How High Involvement Should Be Considered in Sydney Theatre Company - Case Study Example

Contemporary Name Name Instructor’s Name Date The primal intent of this paper is to elucidate five critical issues that I recommend for the Sydney Theatre Company management to get right for it to be competitive and ensure that survives in the long-term. The paper is divided in five sections that explain the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) management can consider doing so that it can be competitive in future. Firstly, the paper explains how high involvement should be considered in STC. High involvement entails involving everyone in the organization’s activities secondly, for STC to be competitive in future it ought to set its goals that will give it direction on how it expected to be in future. Diversity and wellness is also required this will help to ensure that various elements are required in an organization. Creativity and effective decision-making should be part of the management objectives. Creativity helps in effective decision-making and lastly it explains what managers should do so that they are effective and help steer STC towards the desired future. High involvement High involvement is an indispensable aspect in any business organization and it comprises of features such as job designs, career systems, selection, flat, lean organization structures, training, reward systems, personnel systems, and physical layouts. For Sydney Theatre Company to be more competitive in future it should consider high involvement as its strategy. The personnel system is an essential unit, since it helps to maximize business organization out-put through various ways. For instance, it enhances skill variety in an organization. This is crucial given that different employees have different skills, which help to improve production. Different tasks are shared among various employees and they choose tasks that they perceive they can do better. It also enhances flexibility since employees can switch to duties they feel they can do better. For instance, in Sydney Theatre Company it different roles can be shared among its staff. The managerial position can also be made to be more competitive in that it purely based on results. Control system is extremely crucial, and it should be used to advance organization’s objectives. There are various control systems, which ought to be carried out to improve the potential of an organization, for example, production reports, budgets and accounting practices. Production reports are exceedingly crucial since they help to indicate an organization production progress; they show how the organization makes its products and the circumstances that influenced production outcome. Budgets help an organization make predictions of future expenditures and the expected income. This will help it to spend within its budget limits. Accounting practices are fundamental since they help to guarantee that the organizations follow accounting regulations when presenting financial statements, so that readers can understand and also compare with different companies. STC should also release its business annual reports. The reports should be appealing to the public since it helps in shaping how the company is perceived by the shareholders and the public. Similarly, the storyline of the report ought to transcend the present business circumstance as well as address what can be seen beyond the horizon. The report can also be used by the company to make a desired impression as well as tell a clear and consistent story about the direction of the company. The story of the organization can be a string and an enticing picture of the near future. If the report is well written, it resonate a high stakeholder audience. The annual report can help to advance develop the persona of the company and therefore become a means that can be used to influence reputation and perception and buffer its financial results. To ensure that STC is more competitive is pertinent for to have resilient supervisory systems, this helps to ensure that it can design mechanisms to guarantee positive outcome. Supervisory system is essential since it enhances feedback mechanism, which is extremely essential for STC, because it will be able to get opinions from its employees. Employee’s opinions are extremely essential since they influence how an organization runs, and this eventually helps to improve its performance. Communication is an indispensible constituent of human resource in industrial relations. The STC management should share information with the employee’s representatives. The management has to also train the human resource on innumerable ways, which can be used to communicate with employees. There should be an increased level of communication between various stakeholders in STC. Communication can be achieved through several ways for instance awareness creation. Awareness creation is achieved through several ways, for instance, new employees in the organization are taught how STC operates and how they should behave. Mediums such as organizations weekly magazines are very essential in informing the company employees and other stakeholders what is taking place, how the organization industrial relation is now and how it can be corrected. This is very essential since it helps to reduce the likelihood of problems occurring in the organization due to lack of awareness, therefore it streamlines the organizations activities. Goal Setting In any organization, setting goals plays a pivotal function in improving performance and STC is not an exception. There are a number of elements, which should be put into consideration when setting goals by STC. STC should set goals that are challenging but realistic. All STC employees should be involved in the goal-setting process since they will help determining how effective the goals will be. Goals should be specified and clarified; in order to clarify goals measurement objectives must be defined. Clarification of goals measurements necessitates that supervisors and employees agree on resources, which are necessary to achieve the goals. The main aim of setting goals is to help STC bridge the gap between where it is presently and where it would like to be. STC should set goals and then work diligently towards achieving them. Organizations that set and attain their goals are organizations that have made a choice on what they desire, and have devoted their time by going for it and have not allowed anything to obstruct them from achieving their goals. After setting goals, STC members should be energized so that they can achieve the goals. STC ought to set goals that challenging but attainable. It is expected that when STC members will be challenged by the goals they will devise mechanisms that will help them achieve the goals. In most cases, goal setting prompts persistence, because most the goals are habitually tough but achievable. This therefore, prompts members to persist so that they can achieve the goals. Employees should be motivated so that they can reach the challenging goals. Motivation comes about in various ways, for example, reward system. Rewards can include measures such as job promotions and pay rise. On the other hand, punishments can be used to encourage members of an organization to persist so that they can achieve the goals. Diversity and Wellness Just like any other business that would like to be competitive STC should embrace diversity, employee stress management and wellness. Some business organizations overlook the importance of encouraging diversity, employee stress management and wellness. This is extremely vital since it helps organizations improve on its performance. Diversity is an indispensible constituent for any business to be efficacious since personalities from dissimilar upbringings have unalike opinions about work place. Different views can help to increase performance. Firstly, top managers and human resource managers should be from different races. This is important since the STC will have fresh and varied management ideas compared to a situation whereby they are all from one race. Secondly, employees in an organization should be members of varied ages. STC should not have certain age group members to serve as the work force. Additionally, organizations development interventions, for example, wellness programs, work design, reward system, career development and planning should be adapted to various age groups. Thirdly, the disabled should not be overlooked because they are highly productive. Lastly, employment should not be based on one’s sexual orientation or culture because diversity is extremely essential for any organization to achieve tangible results. Wellness intervention plays a significant function in ensuring that organizations performance increases immensely. This is attained through various means, firstly, work leaves plays a significant role in ensuring that work pressure reduces since employees will take a break when conditions become unbearable or when they have personal issues to attend. Secondly, stress management programs are indispensable since they help to identify the causes of stress, change the cause and help the employees cope with stress. Health facilities should be provided at the work place to enable employees manage stress effectively. Employee assistance programs, this should be aimed at helping individual employees directly so that their performance can be improved. Employee assistance programs are usually intended to identify, refer as well as treat employees whose personal problems issues impinges on their level of performance. For instance, widows should be given consolation and advised on how to cope up with their current situation. Expected manager’s role Apparently, recent development trends in the 21st century have widely changed the managerial roles in different disciplines. A manager is expected to plan, implement, control, monitor, and evaluate activities. Innovations, increased technical and social skills as well as formal authority contribute to the changing managerial role. This has enabled them to develop multi-tasking skills (WetFeet 2008). The 21st century managers are expected to be innovative thinkers. This is a vital in management due to the changing economy. Teamwork promotes innovative thinking and it is necessary due to the complex organizational structure, which the formal management systems cannot handle. It can help to resolve conflicts, generate new ideas, negotiate new contracts and represent all the departments at board meetings (Kurako 2010). Presently, managers are actively involved in formation of business policies. Managers are taking part in formation of business policy since they are best placed to ensure that the policy is implemented. Managers input in policy formulation process are of great help to the growth of the organization. Traditionally, it was believed that managers are only involved in management of the organization. However, this is not the case in the 21st century. Taking part in policy formulation process helps in improving implementation of the policy (Veerabhadrappa 2009). The increasing competence requirements concerning the communication, technology, cooperation and wide business oriented perspective could has necessitated the type of participation-oriented management. Dialogue is an essential part of the participation-oriented manager’s way to run the business and this should be done among all employees from top to down management during decision making. Participation oriented manager has the ability to know and understand the current state of business affairs which might be useful for his/her controlling work (Rothwell & Cecil, 2006). Creative and decision-making The Creative decision-making process model is composed of four stages, which includes preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. The whole process employs creativity at all stages of conceptualizing and making a decision that is the development of an original idea into a socially recognized contribution. Preparation involves critical investigation of problems or opportunities through a wider scale approach. Information is generated to understand better the problem at hand or opportunity that presents (McShane & Glinow, 2013). On the other hand, the rational decision relies on specific objectives in problem identification to shape the process. Incubation comes with reflection and diversification of thoughts. Here, a decision maker wanders in thought on a wider perspective with constant reference to the problem or opportunity identified. This is different from the rational decision making process such that it relies on convergent point of thought where the conventional answer is sought through logical calculation (McShane & Von Glinow, 2013). In illumination, ideas start streaming in the minds of the decision maker. It comes with awareness of the idea. Solutions ring in the mind of the decision maker, contrary to the rational process of twisting existing alternatives or designing a “custom made solution” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2013 ). A vague idea is because of illumination. Finally, the verification stage affirms the vague ideas generated through illumination by use of creativity. However, rational decision-making relies on reasons to support an option. The latter has a component of implementation and follow-up planning, absent in the former. STC should consider the principles of decision-making. Some of the principles that STC ought to consider so that they make good decision that will help them stay afloat include: a) Clarity – they should ensure that they are objective in any issues, context as well as consequences b) Conviction – this considers intuition, values as well as trained judgment c) Courage – STC can turn their belief into action so that they can develop the next step d) Communication – STC should consider listening, engaging as well as persuading. The heart of effective decision-making is establishing a balance between conviction and clarity. It is the relationship between beliefs, analysis and logical thinking that is the heart of good decision-making. Communication and courage are pertinent factors in being decisive, making tough forward decision and getting business done. An organization’s ability to make decision is largely dependent on how the organization understands itself. STC should be able to understand when it is making good decisions and when it is likely to be less effective because of fear, avoidance, blinkering or even vulnerability. When STC understands its strengths and weakness is important to its capability of improving its capability of making good decisions. STC’s decision-making making process should consider the following. Firstly, decision makers ought to clarify their objectives before making a decision. Most individuals have aspirations of realizing several aims when making a decision. For instance, when selecting a site for a plant, the manager typically intends to accomplish various goals, such as reduce distance between the company and the customers, get closer to raw materials, as well as have access to excellent labor supply. The goal ought to offer an explicit expression of what the decision-maker wants (Brezina, 2008). When a decision-maker does not have clear goals, he will not be in position to evaluate his alternatives. While deciding what you want your decision to accomplish for you it is vital that you write down all concerns that you intend to tackle, change your concerns into precise objectives, make a clarification on what you mean by each objective and then test the objective to experiment if they capture your interest (Dessler & Phillips, 2007). Secondly, one must ask consider the best alternative when making a decision. In most cases there is more than one alternative to choose (Ullman, 2006). This therefore implies that a decision-maker should carefully examine available options. It is significant to calculate the cost of making a decision against the projected benefits of the decision. Since, some decisions may look promising but they have little benefit. On the other hand, some decisions may be unworkable but they are very viable. For instance, a company may intend to replace its manual labors for automated machines (Griffin, 2006). The cost of automation may appear to be costly compared to what the company spends on payment of its labors. However, the company will be in good position to cut on its costs in future. Some of the benefits may be concealed, for instance, the company will reduce on the amount of work-hours spent by its workers. A company management will have made a good decision by adopting automation consequently, increasing its profits. It is therefore essential for decision makers to select the best alternative (Brezina, 2008). Thirdly, in Parcon (2006) he states that it is crucial for a decision maker to consider the implications of his decisions on the affected parties. For instance, a company may decide to dispose its waste materials in a nearby river. This may appear to be an effective means of disposing its waste but in actual sense, it is not viable solution. The decision is likely to have negative implications on those that use the river water down-stream, since they will be using polluted water. This may lead to out-break of diseases. It would be essential for the company management to consider the implications of their decisions on the water user’s down-stream. This implies that before making any decision stakeholders should have an input. Undoubtedly, the decision will benefit all the stakeholders (Griffin, 2006). Reference Brezina, C. (2008). Great Decision-Making Skills. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. Dessler, G., & Phillips, J. (2007). Managing Now. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Griffin, R. W. (2006). Management. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Kuratko, D (2010). Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, practice. Mason: Cengage Learning. McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2013). Organizational behavior (6th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Parcon, P. (2006). Develop Your Decision Making Skills. New Delhi: Lotus Press. Ullman, D.G. (2006). Making Robust Decisions: Decision Management for Technical, Business, and Service Teams. Victoria, BC. Trafford Publishing. Rothwell, William and Cecil, Robert. (2006). Next generation management development: The complete guide and resource. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Veerabhadrappa, H. (2009). Management and Entrepreneurship. New Delhi: New Age International. WetFeet, (2008). Industries and careers for engineers. San Francisco: WetFeet Inc. Read More