Mba 520 Week 3 Good Sport Leading Change Paper

Running head: LEADING CHANGE

Leading Change

Jennifer James

University of Phoenix

Leading Change

Good Sport is a growing fitness equipment manufacturer in Coral Springs Florida (The University of Phoenix, 2004). They have been in existence for 15 years and have just started their expansion into Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina (2004). Not only do they sell their equipment to proper gyms and fitness facilities, they also have found a market in providing equipment to hospitals, clubs, hotels and residential homes (2004). The company was founded by ex-athlete Jason Poole, who has found a great deal of success with his current CEO Marvin Wallace, who has been a primary reason for the company’s success in the past 4 years (2004). Marvin has displayed considerable talent in the research and development aspect of the organization, increasing the efficiency of the products and implementing production of certain models of which the performance excels. Marvin has stayed on top of the market, creating new, trendy and innovative machines that are leading the industry.

Implementing new ideas and products can be quite challenging, as one must first convince others that the product in question will in-fact be a success. As one can see in the Good Sport Simulation, the implementation of new ideas and strategies to create new products can potentially be disruptive to the success of a company. Therefore, the management team must be trained and educated on how to best present new products and ideas to those involved in order to create the best results. This involves using political strategies and gaining power within the organization that will allow one to make the decisions to attain the goals set by the organization. This power can be gained by putting the right people in leadership positions so that each department functions at the best capacity. In this paper, the leadership styles, organizational structures and cultures will be examined and critiqued to realize the best approach for this growing company to continue it’s climb to success.

Since Good sport is still a smaller organization, the majority of the decision making is still being done by the founders. However, there has still been a great deal of leadership and decision making roles provided to the upper level management, who are trusted by the owner and CEO of the company. This is an excellent leadership style as long as trust has been built amongst the leadership team members. When trust exists, the owner can feel comfortable and safe allowing certain decisions to be made by members of the leadership team without consultation. This trust is essential to make this type of leadership style and structure successful. Trust of course, must first be gained, and in the Good Sport Simulation, one can see that the CEO has gained the trust of the owner by proving his commitment and dedication to the business. The CEO has built this trust by generating an extreme amount of business ultimately creating further growth opportunities for the company. This allows the owner to trust the opinion of the CEO and that he will make important decisions successfully.

A couple different organizational structures are currently being used at Good Sport and with the future growth expected for the company, these structures may need to be re-analyzed to see if they will need to be changed in order to best suit the future growth and success of the organization. Span of control is “the number of people reporting to the next level in an organizational hierchy” (McShane and VonGlinow, 2005, chap. 14). This structure exists and is successful at Good Sport, as a smaller number of people are reporting to each leadership member, allowing attention to be more personal and focused on the individuals. This structure will have to be carefully watched as the organization grows in size in order to ensure that the employees do not start to feel as if they are not as important or that their direct relationships with the management will become distant. This structure is successful at the moment but will need to be carefully studied, as growth becomes a reality. The structure can then be modified and molded accordingly to fit into the changes and growth that will occur.

Centralization also is a structure that exists at Good Sport. This is “the degree to which formal decision authority is held by a small group of people, typically those at the top of the organizational hierarchy” (McShane and VonGlinow, 2005, chap. 14). Centralization does exists at Good Sport, as the company is still relatively small in size. The direct contact with those in the upper level management is more frequent than in larger companies where some employees never see or hear about the owners or upper-level management team. Good Sport is still small enough where most decisions go through the owner. This structure will also need to be carefully monitored and altered as the company grows and expands, as centralization is not always a successful structure in larger companies. In larger businesses too many decisions must be made by just one or two people, thus creating the need for other upper level roles to become more involved in the primary decision-making needs. This also creates a better environment for employees as it shows them future opportunities to have leadership roles within the organization with the power of decision-making. If companies grow too large and do not allow decentralization to occur, then many employees may choose to go elsewhere, as there will be no future growth or ability to use leadership skills in upper level positions exists. Centralization limits employee growth in larger companies leading to the loss of many very talented employees.

The culture at Good Sport is currently experiencing some difficulties. Some of the employees are feeling as if their opinions and ideas are not being listened to or considered, causing many to feel disrespected by the management team. The new equipment has generated a number of concerns with members of the design team, and the sales team is having a difficult time with keeping productivity and motivation levels up. Good Sport is in need of using a participative leadership style, allowing the employees to become more involved with the process and feeling as if they are important. This would help the culture of the organization and create a more motivated and positive behavior by the employees, thus creating a more productive and unified work environment.

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