Selfishness Prohibiting Our Core Values

In each of the three articles there is a common theme, and that is that as children humans are good. In the first article it depicts our natural tendency to share, the second article shows that children like when things are fair, and the third article portrays children as empathetic and caring. Looking deeper at the article "The Power of Altruism", David Brooks talks about how institutions are built around selfishness, and that those selfish arrangements block our natural tendencies of being good. I agree with brooks, every corporate institution I have been involved with has been focused on manipulating ways that prove beneficial to the company in the long run. 

For this reason, I will be talking about a company that did not harness my natural longing to do good. Over the past summer I was an intern at Enterprise, there are some good connections with the readings and my experience that I want to talk about. My job was essentially to check people into the cars they were renting, and with that I was trying to sell them on coverages/upgrades/toll passes. Each month I made Enterprise close to $30,000 on top of what these customers reserved, by selling those previously mentioned items. With that amount I was the top selling intern, and positioned myself each month to win $300 as a bonus for my success. This means that a multi-billion dollar company only rewards 1% to it's best sales person. Looking at this further, 99% of the money I was able to bring in was given to people who are making a significant amount more then I was, like managers and all of the higher ups. If this wasn't frustrating enough, Enterprise is a very customer service based company, which is a good thing usually. However, in order to actually receive that $300 bonus the customer service score at our branch would have to be above corporate average. This score was calculated by surveying 100 random customers, if the customer was completely satisfied it would raise the score but if they were anything but that it would go against it. With that said, at the end of the internship I was only paid out on one of three bonus I should have received. 

The gift exchange mentioned above clearly shows the selfishness that exists in corporate institutions. In the first article, Haidt talks about how children have the natural tendency to share when there is collaboration. At Enterprise, there was clear collaboration, if not for me doing my job and selling customers products the higher ups would not be making any money. We both are doing very different jobs, but we both are pulling on a very intricate string that when pulled releases lots of money. Instead of sharing the money, the vast majority of it is kept and not dispersed evenly. I do think that most if not all companies act selfish, and it is the selfish systems that we are surrounded by that make us become selfish at heart. We become the very ones who will be put in a situation where we are pulling on an intricate string with someone else, but instead of sharing the wealth that is released we will choose to keep as much of it as we can, and it will be a significant amount more then someone who is doing a job nearly as important. 

Risk

I want to first talk about the decisions that I made my freshman/sophomore years. I chose to become an Economics major, largely because I did not get into the Business school. I figured that Economics offered a broad set of tools similar to what Business had to offer. Now, an Economics major definitely is very broad which is good, but it doesn’t really teach one particular skill that a recruiter might be looking for. So for this reason I think that settling for Economics definitely increased my income risk going forward. Sophomore year I went to my first career fair and landed an internship with Enterprise, which was pitched to me by the recruiter as a position where I would learn about all aspects of business, but in reality it was entirely all sales. With that said, I excelled at the position and was the top intern on the sales matrix, and I genuinely found a passion for sales. I am the type of person who likes to meet new people and talk, I never wanted a job where I would be stuck in a cubicle working with numbers all day.

Next I want to go into my junior year, my current year. Knowing that I wanted to pursue a future in sales I decided to target a Communications minor, I figured this would help me stand out with regards to other students aspiring for sales careers. With my second career fair looming I wanted to have a plan this time around, I had a more prepared pitch that sold myself as someone that their company should take a chance on. With this plan, I saw a lot more success from almost all of the companies I targeted. I received interviews which eventually led to offers. This coming summer I will be working for Textron as a Territory Manager Intern, and I hope that this internship leads to a full time position because it is quite lucrative. If I do as good as I expect it would set me up to land a full time job that makes on average $75,000 with commission bonuses. I chose to work at Textron over various other companies, like Pepsi, Arthur J. Gallagher, and Otis. I chose Textron because I believe they are the strongest company; they manufacture products that cross a diverse platform of businesses. Working for a company like Textron will allow me to mitigate future risk and hopefully will open the door for even better opportunities down the road. I also considered Pepsi but their products are not as impactful as what Textron has to offer, I predicted the risk that each company offered in terms of commission percentages on sales and Textron offered a much better opportunity.

Next, I want to take a look at the Economics of some of my choices thus far. At Enterprise I had immense success, and my managers noticed this. Seeing this success, they sent me an offer to come back again the following summer. After some consideration I decided to decline the offer and try to obtain a better position at the career fair. I did so because the opportunity cost was too high in my opinion, I saw my talent fitting in with a better company that could offer a higher salary to me. If I took that Enterprise offer, I would have essentially been throwing the Textron opportunity away, an opportunity that is way more lucrative and an opportunity that opens the door for so much more. In regards to choosing Economics, I was forced to settle because I was declined from the Business school. This increased my future income risk because Economics majors are less sought after. I was forced into a situation where I wasn’t allowed to learn what I had envisioned on learning, and it definitely pushed me back a bit. However, it didn’t derail the train, it actually has only pushed me further. Ever since my rejection I have pushed myself to find internships and prove that I will still be a success even without the major I had envisioned. Adding a communications minor allowed me to diversify my knowledge, which helped me avoid risk. A lot of the lessons I was taught in my communications classes I applied directly into the career fair, and that career fair is where I landed my internship this summer. Choosing to diversify my coursework is one of the major reasons I have reduced a lot of my future income risk.

Lastly, I do have an older brother who went to UIUC as well. He is four years older than me and was a communications major. He needed an extra semester to graduate because he miss-managed his course work. When he began looking for a job he struggled at first, it took him a fair amount of time before he landed a job at Cars.com. He did not manage the situation well out of school though, he needed more time to graduate and he struggled to find a job, but I took note of this. I thought about why this was the case for him and really made an effort to make sure it didn’t happen to me. This is why I go to my counselor regularly and also why I keep trying so hard to find internships. The counselor allows me to make sure I’m on the right path to graduating on time and getting internships should allow me to find a job much easier out of college. My brothers struggles made a huge impact on how I have been handling my collegiate career, having his guidance has been a huge reason for my success.

Reflection Post

After looking through all of my prior posts I saw some common aspects in each one. The most noticeable to me was that each post has to due with organizations that I am/ have been a part of. They all are asking me to look at particular experiences I have had in different organizations and relate what those experiences to topics in the class. I have talked about my basketball team, internship, fraternity, and school all with specific details. In each post it seems like I am deconstructing the elements of these organizations to get a grasp of what makes them run so smoothly. I hadn't noticed how related all the posts are to each other until I did this reflection. I like how they all are about personal experiences, it makes me more interested in what we are learning in class. It also makes what we are learning easier to understand, the fact that I can relate everything to personal experiences really clears up most of the confusions I run into.

Looking back at my first post I can see an evolution in my writing style. To first note the most obvious changes, I started to separate my writing and I started to put the title in the correct position. These small changes make my posts look much more appealing to the eye, and help the reader enjoy them more. On top of those visual changes, the material I am writing today is much more analytical then it was at first. I am thinking of different angles and approaches and trying to talk about my experiences in much more detail. I have realized that in order for you to fully understand the organization I was a part of I can't be vague, I have to deconstruct it in as many ways as possible, allowing for you to have a much clearer picture of exactly what I am trying to portray to you. With the changes in style and the changes in the material I am writing, I can certainly say that my posts have been getting better each and every week.

When it comes to prompts, I want to first say that I have really enjoyed all of the ones you have provided thus far. Something that I would like to see would be a compare and contrast type prompt. For instance, maybe prose something where we have to compare an organization we are a part of on campus to organizations at different universities. It would give us a broader scope of knowledge on organizations rather than just what we are a part of. It would also allow us to see how different demographics play into the way organizations are put together and run. What I have seen in organizations in my life is very subjective to where I have grown up, and with that in mind I think it would be beneficial and interesting to dive into organizations that are located not so close to home. Another prompt idea is to have us talk to one of are parents and write about their job's structure. I think this would enlighten us on how a big time company works, since I expect most of our parents have solid and reliable jobs at major corporations. To me, this is would fit right into the course material and is something that is interesting to you to read and for us to learn about before we have to start are own job search.

Illini Bucks

I think Illinibucks would be an interesting idea to adopt, but it would need to be done with a lot of attention to detail though. One major concern I thought of was that there are only so many openings for certain classes, and usually those openings are needed by people to graduate. If Freshman/Sophomores used their Illinibucks to take those openings it would cause major problems for those older students. You could argue that they could use their own Illinibucks to register for that class, but if they were not smart at managing their Illinibucks they may have used them in the prior years. Essentially, the most desired classes might be impossible to access without these Illinibucks. This could also be looked at as a positive for some people though, it would allow them to register for these classes whenever they chose to do so, and not just their senior years.

I think there could be a limitation on the uses for Illinibucks as well, there really are not that many opportunities for their implementation. However, I have thought of a few ideas for their use. The first would be to be able to register for Mckinley appointments on the exact date/time you wanted. In my experience, Mckinley is always booked at least a fews days in advance, and it's usually hard to get a time that fits in your schedule. For me, this would be a great opportunity to use the Illinibucks, especially since a lot of times getting medical attention is a very high priority. I also know that many of my friends have had struggles signing up for Mckinley appointments when they needed them the most.

Another Idea I thought of would be to be able to see your counselor at any time/date. From my experience, there are certain times when the counselors are booked to the brim, especially during registration periods. During these times is normally when I need them most, so seeing them is a need and something I would be willing to spend my Illinibucks on. Another way to use Illinibucks would be to use them to talk to your professors. In some of the larger classes I have taken office hours can be a timely process. I have had very important questions to ask but haven't had the patinece to wait for the professor to give me his attention. If I could use my Illinibucks to jump the wait and have my questions asked immediately it would help clear up a lot of confusions I have in my classes.

All in all, I think there are a ton of uses for the Illinbucks and it certainly is a promising idea, but I don't know if the logistics of it are detailed clearly enough to prove to me that it would work. For instance, it scares me that signing up for a class might only be possible for individuals with a set amount of Illinibucks. If I used all my Illinibucks by my senior year but need that class then I would be tough out of luck. The idea has promise but at the end of the day I think there are a few to many question marks to start doing it at this University.

Successful Basketball Team

A successful team I have had the privilege to be a part of was my varsity high school basketball team. We were comprised of only 18 players, but the best players that our school had to offer. In order to make the varsity team you had to be a highly regarded player, you had to prove your worth over freshman/sophomore year. One of the strengths of our team was the depth that we had, I was never a starter but I was skilled enough to be one. Our team would run 10 deep on every given game, that means 10 people would see playing time every game, and we were always pushing each other to get more playing time.

In regards to pushing each other we did so at every practice. Since the skill levels were similar between the bench players and the starters you could never be certain upon your playing time, essentially you had to earn it. This meant practices were like auditions, they were what earned you playing time or limited your playing time, and the competitive practices were one of the largest reasons for our success. I would always go all out at practice to try and earn more playing time, and my hard work was well rewarded. Over the course of the year my playing time gradually grew higher, I was becoming a better player because of the competitive atmosphere, and since I was growing as a player my playing time grew equally in hand.

To relate this to chapter five I wanted to take a look at the structural configurations, and more specifically the simple hierarchy structure. My team had a head coach who was respected and thought of highly. The players were able to talk to him, pick his basketball mind, and learn from his basketball intelligence. He was essentially the power source of our team, without him we would not have been the successful unit that we were. But there was more to the hierarchy then just him, we also had two assistant coaches who were highly respected, and had a ton of basketball experience. The assistant coaches were assigned specific tasks, one of them was specifically a defensive coach and the other was an offensive coach, which really helped with helping our team reach its optimal potential. Without these assistant coaches the head coach would not have been nearly as effective, and ultimately our team would not have been nearly as successful. The last part of the hierarchy were the players themselves, we obviously have the most important role because without us there is no team at all. We needed to be guided in the right direction from our coaches,  but ultimately the success of the team was riding on us.

Lastly, Katzenbach and Smith discussed six characteristics of high performing teams in the chapter, and I wanted to note being collectively accountable. My team had a strong sense of accountability within itself, if a player made a major mistake in a game he would take a seat and the next best player would get an opportunity. The depth of the team allowed for a strong sense of accountability. Not only did the coaches enforce this accountability, but the players did as well. If one of the team members let the team down for a particular reason, the unit as a whole would say something to that member. We were able to communicate to each other positives, but also negatives, and we were able to hold each other accountable when something was wroth addressing. All in all, my varsity basketball team made it to the semi finals, which was a huge accomplishment for my school. It marked the first time in over 20 years that my schools basketball team made it that far in the playoffs, and I know and realize that the success came from the structure of the team itself.

                                                                   Opportunism

In life you are presented with moments of extreme opportunity, sometimes you can see it while others you don't, deciding whether to act at the chance is a decision in the hands of whom the opportunity is presented. When I was a Sophomore in high school I was given a very opportunistic chance and did not act upon it. My brother is six years older then me, and he has a passion for cars. He loves to buy them on a regular basis, for the right price, and then sell them later for a profit. After he had been doing this for multiple years, while having extreme success, he wanted to teach the trade to me. He found a car that he told me was extremely under priced and told me that he would let me buy it, allowing him to mentor me through the process. It was a bright red 1987 Corvette with only 52,000 miles on it, all while in beautiful condition. The owner was asking only $4,500 for the car, my brother went on Ebay and showed me that the exact same model with 57,000 miles sold for $8,000 a week prior.

It was very clear that this car was a extremely underpriced, a car that I could make a ton of money on, and a great opportunity. However, I was too afraid to pull the trigger on it. I kept thinking of things that could happen to the car, all of the what ifs were killing me. At the end of the day, I let my brother have it for himself, he ended up buying the car for $4300 and selling it for $8,000. While I did miss this great opportunity, it was a wake up call for me. That car showed me how lucrative this could be for me and  how easily it was to do. After that missed opportunity I diligently searched for good deals and ran them through with my brother. When I did find an opportunity I did not run away from it this time around, I jumped at it. To this day I am still buying cars and selling them for a profit. With school I am limited to my summers, but it is a fun hobby that pays for a good portion of my school, all while also giving me a car to drive.

I would say that the various explanations all tie together. In my eyes being a "good citizen" means you abide by the rules, essentially being unethical. If you are doing unethical things, like for example stealing, then you are not being a good person. Even though it may be tempting to steal the delicious cake while no one is looking, it is not ethical and it is not what a "good citizen" would do. The last explanation is that "good things come to those who wait" and that people are patient. This relates to being unethical as well as being a "good citizen". For example, it is really tempting to take the cake that is right in front of you, but if you don't take the cake then when you eat later the food you eat will be that much better. Essentially, being ethical, a "good citizen", and waiting to eat food later over stealing the cake allowed for that person to be better off. For that reason I would say that the reasons you stated amount to the same thing and are all related.

                                          Experience Within Organizations

 Over the Summer I had the opportunity to intern at Enterprise Holdings, the structure at Enterprise was constant while I was there, but it was constant because it was structured well. What I really liked about the structure was the fact that it was well managed, every position had someone above them to act as a mentor and to be a leader. What this also meant was that there is ample opportunity for promotions within the company, with many different levels within an organization comes many chances for personal growth. I noticed this while I was there, people were always interviewing for better jobs, and this is only possible due to the structure they have.

 On campus I am part of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, which has a very distinct structure. We have an executive board, which has various positions that handle different tasks. Each individual who is on the executive board has the job of forming a committee of people who help with doing the tasks of the job. A few examples of positions on the executive board are philanthropy, social, recruitment,  secretary, as well as president. The recruitment chair is in charge of finding and bringing in new people to join, which is not an easy task. They have to be the right fit, and in order to target the right people it takes a lot of time. This is where the committee comes in to play, the leader of recruitment assembles a group of 10+ people to help him, they host events at the house to meet potential new members. When they have these events everyone on the committee networks, and once the event is over they have a meeting to talk about who was liked and or disliked. After lots of events and networking, the recruitment chair finds enough new members to join the house and his job is completed.

We have weekly meetings that we call chapter, at these the executive board is front and center, they talk about everything that is necessary to be accomplished for the week. After all the important business is handled the executive board opens the floor for general discussion, this allows for any member who wants to say something to have there voice heard. If people have anything to bring to the table, or anything to say at all they are given the opportunity to do so at this time. This structure is nice because it gives everyone the opportunity to help better the fraternity and have there voice heard. Something that has changed recently is that we don't allow potential new members to go to our pre games unless they commit to joining before hand. We do this so that people are joining for the right reasons; we want them to join for the brotherhood and not because of particular events. I think this is a great strategy as it allows us to really meet these people before giving them a bid to join the house.

On campus I am always striving to get a good grade in my courses, and to do so I need to have the right resources in order to succeed. Like for instance, I need to purchase the books, access codes, and proper school supplies. All of these goods I would consider to be transaction costs in the process of me getting a good grade. If I avoid these transaction costs the transaction (getting good grades) doesn't happen. The books (transaction costs) mattered because it is significantly harder for me to succeed without them.