Principles of Management, Chapter Three

I'm skipping the post for Chapter Two (unless you really want to read about what I have interpreted as my poor management skills in the common workplace - it is summarized by my inability to see the gray) because I don't think my paper was all that great however, I still scored a 10 out of 10 (with the instructor's comment of GREAT JOB!). I'm still waiting on my management movie grade. I have an eerie feeling on that one. I think it's taking me entirely too long to write these papers, especially if I have some passion for the subject.


ASSIGNMENT: Read Chapter 3; enter Discussion #1 online (See Discussion Questions, page 97, #3)


So I'm a dumb ass, read Question 4 and get all excited: Contemporary best-selling books often argue that customers are the most important element in the external environment. Do you agree? In what company situations might this not happen? Oh hell. This is a loaded question as I just lost my job because my 'client' cared more about the almighty dollar than customer service. I wrote half a response and then saw I was supposed to discuss Question 3. Fuck. I saved part of it under Ethic Notes and used the rest of it in here.



Question 3: What do you think are the most important forces on the external environment creating uncertainty for organizations today? Do the forces you identify typically arise in the task environment or the general environment?


My Discussion/Post/Answer/Whatever:

It’s too bad ‘greed’ isn’t an organizational environment as it is THE element existing outside any organization’s boundaries that have the potential to affect the majority of organizations.

With the declining economy and the ever changing real estate market, small organizations are having a difficult time staying afloat. My personal experience is with real estate title insurance companies. These are the companies which handle the processes and functions involved in residential and commercial real estate closings. The smaller companies or ‘Mom and Pop Shops’ are individually owned and operated and are not partnered in any Affiliated Business Arrangements (defined below).The ‘Mom and Pop Shops,’ as well as the consumers of these services, are being strongly affected by the task environment of competition (or in this case, lack thereof) between the individual organizations and ABAs. ABAs have created an inability for smaller companies to compete for business, as referrers tend to steer clients to the outfit in which they (or the company they work for) hold a financial interest. This inability to compete forces the smaller organizations to make difficult decisions, such as reducing their employees’ pay, laying off seasoned employees, or worse, shutting down their operation all together.

I’ve spent the last four years working for an individually owned title company that’s primary goal is to please their customers and provide a smooth closing process. However, I recently I lost my job due to an ABA. I was employed as the account manager servicing the business relationship between my company and a national homebuilder. I was let go (or was ‘voted off Survivor Island’ as like to say as I did manage to make it through a few rounds of lay offs) because the homebuilder opted to discontinue utilizing our services in order to use its own ABA, causing a significant loss of revenue for my company. As the builder’s ABA did not handle any portion of the ‘physical’ closing process, my former company was contracted to act as an ‘escrow agent.’ However my previous employer had the same responsibilities – managing the account, coordinating closings with the lenders, builder and home buyers, preparing documents need for closing, disbursing monies due to all parties involved in the transaction, all at ¼ - ½ of my company’s previous fee.

In this particular situation, the use of the builder’s ABA created two main disservices for buyers, the first of which related to the closing process. Unfortunately, an escrow agent is a notary only and not legally able to explain all of the closing/loan documents as to do so would constitute the escrow agent fraudulently acting as an attorney. The use of the builder’s ABA also affects the buyers financially. Our services based off a sales price of $200,000 would be $150.00 - $300.00 cheaper than that of the ABA.

Individually owned and operated title companies’ live in the task environment of the customer. With so many ABAs forcing out competition, small organizations must focus on providing services at reasonable fees in hopes of obtaining repeat business.


An ABA is defined as “An arrangement in which (A) a person who is in a position to refer business incident to or a part of a real estate settlement service involving a federally related mortgage loan, or an associate of such person, has either an affiliate relationship with or a direct or beneficial ownership interest of more than 1 percent in a provider of settlement services; and (B) either of such persons directly or indirectly refers such business to that provider or affirmatively influences the selection of that provider.”

Note from author: Basically this means the referrer (real estate agents, banks, home builders, and lenders) of a real estate transaction to a title company is receiving some type of compensation for closing from the referred title company. This happens THROUGH OUT the real estate industry and is not limited to title companies.


--end paper--

a) I really did submit the snarky comments.
b) It took me 4 - 5 hours to complete this one page because I possess way too much interest and knowledge in the subject. My 'discussion' should have been completed in an hour to an hour and a half or two hours max, but the perfection in the wording fucks me up every time.
c) I'm freaked out about next week's paper. It's a case analysis (worth 50 points - I have like 3 or 4 of them due this semester, just in this class. Sheesh.) and I've never written case analysis before. Anyone out there who can help me? (I'd like a proof reader too, any takers?)Teach says it should the case analysis should take about 8 hours to complete so in Danielle terms, I should have started last week.
d) I'm debating on sending an expanded version of this to Mr. D.'s contact at the Tampa Tribune to possibly start a discussion and acquire some type of media attention to this god awful situation and bring in some unemployment issues as well (title and mortgage employees are basically being blacklisted from any potential employers), as this industry sucks. Maybe I'll do something with 8 on your side too. Employment is at an all time high and a lot of this is due to shady schemes in real estate transactions. Again, I have the time. Kinda..
d) Boy am I looking forward to the Ethics section of the book. It will be a verbal (or shall I say written) assault on the real estate market as a whole. At least I can vent some of my frustrations.
e) All of this work for a 10 point assignment. I need to create comments to at least 2 more of my classmates' posts between now and Saturday at 11pm. Comments only this time. I am no way in hell writing another short essay. I think I may take Friday off to cook. My brain hurts.