The Ford Motor Company - Essay Example

Introduction:  The Ford Motor Company is one of the oldest motor companies and it has been over 100 years. The company is basically a global organization as it has got worldwide networks. The company is driven by certain core values. The company aims to possess a key position in international market for automotive products and services. The company is best committed to render customer satisfaction and also providing the best service for its customers. (About Ford, n.d.) Individual Level: Work Motivation: The work culture of Ford Motors is very conducive to the employees, and it definitely helps in generating the employee productivity, which has helped Ford Motors to become one of the leaders in the automotive industry. The Managers in the organization maintain a good corporate outlook and boost the employees to perform well. The employees are considered the organization’s assets. They are provided with suitable job designations as per their expertise. The proper job specification helps the employees to perform well in their respective domains. There is an exhaustive training program being conducted for the employees in their respective designations with proper learning outcomes. The employees are provided with short-term objectives in their jobs and these are aligned with the long-term objective of the organization. The strengths of the employees are being focused with more emphasis on developing the area of expertise. The employees are even encouraged to track their weaknesses and convert one of their weaknesses to leverage necessary strength. The organization encourages the employees in particular domain to become the best in their domain. Moreover the organization provides high flexibility to the employees and encourages teamwork. This gives the employees enough boost to come up with new and innovative ideas in their domain of expertise and the organization gives due respect to their ideas. Moreover, the flat structure in the organization helps in developing a more efficient communication process in the business and there is a transparent mode of communication process across the different functional areas of the organization. The successful operation of the Ford motors is explained by the fact that the integration of ideas from different domains and different areas and the smooth flow of ideas across domains has led the Ford Motors to implement its strategies developed by the top management successfully which explains the successful operation of the organization. Besides, the organization has different incentive schemes available for the employees, which boost them to perform better in their work. The incentive scheme available to the employees is very lucrative and it promotes a healthy competition for them to perform better. Besides, the organization provides enough recreation facilities for the employees and the organization monitors the process that the employees are not getting stressed. The teamwork culture is given enough attention in the Ford Motors where the team leader promotes healthy work culture in the team and boosts every team member to perform to the best of his ability in the project at hand as per the objective of the organization. There is also a huge flexibility where the employees can communicate with the senior managers at any point of time regarding any job issues and the managers provide effective solutions to the employees and also provide them with feedback such that the employees can learn from the past mistakes and there is a huge room for improvement of their work. This guides the employees to perform better day by day and slowly they become efficient in their respective domain, which ultimately drives the organization to success. The work culture and the work environment boost up the work motivation for the employees. All these together promote the successful operation of the Ford Motors and helped them to become one of the leaders in the automotive industry across the globe. (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006, pp.287-289) Group Level: Leadership: The leadership qualities and features of Ford Motors have undergone massive transformation in the last two decades. The leadership style of the Ford Motors have transformed from a tyrannical dictatorship to “powerful, professional oligarchy”. There has been turning over of the CEOs and the presidents in the last two decades. Strategic Leadership: The company started developing training program in the late 90’s after understanding the importance of developing expert personnel. The different leadership training programs designed comprised four different courses namely the Capstone, the Experienced Leader Challenge, the Ford Business Associates, and the New Business Leader. The development of these training modules was aimed at building a revolutionary leader coupled with different training tools required to promote leadership along with manufacturing revolution. Moreover the new plan of Ford Motors includes the application of its Business Leaders Initiative that is aimed at providing intense training program in Business leadership coupled with trickle-down communication and substantial team projects to all its 100,000 salaried personnel. Also in due course of time the Ford Motors guided its 2500 managers to get trained in the four training courses. After providing all these trainings, still the leadership structure of the Ford Motors was considered complex with higher bureaucratic features and it comprised a six-layered management team. But slowly under the guidance of Alan Mulally, Ford promoted many changes in its complex leadership structure with replacement of officials in the top domain. Mulally was given the Best Leader Award of 2005 and he became highly famous for his major contributions in the field of business leadership. Under the leadership of the current executive chairperson Mr. William Ford, the company has been driven to three straight years’ of profits, after the company experienced $5.5 billion loss in 2001, simply by concentrating on improvement of the quality of products and design, by reducing the cost making it more affordable and producing innovative products aimed at customer satisfaction. William Ford focuses more on the innovation techniques and he executes his leadership style in a professional and well-directed manner. This method of his leadership ability inculcates a sense of boost among the employees to work efficiently for the designated post and the employees get a moral boost as his system of working and leadership capability promotes a healthy work environment among the employees. The leadership style of a leader is very important for an organization to grow as is observed from the innovative techniques of leadership by William Ford and the style in which he sets the strategy for the broader vision of success for the organization. According to the broader vision set by William Ford, the mission and the short term objectives are set and the employees are trained accordingly such that the employees can work under the effective guidance of the leader in their core domain where the employees can utilize their expertise thus helping to make the short term objectives and mission successful because the success of the long term vision depends on the success of the shorter goals and objectives. (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, 2009, pp.125-126) Organizational Level: Organizational goals and structure: In recent times Ford has been very successful in implementing its short term strategies and mission and the organization has grown rapidly in recent past across the globe and has come up with many innovative products not only in the premium car segment but also in the smaller car segment. Besides its traditional car segment, the company has also developed SUVs and trucks where the company has shown enough growth potential. The company has embarked on different innovative strategies in the recent past. The new innovative strategy involves making 100% recyclable car in the lines of the concept car Model U. It will be designed in such a way that its durable parts can be recycled and reused in the automotive industry and the biodegradable products can be used in agriculture. As a part of the organizational goals, Ford can look forward to reduce costs of the cars and develop more customized cars and look forward to developing more cars with innovative characteristics and features. This will promote the success of the organizational goals. (Walsh, 2006, pp.1-2) The organizational structure of Ford Motors entails a hybrid structure, which is formed by the combination of the necessary features and characteristics of functional and horizontal structures consisting of 12000 employees and 15000 dealers. In the 21st century when Ford Motors came up with the “Ford 2000”, it aimed at becoming the leader in the automotive firm but in course of time the top officials of Ford started receiving complaints about the model and they became increasingly concerned about the Ford customer service. The top officials started to feel that the horizontal structure offered the best option to provide faster, efficient and more exhaustive and integrated approach to managing customer service. A number of horizontally aligned groups forms multi expert teams and focuses on material supply and logistics which includes acquiring raw materials and transferring them to the dealers, the transportation programs and service which includes receiving and disseminating information regarding any repair problem, technical support which ensures that each and every service department gets updated technical information. Each group has a leader who looks after the efficient operation of the group and ensures that the group meets its target. The Customer Service Division of Ford maintains a functional structure for the normal functional activities like finance, strategy and communication and the human resource divisions. Each department gives requisite service to the entire division. Actually, considering the vastness of the organization like Ford, the managers use various structural characteristics to satisfy the requirements of the organization. Like many large organizations, Ford has been outsourcing certain core and non-core activities. So in this scenario a hybrid structure is much preferred over normal functional structures as it can integrate the advantages and disadvantages of the combined structures. (Daft, 2007, p.122) Thus it can be said finally that the success of the organization Ford Motors depends on the strategic vision set by William Ford, and building flatter organizational structure ensures effective communication across various functional departments and smooth and transparent communication system. Moreover the leadership charisma and aura of William Ford with different innovative qualities designed by him automatically set the motivation of employees to the peak and the integration of the expert work solutions by the efficient, expert employees propel the organization to the path of success.  Bibliography: 1. Daft, R L., (2007) Organizational theory and design, Cengage Learning, 2007 2. Hitt, M A., Ireland, R D., Hoskisson, R E., (2009) Strategic management, Cengage Learning. 3. Koontz, H. & H. Weihrich, (2006) Essentials of Management, Tata McGraw-Hill Education. 4. About Ford (n.d.) FORD.UK, Available on http://www.ford.co.uk/AboutFord/CompanyInformation, (Accessed on May 25, 2011) 5. Walsh, T., (2006) Ford plan: Big cuts, a secret strategy, BLUEOCEANSTRATEGY, Available at: http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/abo/Links/Ford_plan_%20big_Jan06.pdf, (Accessed on May 25, 2011)  Read More