Subra Tangirala is Dean's Professor of Management. He teaches the leadership course in the MBA program. In his research, he explores reasons why employees often remain silent despite having information, concerns, or suggestions to share, and what organizations can do to facilitate candid exchange of ideas at the workplace.
It’s challenging to steer an organization through a crisis. And when several crises converge at once the challenge is even greater.
2020 has been a year, marked by unprecedented turmoil. Business leaders have grappled with a deadly pandemic, a sharp economic contraction, a dismantling of business norms, and a social reckoning stirred by the police killing of George Floyd.
What makes an organization truly diverse? It’s not just what can be observed at the visible level, with inclusivity of employees from varied demographics or socioeconomic backgrounds, Maryland Smith’s Subra Tangirala writes in an article that explores his recent research. True diversity also requires a meaningful exchange of divergent perspectives and ideas in the workforce.
SMITH BRAIN TRUST – Open secrets abound on Blind, a social media app that allows coworkers to hide their identities while venting in firm-specific forums. Most companies look the other way, allowing grievances to fester online. But Tesla Motors recently took a different approach, shutting down access by blocking confirmation emails that come to the Tesla domain.
Every workplace has its open secrets. Multiple people may witness incompetence, laziness, fraud, sexual harassment, alcoholism or any manner of bad behavior from the same colleague — week after week — but nobody speaks up. Research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business explains why.
Front-line workers resent managers who ignore their input. But research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business puts the blame elsewhere when ideas get stifled or punished at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy.
Some people fail to plan. Others plan the wrong way for the modern workplace. New research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business distinguishes between two daily planning techniques and determines that one drives better results in fast-paced environments with frequent interruptions.
SMITH BRAIN TRUST – In recent months, as revelations unfurled amid the #MeToo movement and as certain men were toppled from positions of power, something else was happening, too. Men were increasingly becoming reluctant to mentor women at work.
Speak Up To Boost Productivity and Safety at Work
Want to make more good things happen at work and prevent safety problems? Just ask team members to speak up. Encouraging team members to voice their constructive opinions and concerns about work-related issues leads to performance and safety gains, according to new research from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Why Men Stay on the Sidelines for Gender Parity
As gender inequality in the workplace continues, organizations are launching gender parity programs to combat the pervasive problem. But diversity officers and leaders are facing a roadblock: Men, who often constitute the majority in organizations and hold more positions of power and influence, just aren’t interested in initiatives aimed at creating gender parity.
In a much-discussed piece in The New York Times, which drew on interviews with more than 100 people, Amazon comes off as a rough place to work. Emails from bosses arrive after midnight, followed by texts demanding answers. Employees are encouraged "to rip into colleagues' ideas with feedback that can be blunt to the point of painful." Smith School professors Debra L. Shapiro and Subrahmaniam Tangirala weigh in on some of the issues raised. Read more...
