Leadership: Ice Cream Division Essay

This document localisees on the Chattanooga frosting slash Division shield study developed by Carl Sloane. leaders opportunities and presention are defined based on the characters in the drive study. Dysfunction is evaluated both from a police squad up aspect and from the leading role. specialised development activities are identified to armed service the individuals develop mad parole. Finally, recommendations give be made to guide the aggroup forward. Background Chattanooga meth Cream is a part of Chattanooga Food Corporation which is a family- sustainled business organisation founded in 1936 (Sloane, 1997).The crackpot cream division is one of the largest regional maufacturers of internal-combustion engine cream in the United States. The friendships primitive focus is mid-priced basic ice cream products. The ice cream division has been experiencing flat sales and a declining profitability over the past quadruple years (Sloane, 1997). Competitors had shown su ccess in recent years with premium and super-premium brands with mix-in ice cream flavors. The Chattanooga Food Corporation center on leadership changes in an attempt to improve the ice cream divisions performance.In 1993, Charles Moore was promoted to head the division. The ice cream division also hire a new vice president of marketing to replace a 30 year veteran. Stephanie Krane was assigned to the division to upgrade the information systems and manage function. In 1995, the original manufacturing plant in Chattanooga was closed to control costs. The steering changes resulted in a disruption to the top level circumspection team. Three of the seven ingredients of the management team were new to their positions. Additionally, Charles leadership musical mode was very different than his predecessor.The previous general manager had been with the business for some(prenominal) years and had numerous net consummations to gather information. He made important decisions all and r arely felt the need to consult his management team. The Dysfunction The ice cream division sales continued to fall, and the company recently scattered a significant customer to Sealtest. The announcement of this loss resulted in commit criticism from virtually all team members. In the past, when issues arose and blaming between departments occurred Moore would non respond in hopes that the managers would quit complaining about each(prenominal) other.Moore believes in the value of group based decisions and liked to bring hoi polloi unitedly formally to percent information, consult on decisions, and forge consensus (Sloane, 1997). Moore would rank heights in coaction using the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode creature (TKI). The TKI (2007) states that the overuse of collaboration and consensual decision making sometimes represents a desire to minimize risk by diffusing responsibility for a decision or by postponing action.The assessment goes on to state that a person with a hig h collaboration score may look across some cues that would indicate the presence of defensiveness, impatience, private-enterprise(a)ness, or conflicting interests. Moore appears to also estimation the avoiding mode when conflict arises. Avoiders tend to hope that conflict goes away on its own. Moore has been avoiding conflict by not addressing the conflict when it arose. The disk Assessment is a tool to help an individual understand themselves and others. Based on the gaucherie study by Sloane (1997) Moore appears to be an S, which stands for steadiness.The S style prefers to work at a methodical pace and to focus on their tasks without interruption. They seek a calm, orderly structure where collaboration and group effort are wanted ( dish, 2008). People that assume an S profile are demotivated in competitive environments, do not like being rushed into quick decisions, or having to be confrontational. These three traits of Charlie Moore have resulted in a lack of leadership th rough conflict and the inability to make a decision without collaboration time. As a leader, Moore has not displayed the four key precepts to success harmonise to Jack Welch in benignant (2005).These basic principles are com kicking and vision, verity, differentiation, and vocalisation and dignity. First, Moore has not created a vision for the Ice Cream Division, and the division appears to be relatively isolated from the overall explosive charge of the Chattanooga Food Corporation. tally to Welch (2007), the mission tells where you are going and the values describe the behaviors that testament originate you there. Charlie Moore has been the General Manager for four years, yet it does not appear that he has determined how the Ice Cream Division can win in their current market, nor has he defined what winning means.The bet on principle is candor. forthrightness facilitates strong news. In the case of the Ice Cream Division team, it appears the team was displaying a lack o f candor by not sharing vituperative information, or generating ideas which could result in a real debate. Part of candor is feedback. As a leader, it is critical to give feedback so each team member understands exactly what has to be done for improvement and where they stand in the organization (Welch, 2005). There are three main benefits of candor harmonise to Welch (2005).First, candor gets battalion into the conversation. More ideas are generated and discussed, and all team members have the opportunity to contribute to generate the best ideas. Candor also increases pelt along since getting deal into the conversation results in immediate debate and discussion which allows a well informed decision to be made. Speed is the second benefit of candor. Finally, candor cuts costs. Openly sharing information, positive and negative, results in a team that can quickly respond to issues that arise. Welchs (2005) third principle focuses on differentiation.Differentiation is a way to man age people and business. The business side of differentiation focuses on how to beat the competition through strategy. The people portion requires a leader to identify the top 20 percent, pith 70 percent, and the fathom 10 percent of performers. The next step is to act on this evaluation. In the case of the Chattanooga Ice Cream Division, the bottom 10 percent would not know where they ranked or why. This riddle ties back into candor. Without sincere conversations regarding goals and performance, an employee has a reduced chance of success.Additionally, the lack of candid conversations does not give the individual an opportunity to improve their performance. Further, in this case study, goals for the team are not clear which does not change people to be successful. The fourth principle is voice and dignity. Charles Moore has a management team that does have a voice, although they use the opportunity to lay blame and hold up themselves rather than focus on solutions. Voice and dignity goes beyond the management team. According to Welch in Winning (2005), most people do not say anything because they feel they cant and they havent been asked.Charles ask to understand the business from every rank and perspective as the company leader. He needs to get into the trenches. The only way to accomplish this is by enabling open, candid conversations throughout the organization. growing a Team Developing a team takes time. This team has been together for four or more than years with little to no achievement. The stage of introductions is past, but in address to the Tuckman model (Tocci, JWI510, W6) the team is in the forming stages. Key attributes of this stage are an ill-defined mission and values, lack of trust, and lack of commitment.To put down an open discussion regarding team dynamics each team member will complete a DiSC assessment and a 360 review. The 360 feedback will include their direct reports, people from within their functional area, people outsi de of their functional area, and every member of the leadership team. After the results have been compiled a coach will be assigned to each team member to review the results and to develop own(prenominal) action plans. After these one-on-one sessions, Charlie should bring the team together to share the results of their DiSC assessment.The purpose of the session is to gain a better ground of each team member in terms of how they prefer to work and why. one time the DiSC assessment is reviewed, each person will be asked to share the 2-3 personal development goals generated from their time with the coach. As the leader, Charles will start first and show his vulnerability. Sharing goals can help team members be accountable to each other. This enables informal peer to peer coaching to help everyone stay committed to the team. The DiSC assessment and the 360 degree feedback contribute to emotional ntelligence.Goleman (2000) defines emotional intelligence as the ability to manage oursel ves and our relationships effectively. Both of these assessments enable each team member to conk more self-aware of their emotions and the jounce on their co-workers. Additionally, these tools give an accurate self-assessment of each persons strengths and limitations. Once each team member understands how they are perceived and their personal DiSC style in relation to others they can begin to make focused improvements on their overall emotional intelligence.Goleman (2000) found that leaders with strengths in a critical mass of six or more emotional intelligence competencies were more effective than peers that did not have similar strengths. These exercises focus on the bottom of Lencionis (2002) pyramid, Absence of Trust. The team should encourage each other to be vulnerable and in turn, support the team members that do show vulnerability. Specific Recommendations for the Team Once the team has completed the DiSC and 360 degree feedback tools, the coaching, and the group sharing t hey are ready to transition their focus to the ability to run a successful business.At this point, the Ice Cream Division does not have a clear mission or vision. To start this process, the team will start a ingest. First, the team must(prenominal) establish an overall mission by understanding the overarching mission of the company. In short, at the executive level, what does the team stand for? Focusing on mission development instead of solving the line of lost business will allow the team to understand what actions they need to take to align the problem solution to the business strategy.According to Welch (2005) a mission answers the question How do we intend to win in this business? Using guidance from Winning (Welch, 2005), the executive team may develop a mission tilt that looks like this The mission of the Chattanooga Ice Cream Division is to become the market leader in Ice cream sales repayable to our focus on exceptional taste, unique flavors, and our commitment to cust omers. Once the mission is established the team will begin to generate a charter. This charter will focus on specific activities required to achieve the mission and vision of the organization.