I have always been one to try to diffuse potential conflicts but I can think of one particular instance where I refused to compromise and the conflict escalated. I used to work for the ABC Foundation, which was a non-for-profit that used telemarketing campaigns to collect donations and raise money, as a caller. Like the 80 other callers, my job was to call potential donors to 1) update their information, and 2) try to collect a donation from them.
It was essentially a very simple sales job. Although there was no product, we were selling them on the idea of supporting the Foundation and that their money would be going to a good cause. We had a prescribed "script" that we could use but it was more so meant to be used a guideline. The script was relatively aggressive, you were supposed to ask for donations of different amounts at three different points in the call before you hung up. The idea was that you would build a rapport with the potential donor so that they would feel more comfortable donating later in the conversation. Not to toot my own horn, but I was a fairly successful caller because I was often able to convert a disgruntled "no" into a donation through the process of rapport building. My strategy was to get to build trust between myself and the potential donor by learning about them and telling them about myself. Once they felt like I was a real person, I would sell them on the idea that they had a vested interest in the future of the foundation and that they would be able to make a real lasting impact for the foundation's cause.
There was one call in particular that led to a conflict between me and my manager. I was speaking to a retired woman who, immediately after my first ask, declined to make a donation. She explained to me that her husband had alzheimer's and that she was working part time at an elementary school so that they could make end's meet every month. We eventually started talking, she told me about her grandkids who were in college, and I told her about my college experience. This was right around the time after Sandy Hook, and she was absolutely devastated about it because she couldn't imagine that done to the kids at her own school. We talked for about thirty minutes about it before we started talking about the foundation and her connections to it. I finally asked for the second ask amount and she said no again because she really didn't have the money, but it seemed like I could probably push her to. At that point I was ready to give up, I knew that I could probably convince her to donate but it felt morally wrong because I knew that she did not have the money to. As she went to go check her checkbook (yes she explained to me that she balanced all of her budget in her checkbook) I tried to explain this to my manager. Unsurprisingly they didn't give a damn, they told me to push for the donation, and since I had little time to negotiate I had to listen. So when she came back, we talked a little more and eventually I sold her on the donation and she gave $26, because it was all she could afford and wanted it to be dedicated to the children lost in Sandy Hook. I thanked her for her donation and we concluded the call.
After the call, my manager called me into a conference room to talk about it. I explained that I was pretty upset that we just took advantage of this old lady's emotions for $26, of which meant a lot more to her than it did to the foundation. My manager didn't care, and was actually upset that I would try to end the call without pushing for the third donation. Our disagreement escalated and led to an angry conversation.
Fast forward to the next day, I was then awarded for having "the best call of the week". This only got pissed me off more, because it felt like it was clearly done in spite by my manager because of our disagreement. This poisoned the relationship, and even friendship, with my manager to the point where a few weeks later I turned in my two weeks notice.
Having raised over $20,000 dollars in the semester, I quit because of a disagreement over $26 that was unnecessarily escalated. This was a lose-lose because they lost a good caller, and I lost a paycheck every two weeks, and all of this could have been avoidable if my manager had taken a more passive approach.
By intentionally escalating our conflict instead of trying to diffuse it, my manager failed to resolve this conflict. Had they just heard me out, and acknowledged that I felt what was done was morally wrong and put it to rest, the story would be very different. But to award me for it and portray it as something that I should be proud of was unnecessary. Although it was my job to get the donation, the situation sent me the wrong signal, and created a work environment that I no longer wanted to be involved with.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Team Production and Gift Exchange
The study done by psychologists Michael Tomasello and Katharina Hamann poses an interesting scenario in how gift exchange and team performance may be impacted by systematic changes. This study was a test to see whether or not children were inclined to share the "gifts" that they both receive from working together. In the study, the children had to pull on separate ropes simultaneously in order to receive marbles, where one child received one marble and the other received three. They were then observed as to whether they would be inclined to share marbles to reach an equal distribution. This was compared to an alternative scenario where the marbles were already in the cups when they got to the machine, without having to pull any ropes. Similarly, their behavior was observed to see if they would share marbles and why. When comparing the outcomes of both scenarios, the children in the first scenario were considerably more likely to engage in sharing and reach an equal distribution by either one child giving his/her extra marbles or the other child asking for them and immediately being asked for them. These results can be extrapolated to our expectations of gifts when asked to work together, and that when equal work is done, individuals are more willing to share their gifts with the others on their team.
The only example of this that I can think of was when I was working at a small healthcare consulting firm. There were ten consultants who brought in work for the company, and given the relative small size of the group, the scale of contracts ranged from the thousands to the millions of dollars. Since they were all working for the collective good of the company to bring in more business, there was an opportunity for individuals to feel they deserved more of the pot since they were bringing in more money. Why should someone who brought in a million dollar contract be paid the same as someone who brought in a handful of thousand dollar contracts. However, this was not an issue for them, as all of the consultants shared the value brought in and received around the same level of salary. I think this dynamic was able to exist because the of the small size of the firm. There was a very strong feeling that everyone was working as a team and that there was no competition among the consultants. It was a very tightly knit group, and as such everyone felt the need to do their best work so that the team would benefit. The priority of the team before the individual benefited all of the consultants because they were able to share the profits of the company equally, and all equally succeed, instead of distributing pay by commission which would have fractured the team mentality of the organization.
The only example of this that I can think of was when I was working at a small healthcare consulting firm. There were ten consultants who brought in work for the company, and given the relative small size of the group, the scale of contracts ranged from the thousands to the millions of dollars. Since they were all working for the collective good of the company to bring in more business, there was an opportunity for individuals to feel they deserved more of the pot since they were bringing in more money. Why should someone who brought in a million dollar contract be paid the same as someone who brought in a handful of thousand dollar contracts. However, this was not an issue for them, as all of the consultants shared the value brought in and received around the same level of salary. I think this dynamic was able to exist because the of the small size of the firm. There was a very strong feeling that everyone was working as a team and that there was no competition among the consultants. It was a very tightly knit group, and as such everyone felt the need to do their best work so that the team would benefit. The priority of the team before the individual benefited all of the consultants because they were able to share the profits of the company equally, and all equally succeed, instead of distributing pay by commission which would have fractured the team mentality of the organization.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Managing Income Risk
Preparing to start my career after completing my degree has been the focus of my entire undergraduate career. This has been prevalent through the many different directions my education has gone over the past four years.
I initially came to the University of Illinois to study Chemical Engineering, which was influenced primarily by the fact that the university was a top engineering school and that entry level chemical engineers see some of the highest initial income's for recent graduates. Second semester, I took a class where we met with professionals in the field to paint a better picture of what chemical engineers do in the real world. Unfortunately, after listening to a new presentation each week, I began to realize that engineering really wasn't my passion. The last straw was a presentation from an engineer who had gotten his MBA and come back in more of a business/managerial position. Inspired by the kind of work he did, I met with him after class to seek advice on how I could experience a similar dynamic and type of work. His advice was simple, drop engineering. He told me that while it is a great field, if it is not the actual work you care about, you won't advance in your career, and that many engineer's salaries flat line after several years of work. This was a very quick lesson in the value of future dollars, that although I may not start out at as high of a level, the plateau in salary would not occur until much later and at a higher level. After this conversation, I began to rethink my career choices and reorient my goals to reflect the value of entering a field with a great potential for growth.
Almost on the contrary, I switched into Political Science, as I was always interested in it and reasoned that a liberal arts degree, when leveraged properly, would help me to grow my career later in life. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I got my first job as a telemarketer for the University, which was at first just for some extra cash, but of which the value would be seen later. Additionally, I was always told how critical it was to have at least two well established internships during my undergraduate career. Looking for an internship the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year, I came to the quick realization that there are few recruiters who would continue to read my resume after reading "B.A. Political Science". I was lucky in that I was able to leverage my telemarketing experience into an internship at a small healthcare consulting firm. That internship, little did I know, would spark a passion for healthcare management, an industry with relatively high barriers to entry. I learned about project management, developed my business acumen, interacted with clients, and worked on my professional data analysis skills. Despite having one internship under my belt and finally finding a field I cared about, I soon realized that I incurred the same problem. At the fall career fair my Junior year, I saw the eyes of countless recruiters glaze over as they realized I was only studying political science. I completely struck out, and decided that if I was going to get a job, I needed to add a greater value to my degree by adding something quantitative, which is what led me to Economics. I picked up my second major in Economics shortly after, and come the Spring career fair, the story was very different. Recruiters were interested in me for my economics background and I was able to leverage that and my past internship to get another internship for the summer between my Junior and Senior year. This new role, was essentially a technology liason that involved me interacting with the client and the database that managed their information. While this was completely outside my wheel-house, I developed my query writing and problem solving skills. Now as a senior, all of these experiences have culminated to a competitive full time offer at a healthcare consulting firm. Through the interview process, they viewed my educational and technology experience along as the necessary prerequisites to join on as an entry level consultant in the Revenue Cycle Transformation division. For some perspective, this division uses multiple dimensions of data, generally claims related to find non-labor reduction ways of improving reimbursment rates or saving money for the system. Essentially, restructuring clinical sequences so that profit may be maximized without diminishing the quality of care.This position is not only in a field that I am passionate about but it is also well paid and in a competitive work environment. I see a lot of potential for growth now that I anticipate joining, and as such have been able to reflect on how my decisions helped to mitigate my income risk.
First, I chose to study something that I cared about in addition to adding a major that I knew would get me a job. While it would be ideal to only study one or the other, at the end of the day I knew that the purpose of getting my college degree was to get a job, and in order to do so I had to have a diverse education that provided me with both quantitative and qualitative problem solving skills. Additionally, I also tried to develop my business skills very early in my academic career. Although I didn't realize it at the time, progressive work experience and internships through college allow your future employer to trust that you will be a successful employee and that you will perform in a business setting. Most importantly, however, I found that I secured my income risk by developing my "personal brand". I never thought that I would advertise my self as an "analytics" guy, but my economics degree and internship in the tech role branded me the label unintentionally. Analytic problem solving skills are easily trusted, in that the formal education and the experience one receives is a measurable indicator of that person's ability to apply those skills in a professional setting. Since this skill is easily trusted, it meant that I had opened the doors to more opportunities since seemingly now every position has some "analytics" dimension to it. I evolved my brand from a Political Science student looking to take on complex problems in the business world, to "a soon to be graduate in Political Science and Economics that uses his analytical problem solving background and passion to healthcare to innovate data-driven solutions in the changing climate of healthcare".
Keeping my eyes to the future now, I chose to accept the offer at the consulting firm because I knew that it would only further develop my analytic skills and healthcare practice knowledge, without pigeon-holing me to a particular division within healthcare (clinical documentation, electronic health records, etc.). Since Revenue Cycle has a wide breadth of potential projects, this will set me up to develop a larger range of experiences and hopefully one day allow me to enter a managerial position at a higher salary because of my breadth of experience. While it also serves me well that this position pays the best of the other offers I have received, I know that had it not I still most likely would have taken it because of the opportunities for growth that it would provide me later in life and the ability to secure a higher income as my career grows.
I initially came to the University of Illinois to study Chemical Engineering, which was influenced primarily by the fact that the university was a top engineering school and that entry level chemical engineers see some of the highest initial income's for recent graduates. Second semester, I took a class where we met with professionals in the field to paint a better picture of what chemical engineers do in the real world. Unfortunately, after listening to a new presentation each week, I began to realize that engineering really wasn't my passion. The last straw was a presentation from an engineer who had gotten his MBA and come back in more of a business/managerial position. Inspired by the kind of work he did, I met with him after class to seek advice on how I could experience a similar dynamic and type of work. His advice was simple, drop engineering. He told me that while it is a great field, if it is not the actual work you care about, you won't advance in your career, and that many engineer's salaries flat line after several years of work. This was a very quick lesson in the value of future dollars, that although I may not start out at as high of a level, the plateau in salary would not occur until much later and at a higher level. After this conversation, I began to rethink my career choices and reorient my goals to reflect the value of entering a field with a great potential for growth.
Almost on the contrary, I switched into Political Science, as I was always interested in it and reasoned that a liberal arts degree, when leveraged properly, would help me to grow my career later in life. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I got my first job as a telemarketer for the University, which was at first just for some extra cash, but of which the value would be seen later. Additionally, I was always told how critical it was to have at least two well established internships during my undergraduate career. Looking for an internship the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year, I came to the quick realization that there are few recruiters who would continue to read my resume after reading "B.A. Political Science". I was lucky in that I was able to leverage my telemarketing experience into an internship at a small healthcare consulting firm. That internship, little did I know, would spark a passion for healthcare management, an industry with relatively high barriers to entry. I learned about project management, developed my business acumen, interacted with clients, and worked on my professional data analysis skills. Despite having one internship under my belt and finally finding a field I cared about, I soon realized that I incurred the same problem. At the fall career fair my Junior year, I saw the eyes of countless recruiters glaze over as they realized I was only studying political science. I completely struck out, and decided that if I was going to get a job, I needed to add a greater value to my degree by adding something quantitative, which is what led me to Economics. I picked up my second major in Economics shortly after, and come the Spring career fair, the story was very different. Recruiters were interested in me for my economics background and I was able to leverage that and my past internship to get another internship for the summer between my Junior and Senior year. This new role, was essentially a technology liason that involved me interacting with the client and the database that managed their information. While this was completely outside my wheel-house, I developed my query writing and problem solving skills. Now as a senior, all of these experiences have culminated to a competitive full time offer at a healthcare consulting firm. Through the interview process, they viewed my educational and technology experience along as the necessary prerequisites to join on as an entry level consultant in the Revenue Cycle Transformation division. For some perspective, this division uses multiple dimensions of data, generally claims related to find non-labor reduction ways of improving reimbursment rates or saving money for the system. Essentially, restructuring clinical sequences so that profit may be maximized without diminishing the quality of care.This position is not only in a field that I am passionate about but it is also well paid and in a competitive work environment. I see a lot of potential for growth now that I anticipate joining, and as such have been able to reflect on how my decisions helped to mitigate my income risk.
First, I chose to study something that I cared about in addition to adding a major that I knew would get me a job. While it would be ideal to only study one or the other, at the end of the day I knew that the purpose of getting my college degree was to get a job, and in order to do so I had to have a diverse education that provided me with both quantitative and qualitative problem solving skills. Additionally, I also tried to develop my business skills very early in my academic career. Although I didn't realize it at the time, progressive work experience and internships through college allow your future employer to trust that you will be a successful employee and that you will perform in a business setting. Most importantly, however, I found that I secured my income risk by developing my "personal brand". I never thought that I would advertise my self as an "analytics" guy, but my economics degree and internship in the tech role branded me the label unintentionally. Analytic problem solving skills are easily trusted, in that the formal education and the experience one receives is a measurable indicator of that person's ability to apply those skills in a professional setting. Since this skill is easily trusted, it meant that I had opened the doors to more opportunities since seemingly now every position has some "analytics" dimension to it. I evolved my brand from a Political Science student looking to take on complex problems in the business world, to "a soon to be graduate in Political Science and Economics that uses his analytical problem solving background and passion to healthcare to innovate data-driven solutions in the changing climate of healthcare".
Keeping my eyes to the future now, I chose to accept the offer at the consulting firm because I knew that it would only further develop my analytic skills and healthcare practice knowledge, without pigeon-holing me to a particular division within healthcare (clinical documentation, electronic health records, etc.). Since Revenue Cycle has a wide breadth of potential projects, this will set me up to develop a larger range of experiences and hopefully one day allow me to enter a managerial position at a higher salary because of my breadth of experience. While it also serves me well that this position pays the best of the other offers I have received, I know that had it not I still most likely would have taken it because of the opportunities for growth that it would provide me later in life and the ability to secure a higher income as my career grows.
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