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Chapter 7 assignment - Teacher: Maria Petrovici
Principles of Management (BUAD 251)
Millersville University of Pennsylvania
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10/12/
BUAD 251
Malcolm Gladwell on What Really Makes People Disruptive In summary, the article talks about how Malcom McLean was able to change the way the trucking industry ran and how McLean made this possible strictly with what was in his heart and the attitudes he held within himself. Some ways we can connect this article to our class is through organizational innovation, change forces, and resistance to change. Organizational innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas in organizations. This can be related to this article through McLean’s organizational innovation in bettering the trucking industry. McLean implemented a new way to redesign the connection between trucks and the box of freight as well as implementing a railway line to help move cranes up and down the ship. Change forces are forces that produce differences in the form, quality, or condition of an organization over time. This idea of management can be connected to the article because McLean thought about a new force to improve the quality and condition of the trucking organization around 60 to 70 years ago. To this day, McLeans forces are still being used today in the trucking industry as a way that has exceptionally improved the way this organization works. Resistance to change is opposition to change resulting from self-interest, misunderstanding and distrust, and a general intolerance to change. This idea of resistance to change can be found in the article through the people who did not support McLean and his actions. Many people doubted McLean when he shifted his field of work from shipping to trucking. People thought he would be unable to bring about change since no one has been able to do so in able 30 years. In addition to doubts, longshoremen went on strike when they saw what McLean was trying to do with the industry. Even though McLean was
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presented with this resistance to change, he was still able to work towards his goals, overcome challenges, and innovate change within the organization. One critical question I have is: why do you think people and workers within the industry were so resistant to the change McLean was trying to bring? I believe these people were resistant to this change due to many reasons. One being out of self-interest; these workers may have been worried that the innovation McLean was working to introduce may cost or deprive them of something personally. An example of this fear may be loss of a job or responsibility. People may have feared that McLean’s innovation, whatever they thought it may have been, would be able to take over multiple employee’s jobs and responsibilities. I also believe another reason to this resistance could be that people didn’t want to see someone new to the industry be able to come up with an innovation that workers who have been present in the industry their entire lives haven’t been able to succeed in doing in over thirty years of work. A second critical question I have is: do you think you personally could have the dedication McLean did and overcome the challenges, why or why not? Personally, I do not think I would have been able to do the work he did. I personally am a fan of stability; I would not have been able to sell a successful business I had owned to jump into a new one that promised me nothing. I think McLean had courage that would be very hard to find in other people, I would say most would not have taken the risks he did. In addition, I think I would have been discouraged from all the circumstances. McLean jumped in to innovate an industry that hasn’t had a successful change workers have been working towards in over thirty years. I think this circumstance alone would have turned me away from even trying. I would like to think I would have the dedication McLean did, but knowing myself, I do not think I would have been able.
Chapter 7 assignment - Teacher: Maria Petrovici
Course: Principles of Management (BUAD 251)
University: Millersville University of Pennsylvania
