Question

Joseph and Krystal are part of your social group. They joined Missile’s Financial Services together as middle managers. Each of them reports to a different senior manager. These managers report to the Managing Director. Once a month after payday you all try to have lunch together.

Joseph is very distressed. ‘I’ve had an awful week and this morning was the worst!’   He recounts what happen between himself and Nicholas his manager.

‘Nicholas and I were to meet with a new supplier to finalize a contract. I have been dealing with the supplier all this time and we just needed to finalize the costing. We had reached an agreement about the cost both of us were comfortable with it. All week I have been trying to get Nicholas to look at the contract and agree the figures etc. We really need this guy’s company they are fast, a good price point for us and willing to customize the stationary for such a small company. Anyway, Nicholas was always too busy to meet, I emailed him the contract and my teams thoughts on how we should proceed hoping he would read it.’

‘Anyway we met with the supplier this morning. We are going through the contract, the next thing I know Nicky says. ‘This won’t work for us, the cost is too high, where did these calculations come from?’ ‘If the floor had opened up and swallowed me I could have not been more embarrassed, I mean I spent three weeks working on it with accounting and legal! Joseph shaking his head continued, ‘he just took over the conversation, I mean we got the contract signed but in the end all that happened was that the figures were rearranged we still end up paying the same.’ ‘I am tired of this foolishness, he stays locked in his office on his cell everyday only God knows what he does in there.’

Krystal’s problem was very different but she was equally worried. Yesterday she attended a meeting with her manager and the managing director himself. She is the manager for one of the locations. The MD had called because he received the third quarter results and he was concerned that the new business loans and new customers targets have not been met for the third quarter in a row. In fact, the third quarter results were worst that the second quarter.   The MD asked Krystal what remedial action she has taken over the time period.

Krystal has not been idle. She spoke with her colleagues who also manage other locations and they gave her some tips. She therefore proceeded to do the following. She has reorganized the tasks across the staff and given everybody new targets, which had been emailed to them. She had also brought in a sales trainer to give the staff a pep talk on meeting new people and how to confidently start conversations with strangers, finding sales prospects and marketing loan services.   She had also intended to add a target that would require the loans officers to give a minimum of two monthly financial talk organized by them as well as each would visit two organizations to drum up business by introducing the company and its produces during staff meetings. Shirley confirmed that Krystal had emailed her about this some two weeks ago and she had signed off on it and suggested that Krystal have a meeting with the staff to discuss. To this point Krystal had not done the latter.

Krystal told her lunch partners that her manager Shirley, and the MD were concerned about her communication style. Further, they suggested that this was perhaps the reason why the initiatives were not appear to be working for Krystal or Missile Financial Services.

The MD had just received the results of the annual staff attitude survey. Krystal received acceptable grades from her staff on her one to one communication style. However only 1 of the targeted three 3 general staff meetings had been held. Staff satisfaction in her location also lagged behind that of the other 6 locations and did not meet the minimum 60%.

Shirley and MD are of the opinion that a programme of activities needs to be developed to bring the targets back on track. They think that a general staff meeting in Krystal’s shop is a first step and they promise her that they will be in attendance to give Krystal support.

1. Based on your study of change management, communication and leadership, provide Krystal, with a communication plan that will support her efforts to make changes.

Answer 1

Communication plays a very vital role in an organization's success; be it achieving set goals and targets or motivating employees or listening to your employees. In other words, it creates a base for achieving success. Now in this case study we can analyze that Krystal is struggling to effectively communicate with its team which is becoming a barrier in achieving the set targets. Let's discuss a communication plan which will support her efforts in bringing change:

• Situation analysis: The first thing which Krystal needs to do is to perform a thorough situation analysis, which will give her a clear picture of where she is standing in terms of communication with staff. She needs to gather and analyze all relevant detail and information which can help her in bringing the change. She needs to do following activity in order to have a clear picture:
  • Brainstorming with staff.
  • Conduct focus groups and surveys.
  • Communicate with other departments.
• State the objectives: After collecting the required information Krystal need to collate the data and state the objectives of communication. For e.g. what are the results she wants to achieve? The objectives should be based on "SMART" methodology i.e.:
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Realistic
  • Time-focused
• Involve staff: Krystal should involve the staff members while formulating and setting objectives, by doing this she will give a sense of importance to employees and they will thrive to work harder for the organization.
• Identify media channels: After clearly laying down the objectives, the next important step is to communicate those objectives through an effective media channel. In this case, Krystal can organize a general staff meeting to communicate the same.
• Frequent meetings: In the above scenario we have noticed that Krystal was not that active when it comes to organize staff general meetings which are creating problems in terms of achieving set targets for the team. Therefore arranging regular staff meeting will develop an effective communication channel and will give employees also a fair chance to communicate if they are facing any challenges or problems in terms of their performance. Krystal then can take necessary steps to assist that particular employee and help him/her to overcome that challenge.
• Lead from the front: A true leader is one who leads from the front; Krystal should set an example by closely working with staff members and identify the problems they are facing. She can do so by accompanying them while they visit any client and assist them to convert a potential customer into an actual one.
• Evaluate the results: After taking all the above necessary steps Krystal should compare the results obtained with actual performance monthly, so that if any gap is identified it can be filled with time. Krystal should have one on one session with staff members who fail to achieve the targets and should guide them about how to achieve the targets next time. She should form following reports and present it to her manager to have her input on the performance:
  • Progress reports
  • Annual reports
  • Monthly reports