Leading Change

Good Sport is a company that produces sports and fitness equipment for home use. The company was founded by James Poole, a former athlete. Mr. Poole is now Chairman and ambassador for the company but his team philosophy has been incorporated into the company infrastructure. The company has been in business for about 15 years, and the structure is lead by a CEO, departmental vice presidents, senior and team managers. The different power structures and leadership allow the company to evaluate the best fits for the organization.

There is an informal and a professional culture generated throughout the different departments. Coworkers and supervisors socialize and meet outside work to establish familiarity and encourage teamwork but also recognize the levels of respect for the higher levels of management. The company is structured with a participative leadership style. Each department is encouraged to add input and also lend support to other departmental projects. The staff is also given chances to collaborate and work together on tasks with their department heads. Good Sport's promotes the benefits of fitness to the public while working hard to drive the group's financial success and maintain diversity. This is a leadership enriched culture and can be an asset to a company's future growth. Good Sport has been profitable because of its strong company culture that emphasizes team work. The employees are encouraged to view the organization as an extension of them and to feel good about personal achievements within the organization. People use group resources to actively solve problems and almost everyone, like Mr. Poole becomes a walking ambassador of what Good Sport represents.

The company fosters the culture where people consistently bring out the best in each teammate and the leaders strive to develop other leaders instead of followers.

Leadership is seen as collaborative and thus some departments do not welcome being dictated instructions. The results are low employee turnover and loyal employees that are proud of what the organization represents. However, the bonds of teamwork and camaraderie may become an issue if the body of leadership changes or the team dynamic is compromised. The strong company culture encourages collaboration and familiarity but limits the amount the company adapts as the business environment changes. Good Sport's informal company culture may become an issue in the future and possibly stand in the way of company growth. Since the employees are loyal and have built strong working relationships with coworker and supervisor alike, any transformational leadership could cause ethical dilemmas for some employees as they may feel threatened or reluctant to welcome a new management approach to the team. Such dilemmas can lead to job withdrawal for these employees causing them to distance themselves from their work or separation from the company. Good Sport has very capable transformational leaders that have a wide array of leadership skills such as emotional intelligence, integrity, drive, leadership, motivation, self-confidence and extensive knowledge of the fitness and sports business.

The simulation showed that a manager had to use various political tactics to increase power within the organization. Each manager must determine which tactics to use based on the interdependency of various departments, hierarchy within the organization, and the personal equations between employees. At the middle management level, for example, the choices for presenting a new product to the Production and Sales departments had to be done with an eye toward preserving inter-group morale as well as achieving organizational objectives. To select the appropriate tactic, the manger needed a good understanding of the personalities involved and the culture of each department. Soft tactics such as using a person's preferred method of communication helped the manger to achieve that goal better than hard tactics like appealing to the authority of others higher in the chain of command.

As the Vice President of Production, the manger had to win the trust and acceptance of peers, subordinates, and the company CEO. Each level in the power structure required different treatment depending on the personality and context involved and the manager in this case also had to ensure that employee morale was maintained.

As the CEO, the manager decided to distribute power across the organization. Power distribution is a model usually practiced by very enlightened organizations, as Good Sport appears to be on all levels, and requires that the manger take on a great deal of responsibility. This requires a good understanding of the requirements of the respective hierarchy and maturity from the personalities involved. Each manager must determine which tactics to use based on the interdependency of various departments, hierarchy within the organization, and the personal equations between employees. At the middle management level, for example, the choices for presenting a new product to the Production and Sales departments had to be done with an eye toward preserving inter-group morale as well as achieving organizational objectives. To select the appropriate tactic, the manger needed a good understanding of the personalities involved and the culture of each department.

In today's environment, change is a constant issue for organizations. Given the organizational structure, culture, power structures, and politics resistance to innovative change is an unavoidable part of the change process and as such it is important for change that leaders understand and overcome this resistance. (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004)

This process of change entails learning new organizational practices, changing existing attitudes, behaviors, or organizational practices. Change will not occur unless the members of an organization are motivated to change and this can be the most challenging element of the change process. (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004) Resistance to change occurs even when the change has goals that are highly desirable; successful change entails reinforcing new attitudes, behaviors, and organizational practices. (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004)

The manger in the simulation introduces a new product that is a departure from Good Sport's normal line of merchandise. The manger uses knowledge of other managers' preferred personal communication methods to convey various benefits of the product to the sales and production departments and motivate these departments through offering them input into its selling and creation processes. The members of the sales and production department feel empowered as a result of being offered these inputs and accept the changes represented by the new product without further resistance.

The simulation showed a manager has to use multiple political tactics to increase

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