Week 10 Faslane

Faslane change was successful because the management team brought people who dealt with change before and helped them implement changes. It was successful because employees were involved, they were told that things have to changes and asked for their opinions. The management team was motivated to make changes because of the earning they will be making as a result of cost savings. One important thing that contributed to their success was that Babcock was a company from the private sector where thing are very different (more competitive, better structured, different stakeholders, different targets, etc.)  compared to the public sector where people were relaxed because of the notion of jobs for life, they never considered that one day the government will not have enough money to pay for their services.  Babcock came and restructured the organisation. They reduced the levels of management from 7 to 4, reduced about 400 full-time equivalent posts, which I believe made a significant contribution the cost reduction. They managed to reduced the review period from 56 days to only 6 days, a change which contributed a lot to the speed of the decision making process in the organisation. Employees understood that they had to come up with new ways and ideas of how to cut spending. They were asked to create their own team, their own departmental business plan. All these changes turned out to be very successful because Faslane would become the home base for the entire UK submarines fleet.  We can learn from the Faslane case study that change needs to be communicated, it needs to come from the employees as well as involve employees and ask for their opinions (the event in the tent). The management team which took charge of Faslane did a good job by letting people know that change was needed and it can no longer use the same structure, hence 98 people decided to give up their jobs. It was unethical to spend the tax payer's money for things that were not  necessary or which could have been much cheaper. The Babcock team managed to make a huge transformation form a leadership style which was highly transactional to a highly transformational (I believe it's a great thing to encourage people to work for a company in a more passionate way, to try and make things better, but it is probably quite hard to achieve that level of commitment from the employees).  The leadership approach used by the Babcock team can be compared to Lynch's model, in fact I believe they used "The five elements of successful and effective strategic leadership". 1. Developing and communicating the organisation's purpose - that is exactly what they did. Employees were told that the organisation can not function the it used to, things have to change. They were also asked to create their own teams so that they can increase productivity.  2. Setting ethical standards - that's the whole reason why they brought Babcock, to restructure the organisation so that they can spend less. It was unethical to spend the tax payers money. 3. Managing human resources and organisational decisions - again Babcock did a good job by reducing the number of employees, reducing the review period to 6 days (which contributed a lot to the decision making process) and asked employees to create their own teams and manage themselves.  4. Sustaining competitive advantage over time - if the costs were reduced and they continued to reduce them, over time these savings gave them a great competitive advantage (the entire UK submarine fleet was moved to Faslane). Faster decision making process, small teams of people working together, all these contributed to their competitive advantage. One great thing that babcock has managed to achieve was to transfer the culture of a private company to a publicly owned organisation which resulted in greater competitiveness between the employees themselves and other organisations. 5. Defining and delivering to stakeholders - this is the area where Babcock didn't do a good job, they did a great job by over delivering year on year! They managed to save much more then the given target. Stakeholders where truly satisfied. As a result of this great performance the entire fleet moved to Faslane.

Week 9 Energix

Effective strategic leadership depends on each situation. Every company is different from one another with different people, different cultures, different objectives. There is no right way of solving problems but I believe the more flexibility and the more options are available to the decision maker the better the outcome will be. A successful leader like David could not adapt to the newly founded Energix. There isn't a 'one right way', if it would have been just one way of solving all problems then David would have been very successful at Energix. Because he came from a manufacturing firm with a rational goal in mind he couldn't adapt to the situation in which Energix was.  He was successful in a way because he was involving people in the process of change, he researched the organisation. He focused on his area of expertise, on the new product development, where unfortunately the organisation showed him some resistance. He used his analytical skills to identify gaps/holes in the research and development department, an area which he understood quite well. He also used his rational and logical approach, which were in fact his most important strengths, when he attempted to redesign the way the R&D department functioned.  David unfortunately failed to gather subjective views and opinions on how the organisation was working. He couldn't adapt to the culture, he didn't understand the culture of the firm. He failed to make others undertand what he was doing. He started by redesigning from scratch the R&D department when he should have started with a minor change and analyse what the effects of that change have on the organisation and build on to that. He focused on productivity and less on the culture of the company. He demanded loyalty which is only normal to my eye but perhaps he should have been a bit softer on the employees. After the meeting with the R&D department some people went straight to the CEO and complained. He wasn't flexible, he didn't or maybe couldn't adapt to the new environment (some people resist to change). He had a set of rules and ideas on how to deal with problems and he wasn't going to change that. He didn't consider the roots of the company, how did they manage to be so successful. But the most important problem of all (I think) is that he didn't communicate well enough with his colleagues. Many problems could have been solved only by talking to other people make them understand what he was trying to achieve and ask of their opinion and they think this might be improved. A bridging method at this point would have been very very important. Because of his difficulties in communicating freely and effectively he ended up using a formal style of communication with the CEO, which I believe is not as effective as a more relaxed approach where all problems can be discussed.  Gerry Robinson could have been very efficient in this situation because of his impeccable communication skills. He would have understood the problem and he would have asked for feedback on his opinions on how to solve the problem and in most cases he will ask the employees on what they think it should be done.  Madonna would have probably used her great adaptability skills (reinvent herself) in order to get integrated in the organisation and understand how things are running.  IDEO would have probably analysed the problem very well and tried to come up with many ideas on how to solve the problem in a creative manner. Pick only the best bits of each idea to come up with the final decision.  The Challenger case would be have been probably very similar to David's situation, where employees are against the management decision. Lack of effective communication exactly like in the challenger case.

Week 8 IDEO

Managing in a creative way is very important in any organisation. Most organisations do not adopt this style of leadership. By being creative many opportunities can arise. Companies which encourage creativity and innovation tend to have a competitive advantage. When ever a problem is encountered many ideas and solutions come along easier in a creative style of leadership.  We can learn many effective strategic leadership from the IDEO case study. In order to be creative, all employees of an organisation must be free and relaxed at the work place. At IDEO employees design their own offices in order to feel comfortable and relaxed so that they can be more productive and innovative. Just like a write who needs his chair, his desk or maybe his sofa to write something down. Very low power distance is one of the most important aspects of the organisation. This is a very good method for closing the gap between the boss and the employees at the bottom of the organisation. Low power distance results in more dialog between employees, which can result in more innovation. I personally find it easier to develop some else's ideas as opposed to generating my own ideas, therefore, more communication can only result in better outcomes. Another very important and effective strategic leadership that we can learn from IDEO is the high level of freedom, which think is one of the key elements for innovation and creation. A person can't be creative if he or she is not given a bit of freedom. Employees at IDEO do not criticise each other. All ideas are taken into account, even the wild ones. The company is divided into small teams and each team is required to come up with a innovative and creative solution to the problem. This is another effective style of leadership where a group of people are responsible for a particular task, instead of just one person who might not be as productive as a team. All employees are allowed to come to work dressed up just like they want to, there is no dress code at IDEO. This is another factor which contributes to the low power distance of the organisation. I believe that one of the most important factors, for a company like IDEO where creation and innovation is at the core of it's business, is to employ people from diverse backgrounds, which is exactly what IDEO is doing.  I don't think we can compare IDEO case study with Gerry Robinson because IDEO is a company that tries to come up with creative solutions to particular problems, whereas Mr. Robinson was looking for creative ways of speeding up the process at hospital, he was looking for ways to make the process more efficient. He was analysing the problem to identify the possible gaps which could have been used to diminish the waiting list. But we can compare IDEO with NHS where we clearly see major differences such as, high power distance at NHS and low power distance at IDEO, lack of communication and team work (everyone seemed to work for themselves and also a high degree or rivalry between employees) at NHS and extensive communication within the company and great team work at IDEO.  We can identify many differences between IDEO and the Challenger case study. IDEO is a flat organisation with employees that are comfortable and open to everyone, whereas at NASA high power distance is in place forcing employees to adopt a more formal style of communication, which sometimes is proven to be less effective. These two organisations are dealing different pressures, different costs of failure, different cultures and different roles and rules.  If we compare it with the Carrefour case study we can again identify differences in the cost of failure, we can see high power distance at Carrefour, differences in culture and style of leadership.  Madonna has always maintained a certain level of innovation in her career. She understood a very important fact in her career as a singer and that was and is to be in line with people's expectations. She managed to stay in the trend for a long period of time because she understood how important it is to be flexible. And we can see a high degree of flexibility at IDEO.