UCLA PGP PRO 2023-24 I Managing People, Culture and Teams

This course focuses on the general topic of corporate culture and how it can be consciously shaped and managed to the effective use of teams. The course provides an understanding of evaluating managerial applicants’ mindsets for the qualities such as communication skills, motivation, and ability to learn and adjust. The course then concludes with topics on decision-making and change management, two universal challenges managers face.
Private

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.

Prof. Ian Larkin

Prof. Ian Larkin

Professor

Ian Larkin is an Assistant Professor in the Strategy group at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He researches the optimal use of formal rewards systems by companies, given the complex and often unanticipated effects these systems have on employee motivation and decision making. His research quantifying the cost incurred by a major enterprise software vendor due to salespeople deliberately gaming their sales commission system, published in The Journal of Labor Economics, is one of the most prominently cited empirical studies of incentive system gaming. It was the basis for a case study widely used in MBA classes on compensation and human resource management.

His recent research focuses on corporate awards and other programs companies use to formally recognize employee performance, and demonstrates that these programs often have unintended costs, such as the demotivation of some employee groups. A final stream of research investigates physician prescribing decisions in light of different sales tactics used by pharmaceutical sales representatives. His research has been discussed in a variety of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes and National Public Radio.

Ian teaches the core Business Strategy course at Anderson. Before coming to Anderson, he was a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School, where he taught an elective MBA course on human resource management, as well as several executive education courses. He received a Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and a M.Sc. from the University of London, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Ian worked as an Associate and Engagement Manager for McKinsey and Company, based in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley.

Ian’s hobbies include cooking, traveling and supporting the Green Bay Packers.

Course Learning Objectives:

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Evaluate managerial applicants’ mindsets for the following qualities: communication skills, motivation, and ability to learn and adjust.
  • Determine appropriate coaching steps for employees who exhibit various levels of performance and potential.
  • Design an effective and appropriate disciplinary action plan that is timely, rule-based, and includes managerial action.

Syllabus

Learning Objectives:
  • 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 Lectures:

  • What is Culture?
  • Characteristics of High Performance Organizational Culture
  • What Can We Do About Organizational Culture?

Readings:

  • Defining Organizational Culture
  • Five Structures That Shaped Zappos’ Culture

Quiz:

  • Building a Great Organizational Culture
Learning Objectives:
  • 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 Lectures:

  • Defining “Team” in Organizations
  • Selecting the Right People
  • Team Tools for Delivering High Performance
  • Managing Team Performance

 Readings:

  • Characteristics of a High-Performance Team
  • Ten Tips for Choosing the Right Employee for New Small Business Owners
  • How to Hire the Right People
  • Three Success Factors that Define High Performance Teams

Quiz:

  • Building High Performing Teams
Learning Objectives:
  • 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 Lectures:

  • Introduction to Decision Biases and Heuristics
  • Correcting for Biases: WRAP Process

Readings:

  • The Process of Organization and Management
  • Business Decision-Making Welcomes Science
  • Three Effective Methods for Making Better Decisions

Quiz:

  • Decision Making for a High Performing Organization
Learning Objectives:
  • Evaluate managerial applicants’ mindsets for the following qualities: communication skills, motivation, and ability to learn and adjust.
  • Determine appropriate coaching steps for employees who exhibit various levels of performance and potential.
  • Design an effective and appropriate disciplinary action plan that is timely, rule-based, and includes managerial action.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Manager’s Role in an Organization
  • Incentive Design – Part 1
  • Incentive Design – Part 2

Readings:

  • Mintzberg’s Management Roles
  • Manager’s Role in Motivating Employees
  • Misconduct and Discipline in the Workplace
  • Framework for Work Motivation

Quiz:

  • Introduction to Organisations – Motivation

Learning Objectives:

  • 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 Lectures:

  • Organizational Change – A Strategic Model for Change
  • Organizational Change

Readings:

  • Understanding Change Management
  • Did You Know? – The Sequel

Quiz:

  • Managing Change within the Organization

Support

Please email [email protected] for any support required with respect to the program, course or platform.