Conflict

I have participated in many kinds of organizations and also I have experience a plenty of conflicts. For this blog, I want to share my experience in tennis club. There are a great deal of small or huge conflicts in the tennis club. 

My tennis club consists of more than sixty people and regular practice meetings are held on Saturday. We use six courts for four hours. Each member is able to vote for which session during those four hours to participate to play double matches. We play double matches so someone needs to create the game set for twenty four sets' double match based on the player's proficiency and preference. A lot of conflicts are made from making the sets of the games. Because every member tends to think that each own proficiency is higher than other whose proficiency is similar to him or her. In other words, people tend to believe that they are playing better than they really are. It spawns a lot of problems in making matches. In addition to this, relationship between each people also matter when making the games. Some people have a bad relationship with certain people. If the game maker does not know about this relationship situation, then it can also triggers the problems. Therefore, it has a lot of things to consider when creating the game sets for each week. 

In this sense, Jason claimed the complaints about the game sets. His main argument was that he always played with people who are playing worse than him. Also, he thought that he is playing fewer than he voted for. However, the game maker, Tom, who has intimate relationship with Jason, thought that he is actually not playing better as much as Jason thought and Tom thought it was fair to play. The proficiency of tennis is very difficult to measure. A great deal of things can have influence on the result of game such wind, luck, condition, sense, and so on. Especially, tennis is one of the very sensitive sports, which means that it is difficult to decide who is playing better or worse objectively. It is even more when those two comparable players have about same proficiency. Jason was mad at Tom's game making, so he just did not show up for games even though he was designated to play. This was very disrespectful way to express his feeling and thoughts because his pair and opponents were also not able to play for those session and they were judged by him that they play worse than him in a bad way. 

Tom and Jason were ready to fight again each other. They started to avoid the situation to meet with each other. However, one day, Tom who is older than Jason tried to grab a beer and talk about this situation. Tom explained him how he felt about Jason's behavior. Tom suggested him to apologize for tennis club members for the behavior and making loud problems. Tom and Jason was quite in a good mood and the situation seems to be about to end. 

However, after that day, Jason started to avoid him. Jason never talks to him and did not greet to him. Jason just ignored him. He might be such a person who has too strong pride. He just did not like someone advised him and made suggestion for him. After that day, Jason never even looked at Tom. Tom's reaction was disappointment. He was disappointed of him very much because the reason he invited him to drink some beer and talked about the situation is that he has at least some affectionate to him. However, his had was perfectly ignored and Tom also started to avoid him as well.  They were now strangers each other.

This relationship started to be apparent in other members. People are not trying to show their opinion but they are somewhat dividing into two groups. It was very bad for tennis club atmosphere. If Jason acted with more polite and consideration with complaining, it did not happen. Jason was too aggressive about the gam sets. The purpose of the tennis club is to leisurely play tennis with each other and help each other to play well. At least Tom tried to resolve the solution by having some heart to heart conversation at the end, however, Jason reacted negatively. If Tom understood that his pride was too high to accept advise, maybe he could find another way to resolve it as well. 

Discipline and Punishment

I have encountered a great deal of situation that also contains some discipline and punishment. As a son in my family, as a student in my classroom, as a member in military, I have seen or involved in the situation of disciple and punishment. Especially, I want to talk about my experience at military about punishment.

In military, there are specific and strict rules to follow, which applies to all soldiers in the organization. If the rules are not obeyed, the people who are against the rules, will be punished according to the accredited rules guideline. It is like a law in the society. For example, if a soldier is convicted as a driver under influence, he or she cannot be promoted, decrease monthly salary, statement submission, and so on. The specific amount is followed by the rules and details can be decided by highest rank of that squadron or organization. In addition to this, if it is related to violating law, then it is connected to the department which takes care of laws related issues.

I agree with that this strictly ruled punishment has a great deal of influence on the organization itself. It surely maintains the organization from any unexpected problems that are harmful to the organization. However, I think that the more important thing is discipline than punishment. In my opinion, the definition of discipline is broader than punishment. Discipline can involve some punishment. But discipline also contains the whole process of educating, which can be extension of punishment.

As an example, there was an airman who newly coming to our flight group office. Even though he was trained in the training camp, there should be something that is still vague or unfamiliar to him. He made a security accident at the first week of his placement to our office. In the flight group office, for security reason, it is prohibited to insert any kind of USB cable to computer without permission. It was somewhat basic common sense in the military community. However, he inserted his MP3 player USB cable to the office computer to charge his device. This is a pretty scary moment. Right after he inserted it, the information security department called to our office and figured out what is going on. Then, he got punished as the following rules such as reducing vacation days. The crucial thing in this situation is to realize him to make sure he is not going do this kind of problem again. But the method was wrong, in my opinion, from this point (after punishment). Every member in the office started to label him as a problematic person. They treated him like the transparent, which means that they ignored him. They blamed all the problems including subtle things on him, which was almost bullying. It was obviously not a proper method to discipline him.

If I were the man who has the authority to discipline him, I would have conversation with him at first than shouting and ignoring his opinion. He was new to the organization, which means that he needs some time to adjust the circumstance. After  the ruled punishment, I would help him to adjust the circumstance as person to person. I would teach him about responsibility as getting punished, then make him understand what he has done.

He who was treated like the transparent or a problematic person, had very long time to adjust to the office due to wrong method of discipline. Therefore, it is very important to make moderate or adequate discipline and punishment in the organization for itself and each member in it as well.

Team production with gift exchange

There are a great deal of experiences that I participated in the team and work together to make accomplishments. For example, I have involved in the team projects for presentation about starting up the new store in Urbana and Champaign area, or making a new board game and so on. These team activities were interesting and productive.

However, the team that has the most diversity and variety of people is my military team. In military, there are a great deal of background of people because they are collected from all over the nation without requiring strict limitations such as education level. In addition to this, it is mandatory to take a military service in the age between twenty to thirty, which makes sense that literally random people over the nation are gathered in the military. The reason why I stated this is because I realized that people around me (or hangout with me) are at least partially similar to me. For example, if I met a person in the class, then the person and I have at least have same education level, which we both decided to go to university to learn something. On the other hand, people that I met in the military are very different in that wise. One guy was a professional marathon player, and another guys were a plumber, electrician, heating specialist, students from electrical engineering, computer science, English, French, business, and so on. In addition to this, each one's characteristics were very different. Some people are very active and outgoing. Another people are quiet and serious. We were so different. Therefore, I want to talk about this team production with gift exchange.

In our team, one of the important duty was to prepare for welcoming foreign guests at Seoul Airbase. To welcome them, we spread red carpet, warm up or cool down the temperature in indoor facility, trim the garden and flowers, check if anything wrong with lights or electrical related issues, interpret between foreign people and our team if needed, and so on. In this situation, our gift were beautifully exchanged to make a great job. People who had background of  driving trucks, manlifts, and other ground work vehicles helped with moving a heavy stuff such as red carpets. People who had back ground of maintaining facilities was in charge of indoor temperature, people from electrical engineering and electrician background checked all the electrical related conditions for the building and facilities. People from gardener background took care of the garden cleanness and beauty. And I helped with interpreting conversation between Immigration officers and flying crews or pilots.

In addition to the background, there were many different characteristics. Some people are gifted to lead the work. They have stern voice, understand the situation, and have many experiences. On the other hand, another people are good at listening to others, behave rapidly, and respect other opinions. If there were only type of people who like to lead another people, this team might be hard to be successful. Besides the background and speciality, a good combination of characteristic is very important as well. I can say that these characteristics are also the gifts and this is also the important gift exchanges.

In this situation, I realized that there are no such a thing that can be superior to other things. One gift cannot make the huge accomplishments. People from a variety of gifts can make the bigger accomplishments if it were successful. If the team consists of the similar gift, this job cannot be done. It was possible because each people have own gifts and collaborate them.

Managing Future Income Risk

Description:



A great deal of choices made in my life leads to shape the future of myself. From elementary school, I am very interested in my future job and what I am passionate about. I believed that studying is one of a way to prepare for my future. I really enjoyed studying. On the other hand, I personally love drawing. Art is one that I can really focus on and makes my mind calm. As I grew up to be a middle school student, I am still not confident about what I really enjoy. However, I wanted to study hard because knowing new knowledge makes me feel seeing wider perspective of the world. 

In a second year of high school in Korea, students have to make decision about what kind of field to pursue for future. For example, the options might be among university-STEM area (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), university-others area that includes liberal arts, business, media, and so on. Music, arts, sports are also the options. Therefore, If I wanted to study engineering in university, I had to make a decision in the 2nd year of high school. Since I am not very good at math, I chose to study liberal arts of science. After graduated from high school, I chose to move to the United States to study new area; computer science.

At first, I studied at Oakton Community College to transfer to 4-years institution like UIUC. The  thought of studying hard stays until I transferred to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I managed to get 3.9/4.0 GPA and successfully transferred to UIUC as computer science and economics major. Studying is one type of reliever (Insurance) to me, which might reduce income risk. In addition to this, pursuing computer science is also a safe choice for me because it is very popular in the industry and well known for the job that will never make you hungry in the future. I am fluctuating between finding my passion versus reducing risk for future. If I looked back the path that I stepped, I preferred to reduce any risk for my life. I preferred to make the safest decision among the choices.

Last summer, I worked at department of Computer Science UIUC as a research assistant. My research area was network and information centric area, which were appealing to me at first but I might not continue to do it because I found that I am not super excited about researching. I am still browsing to find what I am really passionate about, but the fields are narrowed down to somewhere between computer science and arts. Therefore I am applying internship for next semester because I want to make sure which area fits for me. My next goal is to get internship during next semester for data analytics or software engineer. All these experiences will be stacked up to be an eye toward the future.

My brother managed most of situation and decision well and now works as a HR manager at Korean corporate, SINSEGAE. He also thought that studying hard is one type of preparation for his future even though he did not know what to do for future when he was young. He graduated as a business major at a well known university, Seong Kyun Kwan university and experienced internships at a company in the United States and SK Telecom in Korea as a business marketer. He decided to have many business related experience before full time job and successfully got a full time job. He managed situations safer ways but just interest fields are different from mine.

Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots (Questionnaire format)
(1) Are the themes from one post that tie into other posts? if so, what are those connections?

There are connecting dots among the themes of blog posts. My first blog was to write about my alias economics John Bates Clark and connect his job to our class work. Then, I wrote about the transaction cost, opportunism, team structure and "illinibucks". All the themes are tied as an economics of organization. Transaction cost introduces any type of cost that occurs for the transaction. I was supposed to write about my experience in organization and transaction cost related to my experience. Opportunism is discussed in the class that it is like a car sneaks in at the end of merging lanes instead of waiting in the right lane. For team structure, I wrote about the most successful organization in my life based on the text book's explanation. Lastly, I wrote about "iilinibucks", which is the way of thinking how to line up in the huge organization like a college.

For the better organization, the member should understand the concept of transaction cost and opportunism and take advantage of them. Also, "illinibucks" gave me time to think about how to efficiently manage the priority in the organization. Therefore, each theme has its own small concept but they are tied into one big concept of the organization.

(2) Aside from addressing the prompt are there ways to connect what you wrote about to course themes? Were there connections that are more obvious to you now than at the time you wrote the post? if so, can you elaborate on that?

At first, it was difficult to connect one theme to another themes. Because I focused on each week's blog post and sometimes I could not understand the theme as well. I was more like rather concentrating on each blog post than connecting the dots. In addition to this, it was vague to connect each theme with few posts. However, I can see the connection between each concepts of blog posts by reviewing them now.

(3) Has your process for writing these posts evolved? Please explain how that has come about.

When I started to write blog posts, it was even hard for me to follow blog post rules. For example, I tend to be slightly off the topic and I did not satisfy minimum counts of words. However, after reviewing and responding to professor's comments and seeing other student's blogs, my writing has been evolved.(At least, trying to focus on the theme and following the basic rules). In addition to this, I could discuss about blog posts in the class time, which is helpful to understand more about the post's theme. Plus, as I learned about organizations of economics, some knowledge learned through the courses helps to understand next's concepts.

(4) Now put yourself in the position of writing the prompt (this one or other prompts for future posts). What would you like to see? Can you give some reasons for that.

If I put myself in the position of writing the prompt, I would see the connection to the course. I feel like writing blog posts is digesting raw knowledge. Therefore, if the writer can connect the concept and apply the concept to another in writings, this is a good sign of learning the stuff. Next, I would also consider examples as important values. It is ideal to learn the course context in real lives, which means that invaluable information in textbook is converted or melted in each one's life. Therefore, I would see connectivity and experience in writings.

Illinibucks

There are a great deal of things that are allocated to students on a first come and first serve base in the university. When it is difficult to prioritize, it seems to be fair to take first come and first serve base, because it attributes the decision to the people who are actually interested in. By contrast, what if the campus gave each student an allocation of "Illini bucks" which could be used of the purpose of moving to the head of the line?

One of the candidate of this "illinibucks" would be registration of classes. Current registration system prioritize to let major-related students have the priority to register for the courses. If "illinibucks" takes this place, it would definitely create some sort of confusion. First of all, it is possible to delay students to complete degrees in the university if the administered price is too high. The students who are not affordable to buy highly priced "illinibucks" are impossible to register for the popular classes unless they pay the much amount of money. This will result in delay of graduation for some studnets and discouragement of study. If the administered price is too high, then the demand should be very limited to the students who are enormously rich. In this case, "illinibucks" will turn out to be a luxurious good, which might not have a great deal of influence to the registration system. If the administered price is too low, then it might not affect the current system. Because it is affordable to everyone to pay one dollar for registering a class. Therefore, it will be similar to the first come and first serve base with a little payment.

Another candidates would be concert, speech, or sports game tickets. For example, the previous president, Barack Obama visited to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign to give students speech in last year and the tickets to attend are randomly given to students who registered to attend. In this case, students might be ready to use "Illinibucks" to get the tickets. The phenomenon of applying "Illinibucks" to this situation is expected to be similar to the situation of registering classes. If the price is too high, students are willing to pay that much of money if they are very passionate about or enormously rich. If the price is reasonable, students who are interested in are willing to pay for "illinibucks". If the price is too low, the demand should be higher and it will turn in to the first come and first serve base with a little payment.

The introduction of "Illinibucks" can resolve problems of high demanding in college, if its price and use are wisely systemized. It could lead to the efficient way to line up the students, when it is necessarily needed to. However, this also could spawn problems such as inequality or unfairness, because it can permantly keep some students from being a head priority of the lines.  Students would contest against that college is selling "illinibucks" and take advantage of the benefit to school, which might be looked like too commercial.

In conclusion, there are many situations of using "illinibucks" in college such as registering classes or buying a speech ticket. If the administered price is too high, it is likely to turn out to be a luxurious good which is beneficial to very limited students. If the price is too low, it will not affect current system much because it is affordable to everyone just as the same. However, if the demand and supply lines are crossed at reasonable price, it can be used efficiently to line up the students.

Team Structure

I have participated in many teams in my life. Among them, a team structure in military was successful in efficiency-wise. From 2016 to 2018, I worked at 35th flight group at Seoul Airbase as air force. My job was to deliver some confidential documents, manage facilities, and anything that is needed.  Even though each member of the team does not tend to freely communicate with each other, its hierarchy and division of work take actions to a variety of situation very efficiently. Therefore, I would say that this organization had been successful for its own purpose.

I was a part of an office of the airbase management department and it is divided into four different divisions; Operational division, facility management division, ground assistance division, and hospitality division. Each division comprised of a leader and 5-10 members. Of course, members are also followed by air force rank. These four divisions collaborated to conduct the confidential mission. The highest team's authority was the captain of the airbase management department who is above four divisions and the highest rank. The captain ("One boss hierarchy") commands any important circumstances through collecting leaders of each division.  In this way, leaders are informed about missions and circumstances to prepare for any kind of work by commanding members of the division. Communication are very well performed (or even strictly performed) because the work does not follow the regular work time such as(9AM - 5PM). It is flexible to the missions from upper department, so working time really varies, which means that members are always putting them selves to be open to communication. (Keeping eyes on phones regularly, no silence mode, and so on). Because of specialty of military, the lower ranker has to obey and follow higher ranker. Mutiny is strictly prohibited. Therefore, relatively stronger hierarchy team can be built compared to another team outside of military.

According to the Katzenbach and Smith, this team has performed well as an organization. proper amount of members (5-10) are involved in each division, which is small enough to control. In addition to this, the majority of members of the department have worked for each job at for many years, which means expertise and specialization are proven by years of experience. Plus, members are committed to a common purpose half reluctantly by speciality of military. Therefore, this team is equipped with distinguishing features of high function team.

In the case of welcoming VIP mission as an example, the captain gathered each leader of the division to briefly discuss about the mission at least a week before. Each leader reports facilities, equipments, and members that are available to the mission. The captain recognized any special things to know at this moment. The captain reports about our department condition and situation to the upper department and other department which co-work with. And each leader of the division commands to their members about any needs and things to prepare before the day. For example, members of managing facility division check the temperature and electricity of welcoming buildings, gardening condition, cleaning condition, and possible emergency assistance. 48 hours before, all divisions rehearsal the welcoming mission for completely preparing for the day. Then, each leaders report any special notes to the captain and captain reflects or confirms them for the last time.

As we looked into the example, this team works with optimal size of people, well performed communication and complementary skills. The manageable size let the team reacts rapid to any circumstance and members with years of experience contributes a lot to stability of the team.

In conclusion, my organization experience, the airbase management department at 35th flight group performs well, equipped with many advantages such as size, communication, skills as an organization with one boss hierarchy.

*I excluded any confidential information about military on this blog.