Case_Anylsis_Elite_Inc

| Elite Inc | Getting Back On Track | | FRH (Francesca Hughes) | 3/26/2011 | The case article entitled, “Elite Inc,” describes a successful public relations firm founded in Toronto, Ontario, in 1960. Elite has just acquired a new CEO who needs to help the company reestablish employee motivation and guide its CFO to perform better and complete tasks as assigned on time. The status of the company was examined in limited detail by the article and a number of problems were exposed. This paper is based on the information provided by the article and is divided into two sections. The first section discusses two reasons for the difficulties currently confronting Elite Inc. The second section offers suggestions that would allow Elite Inc to tackle the difficulties it now faces as it successfully changes. | Reasons Why Elite is Facing Difficulties The multitude of problems facing Elite can be traced to two causes. The difficulties began when the distinct corporate culture changed under which the company operated. This shift highlighted shortcomings in the company’s structure and professionalism. As the company grew, the upper management disengaged from the employees and the company’s atmosphere became somewhat unpleasant. A company once praised for employee relations has become a company that’s seen as promoting employee alienation. One belief expressed by Robert McDonald (Chairman and CFO of P & G) “Putting people in the right jobs is one of the most important jobs of the leader.” We need to get the right people on the bus and get them in the right seats on the bus. “Executive staff needs to be able to meet the needs of the company in a sufficient way. Projects had to be completed on time, documents have to be completed and filed properly and they must be able to delegate effectively. Clearly the case studies points out that CFO at Elite is have difficulties keeping up with his daily duties and is lacking in delegating projects to his team. Benson has to put a plan together to help improve the CFO’s performance or replace him. Elite’s strategic environment has been effected. The process of strategic leadership and decision making begins with an assessment of the environment within which it occurs. Strategies can be compared to a plan, except it is broader in scale, long term in nature, and surrounded by more uncertainties. The strategic choices of organizations may be limited by constraints imposed by their environments. If that strategic environment is altered, however, choices can be incorrect, critical tasks off target, and relationships misaligned. Elite’s past success was often powered by employee involvement in daily activities of the company. As the article states, “The small workforce of 50 was flexible and cooperative, creating a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere. Management and employees had a close relationship with open lines of communication.” As the company continued to grow in the 1970’s the culture begin to change.” Growth in the company, however, has made it a much more complex organization than before. The company has grown so big and its problems are so far-reaching - ranging from the incident of competitiveness between peers to the gap formed between management and the employees. Suggestions Necessary for Successful Change at Elite The difficulties at Elite were the result of the several problems identified in the preceding section. These problems can be corrected with three recommendations. First, Elite must reconsider its strategic choices and critical tasks in light of its new strategic environment. Second, Elite must align its structure and culture with its distinct critical tasks using at the keys to successful change. Third, Benson must reinforce the structural and cultural changes as leader of the company. According to text found in chapter 5, pg 135, Coaching and Leadership Style, it states that style is most appropriate when subordinates have some competence but lower level of commitment. Understanding of Leadership styles is necessary for an organizations to make good choices about their strategy (what businesses it is in, how it intends to compete, and who its target customers are), objectives (expectations against which performance can be compared), and vision (expression of the organization’s broader aspirations). With clear strategic choices, organizations can identify the critical tasks necessary to implement their choices. The old Elite, the smaller Elite, the Elite that only had to manage 50 employees, and the Elite that could engage employees operated within a much different context than Elite today. In the past, the employees were motivated to work by giving them motivational pushes like salary raise, vacation packages, health and dental plans, bonuses etc. Although these are still the push factors in motivating the employees to work harder and more efficiently, the methods of employee selection for these rewards have been altered. Now the competitive work force has become even more competitive because companies today are driving their employees further by creating more competition amongst them. Employees who work harder are rewarded more. It follows, then, that the strategy, objectives, vision, and resulting critical tasks of the old Elite may not be sufficient or even appropriate for Elite now. Elite needs to acknowledge it is operating within a new and different strategic environment and then reconsider its strategic choices and critical tasks in light of that environment. Structural and cultural inertia are, by definition, resistance to change based on an organization’s complexity, interdependence, and shared expectations. Breaking through that resistance and aligning Elite’s structure and culture with new critical tasks developed in light of a new strategic environment will entail Elite to embrace the keys to successful change. The article highlights areas where several of the keys would be particularly useful. The first key Elite needs to utilize is developing dissatisfaction with the current state. This was recognized by Frank McNeil, Elite’s previous CEO, and that’s why Benson was hired. A critical factor in driving change is to demonstrate how unrealistic it is to assume that the current state is and always will be good. Benson knew it was critical to create a strong bond with both her employees and, in particular with her senior management team. To break through the disinterest, Benson must change the tune of the company and begin to develop that dissatisfaction. The second key to changing Elite’s structure and culture is to develop a vision that will clarify the direction in which the company needs to go and will channel people’s emotional energies into getting there. As it was talked about above, the improvement of a vision is a strategic choice. For Elite, however, it’s also a means to smooth the progress of change. A culture that is narrow, centralized, and slow may be good at preserving the foundation, but it does little to inspire progress. Elite’s culture worked well for many years but changed environment can cause a culture to make a company unfold at the seam. According to Robert McDonald, (President and CEO of P & G) “In my experience, the best companies and leaders operate by a clear purpose and consistent set of principles or values.” “People like working for leaders who are transparent about what’s important to them.” Benson can certainly provide that strong hand, but in Elite’s case, the delegation of power will also play an important role. Benson can actually use her power to guide change by giving employees the chance to make suggestion and changes regarding their work and feel empowered within the company. This will create a more positive business relation with Elite’s workforce. Reinforcement of the structural and cultural changes begins with Benson’s behavior as leader. Benson’s role as CEO is the biggest key to changing Elite. A new context and a changed structure and culture will require a different leader than Elite had before. As McDonald state in his lecture, “Everyone wants to succeed, and success is contagious. People like to be part of a winning team. So what we have to do, as leaders, is to create that team. At P&G we call this a “high-performance team.” Benson needs to change her perspective and focus on the morale of the company. She needs to acknowledge there are problems with the company. She needs to begin to create dissatisfaction with Elite’s current state. She needs to develop a vision that captures Elite’s past while guiding it into the future. The “vision thing,” to quote a former U.S. President, is perhaps most important because it will force Benson to see Elite beyond herself Her perspective would shift to the long-term: away from operational matters and on to organizational design; away from herself and on to other people; away from the successful past and on to an even more successful future. Works Cited Northouse, Peter G.  Leadership Theory and Practice, Fifth Edition.  Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2010 Proctor& Gamble (3/23/2011) Retrieved From http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/purpose_people/executive_team/values_based_leadership