Leading and Managing the Start Up

Entrepreneurial Human Resources | 2018-19

This Course focuses on the human side of business. Professor Bendersky moves from the general topic of corporate culture and how it can be consciously shaped and managed to the effective use of teams, then concludes with topics on decision-making and change management, two universal challenges managers face.

Faculty

Prof. Corinne Bendersky

Prof. Corinne Bendersky

Professor

Corinne Bendersky, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Management and Organizations at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She has been a member of the faculty since 2002, and teaches in the MBA and Fully-Employed MBA programs. She received her B.A. with honors from Oberlin College, and her Ph.D. in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Bendersky worked as a mediator, dispute systems design consultant and negotiation trainer.

Professor Bendersky’s research focuses on various aspects of organizational conflict management and negotiation processes. She has published articles in numerous academic management journals and books. Dr. Bendersky’s current research focuses on conflicts over status, or social esteem. Emphasizing symbolic resource interests and the causes and consequences of pursuing status ambitions contributes new insights to the role of conflict in group performance and how status hierarchies evolve over time.

Course Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Analyze organizational culture to proactively shape and reinforce it for strategic alignment.
  • Build, coach, and develop teams in your business so that they work together efficiently, confidently, and productively.
  • Take an informed, analytical, and strategic approach to making decisions and proactively managing dynamic change within your organization, using structured processes and best practices.

Syllabus

Culture

Module Learning Objectives:

As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:

  • Diagnose a company’s culture based on agreement and intensity, and write a prescription for improving the culture.
  • Use 15 dimensions of organizational culture to create a cultural profile that represents the ideal culture for a specific organization.
  • Create an action plan for an organization’s Human Resources Director that addresses three tools for building and maintaining a strong, vibrant corporate culture.

Module Components:

  • Video Lecture 1: What Is Culture?
  • Video Lecture 2: Characteristics of Culture
  • Video Lecture 3: What Can We Do About Organizational Culture?
  • Reading 1: Defining Organizational Culture
  • Reading 2: Relationship between Organizational Culture, Leadership Behavior and Job Satisfaction
  • Reading 3: Structures that Shaped Zappos’ Culture
  • Assignment: Case Study: Toupeé Tickets
  • Check for Understanding Assessment
Team Effectiveness

Module Learning Objectives:

As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:

  • Create an action plan for a struggling team, to help them develop a shared mental model.
  • Clarify the objectives and purposes of several teams in a business context.
  • Use the GRIP model to create a framework for a dysfunctional team to improve its collective state regarding thoughts, motivations, and feelings.

Module Components:

  • Video Lecture 1: Defining “Team”
  • Video Lecture 2: Selecting the Right People
  • Video Lecture 3: Team Performance
  • Video Lecture 4: Team Tools
  • Reading 1: Characteristics of a High-Performance Team
  • Reading 2: 3 Success Factors for High Performance Teams, and What Gets In the Way: Interview with a Millennial
  • Reading 3: Ten Tips for Choosing the Right Employee for New Small Business Owners
  • Reading 4: Brian Tracy on How to Hire the Right People
  • Reading 5: Four Basic Steps to Hire the Right Person
  • Assignment: Case Study: Toupeé Tickets, continued
  • Check for Understanding Assessment
Strategic Decision-Making

Module Learning Objectives:

As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:

  • Evaluate a set of options to solve a business problem, identifying possible heuristics and biases that could be affecting the decision-making process.
  • Use the WRAP process to analyze each of the available options when faced with a serious business problem.

Module Components:

  • Video Lecture 1: Introduction to Decision Biases and Heuristics
  • Video Lecture 2: Correcting for Biases: WRAP Process
  • Reading 1: The Processes of Organization and Management, section on “Decision Making Processes”
  • Reading 2: Identify and Define the Problem
  • Reading 3: Business Decision Making Welcomes Science
  • Reading 4: Three Effective Methods for Making Better Decisions
  • Assignment: Case Study: Toupeé Tickets, continued
  • Check for Understanding Assessment
Change Management

Module Learning Objectives:

As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:

  • Write several introductory elements of a business plan for a given business idea/company, using a modified template.
  • Develop preliminary revenue elements of a business plan for a given business idea/company, using a modified template.
  • Write several operations elements of a business plan for a given business idea/company, using a modified template.

Module Components:

  • Video Lecture 1: Organizational Change
  • Video Lecture 2: Strategic Model for Change
  • Reading 1: Change Management
  • Reading 2: Strategies for Successful Organizational Change
  • Reading 3: Did You Know – The Sequel
  • Assignment: Case Study: Toupeé Tickets, continued
  • Check for Understanding Assessment

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