BUSS150 - Lakeland Wonders: A Case Study on Leadership & Change

This report analyzes the challenges faced by Cheryl Hailstrom, the newly appointed CEO of Lakeland Wonders, a wooden toy manufacturing company, due to a lack of cooperation and trust from her team members. The report identifies primary stakeholders and explores alternative solutions, including building stronger employee relationships, shifting from transactional to transformational leadership, and implementing Kotter's 8-step change model. It suggests that adopting Kotter's model is the most appropriate solution for overcoming existing challenges and fostering teamwork. The report also proposes using employee engagement surveys and transformational leadership assessments to evaluate the success of the implemented changes, ultimately concluding that addressing the lack of support and trust is crucial for Cheryl's success and the organization's growth.

Assessment Brief: Individual Case Study Report
BUSS150
Produced by A.Mitchell
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Abstract
Eric J. McNulty, in his hypothetical case discussed the conversation amongst Cheryl Hailstrom,
the newly hired CEO of Lakeland a Minnesota based toy manufacturing company. Cheryl is
talented, motivated, and educated person with appropriate experience to handle the job of CEO
and have started at her post with new vision of growth and progress for the organisation.
However, she could not fully succeed in her motives to lack of co-operation and trust from her
fellow teammates and organization’s stakeholders. The report deals with challenges she faced
due to lack of support from her team members and alternates present with her to solve her
problems. Moreover, the report suggests the best suitable alternative and evaluation process that
could be implemented by her to know if implementing the model turns out to be useful.
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Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................2
Primary stakeholders....................................................................................................................2
Challenges......................................................................................................................................3
Alternatives....................................................................................................................................3
Solution and Evaluation...............................................................................................................4
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................5
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Introduction
In the Eric J. McNulty it was mentioned that Cheryl Hailstrom was the CEO of Lakeland
Wonders, an organisation known for manufacturing wooden toys of very high-quality, Cheryl is
the very first person out of the Swensen family who holds the top level job in the organization.
Lakeland is a 94-year-old company and Cheryl has previously worked as a COO of one of
organization’s largest customers moreover had developed many best-selling products in
collaboration with the organization. The former CEO of the organization, Wally Swensen IV,
chose Cheryl as next CEO as she had talent and skills to generate and increase profits for the
organisation and had energy and motivation to make the company progress to the next level and
gain more respect in the industry (McNulty, 2018).
However, the case study discusses the dilemmas Cheryl faces on completing six-months
as CEO, where she is not able to properly implement strategies of expansive growth of the
company. Therefore, the literature of this report revolves around discussion of the problems
faced by Cheryl in implementing her plans for the organisation. Alternatives and solutions
available to her to solve those problems, total evaluation of the Case and drawing conclusion
based on the evaluation.
Primary stakeholders
The Primary stake holders in the organization are Cheryl Hallstrom the CEO of
Lakeland, who is in charge of the organisation and controls operations in all three manufacturing
plans in Minnesota and the 5000 employees working in them. The other stakeholder in line is
Mark Dawson who have been working as manufacturing manager in the organisation for last 14
years and was a capable manager who could meet deadlines for manufacturing as many toys he
could without compromising their quality. Pat Sampson is the stakeholder who head Sampsen
design based in Chicago who was outsourced designing of the products manufactured by the
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Lakeland. Walter Swensen, the former CEO of Lakeland is also a stakeholder as he holds
majority of shares of the organisation and mentors Cheryl in her operations when required. Elain
Spencer, the marketing head and Barry Quince the product designer of Lakeland company were
also the primary stakeholders in the case as they were not following the instructions given to
them by Cheryl and were impacting the operations and overall growth of the organisation.
Challenges
Cheryl as the newly appointed CEO of Lakeland has a vision of growth for the
organisation in which she wants the organisation to expand its product manufacturing to
overseas organisations as well. The major challenges she is facing for executing her vision is the
strong work culture of the organisation which might lead to union strike and slow down the
work. Moreover, the major challenge she is facing is the Employee Resistance as the managers
of the organisation such as Mark Dawson, the VP of operations do not understand her vision and
is always reluctant in implementing strategies planned by her. Moreover, other managers from
different departments agree to perform operations as per Cheryl’s instructions but deliberately do
the opposite and show no co-operation. It can be inferred that despite of having talent and
credentials, Cheryl is not able to develop trust and effective communication between herself and
her team members which became the major reason behind lack of support, commitment and
engagement of her team members towards the organisation.
Alternatives
On analysis of the problem the first alternative that can be suggest in the case is Cheryl’s
need for developing and building strong relationship with her employees. This can be
implemented by her by organising bonding events such as holiday parties, Barbeques, and other
such events where she can personally associate with the employees and participate in activities
that promote team work. Moreover this can be done by making employees feel valued by
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providing them with appraisals based on their team performance, understanding their
developmental needs (Kotter and Cohen, 2002).
The other alternative is converting Leadership practice from transactional to transformational
in which she will have to introduce her team members with intellectual stimulation which
consists of introduction of autonomy in design of work, employee encouragement and decision
making power. Being authentic leader to gain employee trust and making her vision clear to
employees using business stories moreover by understanding the resource capabilities (Mento,
Jones and Dirndorfer, 2002).
The other alternative could be implementation of Kotter’s 8 step change model which could
help her communicate the opportunities that could be available to employees, stakeholders and
union on implementation of her vision by using employee relation functions such as organisation
of companywide conference of human resource department. In second step she could form
coalition with powerful consultants considering the organizational culture. Third she could alter
her vision a bit and consult her managers and employees about strategies they find comfortable
in implementing to achieve the final objectives. Communication of vision, development of
effective plans, and creating milestones are next three steps that could smoothen the operations.
In seventh step focus groups can be created to develop proper understanding of employee’s
desires and competences along with evaluation of their resourcefulness and autonomy. Finally
the 8th step that could be taken is anchoring of change in existing culture, which can be done by
sharing the progress with employees and stakeholders to gain their trust at every milestone
accomplishment (Kotter, 2012). This could be done using, newsletters, offering rewards to team
responsible for accomplishment and offering attractive incentives to them.
Solution and Evaluation
The most appropriate solution to overcome the existing challenge is implementation of
Kotter’s 8 step change model as the model offers elaborated solution to the challenge, focus on
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winning the trust of employees along with development in operations and generating spirit of
team playing amongst employees (Tsuyuki, and Schindel, 2008).
The evaluation of successful implementation of the model is also easier as it can be done
though conduction of surveys related to employee engagement dedicated on measuring
employee perception regarding enactment of their basic needs. Moreover, transformational
leadership surveys could be conducted before and after implementation of new leadership
practice to understand and study the change in aspect of employee behaviour and regards
towards Cheryl as the CEO of the organization (Todnem, 2005).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above report that despite of having requires credentials,
knowledge, motivation and vision for the expansion of Lakeland, Cheryl as CEO could not gain
trust and support of her team members. The challenges arising from the lack of support and trust
was leading Cheryl and organization to face many challenges. However, it has been analysed
that by implementing proper management frameworks such as transforming leadership practice
from transactional to transformational, implementation of Kotter’s change model and practicing
building of strong relationship with employees can help Cheryl overcome all the existing
challenges.
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Bibliography
McNulty, E., 2018. Welcome Aboard (But Don’t Change a Thing). Retrieved from
https://hbr.org/2002/10/welcome-aboard-but-dont-change-a-thing
Kotter, J.P., 2012. Leading change. Harvard business press.
Mento, A., Jones, R. and Dirndorfer, W., 2002. A change management process: Grounded in
both theory and practice. Journal of Change Management, 3(1), pp.45-59.
Kotter, J.P. and Cohen, D.S., 2002. The heart of change: Real-life stories of how people change
their organizations. Harvard Business Press.
Tsuyuki, R.T. and Schindel, T.J., 2008. Changing pharmacy practice: the leadership challenge.
Canadian Pharmacists Journal/Revue Des Pharmaciens Du Canada, 141(3), pp.174-180.
Todnem By, R., 2005. Organisational change management: A critical review. Journal of change
management, 5(4), pp.369-380.
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