Team Blue Collar
Principles of Management Professor Diasio
Team Blu e
Produced by: Anita Lane Matthew Motta Lindsey Geiger Derrick Moody Alisha Charron Greg Fulham Principles of Management Professor Diasio
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Group M embers Project In troductio n Mileston es Episode S tor Summary yboards of Main T h Reflectio ns and Re emes of Managem commend ent General C ations onclusion s Referenc es
Team Blue Collar
• Anita Lane - Orlando, FL – Accounting • Lindsey Geiger – St. Petersburg, FL – Entrepreneurship • Matthew Motta – Marshfield, MA – Global Business • Derrick Moody – Tampa, FL – Accounting • Alisha Charron- Largo, FL – Finance • Greg Fulham – St. Petersburg, FL - Economics
Interagency Briefing This classified document is being released internally to show the great work being done by the Blue Collar detectives. These hard working agents and their respective cases will be detailed below. Please be advised that these detectives aren’t armed and are not dangerous. Detective Deboe – The older veteran of the group. He brings a lot of passion to the team. Deboe has a fiery personality, and he’s able to put even the toughest managers on the spot. Detective Scott – He knows how to use his good looks and charm to move his way up to the Blue Collar unit in the St. Petersburg Police Department. He uses his charm and personality to work with managers in implementing their new management styles. Detective Grace – She is the enigmatic member of the group. She may be quiet but she analyzes every situation immensely. Grace is hard-working and the team relies on her instincts because they’re usually right.
Blue Collar Unit Objectives Blue Collar is a television show about three hotshot young detectives in St. Petersburg, FL. Their sole purpose is to reinforce the dynamics that make a great manager. They patrol the streets in search of cold justice. They may be amusing at times but are able to rule with iron fists when necessary. Each episode provides a brief glimpse into real world management philosophies. Some managers adapt to our experts’ advice while others fail to evolve. Our direction follows along with our management protocols we have learned in our Principles of Management Class by Professor Diasio. We will highlight one or two specific themes of management in each weekly episode. We will compare and contrast different styles of management as problems arise. Our stories arise from real world experiences and unique imaginations. We hope to enlighten our viewers on different management problems and provide the many avenues for resolution.
Target Audience Blue Collar’s episodes were created to target the young minds of high school, college students and recent college graduates. People from all ages can relate to the Blue collar episodes but they are geared towards people who are in need of enhancing their management skills in the work environment.
Link to YouTube Playlist
Episode 1 – Structure Our first episode highlights the organizational structure within the Blue Collar and their department when the newly assembled team gets a crack at their first case. After receiving a call from an upset production worker about the decisions being put forth by Jeff, the company’s production manager. Earlier that day, Jeff got bad news from his fairly new and confused general manager, Paul, about possibly not making the numbers to reach the company’s goals, which is putting his bonus in jeopardy. Jeff then consults with the company’s sales manager, John, before making this decision to increase production which brings us to this call and problem with JackItUp Inc. Eager to show off his undercover skills, Detective Deboe steps up to take the lead on this case. Deboe reveals his plan to infiltrate JackItUp as an investor and assigns Grace and Scott with their assignments on how to help with the case. Managers beware, The Blue Collar Detectives are here, so follow along and learn as they are immediately pressed into action.
Episode 2 – Planning Blue Collar takes on a case that hits home with one of them when Detective Grace’s best friend, Petra, gives the team a call. Petra owns a local bar, Spirits Away, which is currently struggling financially. Spirits Away has only been in business for two years, but this year it ended the fiscal year $8K over its spending budget, putting the small business further into debt. Petra doesn’t know why the company was over budget, and if she doesn’t figure it out, she may have to file bankruptcy and lose her business. When Detective Grace and her Blue Collar comrades arrive on the scene, they discover that Petra hadn’t followed her strategic plans and spent extra money on expensive alcoholic beverages. The Blue Collar detectives discuss with Petra how important it is to make good strategic plans and to follow them. If she continues to be careless in her spending, her business is finished. Petra takes that advice to heart and hires a financial planner to help her organize her spending for the following year, desperate to keep her business afloat.
Episode 3 – Decision Making The team is called to a struggling paper company in Scranton, FL. The employees are fed up with the Regional Manager’s ability to make decisions. His immaturity and lack of leadership tasks make even the simplest jobs become very difficult. A good manager makes everyone else’s job easier through proper decision making and delegation. The guilty party, Mr. Michael Scott, is a nice guy but he fails to see the guilt in his ways. Blue Collar Unit quickly realizes that this is no small mission. At the end of the day, Michael just wants to be liked. This necessity overwhelms his ability to manage and make great decisions. The team begins to turn Michael and they show him the power of effective decision making. Michael begins to delegate to his team leaders and shows a willingness to analyze every task. Michael quickly realizes that if he makes the right decisions in an efficient time and manner that his job gets that much easier. Team Blue Collar showed Michael Scott what it takes to be an effective decision maker.
Episode 4 – Leadership A small downtown pastry shop has to hire local high school students to cut back on costs. The high school students won’t take the job seriously, and since she can’t afford to hire more people, or better workers, she must deal with these delinquents. Deborah has always been shy, and though she can bake the best pastries in town, she can’t step up and keep her employees focused on their job. This is a prime example of a manager who doesn’t possess great leadership qualities. Deborah decides to call team Blue Collar to come to her rescue. Detective Scott is a great leader and has volunteered to take on this new task. He was always popular growing up, which will help him teach Deborah how to discipline her young employees. Scott explains to her how sometimes a manager needs to lead by example. Scott wants Deborah to help sell the pastries to customers, not just bake them. He also is showing her how to reward good employees and discipline the bad ones.
Episode 5 - Valuing Employees A large airplane-manufacturing corporation loves to hire interns from local colleges, and then once the students graduate, hire them as full time employees. Many college graduates feel underappreciated working for this company because they have many great ideas that never see the light of day. The managers and owners are stuck in their ways and fear that if they change their manufacturing processes, then they could lose their company. This is leading to many college graduates quitting their jobs, and leaving the company with a high turnover rate and a bad image. The managers and employees want to address the problem together, so they call Blue Collar. Blue collar realizes that within many companies there is a large separation and many disagreements between younger and older more experienced employees. Blue Collar sees the potential in their many young employees and wants to teach the managers how to value everyone’s ideas and opinions. Blue Collar advises the managers to learn more about the ideas of the college grads, like globalization, and market awareness techniques before shooting them down.
Episode 6 – Motivation At a local electronic store in St Petersburg, the Blue Collar Unit is called in to deal with the manager, Bill. Bill is a hotheaded manager who uses the wrong techniques to manage and motivate his team members to do their job. Bill is aggressive towards his team, and he threatens them if they don’t do their job properly (aka his way). Before the Blue Collar Unit went to this store, one employee, Jan, stood up against Bill and told him how unconformable he’s making the team feel and how his management style isn’t working. Bill lost his temper and actually fired Jan from the store. Jan then calls the Blue Collar Unit and asked for their help in dealing with Bill. Once the Blue Collar Unit shows up, and shows Bill how his management style isn’t working, then Bill realizes what he was doing to his team, changes his ways, and starts to motivate his team. After the Blue Collar Unit left the electronic store, Jan got her job back and was promoted to second manager underneath Bill. Then sales went up and cost went down. Bill was able to turn his team around and now keeps them motivated to do a good job.
Episode 7 - Trust The Blue Collar Unit is commissioned to a local business where the owner believes a manager may be stealing from his company. It is believed the manager has defrauded the trust given to him by the company’s owner. It appears the manager created a fake employee and has been keeping the paychecks for himself. The Blue Collar Detectives work together with the owner of the company to get to the bottom of what is going on and find out who is stealing from his company. Will the owner be able to forgive the manager and give him a chance to fix what he’s done or will this be the end of the road for the manager in question? This episode illustrates how important trust is when running or managing a company. The business’s future is in the hands of its management and employees; how well can you trust who is working for you?
Reflections
Management class taught me how we all can take communication for granted. It was challenging working with people from different backgrounds and different personalities. I learned that trying to wing together a group project does not work. Most people can study last second for a test, but trying to coordinate six people to finish a project on a Sunday night is near impossible. My advice for people taking this class in the future would be to take this class with friends if possible. When your group meets have everyone exchange all contact information, email, phone numbers, Facebook pages. Trying to contact people only on canvas is very tough. Also for the larger projects meeting after class makes everything easier.
Reflections
Working in this group has taught me about teamwork. I’m generally a loner and prefer to work alone. “If you want it done right, do it yourself” is the mantra I normally go by. But this class and this group have taught me that being able to work in a team is important in management, and in life in general. Sometimes, you need to ask for help and have more than one person working on a project. For future students in this class, I would recommend managing your time efficiently. Plan what you’re going to do and when so that you aren’t stressing at the end of the semester.
Reflections
Working with my group on this project has taught me a lot about organization and coordination. We weren’t able to meet up a lot so we had to coordinate with each other to work on our parts separately and put them together. Throughout working on this project and creating the episodes, I also learned a lot about all the different aspects involved with being a manager. For future students taking this class, I would emphasize planning well and not procrastinating. Knowing who’s doing what is important to make sure everything gets done.
Reflections
I was hesitant at first about this group project. I have never really enjoyed group projects in the past. It took a few weeks but I realized Professor Diasio’s goals for this project. In order to be successful in this class, it is necessary to understand that management skills are truly developed outside the classroom. We have to wear many hats as a manager, we need to expect the unexpected and be able to deliver on time. All of these managerial dynamics came into play throughout the group project which in turn made us all better students and managers. My advice for future students is to do your work and do it early. When it comes to the group project, just try to do your best.
Reflections
Working with my group has been very interesting, although our times conflicted a lot and we were not able to meet up like we initially anticipated, but we were able to get the job done. In today’s fast paced world, schedules are much like ours and I think we adapted by communicating via text, email, and announcements. I like the way our TV show came into fruition and I believe our episodes really do touch all the aspects of management. I enjoyed learning through the lectures and writing logs which I believe made it easier for us to come up with our episodes. I will also remember how we came together as a team in class for projects like the tall shoe structure and the spaghetti, yarn building we had to create together. Although we didn't win, we were always in the running.
Reflections
Working with my group to complete this project was a good experience to learn about working with different kinds of people. I was given the leader role in our group and we decided to split up the work between everyone. I think this worked all right, but I think we should of met up more and work together as a team. But it was difficult to get everyone schedules to work. Overall, our team worked well together and created a great management TV show.
References 1. Bitstrips.com 2. Hitt, Black and Porter, Management. Prentice Hall,3rd Edition. 2012. ISBN 0-13-255328 3. Finger Puppet Management YouTube Channel