Leadership, Cultural And Performance Change At MeatPack: Essay.

Overview of MeatPack

Read case study titled “Leadership, cultural and performance change at meatpack”.Answer the questions at the end of the case study

MeatPack is a family-owned food-processing business based in Sydney, Australia. The company, which has over 27 years’ experience in meat products, fresh soups and prepared meals, has processing plants in New South Wales and Queensland. Its customers are the major retail chains and food-service companies in Australia and abroad. MeatPack is led by the founder and CEO, Derek Bison, who is the fourth generation of his family to work in the meat industry. In 2013, the company was performing well, with group sales of over AUD$300 million. One of the strategic goals MeatPack set in 2002 was to become a 1 billion dollar company by 2020. However, in order to meet these targets, the company is currently dealing with two major sets of changes: senior leadership changes and cultural and performance changes.

Over the past two years, Bison has been keen to develop the leadership competencies of his senior strategy team. He feels that there are a number of ways in which his leaders could develop further and he recognises that he could have helped with this more in the past. He describes himself, for example, as ‘interfering, visionary, driven, competitive, obsessive, never satisfied and restless’. With a view to changing the mindset and behaviours of his senior strategy team, Bison started working with an executive coaching and senior leadership development company. A number of his team members said that they were gaining a lot of insights from this exposure. Initially, Bison was very enthusiastic about this, too, but in the past year he has stopped his own direct involvement in the coaching, although the senior strategy team continue to be involved.

Influenced by the activities of a respected business colleague and personal friend, Bison has introduced the Human Synergistics Circumplex to MeatPack. This outlines 12 behaviours into three colours: red (aggressive/defensive), green (passive/defensive) and blue (constructive). Bison found that the organisational culture of MeatPack was red and he recognised that it would need to switch to blue if his growth plans were to be realised. He understood that MeatPack would need to shift its structure from a hierarchical organisation to a more horizontal organisation, with front-line workers having greater responsibility and accountability for their performance (Stayer, 1990).

Underpinning this transition have been the following: a number of changes to the company’s human resources set-up; a company-wide leadership development program; and a coaching consultation for members of the senior strategy team. Bison feels that these have had a positive impact on members of his senior strategy team but confesses that he himself has struggled with this transition. He finds it difficult, for example, not to intervene, jump in or direct others when he feels that sufficient progress is not being made or when decisions are not being taken expediently.

Strategic Goals of MeatPack

There has generally been a positive dynamic in the senior strategy team, which is composed of the CEO, COO, CFO, head of People, head of Sales and head of Business Development. Bison has fostered an open dialogue with his team and it is clear that members are encouraged to speak frankly with him and each other, both on a one-on-one basis as well as during meetings. There has, however, been some uncertainty about the composition of the senior strategy team, with one attendee at a strategy meeting being unsure of whether he was officially part of the senior strategy team. This led to subsequent discussion among the group about the matter, as well as over whether another member, who was not present at this point, should be part of the team. There is also a separate senior leadership team, which includes all of the senior strategy team members above, plus the senior line managers. There has been some discussion about the exact purpose of both of these teams. Because Bison is one of the founders of the company and the current CEO, some members of the senior strategy team are a little reluctant to question his decisions, despite Bison actively encouraging an open dialogue. The CFO wonders whether the board should hold Bison more accountable and whether Bison should hold the senior strategy team more accountable. The COO expressed concern that MeatPack has lost some of its senior leaders within the past few years. This has caused some anxiety for the following reasons:

they were direct reports to Bison; their personalities were in conflict; Bison had involvement in their area of operation; they were making a positive impact before they left; and relationships with some suppliers and customers have been lost as a result, causing business to move to a competitor.

The senior strategy team was about to embark upon some major structural changes— with the arrival of a new CEO of the soups and meals business at the end of 2013, and the existing COO of the meat division replacing Bison as the CEO of meat. Bison said that in the short term he saw himself moving to group CEO alongside these two CEOs. In the long term, he envisioned that he would move from group CEO to executive chairman, with both CEOs reporting to him. In his own words, ‘I’m not really a big people person and the people thing will go to the CEOs. I want CEOs to be CEOs.’

Leadership Development at MeatPack

In five to 10 years, Bison’s vision is to move from executive chairman to chairman. When this was broached in one of the strategy meetings, there was some heated discussion about who would be reporting to whom in the new structure. For example, the CFO was concerned about whether benefits would be derived if MeatPack decentralised the functions of support teams such as Finance and IT. The head of Business Development asked how the new structure was different from the old structure, and it was debated what, if anything, the other employees should be told before the company’s annual meeting the following week. It was decided by an independent chair of the meeting that discussions would be paused and discussed further at a later date. Some members were clearly frustrated that the issue was not resolved during the meeting.

In the past two years, MeatPack has introduced an enterprise resource planning (ERP) initiative, which seeks to integrate multiple divisions of the company such as finance, production, investment and management. At the heart of this system is the desire to be more structured and efficient in ensuring that each line is hitting and exceeding its targets. Part of this system is also about encouraging managers to change their methods of communication. In the past, dominating, shouting and other aggressive forms of confrontation were quite common practice. There was a focus on making things happen instead of understanding how things worked and why they were not working. As with any results-driven organisation, this created a culture with a top-down environment for the managers, in which targets had to be reached.

Bison has been strongly influenced by his executive training at the Harvard Business School and one of his major goals at MeatPack has been to install a flatter structure across the organisation, which empowers managers and supervisors to take on greater responsibility and accountability. For example, he has encouraged line managers to take a more hands-on role in terms of the recruitment of personnel and performance appraisals. In general, there has been an overall drive to get people across the company to lead rather than manage (Kotter, 2001). The CFO and COO both feel that this has been a positive endeavour, but find that this is taking place ‘in pockets’, and that Bison could lead more by example with respect to the senior strategy team.

Bison’s aim across the organisation is for there to be six to eight people per report in order to ensure that managers and supervisors have the opportunity to lead and be more clearly accountable. He argues that if he was coming into the company now with no previous ties then he would remove certain people immediately, but he won’t do so because he and the team all know these people and there are established relationships and emotional ties, making such decisions significantly more difficult.

Cultural and Performance Change at MeatPack

There is a strong sense of loyalty on the ‘floor’ and staff turnover is low in an industry that is known to have problems with retention because of the repetitiveness of the work. One interviewee remarked that given that the factory floor is cold and noisy, there is a certain type of person who can work in this environment. Staff are employed almost continuously on the production line, the work is physically demanding and standards are exacting. Despite a diverse array of cultural backgrounds, with employees from multiple countries, there have been few cross-cultural clashes.

The majority of the workforce has worked at MeatPack for between six and 10 years, with many others having been at the company for at least 15 years. While this is positive in terms of loyalty, it is also potentially challenging with regard to changing attitudes towards the proposed cultural changes. MeatPack is perceived internally as trustworthy and honest, and employees feel ‘safe’ because decisions seem to be made with the ‘best intentions of the company’. The company has developed quite a collegial and family atmosphere. While there are ‘serial complainers’, as one employee put it, most are happy in their positions.

Recruitment is often via word of mouth, with many employees coming from the same family group working at the factory. Employees who have moved from MeatPack’s competitors have commented on the company being more organised, methodical and collaborative in culture.

Bison has made a significant investment in his staff’s training, and employees with proven skills and a strong work ethic can move up the company chain quickly. The CFO, for  example, started out as the assistant accountant, which indicates that there are good opportunities for talented individuals to develop within the company. Bison has invested in management and team leader development courses, with newly promoted shift leaders being put through a front-line management course. This aims to improve their leadership skills and enable them to better manage and lead their teams. The development of a line focus has created a culture of accountability for each position, which has allowed line staff to have a hand in developing the efficiency of the company front line, and this has made them feel a valued part of the team. One manager remarked that without his team he  would not be in the job.

Since the start of the cultural change program, there has been a shift from managers ‘managing’ to ‘leading’ their teams. In particular, there has been a more systematic process of managers sitting down with employees and talking problems through. There have been some important cultural changes taking place as a result of managers being encouraged to take some time out to ‘step back’ and reflect on their ‘tool box’ to address certain situations. Bison has pushed for a focus on the ‘Rockefeller Habits’—created by Verne Harnish (2002) and based on the leadership and management principles applied by John D. Rockefeller, business magnate, philanthropist and co-founder of Standard Oil. There are three pillars to the Rockefeller habits: priorities, data and rhythm, and Bison has placed a strong emphasis on MeatPack’s strategic goals (priorities), performance feedback (data) and accountability (rhythm). Bison has also invested in the leadership training of his front-line and middle managers, whereby they have developed skills through an external provider on the life cycle of a leader, including attracting, hiring, developing, mentoring and appraising, as well as confronting and removing, where necessary. The feedback from senior managers has been that their managers have appreciated such level of investment in their development.

The managers are generally considered quite young, ‘fresh’, ‘open-minded’ and ‘close’. Some managers feel that although they are now much better at saying things without offending their teams, jobs are often left incomplete because what people say is different from what they do. There are 17 line managers who plan for the following day’s production and there is general concern that while it is good practice to codify this on a large whiteboard next to the factory floor, there are too many managers going over the data and not enough people on the lines to deliver the targets. The vision is that the targets, which are manually inserted on the whiteboard, will eventually be inserted electronically.

A major challenge with regard to reaching daily targets stems from the difference between the day and afternoon shifts. The day shift starts at 5:30 am and finishes at 2:30 pm; the afternoon shift starts at 2:30 pm and finishes at midnight. Bison has encouraged ‘huddles’ at the beginning of and between the shifts—at these, workers can discuss what the day shifts have done and what the afternoon shifts need to do. The cultural norms of the shifts are significantly different. The day shift is described as taking a ‘gung-ho’ approach, which leads to higher yields. This is partly explained by the day shift choosing the lines that make it ‘easier’ to hit their targets. The afternoon shift is under greater pressure because of specific cut-off times at 3 and 3:30 pm, when lorries arrive to pick up particular products for delivery to the supermarkets. In short, there are differences in priority—with the day shift focusing on maximising yields, and the afternoon shift on being ready for time- sensitive lorry pick-ups. In general, there is growing pressure for managers and workers to increase their line’s productivity. Despite this, yields have increased and there has not been any loss time injury (LTI) in the past year.

1. Should Bison be taking a more hands-off or a more hands-on approach to the business? Justify your response.

2. How far has the senior leadership change been effective? What else might senior leadership do to influence change more positively in the near future?

3. To what extent has MeatPack’s flatter structure helped create cultural and performance change? Have there been any barriers to the cultural change?

The below case study of leadership, cultural & performance changes problems are about the association of Meat Pack. This association is owned by a family that deals in making the food. It has its headquarters in Sydney, Australia. This organisation has around 27 years of experience in the production of the meat industry which also includes various areas such as preparing the meals fresh soups and etc. Meat Pack also running its plants in New South Wales & Queensland. Mr. Derek Bison is the CEO of this organisation who is from the 4^th generation of this family working in the same industry. This organisation became a success in the last 4 years with the sales record of AUD$ 300 million in the year 2013. The strategic goals of the business are to make the record of sales with 1 billion by the year 2020. It calls the organisation for making some performance, leadership & cultural changes in the business.

It is very important to the leader or managers for creating a culture that is clear of each & every employee so that the organisational values can get achieved properly. It will ensure that workers are not required to follow each & everything they do, or do not require to get reminded all the time of what they are required to do or what not. If a worker knows the vision, mission or foundation of the company they become able to realize all the things about the values, goals or objectives of the company. As same, the employee will also be knowledgeable about what actually they are required to do in the situation of management. It will include various types of management styles for realising the strategic goals of the business. It only happens just because of those employees who are actually personify by implementing the lot of criticism, patience, control, threatens or judges all the time. It can get considered as the opposite side of manager or leader who actually encourages & coaches the employees to perform with minimum supervision (Brown, 2018).

However, at the business of Meat Pack, Bison will actually be required assessing that how much his workers will require for managing or directing to get work done in a proper manner. For example- Many of the workers may be the own appetizer in supervision. These types of employees are very well aware of the goals of the association. They are the people who are self-motivated or very well engaged in their works. Sometimes they do not think about they are in the situation of complex, thus they are required to manage themselves at all the places. If the workers have the managers that always stays with or beside them, they might feel intimidated as because the manager will keep providing them feedbacks all the time. For implementing the proper performance or culture changes, the organisation is required to consider having updated kind of management. The real power in the association comes from not criticising & forming a partnership as well. For this, the changes in new leadership would be one of the best ways by using the hands off approach. This type of leadership is capable of motivating or encouraging the spirit of the workers towards the associational goals as the leader maintains the hands off by allowing the worker's success to take place (Strike, et. al, 2018). 

Strategic Goals of MeatPack

For Bison, performing handoff will actually signify for being capable of managing his crew without avoiding the authorities’ chain. At the instance of strategic up & downs in the association, Bison should avoid interference in the activities of daily routine of the business. The changes can get realised gradually as the association continues for maintaining its work. Productivity in the association will be regular. The level of customers & managerial service would be assumed as the strategic changes. There are some of the areas in which Bison is required to exercise the hands-on approach that will also include in the direct reports. It will identify the departments of the workers who do not achieve the targets or meet the assigned tasks. It is one of the enormous challenges for the Bison as because the approach of hands-off will be quite typical for the employees who build up very slowly. It may happen as because hands-off leader or manager may be less capable of pitching the coaching & support at the perfect stage (Brown, 2018).

In the strategy of change management, it will be very imperative for the Bison to consider the  time-bound actions, as the hands-off approach will might follow the time-consuming procedure form the employees, even when if they include greatest results. It is just because the manager of the handoff will remain at the distance & will not actually get involved with the changes programs or the risk which do not meet the complete potential of the association. At the end of the day, the workers will be capable of realising the objectives or jails or become more creative for expressing the own through regarding the program. It can be recommended that Bison exercises the styles of leadership depending upon the situation. The style of handoff is importantly required to be exercised as because no employees like to follow each & every time. It makes them less creative & nervous in handling the business. On the other hand, it will also make them feel like unenthusiastic by getting the comments or feedbacks regularly (Strike, et. al, 2018).

According to the case study, it has been observed by the team of Bison that in the position of senior leadership, as gained with many of the results training & coaching gets provided or organised by Bison. By stopping the implementation of coaching, the workers of senior leadership have continued to perform on various approaches of leadership. Including the introduction of Human Synergistic circumflex to the associations, the workers are able to judge their performances in an appropriate manner (Alapo, 2018).

Leadership Development at MeatPack

The behaviours are defined in 3 different colours. The color red is symbolised for the aggressive & defensive. Green stands for the passive or defensive. On the other hand, blues colour is symbolized for the constructive. In this regard, the associational culture of the business was defines as being red. Bison found that with the intention of many of the people in the avocation were actually defensive or aggressive in the environment that connects to one another & customers. In this, the campaigns of change leadership were for ensuring that they have switched to blue for realising their plans. It will need for the modification of the structure of the association to the different horizontal businesses with senior leaders or front line workers to being responsible for the results of their fellow workers (Scott, et. al, 2018).

It has been observed that 40% of workers in the company are always fully committed to their job. It can also gets considered as common occurrence as executives realises it one of the major defy that actually be closing the space between talent, energy, & potential of the performers. They are perfectly able to perform their best from greatest to the lower administration. If in case Bison will be capable to change these workers & ensure that they gets change as blue leaders then the organisation will be upwards to the actual bearing in the expansion of the leadership. As it is not the purpose, the workers will be aggressive or defensive as well (Shih, 2018).

The utmost challenge is that many of those lacks with the perceptive of various kind of up & down when it comes to the leadership. Some of the workers may not have come for realising the kind of changes that are required to present out the best in each senior manager for achieving the impacts. The leaders are also competent to attain the conception by an approach that is known as the Blue leadership. It is greatly implemented by Bison. Blue leadership will be accurate when it comes to create the attractive places for Meat Pack & changing the crowd into the new consumers. This concept is very important in contributing to the senior managers in the association by realizing that their energy or talents in the business are being able to save the cost of the institution perfectly (Sorokin, 2017).

Each & every leader in the organisation should be able to perform for getting the new bosses or customers to deliver the performances. The department of the workers should be talented of realising the support from their seniors. Whenever the workers value the leadership practice, they will pay for the type of leadership. The Bison will also realise that all his performers are acting with the various promises instead of disengaging with the noncustomers of his leadership. It gets proved that Bison starts to think in these lines of leadership. Bison realised that his concepts & coaching of leadership was getting developed among the higher level of employees. In this employees were actually able to perform towards the changing the noncustomers disengaged workers to the one who are engaged (Macdonald, et. al, 2017).

Cultural and Performance Change at MeatPack

The strategy of blue leadership is also enabled employees for understanding the mission, vision & objectives of the company which is not only about getting the salary on time or keeping their performance but in regards of the efforts that are related to driving the strategic goals of the association. The leadership of blue style will also bring some changes to the organisation's strength of leadership. Thus, it gets clear that the employees were actually to adopt the model of Bison that was different from the model of traditional leadership and approaches to development in various ways (Lee, 2017).

It also gets clear that for the senior level of leadership, what actually they can do for influencing the changes would be focusing on the activities or acts in the associations. As per the various studies in the leadership, the qualities, characters, & values makes good leaders including the proper institution. According to this, changes in character, qualities & values will attractively get translated into the highest & greatest performance. It describes that whenever the senior managers look back to the program of Bison coaching, they should be talented to perform on the evidence & proofs of all the changes that are notable. They also require putting more dedication on the ways they can transform the behaviour of the association. It can be very difficult for measuring or assessing if leaders in the association are embracing or internalising the new type of leadership that can be done if they focus on what actions or acts they require. It needs to undertake or motivate their workers for other employees towards the objectives or strategic goals of the association. At the end, all of those will also be able to measure the differences. It is usually easier for changing the people behaviour or activities in the association. However, it is usually very typical to change the traits, qualities, or other values as well. It entitle for all the senior managers to alter the values & qualities so that other employees in the busienss will be able to follow the entire course under their proper guidance (Schechner, 2017).

In order to become one of the market leaders, Meat Pack had to perform in some innovation-friendly structure in the association. They importantly require to inspire or establish a proper culture in the association. By following the flat structure association gets fail in meeting the goals of the organisation in a proper manner. Employees rarely try to shift their responsibilities to the higher departments or management and show that they can take charge of each & every situation at their own level. It helps them to take decisions & enjoy their responsibilities towards the business in an attractive manner. There are so many of the associations that are taking the advantages or benefits of flat organisational structure in management or leadership terms (Spurgeon, et. al, 2017).

Structural Changes at MeatPack

Meat Pack does not have many of the layers to the management. It is quite diverse from the tall structure which is common to  many of the associations. The structure of the flat enjoys the short chain command that means each & every managerial level enjoys their own duties or responsibilities without any interruptions. It also looks at the senior management level that directly reposts to the Bison. In the business of Meat Pack, many of the senior managers' direct reports to the Bison & that’s the reason Meat Pack is able to get the most perfect structure within.  The benefit of flat structure to this business is better communication. It includes a greater level of communication between management & employees. It is because of the senior leaders are so democratic & offer rooms to the employees to be innovative & efficient. The process of communication is also more rapidly in this organisation & includes reliable or efficient tall structures in the association. It is because many of the inputs of the employees get amazing support & help from the decision makers; hence there is no chance of power struggle in the organisation (Skinner, et. al, 2018).

At the time of decision making, it has been experimented that Meat Pack is so adaptive & flexible than it can be the case of tall formation. The level of flexibility of the business also depicts the process of decision-making if requires. This process or procedure makes it so easier for the workers or the employees of the association to serve the clients of the company in the best possible manner & with quality as well. At the time when it looks for the tall associations, the staff or employees of the association are required to take the approval from the top level management who will actually require the approval from the director of the business & as same the director will need the approval from the shareholders of the business before making or taking any kind of decisions. It is not only in the case of Meat Pack that employees are given the authority & power of making or taking some of the decisions by themselves independently but also in many of the other associations they are following the same procedure. The main purpose for it is that the association includes some layers of reporting in the structure of the association which actually means that there is less bureaucracy. According to this, the quicker decisions give the organisation a greater agility & mobility as well (Spurgeon, et. al, 2017).

As same, when it comes to the change presentation or performance of the organisation, the flat structures of this organisation get build up with many of the qualified or competent employees. The employees are fully or perfectly engaged. There are so many skilled teams that actually lead to the appropriateness among the lower workers or employees turnover as well. If in case the employees are more reliable in the operations management, they will surely be able to lead the organisation towards the objectives or goals. As same adding to this, the organisation of Meat Pack will be greatly able to save the cost of an employee to the upper management which will highly decrease the expenses of the employees. As same it will also contribute to increasing the profile of the company to the huge margin & greater profits. At the end, the flat structure has highly performed well for the business of Meat Pack as because there are less numbers of variations related to the both operations & office structure as well. Example- Providing the discount to purchase the unprepared meat in bulk to the consumer will be a very usual thing, but as same denying the one if ready to eat meat because they are completely different section. Thus, the end of the strategic development will greatly move to the similar associations (Macdonald, et. al, 2017).

Conclusion

This report or study includes the discussion about the association of Meat Pack. It includes various questions to get clear about the leadership performance or culture change as well. It has been concluded that how the changes in all these areas perform greatly & gracefully in the greater expansion of the business & making it successful in an efficient or effective manner. It has also been concluded that Bison should take the hand on or hands-off approach to the association with the justifiable answers. It has also concluded the effectiveness of the senior leadership change & what actually senior leadership should perform for influencing the changes much more positively in the upcoming future to the business. On the other hand, the flatter structure of the Meat Pack has also included in this unit which greatly contributes to creating the performance or cultural change. As same some of the barriers to the cultural change have also taken place in this study inappropriate manner to understand well.

References

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