Leadership, Strategy, and Change: Café 13 Case Study

This assignment analyzes the case of Café 13, a restaurant facing challenges due to changes in its environment and internal issues. The analysis explores how Café 13 can implement a planned approach to organizational change, focusing on adaptation strategies and the application of Kurt Lewin's three-step model (unfreezing, changing, freezing) to address issues such as declining financial performance, staff dissatisfaction, and operational inefficiencies. The document also advises John, the manager, on adopting a transformational leadership style and developing a business strategy that considers market analysis, menu adjustments, rule implementations, and customer feedback to foster a successful change initiative. The case study emphasizes the importance of effective communication, staff engagement, and strategic marketing to improve Café 13's performance and achieve its goals.

CASE: Café 13
Question 2
Explain how Café 13 can take a planned approach to change?
Café 13 is a canteen-style restaurant in a building that was running well, slowed down after 2015 due to
the shutdown of the shipping company on the other floors and replaced by some small different
companies and later in 2016, it was sold to Elia foods UK Ltd. As the area around the building seemed to
be developed and the employees in the building are preferring to go out for lunch and breaks. Later the
manageress of the café was also changed. As the staff do not work according to the new rules properly,
the café is facing poor financial status and it is instructed to reduce the wage by 5% for over 06 months.
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From the case, it is visible that the company is undergoing difficulties and changes are needed to
overcome these issues and bring back the café to a better position with good financial performance. The
organizational changes are the process of changing or renewing a company’s structure, the way it works,
and their capacity to which extend they could satisfy the needs and wants of the customers.
Type of change
Since the company has to realign some ways in which they work to makes things back to normal it has to
undergo adaptation. Adaptation is where the company in full or only some parts will change the way they
work or transform their structures according to the changes found within the company or changes from
the outside environment.
It would be easier when planned change is approached. Planned changes are implemented as results for
modifications in the company’s environmental changes or to fight new challenges. Planned change is the
way of arranging the whole company or a specific part of it from challenges or disruptive changes to new
aim or direction and this direction may refer to internal structures, culture, metrics, and rewards.
Model for the change
When the business goes down, there will be a need that the organization should change in order to run the
business further. The company can overcome the challenges by implementing changes and doing research
on the problems. For this, Kurt Lewin’s three-step model would help in making the changes within the
company. The three steps are unfreezing, changing, and freezing.
1. Unfreezing- this is the first level and the important level in the whole process of change where the
need for change is identified and action is initiated to unfreeze the existing problems. It also
involves making the workers or the people to be aware and ready to accept the change for a better
future. In this stage, communication is much important in obtaining support from the people
involved in this.
2. Changing- This is known as the transition stage and the real stage where the actual change occurs.
In this level, people are unfreeze allowed to make possible changes that are necessary. This stage
is not easy as there are uncertainties, the unwillingness of people due to fear of the changing
process. This simply involves in bringing out new behavior and attitude change within the group
of the company
3. Freezing- at this point, people move from transition to a more stable state where everything gets
normal. In this stage, the people accept the change and take it as a part of their working style or
make new relationship with it.
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Application of Kurt Lewin’s three-step model for the café 13
1. Unfreeze- The changes needed in café 13 should be identified and they are such as: the way
dishes are served, the connection between staff and John Cummings, higher rates of the absence
of staffs, laziness, their dresses, and to overcome poor financial performance.
2. Change- In this stage, John should study about the market, the café 13 and communicate with the
staffs about the change, how it should be done and then implement it accordingly
3. Freeze- If the changes are correctly implemented the café 13 would move into a stable state with
better business strategy gaining profit and thereby they could cancel the reduction of wage by 5%
and settle the wage properly.
Planned change that could be made:
 Location
The café 13 is located within the office building and used to attain most of all the employees
working in that building. Due to the upcoming developments in the region it is visible that the
customers are being split as they prefer to go out during lunchtimes and the profits of the café 13
have been reduced. Therefore if attractive branches could be opened outside the building in others
places with delivery facilities it would be easier to attract the people outside the building as well
as within the building.
 Change in the food menu
Café 13 should study about the other competitors within the area as mentioned in the case study
and identify what makes them to attain advantage and the menu. They should also consider their
menu. Since a wider range of dishes introduced by John was not working as expected, the menu
should be minimized with the special and innovative dishes compared to others so that it could
attract people without having them waiting as a wider range of dishes may take longer
preparation time.
 Rules imposition
New rules should be made within the company like how the works should be done, foods should
be served and how customers should be treated in order to make staffs work fast and to deliver
food without leaving the customers to wait. And also new rule should be made for staffs on their
working time, on taking leave and also about their dresses because it should benice and pleasing
for customers to see so that they would feel like visiting again.
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 Better coordination within the staffs
As cooking is a long process it happens in a chain with different staffs at different stations of the
kitchen, it is good to change the workplace according to the food process leading to a better
coordination among them where they can finish their within the allocated time frame easily to
deliver or serve the food on or before the customer expects.
 Feedbacks from customers
Since making the customers feel happy and making them to come again is the main aim of cafes,
Café 13 should always get feedback from the customers in order to identify where they are
satisfied or whether there are any issues that should be corrected.
 Good marketing
From the case study it is visible that the marketing is poor for the café 13. Marketing would
increase the identity of the café, make people recognize it, may create trust and loyalty, helps
customers to make visiting decisions, and helps to promote the business thereby making it run
successfully. Therefore proper marketing should be done so that people would turn up, thereby
the profits could increase leading to a better growth of the café.
Question 2
Advise John on how his leadership style and business strategy should be taken into
Consideration to enable them to design future successful change initiatives.
To actualize change in the café 13 John has to undertake transformational leadership. This is a type of
leadership which stands on motivating and encouraging the workers to participate enthusiastically to build
up the company’s success in the future where the leader would work with the staffs to identify the
challenges, changes needed to be made, and creating proper idea to make the change by inspiring them.
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Accordingly john should be visionary, inspiring, collaborative, team-centric, engaging and emotionally
intelligent to be a proper transformational leader.
As this is a new place with elder staffs john should spend time with them in knowing them, about how the
café 13 was ran before, the café’s working pattern and how various things are done within the café and he
should make decisions getting advise from them as they are elders and with more experience in this
particular field than him. Not only them, john should also try to communicate with all the other staffs in
friendly manner with respect and he should inspire them to work according to the café‘s new plans to be
implemented, their vision and mission. He should take feedbacks from the staffs on how the café’s
situation is, how are they feeling about café, what challenges they are facing, what changes should be
made from their point of view, from this he may gain a proper idea of things that are happening inside the
cafe and this would help him to rearrange things and make everything run perfectly. This would help to
create a better understanding between the workers and john so that they would be able to discuss about
the challenges and problems further that would come while taking new decisions.
John should also constantly study about the other competitors to run café’s business at the steady state
because thinking on one way might lead to failures and other challenges so it is always better to consider
from all the sides where there may be any competitions within the same area.
He should act as a leader, advisor who would help the workers to support and empower them. He should
arrange meetings with staffs according to sections, align them to work in shifts and take note of the
problems the staffs face within the café as well as from customer’s side. John can also increase their team
spirit by taking staffs on trips, organizing fun activities and events for them and also he can give monthly
or annual bonuses for staffs that works hard or overtime than usual, he can give rewards showcasing the
talented staffs and giving them the credit they gain for their hard work. By doing this he can create a
better understanding which would lead to a happy workplace with happy staffs and when he motivates
and rewards the better performers, other staffs will also be motivated simultaneously and they will start
working hard to show their performance and when all these are under control the café can run its business
successfully in the future and pay the wage totally without any reductions.
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