Executive Summary
Promoting change and the improvement of quality standards is essential for a company aiming to become a global leader. The given objective, however, often requires the reconsideration of the leadership strategy adopted by the company managers and its further adjustment to the requirements of the global market. However, in most instances, the company managers may be unwilling to alter the traditional behavioral patterns, including both theirs and the ones of the staff due to the difficulty of the procedure and the need to change their values.
A training session aimed at promoting a different leadership strategy and, therefore, a different approach toward the workplace issues, including conflicts, the distribution of roles and responsibilities, the communication process, etc., will help the managers gear the employees’ efforts in the right direction; as a result, a significant increase in the quality of the products and services provided is expected.
The training session will include a set of short personal interviews regarding the issues such as the personal values of the managers, their concept of quality and corporate responsibility, and the information concerning the unique personality traits of the respondents. The training, which will include several scenarios, in which the managers will have to solve leadership-related issues, will close with another assessment. Afterward, the results of each evaluation will be compared, and the verdict regarding the effect of the training will be provided. It is expected that the training program will have a huge effect on both the managers and the staff members.
Overview Statement
Investing in the development of the company’s human resources is an essential element of a reasonable financial strategy and an adequate HRM approach as it provides premises for the promotion of stakeholder-oriented values in the firm and the consistent improvement of product quality (Thite, Kavanagh, and Johnson 24). By enhancing the process of staff’s professional development, one will create premises for the steady development of the organization since the employees’ competencies are going to upgrade along with the progress of the organization.
Background
Company M has only recently started operating in the U.S. market by providing services in the food industry. By putting a very strong emphasis on the production of food that is healthy, tasty, and vegetarian, the organization has gained recognition in the local market. However, the need to expand triggered the necessity to change the existing leadership style, and the tools for managing the staff and improving their performance has emerged. To make sure that the quality of the goods produced complies with the existing regulations, the firm will have to consider the tools for boosting the staff’s motivation.
Problem
In light of the fact that the significance of healthy food has been growing consistently over the past few decades, the emergence of numerous companies operating in the same area, as well as the enhancement of the global organizations’ positions was rather expected. Therefore, to enter the designated environment, the firm will have to make sure that the quality of the products is high enough to satisfy the customers, meet the standards of the global market, and, therefore, increase the firm’s competitiveness rates. Herein the need to improve the skills of the staff lies; by teaching the current staff instead of hiring new members, Company M is likely to advance in the target market. Since the firm will not have to recruit the new staff and make them acquire the skills that the current company members already have, it will have ample opportunities for saving an impressive amount of money. More importantly, Company M will use the services of devoted staff members, who will be loyal to the organization and appreciate it, thus, promoting its further development.
The process of acquiring new skills is, however, fraught with several difficulties, the issue of motivation and the approach to be taken to advance adult learners being the key ones. Indeed, applying the learning theories that are typically used to teach students does not seem reasonable, as adults have different values, goals and, therefore, patterns of learning.
Purpose
The purpose of the study, therefore, concerns the development of a viable strategy for manager training, which will help improve their skills so that they could enhance the process of knowledge acquisition among the staff and the organization could live up to the standards set by the firms operating in the environment of the global economy. Particularly, the set of exercises and the information layout will have to be identified so that the plan could be completed and the improvement of the level of the employees’ expertise could be upgraded correspondingly.
Company Description
Company M can be defined as medium entrepreneurship that is willing to expand by attracting an increasingly large number of customers. The organization has been focusing primarily on the promotion of its product to the target audience, research and development, the branding strategy, and the new marketing tools (e.g., social networks).
Market Performance
Becoming successful in the food industry is a challenging g task due to the abundance of middle and small entrepreneurship in both the Middle East and the global markets. Moreover, the fact that the latter is dominated by massive corporations operating in the food industry means that Company M may be squashed by its influential rivals when emerging in the designated market. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that, by increasing the quality of its goods and enhancing the production process, the firm may gain significant weight in the target environment by offering the unique products of the Arab cuisine, an opportunity, which other companies may overlook.
Organizational Behavior
The members of the company are affected by the leadership style chosen by the company leader and accepted by managers to a considerable extent. Particularly, the fact that the firm is handled with the help of a laissez-faire approach sets a range of obstacles to achieving success in the global economy. As a recent analysis of the company has shown, the firm may suffer from the lack of cohesion between the actions of the staff; particularly, the cooperation between different departments of the organization may be viewed as one of the most questionable aspects of its performance. Herein the key issue regarding the required change lies; instead of using the laissez-faire leadership style, which provides the employees with an excessive amount of options as far as their professional choices are concerned, the managers should direct and motivate them, at the same time making sure that the employees should be both independent and ethical in their decision-making. In other words, both the company’s leader and the managers should adopt the transformative leadership style.
Leadership
Defined as “is a part of new leadership paradigm and explains a process that changes the people and is connected to values, moral characteristics and long-term goals” (Baharlou 609–610), the transformative leadership approach creates the environment, in which the staff’s motivation can be enhanced significantly. According to a recent study, the specified tool “increases satisfaction of subordinates and their trust in leadership and their emotional commitment” (Baharlou 610). However, to make sure that the managers use their power reasonably and carry out an adequate policy by providing employees with enough support to boost their motivation and engagement rates, one will have to redesign the company’s values and promote them to the managers.
While one might argue that the adoption of the laissez-faire leadership style as a management tool is not a bad idea, seeing that it reinforces the significance of the staff’s professional independence, it may hinder the process of cooperation between the firm’s departments in the realm of the global economy. Seeing that the affiliates of the entrepreneurship will be quite distant from each other, making certain that the managers comply with the uniform leadership policy and promote the same values to the staff members are essential steps. Herein the significance of the transformative leadership lies; putting a strong emphasis on the corporate values, it sets the stage for the further promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility among the managers and the employees alike. The development of CSR, in its turn, will trigger an immediate increase in the quality of the products, simultaneously reducing the possibility of corporate fraud.
Educational Approach: Summary
Andragogy
As it has been stressed above, there is a significant gap between the learning behavior of adolescents and that of adult learners. As a rule, in contrast to younger learners, adult ones know exactly what they want to achieve and how. Therefore, without a goal or set of objectives to strive for, adults will be unable to acquire the necessary skills and learn the required information in a proper manner. Thus, it will be reasonable to suggest andragogy as the theoretical foundation for teaching the members of Company M. Andragogy is used widely as a tool for addressing the needs of adult learners and allowing them to develop in the manner that they are comfortable with (Melick and Melick 108).
Theory and Practice
Applying the above-mentioned concepts to practice, one must put the stage involving the clarification of the company’s goals and the significance thereof to the staff members at the top of the priorities list. In other words, it is essential that the employees should be able to relate to the program and have a clear idea of the stages that they will have to pass through in order to meet the requirements set by the organization.
Workshop Lesson Plan
Content
Needs Assessment Components
The needs assessment will be carried out as a series of personal interviews. Particularly, the managers will have to answer the questions regarding their goals, aspirations, and demands. Thus, the means of promoting the designated leadership strategy to each of them efficiently can be identified. For instance, several managers have been displaying a strong tendency to avoid conflicts in the workplace. Therefore, the specified members of the organization will have to be taught about the significance of the negotiation strategy based on compromise as opposed to the one based on avoidance. The principles of the MBTI approach should be incorporated into the assessment. Specifically, the test results should provide the managers and the company with the information concerning the manner, in which the former can be approached and the tools that may increase motivation rates among them. According to the existing definition, the MBTI tool helps carry out the procedure of “psychological typing” (Ao 175). Hence, the individual characteristics of the managers can be identified so that the further course of the training process could be adjusted to meet the company’s quality requirements and help the managers acquire the corresponding leadership skills to boost the staff’s initiative and performance rates.
The needs assessment will include the questions concerning the elements of the workplace operations that the managers find the most exciting, the ones that they consider the most tedious, the staff’s expectations and whether the company meets them, and the employees’ wishes concerning the possible changes in the workplace. It is believed that there is no need to ask the questions regarding their motivation since the managers may possibly refuse to speak their minds in fear of providing the answer that will define them as lacking initiative and corporate spirit.
Last but definitely not least, the issues regarding the unique characteristics of the Arab Middle East residents need to be taken into account when carrying out the training process. Specifically, cultural issues such as the concept of personal space will have to be taken into account. The training process should occur in a setting that will presuppose close communication between the managers and the instructor. Moreover, it will be required that the communication should be carried out with a very small physical distance between the coach and the managers. The given modification of the traditional training session is predisposed by the fact that the Arab Middle East culture involves very close communication, during which the participants reduce the amount of space between each other to a minimum. The specified characteristics of the Arab Middle East culture stands in sharp contrast to the European and American ones (Rinke and Röder 1277); nevertheless, it has to be appreciated and complied with so that the managers of Company M could feel inclined toward changing their typical behavioral patterns in the workplace and accepting new and improved ones. The change in question can be carried out by sitting close to the respondent when conducting an interview mentioned above. Thus, the managers are unlikely to be reluctant to share the details of their workplace experiences with the interviewer.
Program Design Theories
Approaching the issue, one must consider the theory of change as the basis for the design of the program in question. Seeing that it is the change that creates the greatest obstacle on the staff’s way too accepting the new design of the organization and the new roles and responsibilities, the key tenets of the theory based on the integrative model will have to be included in the design of the program because the specified model allows the managers to “not only look at the different aspects of competency development within an organization but also assess the interconnections between these aspects, putting competency development in a broader perspective” (Vos, Hauw, and Willemse 7).
Evaluation Components
The staff of the organization will be evaluated twice in the course of training. First, the employees will undergo a series of questions concerning their motivations, their idea of corporate responsibility, their willingness to acquire new knowledge and leadership skills, etc., prior to the training. As soon as the training is over, the managers will be interviewed once again and asked similar questions allowing the staff to show what they have learned during the training session.
The evaluation will consist of the questions concerning the personal impressions and expectations of the staff members, the location and assessment of their unique characteristics, and their potential as leaders. A comparison of the interview results retrieved after the first and the second evaluation will be carried out afterward. Thus, the rate of the employees’ readiness for the alterations of the workplace to occur and the acceptance of their new roles and responsibilities can be identified. It is expected that the company members will reconsider their values and be ready to alter their behavioral patterns and values as far as the key workplace processes are concerned.
Process
The process of the employees’ evaluation will occur at two key stages. As it has been stressed above, the first evaluation will help identify the level at which the staff members currently are. Afterward, the organization should evaluate the problems in the current performance rates and identify the cause thereof, thus, shaping the training process so that the employees could receive the necessary instructions. The training will occur in several stages. Particularly, the first stage presupposes that the staff members will receive instructions. At the second stage, the employees will be provided with several tasks aimed at training the necessary skills. After the training is over, a short assessment of their progress is conducted. There will be three key sessions, i.e., the one that will be aimed at improving the staff’s professional skills, the one aimed at promoting a set of efficient communication tools to the target audience, and the one that will help the members of the program acquire the necessary leadership skills.
Time
It is believed that the process of training and the subsequent assessment is going to take at least two months. Thus, the managers involved in the program will be able to not only develop the corresponding skills but also integrate them with their behavioral patterns, therefore, learning to own it.
Resources
The training process will require the use of resources such as online software that will help create online assessments for the participants of the project. Thus, a fair evaluation can be facilitated. In addition, scholarly articles will be used to locate the necessary teaching theories and design corresponding activities.
Recommendations
It is strongly suggested that the company in question should reconsider the current leadership approach so that the staff’s motivation rates could be enhanced and that the premises for improving the quality of the goods produced could be created. As the analysis of the company’s components conducted above has shown, the organization thrives on the marketing strategy and the promotion of a single brand, which as an approach, is quite adequate since it makes the organization competitive. However, the lack of emphasis on the quality control processes along with the inconsistencies in the motivation rates of the staff shows that the current leadership strategy and the tools for promoting corporate values could use a major improvement. Therefore, the training process should be aimed at promoting new corporate values and goals, which will help reinforce the significance of corporate ethics and help the staff members develop the required amount of corporate social responsibility.
Making a firm succeed I the environment of the global economy is a challenging task; however, with a set of strategies aimed at improving the quality of the firm’s production by carrying out a series of training sessions with the staff, Company M is going to become competitive in the global market.
Works Cited
Ao, Xiaolan. “Effective Communication With USA and China Community Leaders: Using Psychological Typing Analysis.” Journal of US-China Public Administration 10.2 (2013): 174–183. Print.
Baharlou, Nazila. “Investigating the Effect of Transformative Leadership on Promotion of Employees: Job Performance Based on the Role of Trust as a Mediator.” Journal UMP Social Sciences and Technology Management 3.2 (2015): 609–618. Print.
Melick, Richart R., and Shela Melick. Teaching that Transforms: Facilitating Life Change Through Adult Bible Teaching. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2010. Print.
Rinke, Eike, and Maria Röder. “Media Ecologies, Communication Culture, and Temporal-Spatial Unfolding: Three Components in a Communication Model of the Egyptian Regime Change.” International Journal of Communication 5.1 (2011): 1273–1285. Print.
Thite, Mohan, Michael J. Kavanagh, and Richard D. Johnson. “Evolution of Human Resource Management and Human Resource Information Systems The Role of Information Technology.” Human Resource Information Systems Basics, Applications, and Future Directions. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2013. Print. 2–33.
Vos, Ans de, Sara de Hauw, and Ine Willemse. Competency Development in Organizations: Building An Integrative Model Through A Qualitative Study. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, 2011. Print.