Ginger Graham’s Personality, Values, and Attitudes
Ginger Graham appears to be a personable and very empathetic person. The fact that employees find her approachable shows that it is easy and pleasant to talk to her. In addition, she has a very strong sense of empathy. This comes from the fact that she has chosen to live a diabetic lifestyle despite the fact that she does not suffer from diabetes. While it is arguable whether she is doing it for profit, the fact that it is not necessary for her to do it speaks volumes about her personality rather than her profit motive.
The most striking value that she upholds is her sense of humanity. The case study shows her deep concerns for diabetics rather than profit. She took the decision to downsize rather than close down, which is always an option for a company going through financial difficulties. It demonstrates her determination to make life easier for diabetics no matter the cost.
Her attitude is rather eccentric for a CEO. She does things that make her stand out in a peculiar way. Her choice of the fairy tale, the sleeping beauty, shows that she has a strong sense of meaning. She chose the fairy tale as a means of expressing the story of Amylin. The company endured several setbacks early on and went on to provide great promise. It produced a drug that will make the lives of diabetics easier, and in the process assure profitability for the company. Secondly, she is free-spirited and uninhibited. Her choices demonstrate that she does what she feels like and has no apologies to make. Her decision to participate in the rodeo, a male-dominated sport, and taking up a position as a sales executive in an agricultural products distribution company demonstrate her daring nature.
Ginger Graham’s Emotional Intelligence
There are various views on how best to measure emotional intelligence. The important issue in this is the determination of whether an individual has the capacity to map her own emotions, and the emotions of a group. In the case of Ginger Graham, she demonstrates a strong ability to figure out her emotions and the emotions of the people around her. Ginger Graham’s ability to manage her emotions showed in the way she handled negotiations to the point that she got what she wanted despite very difficult circumstances.
Her determination to serve her clients when she worked for the agricultural products company as a sales executive is a testament to her mastery over her emotions. She withstood rejection and instead turned the client into a loyal customer over time. This demonstrates her capacity to control her emotions even while under pressure.
On the other hand, her choice of a diabetic lifestyle bespeaks a strong sense of emotional connection with her customers. This decision gives her a very strong emotional identification mechanism with diabetics. It demonstrates the fact that she actually went through a process of realization of the need to connect emotionally with them. Secondly, her choices show that she is not emotionally inhibited. She does whatever she needs to express her emotions. It takes enormous emotional stability to jump into a fountain as a means of celebrating a major victory. In the same way, it requires emotional balance to withstand rejection and to address issues when they occur. Based on these observations, it is correct to state that Ginger Graham has high emotional intelligence.
Description of Amylin’s Culture
Amylin as a company is in the process of development. All companies develop a corporate culture based on the leadership philosophy of the leader and the market forces driving operations of the company. In this sense, three elements stand out as elements of the corporate culture of Amylin. The company is innovative, resilient, and client-focused.
The company’s capacity to develop new groundbreaking drugs to help diabetics is proof of its innovative nature. The drugs aim at making the management of diabetes much easier by making it possible for them to take weekly shots down from the existing need to take shots twice a day. In addition to this, the company found ways of surviving dire financial times by letting go of almost ninety percent of the employees. This became necessary to ensure the objective of the company as a producer of insulin.
The company passes the resilience test based on its demonstrated capacity to overcome periods of uncertainty caused by delays in regulatory approvals from the FDA. Very few companies survive such uncertainty and usually opt to fold up. Amylin continues to demonstrate a commitment to its customers in this sense. In addition, the fact that it made more sense for the board members to buy into it shows that there was a value that they attached to the continued survival of the company.
The third element of the company’s culture is its focus on clients. This shows right from the CEO’s office where the CEO has chosen a diabetic lifestyle to be in tune with the actual experiences of her clients. This focus further shows in the capacity of the company to take very difficult decisions when it may have been easier to fold up or to turn to other profitable lines of business. The company opted to soldier on to make the lives of diabetics easier.
Source of Culture, and Motives behind its Cultivation in a Time of Major Change
The innovativeness at Amylin comes from the recognized needs of diabetics, which the company tries to address. The existing solution of insulin makes life rather difficult for diabetics because of the need to prick fingers and take shots daily. A client base like this one calls for a commitment to innovation in order to provide the required solutions. In addition, companies that go through moments where they face imminent closure tend to become innovative or fold their operations. Amylin chose innovation. Similarly, the resilience in the company stems from the challenges the company underwent. Failure to get FDA approval for new drugs in time almost killed the company, but since the management believed in what it was doing, there was a consensus to keep it afloat.
The focus on customers seems to come from the personal commitment of the CEO to people suffering from diabetes. This commitment drives her to ensure that what the company produces is the best possible solution for diabetics.
The need to sustain corporate culture comes from the desire to maintain a sense of stability in the context of change. A company’s culture is a unique source of competitive advantage because no other company can replicate it. Part of the possible motivation driving Graham to maintain the company culture in the context of rapid change is to make sure that the company does not lose the vital lessons it receives from its experiences. It is a means of institutional learning and it helps in the maintenance of a company’s vision.