Taran Swan at Nickelodeon Latin America - Term Paper Example

? Taran Swan at Nickelodeon Latin America Executive Summary This report is presented to the management of Nickelodeon in Latin America to help it decide on things relevant to its actual need. The prevailing case of this company exemplifies the need to decide on crucial issues Nickelodeon in Latin America is facing under Taran Swan’s general management. Due to her personal need, the management is left with considerable options how they could continuously perform operation on a normal basis, and without interrupting the possible opportunities of Nickelodeon in Latin America in the future. This report tries to recommend important suggestions how the organization could effectively emancipate action based on these crucial concerns without possibly compromising its future opportunities in Latin America. This report starts with the actual issues and assumptions of the actual scenario Nickelodeon in Latin America is facing. This is followed by a brief analysis of management functions which have been playing elemental role towards the success of Taran from the past and even for future achievement of best opportunities. Problems are presented and the required actions to address them are also elaborated in detail. Keywords: Nickelodeon, management functions, management, leadership Issues and Assumptions Taran Swan, branch director and general manager of Nickelodeon Latin America is faced with various options how she could deliver her role effectively far from Miami to New York after her doctor recommended she had to stay at home for the duration of her pregnancy. This is not going to be an easy situation on her part especially that there were major projects that could either make or break Nickelodeon in the future such as the Cablevision/TCI and the Brazil-dedicated feed. Swan was faced with two major important issues in order to effectively manage or lead her team. She needs to consider her leadership style and working relationships while working with her team from afar. Then she also needs to consider a possibility of appointing an interim director who would take her post while she is absent, which for her, needs to have substantive criteria and evaluations. Assuming Swan would continue work with her team so as to ensure maximum achievement of various opportunities like those for Cablevision/TCI and the Brazil-dedicated feed even at a far distance, she therefore needs to enhance her ability to formulate and initiate the whole plan, extra-organize her team, lead them and even ensure a high level of control. Assuming further that she would appoint interim director for the mean time, Swan should therefore consider certain criteria in order to choose the one with excellent qualification that would be able to fit to the prevailing task. Swan needs to consider strategic human resource management which would include but also may not limit to human resource selection process. The case “Taran Swan at Nickelodeon Latin America” based on the above issues and assumptions is therefore composed of complex management activities which can be subdivided into four functions: planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Analysis Planning The first management function clearly indicated in the case is planning. Obviously it is here where Swan started everything how she was able to prove herself that she could actually make it to Nickelodeon Latin America as a branch director and general manager. In the industry where Nickelodeon belongs, planning plays a crucial role as a gateway to its success. As a novice in Nickelodeon business from the beginning, Taran learned to appreciate the significance of planning activity, and she found at the later part there were more complex things to be considered in the actual planning activity rather than relying on pure assumptions and estimates or projections. Planning has become integral part to leapfrog company’s success and achieve competitive advantage (Porter, 1998; Schnaars, 1998). In planning activity, Swan was able to understand the importance of ensuring the achievement of a vision, the significance of how strategy would help it realize, by which it would be evaluated how well it is succeeding through the achievement of goals and objectives. In the planning process, although Swan was a beginner at it from the start, she remarkably identified the need to communicate purpose to stakeholders, find ways on how to achieve it and gauge the degree of success in the end. In fact, it is clear from the case how she was able to come up with a “big bets” strategy just to ensure to achieve a remarkable market share in Latin America for Nickelodeon. Organizing What makes Swan effective in coping with complexities was her ability to build a certain level of culture in her organization, which also emphasized consistency and a high value for creativity. At this point, Swan relied on the value of social networks by tapping the right person for the job, which would help promote maximum productivity for the entire operation. This is a basic skill Swan happened to master based on experience after knowing the importance of how organizing ensures the fulfillment of set plans. The entire activity for organizing must be in line with dealing with people, and other relevant resources (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2010). In fact, prior to the approval of Viacom, Taran initiated a certain action that would allow contribution from other departments just to be able to minimize costs while awaiting approval and trust from advertisers and network broadcasters. This certainly is a form of organizing activity trying to emancipate the idea of organizational structure and its maximum contribution, culture and social networks. At some point, due to having not sufficient exposure to theoretical management, Swan might not be able to identify these things, but in reality she was actually trying to implement them for the company. Her organizing skills may need more enhancements, but it would not be further harder for her to apply them knowing the fact that she really understood what she was doing from the start. It was all about employing common sense for her, but she also needed to actually create a more systematic approach by understanding how exactly the components in organizing could effectively work together. Swan identified these components, but she did not actually create a way of identifying each of them, but instead just performed them as the need arose and as common sense dictated. Leading On a number of points, there is strong reason to believe Taran has acquired potential leadership skills as she was entrusted with responsibilities associated with leading people. As a result, her management skills were also developed making her able to manage with complexities at some certain level. Her management skills were geared with leadership inputs. For instance, she was not only good at planning but also in setting a direction. Not only she was able to set targets or goals for the future, but in actual implementation, she was also able to develop some remarkable changes in order to perform strategies that could help guarantee achievement of the vision. In fact, from the comments of her followers working with her, there were positive feedbacks concerning on how they exactly learn to grasp the vision and perform strategies for its achievement. In today’s business and advanced age of competition, Swan has remarkably considered not only the importance of management skills such as organizing and staffing, however, there was a strong urge on her part to align her people. In fact, the thought she was considering how she could manage her style and relationship with the human resource while she was on leave was a good indicator she would really want to communicate the direction in order to achieve visions and goals. This is the real essence of aligning people and Swan was on her way of employing it to its maximum potential. Doing this will eventually help her achieve a remarkable change she wanted to see in her team, considering that she was looking forward to achieve opportunities that could actually either make or break Nickelodeon in Latin America. From the start, the management was able to observe Taran’s problem solving skills and even substantive ideas in control. In fact, her ability to initiate party for children was a way of promoting to Nickelodeon’s target stakeholders that they know more about children’s behaviors, implying that they could create best programming for them that would meet their needs and could ensure maximum level of appreciation from them. This would then create assurance on the part of investors and advertisers that taking Nickelodeon for a try would not create any harm at all for their investment but instead a promising opportunity. This shows Tarn was good at managing complexities even though there are still improvements needed as determined by the higher management. Although the high management creates a remarkable trust in her as she was chosen to be the right person for the job. However, what Taran’s ultimate challenge at the very moment of her pregnancy was to continue motivate or inspire her people. Motivating and inspiring people are ways of coping with change (Kotter, 1998). These remarkably include keeping the human resource to the right direction. It is therefore a challenge on Swan’s part how she could actually motivate and inspire people now that she needed to make herself away from them and the only way she could do would be to set direction and give the human resource the freedom to implement it on their own. Without her actual presence with the people, setting direction would therefore be a crucial step knowing the fact there would no vision or objective to be fulfilled when people exactly do not walk on the right path. As a leader and not just a mere manager, Swan has the responsibility to ensure constant communication at all times. Furthermore, it is important she would constantly monitor performance, but she needed to make an input prior to achieving a good one. At this point, Swan should need to understand that achieving the best performance cannot only be made possible through rewards system or other related motivating factors and inspiring activities. She also needs to ensure identifying abilities of her people and even evaluate the level of external factors involved such as the actual support coming from the company. Controlling Control is such a broad activity for it would deal with proactivity, behavioral and outcome (Carpenter, Bauer & Erdogan, 2009). Swan needs to consider monitoring of problems so that prior they would happen, she could eventually create timely preparation and prevention. She also needs to initiate assessment of the human resource and their decision-making including that of her as part of behavioral control. Finally, she needs also to evaluate the business performance, through performance measures as part of outcome control. In other words, Swan should implement control in order to perform corrective measures when necessary. In the present case, there is much a need for behavioral control especially that Swan would be leaving the opportunity to her team the great chance to decide without her actual physical presence. In this way, there is a need to strengthen communication as a way of proactive control in order to eliminate or prevent future mistakes. There is also a need to consider control on things that not necessarily financial in nature but would lead to positive performance outcomes. This is evident in the case of Nickelodeon in Latin America that needs to consider both internal and external environment as probable sources of opportunities. Swan should definitely remind her team to have this concern taken into account too as a way of initiating nonfinancial control. At this point, Swan must necessarily have the required metrics in order to specifically initiate certain control on specific organizational issues or concerns. Problems The case specifies one remarkable problem Swan faced in her task as a manager and that would be her distance from the team. Taran was known for her ability as hands-on manager, creating every detail and being consistent in implementing or reinforcing it. In this case, she needed to face some remarkable changes with her style as a manager and relationship with her employees. With great reliance on communication, Swan would optimize her leadership skills in order to still effectively plan and convey it to her team, organize them and do the necessary level of control. However, it is remain a problem on the part of Swan what management styles she needed to implement and how to improve relationship with the human resource now that she must be miles away from them. Considering that she happened to be a hands-on manager, the new style or approach of management might require her substantial assessment of her team and this might be risky too, not only with her pregnancy, but since this would be the first time she would try it work, there is a need to experiment a little bit. The problem would boil down to the fact she needed to have enough time for this to work effectively. Swan’s another problem would be to find for somebody who could be taking her post for a while and maintaining and even improving what she just had started. Considering the fact that she did not have much conceptual ideas about leadership and management, it would be a little harder for her to find specific criteria to include in the selection process. At this point, Swan did not have enough certainty as she eventually did not know who would be the best to qualify for that function. Swan had come to know her team and even her personal back-ups. Now she would add it to her task the evaluative criteria she would need in order to appoint somebody who would be the right person for the job. This might lead to a point of confusion on her part if no appropriate evaluative criteria will be selected at first. The selection process would therefore be susceptible to mistake leading to a not-so promising performance of the team in the future. Alternative courses of actions Now, it is time for Swan to consider these activities: consider her leadership style and working relationships to constantly work with her team even from a distance. On the other hand, her move for appointment of interim director from among her team who would temporarily replace her post would be another alternative. Under the first alternative course of action, Swan in her first option is to make an evaluation of her style and working relationships. In this case, Swan would be initiating evaluative measures not only for the team, but including for herself. For her to be able to evaluate her style and working relationships, she needs to rate her planning, organizing, leading and controlling skills, as these are four management functions she necessarily have to implement considering distance would be a critical factor that could influence her management and leadership actions. Based on the above analysis, knowing her actual potential on these management functions will actually pave a way for her to understand the kind of style and working relationship she needs to initiate while working with her team from afar. She needs also to consider how much effort would this incur her considering not to compromise her pregnancy. In other words, the first option would require too much effort from Swan without compromising both her physical and the organizational needs. The first option would require more internal and external assessments and even a bit risky too as for the reasons stated earlier. However, this option, if Swan would be able to transform her style and adjust it based on a new setting and she would continue her best working relationship with her team, it could ensure distance would not be a barrier to her leadership and management functions. After all, it seems there would be no changes at all if things would just flow in the normal way they do. Then finally, under the second option, upon hiring of the interim director Swan should determine whether the chosen candidate has the ability to both cope with change and complexity. The four management functions discussed in the analysis would be sufficient to address both change and complexity in an organization. In other words, the chosen somebody should have the ability to perform excellent management actions and even activities in line with leadership especially with the nature of Nickelodeon’s business in the midst of competition and market with weak barriers to entry. The chosen interim director for instance would have remarkable understanding of how to obtain competitive edge or become a cut above the other. In the case of Swan, her best effort would be to differentiate her offerings in order to cope with change and explore best options in order to manage complexity. What Swan should do therefore is to ensure better grasping of the four management functions that could further help enhance both her leadership and management roles, which would become the basis of finding who would become interim director within her team while she was on leave. The two options are both promising prior to grabbing future opportunities for Nickelodeon in Latin America. However, it is the management that would always have the final word on this since it could always relate its actual needs. Based on the prevailing needs of the management, it is option two that would not be too demanding on the part of Swan as this could be deliberately decided by the management if she would further ask insights and help. The first option would be too demanding on her part and would even extend her work at home, which would be violating in the first place the real intention why the doctor recommended her to be on leave. Under the second option, the management could always help organize everything, with her little need of supervision and interference. Only then, she needs to make better recommendations and criteria based on the four management functions. References Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2009). Principles of Management. Irvington, NY: Flat World Knowledge. Kotter, J. P. (1998). Harvard Business Review on Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Kreitner, R. & Kinicki, A. (2010). Organizational Behavior (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Porter, M. E. (1998). Competitive Strategy. New York, NY: Free Press. Schnaars, S. P. (1998). Marketing Strategy. New York, NY: Free Press. Read More