Reputation

A place where I grew a strong reputation is at Wilmot Mountain.  It is a small ski resort in Wisconsin which was under 20 minutes away from my house.  I started skiing when I was 3 years old and got skilled at the sport by the time I was in middle school. I began to grow a reputation at the small ski resort by going there often in middle school and high school participating and doing well in different skiing competitions they hosted there.  Once I turned 16 and had my own car I begun to work at Wilmot doing a couple different jobs for them.  Because I had gone there so often growing up, once I started working there I felt less like the new guy because I already had a relationship with numerous employees which made the transition into my first job a lot easier.  My main job there was to teach young children ski lessons.  The lessons would be 45 minutes long where I would teach the child the fundamentals of skiing.  I only taught young children in the beginning because there are 3 levels of ski instructors (beginner, intermediate, expert) and I was only certified to instruct beginner lessons because you need more experience to teach intermediate and expert. I built a strong reputation at the mountain because at the end of every lesson the customer would give the instructor a rating on a scale of 1-5 and I had a very impressive overall rating for being the youngest ski instructor there.  Moving on to the next winter I worked there, I got certified to teach intermediate skiers too which broadened the amount of lessons I could teach.  The second winter I worked there we hired a lot of new employees which was nice for me because that meant there was ski instructors I finally had seniority over.  Seniority comes into play because you get to pick which lessons you want to teach for the day based on how long you have worked there.  So, with my good reputation and having seniority over new employees, I no longer had to teach lessons on days that it was very cold outside and could just send a younger instructor for the lesson.  However, this did not turn me into a lazy employee because I could teach more lessons than the winter before because I could teach both intermediate and beginner now and my instructor rating increased from the year before.  The manager was an old man that had worked there for years and someone I got to know as a young kid growing up there.  He actually taught me lessons when I was young so our relationship was very good before I started working there and only grew stronger with my strong work ethic. 

I also worked with a team to design the terrain park at Wilmot (where all the ski jumps are).  I was apart of this team because the terrain park was where I spent most of time on the mountain to learn how to do new tricks.  I built a strong reputation at the terrain park being able to land a number of different tricks which is why I was invited to be apart of the team that creates the terrain park.  By my senior year of high school, I got contacted by the US AirBag Tour which is a company that travels to ski resorts around the country with an inflatable stunt bag for skiers and snowboarders to learn new tricks on.  The tour went to Wilmot my senior year and they contacted me to come participate and to be apart of the promotional video they make.  I was offered this opportunity due to the reputation I built in our area as one of the better terrain park skiers.  This was a very cool experience because I got to ski with a lot of other talented skiers and it was beneficial to my skiing career because I learned how to do my first backflip while I was on the tour. 

Triangle

The principal-agent model arises when an individual or a company is caught in the middle between two agents. This model works best when the two agents have the same end goal in mind and share the same ideas about what path will most likely bring that success. However, this is almost never the case, and the individual is caught between wanting to please both agents while also wanting the best outcome for him or herself. Ideally, the agent in the middle is not looking to benefit themselves at the cost of those employing him, but again this is rarely the case. Since I am currently unemployed, this is not an issue I face in my everyday life. However, I believe there are many examples of how we see the principal-agent model arise commonly in society.

A great example of how the principle-agent model acting as a triangle in modern society comes from the 2016 World Champion Chicago Cubs. In 2011, Cubs management hired Theo Epstein as President of Baseball Operations, and recently all his hard work paid off in the form of a championship. But imagine for a minute that Epstein had failed. Epstein has to answer to two different principals: the fans of the Cubs and the Rickets family who employ him. As President of Baseball Operations, it is Epstein’s job to put the Cubs in the best position to win. But this is where the principal-agent model comes in. The Rickets family wants Epstein to succeed and put a winning team on the field, but not necessarily in the most expensive way possible, as that money is coming out of their pockets. The other agent, the Chicago fans, who were desperate for a championship, wouldn’t care how much money Epstein spent on players as long as wins were being accumulated. In this case, both the principals want the same end result which is ideal, but they have different ideas about what may be the best path to success. It was then Epstein’s job to balance spending with the need to win, which he has done more than adequately. This model could easily fall apart, however, because if say Epstein spent more than any other team on players and the Cubs won the division but not the World Series, he would likely be pleasing the fans because they technically have a winning team, but his other principal, the Rickets family, would not see all his spending as justified because no World Series was won.

The principal-agent model is a great way to study the motives of people in their work. It reveals why people do what they do, and whether they’re trying to serve one principal, both principals, or just themselves. Therefore, more than anything, the model says a lot about an agent’s morals. If one principal continues to get the short end of the stick, this would be cause for that principal to investigate that agent and to maybe seek out a different one. From my experience and especially when looking at this sports example, in these cases the only way to find a resolution is to fire the agent. This may be an isolated example though, as the demand on general managers to win games for the franchise is so high. There is no way for a general manager of a sports team to please one agent while ignoring the other, but in other examples I suppose it would be possible this to happen. It’s unfortunate that the turnover rate in this specific business is so high, but unfortunately I do not see a way for those in sports business to please only one principal and keep their job.

Work Conflict

While collaborating with a group you are bound to run into some difficulties that will need to be worked out.  Everyone will always have their own opinion on the best way to resolve the problem but group work becomes difficult when one resolution cannot be decided on by the team.  This can be hard because people have different personalities, have not worked together before, or have bad group work skills; regardless, in order to maintain the efficiency of the team they must be able to resolve conflicts. 

I will talk about a time at my work this past summer that I have talked about before in previous blog posts but it also applies to this prompt.  I worked for a logistics company this summer which had a 400,000 square foot warehouse where all the of our product was stored.  About half way through the summer we had run out of space for product but kept needing more space because our cliental was expanding.  With the squeeze of space we bought an empty warehouse right next door to ours which expanded our storage space by 50%.  The conflict comes into play because we mainly distribute food products so our warehouse has to meet very strict FDA requirements and we needed the new warehouse ready for product in a timely manner.  The new warehouse had been vacant for many years so there was a lot of cleaning/fixing up to do.  It was too costly to the company to hire more employess or an outside company to fix the warehouse so we had to deal with it internally.  Being on the low man on the totem poll of the company it was mine and a few other intern’s jobs to fix up this warehouse to standards. 

I took a leadership position in the situation because I knew we had to get our regular work at the logistics company done on top of keeping up with the time table to fix the new warehouse which would be difficult to balance.  With no air conditioning in the warehouse and many hours of physical labor ahead of us I knew I needed to motivate the other interns to work efficiently on this project so we did not have to spend any extra time on it nor get yelled at by the managers.  I broke up all the work we had to do into smaller sections to make things more organized with short term tangible goals to keep morale high.  Early on we each found our weaknesses and strengths for the renovations and would each individual focus on our strength so each person was working as efficiently as possible at the task.  Setting up this system was a preventative move by myself to avoid future conflict because working efficiently, staying organized, and communicating is the easiest way to avoid causing more conflicts.  The work was very knit picky because the warehouse had to be essentially spotless to meet FDA standards but we had to find the perfect balance of working fast to get meet the deadline but also do careful work so the end job goes beyond standards. 

Due to the system I created and the execution by my team it led to us getting the new warehouse ready well before the deadline and met all FDA and company standards.  In this conflict we were lucky that more unexpected conflicts did not arise because one of the hardest things to overcome is to fix a new problem right when you think you have fixed the old problem.  Having organization and a systematic plan will enhance your chances of resolving the conflict because it eliminates uncertainty in the direction you want the resolution to go.  Due to my work throughout the summer and being able to conquer this unexpected challenge, I was offered a full time position at the logistics company for the following summer because they said one of the most valued attributes an employee can have is team work and problem solving skills.