Management Assessment Answer

Subject Name : Management

MANAGEMENT
NAME OF THE STUDENT
STUDENT NUMBER
NAME OF THE UNIVERSITY
Answer 1
When Ingrid Johnson was appointed to transform the business banking division of the Nedbank she could evaluate that there existed a superficial alignment between the strategy and the performance of the organization. The organization was dealing with a lot of issues like poor accountability of the employees and absence of high performance culture in the organization (Verhoef, 1992). The employees of the organization were involved in a culture of shaming and blaming and were not ready to take up the responsibilities according to their roles in the organization.
The Business Banking unit of the Nedbank did not have a prominent role in the bank. The Business Banking unit of the bank was dealing with integration and merger issues. In order to deal with these issues, a consultancy named McKinsey and Company was appointed which identified the factors that led to the inefficiency of this unit of the bank (Okeahalam, 2008). According to the underlying issues for the inefficiency of the bank was the fact it comprised of while male dominated business due to which there was lack of high performance culture in the unit. Other issue that the bank was dealing with was culture clashes between the staff members of the two banks that existed within the Business Banking division (Tushman amp Kiron, 2009). Thus, while implementing the policies of change management Ingrid Johnson faced difficulties in integrating the different cultures of the staff members present in the bank that is the staff members of different divisions in the bank behaved and responded differently to different situations. Thus, it was difficult for Ingrid Johnson for cultivating a culture of inspiration of achieving what was not experienced by the bank before.
With the change management process many employees were promoted to better positions in the organization. However, most of them had no understanding about their roles and responsibilities according to the new sales model of the organization neither they were trained according to their new job role in the organization (Scheepers et al., 2017). This happened because the leaders of the change management process did not communicate well with the employees in the organization according to the changes taking place in the organization which left the employees on the ground confused. Thus, it degraded the relationship of trust between the employers and the employees at the organization. In order to deal with this issue, Ingrid Johnson arranged workshops with an aim to develop leadership potential among the employees of the organization. The main purpose of arranging these workshops in the organization was to encourage open communication among the employers and employees of the organization and efficiently communicate the roles and responsibilities to each employee in the organization. Thus, this reflects that the change management process also has to deal with certain communication process in its implementation in the organization (Hoque, 2016).
Along with the communication and diverse cultural issues in the organization, there were several flaws in the management and operations of the organization of Nedbank. The organization did not use its resources properly and there was lack of investment is one of its core products like electronic banking. It was important for the bank to do efforts on attempt to tailor its relationship with its clients and implement strategies in order to better cater to the needs of the clients. The bank also had to implement solutions in order to stream line the different processes of the organization (McCoy and Venter, 2016). One of the most difficult issues that were witnessed by the manager in the changes management process in the organization was demotivated employees in the organization. The manager noticed that the employees were playing blame game in the organization and no one was ready to take the responsibility of tasks in the organization. Thus, it was evaluated by Ingrid Johnson that efforts have to make in order to empower the employees of the organization (Jeston and Nelis, 2008)
It was difficult for Ingrid Johnson initially to make the employees follow her lead in the organization. As most of the managers in the organization wanted to do things their own way and gossip mongering was part of the culture of the organization. Thus, many evaluated that Ingrid Johnson would not be able to implement this change management process in such negative environment (Gaventa and Runciman, 2016).
Ingrid Johnson during the change management process also found out that not all the employees at all the level of the organization was contributing to the success of the organization. It was just some top regional performers in the organization that were actually contributing to the new sales model of the organization. This was another issue witnessed by the manager for building a high performance culture in the organization where each member of the organization was ready to contribute for the success of the organization. The workshops taking place in the organization was to motivate the employees to start taking their personal responsibility to contribute towards the goals and the objectives of the organization thats why they were showing resistance to the changes taking place in the organization (Harreld, 2013).
In spite of these efforts, it had been significantly challenging for Ingrid Johnson for implementing changes in Nedbank. Due to the inefficiency in every department of the organization Ingrid Johnson had to change the structure, client service approach, senior team and many other approaches of the bank (Scheepers et al., 2015). However, Ingrid Johnson had to witness reluctance and resistance to change from many of the present employees of the organization. While some of the employees considered these changes an opportunity to learn, there was some proportion of employees in the organization which were not ready to adjust with the ongoing changes in the organization. So it could be evaluated that the organization was dealing with another issue that is the employees of the organization were low on their aspirations and goals. Thus, their inability to grow was the becoming barrier in the change management process (Butt et al., 2016).
The situation regarding the motivation of the employees worsened when the economy faced downturn. The downturn in the economy led to the reduction in the staff morale to adjust with the ongoing changes in the organization. However, Ingrid Johnson did not lose hope because according to his learning the process of change management in an organization at least takes five to seven years if everything is implemented properly.
Answer 2
In the change management process, one of the biggest issue that was witnessed by Ingrid Johnson was the employees in the organization were very low in terms on their aspirations and goals. In order to make the employees aware of their leadership potential many workshops were arranged by Ingrid Johnson in order to motivate the employees in contribute more towards the organization and built team alignment in the organization. However, the workshops did not deliver the anticipated results (Raki et al., 2015). While some of the employees considered these changes an opportunity to learn, there was some proportion of employees in the organization which were not ready to adjust with the ongoing changes in the organization. Thus, it can be interpreted that there was weakness in the approach adopted by Ingrid Johnson for motivating the employees at the organization. The change management process had to witness resistance from the employees may be because they were confused about the changes happening in the organization as they were not well informed by the leaders.
Even after achieving the desired success for the Business Banking unit of the Nedbank, staff survey reported that the employees of Nedbank were under stress under the leadership of Ingrid Johnson. This can be an indication that change management process is indeed a challenging task but it also signals the inefficiency of Ingrid Johnson as a change leader for Nedbank (Bester and Kader, 2018).
However, apart from this the Business banking division of Nedbank under the leadership of Ingrid Johnson was able to experience significant success. The division was able to contribute 42 to the total economic profit of Nedbank. She was able to change the culture of the organization by eliminating the concept of while male dominance in the organization. The division was able to benefit and could make its own business cluster (Southall, 2004).
Under her leadership, the organization witnessed threefold increase in the black representation among the proportion of employees in the organization. The morale, motivation and contribution of the employees in the organization also witnessed significant progress under her leadership in the organization (Oosthuizen and Scheepers, 2018). The strategic goals and the objectives of the organization also made the division able to achieve significant progress in its client base by delivering quality customer service.
The strength of the business banking division of Nedbank under the leadership of Ingrid Johnson can also be realized from the fact that the BB unit of Nedbank was witnessing successful growth in the times when the economy of South Africa was witnessing a downturn. The BB unit became standalone business cluster through its division return on equity (Winig, 2016).
Thus, it can be evaluated that Ingrid Johnson took powerful decisions for recovering the financial position of the organization. However, it can also be evaluated that if the employers would have engaged the employees in the initialization of the change management process then they the process would not have witnessed high reluctance from the employees of the organization.
References
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Butt, A., Naaranoja, M. and Savolainen, J., 2016. Project change stakeholder communication.International Journal of Project Management,34(8), pp.1579-1595.
Gaventa, J. and Runciman, C., 2016. 12. Untangling economic and political inequality the case of South Africa.World social science report, 2016 Challenging inequalities pathways to a just world, p.70.
Harreld, B. (2013). Leading Strategic Renewal Proactive Punctuated Change through Innovation Streams and Disciplined Learning Michael Tushman Charles OReilly.
Hoque, M.E., 2016. Investigating leadership practices in retail banking in South Africa a case study of Nedbank.
Jeston, J. and Nelis, J., 2008.Management by process. Routledge.McCoy, S. and Venter, P., 2016. Corporate brands as catalysts in times of change Lessons from a South African bank.Journal of Brand Management,23(1), pp.38-54.
Okeahalam, C., 2008. Client profiles and access to retail bank services in South Africa.Applied Financial Economics,18(14), pp.1131-1146.
Oosthuizen, M. and Scheepers, C., 2018. Strategic foresight for organizational agility at Nedbank Area Collaboration.Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies,8(1), pp.1-43.
Raki, S., Miti, P. and Aneli, G., 2015. Social and environmental management systems in banking sector.Journal of Applied Quantitative Methods, pp.51-58.
Scheepers, C., Oosthuizen, M. and Retief, D., 2017. Area Collaboration at Nedbank cultivating culture through contextual leadership.Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies,7(1), pp.1-33.
Southall, R., 2004. Black Empowerment and Corporate Capital in South Africa.Centre for Civil Society Report, pp.1-18.
Tushman, M., amp Kiron, D. (2009). Ingrid Johnson and Nedbank Business Banking.
Verhoef, G., 1992. Nedbank, 194589 The Continental Approach to Banking in South Africa. InFinancial Enterprise in South Africa since 1950(pp. 80-114). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Winig, L., 2016. A Data-Driven Approach to Customer Relationships.MIT Sloan Management Review.