Assignment Weekly GMI Journal
STGY 681
Assignment Overview
Students will keep a weekly GMI journal logging their GMI reflections to each week’s material,
including the simulation, cases, videos and class presentations and activities. Specifically,
students should explain how specific course materials relates to specific GMI dimensions. Entries
should tie into student’s GMI assessments, addressing specific dimensions of the three GMI
capitals that students had identified as areas for growth.
Journal entries will be made each week so that insights are fresh. Entries should focus on
analysis of how the materials/experiences factor into the GMI.
Formatting and Instructions
• Please share the link to your GMI Journal (Google Doc) at each week’s assignment
submission to SAKAI.
• Approximately 1 page per weekly entry
• Journal may be in bullet-point format, but entries should be written in full sentences and cite
specific examples.
• 12-point Times New Roman font; double spaced; one-inch margins; Microsoft Word
document.
• Carefully proofread your paper before you submit. Business professional communication
style is expected.
Evaluation
• Responses demonstrate critical thinking and depth of analysis. Course content is
thoughtfully applied to specific GMI dimensions.
• Quality organization and structure of paper; clarity in expressing thoughts and concepts;
good flow; proper grammar and readability; appropriate length; followed instructions.
•
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Appendix 1 – The SEER Model
The SEER Model is a proprietary values-inclusive framework that serves as a lens to strategy
formation with an eye to long-term value creation. An excerpt from “Leadership in a Complex
World: How to Manage the Tragedy of Choice” by Crooke, Csikszentmihalyi and Bikel1 explains
the model’s design and intended function:
[The SEER Model] posits four ‘‘macro-values:’’ environmental stewardship, corporate citizenship,
product/service quality, and financial strength. These ‘‘macro-values’’ are essentially broad
categories that encircle numerous related values. For example, the macro-value of environmental
stewardship refers to the need for organizations to recognize and mitigate or minimize their impact
on the natural environment; it also represents the ultimate goal of integrating environmental
concerns into product (and service) design in order to progress toward closed-loop manufacturing
processes that eliminate waste. Corporate citizenship represents the social realm and the
organization’s relationships with stakeholders, ranging from employees to suppliers to neighbors in
the local community to government entities. Product/service quality refers to the need to excel at the
1 Crooke, M., Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Bikel, R. (2015). Leadership in a complex world. Organizational
Dynamics, 2(44), 146-155.
Note: the article refers to the SEER model generically as the “Mandala Model.”
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organization’s core competency. In his writings on social responsibility, Drucker states that,
‘‘Performance of its function is the institution’s first social responsibility. Unless it discharges its
performance responsibly, it cannot discharge anything else. A bankrupt business is not a desirable
employer and is unlikely to be a good neighbor in a community. Nor will it create capital for
tomorrow’s jobs and the opportunities for tomorrow’s workers.’’ Thus, Drucker proposes that
producing a product or service of the highest possible quality is a critical social responsibility of
organizations. Another component of product/service quality is product innovation and an understanding that change and market disruption from innovation is a constant. Again, Drucker’s writings
provide perspective:
…the modern organization is a destabilizer. It must be organized for innovation,
and innovation, as the great Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter
said, is ‘creative destruction.’ And it must be organized for the systematic
abandonment of whatever is established, customary, familiar, and comfortable,
whether that is a product, a service, or a process; a set of skills; human and
social relationships; or the organization itself. In short, it must be organized for
constant change.
Finally, financial strength refers to the need for organizations to be financially sound; without this,
as Drucker explains, the other values become irrelevant.
Built upon experience at Patagonia and expanding upon the traditional ‘‘Triple Bottom Line’’
(People, Planet and Profit) trend in CSR, the [SEER Model] represents the values as circles,
reinforcing the inclusive nature of the macro- values or elements. The overlapping circles (Venn
diagram) design signifies the interrelated nature of the macro-values and illustrates that collectively,
they function as a system. In this system, the macro-values do not operate in isolation; rather, they
feature many areas of overlap and inter- action. The process of strategic decision-making is rarely,
if ever, guided by one of the four macro-values individually. For example, product/service quality at
Patagonia is defined as striving to achieve the best possible product with the least possible social
and environmental harm. As described above in the quotation from Drucker, financial strength is
integrally related to the other three values, which cannot function without an economically viable
organization. Furthermore, the four values are mutually reinforcing: each of the elements is
important individually, but when lever- aged as a collective group, the relationships become
synchronous. The power of environmental stewardship is amplified when financial strength is
realized, and vice versa; and the same can be said of any of the values. For example, when an
organization is financially successful, it can invest in environmental innovations, such as solar
panels on its buildings, which ultimately reduce long-term expenses and enhance financial
performance.
