Page 315 - Fundamentals of Management Myths Debunked (2017)_Flat

314 Part 4 • Leading
Wood Designs Plus Experiential Exercise
To: Ted Sigler, Director of HR
From: Michelle DePriest, President
Re: Hiring

Ted, as we discussed last Friday, our manufacturing opera- I recall something from a management class I took in
tions have grown to the point where we need to add a couple college that certain personality types fit best with certain
of people to our executive team; specifically, a corporate con- types of jobs. Could you do some research on this topic for
troller and a national sales director. The controller will be re- me? Write up a short report (no more than a page) describ-
sponsible for establishing operational and financial standards ing the personality type that might be an appropriate match
(in other words, a lot of number-crunching using financial and for each of these new positions. Get this to me by the end
manufacturing statistics) for our various work units. The na- of the week.
tional sales director will be responsible for working closely with This fictionalized company and message were created for educational
our sales staff to further develop long-lasting and mutually purposes only, and not meant to reflect positively or negatively on manage-
beneficial relationships with our customers. ment practices by any company that may share this name.

casE aPPlIcatIon 1
#

Getting All Emotional at Google

s the number-one company on Fortune’s Best Company yourself calmly and clearly in the midst of whatever is going
to Work For list for six straight years, google must on around you . . . shouting, stress, conflict, or whatever. The
Abe doing something right! Actually, it does many second part involves self-knowledge—being aware of your
things right! One thing that you might be surprised at is a self- emotions and eventually being able to master those emotions.
improvement course (one of many) that’s offered to google’s And the third part is creating mental habits—being in control of
employees. The course, first offered in 2007, is called simply your emotions and able to naturally think how to relate calmly
Search Inside Yourself (SIY). And it’s so popular that thousands and kindly to others. Although all this sounds very interesting
of googlers are on waiting lists to take the course! and very useful, that isn’t the most fascinating part of the story.
SIY was developed by a google engineer, Chade-Meng What is most interesting is the fact that this course is
Tan. Tan has been around google from almost the beginning— so popular among people who are extremely intelligent and
he was google employee No. 107. His current work position very logical, practical, and straight-forward. After all, google
carries the title “Jolly good Fellow,” and his job description hires the best and the brightest engineers—people who have
says he wants to, “Enlighten minds, open hearts, create world a lot of knowledge and training, but who may not always
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peace.” Interesting concepts have the best social/people
for a highly successful tech skills. So how did Tan appeal
company, don’t you think! But Search Inside Yourself to those individuals? The ap-
there’s a serious side to what peal was that the course was
might seem to be a “fluff” designed for the intellectual
topic. The SIY course was designed to show googlers how to intelligence side (the nerd side) by focusing on the neu-
be more aware of their emotions, to be more compassionate roscience behind the touchy-feely behavioral self-control
toward others, to be able to build sustainable relationships (in- that is possible through emotional intelligence. And despite
ternally and externally), and, of course, to contribute to world google’s need for very smart, competent, tech-oriented em-
peace. (We’re not kidding!) SIY is based on the five dimen- ployees, the reality is that even its workplace has to be about
sions of emotional intelligence —here’s a little review for you: people working together to solve problems and design new
self-awareness, self-management, self-motivation, empathy, and ways to keep moving the company forward. So, even for
social skills—and is broken into three parts. The first part of them, emotional intelligence skills are needed for successful
the course focuses on attention training—being able to center collaboration.