Description:   (MoneyWatch) Many of us have been there. Your company decided to do “stretch goals,” or, if an executive had recently read a Jim Collins book, “BHAGs” (big, hairy, audacious goals). Someone — often a senior executive — may have encouraged you to “treat it like a game,” and “make it fun.” The tag line is: even if we get to 50 percent of the goal, we’ll be in great shape. Its high-fives all around as people set insanely high goals, just to show people (and themselves) what they can do.

Source:  Moneywatch.com

Date: 03/29/2012

Link:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57405962/is-your-company-like-the-hunger-games/?tag=nl.e664

Questions for discussion:

• What are the managerial issues described in this report?
• How do they compare to textbook models of behavior?

Description:   The events aboard a March 27 JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU)flight, on which the co-pilot locked an erratically behaving captain out of the cockpit and diverted the plane to a safe landing, show how much has changed in a culture once typified by autocratic captains browbeating underlings even in the face of potential hazards, safety specialists said.

Source:  Bloomberg.com

Date: 03/30/2012

Link:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-30/jetblue-actions-show-how-training-altered-cockpit-culture.html

Questions for discussion:

• What are the managerial lessons described in this report?
• Do you think there are similar cultural problems that need to be addressed in other work environments?