Managing Change in Elite Travel

Introduction

It is highly acceptable to say that change is constant in the current business environment given factors such as globalisation of markets, rapid technological advancements, increasing focus on costs and cost management, and excess demand of talented individuals. With these factors, it is fundamental for companies to continually and effectively manage organisational change in order to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. Indeed, Aarons et al. (2015) argue that failure to manage organisational change is managing to fail. The travel industry, just like any other industry, is anticipating various changes such as advanced technology which affects the consumer decision-making process and the high demand of talented individuals which makes it problematic to retain employees. In this background, this report is compiled for the Elite Travel Solutions (ETS) senior management team with an aim of advising them on how to embed leadership development within the organisation in order to support the anticipated changes. The report considers that key leadership challenges faced by the organisation in leading the change process and improving organisational performance while highlighting the mediating role of skilled and effective leadership. The report then proposes to the team on how to introduce leadership development for the members of the management team in order retain talent, encourage an innovation culture, and foster creativity. The report finally indicates how the proposals will be evaluated and measured to ensure they create value for money and make a positive return on investment. The report also contains an action plan (Appendix 1) which details the actions to be undertaken, the stakeholders, the goals/objectives, the cost, and the timing.

Assessment of the key leadership challenges

One of the key leadership challenges in the case study is lack of leadership skills required for organisational development and effective change management. Although the current business model, based on knowledgeable, authentic and committed employees who easily interact with customers and give them advice and support has been beneficial for the company, ETS has realised that a more rigorous performance management approach would be sustainable. However, the senior management lacks the skills required for organisational development and effective change management, which would influence them to overlook the needs for this change. Skilled and effective leadership is fundamental in proper change management and in promoting organisational performance. According to Hao and Yazdanifard (2015), effective leadership is one of the most essential parts of the overall strategy for organisational success and sustainability of business in the face of problems. In this case study, skilled and effective leadership will help the senior managers communicate the change to subordinate employees, set optimistic goals and objectives, and steer the operations of the organisation towards these goals through effective strategies, which will ensure that the performance management approach is seamlessly embedded in the culture of the organisation. In addition, ETS employees are likely to show reluctance to change given the company has a success story and in that case, skilled and effective leadership will influence and direct the style, beliefs, and values of all employees within the organisation leading to acceptance of the change. For this to be attained, the leader has to be open to change and be an effective communicator, which are some of the elements of skilled and effective leadership. Therefore, skilled and effective leadership will facilitate the transition from one business model to the other.

The proposed leadership development strategy for senior managers

Given the nature of the required, to develop the leadership capability for the implementation of a performance management approach, the resource-based perspective of leadership training and development is proposed. The resource-based view maintains that companies develop internal capabilities or unique resources as response to the conditions and needs found in their specific operating environments (Clarke and Higgs 2016). The organisations that achieve alignment or closer match are able to develop highly valued internal capabilities that enable them to succeed over their competitors, enhance their organisational effectiveness, and progressively pursue differentiated pathways to maintain, improve, and protect these rare capabilities (Seidle et al. 2016). On this basis, training and development should be targeted towards a specific group of employee talent in order to achieve optimal impact on business outcomes (Seidle et al. 2016). Leaders in particular have been identified the most suitable target whose development can add significant value (Bharwani et al. 2017). Following this line of thinking, this section identifies the leadership development activities that better suit the ETS context as well as the type of leadership that better suits the particular demands of the travel business environment.

360 Degree Feedback

360 degree surveys, also known as multisource feedback, will be the first activity aimed at enhancing the leadership effectiveness of senior managers at ETS. In this activity, a questionnaire will be developed focusing on leadership and performance particularly in effective change management. Persons within the organisation will be asked to rate the senior leaders (please note that senior leaders will be allowed to rate each other) based on specific behaviours. In addition, senior leaders will be given the same questionnaire and asked to rate themselves. With the help of a qualified leadership trainer, each senior manager will analyse the received feedback and compare it with personal ratings. The results of the analysis will help individual managers see how self-perceptions compare or differ from the perceptions of others within the organisation thus helping the managers to develop a self-improvement plan. The qualified trainer will then advise individual managers, based on the results of the 360 degree survey, on the most appropriate actions to take in order to hone their leadership skills. The qualified trainer will also support the managers during this improvement period. During the improvement period, managers will be encouraged to set developmental goals, which through the other leadership development activities suggested in this proposal the leader should attain. After three months, a follow-up 360 degree survey will be conducted and this will be repeated after every three months in order to assess individual manager’s progress. The follow-up 360 degree surveys will be continued until all the senior managers attain the required level of competence. The 360 degree feedback has shown promise as an effective tool for initiating growth and development of leadership and interpersonal skills (Bharwani et al. 2017). In addition, the tool has yielded significant improvement among leaders especially if follow-up 360 degree surveys are administered (Gregory et al. 2017). In addition, the tool encourages developmental goal-setting and impression management which are fundamental aspects of leadership development (Bracken and Church 2013). For these reasons, the 360 degree feedback is suggested in the training and development of senior managers at ETS.

Coaching

Coaching will be used together with the 360 degree feedback tool. After an improvement plan has been developed and developmental goals set, individual managers will receive coaching, which is considered a source of support towards attaining the goals and making progress in the self-improvement plans. Coaching in this proposal refers to the dialogue that will take place between the qualified trainer and individual senior managers with an aim of enhancing the leadership potential of the senior managers. This dialogue will support senior managers through setting and achieving work-related goals. This interactive nature of coaching will enhance the managers’ behavioural change through self-awareness and learning thus contributing to individual and organisational success. According to Rosha and Lace (2016), behavioural change within organisational change opens a number of opportunities for coaching as a tool in implementing and sustaining change. In this case, coaching will be used to encourage managers set effective developmental goals and work towards achieving them and expose senior leaders to other leadership aspects that affect the effectiveness of leaders such as communication skills, teamwork, strategic decisions, and aligning strategies to organisational mission among others. The ultimate goal of coaching in this case will be to facilitate moving beyond innovative technologies from finding ideas and developing then to linking innovations to the company’s strategy for the company to remain competitive.

During coaching, the senior managers will also be taught about different leadership style and their effectiveness during the change management process. In particular, leaders will be taught about transformational and distributed leadership styles, which are established to be more effective during times of organisational change (Milner et al. 2018). In the transformational style of leadership, the trainer will focus on the growth and empowerment of the managers being coached so that these managers can do the same to the junior staff in the organisation once they start managing them through the change. Distributed leadership on the other hand focuses on delegating tasks to various persons so that by completing those tasks, the team members gain leadership skills. Thus, leadership is viewed as a role as oppose to a position. Distributed leadership is effective in encouraging innovative culture and fostering creativity since the team members are given the autonomy to complete the tasks in the best way they know as long as they achieve the set goals (Clarke and Higgs 2016). Once ETS senior managers adopt transformation and distributed leadership styles, they will be able to develop and maintain close relationships with employees whereby they will increasingly engage employees which in turn will improve organisational performance (Katou 2015). ETS will be required to hire external qualified trainers who will coach the senior managers and once these have been trained, they will facilitate training and development of other leaders in the organisation.

Action Learning

Action learning is the last leadership development activity that ETS senior managers will undergo. Action learning will provide senior managers an opportunity to put in action what they have learnt during the coaching sessions. The selection of this leadership development activity is influenced by the fact that people learn more and better when they put in action what they have learnt as opposed to when they passively listen (Walia and Marks-Maran 2014). Action learning will be coined with coaching: the qualified trainers will be required to engage the senior managers in the process by asking questions that require the senior managers to identify what they have learn and how it can be applied. They will then be given tasks that require them to apply the knowledge they have acquired. When completing these tasks, the external coach will minimise feedback in order to encourage the senior managers to be more self-monitoring and accountable.

Rationale for the 3 leadership development activities

360 degree feedback, coaching and action learning have their individual strengths and limitations and therefore using the together will optimise the strengths while overcoming the limitations, which will result in all-round developed leaders. Table 1 assess the effectiveness of these leadership development activities to show that once used together, these activities complement each other and the result is more skilled and effective leaders.

Evaluating and measuring success of the proposed leadership development activities

Kirkpatrick’s model of training evaluation (4 levels) will be used (see figure 1) by ETS to examine whether the training is already effective or any improvement should be taken. Based on the Kirkpatrick model, determining the effectiveness of a training programme is important for improving future programmes and eliminating those programmes that are ineffective. This is attained through four logical steps namely reaction, learning, behaviour, and results (Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick 2016).

Reaction can be defined as how well the trainees liked the leadership development activities. In order to evaluate reaction, four steps will be undertaken: (1) determine what you want to find out, (2) design a written comment sheet covering the items you identified in point 1, (3) design a form so that reaction can be tabulated and quantified, and (4) obtain honest reactions by anonymising the forms and encouraging the trainees to write additional comments not covered by the tabulated and quantified questions. Learning can be defined as change in attitudes and the knowledge and skills that were acquired. Learning will be evaluated by implying before-after approach to relate learning to the programme. In this case, the very first 360 degree feedback will be used as the baseline for measuring learning. After the senior managers have completed the three leadership development activities, another 360 degree feedback will be conducted. A comparison of before-and-after scores and responses will then be made to establish how much learning has occurred. Behaviour refers to the superior of the person being trained. In this case, senior managers lacked to ability to facilitate organisational change and therefore if after the training they have established a discouraging or preventive climate, no change in behaviour has occurred, and if the managers have established a neutral and encouraging climate, change in behaviour has occurred. In evaluating behaviour, a post training appraisal will be conducted three months after these leadership development activities have been completed. This will ensure the senior leaders have an opportunity to put into practice what they have learned without any external support. The last step will be measuring the results of training investment made by the company. It is advisable to set the objectives of the leadership development activities in terms of results such as reduced costs, reduced turnover, improved efficiency, increase in quality, and improved morale among others. In order to measure the effectiveness of the leadership development activities in terms of results, ETS should adopt Return on Investment of Training (ROI-Training) a concept with the following formula:

ROI – Training = Benefit – Cost (Jonny 2016)

References

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