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According to Robbins and Judge (2007), “successful organizations will be the ones that can change in response to the competition. ” As businesses grow, several factors promote change to occur. Cultural environments, technology advancements, and changes in competitors, create foundations for change. To successfully implement changes in a business, leaders must encourage and motivate coworkers and business partners to welcome the change.
According o Yuk (2006), leading change is one of the most important and difficult responsibilities of a leader. Successful leaders facilitate change by creating a positive working environment and by communicating with the entire team. Yuk also states, the importance of communicating values and expectations by modeling the behavior you expect to receive in return. These behaviors might include self-sacrifice, loyalty and going above and beyond expectations. In the Gene One Scenario, Gene One, a biotech company, is in an ideal position to improve its performances by taking the company public.
The numbers predict n initial public offering can increase the company’s capital by 40% within three years. The plan is dependent on the development and sale of new products that can be grown without pesticides. This plan brings many challenges to Gene One. For the initial public offering to occur successfully, Gene One must adjust its leadership structure and style to align with the long-term vision of the Strong leadership is vital for the implementation of change to make company. The initial public offering a success for Gene One.
A main concern for Gene One’s current staff is their inexperience in dealing with change and the PIP process. According to Yuk, resistance to change is common for companies. From the very first meeting announcing the vision for the PIP, tensions rose because several issues were addressed, but no real solutions were concluded. The unanswered questions created a lack of trust between the members of the leadership team and therefore members questioned if the change is even feasible. When a company changes its organizational structure, leaders must develop a strategy to communicate change effectively to its employees.
Leaders can influence the environment of the organization by paying attention, communicating and upholding values, setting a positive example, presenting awards, and by establishing criteria for selecting and dismissing employees (Yuk, 2006). Chief Executive Officer, Don Uric, seems determined to go public with Gene One, but throughout the Gene One Scenario, he appears very unsure of the process. To ease the worries of the current management team, the leader needs to design specific systems and procedures, organizational structure, and formal statements.
Currently, the employees of Gene One have yet to be notified of the upcoming changes. Leadership needs to make a public statement establishing some credibility. Yuk (2006) confirms that formal statements must be supported by leader actions and decision to be effective. Indeed, strong leadership is needed to facilitate the changes needed for Gene one to prepare for their initial public offering. Along with a strong leader, Gene One also needs to restructure their management team. It is essential for the management to form teams to guide the implementation of changes needed to successfully go public.
Previously, the Gene One leadership team was accustomed to working fairly independently. This new structure depends on the teamwork of several members all striving to attain the same goal. Currently, several members are unsure of the feasibility of the changes to be made. According to Robbins and Judge, team building uses group activities that are interdependent to require high interaction between members, which in turn, increases the performance of the team. Each team member role needs to be identified to optimize effectiveness of the team.
In addition to creating a management team, Gene One must also address the need for additional board members to satisfy SO requirements. According to the SO, Gene One needs to add a Certified Public Accountant or a Chief Financial Officer to their board. They also need to create here audit committees to represent auditing, compensation, and nominating. The benefit of creating multiple teams is that each team can function independently to gather data and solve problems and then share their ideas with other groups to decipher the best solution.
Despite the board’s suggestions to replace several key leadership positions, Don chose to keep his current board for loyalty reasons. It is not in the best interest of the company to keep all of the current members. The new leadership team needs to evaluate each member and clearly identify the roles and expectations of each position and then decide ho should stay and who should go. One bad apple can ruin the entire bushel. Therefore, it is crucial to dismiss those who are questionable now before the company progresses any further with the PIP proceedings.
It is obvious that Gene One cannot be successful without changing the current leadership structure and styles of the organization. The previous leadership structure that Don exhibited was an autocratic leadership style. Don used this leadership style in an attempt to bring the team on board with the PIP. An autocratic leader analyzes input from several resources in order to make his decision. In addition, Gene One’s success is because the learning team was dependent on its ability to adapt to a democratic/participative leadership structure.
This type leadership is a sign of strength not weakness. Gene One employees will respect this type leadership. Gene One’s executive team will operate as “change agents. ” for the new democratic/participative leadership structure. Gene One needs to adapt their leadership style through planned change activities such as: innovation stimulation efforts; employee empowerment; and the introduction of work teams (Robbins & Judge, 2007). Based from the information provided, I believe it is in Gene One’s best interest to re-evaluate its current management team.
I believe we need to listen to the boards recommendations and eliminate a few current positions in order to put people in place to successfully implement the changes that need to be made to ensure the success of Gene One’s initial public offering. First I believe they should eliminate Charles, and hire John’s recommendation of Lucas. Charles has no experience with the infrastructure to support the PIP; whereas, Lucas has recently assisted another company successfully with an PIP. When entering uncharted territory it is best to have someone who has experience ND is prepared for snarls along the way.
Second, I believe management needs to address their concerns with Term and find out if she is on board or not. She needs to make a full commitment to the goal or to step aside and let someone with desire take over her position. The new leader needs to have a balance of an autocratic and democratic leadership style. This will ensure success in the end. With new leaders in place, Gene One is sure to work towards a common goal of becoming a publicly traded company. The new leaders will strive to form unity yet create a working environment that promotes effective communication.
By changing some key leaders and their leadership structure Gene One is sure to succeed at becoming a publicly traded company as well as meeting their three year timeline for hitting 40% growth targets.