There is no use denying the fact that under modern conditions the sphere of management obtains a great significance. The thing is that the modern world can be characterized as the age of rivalry. Development of market relations made this issue very influential and important for the whole society.
Being dependent on the economy as one of the guaranties of its beneficial existence, society realizes the importance of remedies and practices that will be able to help to win the rivalry and bring benefits to a certain group or company.
With this in mind, it is possible to state the fact that management, as one of the sciences that are aimed at organizing the functioning of every organization in the most efficient way, obtained a great stimulus for its development and nowadays it can be taken as one of the main spheres that controls the functioning of the whole society.
That is why, it is quite obvious that there is a great number of various approaches and practices that could be used in order to help any company to develop, increase the level of its performance or meet the crisis and overcome its aftermath (Business Management Skills, n.d.).
Moreover, nowadays the functioning of every organization or a company starts with the creation of a certain strategic plan that should take into account all possible complications and introduce wise management of a company.
However, especially vital various approaches to the management of a company become in terms of crisis when a company stagnates and does not have clear perspectives. Under these conditions, the new and timely adopted measures combined with the demonstration of good leadership skills of the officials of the company could help to save it and promote its further beneficial functioning (Change Management: The Systems and Tools for Managing Change, n.d.).
Resting on these facts, the main goal of the given paper is to analyze the Coll Electrical company case and actions performed by its founder Pat Coll in order to save it. Analysis of these points will help to determine the efficiency of a certain approach to the management of a company and outline the importance of leadership skills.
First of all, the background of the case should be outlined. Coll Electrical Company is a small organization founded by Pat Coll in 1896. It is specialized in electrical engineering contracting.
Since its foundation, the company has been specialized in the providing of a high quality service for a certain group of clients. Being a small company, it, though, tried to establish good and trustful relations with its clientage.
That is why, the quality of services had always been examined and clients were satisfied with them. Moreover, the staff of the company could be characterized by the high level of cohesion that results from the peculiarities of the functioning of a company.
Workers of the Coll Electrical company are highly skilled and motivated to provide the best services to the clients in order to make relations better and guarantee prosperity of the company. Additionally, some words should also be said about the founder of the company Pat Coll. The thing is that he is fully engaged in the functioning of the company.
Having founded it, he is not able to delegate some managerial functions to members of his team, preferring to deal with the majority of issues connected with the functioning of a company. Additionally, he has good leadership skills and is respected by the staff as a person who loves his business and contributes to its development a lot.
Thus, it should be said that being rather beneficial company, Coll Electrical obviously needs some development in order to continue its functioning. With this in mind, Pat, as the experienced manager and owner of the company, realizes the necessity of changes, however, there are risks connected with the rapid expansion of the company.
Now it is comprised of high skilled professionals who obtain rather high salary and could not be taken as a cheap workforce. However, the necessity of growth and rapid expansion makes the process of hiring of new workers inevitable. That is why, this background could be taken as the main conditions for the appearance of some problems.
The thin is that nowadays the company faces productivity challenge which means that new skilled staff has to be recruited. At the same time, enlarging of the company means the appearance of new tasks that should be performed by the managers of the company.
Moreover, in terms of severe rivalry on the labor market, new workers should be suggested the appropriate salary which could lead to the significant increase of the compliance costs. Thus, increase of spending could be compensated by the significant increase of productivity of the given company.
Besides, there are problems that prevent it to achieve the needed goal. These problems are rising costs of services and goods, wastage and poor quality of materials and workmanship. It becomes obvious that these problems result from the character of the company and its comparatively small size.
Having no experience in working with big orders and producing of a great number of various goods and services, the company and its founder Pat Coll have no clear strategic plan and outlined strategy.
Moreover, the growth of competition from other sub contractors, who use inferior components and hire cheaper workers, could also be taken as a threatening fact that in a greater or lesser degree undermine the traditional pattern according to which the company organized its functioning.
With this in mind, it is possible to say that the Coll Electrical Company finds itself at the crossroads as the old ways and methods to organize its functioning could be taken as not efficient enough, while the new one are vague and lead to the appearance of a great number of various problems connected with the change of the traditional pattern.
The problem was also complicated by the fact that Pat Coll, as a founder and proprietor of the company, try to avoid delegation of some managerial tasks to the members of his team being afraid of their low competence and inability to take care of the company in the way in which Pat does it. That is why, nowadays, the company needs some efficient strategy that will be able to help it to meet the crisis.
With this in mind, it should be said that nowadays, the company passes through the stage of reconsideration of its priorities. The thing is that Coll Electrical employed only 15 workers in the first years of its functioning. That is why, it is quite obvious, that high tempos of growth were not peculiar to the company which was oriented on a small group of clients and qualified services.
However, tempos of the modern age make the necessity of the increase of the tempos of growth obvious and nowadays, the company is being prepared for the implementation of practices that will be able to promote significant accretion of performance.
However, according to the report of Electro technology Industry Training Organisation (ETITO), which was asked to prepare a report for the company that describes its main weaknesses, the inefficient managerial system could be called the route problems which lead to the appearance of a great number of various complications. That is why, Pat Coll understands the necessity of distribution of managerial tasks and implementation of some changes to the pattern according to which the functioning of the company was organized.
Tough, resting on these facts, it is possible to say that Pat becomes the main person who could change the pattern according to which the company functions and help it to meet the crisis. That is why, having accepted the pieces of advice given by ETITO to him, he started to act.
The first sign of the positive changes that happened to Pat and the whole company was the fact that he applied the technique of delegation to manage the change process. As it has already been mentioned, Pat had been the only person who ruled the company and accepted all important decisions for a long period of time.
However, in terms of the worsening of the state of a company, Pat made several very important decisions. First of all, his cooperation with ETITO helped to outline the main course and all changes that should be performed. However, Pat has also managed to delegate several managerial tasks to members of his team that could be taken as rather credible and experienced.
Implementation of the new business program that improved administrative and accounting systems, contract management systems, human resources procedures and cost reviews could be taken as a good evidence of Pats adherence to the practice of delegation of some responsibilities.
Having accepted the idea that he did not have to perform all tasks by himself as it could not just help the company, though, on the contrary make the state of affairs worse, Pat obtained some free time which he was able to devote to the improvement of his leadership skills.
Moreover, another sign of Pats new approach to delegation could be seen in the creation of new and detailed career structure. The thing is, that due to this very scheme workers obtained some perspectives for their development and realized that some managerial tasks could be delegated to them (Change management, n.d).
Thus, having achieved some progress, a worker can become responsible for a certain sector which was previously controlled by Pat, however, now due to the delegation of some tasks is vacant. With this in mind, it is possible to say that due to the new conditions under which the company had to work, Pat realized that he was not able to perform all managerial tasks by his own and started to delegate some responsibilities in order to manage the process of change and help company to meet the crisis.
However, it is mistaken to suppose that Pat approach to the management of the company had only weaknesses that resulted in the collapse of the company and some crisis. There are several points that should be analyzed and suggested as the advantage of Pats approach to management.
First of all, the level of staff that works at the company and its devotion to it could be taken as a great Pats achievement. As it has already been mentioned, all employees, who work at Coll Electrical, try to provide only high qualified services for customers of a company.
Moreover, the pattern according to which company functioned also presupposed orientation on quality but not on quantity (Condit, n.d.). That is why, it is possible to say that all workers could be taken as very skilled ones. Being specialists of the high class, they, however, did not leave Pat and continued to work at the Coll Electrical Company even in terms of its crisis.
That means that Pat managed to create friendly and close atmosphere that helped workers to feel themselves comfortable and to perform their tasks at the high level. This fact could obviously be taken as a great Pats achievement. Moreover, events which happened to the company, could also help to determine Pats skills in management.
Having recognized the dangerous state in which his company found itself, Pat started to act. It is also obvious that some actions demanded great efforts from him as they contradicted to his ideas and vision of the way in which the company should be managed.
However, he changed the course of the company and was able to implement the practices that helped a company to survive and even increase the level of its performance. With this in mind, it is possible to conclude that Pat managed to retain the skilled workforce and led the company through the severe crisis.
These facts could be taken as a good evidence of the high level of his managerial and leadership skills that were needed in order to control the company in such a difficult period of time (Jones, Aguirre, & Calderone, 2004).
Nevertheless, speaking about Pats leadership skills, it is possible to say that his progress could easily be seen. The thing is that at the first stages of the functioning of the company Pat used his authority in order to manage people and show them the way which he considered to be the best one for their development. It should also be said Pats style of leadership could be characterized as the authoritarian one (Leadership Styles, n.d.).
He was the only top manager of the company and it was he who accepted all vital decisions that influenced the life of the whole company. He respected his workers and treated them as the part of his close collective, however, their opinions and visions of the future of the company were not taken into account as Pat created the strategic plan for the development of the company by himself.
However, it should be said that the challenge, which the company and Pat had to face, had a great impact on Pats leadership skills and his leadership style. Having realized the necessity of change, Pat had also accepted the idea that his approach to the company should also be changed. That is why, he made some steps which showed that he was still a leader, though that he wanted to save the company. He followed some pieces of advice and distributed managerial tasks between some workers.
With this in mind, it is possible to say that this event could be taken as the turning point as Pats leadership style had changed to the democratic one. He still remained the head of the company, however, he started to take into account ideas and proposals of his workers. It is obvious, that this new leadership style influenced the level of performance of the company greatly, promoting its blistering development and growth.
Moreover, Pat obtained some free time that he could devote to his leadership skills trying to improve them. With this in mind, it is possible to state that Pats leadership style had changed from the authoritarian to democratic one in the process of development of the company and looking for some methods to meet the crisis.
Besides, it should be said that due to all these actions and change of the model of management, the Coll Electrical company survived and even increased the level of its performance. There were several solutions that turned out to be very important.
The first one was the implementation of the new career structure as it helped to increase the efficiency of workers (Woodward, n.d.) and provide managers with new ideas for Pat. Moreover, increasing amount of training for new workers helped to save the high level of skills among the staff and retain the positive image of the company (Nayor, n.d.).
Finally, regular increases in wages and conditions had a great positive impact on the environment within a company and desire of workers to perform their duties on the high level.
Having analyzed the main information connected with the functioning of the Coll Electrical company, it is possible to make a certain conclusion. The company was founded by Par Coll and was oriented on providing high quality service for a small group of clients.
However, having faced the new challenges of the modern age, it had to be reorganized in order to survive. Being the main ruler of the company, Pat Coll realized the necessity of changes. That is why, he changed the pattern according to which the functioning of the company was organized, providing more independence and perspectives for workers, which resulted in significant increase of the level of performance.
Moreover, some actions aimed at the improvement of the environment within a collective also helped the company to meet the crisis and continue its functioning in accordance with the new pattern and rules.
References
Business Management Skills. (n.d.). Web.
Change management. (n.d.). Web.
Change Management: The Systems and Tools for Managing Change. (n.d.). Web.
Condit, B. (n.d.). Seven critical steps to crisis management. Web.
Jones, J., Aguirre, D., & Calderone, M. (2004). Ten principles of change management. Web.
Leadership Styles. (n.d.). Web.
Nayor, M. (n.d.). What Really Constitutes a Business Crisis? Web.
Woodward, H. (n.d.). Management Strategies for Small Companies. Web.