Introduction
The success of an enterprise depends on effective planning, organizing, and leadership. Leaders should plan in advance before starting a business. Planning helps a leader to determine the future course of an organization and to ensure that all requisite resources are available. In addition, planning helps organizational leaders to design and assign different duties to employees based on their skills and experience (Galbraith, 2002). Apart from planning, institutional leaders should organize the available resources to guarantee that they facilitate achievement of intended goals. Organizing business operations enables leaders to exploit employees’ skills. Besides, it helps to manage financial resources through preparation of a budget. Organizational leadership entails setting clear goals for employees. Moreover, it involves ensuring that staff members work together to achieve organizational goals. A leader is responsible for making decisions on matters affecting an organization.
Challenges Facing Tom’s Coffee Cup
The challenges that Tom’s Coffee Cup is facing are as a result of poor planning, organizing and leadership. Some planning issues that the coffee shop is facing include lack of future prediction, poor priorities, and absence of a contingency plan. According to Honig (2004), forecasting helps organizational leaders to implement changes aimed at helping an enterprise to meet future market demands. One mistake that Tom did was failure to anticipate the future course of his coffee shop. Moreover, Willie did not forecast the consequences of his decisions. He imposed changes on employees without considering their repercussions. He did not envisage the cost associated with changing suppliers and prohibiting employees from interacting with customers. As a result, his actions led to the coffee shop losing many customers.
On the other hand, Tom did not set his priorities right. He opted to remunerate Willie based on his capacity to help the coffee shop cut down on operation costs. Tom should have used another mode of motivation. Willie was determined to earn as much as he could without considering if the coffee shop is doing well or not. Consequently, he came up with unproductive strategies to minimize the coffee shop’s expenses. Removal of some food items from the menu led to customer dissatisfaction. Moreover, the reduction of working hours for all employees led to frustration. Rather than minimizing operation costs, Willie ended up scaring away customers and workers. He did not have a contingency plan to address potential challenges. Thus, to cover his mistakes, he assured Tom that things were going as expected.
The organizational challenges that Tom’s Coffee Cup is facing include poor distribution of resources and lack of a budget to manage the coffee shop’s financial resources. Willie considered fraternizing with customers as a waste of valuable resources. He did not understand the importance of interacting with customers. Thus, he denied employees an opportunity to enhance their performance by getting feedback from customers.
Besides, there is no proper division of labor in the coffee shop. Willie opted to dismiss some employees and reduce working hours as a way to reduce operation costs. His action led to employee dissatisfaction, therefore lowering their productivity. The reason Tom cannot tell if the coffee shop was performing as expected is because he does not spend time at the shop. Besides, the coffee shop does not keep a record of its daily transactions. Tom can hardly track the cash flow of the coffee shop. Hence, he relies on Willie’s guarantee that the shop is doing well.
Tom’s Coffee Cup is facing a myriad of leadership challenges. They include poor customer relations, Poor judgments and lack of clear targets. Willie discouraged employees from associating with customers alleging that they wasted a lot of time. Hence, it was hard for employees to identify customers’ needs and address them accordingly. Moreover, he did not allow employees to interact. Besides, Willie was responsible for making critical decisions on matters affecting the coffee shop. He ensured that all the decisions made favored him at the expense of the coffee shop and other staff members.
The reason why organizations make poor decisions is due to lack of clear targets (Gentry, Eckert, Stawiski & Zhao, 2014). Tom’s objective was to establish a coffee shop that offered quality services to customers. However, he did not set clear targets and goals. Consequently, it was hard to tell if the coffee shop was doing well. Moreover, Willie implemented changes based on no clear targets. Therefore, he just assumed that the changes would benefit the coffee shop.
Recommendations
Honig (2004) argues that a majority of the organizations cite generation of income as their primary priority. Such a priority makes it hard for organizations to establish proper plans. Honig (2004) posits that organizations ought to set different priorities based on their status. Tom should not focus too much on reducing operation costs as the move may send a negative impression to both employees and customers.
Instead, he should endeavor to build strong customer relations. Customer relations will ensure that the coffee shop acquires loyal clients who are willing to associate with the coffee shop in case of future changes. In addition, Tom should focus on improving the quality of products and services at the coffee shop rather than removing some products from the menu. He should set priorities and rank them according to their urgency. Ranking of priorities will ensure that Tom starts with the most urgent issues, therefore restoring customers’ trust. Prior to making critical changes, it is imperative to know their consequences.
Tom has already noticed that there are significant changes in the coffee shop. As a way to regain customers’ trust and motivate employees, Tom should ensure that he reintroduces products that were removed from the menu. However, he should do it systematically to ensure that the business does not incur unnecessary expenses. The coffee shop will require adequate time to regain its reputation. Hence, Tom should establish a contingency plan to help the business in case it fails to attract more customers. He should set a limit on tolerable financial losses so as to ensure that the coffee shop does not run bankrupt.
Galbraith (2002) defines organizing as the astute utilization of organizational assets to enhance employees’ productivity. Organizing also involves preparing a monthly budget to monitor organizational performance. Tom should come up with a work schedule that assigns duties based on employees’ skills. Rather than increasing the prices of products, Tom should improve the quality of his products to attract more customers.
The coffee shop does not require to layoff some employees as a way to reduce operations cost. Instead, it needs to encourage employees to develop novel products and improve the quality of existing ones as a way to expand the customer base. Additionally, Tom should emphasize the need for recording daily transactions so as to know how the coffee shop is performing. Keeping a record of daily sales and expenditures will ensure that Willie does not misappropriate financial resources.
Customers feel appreciated when employees take time to listen to their complaints. Thus, employees should be allowed to interact with customers so as to get their opinions. Organizational leaders ought to consult employees before making critical decisions (Gentry et al., 2014). Since employees engage in day-to-day operations of the coffee shop, they are in a better position to make viable decisions. Hence, Tom should consult employees before making critical decisions. It will not only motivate employees, but also enhance organizational performance. Additionally, Tom should frequently visit the coffee shop and check on employees to ensure that they do not experience problems.
Conclusion
Tom’s Coffee Cup is encountering numerous planning, organizing, and leadership challenges. Tom did not set clear targets when establishing the coffee shop. Besides, he came up with a weak employee compensation system leading to dishonesty. Poor decisions and uneven distribution of organizational resources have led to the coffee shop incurring enormous costs. Besides, the coffee shop has lost many clients due to poor customer service.
Unfavorable working conditions and reduction in working hours have adversely affected employee productivity. As a way to revive the coffee shop, Tom should endeavor to establish a strong customer relationship. In addition, he should involve workers in making decisions on matters affecting the coffee shop. Tom should encourage employees to improve the quality of current products and develop novel ones. Moreover, he should encourage staff members to interact with customers and collect adequate feedback that will help to improve services of the coffee shop.
References
Galbraith, J. (2002). Organizing to deliver solutions. Organizational Dynamics, 31(2), 194-207. Web.
Gentry, W., Eckert, S., Stawiski, S., & Zhao, S. (2014). The challenges leaders face around the world: More similar than different. Web.
Honig, B. (2004). Entrepreneurship education: Toward a model of contingency-based business planning. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(3), 258-273. Web.