers within a community but are also stakeholders within society. Because of this, many industries have followed the railroad industry’s lead in formulating industry standards and often later found themselves lobbying Congress to have them adopted as federal regulations (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).
Companies are not only concerned about the “bottom line” but also about the future of their industries and society, as a whole. Often, corporations donate money, goods, or services to benefit their communities in some way, such as the preservation of the arts through significant donations from both business leaders and corporations. As one example of many, Andrew Carnegie believed he was a steward of his money and donated all of it, explaining he was a mere trustee charged with caring for the less fortunate (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).
When social scientists initially entered into management positions, many brought new ideas, including research methods. These methods quickly found their ways into business schools when it was understood that managers who understand human behavior tend to have a stronger ability to prevent and mitigate behavioral problems (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).
This understanding highlighted the need for employers to consider human relations in every aspect of their businesses. Managers not only had to understand the function of their businesses, but also the cause of human behavior and how to leverage their subordinates’ knowledge and experience to support their business objectives. In order to make a positive impact with employees, a manager must understand people, in general and how to leverage their employees’ expertise, in particular (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).
A good human relations tool which managers can use is McGregor’s theories X and Y. These will help managers facilitate their understanding of themselves and their employees. Although no individual manager will fall solely into one of the categories, understanding each theory can help managers adjust their own management philosophy and techniques in order to leverage their employees’ skills, knowledge, and experience while also creating an enjoyable work environment (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).
In a management position, I would teach my subordinate managers McGregor’s theories, which would potentially help these managers develop new leadership techniques based on their own biases by providing them with the human relations tools needed to effectively convey directions to employees. Additionally, these managers would better understand that another assigning challenging tasks to employees based on their capabilities is another effective management technique that can increase employee confidence in themselves (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).
Finally, positive progress within any given industry has often been initiated by managers with an understanding that failure to sustain progress in light of new technologies and techniques will result in negative outcomes for the firm. In more recent decades, Operations Research has been used to understand of how to most effectively leverage organizational resources to meet organizational goals. This type of quantitative analysis has proven beneficial throughout industry, particularly in identifying best practices for the most complex of problems (Wren & Bedeian, 2009).

How to Change a Culture

Change does not occur in a vacuum but occurs because of a need, whether real or perceived. As Renesch (2008) points out, even while valid reasons may exist for instituting transforming patterns of behavior, corporate cultures are resistant to change, often continuing to work as a dysfunctional group. Therefore, it is very important for those initiating change to ensure it is accepted by those who must change their behavior or activities in order to be effective.

In order to gain wide acceptance, the problems to be fixed must be clearly articulated in a way that will be easily understood by the targeted audience. It must focus on the positive implications of the suggested new behavior or activity, focusing on the goals or outcomes of the targeted population. In doing so, negative implications cannot be ignored; there must be clear explanations of how they will be mitigated, no matter how slight, must also be provided (Ketchen & Short, 2010).

Implementing new management ideas through the use of teams may be an effective means of gaining acceptance, especially when used in a team effort to solve a problem. Consideration must be given to the composition of the team when evaluating the outcome. As Mehta, Field, and Armenakis (2009) explain, performance-avoid teams will do whatever they must to avoid failure while performance-prove teams will try to prove their abilities to others. Both of these teams should be required to document any deviations from the directed processes, which ultimately will add value to the finalized process.

Another aspect of initiating and promoting new management ideas in contemporary society is the empowerment of those being asked to change behaviors. As Ketchen and Short (2010) explain, managers do not always know how well a new idea may work while those employees who will ultimately implement any changes will often have valuable insight to provide. Engaging those whose behavior will be impacted is the key to identifying changes that are more likely to add value from those that will wind up as short-lived fads.

Opposed the War / Support the Mission

In early 2003, I made no secret of my opposition to any military action against the regime of Saddam Hussein; there was neither a connection to the events of 9/11 nor any imminent threat against our nation from this thug. I emailed my Senators and Congressman explaining my lack of support but, with most Americans fully supporting military action, the Congress approved the “use of force” against Iraq. Congress knew this would essentially be a Declaration of War, but wanted to ensure their individual political viability remained in anything went wrong; a clear sign of a group of individuals, from both parties, with the primary desire to keep their personal power.
Once the decision was made and our troops were ordered into Iraq, I pledged to fully support the troops win this war and return home, with victory and honor. Because I believe this, many friends believe I am “pro-war.” Nothing could be further from the truth – I don’t know any career military person who is “pro-war” but we are all “pro-military.”
With a vote on the authorization to use force, Congress retained the ability to blame the President for his use of force if their expected result was not realized while simultaneously being able to claim political victory if victory was quick.
As patriotic Americans, it is our duty to support our military, including the Commander-in-Chief, to fulfill their military mission, especially when Congress declares war (or authorizes force). To do anything less, is to be un-American.
Our legislators, especially those who voted for the use of force, should have never considered vocalizing their opposition outside of their respective chambers. It is my opinion that some of our legislators have given moral support to both the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qa’ida by many public statements advocating our withdrawal from Iraq – even when we were doing well. If the anti-war politicians had only made their anti-war ‘rants’ in their respective legislative chambers, I believe the war would have been largely over in mid-2005 – and many young American heroes would still be alive; however, the political reality is that President Bush would have won the 2004 election by a much larger margin than he did.
In short, one can be ideologically opposed to military action but fully supportive of the troops once the decision to fight has been made. Unfortunately, we’ve too many people in our nation who believe supporting the troops means being “pro-war” or others who believe being “anti-war” means “anti-military.” Neither is true – I hope that many are coming to the realization that you can be opposed to war and fully support giving our troops the equipment, training, and supplies needed to finish the mission as quickly as possible.
One can be opposed to the war while fully support funding our military – these “anti-war” people are patriotic. Anyone who publicly advocates against providing our troops everything they need to finish the mission is not.