Comparative Analysis between Watsons and H&M Consulting - Essay Example

?Comparative analysis of Organizational management Organizational behavior and the organizational management are always changing with the rapid pace. Different organizations follow different organizational structures and behavioral approaches to practice healthy work culture within the organizations. There are some organizations that follow the traditional approaches and there are some others who are always ready to face the challenges with the new approaches to reconstruct the organizational structure to keep up with the pace in the business environment. This case study is basically analyzing the behavioral approaches of the two different organizations and they are the Watsons Engine Components and H & M Consulting . This case will mainly focus on the competitive analysis of the organizational behavior between these two corporate entities. The organizational culture, behavior, leadership and motivational approaches and the interactive communicational processes will be given importance to prove the competitive analysis between these two organizations. Introduction: Organizational behavior is one of the most important factors in the organizational setting. The behavioral approach of the management towards the employees is the most important aspect of the human resource department. It is basically a practice of proper or suitable human behavior within the organizational setting (Griffin and Moorhead, 2009). The human behavior within the organization depends on many important factors and they are the organizational structure, motivational factors, job satisfaction, leadership qualities of the managers, communication processes and many more. In this case two companies; Watsons and H&M consulting follow different paths for the improvement of their organizational cultures. However, the Watsons follow the traditional approaches with the old fashioned organizational management techniques. And in other hand H&M follows the modern ways of handling the employees and the organizational improvement. In this case the organizational structure plays a vital role for both the organizations. The difference between the two organizations is very prominent in this case. Brief about the two companies: Watsons: Watsons follows the family owned business module. It is basically into manufacturing parts for the cars. And this company requires people who are ready to accept changes. However, the present picture is different. It is a company which is managed by few top level managers. The managing director Gordon Watson is an aged man who rules the company. However, he is going to get retired very soon. The structure of the organization is very traditional and strictly hierarchical in nature. And the formation of the union is an astonishing act in a company of overall headcount of only 200. The centralized decision making process makes many of the lower managers unhappy regarding their recognition and power of controlling the teams. And many of the top level managers are also not happy with their jobs due to the dictating top level managers within the organizations. The organization is having 20 managers for only less than 200 working employees. This structure depicts the decentralization organizational structure where managers can take their own decisions. However, the real scenario is different and it is strictly hierarchical centralized organization. H&M Consulting: H&M consulting is a global consulting company which is into global management, development and engineering consulting. It is a very modern organization which has started its journey in 1989 with the great merger within two consulting groups. This organization has great visions towards the future and they follow their mission statement very intently. They are in a constant growth mode. It is practically more than 50 times larger than the Watsons; the H&M is having more than 13000 global employees. They follow the international business module as they are concentrating on the global format of the business. Acquisition and take-over are the technical tools for the H&M for expanding their business. As far as the culture is concern; it is majorly employee driven organization where each and every employee has a chance to speak out for the better ideas towards the improvement of the organization. Theo Wolf the chief executive officer (CEO) of the H&M consulting is a man of honor. He owns a great respect within the organization. The employees are majorly motivated in this organization and most of them yield great productivity. The structure is basically decentralized. Comparative analysis between the two companies: Comparative analysis is an important function to analyze two different organizations. However, in this case two organizations are from two different industries. Watsons is a manufacturing organization while H&M is majorly into consulting. But both need to excel in their region. Watsons focuses on the present scenario while H&M focuses on the future growth and present business culture. The major differences between the two companies are briefly discussed bellow. Organizational structure: Each and every management modules are associated with the structure of an organization. The Watsons follow a structure which is more or less like dictatorship and that is the reason the Union was formed with only less than 200 working employees. The autocratic style is not applicable here as in this case the dictatorship won’t work the participative method is applicable as the employees will be happy enough to take decision (Rashid, 1983) on the spot. However, the strictly centralized structure has given an atmosphere to the organization which fuels the reason of attrition, absenteeism etc. The decentralized method is far better than the centralized method as the presence of the decision maker is required for the better service and each team should have their own decision maker to provide instant service to the organization. For the centralized method the decision maker stays away from the service points (Finkler et al; 2007) and that is a great flaw of the method as the decision maker should be in the service point to understand the customers need. H&M understood this factor from the day one and that is the reason they are very strong in controlling the employees and satisfying the clients with great output. The self directed work force is always the best solution for the organizations like H&M consulting, the service provided to the clients must be fast and the decision making time should be short. The company must focus for the long term goodwill and that is only possible if the service is given in a fast manner. However, if the purpose of the team is not very clear then a failure can happen. (Rose and Buckley, 1999). Centralized structure: According to the centralized method the top level managers take the final decision and it is been carried downwards to the employee level. In this case the numbers of the managers are less and they stay away from the service point. Most of the traditional organizations follow the centralized structure. Decentralized structure: The decentralized system is totally different. The decision can also be taken in a much lower level. However, it is better than the centralized methods as the decision is made fast and the decision maker stays near the service point (Finkler et al; 2007). Organizational structural strategy is the long term goal of the organization towards the proper direction. There are many strategies related to the organizations behavior and many strategies are discussed above and will be discussed in the later part of this paper. However, the organizational behavior and the organizational structures are closely related to each other. The decision making process and the behavior of the organization highly depend on the organizational structure. The structure and the behavioral strategies have reciprocal relationship (Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisso, 2009). From the above descriptive discussion it has been clear that how the centralized and decentralized organizations work. However, according to the present case the Watsons is strictly hierarchical and centralized in decision making. The structure of the Watsons lets that the lower level managers have no power to take decision and that is the reason they are not happy or satisfied with their jobs as they don’t get any recognitions. And as they know that nothing will change so they also don’t even bother to improve their status of their own within the organization. They are looking for better option in other organizations where they can prove their capabilities. And that is the reason the attrition rate is more than 30 percent within the organization. However, for a small and family owned business like Watsons it is very practical to have centralized decision making process as the flow of the decision will be followed properly. And centralization can be proved to be a successful module in a small organization but, the employee satisfaction also needs to be taken care of. Nothing is synchronized in Watsons. And that is the reason of the miscommunications and disturbance within the structure and the organizational behavior. The H&M Consulting is another organization under this study which is into global consulting for many factors like engineering, development etc. It is far larger than the Watsons, having the human capital of more than 13000 employees globally. And it is having branches in many countries. The central decision is maintained by the organization but, the decentralization structure is visible within the organization. Lower level employees are free to comment of the final decision of the manager or the supervisor. And if the idea of an employee in any level is good and innovative for the organization then it is accepted by the higher authority. The vision of the organization is to satisfy the clients and also at the same time satisfying the employees. They respect the emotions of the employees and that is the reason the employees also respect the higher authority. The great encouragement is shown by the management towards the improvement of the organization. The structure depicts the importance of the cultures if the employees and it also eradicate the cultural imperialism in many countries. It is a global company and it respects all the global employees. Each branch has their own team who can take independent decisions. And that is the reason the job satisfaction level is very high in this organization. There is no need of the union for the betterment of the employees as the HR and the management takes care of the employees wisely. And the bottom line is the H&M knows that employees are the assets of the company and they must be treated properly for better outcome. Team management and group behavior: An organization is made of different people from different cultural back grounds and the group behavior plays a vital role in this context. However, group behaviors can referrer to many things. For an example, a group made of similar mentality people for some personal achievements can be a great negative character for an organization. However, a systematic grouping of employees for the betterment of the organization can be called as a team. And, team work is a great positive point for any organization. However, a group behavior is less predictable as many people are associated with a group (Yalom, and Leszcz, 2005). Team management is a great deal of work and to manage the teams the managers need to be motivated. In case of Watsons most of the managers are not at all motivated and managing the group in a proper manner is not expected from them. There is only one team in the Watsons and that is the Union itself. The reason behind this situation is the lack of job satisfaction. The young people are not encouraged to do better and to achieve milestones. And that is the reason talented but suffering production manager Ahmed khan is about to leave the company for better options. The management process is heavily malfunctioning within the Watsons. H&M Consulting has shown a great team building and team management abilities. One of the main reasons for understanding the importance of team work is the phenomenon behind the formation of the company itself. From the day one the H&M consulting believed in a team work as they started their journey with shaking hands with two different organizations. They are a global company which is having strong existence in more than 120 countries. Within just two decades they have become the global consultancy group. The team work and team management is the key factor for the improvement of the organizational culture and behavior within the H&M. the managers respect the ideas of the lower level employees, and the participation level is very high within all the teams and that is the reason all the employees are happy with their jobs in H&M. Leadership influences: Leaders are the people who can show the path to the mass for the betterment. Leadership qualities can be inculcated within an individual, but it has to be generalized within the mass. The leaders must be taken as a leader by the mass and that is the important quality of an effective manager. The main factors in this case are the leadership quality parameter among the employees, implementing the proper management decision making method and the organization handling. It is a great initiative for the organization to step forward for the advancement. The organizational decision making process can be many kinds of. However the decentralization and the participative method are required in this matter as the higher authority is focusing on the strategic development. There are some stereotype characters which should be discarded to select the future managers and they are negative emotions, anger and hijacking attentions (Goleman et al; 2004). Leadership is considered as the highly valued commodity in the organizational behavior (Northouse and Northouse, 2009). The motivated people will be motivated till the organization motivate them, but the employees who are not happy with the higher authority decision should be motivated by some training programs to let them the importance of being motivated and self-confident rather than being demoralized to see other promoted. There is another very important point to be focused on, and that is the openness to accept changes. Change is inevitable; a great manager must have the acceptance power to allow the positive changes within the organization. Accepting changes makes a manager distinguishable in a positive manner from the other managers (Topping, 2005). There are many leadership models which are very much effective for the managers in different levels. Few of them are dynamic aggressive, dynamic assertive, dynamic supportive etc. However, the dynamic aggressive model is basically for the CEOs who follow the dynamic leadership style which leads the mass. There are some questions which must be asked to the candidates for the managerial post. And these questions are based on few factors and they are, motivating power, leadership quality, ability to train employees and ability to create good working environment. Based on these factors few proposed questions are written bellow. 1. How do you manage the attrition rate within your team? 2. How do you control the sustainable growth of your team? 3. Are you ok to work on weekend under any emergency? 4. What are your leadership qualities? 5. What is the best motivational tool you have in you? 6. How would you tackle the internal conflict within your team? The pattern of leadership varies from person to person and, moreover, this pattern becomes clear when a leader passes through problematic situations. It is his/her moves, which define the pattern of leadership. The pattern also decides the direction in which the organization will be moving. And, obviously, the matter of success is entirely based on it (Northouse, 2006). If the comparison is made between the two heads of the two different organizations then it would be very clear that two CEOs of these two organizations follow different leadership models. Mr. Gordon Watson of Watsons thinks autocracy is the ultimate leadership model and it can improve the organization. And he also believes in a philosophy “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” this particular approach shows the leadership quality of the Mr. Gordon Watson. He is dynamic and there is no doubt about that as even in the crisis situation he was able to overcome all the issues and let the organization perform up to the mark. But, he never encourages employee participations in the decision making process. The traditional leadership approach blocks him to accept new things from the new managers and that is what acts as the negative point. However it is very much understood that Wolf the CEO of H&M Consulting had a dynamic characteristics towards the leadership. However, there are many styles related to the dynamic leadership style. Theo Wolf’s leadership quality was very much dynamic and also very much aggressive. So, it can be concluded that the dynamic aggressive is the leadership style of Wolf. It is also very obvious that most of the CEO’s follow the dynamic leadership style which leads the mass. However, is has been seen that dynamic aggressive leaders are bit dad in listening skills (Glanz, 2002), they don’t want to listen to others they think their way of thinking is the best possible way of thinking but they also admire participation towards decision making. It has also been seen that dynamic aggressive leaders are recognized easily among the mass, which is very much prominent in the H&M. However, the dynamic aggressive leaders are very strict in nature and they do what they think good for the mass. Motivational factors: According to the Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene theory there are few motivators which help the employees to get satisfied with their jobs. The main motivators are achievements, recognition, stimulating work, responsibilities and advancement. And there are some hygiene factors such as company policies and administrations, technical supervision, interpersonal relationship, salary, and working conditions (Kreitner, 2008). There is no motivational factor attached within the organization of Watsons, fist of all higher management forces the employees to work hard but without any reward system. The formation of the union tells the level of motivation given to the employees by the managers. The managers must be motivated to motivate the team but somehow the managers of the Watsons are not motivated at any means and that shows in the attrition rate which is more that 35 percent. H&M has a culture which creates motivation within the employees. In H&M most of the employees are self motivated as they get all the rewards and the recognition from their managers. And that is the reason they perform very well towards the customer satisfaction. For the last three years they have been performing very well with almost 8 on 10 marks as an average. Conclusion: From the above comparative study it can be concluded that the Watsons has the great capability to improve and step ahead towards the advancement but due to traditional approaches and lack of acceptability they are slowing down. In other hand H&M follows the dynamic organizational approaches and they always encourage changes towards the advancement. The organizational management style of these two organizations is totally different but hey can be bridged if the proper path is taken by the Watsons towards the future. References Finkler Steven A, Kovner Christine Tassone and Jones , Cheryl Bland. (2007) Financial management for nurse managers and executives. 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