Leadership in Ensuring Excellent Performance - Example

Running head: Performance Report Performance Report Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecture Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 1st February, 2013. Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 Performance Excellence approach 4 2.1 Baldrige Overview 4 3.0 Leadership in Ensuring Excellent Performance 6 3.1 Leadership 6 4.0 People 7 5.0 Policy, Strategy, Design 8 6.1 The new Customer Phase 10 6.2 Active Customer/Users 11 6.4 Lapsed Customers/ Users 11 6.5 Inactive or Abandoned Customers 11 9.0 Expected Results 14 10.0 Regional issues likely to influence/impact the business 16 Temperature 16 Rainfall 16 Snow 16 11.0 Conclusion 17 References 20 1.0 Introduction Magnetic resort seeks to establish a new family resort on the Australian island of Florence Bay magnetic island. The majestic 3.5 star resort will have a bed capacity of 400 people and will offer accommodation, sightseeing, restaurant, bars, golf course and travel agency. Magnetic resort is thus a service organization that needs to understand the complexity involved in marketing services. The lifeline of service organization is their customers, if a service organization does not keep its customers satisfied then it will not survive in a competitive business environment. The quality of service in the tourism is especially important and every component of the services provided by the Magnetic Resort must be customer focused. For long-term survival and growth the resort must develop a strong service delivery cultures that ensures they deliver excellent services to their customers. The resort must thus incorporate the theories and models of quality and performance management if the resort is to be able achieve its business goals. In the case of the Magnetic resort, it has to deal with a local culture that is not used to delivering high quality services. Since, the resort is to be established in the Townsville area most of its business interaction will be influenced by the local business culture. It is expected most of the resorts employees will come from Townsville and also some of the services that may be contracted to local businesses will be provided by residents of Townsville. Magnetic resort is worried that these workers may bring the weak service delivery culture to the resort therefore impeding its delivery of excellent service. The purpose of this report is to advice Magnetic Resorts on how they can design a business culture that is free from impediments of the local service culture. The report provides principles of performance and quality management that Magnetic Resort can adopt to ensure it develops a culture of Performance excellence. 2.0 Performance Excellence approach For the purpose of this report the Balridge Criteria for Performance Excellence Framework: A Systems Perspective to performance management is to be adopted 2.1 Baldrige Overview The Baldrige Performance Excellence Framework is widely used in the US to increase the competitiveness of US companies on the Global scene. This framework uses a focused and systematic approach to managing performance in organizations (Evans et al, 2012). If the Magnetic resort successfully implements the Balridge approach it can benefit from the following results of using the model: The magnetic resort will be able to deliver constantly improving services to its clientele therefore leading to realization of Excellency in service deliver Magnetic resort as an organization will have improved its effectiveness and capabilities as Service marketer. Organizational and personal learning goal are achieved. The Balridge Performance excellence framework works through a set of core values. These Values and concepts are: Organizations must have visionary leadership in order to excel in performance over the long-term. Customer focus should guide the performance of an organization. An excellent organization should give opportunities for Organizational and Personal learning To excel an organization should value its staff and partners An Organization should be agile in implementing strategy A company should orient its strategies to the future. Management should encourage innovation. It should be socially responsible It focus on achieving results and creating value It has system wide view of excellence By applying these concepts Magnetic results can become a high performing organization like other which have adopted the Balridge criteria. The concepts and values of the Balridge framework underpin and drive improved performance in organizations adopting them (Evans et al, 2012). Through Balridge an organization can systematically approach performance improvement and achieve the following results (Evans et al, 2012): Better service delivery and service outcomes Realization of customer focus Better financial performance Staff learning and growth Increased organizational effectiveness Results in a more socially responsible organization One of the advantages of the Balridge approach is that is not prescriptive but rather suggestive. The Balridge criteria lets an organization adopts an approach that is aligned with the organization culture and goals. Balridge Criteria is widely applied by organizations that want to perform excellently in all spheres of their operation (Evans et al, 2012). Similarly, Magnetic Resorts can use the Balridge criteria to ensure their performance in all aspects of their business is excellent. Balridge can be tailored to improve and move the performance of various organizations especially in the service sector to excellent. 3.0 Leadership in Ensuring Excellent Performance 3.1 Leadership According to the presence of the right leaders in the rights places is a very critical factor in the excellent performance of a company. For Magnetic Resort to be successful in its business it must assess the ability and qualification of its leadership and place the right leaders in the appropriate position within the organization. To ensure the new resort performs excellently incompetence and problem behaviours must be dealt with efficiently. Otherwise top leadership dysfunction will lead to weaker performance of other employee of the resort. Magnetic resort should strive to every level of its organization is staffed with competent leaders. According to Foley (2013), leaders should be at the forefront of ensuring their organizations adapt to a fast changing world. The role of leaders in ensuring employees perform excellently is motivating then through passion and opportunity. The leaders hired by magnetic Resort must be ready to inspire passion in the activities of the organization. Choosing transformational leaders can enable Magnetic Resort achieve this goals and ensure that workers are motivated towards the company goal of providing excellent services. According to Professional Safety (2002), will and ambitions are important characteristics of leaders that can inspire passion throughout the whole work force of magnetic resort. According to Foley (2013), leaders can ensure Magnetic Resort performs excellently in two distinct ways. First, a leader can become a Teacher and Model to his subordinates. Being a teacher means providing guidance on the type of leadership that will enable Magnetic Resort perform exceptionally. While being a model means the leader acts like he expects the employs to behave. In the case of Magnetic Resort a leader the leader should be in the forefront of implementing the Balridge Performance excellence framework works. 4.0 People Under the Balridge Criteria people are referred to as workforce. According to Foley (2013) organizations can ensure the workforce participates in achieving organizational excellence through workforce development. Workforce development is referred to as the a process of making sure every person in the organization has the capabilities to ensure the company meets its current and future objectives and they work towards the organizations vision. The Balridge criteria ask organizations to describe how they will develop their workforce towards performance excellence (Aguinis, 2009). Successful organizations are always engaged in staff development processes including for casual employees, knowledge workers, management and leaders. It is therefore important for Magnetic Resort to focus on developing and equipping its workforce for excellent performance. Improving performance through workforce development for Magnetic resort should be a process including Defining, identifying, delivering, supporting and controlling development goals. Defining development goals is the most critical step in developing a workforce to perform excellently. It involves describing how people development goals will align with the organizational vision (Aguinis, 2009). In defining the development goals Magnetic resort will set out what its workforce will be capable of doing after the development process. The ultimate goal for Magnetic resort would be achieving its goal of performance Excellency in all aspects of its operations. The second step of Magnetic Resort people development process is identifying activities its staff should engage in to develop themselves. It is essential for the Resort to involve its prospective employees in identifying activities that may assist that may be included in their own development process. This can be done by assigning teams of employee’s questions in Balridge criteria which they are supposed to give perfect answers to. Step three involves delivering the development activities in order for the Magnetic resort to apply the skills and knowledge. Step four involves supporting the development achieved in the workforce. According to Aguinis (2009), there are three main ways an organization can support people development, they include materials, systems and people. Under the Balridge criteria, Magnetic Resorts can adopt the support mechanism discussed below. First, a specific department should be designated to support the staff development where the workforce can consult in case of questions. Secondly, they must come up with strategies that align with the Balridge criteria and show workers how these strategies are important in achieving the state of performance excellence. Thirdly, the organization should develop a communication framework that enables the sensitization of the whole workforce on the approaches adopted in achieving the goal of performance Excellency. Finally, Magnetic Resort should encourage two-way communication in the organization to be able to obtain information on how to further improve the workforce development process. The final step of developing workforce capability involves controlling the results. In this step of people development, Magnetic Resort checks whether it has achieved it goals of realizing excellent performance. They can also check whether they have made any progress in overcoming the weak service culture of the Townsville area. 5.0 Policy, Strategy, Design According to Bourque (2000), successfully implementing a strategic quality management is a very difficult. People need to know what they are doing, by just doing their best employees do not contribute to performance excellency if the action is not directed. Organizations that want to achieve performance excellently must be ready to implement dramatic measures. Magnetic resort must therefore understand that the responsibility for excellent quality is the responsibility of top management. Bourque (2000) asserts that for an organization to achieve performance excellency its top management must be ready to set aside resources for innovative and continuous improvement. According to Crosby, quality management must flow from the top echelons of the organizations to achievable. Quality as referred to by Bourque (2000) is conformance to certain principles of quality where consistency to design specifications are closely adhered to. According to Borque (2012), ensuring high quality is mostly concerned in preventing defects before they occur rather than detecting them. Borque (2000) argues that true quality can be realized by treating quality as an important aspect of a product and by ensuring that everyone in the organization is involved in the development of quality strategies. According to Bourque (2000) for the quality improvement plan of Magnetic Resort to be implemented, management must have a good attitude towards them and participate in their implementation. Crosby asserts that for any organization to high performance in term of service quality its must make sure that the standard of quality is zero defects. 6.0 Customers, Partnerships and Relationships In the Balridge Criteria the customer focus category is concerned with engagement of customers in long-term relationships with customers. In engaging customer to attain performance excellence magnetic resort is supposed to “listen to the voice of its customer” or potential customers, develop good relationships with its customers, improve and identify innovations that suit customer needs (Lunenburg, 2012). The voice of the customer refers to the collection of customer related information to align product offerings accordingly. The intention is to anticipate customer requirements, desires and expectations. Magnetic resort can thus listen to the customer’s voice by listening to the needs of customers who are served by other businesses engaged in resort operations. Since, Magnetic Resort is a new business it might not be able to access customer feedback and therefore can use such methods as survey, warranty or social media data on hotel service products. Magnetic result can enhance its capability of listening to customer expectations by taking advantage of web-based technologies and the social media. Through these advances in technology Magnetic resort can gather insight from customers on aspect of the Hotel service industry. Magnetic resort can moderate its own blog or use other unaffiliated social media sites to enhance it listening capabilities. It is important for Magnetic Resorts to understand the customer lifecycle if it is to successfully build good customer relationships. The customer lifecycle includes six phases: the prospective customer phase, the new customer/user phase, the Active customer or users, the loyal customer or, the lapsed customer/user and finally, the inactive or abandoned customers phase. Before Magnetic resort can have customers all those people it targets as customers are just prospects. In the prospect phase customers may either be aware or unaware of the Services magnetic resort offers. At this point the responsibility of Magnetic Resorts is to make people aware of the services they will provide at the Resort. Once a prospect becomes aware of the services offered by Magnetic Resort, the Resort now has the challenging task of converting the prospect into a customer. This transformation involves provision of incentives, trust and security to overcome conversion obstacles. At this phase the perception of quality of the product on offer by the prospective buyers is very important (Mauch, 2010). If the Magnetic Resort is able to project a perception of high quality in its services it is will convert more prospects into customers. 6.1 The new Customer Phase Once a prospect has been converted into a customer, the relationship building phase starts (Zehrer and Raich, 2010). Relationship building is extremely important as it makes sure customers return and also refer other to if they were served well. For Magnetic Resort want customers to commit their future purchases of services with them they have to provide high quality services (Mauch, 2010). Excellency in performance must be exhibited in the communication process of building customer relationships. 6.2 Active Customer/Users With active customers Magnetic resorts have to do more than just provide a high quality product (Zehrer and Raich, 2010). To build a good relationship Magnetic Resorts have to follow-up on customers and make them feel important to convince them to always think of returning to the Resort. 6.3 Repeat or Loyal Customers Loyal customers show an allegiance to the services or products of a firm that has been able to win them over in the previous phases of the Customer lifecycle (Zehrer and Raich, 2010). Maintaining high quality service is important to maintaining loyal customers. It is also important to keep constantly communicating with customers as seen earlier in the discussion on the customer voice. 6.4 Lapsed Customers/ Users Lapsed customers are defined as customers who have not returned to make a purchase within a given timeframe (Zehrer and Raich, 2010). Lapsed customers may not have been influenced into non-purchasing behaviour by product quality. 6.5 Inactive or Abandoned Customers This group of customers abandons all their interaction with the company due to a number of reasons (Zehrer and Raich, 2010). Most customers in the Service industry become inactive because of bad service experience. High quality services at Magenta can mean the firm has lower percentage of customers that become inactive. 7.0 Processes, Measurement, and Analysis Under the Balridge criteria, Performance measures are applied in making decisions that set and align organizational directions, how resources are used at the work unit, key process and at various levels of the organization. Through benchmarking and comparison to other companies Magnetic Resort can be able to obtain comparative performance data and information In order for Magnetic Resort to succeed in achieving exceptional performance it must put in place processes for the measurement, analyses of its quality improvement system. To be effective the measures to be taken must focus on how processes and products conform to the quality expectations of the organization and customers. A number of measures should be taken including statistical techniques. In determining the quality parameters to track and measure, Magnetic Resort must refer to its performance objective of becoming an excellent organization. Having too many quality objectives may make them impossible to achieve and thus leading o demonization of employees. The process of setting objectives for the organization should first centre on customer requirements and then shift their focus on key processes especially those that are prone to risk. The success of data of measurement and Data analysis and measurements is dependent on the methods and resources the Magnetic Result has made available for this processes. This may include Statistical tool, time, Manpower, computer hardware and software. As a service organization measurement are especially difficult but where possible they are taken against process parameters at planned intervals by making use of the predefined measuring devices. In determining the method to apply to statistically measure quality, Magnetic resort should consider the know-how of its workforce on customer requirements in terms of technology, product and manufacturing processes. With consideration for this knowledge an organization can be able to decide the extent to which a statistical method can be applied and to which process. Magnetic results can use statistical methods such as control charts, capability studies, Pareto analysis, variation analysis (special cause and common cause) (Abdullah et al, 2012). It is very important for Magnetic Resort to train the personnel who will be using the statistical methods, tools and analysis. Another aspect of maintaining exceptional quality is Monitoring. This is the process of periodically checking whether the Services are within the predetermined process parameters. Magnetic Resort can either automate monitoring or do it manually. The frequency of monitoring is completely dependent on the consequence of failure in products to conform to quality expectations. Through monitoring Magnetic Resort will also be able to determine when they should take process measurements. 8.0 Innovation, Change and Learning Innovation in an organization is defined as the ability of the organization to quickly adapt to a fast changing business environment. Innovation can also be defined as dynamic capabilities in the parameters of attitudes, skills and capacities. Under the Balridge criteria innovation is also referred to as agility the ability; the ability of an organization to change rapidly and flexibly. According to Wilson and Collier (2000), Magnetic Resort can become innovative by adopting the culture of intentional learning. This culture focuses on gaining tacit as well as explicit knowledge. According to tacit knowledge is about learning by doing while explicit knowledge is about reading, conceptualizing and categorizing information. Deliberate learning in an organization has to be focused for it to lead to the realization of innovation. Magnetic resort should therefore be careful when dealing with the issue of deliberate learning in order to encourage an innovative culture. Although a learning oriented organization is able to develop more dynamic capabilities it depends on the dynamic environment an organization like Magnetic Resort provides for fostering innovation. The balridge criteria views deliberate learning as a core aspect in the realization of performance excellent organization. According to the Criteria Magnetic Resort must commit to continuous improvement to keep up with environmental changes. According to Sull (2009), there are two types of agility that can enable an organization realize performance excellency. For Magnetic Resort to be successful it must possess strategic, Portfolio and Operational agility. Sull (2009) agrees on, cautions against overreliance on one type of agility. Strategic agility is concerned with the concepts of spotting and seizing opportunities to stay ahead of competitors (Goetsch, Davis and Goetsch, 2006). For an organization to be truly agile it must possess patience and boldness. Patience refers to the ability to wait for the right time to exploit an opportunity while boldness refers to the ability to act when the opportunity presents itself. In Balridge, a strategically agile organization is focused on the future and is capable of anticipating changes that require new direction and it modifying it strategy to reflect these changes. Possessing Operational agility on the other hand would mean Magnetic Resort are ready to spot and build on opportunities that are operational in nature. According to Sull (2009), these systems should be involved in the gathering of and dissemination of information to spot opportunities for enhancing quality through innovation. Finally, Portfolio agility is concerned with the shifting of resources to areas that are performing well. In realization of portfolio agility an organization is required to reallocate funds and talent to more productive processes. In balridge the performance review process identifies areas that might need resources to be focused onto them. By answering the key questions posed in the Balridge criteria about agility and organization is able to develop the three types of agility. Though answering the balridge questions on agility an organization is able to create a conducive environment for innovation. It is important for Magnetic Resort to consider agility while designing key work processes. 9.0 Expected Results The results expected from applying the Balridge criteria are divided into the following categories: Product and Service Outcomes Customer-Focused Results Financial and Market Results Human Resource Results Organizational Effectiveness Results Leadership and Social Responsibility Results By applying the Balridge Criteria, Magnetic resorts can expect product and service outcomes where it can be able to meet the customer expectations and any changes in customer expectations. On the other hand customer focused results will mean queries about customers are attended to as soon as possible and therefore customer satisfaction levels increase significantly. Any company that has successfully applied the Balridge criteria expects highs returns in terms of financials. By providing high quality services to its consumers Magnetic Resorts will attract and retain customers at higher rate therefore it will be able to keep profitability up. On the other hand applying the Balridge Criteria leads to a more satisfied workforce which is motivated into assisting the organization achieve is organizational vision. In this case Magnetic Resort will be able to coalesce its workforce to work towards its organizational goal of excellent performance. Organizational effectiveness results will also be positive as Magnetic Resorts has already satisfied customers and employees. Finally, through workforce development and hiring practices Magnetic Resort is able to achieve remarkable leadership and Social responsibility results. 10.0 Regional issues likely to influence/impact the business Regional factors that may hinder the development of the business can be climate which can further be categorized into: Temperature Snow Rainfall Temperature As a result of increased temperature the resort has had an experience of global warming due to reduced care in the ecological systems. To a large extent high temperature will affect the natural systems as well as fisheries and forestry which to the business are the main attractions in the resort. With high temperatures being experienced in this region, it has seen most oceans reduce in their water capacity in Australia making it a limitation for tourists not to prefer the resort as a holiday destination. Rainfall This is also seen as an affecting factor as with high rainfall, most tourists will opt for other destinations and in return, the resort will not attain maximum revenue as expected. However with decreased rainfall, there is a greenhouse effect where there is a lot of gas concentration and unpredictable climatic change making it a threat for most tourists. Snow With reduced snow in the region of Australia, this makes it possible to attract new tourists who are looking for sunshine. The resort will be in a position to offer activities that can be done together in the warm seasons. 11.0 Conclusion To make a conclusion on the above report, it has been stated that Magnetic resort is a service organization that needs to understand the complexity involved in marketing services. The lifeline of service organization is their customers, if a service organization does not keep its customers satisfied then it will not survive in a competitive business environment. The overview report indicates that the framework used a focused and systematic approach to managing performance in organizations. If the Magnetic resort successfully implements the Balridge approach it can benefit from the following results of using the model. By applying the concept given in the report, Magnetic results can become a high performing organization like other which has adopted the Balridge criteria. The concepts and values of the Balridge framework underpin and drive improved performance in organizations adopting them. Balridge uses a criteria that lets an organization adopts an approach that is aligned with the organization culture and goals. Balridge Criteria is widely applied by organization that wants to perform excellently in all spheres of their operation. In the leadership concept, the role of leaders in ensuring employees perform excellently is motivating then through passion and opportunity. The leaders hired by magnetic Resort must be ready to inspire passion in the activities of the organization. Choosing transformational leaders can enable Magnetic Resort achieve this goals and ensure that workers are motivated towards the company goal of providing excellent services. People have been seen to be the main success factors as through them, a successful organization such as the one in the report will engage in staff development processes including for casual employees, knowledge workers, management and leaders. It is therefore important for Magnetic Resort to focus on developing and equipping its workforce for excellent performance. The workforce has been seen to be the main success factors in a company hence it has been seen that defining development goals is the most critical step in developing a workforce to perform excellently. It involves describing how people development goals will align with the organizational vision. In defining the development goals Magnetic resort will set out what its workforce will be capable of doing after the development process. In the research of Customers, Partnerships and Relationships, the report has come to a conclusion that the customer focus category is concerned with engagement of customers in long-term relationships with customers. In engaging customer to attain performance excellence magnetic resort is supposed to “listen to the voice of its customer” or potential customers, develop good relationships with its customers, improve and identify innovations that suit customer needs. It is also through the advances in technology Magnetic resort can gather insight from customers on aspect of the Hotel service industry. Magnetic resort can moderate its own blog or use other unaffiliated social media sites to enhance it listening capabilities. In innovation change and learning, Magnetic resort should therefore be careful when dealing with the issue of deliberate learning in order to encourage an innovative culture. Although a learning oriented organization is able to develop more dynamic capabilities it depends on the dynamic environment an organization like Magnetic Resort provides for fostering innovation. In the discussion of agility, in strategic agility, from a Balridge perspective, it also requires a focus on the future to anticipate changes that require a new direction and a strategic planning process that makes rapid change possible. In the portfolio agility, it has been seen that it is the ability to shift resources begins with performance review processes that help leaders identify changing needs and challenges and action planning processes to establish and modify plans to meet them. In the operational agility, the report has seen that agility is embedded in the Balridge management model. As an organization integrates Balridge, it builds the capacity for agility. Regional changes that may affect the resort have been seen to be climate including temperature, snow and rainfall where with high temperature and reduced rainfall, this will lead to global warming and a threat to visitors wanting to visit the resort. Finally, by applying the strategies in this report, it is a sure way that there will be success in coming up with the resort in Australia. References Abdullah, M., Hamid, M., Mustafa, Z., Husain, N., Idris, F., Suradi, N., & Ismail, W. (2012). Value-based total performance excellence model: A conceptual framework for organisations. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 23(5/6), 557-572. Aguinis, H. (2009). Performance management / Herman Aguinis. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, c2009. Bourque, R. (2000). The Baldrige: a road map to continued prosperity. New Hampshire Business Review, 22(12), 20. Evans, J. R., Ford, M. W., Masterson, S. 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