Saint Vincent College Faculty Blog

Operational Excellence (OE) is a management philosophy that focuses on improvement, problem solving, and waste reduction in organizations. A strong focus on this philosophy is not too common at many academic institutions and so Saint Vincent is lucky to offer this unique perspective at the undergraduate (minor) and graduate (OE emphasis in the MS in Management) levels. Those schools that do focus on OE tend to have programs in the engineering departments. At Saint Vincent, ours resides in the business department. A reason for this difference is that our program is more focused on people and culture as well as implications of OE throughout an organization.

Topics: Michael Urick, MSMOE, Saint Vincent, Operational Excellence, SVC faculty, blog, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick, svc blog

There has been a long tradition in the academic study of management that considers what makes people engage in work. In my sub-field of organizational behavior, this idea of motivation is one of the most important topics of research. The classic Theories X and Y (McGregor & Cutcher-Gershenfeld, 1960) consider the nature of people when it comes to engaging in tasks.  

Topics: Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, management, blog, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick, theory, organizational behavior, svc blog

I believe in Santa Claus. And I believe that he practices Operational Excellence. After all, embracing Operational Excellence (OE) is the only way that he would be able to fly around the world delivering presents in one night!

Topics: Saint Vincent College, SVC, Michael Urick, Operational Excellence, SVC faculty, blog, saint vincent professor, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick, svc blog

In last month’s blog, I wrote about traveling this summer with the band I play in. But this summer wasn’t all just fun and games! I also traveled for academic purposes (okay, maybe those trips were little fun, albeit exhausting, too). In August, I first went to Boston for the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, the largest conference of management academics in the world. Then I flew home for a few hours before driving out to Lexington, Kentucky, with some of our exceptional Master of Science in Management: Operational Excellence (MSMOE) graduate students. I love summer but, as I mentioned in a blog three years ago, fall is my favorite time of year. I think one reason why is that I can get back into a standardized routine with less traveling once the semester begins.

Topics: travel, Saint Vincent College, SVC, Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, learning, lifelong learning, blog, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick

I was infatuated with trains when I was a child, so it’s no surprise that “The Little Engine That Could,” the classic children’s story told since 1930 and published in several book editions by Watty Piper, was one of my favorites – and one that I now love to read to my child.

Topics: Faculty, Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, blog, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick, self-efficacy, The Little Engine That Could

This month’s blog is a little more philosophical in nature than some of my other blogs because I’m writing about miracles. Let me start off by saying that I am a firm believer in miracles. To me, a miracle does not have to be some big once-in-a-lifetime supernatural cosmic event (although those count too, I suppose). Instead, I believe that miracles can be “little things” that happen each day. Some people view daily life as though nothing is a miracle. Others view every positive thing that they experience as a miracle – even those things that are perhaps mundane. I like to think that I fall into the latter camp.

Topics: Faculty, Michael Urick, SVC faculty, workplace culture, workplace, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick, miracles, extraordinary

Recently, Dr. Gail Fairhurst (a friend, mentor and colleague of mine from the University of Cincinnati) visited Saint Vincent to give a guest lecture on her research. While her comments were primarily about how to be an effective leader through focusing on communication style, she also talked about the nature of problems that leaders must solve. I am reminded of some research of hers that I read in which she identifies problems as “wicked” when they are challenging to describe, difficult to solve and closely related to other problems. She and her colleagues term these to be problem “knots” because they are often tangled together in such a way that multiple problems relate to, confuse and add to each other (Sheep, Fairhurst, & Khazanchi, 2017).

Topics: Faculty, problem solving, Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, professor, saint vincent professor, st. vincent professor, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick

I recently co-edited three books on leadership with a colleague from Poland. In them, I co-authored chapters with five students or alumni of Saint Vincent College’s Master of Science in Management: Operational Excellence program and six SVC faculty. One of the chapters, co-authored with Dr. William Hisker, was entitled “Benedictine Leadership” and was adapted from a foundational document we wrote in the development of the Benedictine Leadership Studies program at Saint Vincent.  But my primary role in these editing projects (aside from writing some chapters) was to look over the works of other authors to consider for inclusion in the books.

Topics: Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, blog, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick

Happy New Year!

Topics: Faculty, Michael Urick, research, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick, new year

In my last blog, I asked the question “what makes a good manager/boss?” and received a lot of great feedback. In fact, I received the most comments and responses to that post than any others that I have written.

Topics: SVC, SVC faculty, saint vincent professor, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick, good employee