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Task 2...

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Organization and Leader Analysis

Organization and Leader Analysis Western Governors University

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Organization and Leader Analysis

2 Table of Contents

Organization Descriptio ………………………………..………………………………………...

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Leadershp Practices ………………………………………………………………….…………... 3 Effect of Leadership on Culture………………………………………………………..…………5 SWOT Analysis………………………………………………………………………...…………6 Organizational Strengths…………………………………………………………………..………6 Organizational Weaknesses ……………………………………………………………………....7 External Opportunities…………………………………………………………………………... 7 External Threats…………………………………………………………………………………...8 Leadership Analysis.………………………………………………………………………………9 Leaderships Strengths …………………………………….……………………………………....9 Leadership Weaknesses………………………………………………………………………….10 Recommendations for Current Leader…………………………………………………………...11 References …………………………………………………………………………….................13

Organization and Leader Analysis

3 Organizational Description

We will be discussing the Apple Motors Corporation, a for profit automobile manufacturer. More specifically we will analyze the Product Quality and Service Support department within the organization and the Division Manager John Smith. This portion of the organization is responsible for supporting the service aspect of the dealerships who sell vehicles for apple motors. Additionally, PQ/SS is responsible for finding and fixing engineering issues of vehicles produced by apple motors including safety recalls ensuring compliance with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Apple Motors was founded in 1937 and today is one of the world’s largest auto manufacturers, selling more than 40 model in over 90 countries. Currently the company vision is to lead the future of mobility, through constant innovation and care for our plant we will enrich lives around with the safest and environmentally responsible ways of moving people. PQ/SS supports this vision through ensuing Apple Motors customer’s vehicles are safe and reliable. They support the innovations by the engineering by identifying necessary improvements by examining consistent failures from real world use. Additionally, they assist with diagnosis and inspection of vehicles in for service at the franchised dealerships either over the phone and on sight. A1: Leadership Practices We will be discussing my department manager in this section John Smith. While he is in a management position at this point in an engineering division, he does not have an engineering degree or prior management experience at this level. He does have a technical background as a former automotive technician which gives him insight as to what is required in the field at the dealership level. Throughout this section we will discuss John’s strongest leadership practices.

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The first leadership practice that comes to mind is that John is a great advocate for change. He understands that the needs of the customer and the continuous advances in technology mean that the vehicle development and manufacturing is ever changing. John is quick to support any new company initiative and is great at rallying his department supervisors to do the same. New changes are typically discussed in detail and John always has a great plan of rolling these changes out to various groups within PQ/SS. These detailed plans are typically tailored to each departments needs to ensure the changes go over smoothly and expectedly as well as contingencies for when problems may arise. Recently NHTSA came up with a new regulation of reporting all Driver Assistance System failures that result in a collision within 24 hours. We were given 2 weeks to roll this out within our division. John did a great job of giving everyone a detailed plan of hour their departments would need to react to the changes. This even included making engineering staff available to dealers on the weekends to ensure prompt reporting. The second consistent leadership practice would be John’s communication. One of the things that helps make John a great advocate for change is that he is a great communicator. It seems regardless of the situation he seems to always have clear understandable instructions. The medium of choice always seems to match the necessity of the situation. Things that are simple and can be conveyed through email without issue are. However, when additional detail is needed a meeting is scheduled, if necessary, with additional email follow up. This can be with multiple departments within the division or with individual departments depending on the situation and who needs to be involved. One of the biggest things all the departments can agree on is that no one is ever out of the loop and that can be attributed to John’s great communication.

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John’s third consistent leadership practice is his ability to motivate his team. Be it through the ease of his plans, or the delegation of tasks to the correct people he seems to always be able to find the correct workflow. He has a natural charisma that seems to help him inspire the rest of the team. He constantly reminds us that the work we are doing is not just important for the company, but it is increasing the safety and reliability of the product for our customers. I have worked with many different types of leaders in my past, but not many who can inspire a team and get their support behind him to achieve a common goal the way John is able to. A:2 Effects of Current Leader on the Culture John has created the exact team that is needed for the PQ/SS department. He has developed an environment that adapts quickly to the ever change technology and can easily implement change. John sees the company’s vision as his own vision and attempts to align his values with the company. He truly wants to deliver a safer and more reliable product for the customer and works tirelessly to develop a culture withing out division that supports the company’s overall values and culture. One of apple motors core values is continuous improvement which was instilled by the company’s founder and what drives all decision making to this day. Going back the example used earlier about NHTSA and the changes to safety reporting. This is a major change for a lot of auto manufacturers, one of the biggest things is availability of corporate staff on the weekends. Apple motors one of a very few auto manufacturers who operate in the US that did not request an extension from NHTSA to become complaint in this new reporting process. Once the new policy was announced my NHTSA pretty much everyone on the team knew what was going to happen, some people were going to have to work weekends. At the first meeting we had to address this multiple department supervisors started volunteering their teams or themselves to assist with the

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weekend reporting. Knowing this would help the company improve its reporting process and support the company’s goal of continuous improvement. This allowed the rest of the planning to move forward without a hitch since all the teams were on board. Apple motors prides itself on internal growth and John plays a big part ensuring that’s what happens in the PQ/SS division. John ensures that people who want to move up are paired with mentors and are constantly working on their development. I see team members and supervisors swap between various departments of PQ/SS for learning and team building reasons. This makes it easy for associates to transfer into supervisor or management positions for different departments as they have likely had experience working with a particular group in the past. This also contributes to open communication that creates a division like support for solving our most difficult problems and supporting the overall culture of continuous improvement.

SWOT Analysis

B1: Organizational Strengths One of the major strengths of Apple Motors is the entire organization, including PQ/SS, is mobilized for change. It seems like even the biggest changes are transitions time and time again without a major issue. It is important for an organization whose key focus is continuous improvement. This is also supporting the ever-improving technology in vehicles with a team that can adapt to meet the changing technology demands to support the vehicle improvements. Apple motors does an excellent job at placing individuals in management who support the company’s core belief of continuous improvement to ensure that it remains part of the culture.

Organization and Leader Analysis Another strength of Apple Motors is the open communication and information sharing throughout the PQ/SS division. One of the things that helps support all of those changes we experience is the fact they have open interdepartmental communication. This can help make solving some of the most difficult problems extremely easy to as it seems like you always have multiple teams trying to help you accomplish your goal. This is achieved through inter department emails, meetings, shared network drives for community access and storage. We also have a team of people who organize the shared data to ensure everything is easily locatable through our customized data mining system. B2: Organizational Weaknesses The core belief of continuous improvement does help create a culture that supports change however it does lead to a weakness as well. Apple motors has a team dedicated to the core belief of continuous change that examines departments, teams, processes etc. looking for ways the company can improve. This has led to changes at times that have led to a loss of productivity and time. There have even been situations where new processes were completely abandoned after a while, and we reverted to original processes or procedures. Although this happens among many organizations, I noticed an increased amount of wasted time on some of the projects that were change or various procedural changes. Change for a company is good but change for the sake of change can affect the productivity of large parts of the organization and ultimately our ability to assist the customers. One of the other weaknesses of the Apple Motors is the current recruitment strategy. More recently the company has put an emphasis on education over prior work experience. Although this may seem correct with the ever-changing technology, this has led to a lack of applied knowledge within PQ/SS. This applied knowledge is imperative to vehicle diagnosis in

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relation to real world failures. This has led teams taking extended times coming up with correction to engineering design issues, which contrasts with PQ/SS goal of supporting product quality and the service of our vehicles. B3: External Opportunities As technology improves so do the variety of options we can use to help support our dealers. We have seen an increased use in services such as Skype and Teams through the Covid Pandemic. The necessity of companies with employees working from home but needing a medium through which to communicate saw a drastic improvement in these services. Using these services to support our dealers in the field would be a great way to cut out extended waits and hold times on vehicle that are under investigation. If we can setup a Skype or Teams meeting, the onsite personnel would be able to provide us with the information we need in addition to saving time and money. The technology improvements in processes and materials also open a world of opportunity for product quality and reliability. As new manufacturing techniques take over such as Porsche’s 3D printed pistons. We will see improved efficiency in overall design, which should come with an increase in reliability and a reduction of wasted materials. Another example is Tesla’s use of mega presses to forge their vehicle’s unibody in as little as 3 pieces. This reduces complexity as well as the likelihood of issues during manufacturing process. Although these processes are quite new and are somewhat expensive, the opportunity exists to explore ways to reduce the cost and improve product quality. B4: External Threats A growing concern not only for Apple Motors but for the entire automotive industry is the lack of qualified service technicians. Every year more and more experienced technicians

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retire, but there are not enough technicians entering the field. A lot of this has to do with stagnating pay, as well as the increased complexity of the vehicles due to ever changing technology. Additionally, technicians must provide their own tools which can make entering the profession very expensive. Most technician’s will spend upwards of $100,000 or more in tools throughout their career, much of which can’t be written off and is just a personal expense to the technician. Another threat to Appel Motors is the future direction of the transportation industry. Although Apple Motors is known for leading in technology including its hybrid vehicles, the future seems to be heading towards all electric vehicles. Apple motors finds itself on its back foot as other automobile manufacturers such as Tesla already consist of an all-electric fleet. Additionally, other manufacturers have already beat Apple Motors to market with several allelectric models. While Apple Motors offers several hybrids and even a hydrogen model they currently do not have any all-electric vehicles for sale to the public Leadership Analysis C1: Leadership Strengths One of John’s key leadership strengths is also a key principle of the Servant Leadership Theory which is listening. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) “Greenleaf contends that only a natural servant will respond to a problem by listening first, and Spears suggests that listening helps leaders understand the will of their followers.”(Heyler & Martin, 2018) John does an excellent job of listening to the needs of his team and doing his best to respond to those needs. A lot of the time this includes many supervisors from the various departments assisting with the planning process. It always seems as though he wants to hear our thoughts and ideas before finalizing the process. Which helps us all feel more invested in new processes as we all feel we played a part in its

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creation. The 2nd of John’s leadership strengths which likely contributes to his listening ability, is his empathy. Empathy is also one of the key principles of Servant Leadership. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) John goes out of his way to try really find out what makes his employees tick. John started with Apple motors and the bottom and has worked his way up thought the company which gives him a great undersigning of what is required of everyone within the division. His understanding of what is needed from everyone, coupled with his ability to relate, really help John maximize his team’s strengths. John’s 3rd leadership strength, which is also a key principle of Servant Leadership, is John’s self-awareness. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) He understands his position in the company as well as his role within the team. I can see in his actions how he utilizes his team to overcome his weakness which shows me he is aware of what they are. Additionally, he uses his strengths to ensure the right people are in key roles to help the team and himself succeed. C2: Leadership Weaknesses One of the areas where John can improve his leadership would be his Foresight, which is one of the key principles of Servant Leadership. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) “The ability to look at the current situation and effectively envision possible future outcomes is an area where leaders need to be effective.” (Heyler & Martin, 2018) It always seems that when planning for new process rollouts, excessive time is set aside for dealing with problems that may arise. Additionally, some of the problems encountered during new process rollouts are almost always issues we’ve encountered in the past. Most of the time during the meeting and planning phases it is usually one of the department managers and not John that identify these as key issues. Another weakness of John leadership would be his conceptualization. Conceptualization

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is also one of Servant Leaderships key principles. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) Although John is great at getting his team to follow someone else’s vision, it seems as though he will wait for someone to ask for changes as opposed to know which direction his team needs to be going in. Also, when someone does ask for a change, John has little planning completed for thin initial meetings. Typically, in the initial meetings we are trying to figure out the big picture as opposed to how our departments fit into the problem. Although we can usually come to a consensus, it seems like there is almost a lack of leadership during the initial planning stage for new changes. This can be stressful and time taxing for department managers who will be pulled from their teams for long amounts of time. John’s final weakness, which is also a key principle of Servant Leadership, would be his lack of commitment to the growth of his team. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) Not to say he does not want people to grow within the company, its more related to understanding the new technologies. A lot of times there are tools created for work around nor diagnostic tips. Not really training to ensure people understand the new technologies. This leads to most of the departments and mangers learning on the job as we attempt to fix issues the systems encounter. As technology seems to improve every day, this can be making diagnosing even the simplest issues with new vehicles systems extremely daunting. There are vehicles that Apple Motors have made in partnership with other auto manufacturers that some engineers still have difficulty fixing due to lack of understanding the technologies used. These are the results of a lack of proper training and development within the division. C3: Recommendations for Current Leader The first recommendation for John’s leadership would be to improve his conceptualization. “Big changes come from big ideas and servant leaders need to be able to

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develop these ideas and then communicate them effectively to their subordinates.”(Helyer & Martin, 2018) Leaders in a sense need to lead and John’s inability to conceptualize ideas seems like a lack of leadership at times. Recommend developing 2 approaches to the plan, at least initial outlines prior to the next initial rollout meeting. Providing the team with an initial starting point would greatly reduce the amount of time wasted on the initial planning phases as well as providing John’s overall vision to the team. The next recommendation will address John’s Foresight. John should create a tool to track problems we encounter during a rollout. This should include the work arounds and fixes that were attempted as well as the results. Building this database over time will help with John’s initial planning when developing outlines for new rollouts. This should improve accuracy and planning of any new procedure, policies or other changes. It will help us anticipate problems better and identify the correct ways to overcome those problems. This will also give department mangers more time in their departments running their teams. The final recommendation will be to improve John’s commitment to growth in his team. As a servant leader it is important for John to see the value beyond the value as an employee. (Lee & Jackson, 2017) I believe there should be training implemented for all the employees in the PQ/SS division that are responsible for vehicle quality and safety. This training should take place prior to launching any new vehicle systems. Developing specialized training for new vehicle systems should make understanding new vehicle systems less intimidating. This should lead to an increase in productivity, ...