1. Should Bison be taking a more hands-off or a more hands-on approach to the business Justify your response?
2. How far has the senior leadership change been effective? What else might senior leadership do to influence change more positively in the near future?
3. To what extent has MeatPack’s flatter structure helped create cultural and performance change? Have there been any barriers to the cultural change?
1. Bison shall take the hands-off approach to deal his role in management to fulfil the objectives and goals of the company. Improving the leadership in an organization requires an effective approach as the organization that are successful in generating good leadership among their workers, offer space and independency to perform their work. Top management implement little administration on employees as they believe that the juniors will learn from their mistakes only (Sidhu 2016). To implement a change strategy in senior leadership successfully, the management of the company required to engage a leader who will use the hands-off approach for management. When the senior management shifts aside to create a gap, the other employees are given a chance to fill the gap. Employees are expected to be motivated when get a chance to lead and perform some managerial tasks (Giessner and Wong 2016). To attain the growth target of one billion dollars by the year 2020, many inspired employees are required. The most efficient way to influence the employees are to use the hands-off approach by the management where maximum tasks are allocated by top management. Through allocation, employees feel accepted and part of the company as compared to the situation where all the tasks and decisions are performed by the top managerial personnel. Thus, it is reasonable that Bison shall employ hands-off management approach at Meat Pack to motivate the employees to assign them with more responsibility and make them liable for their performance (De Brentani and Kleinschmidt 2015).
Meat Pack is undergoing through performance and cultural changes and senior leadership changes that requires all the employees and departments to involve in the procedure actively. As the company is complex and large, only the manager alone cannot bring all the departments on board (Walker et al. 2016). Therefore, Bison requires implying the hands-off approach of management through forming the teams that will be lead by the seniors and few management responsibilities will be allocated to the leaders. Through allocation of duties to the team leaders and giving them the goals to be attained, Bison will experience easy time in operating the company (Talpo? et al. 2017).
Hands-off managements assist in development, creativity and growth in the employees. By providing the employees and team managers with more duties and opportunities, employees can utilize their abilities and talents fully. Employees under such management show that they were not aware about the fact that they have such greater capability of accomplishment. Employee’s full potentiality cannot be achieved as long as the management keep on interfering with their workings (Walker and Jacobsson 2014). Thus, Bison will be benefitted from the employee’s capability through hands-off approach. Some tasks are there that cannot be done by Bison himself, however, when employees are left alone to perform their task and explore their abilities, they can attain tremendous outcome in positive way. Each employee has some unseen talent which are not discovered by most of the leaders due to the regulations and interference that the management implies. In such situation, Bison should not interfere in the daily activities of the employees, rather he shall play the role of orchestrator and facilitator to assist the team leaders in attaining their targets. This strategy will assist Bison to imply the leadership more efficiently (Moore 2015).
2. The board of the company felt that numbers of ways are there through which the leaders could be developed and improve the performance and effectiveness of business. Explaining himself or herself as driven, futurist, interfering, aggressive, restless, never convinced and obsessive, he realised that he could benefit through the development in leadership. With regard to change the senior team’s behaviour and mind set he divided the behaviours into three colours: green (passive/defensive), blue (constructive) and red (aggressive/defensive). He found that the culture of Meat pack was of red nature that needs to be converted into blue (Levy et al. 2015). Moreover, he realised that the structure of the company must be shifted to be horizontal rather to be the hierarchical assigning the front line employees with more responsibilities and recognition of their performance. Due to the training efforts, the company’s performance was improved considerably with the increase in productivity and minimization of employee’s turnover. A positive approach had been created in the senior management team; those were inclusive of CFO, COO, PPC directors and the chief of business and sales development. Employees were persuaded to speak freely, both in meetings as well as in one-to-one communication. However, some members of the senior management team were unwilling to raise questions about his decisions as Bison was one of the founders as well as the CEO of the company. The COO of the company was concerned about leaving of some senior leaders in the past years (Brooks, Hummel and Foster 2015). This caused anxiety due to the following reasons:
Changes in senior leadership were able to make considerable changes in the structure of human resources that assisted in transition process. Moreover, the company was successful in creating the development programme for the leadership of whole company to implement the foundation with consideration to the proposed changes in the area of senior leadership. This had positive effect, as larger organizational leadership is the most important tools required to change the organization. The company also implemented new programme to provide consultation training to the members of senior strategy team to line up them with the mission and vision of the company that are required to be achieved. As the senior strategy team is engaged with the responsibility of setting goals for long-term period and creating required approaches to fulfil the target, consultative coaching is essential in forming crucial strategic decisions as they have initial knowledge about the future and marketing strategy of the industry. In absence of the consultative strategy, the senior strategy team will not be able to make required decisions that will push the company towards its long-run goals (David 2016).
The changes in senior leadership were able to generate positive approach among the members of the strategy team. This implied that prior to the changes the senior strategy team members were not communicating well, however, as the alterations were already initiated, the response and mood among the senior leadership of the company changed. Through the change in senior leadership, Bison started dialogue and discussions with the members of senior strategy team. Through these discussions members were influenced to open about their views. Through such open discussions, where all the members of the team were given equal chances to express their views, Bison was able to acquire important information to help in the process of making decisions. Bison along with his team was able to take crucial decisions regarding the composition and requirement of the team and in what way the team could be efficient in providing the mandates. The changes were also able to start the structural alterations where few new personnel were recruited as Chief Executive Officers to perform various roles in the company. These changes moved the command line and new roles were generated for the senior strategy team. Thus, changes created new roles in the company and the total operation in the company changed significantly (Stead et al. 2015).
Senior leadership shall continue to consult and engage persons whom they feel as eligible for providing changes in the leadership. Sustainable and positive changes within the company, especially at the level of top managers require continuous coordination throughout the procedures of transition and even after implementation of major plans. Through employing various groups among the organization, the top level managers will be able to acquire some crucial information about the views of other other members. This information can give the senior management a clear idea about whether the proposed changes will be successful or not. Senior leadership shall carry out the assessment procedure and adopt the changes accordingly. For any changes to be successful, the company must evaluate the implementation procedure and measure the level of success before making any complain against the strategy. Senior leadership must be allowed time to evaluate what is working and what is not working in their approach, so as to make the necessary adjustments as per the required conditions. Senior leadership shall take into account both rational and emotional factors together. Senior leadership must coordinate emotions and strategic objectives as the strategic objectives of business cannot be attained unless the leaders engage their emotional part. Authentic commitment for change starts by the top level leaders through reaching out the other leaders emotionally. Moreover, the emotional involvement will make them feel that they are part of the organization.
3. Undergoing various changes demands the senior leadership to make some changes in culture and performance. To influence the changes positively, management should consult and engage with other partners usefully and also bring on natural board leaders. With the intention of changing the performance and culture of Meat Pack, Bison introduced the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which asked to implement various sectors of the organization such as production, funding, management and investment (Andersen and Moynihan 2016). The key requirement of the system was to implement more efficient and structured environment to attain its targets. From the beginning of the cultural transformation program, there was a move from ‘managing’ to ‘leading’ their teams by the managers. Particularly, there was a more logical procedure of managers sitting with employees and discussing about the problems. There were some crucial cultural changes took place as a result of managers being influenced to take a respite to ‘step back’ and focus on their ‘tool box’ to express certain circumstances. There are three pillars to the implementation: Rhythm, data and priorities and Bison has placed powerful stress on Meat Pack’s accountability (rhythm), performance feedback (data) and strategic goals (priorities). Bison also invested in the training of his middle line managers and front-line employees, whereby they have implemented skills through an external provider on the life cycle of a leader, including developing, hiring, attracting, appraising and monitoring as well as removing and confronting, where required. The reviews from senior managers have been that their managers have appreciated such level of investment in their development.
Meat Pack installed a complimentary structure around the firm, which authorized supervisors and management to take on bigger and accountabilities and responsibilities. For instance, line managers were influenced to undertake more practical duties with the engagement of human resources and with evaluation regarding performances. Generally, there was an in general thrive to get individuals across the company to guide and not supervise. Both the CFO and COO felt that this has been a positive approach, but find that the development was expensive (Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez and Sanz-Valle 2016).
As Bison was working on the forefront and constructing a flourishing business, he was highly respected by middle level employees and juniors across Meat Pack. He is often explained as creative thinker and a very approachable and kind individual. In few instances like personal injuries to the workers, he is regarded as compassionate and supportive to employees and their families. For instance, when a member of staff met with an accident outside the workplace, Bison paid a visit to the hospital a number of times and remunerated the employee to purchase a new car with the access of a wheelchair. Another employee notified that due to the support of the CEO, she jammed with training programs that have helped her to raise her earnings and provided greater monetary support to her family (Chatman et al. 2014).
Due to the changes in performance and culture, procedures that are more methodical were constructed for managers to discuss their issues with employees. Additionally, the managers are being persuaded to take a break to move back when expressing particular circumstances. Bison has proposed for a prominence on several habits like setting precedence, with the weight on planned targets, beating into reliable data through performance feedback generating the accountability. The improvement in leadership training of middle managers and front-line implemented through implementation of various nucleus areas that are essential for managements, like employing, drawing, enhancing, guiding, and appreciating the staff members as well as confronting and eradicating them, when required. Responses from senior managements shows that lower level managers have encouraged the endowment in their progress (Jacobs et al. 2013).
Few managers felt that they are in better position now at expressing their problems without offending others; tasks are incomplete as what individuals talk about varies from their performance. Even though it is superior tradition to cipher the everyday manufacture on a huge white board near to factory floor, with the help of 17 line managers who sketch for the next day’s manufacture. There is an anxiety that there are a number of managers going through the information and not adequate people on the floor to assure that the targets are accomplished. The idea is for the objectives, which are tracked manually on the white board, to be electronically entered, which is helpful in assuring that managers can focus on the information without surrendering precious time that could be used on the duties of leadership on the factory floor (Jiménez-Jiménez, Fernández-Gil and Martínez-Costa 2014).
The major challenges faced were regarding reaching daily targets difference between afternoon shifts and day shifts. The day shift in Meat Pack continues from 5:30 am to 2:30 pm and the afternoon shift continues from 2:30 pm until midnight. Bison faced ‘huddles’ at the beginning and in between the shifts—at these levels, workers can discuss about what have been done in the day shifts and requirements to be undertaken during the afternoon shifts. The intellectual standard of the shifts were considerably different. The day session is explained as implementing the ‘gung-ho’ strategy that led to high yielding. The day shift employees through choosing the easier approach to meet their targets explain this partially. On the other hand, the afternoon shift is under big pressure due to specific cut-off times at 3 and 3:30 pm, when lorries come to pick up products for supplying to the supermarkets. There are variances in priority, that is, day shift targeting on maximising returns and the afternoon shift was concerned about time-sensitivity for lorry pick-ups. There is growing pressure for workers and managers to maximize their productivity. Despite this, returns have amplified and there is no loss time injury (LTI) in the past year (Martinez et al. 2015).
References:
Andersen, S.C. and Moynihan, D.P., 2016. How Leaders Respond to Diversity: The Moderating Role of Organizational Culture on Performance Information Use. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, p.muv038.
Brooks, A.M.T., Hummel, L.L. and Foster, D., 2015, November. Shining the Light on Senior Services: Driving Excellence through Leading Practices. In 43rd Biennial Convention (07 November-11 November 2015). STTI.
Chatman, J.A., Caldwell, D.F., O’Reilly, C.A. and Doerr, B., 2014. Parsing organizational culture: How the norm for adaptability influences the relationship between culture consensus and financial performance in high?technology firms. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(6), pp.785-808.
David, J.W., 2016. The impact of emotional intelligence and coaching on senior leadership transitions at the local church level (Doctoral dissertation, regent university).
De Brentani, U. and Kleinschmidt, E.J., 2015. The impact of company resources and capabilities on global new product program performance. Project Management Journal, 46(1), pp.12-29.
Giessner, S. and Wong, S., 2016. The fine line between hands-on and hands-off leadership. RSM Discovery-Management Knowledge, 25(1), pp.11-13.
Jacobs, R., Mannion, R., Davies, H.T., Harrison, S., Konteh, F. and Walshe, K., 2013. The relationship between organizational culture and performance in acute hospitals. Social science & medicine, 76, pp.115-125.
Jiménez-Jiménez, D., Fernández-Gil, J.R. and Martínez-Costa, M., 2014, September. Culture and Performance: A Learning Orientation for the Financial Sector. In European Conference on Knowledge Management (Vol. 2, p. 480). Academic Conferences International Limited.
King, J.A., 2016. Authentic Public School Senior Leadership, Principal Job Satisfaction and the Differences between Senior Leaders’ Self-Assessment and Principals’ Evaluation of Their Leaders Authentic Leadership (Doctoral dissertation, aurora university).
Levy, O., Taylor, S., Boyacigiller, N.A., Bodner, T.E., Peiperl, M.A. and Beechler, S., 2015. Perceived senior leadership opportunities in MNCs: The effect of social hierarchy and capital. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(3), pp.285-307.
Martinez, E.A., Beaulieu, N., Gibbons, R., Pronovost, P. and Wang, T., 2015. Organizational culture and performance. The American Economic Review, 105(5), pp.331-335.
Moore, F., 2015. An unsuitable job for a woman: A ‘native category’approach to gender, diversity and cross-cultural management. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26(2), pp.216-230.
Naranjo-Valencia, J.C., Jiménez-Jiménez, D. and Sanz-Valle, R., 2016. Studying the links between organizational culture, innovation, and performance in Spanish companies. Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología, 48(1), pp.30-41.
O’Connor, S. and Carlson, E., 2016. Safety Culture and Senior Leadership Behavior: Using Negative Safety Ratings to Align Clinical Staff and Senior Leadership. Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(4), pp.215-220.
Sidhu, J., 2016. Middle managers: their role in management innovation. RSM Discovery-Management Knowledge, 25(1), pp.8-10.
Stead, V., Mavin, S., Williams, J. and Elliott, C., 2015. Pathways to senior leadership for women: what do powerful women leaders see as key issues for women who aspire to senior leader positions?. In Academy of Management Meeting.
Talpo?, M.F., Pop, I.G., V?duva, S. and Kovács, L.A., 2017. Talent Management and the Quest for Effective Succession Management in the Knowledge-Based Economy. In Business Ethics and Leadership from an Eastern European, Transdisciplinary Context (pp. 65-73). Springer International Publishing.
Walker, D. and Jacobsson, M., 2014. A rationale for alliancing within a public-private partnership. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 21(6), pp.648-673.
Walker, D.H., Walker, D.H., Rahmani, F. and Rahmani, F., 2016. Delivering a water treatment plant project using a collaborative project procurement approach. Construction Innovation, 16(2), pp.158-184.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download