Cliff Bars Solo Climb

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2004/12/01/8192527/index.htm

For years I have been eating Cliff Bars because they are all natural and taste better than other energy bars. After reading this article taste and the fact that they are all natural won't be the only reasons I choose Cliff Bars over the competition.

Cliff Bar is a privately held company owned and managed by founder Gary Erickson. The company competes with global giants in the food industry; including Nestle, owner of PowerBar, and Kraft, owner of Balance Bar. It may seem like Cliff Bar is destine for failure competing in this market, but that's far from the reality. Cliff Bar owner, Gary Erickson has done the opposite of what most business owner's would do. He has turned down multiple substantial offers from food industry giants to ensure the success of his company. Erickson is not focused on the money, he is focused on becoming the industry leader while standing by the ideals of corporate social responsibility.

Despite the doubt from industry experts, Erickson stood by his values and decided to keep the company under his control. As a result business partner and co-CEO, Lisa Thomas demanded a buyout and left the company, leaving Erickson to manage the company on his own. By making this decision Erickson proves he has what it takes to be a leader. He also shows signs of the five major leadership traits-including, intelligence, self-confidence, integrity, sociability, and determination. As a result of a buy out the company would have to make drastic changes Erickson was not comfortable with. For starters, the company would be moved from California to the Midwest, forcing Erickson to part with his 65 current employees. Also, many of the unique qualities Erickson worked so hard to establish at Cliff Bar would be at jeopardy. Including, twice-a-month three-day weekends, a twenty foot climbing wall in the office, and his commitment to backing multiple social issues. Erickson also shows signs of emotional intelligence. He continually shows signs of how the a leaders personality supports the leadership process.

It's all about reusing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO7a9wS_K2k&feature=related

The video I picked to discuss was an interview conducted with the CEO of UsedCardboardBoxes, Marty Metro at one of his warehouses. UsedCardboardBoxes is a company that buys cardboard boxes from major companies. Metro tells how cardboard boxes that are recycled here in the United States are actually shipped over to China, where there is a high demand for the fibers in the boxes. China then takes the fibers and makes cardboard boxes of their own to ship valuables all around the world. What UsedCardboardBoxes actually does is buy cardboard boxes, inspects them to make sure they are reusable, and sells them as moving boxes for the 43 million families that move in the United States every year. Metro explains how in the past few years, “reduce, reuse, and recycle”, has been a phrase commonly used, but over the course of time has been a saying that has been blended down into the term recycle. He poses the question, “Why break something down if it can be reused in its own form?” Metro takes reuse to a whole new level. He points as “green” as reducing cardboard boxes may seem, the fuel cost to ship the boxes across seas, to have large machines and plants use fuel and energy to break these boxes down and use fuel again to ship these boxes back, is not really a green way. Keeping the boxes domestically, and not having to do a thing to these boxes, the most the families that buy these boxes have to deal with is miscellaneous company names on their boxes.

This interview really opened my eyes as to how some forms of recycling actually are not necessarily green. This makes me wonder what other forms of going green are not necessarily environmentally friendly and what possible extra steps could be taken by major businesses to avoid issues like this.

Looking at Metro, he definitely encompasses leadership qualities in the sense that he has produced a major change in the way the cardboard box industry works, and hopefully he is producing movement along with the change. He’s inspired many companies that he buys the boxes from to donate them to his company instead of ‘recycling’ them to China. Since it is not a very large company, he also possesses manager qualities because he still has a good grip on the company through controlling and problem solving many day to day activities throughout the company.

And also looking at the Comprehensive Skills Model , Metro seems to have many qualities off of the model. His problem solving skills are what led his business to be what it is today. He discovered a major problem in the cardboard box recycling industry, and decided to make a major change. His knowledge about the issue, what was being done before he stepped in really helped him when he was creating a business. Metro also has incredible motivation for what he is doing. His motivation drives him to make his business bigger and better every day. What I’m posing is, does it take someone with many skills to do what Metro has done? Are all of these competencies and individual attributes necessary to start and run a business? If not, are there other possible ways to be a leader and make a difference without possessing all of these skills?

Green Beer?

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2003/06/01/346429/index.htm

http://www.newbelgium.com/culture/alternatively_empowered/sustainable-business-story/planet/energy-and-greenhouse-gas-emission.aspx

In 2010, the total sale of beer in America was approximately $101 billion, according to BA the Brewers Association. This multi-billion dollar product has never really been seen in many consumers’ eyes as being an “eco-friendly” product besides the occasional recyclable bottles associated with certain brands. New Belgium Brewing Co. has and still continues to lead the way in making the beer business in America more environmentally friendly. This is due to their CEO, Kimberly Jordan.

What is Kimberly Jordan’s Leadership style?

Kimberly Jordan’s leadership philosophy can nearly be summed up by her quote of the culture at New Belgium Brewing Co.,” Alternatively Empowered means making business decisions based on minimizing environmental impact, encouraging the growth of our employee owners, and being a socially responsible contributor to our community. It's rewarding, challenging, and educational. It's what makes us New Belgium” (newbelgium.com). She is concerned with the town and state that her business is located in, as well as being an industry leader in environmentally friendly innovation. In Chapter 4, we discussed the Ohio State Studies and the Michigan Studies. Jordan’s leadership style would closely be tied to consideration (Ohio State) or in other terms an employee oriented style (Michigan). She has empowered her employees to be owners as well as herself and management. An example of Jordan’s employee oriented style goes back to a decision made in 1999. “In 1999 it became the first brewery to use wind power, bought from the local utility, rather than electricity from coal plants. It costs about a third more, but the brewery's employees (who own 32% of the company) voted for the switch, even though the difference comes out of their yearly bonuses. As of mid-2002 the brewery had saved eight million pounds of coal and prevented 15 million pounds of CO2 emissions from being dumped into the atmosphere” (cnn.com).

The Green Culture

In addition to using wind power, Kimberly Jordan has also implemented many other ‘green’ processes within New Belgium Brewing Co. The company uses a closed loop circuit. Which at the on-site Process Water Treatment Plant (PWTP), “New Belgium uses microbes to clean all of our production wastewater… A byproduct of this process, methane gas, is harvested and piped back to the brewery, where it powers a heat and power engine”(newbelgium.com). Furthermore, New Belgium uses solar power, and a smart grid to effectively lower costs of the amount of energy used. The smart grid can gather information by itself to shut off non-essential functions to eliminate the waste of resources being performed when in fact these resources should not be being used at all, such as lighting in areas that do not need to be lite at the time.

The Future

The future at New Belgium Brewing Co. seems to be continual growth and innovation. Many consumers and people around the United States know the New Belgium product line, and Kimberly Jordan knows that her business has loyal customers. Where she is more interested in is about” being a business role model and creatively approaching the craft of brewing”(newbelgium.com)  The future seems to not only continuing the environmentally friendly culture at New Belgium but expanding their culture and their processes to other companies within the industry. “We are working with other breweries around the United States to develop some partnerships which may lead to bigger things.  I think it would be great to create a consortium of breweries that collaborate and brew across the country thereby minimizing our environmental impact and being closer to our customers.” (cnn.com)

Kimberly Jordan’s style to leadership goes to her core, which seems to really be a considerate, passionate, employee oriented type of leadership. She has a drive to be a leader in going green within her industry, but also wants to make partnerships within her competitive industry to slowly bring down the environmental footprint the beer companies have left behind already.

Enterprise: Leading for a better and greener environment

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/16/news/companies/enterprise_green_cars.fortune/index.htm

Enterprise is the nation's largest car rental company and has a huge impact on the environment in which they interact. The company was founded in 1957 and is ran by Andrew Taylor, CEO and Chairman. Recently, the family owned company has really stepped up their part to save Mother Earth. In many ways, the company relates the Comprehensive Skills Model to follow through with their commitment to their followers.

Individual Attributes:

The general cognitive ability of the company's leaders is great. Enterprise understood they are a major contributor to the environment and used creative and divergent thinking along with great general reasoning to come up with a much needed change. CEO Andrew Taylor grew up into the business and developed a sufficient crystallized cognitive ability to help follow through with contributing to "going green" in some way or another as his father, former CEO, had done in his times. Taylor is certainly motivated by having dominance over the market, realizing he can make green changes that are for the social good, and has been more than willing to follow through with his promise to the members of society. The optimistic and caring personality characteristics of the company leaders lays a vital role in carrying out this process.

Competencies:

The company used their creative abilities to effectively approach upcoming and ongoing ill-defined problems. For example, the company pledged to plant 50 million trees in America's national forests, starting back in January 2008, to offset the carbon emissions of their rental cars. To compliment this program, customers can pay an extra $1.25 fee for their car rental to proceed in the process of offsetting carbon emissions. Enterprise matches this amount up to $1 million per year. Fewer than 1 in 10 people customers decide to pay for this option. More related to their particular operations, has been the on going process of reducing the consumption of resources their very own service uses, oil and gasoline. They do this by offering more than 440,000 vehicles that get better than 28 miles per gallon on the highway. 73,000 vehicles use "flex-fuel", containing a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline and they offer about 5000 hybrid electric cars.

Enterprise really took into consideration the perspectives of the society and has became behavioral flexible by being open and willing to change to ideas benefitting others. They have had effective communication to reach out to communities nationwide and provide the vision they are trying to warrant. With that comes knowledge. The company has accumulated loads of important data and were able to organize and use it in an effective manner.

Leadership outcomes:

Enterprise has a carried out effective solutions to the best of their ability in many aspects. They were very logical in they way they thought. They did research on ways to help offset carbon emissions. Two most logical ways they came up with and implemented were to buy vehicles with options of electric and E85 burning engines as well as planting trees that help reduce carbon emissions in the air. The solution has been effective as 1 in 7 trees planted in national forests in 2007 were funded by Enterprise. Taylor and his leaders certainly used a unique approach that is currently and will be providing a good deed to society for years to come. I would go to say Taylor has certainly led a very satisfactory based company and performance has been exceptional. The company is the largest car rental company in North America, containing approximately 75,000 happy employees. Enterprise was also rated 21st in the Forbes list of "largest private companies in America." The company was also rated 9th in customer service and amongst top 10 places to begin a career in the Business week magazine in 2006.

Career Experiences:

Andrew Taylor grew up into the company under founder and father, Jack Taylor. He began working his way up the company including jobs from an area general manager, to President and Chief Operating Officer, to CEO, and in addition chairman 20 years later. During this time he had a lot of hand on experience,tough challenges, and training to sufficiently and effectively build his company he runs today.

Environment Influences:

The environment has certainly played a huge role throughout Enterprise's career. Technology has been a key factor as it has allowed the company to build and obtain more fuel efficient vehicles. This provides the company the ability to have a leading edge in building a better company and provide more for the society.

Taking all areas of the comprehensive skills approach into hand, Taylor and the leader's of his company, seem to have it all together. The questions is, are they doing the right things to continue the successful business they have ran for years??

-Kyle Linnemann

Anderson: "The Green Business Pioneer"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericagies/2011/08/10/interface-founder-ray-anderson-leaves-legacy-of-sustainability-success/

Until reading this article in Forbes I didn’t know who Ray Anderson was or what his company, Interface, did. Ray Anderson passed away this August, and he was the founder of Interface. He founded the company in 1973 and the company brought a “European style of carpet tiles—which could be easily replaced if part of the carpet became stained or worn—to the U.S.”

WHAT MADE HIM A LEADER?
He is a “green business pioneer.” He saw a need for change in his company, industry, and the world he lived in and he acted on it. Carpet is usually made with fossil fuels and represents a large amount of waste in the country. If people needed new carpet they would rip the entire carpet out, throw it in a dumpster, and get new carpet. These carpet tiles were different. They did not have the fossil fuel, harmful waste, and you could replace one tile instead of the entire thing. Let’s face it why didn’t companies recycle or “go green” back in 1973? Well, from what I have learned it was more expensive. Costs went up across the board and people did not see the impact industries were having on the planet we live. A green product was seen as a risk. Why not take the easy way out and profit off of a cheaper product? Ray Anderson did not care about that risk. Instead, he cared about the world and environment that his grandchildren would live in. Therefore, Anderson influenced his followers (company) to achieve a common goal. His goal is to achieve a zero environmental footprint by 2020.
Anderson and his company “went green” in 1994. He has since generated many short-term wins for his team. The article goes on to say his team has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 82%, cut waste by 66%, and invented and patented new machines, materials, and manufactured processes which increased sales by 66%, doubled earnings, and raised profit margins.

IS ANDERSON MANAGING OR LEADING?
He is leading. Instead of looking for order and stability he sought out adaptive and constructive change. “At Interface, an important step was opening up the culture to tolerate failure, to encourage experimentation.” Anderson aligns people and empowers them to try new things to find better ways to achieve their goal. He created a vision not only for his company but for others’ to follow in his footsteps. His vision is to eliminate any negative impact his company might have on the environment.
Bennis and Nanus said, “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.” Isn’t that what Anderson did?

WAS HE BORN THAT WAY?
The author of the article heard him speak at a conference and said “his grandfatherly demeanor, southern drawl, and sheer niceness were somehow electrifying, and he held the packed crowd rapt.” According to the Trait Approach he was born with these traits which make him a leader. From what we know already he was intelligent, determined, sociable, and had integrity. The trait theory would say it is Anderson and his personality that are central to his leadership.

OR DOES THE SKILLS APPROACH MAKE MORE SENSE?
Maybe he has these traits but didn’t he learn from others? Anderson was changed by Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce so I think the Skills Model is better suited. He has individual attributes which include those personality traits and what he has learned from experiences and reading—crystallized cognitive ability. He has the competencies of the model. He read the book and was faced with a large, ill-defined problem—where to start with environmental change. He defined the problem, formulated a new understanding, and generated solutions. Performance outcomes are evident given the statistics but maybe the judge of his leadership outcomes will be the answer to the question—WILL HIS LEGACY LIVE ON?

Welcome!

Hello Bloggers!

We are conducting a blog for our class MQM 382: Organizational Leadership at Illinois State University. Our group consists of 5 Seniors including: Michael Steinbarth, Lauren Brooks, Stephanie Repsel, Reed Decker, Kyle Linnemann.

The primary focus of our blog is to discuss and share our views and opinions on articles that involve leaders of companies leading change in the modern business climate. Some topics that will be discussed include: corporate social responsibility, successful changes within an organization, and companies that made successful internal changes for the future, along with many other interrelated topics.

Some issues and questions our blog is seeking to discuss and analyze are, how implementing these topics can add value to an organization.