Willa Seidon at Tides Center - Essay Example

? Case Study- Willa Seldon at Tides Center Case Study- Willa Seldon at Tides Center Introduction: Every industry and sector face ups and downs- the boom and recession phases. The boom phase is accompanied by high revenues, great profits, new technology due to availability of capital etc. while the recession is highlighted by increased competition, low market share and financial constraints and instability. Even in these circumstances the organization needs to survive through its strategies. Often different strategies are adopted for survival which requires organizational restructuring and change management. A visionary leader, with clarity in ideas about how to proceed and effective change implementation is required at this stage. Leadership: Leadership is a subjective concept. There is no particular definition of leadership; there are as many definitions of leadership as the number of people who tried researching on the vast subject. Leadership is a social process embedded in the minds of leaders of followers. Great leaders help us see the current situation and see a brighter future through the dark times. They see new opportunities and combine every one to work for a common goal, during which they make critical decisions to set a direction to proceed. Some researchers view leadership as power relation by which they can affect and introduce change in people. Some view it as transformational process by which the followers are able to achieve more than what is expected from them. While some scholars view it as skills perspective where they argue certain skills and knowledge are required to be effective leaders. (Northouse, Peter.G. 2009 ; Gallos, Joan.V. 2008; Koestenbaum, Peter. 2002) The arguments about leaders are born or made is a never ending debate. Many researchers say it could be both. A natural ability to lead is important and found in every leader. On the other hand various workshops and courses are conducted on effective leadership programs. Therefore leaders possess natural ability and skill to lead which can be further polished and converted into more effective leadership. (Lussier, Robert. N, Achua, Christopher. F. 2009; Avolio, Bruce J. 2005) Effective leaders motivate and inspire followers; they have the skills to take out the best from people. Leadership is exercised on group of people and teams, usually with the aim to make them achieve one common goal rather individual goals. Successful leaders need to understand tasks, people and processes in the organization. They must attend the current situation work through them to identify future possibilities, provide a vision and strategies to fulfill that vision and related missions, create a learning organization where people’s development and growth is paramount of importance and direct their minds in strategizing and initiate collaboration among different sections, departments and processes in the organization. The function of management and the function of leadership are often confused together. Management provides order and consistency to the organization and works for order and stability while leadership initiates change and improvement and seeks adaptive and constructive changes. Leadership is all about establishing direction- setting vision, mission, strategies and goals, aligning people- bring clarity in goals, seek commitment and built team work and last but not the least motivating and inspiring- by empowering and satisfying development needs. (Northouse, Peter.G. 2009 ; Gallos, Joan.V. 2008) Like many great leaders, Willa Seldon is one of the inspiring leaders who helped Tides Centre and guided them through the difficult times. With her vision and ability to manage effective change she led Tides Centre (TC). She was appointed as a Chief Executive Director in September 2003, when Tides applied for the ‘seed grant’ of $ 1 million was offered by Kellog Foundation. During that time TC and the entire fiscal sponsorship sector was struggling for financial sustainability. There were many problems faced by TC; increasing competition in the industry, lack of technology, lack of capital, high turn over rates and recent lay-offs, over worked existing staff, unsatisfactory customer services, lack of organized internal documentation and unsatisfactory performance evaluation. Seldon was required to deal with all these problems as a leader and additionally was to complete a feasibility study for the grant. In all she was required to tackle existing problems, manage the growth and understand the big picture- how Tides Centre can make contribution to the whole sector. The trait leadership theory suggests that there are certain traits that an effective leader should possess. Many researchers identified traits like intelligence, self confidence, determination, integrity, sociability, openness and agreeableness as important. (Northouse, Peter.G. 2009). On her first day at Tides Centre Seldon showed the power and ability to be a leader is embedded in her personality. On her very first day at work she appeared to be firm, dominating and demanding. She tried to be an inspirational leader and lead being an example for others; as she enforces the importance of time and timely arrival in meetings, she demonstrated it first and not just say it to others. Seldon was very clear about the direction where to head TC. She analyzed where Tides stood and what needs to be improved in order to bring ‘change’. She wanted to know the processes, people and customers in depth. She appeared as a visionary leader to many as she forced staff to look into the future and analyze their shortcomings and future of TC. She attempted to implement a cultural change at Tides Centre; she wanted to change the way people think and their perceptions. Since Seldon came from for-profit world she tried to change and execute things the way they are done in for-profit organizations for e.g she used the word ‘customers’ for projects, which made some people unhappy as they believed that due to Seldon’s experience in the private sector she is unaware of the culture and identity of TC. Despite of the grievances and arguments presented she continued using the word ‘customer’. Seemed she was very clear about what she was doing. Further Seldon tried to align the mission and people at TC. Researches revealed that women tend to lead in a more participative and democratic style. (Northouse, Peter.G. 2009). Staff at TC was intimidated due to recent lay-offs and high turnover. She started conducting regular meetings at all the levels of the organization, trying to understand the real problems and to participate in the growth and change that was about to happen at TC. She promoted team work by establishing SAT and gave the people a chance to contribute to TC’s growth in the difficult times- she wanted them to be a part of it. People at TC felt being empowered and felt they were genuinely important to the organization. Seldon demonstrated to be a visionary leader in the time of crisis. She didn’t only provide a direction to TC but also tried to take all the components along and inspired to achieve a common goal. (Ihlenfeldt, William A. 2011. Green, Mike, Cameron, Esther. 2009) Strategic Planning: Strategic planning is the long term planning which involves setting vision and mission that will provide a framework for future decision making. It formalizes strategies that have already been developed. Strategies are formulated after the analysis of internal factors and external environment that can affect the organization. Later these strategies are measured against the strengths and weaknesses of organization and how to utilize the strengths and minimize the effects that weaknesses cause. (Rea, Peter.J, Kerzner, Harold. 1997; May,Gary, May,Gary.M. 2010) Strategic planning involves analysis of external environment; which focuses on identifying who the key stakeholders are, their stake in the company and their expectations from us. Internal analysis will involve the study of components of the organization internally, the strengths and weaknesses of the company. The by product of this analysis is the identification of areas for improvement. Strategies will then be formulated to improve the shortcomings and play more on the strengths to grab opportunities. Customer satisfaction, market evaluation, strategies to gain competitive advantage is all aspects of long term strategy evaluation, formulation and implementation. (Craig, James C., Sadler, Philip.2003) Willa Seldon at Tide’s Centre was appointed at the time when TC needed a strategic reposition due to the ‘seed grant’ it was about to receive from Kellog’s Foundation. What made Seldon work for TC was her interest to help Tide on its growth and to contribute to the wider sector at this transformational stage. The mission TC had to its core was what made people work for them. Seldon tried to change the perception the way that mission was being carried forward. Before joining TC she knew a rapid change was going to happen because of the seed grant, she was sure she would probably has to hire a new senior management team and to establish better performance measures at TC. The outline of the strategies she adopted included: increased interaction with staff at all levels of the organization; the senior management, middle management and line managers to understand the first hand problems faced by them. Customer services and satisfaction were given paramount importance, promotion of team work and formation of ad-hoc teams to work on projects, hiring the right personnel and improvement in performance evaluation and accountability. (Jones, Gareth R., L. Hill, Charles W.2007) As part of her strategy Seldon tried to gain the confidence of staff at all levels. She conducted regular individual and team meetings to be clear in her communication and convey her vision to the staff more appropriately. In the individual meetings she tried to gain the knowledge about the problems of the staff. This not only made her aware of the rooted problems in TC but also made the employees feel they were listened. (David, Lepak.2009) During her interview with the staff she got to know about the blame culture that exists at TC. There was less coordination and interaction among the different components and if anything went wrong no one accepted it, rather they blamed each other. This was a crucial problem as it affected the customers by delayed services. One step which benefited TC in many ways was the introduction of team working among the staff. As mentioned different components in TC has less interaction this step proved to be an initiative to break down the barriers. SAT (Strategic Action Team) included 5-10 employees from all the departments and sections of the organization that were required to discuss the problems faced and put up ideas in order to improve performance. The team working made the staff work towards a common goal. This promoted unity and increased cooperation. This also helped TC to move towards a customer centric model where customer related problems were identified. Further it even helped in improving the over all staff morale, they felt being part of the growth of TC through their contribution, which was important to do after recent lay-offs and increasing turn over. Seldon aligned the different staff and components and gave vision to achieve one common goal. The creation of M-Team was another step in aligning the staff and made them feel like change agents and encouraged two way communications between senior managers and middle managers. The team work at TC brainstormed about the mission and values and was a very successful step in bringing the people and repositioning in strategy together. Seldon recognized the importance of customer satisfaction at TC and she knew customer satisfaction is the critical success factor for TC’s growth. A customer satisfaction survey was conducted in order to identify the areas of improvement and to identify the strengths that made customers choose TC. Seldon and the team of consultants were of the view that a customer centric organization by restructuring the customer portfolio and major focus should be on projects that generate high revenue. This would have helped TC financially but the entire approach ignored TC’s mission for social change. (Stolt, Robert.2010.) As part of her strategy to grow, Seldon also wanted to improve performance evaluation standards. The existing standards and measures at TC were poorly executed. The review process took place at the anniversary of employee’s hire date which left few employees not being reviewed for years. A 360 degree review process was suggested which would evaluate an employee performance in wider dimension. The 360 degree review was tested the M team but it was a failure. There wasn’t clarity about what has to be done. Some work for still required on Seldon’s strategy to improve the performance and review system to add greater accountability and fairer performance evaluation which fosters organizational learning and employee’s development. Overall Seldon’s strategic planning collaborated and gave new dimension to team working and employee’s development at TC. It injected motivation in staff and senior management to be a part of change and growth. But on the other hand she tried to change TC’s strategic fit as a customer centric organization and ignored what lies in the mission and value of TC i.e. what TC is incorporated to do. Current Situation: Tides Centre was about to receive the grant from Kellog’s Foundation which required it’s restructuring and to develop a service model which could be shared and further developed to benefit the whole sector. The process of change was to be managed and implemented effectively at TC. An effective change leader should work its strategies attending four perspectives of the organization, those are; mindset i.e. the staff individually which includes values, beliefs level of commitment of staff etc. the second perspective culture; which includes norms, rather how things are done around in an organization. Third is behavior i.e the skills and work styles. And the last perspective system which includes processes, systems and structures etc. It is important to attend all these four perspective, the affect that the change will have on these and how these can affect the change. Aligning all these perspectives to achieve one common goal is extremely important for a strategic repositioning or change management. (Anderson, Dean, Ackerman.A ,Linda. 2010; Muijen, Jaap J. Van, Witte, Karel De.2000) When Willa Seldon was appointed at Tides Centre there were numerous problems she had to deal with like increasing competition in the industry, lack of technology, lack of capital, high turn over rates and recent lay-offs, less coordination and blame culture within the organization, over worked existing staff, unsatisfactory customer services, lack of organized internal documentation and unsatisfactory performance evaluation and review process. Seldon came from a for-profit world and she tried to execute and plan the affairs of TC the same way, without recognizing the fact that TC is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to work for social change. For any organization its mission and values are embedded in its culture by the founders and the way people think and behave is determined by these values which are essential for any organization. The people and working at TC worked there because it was an organization working for social change and they wanted to be a part of it. Seldon introduced a customer centric strategy where she made everything commercialized at the work place. She started referring projects as ‘customers’ which didn’t reflect TC’s mission dedication towards social change and many people were unhappy by that change too, rather it reflected a for-profit culture that Seldon brought in from her past. Another strategic move which seemed to drive TC away from its mission was restructuring of customer portfolio. It only focused and emphasized on revenue generating projects without taking into account the ‘social effect’ that the projects had which drifted TC away from its mission of bringing social change. (Agard, Kathryn A. 2010; Emil, Angelica, Wilder Foundation, Amherst H. 2001; J. Murphy, Daft, Willmott, H. 2010) Seldon needed to be more considerate about the mission, values and believes that formed TC and should have focused on what TC is made to do rather how TC can earn profit. Though financial stability and lack of resources was an important issue at TC, a more mission oriented approach for e.g retaining the customers which have the most social impact on society rather revenue generation was required. (Agard, Kathryn A. 2010.) Additionally the new appointments made by Seldon, HR Director, Linda Parker Pennington, also came from the for-profit world. At that point when the performance evaluation and measurement process required a change Seldon should have appointed somebody who has dealt with the employee’s performance evaluation in the not-for-profit sector. Performance evaluation and review process was the area Seldon was working on. She was in favor of the implementation of 360 degree review which she believed will contribute to employee’s development and ultimately lead to customer satisfaction. The opposing views were from HR Director Linda, who believed that staff’s performance and appraisal should result in recognition of their services and an increase in salaries, which wasn’t possible at TC at that point of time due to financial constraints. A performance evaluation with no recognition for improved performance will become a reason for the de-motivation of staff and even higher turn over. Not to forget the test 360 degrees review earlier conducted that year on senior management which appeared to be failure due to confusion and lack of clarity about the measures on which performance was to be evaluated. The implementation of 360 degree review would have been difficult in all senses. The new process required training and a tremendous amount work was required on it in order to understand and make the staff understand the importance, process of the review and the measures against which performance was to be evaluated. A clear understanding of the process was required among the staff for a fair and effective performance review. Unfortunately, TC lacked resources and time to implement the new system. The staff was already over worked, with no increase in pay that year. Such circumstances would have negatively affected the staff and would have resulted in great animosity for TC and the senior management. (DelPo, Amy.2007.) A more comprehensive and simple staff performance evaluation would have been appropriate for TC at that stage, which required less work from employees and performance measurement on mutually agreed goals that made staff feel better, as suggested by Linda Parker. However, a 360 degree review which definitely is a more sophisticated system of performance evaluation could be implemented later when there is less dynamic changes happening at TC. Conclusion: Willa Seldon did prove to be a great leader and tried implementing strategies which would benefit TC greatly and helped it overcome its financial constraints. She motivated, united and inspired people at TC to work for a common goal. But due to her experience and affiliation with the for-profit world she forgot the mission and values what Tide Centre was formed for. Bibliography NORTHOUSE, PETER.G. 2009. Leadership: Theory and Practice GALLOS, JOAN.V. 2008. Business leadership: a Jossey-Bass reader LUSSIER, ROBERT. N, ACHUA, CHRISTOPHER. F. 2009. Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development KOESTENBAUM, PETER. 2002. Leadership: the inner side of greatness: a philosophy for leaders IHLENFELDT, WILLIAM A. 2011. 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