The Dichotomy of Leadership Books

Last year, or was it year before, I got to read Extreme Ownership by Lief Babin and Jocko Willink. It was perfect timing too, Congressman Babin (who I saw wearing an Airborne Wings tie pin) came by our office soon after and we gave him a tour. I was able to talk to him about his son’s book, and mention that not only was I in the Rangers, but that my foster cousin, Seth Stone, was in the SEALs. Congressman Babin was stunned. Apparently Lief and Seth were roommates at Annapolis. 

 

I use the lessons from Extreme Ownership just about everyday. It’s a great book with a great message. The writing is a bit simple, but overall the lessons are invaluable, especially for business people with no military background. Extreme Ownership is a natural part of leadership in the military. 

Book 2 Line and Page 1

So another first line in my "series" of novels posts. This one again by WEB Griffen. You know exactly what you're getting with that guy right?

This one is no different. Marines are, at least in his mind, kind of a type. 

Methodological Choice for Qualitative Article

Research Purpose: 

The purpose of this research is to explore in what ways industrial contactors are motivated to remain at their organizations after several weeks of work within the organization as compared to their expectations about the organization and their career goals. 

A secondary purpose is to help determine if the worker's expectations for the organization and their goals for themselves and their careers align with the organization’s goals for their employees and career development. This study was performed to determine: (a) challenges faced by new employees to organizations among contractors who support the energy industry, (b) how these new employees deal with those challenges over their first three months of work, and (c) how the concepts of "fit" theory apply to these employees, the contracting organizations and the above challenges. 

Research Questions:

R1. How do the participants express their career goals and expectations for their positions within the organizations at the time of their being hired?

R2. How do the participants express their lived experiences about their first three months of working within their new organizations especially regarding fit theory?

Methodology: Case Study 

Book: Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. SAGE Publications.

Qualitative Research - Problem Statement – Purpose Statement – Research Questions - Positionality

Problem Statement

What is the problem this study will address?

The contracting organizations and learning community that HASC supports habitually has a high turnover of employees. Contractor organizations will hire and the new employee leaves before or soon after onboarding and training is complete. There are a variety of reasons that there might be high turnover, one of these might be low quality “values fit” between the hiring organization and the new employee. 

The problem that this study will address is to what degree are employee’s values considered by organizations when they are hired and are organizations working to make a “values fit” when hiring. By determining if values fit is a contributing factor when recruiting, hiring and onboarding new workers, contracting organizations could potentially decrease the high turnover rates in their organizations. Less turnover has the potential to decrease costs and increase overall safety for these contracting organizations. 

What are your personal goals for doing this study? What motivates you? 

HASC works with thousands of contracting organizations and their workers represent a learning community which has not had the benefit of much research or study in terms of training effectiveness or hiring and retention. As HASC is a non-profit association, which functions to support the contractor organizations, having a better understanding of: (a) what motivates workers in the industry, (b) who these workers are, and (c) what they value, can help HASC to understand the learning community it supports to a greater degree. 

What are your practical goals for doing this study? What do you hope to accomplish or achieve from this study? 

There are many reasons for high turnover. By ruling out one, or determining to what degree values fit might be contributing to high turnover, it is possible for contracting organizations to adjust how they hire. This type of adjustment could lead organizations to hire more effectively, which will drive down costs and increase safety. Secondarily, I hope to help these contracting organizations understand that values fit, and fit theory is a worthwhile concept to consider when hiring. 

What are your intellectual goals? What do you want to understand?

Having been a recruiter in this industry in previous roles, and now working to research and understand this community, I hope to understand the motivations of our learning community and the workers we support to a greater degree. By understanding our learning community better, we can potentially design better training that keeps more learners working safely. Regarding retention, the longer an employee stays employed the fewer new employees will be on the worksite. It has been proven that most accidents occur due to lack of experience and understanding. Increasing retention could help keep our learning community safer. 

What does the scholarly literature say or not say about the problem (cite 3-4 sources)

1. McCulloch and Turban (2007) study call center agents, a high-turnover job type, and the authors apply a field study to examine if PO fit can help in the selection of employees to increase job satisfaction and performance but do not find a direct relationship between PO fit and job performance.

2. Olubiyi et al. (2019), focusing on a different high turnover industry, retail, also do not find a significant link between PO fit and job satisfaction, however, their study does confirm that employees perceived values congruence not only yields greater job satisfaction, but that the increased satisfaction does reduce turnover.

3. Chen, et al. (2016) find in their study of 225 employees in 12 different catering organizations that PO fit predicts job satisfaction.

4. Hoffman and Woehr (2005) try to find a link between PO fit and behavioral outcomes such as performance, citizenship, and turnover by building on work by previous researchers and find that PO fit is directly related to an intent to quit, low job satisfaction, and commitment to the organization. However, their results although positive, suggest only a weak relationship between PO fit and behavior outcomes.

Who are the audiences for this study? How will others benefit from your study?

The audience for this study includes the organizations that HASC supports and other organizations who may have high turnover and workers who are like those who support the energy industry. The same expected benefits in safety and a decrease in recruitment costs could be useful to any industry that faces hazardous work sites with inexperienced workers.

Purpose

The purpose of this qualitative case study will be to explore in what ways industrial contactors are motivated to remain at their organizations after several weeks of work as compared to their expectations about the organization and their career goals. A secondary purpose is to help determine if the worker's expectations for the organization and their goals for themselves and their careers align with the organization’s goals for their employees and career development. At this stage of the research industrial contractors and the organizations that hire them are defined as those field workers who are hired to support work completed at work sites in the energy industry. 

Research Questions

The research questions this qualitative case study hopes to answer included:

• How do the participants express their career goals and expectations for their positions within the organizations at the time of their being hired?
• How do the participants express their lived experiences about their first three months of working within their new organizations especially regarding fit theory?
• How do participants feel that values fit makes up a part of the reason that they remain with or leave the organizations within the first few months of working there?

Positionality

I have worked in this industry for over 20 years in various roles and although that may give me some insight, it also creates challenges. I have spent some time working in the field, however it is not as significant, nor at the level of most workers in our industry who will be a part of this study. Additionally, although I have a deep history in working in one particular skill within the energy industry, HASC supports multiple types of work and the participants for this study will come from a large cross section of work types. This lack of having worked in the field as many of the study participants might have or will be doing, could make it difficult for me as the researcher to relate to and properly interview the participants and gather information that is relevant and descriptive enough to draw conclusions. 

Working at HASC, and being older than most of the study participants, there is the chance that the participants will not view me as a researcher, but rather someone who can help their career. This could lead to the participants to answer questions as they think I want to hear them, rather than giving me an answer that is more true to their lived experience. 

Having a history of experiences in these areas, as well as working for a safety training non-profit, will mean that it would be natural for me to take a safety and training perspective in any research projects I design. The perspective of the participants will be more operationally focused. In most cases the participants are motivated to quickly get through the training courses so they can go back to work. This disparity between their experience and focus and my experience and focus could provide data collection and interviews to be muddled. Although this safety perspective could induce entanglements in my lived experience and, therefore, in my research design, potentially slanting the design and the results toward those related to safety or training, rather than operations alone; there are benefits to the experiences I have had. Part of being a safety trainer in our industry is the benefit of having observed many different work crews perform field operations in many other locations and environments. This more universal perspective could allow for a better, more comprehensive understanding of the results that our research might yield. Conversely, there could be negative influences on the research from having had this safety and training experience and perspective. The participants will have a more jobsite centric or operational perspective which could clash with the research design. There may be aspects I gloss over because they seem natural to me that would not be so easily understood by someone with less safety or training experience. 

References

Chen, P., Sparrow, P., & Cooper, C. (2016). The relationship between person-organization fit and job satisfaction. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31(5), 946–959. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmp-08-2014-0236

Hoffman, B. J., & Woehr, D. J. (2006). A quantitative review of the relationship between person-organization fit and behavioral outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68(3), 389-399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2005.08.003

McCulloch, M. C., & Turban, D. B. (2007). Using person-organization fit to select employees for high-turnover jobs. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 15(1), 63–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2007.00368.x

Olubiyi, O., Smiley, G., Luckel, H. & Melaragno, R. (2019). A qualitative case study of employee turnover in retail business. Heliyon. 5. e01796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01796

Unconventional Education

I’m a huge proponent of education that goes beyond the standards and frameworks that we’ve become used to. There’s a lot to be said for established organizations and frameworks, but innovation too brings a lot of advantages. 

In my learning community we see a lot of people who are employees looking for employers of last resort, this means that they are taking the jobs in our fields because they can’t get work in any other industry. Much of the work our organization supports is dirty, hazardous, hot in the summers, cold in the winters, and uncomfortable in a multitude of ways. 

Additionally, the pay for those starting out isn’t great, but if you stay in the industry, don’t mind travel or seasonal work, then the payoff can be substantial. We are seeing alot of new employees coming to the industry looking for less of a job and more of a career. In the past the industry has been sink or swim, they are demanding pathways and structures that lead toward success and a long term, lucrative career. This is all very positive for the industry and for the individual worker. 

In terms of the Aldrich (2017) article, what we are seeing is representative of bridging social capital and linking social capital. We have several different races and classes all working in a similar industry for the same purpose, which is similar to how Aldrich defines bridging social capital. Then, we are a community-based non-profit and often we host events for our members and for our guests that are designed to support the industry and the workers in the industry. Lunch and learns, cocktail parties, informational presentations, showcases, training classes at discounted rates, and more, all would be similar to what Aldrich describes as linking social capital. 

Having worked in this organization for five years, watched how we have spun up and helped support other similar organization in the US and outside the US, I can see the effect it has both on the individual worker and on the communities. I think it would be beneficial if other industries utilized safety councils as aggressively as the energy industry has, yet when I talk to other workers in many other fields, a safety council is a completely new idea to them. Lately, I think that our education system has become too staid and unyielding. I spent a year in Europe as a foreign exchange student and saw how vocational schools were utilized in many of the countries where I lived and visited and I wish that children in our area had the same opportunities in high school as I saw there. 

GQ Cover?

My brother is turning 40 this year. He’s a bit of a charmed individual. He floats through life easier than I’ve ever seen any float. Married a stunner who earns bank. Beautiful little daughter. Huge house in West U area that used to belong to an NFL player. Things seem to go his way, at least it might appear. 

I know him and his history well enough to know that he’s had his ups and downs like most everyone. He came over the other day to pick something up on his way home from work. He was wearing driving moccasins, jeans and a nice oxford shirt. Driving moccasins? See, charmed floating life. I could never pull off driving moccasins. 

My graphic designer at work, great guy, took this candid shot of me the other day. Where? No idea. I don’t remember this picture at all. When I saw it I thought it was my brother. I actually thought, “John doesn’t wear glasses” and zoom in enough to see that it was me!

Two things come from this. 1) the marketing gals loved it and want to use it for the next cover of our newsletter. I told them let me work on the crows feet. They recommended Botox. We are no longer speaking. 2) how many people look at me the way I look at John? How many people see me and think I float through life? That it’s a charmed life? 

Makes me count the old blessings to tell the truth. Maybe it is more charmed than I thought. 

Finally, We See the Payoff

Last year I had a resolution to run (at least) a 5K every month. Go take a look at my workouts (see HERE) to see the results, but suffice it to say, it's a fun resolution, I missed August which will be a good thing to focus on this year, and all in all it was a good thing to do. It got me up and active on weekends where I might not already be considering doing something, and it made my trophy wall a bit crowded with ribbons, awards and race numbers.

Today I ran a race at Sam Houston Race Park. Funnily enough, this was a race that both Julie and I signed up for last year. I don't believe she made it. I did. And I ran a 25:38 5K. Not bad. 

I remember watching several other folks turn around and head back out to run another loop for the 10K. Last year I was happy I wasn't one of them. Not sure why I so quickly signed up to do the 10K today, but I'm glad I did. 

Last year I felt tired and was glad I wasn't running a second lap. Today, after 5K, I felt I could keep going. The goal, like last month, was to go out fast(ish) and use the second half of the race as a gut check. No pacing, just go out strong and gut it out after the first half is over. 

Well . . . last year I got a 25:38 5K time. This year's 10 K time was 50:28. If I take my time for the first 5K it looks like I ran that 5K in 23:58! Almost shaved two minutes off my time. I also got almost exactly the same time as last month and the month before that! On my second mile, I was cooking!

11 more to go in 2023.

Patriot Games First Line

I'm reading a bunch of books in series right now. I've read three books in WEB Griffin's Corps series . . . I've read a couple of Louis L'Amours Sackett's series, and I'm on Oliver Twists in my Dicken's series . . . I just finished the third book in my Clancy series. . . Patriot Games.

Not my favorite book in his series. He goes into WAY too much information about the morality of terrorism. It's more about Jack figuring himself out, than a good story. Personally, Jack comes off looking like a fucking weenie in this book. 

Broken Nose

Our marketing department, and our photographer, keep taking pictures of me. This one, I think I look okay. It does make my nose look a bit broken. The glasses are tilted.

I have a bit of a tweak in my nose. I got that in Basic Training. Actually, I take that back. I think it happened during a field exercise in PLDC, a school for sergeants who are about to be promoted.  From afar it's hard to see. But zoom in and you see a definite crook in the old honker.

Watch what happens when you zoom in!

What happened to the schnoz? Well, we had to work on hand-to-hand fighting and I took a few too many shots to the nose. It didn't squash my nose, but it did tweak the bridge out of shape a bit. When I wear my glasses it's more noticeable. 

You can only really see it when you zoom WAY in . . . so I apologize for this third pic. 

Same pic . . . I swear. Crazy, eh?

Still, I like this first pic cause I'm standing there with Tommy. Tommy is a great manager and he's a joy to have on my team. Great pic cause of him!

First Line of Second in a Series

I'm in a "series" mood. For a while I was in a "committment book" mood. I was reading huge tomes like Les Miserables, any Charles Dickens book, Dune, etc etc. Right now I'm hungry for series. I started with Harry Potter, then The Sacketts, and right now I'm reading WEB Griffen's Corps Series. I'm on book 2. I just started book two, and I have to say the first line is not incredibly intriguing. 

It's a fun series, and in fact I like most series because you get to know the characters so well.