Leadership and Management II

Question 1

What is strategy?

Answer 1

According to Johnson and Scholes, strategy is the direction and scope of an org over the long term, which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing environment and to fulfill stakeholder expectations.

Question 2

What are the nature of strategic decisions?

Answer 2

1. Likely to be made in periods of change and uncertainty
2. When making them it will likely have an impact accross the org
3. May affect reltionships external to the org
4. Result in changes within in the org
5. Likely to be complex

Question 3

What levels within the org may strategy may be seen at?

Answer 3

• Corporate level: looking at decisions that’ll affect the direction of the organisation
• Business unit level: looking at how the organisation will be able to compete in its chosen markets and how it is able to gain competitive advantage over the field
• Operational level: looking at those parties of the organisation that implement the strategies that have been developed by both corporate and business unit strategy teams

Question 4

What are the stages of the strategic management process?

Answer 4

Strategic management is about looking at a complex situation holistically and putting strategy into action.

1. Strategic analysis: how the strategy may be affected by the external environment, organisational resources and the influence of key stakeholders. Use PESTLE approach to do this and consider what’ll happen in the future.
2. Strategic choice: understanding the future strategy both at corporate and business unit level. It is also about understanding the options available to develop this strategy.
3. Strategic action: concerned with seeing that the strategy chosen is working in practice: is the structure and resources of the organisation right to support the strategy?

Question 5

What purposes do objectives serve?

Answer 5

A statement of certain outcomes that the organisation has to achieve

• To give the org a sense of direction
• To giv focus for decision making: good objectives lead to good plans and one knows which objectives to prioritise
• To motivate employees: gives sense of purpose and what role an employee will play
• To be used as a controling mechanism: spells out expectations of performance and can be used to measure performance

Question 6

How may an organisation achieve a balanced outlook?

Answer 6

In order to achieve a balanced outlook an org must ensure that the various stakeholders are adequately represented in the company, have a mission statement which all the stakeholder groups can subscribe to, and have a balanced scorecard.

Question 7

Who are the major stakeholders in most orgs?

Answer 7

1. Shareholders: however e.g. institutional investors don’t tend to get involved
2. Customers: looking for quality products and services, good customer service and value for money
3. Creditors: if money owed to them is not paid on time, they have the power to put the company out of business
4. Managers: their main concern will be for reward and the prestige and power of their position
5. Employees: looking for security, sufficient reward and job satisfaction
6. Other: e.g. wider society, environment etc.

Question 8

What will a mission statement normally cover?

Answer 8

1. A vision of the org that is likely to remain for the longer term
2. Info on the main intentions/aspirations of the org
3. Explanation of the main activites of the org and the position that it would like to hold in the market place
4. Statement of key values of the org, which can cover the stakeholder groups. E.g. “year on year growth for our shareholders or the growth and development of our people”

Question 9

What is a balanced scorecard?

Answer 9

Whilst mission statements contain broad goals, BSCs turn this into more specific goals that will have specific performance measures, typically under one of 4 headings:

1. Profitability: can be hard to quantify profit
2. Growth: often through M&A, though growing too fast can be unsustainable e.g. dot com era
3. Shareholder value: e.g. by giving them dividends, increasing share value etc.
4. Customer satisfaction: without them there’s no profit
5. Other objectives: e.g. learning, staff satisfaction etc.

Question 10

What are the common stages in a performance management system?

Answer 10

1. Planning performance (at the start of the period under review):
   
   • ​​ensure the individual understands goals and objectives
   • agree what should be acheived, by when, to what standard how
   • ensure understanding of the role & responsibilities
   • agree the behaviours required to do the job in line with org standards and culture
   • ensure individual understands priorities in job
2. Monitor & Review:
   
   • Regularly review objectives & goals to ensure currency
   • ​​Regularly review and agree ongoing performance
   • Coach employee to maximise performance
   • Challenge poor performance
   • Identitfy and agree appropriate development plans
   • Support development in line with plan
3. Appraising performance (at the end of the period under review)
   
   • ​​Formal agreement of performance appraisal and rating
   • Agreement of objectives for the forthcoming period
   • Documentation of the process
4. ​​Performance planning

Question 11

What is the GROW model?

Answer 11

GROW is a model for effective coaching:

• Goal - what do you want to acheive?
  
  • ​Set context for the interaction
  • Discuss and agree the objectives of the coaching session
  • Identify the problem and what they want to do about it
  • Ask questions to encourage them to identify a SMART goal (specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-based)
  • put the person at ease, reassure them, discuss confientiality and clear tension
  • Be specific and focus on the issue
• Reality - what is happening now?
  
  • Check their reality
  • ​Helps the individual to understand/establish the current situation based around facts supported with evidence and opinions
  • Ask q’s to help them raise their self awareness of that situation
  • There will be TWO realities: the team members and the leader
• Options - what can you do?
  
  • ​Encourage the individual to come up with a range of feasible realistic options for dealing with the matter
  • Ask q’s to get the individual to generate as many alternative courses of action as possible
  • If the individual genuinely has no ideas, then ask if theu whould like your suggestions
• Will - what will you do?​
  
  • Converting a discussion into a decision based on WHAT is to be done, WHEN and by WHO requires the WILL to do it
  • Be clear on who is doing what - e.g. team manager to x. Team member to y.

Question 12

How does one manage those who exceed expectations?

Answer 12

1. Focus on:
   
   • Praise and recognition
   • Strengths & improvement areas
   • ​​Career growth
   • Learning & develpment/training - identify needs and career direction
   • Create an action plan (PDP)
2. The team leader should:
   
   • Stress significance of results the employee has acheived and their potential for more
   • Review areas to improve - have specific examples of successes and acheivement.
   • Understand the career paths the employee is interested in and show support
   • Stress the actions that you and the employee will take to prepare them for next role
   • ​​Understand what motivates the employee
3. The team leader should avoid:
   
   • ​​assuming they know what’s best for employee
   • assuming the employee knows how important their contributions are
   • making unrealistic commitments/goals

Question 13

How does one manage those who meets expectations?

Answer 13

1. Focus on:
   
   • ​​praise and recognition
   • strengths & improvement areas
   • career growth
   • learning and develpment/training opportunities
   • creating an action plan (PDP)
2. The team leader should:
   
   • ​​Stress significance of results the employee has acheived and their potential for more
   • Review areas to improve - have specific examples of successes and acheivement.
   • Seek to understand how employees want to grow and develop
   • Stress the actions that you and the employee will take
   • ​​Understand what motivates the employee
3. The team leader should avoid:
   
   • ​​allowing improvement areas to overshadow the employees accomplishments
   • letting the employee leave the meething w/o telling them about improvement areas

Question 14

How does one manage those who fail to meet expectations?

Answer 14

1. Focus:
   
   • ​​past/current performance vs goals set (gaps)
   • Why there is a gap
   • Future expectations (new goals)
   • Timings
   • follow up- creation of personal improvement plan
   • if underperfomance continues use the formal procedures within the org for staff who fail to reach satisfactory level of performance
2. The team leader should:
   
   • ​​stress seriousness of the situation
   • be honest, sensitive and listen
   • stress confidentiality
   • give specific examples when describing the problems or issues
   • confirm that the employee understands
   • follow up on agreed actions
3. The team leader shouldn’t:
   
   • ​​be overly harsh
   • go off track
   • apologise for your actions
   • blaming others for the actions being taken - own it

Question 15

The process of personal transition:

Answer 15

Question 16

What pointers help in the implementation of change?

Answer 16

• Know why the change is being made - be sure it’s necessay and be prepared to explain it.
• Involve people in the change - sell the change to people and involve them. Being part of the planning gives people a sense of control. Ask for opinions at all stages. Use surveys and discussion groups.
• Put a respected person in charge
• Acknowledge and reward people - many people take personal risk to help towards success - this should be acknowledged and rewarded
• Manage the stories - use ancedotes of where change has brought about positive results
• Look for outside help - often an outside with no axe to grind provides good neutral advice. Use this to reinforce the direction one wants to go. This person may be referred to as a change agent
• Create teams - one needs to motivate and encourage people together - provide an official route to do this
• Provide training in new values and work methods - training brings people together and it allows them to air concerns
• Be dogged and persistent - changed orgs can slip back into old ways
• Walk the talk - be seen to change and do things differently

Question 17

In the performance management process, what are the key responisbilities of:

(a) The manager
(b) the individual
(c) HR

Answer 17

(a) The manager:

• Ensuring annual performance appraisals and interim performance reviewscarried out on time
• Ensuring the employee commits to objectives set during performance management review
• Planning and conducting 1-to-1’s
• Overview development plan and ensure it’s relevent
• Support the employee
• Ensure all supporting docs are completed, signed off/actioned as required

(b) The individual:

• preparing for performance management reviews
• Taking ownership for their performance dicsussions and agreed objectives
• Taking ownership for implementing the plan

(c) HR:

• Ensure those operating the performance management system are trained
• Update the org’s record system on confirmation of employee rating and ensure bonuses/reqards are paid out timely
• develop and maintain the system