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lllHumor in Action!R. Wilburn Clouse, PhDVanderbilt University Using Humor inDeveloping theEntrepreneurial SpiritLearning in Action! A Cross-disciplinary Problem-Based Learning Environment for EntrepreneurshipThe Case of the Disappearing DrawstringTest Version 1.0(A Work in Progress)-571500-457200The Case of the Disappearing DrawstringStoryline by Jan WilsonIntroductionToday’s fast moving markets demand our full and constant attention in order to be successful. If firms (and the people that lead them) fail to react quickly and appropriately to change, they will be supplanted by those who can. Inherent in this fast paced environment, and one of the most difficult things to teach, is that distinct need for adaptability and flexibility that enables us to deal with things not always proceeding as we had planned. Sometimes we learn best when the lesson involves us personally. To this end, you are asked to put yourself in the following scenario as “Jan”, the Information Technology Director of a fictional firm. It is humorous, intensely personal, and will hopefully help you draw conclusions about aspects of your own leadership style. One of the most difficult lessons to learn in business, and indeed in life, is to be able to adapt to completely unforeseen circumstances. Your ability to lead will be directly affected by your sense of self and your portrayal of leadership skills under pressure. The case study outlined below describes a leader’s personal sense of self and leadership. Use the guiding questions and resource list provided to explore your views regarding what you would do in such a situation. Be honest with yourself and see if you can craft a solution to the case study that would allow you to preserve your sense of self as well as your leadership.Learning Vignette -- The Case of the Disappearing DrawstringThe entire upper and middle management team had been having problems with staff turnover in their highly stressful organ coordinator position. The position deals with counseling families on their options regarding organ donation after they have lost a loved one, and many staff members would suffer “burn-out” and leave the professional at approximately one year after taking the position. One innovative idea that was seeing some success in other programs was the incorporation of a new interviewing technique to identify the most successful attitudes to look for in persons interviewing for the job. This new technique required quite a bit of understanding, training and role-playing in order to be successfully implemented.The entire management team had assembled that morning at 8:00 a.m. for a long morning of training in the new interview methodology. Jan was the information technology director of the firm, and as such, is a member of the senior management team. She took her place among the other managers and senior line staff to get an overview of the new methods. She had chosen a silk pantsuit with a drawstring waist for her day’s attire. The suit was comfortable and stylish, and Jan knew she would have a long morning going over the interview technique and wanted to be comfortable.The meeting was long and involved. Jan saw quite a few things in the new technique that would benefit her department’s hiring, but even so, all involved were more than ready for the lunch break when the group broke at roughly 11:30 that morning. Shifting in those chairs for 3+ hours was hard on the entire team. Most of the staff had filed out and headed for lunch, but Jan and a core of 5 staff members (all ladies) remained at the table discussing one particular aspect of the interview technique. Three of the five tablemates were Jan’s colleagues – directors of other departments. Two were line staff who were directly involved in coordinator hiring. When Jan got her last questions satisfied in her mind, she thanked the team members involved and stood straight up, preparing to go to lunch.Unfortunately, when Jan stood up, her pants failed to follow! The drawstring, alas, had come undone sometime during the morning in all the twisting and turning she had done in her seat. Coupled with the slick silk fabric, there was absolutely nothing to keep them up once Jan changed position. To Jan’s astonishment, she was standing in the conference room with her pants around her ankles!Guiding QuestionsIf you were Jan, what would your own personal initial reaction be? Don’t give the “right” answer, but rather your honest reflection of how you would react in this situation. What variety of scenarios could present themselves in this situation? Sketch out at least two scenarios of how could Jan have handled herself in this situation.How could this incident possibly have been worse? List at least two other contributing factors that could have made this more embarrassing than it already was.Finally, after availing yourself of the resources listed below on personal leadership and humor, develop a short explanation of what you feel the correct response would be. We will debrief exactly what happened in “real time” after we review your suggested endings to the story. Resources for ResearchThe first two websites deal with issues surrounding humor and leadership. The Bolman and Deal book as well as the Vecchio text are straight leadership texts, but do have case studies on how leaders have used humor. In the Gardner book, refer to the case study on Margaret Mead to see how she used humor in defusing her “civilized” readers’ opinions of her reporting mating rituals in New Guinea. The Morreall and Clouse citations are analyses of humor, particularly organizational humor.union.uiuc.edu/programs/readers/humor.htm Bolman and Deal, Reframing Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco,1997.Vecchio, Robert P., Editor, Leadership, Understanding the Dynamics of Power and Influence in Organizations, University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.Morreall, J. Humor Works, HRD Press, Amherst, MA, 1997.Clouse, W., Corporate Analysis of Humor, Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior, Vol32, No.3/4, 1995.Gardner, H. Editor, Leading Minds, An Anatomy of Leadership, Basic Books, 1995.Humor Theories Used in this StudyClouse’s article, Corporate Analysis of Humor, cites four theories on organizational humor. Of these four, at least two pertain to this case. The first is superiority theory, which finds that the social perspective of humor is paramount. While this incident was certainly amusing for its social perspective, the article goes on to state that “when an application becomes funny in hindsight” it becomes humorous. In this particular case, Jan felt the humor of the situation when she felt superior to her former sense of self, rather than others. The hindsight only took a second, but the act of her pants falling down was riotously funny to her at the time.Incongruency theory is perhaps the most obvious humor theory that applies to this case. Most people centered around that table fully expected Jan to get up and exit the room stage right. They also expected that she would take her pants with her! If various staff members got up without their pants on a regular basis, the group would not have felt the incident so funny. Additionally, Jan’s ability to immediately laugh at the faux pas was paramount to the others seeing the situation as humorous (at least in front of Jan). A variety of scenarios could have been possible, including leaving the room in tears. For this reason, the case does not include the real ending, but rather encourages the students to pose several different outcomes in the hope that each situation could be debriefed and learning could come from the analysis of each varietals of solution. In reality, Jan did choose to defuse the situation with humor. Her laughter began immediately after the safe retrieval of her pants, and thus, the entire group laughed with her. The Alinea Group website cites the use of humor as an organizational tool that helps people cope with trying conditions. It was certainly used in this manner here. Humor is also cited in the Clouse article as a stress reliever in an organizational context. The case hopes to show the students that other, more negative outcomes for both Jan and all concerned could have been the case if humor had not been used successfully.The Morreall book devotes an entire chapter to mental flexibility. Humor enables people to “think outside of the box”. That has never been so necessary as it is today. This is an extremely difficult attribute to teach people in business school. If students can take this case (with all of its personal barbs and hooks) and apply it to their growth as a leader, then the case will be well used and students will hopefully make the connection between their own inner sense of composure and their behavior as leaders in their business settings.ReferencesClouse, R. and Spurgeon, K. (1995) Corporate Analysis of Humor, Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior, Vol 32, No.3/4, 1-24/Morreall, J. (1997) Humor Works, Amherst, MA:HRD Press. ................
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