Challenges in Implementing Innovation in Coles Company
Introduction
The memo is written for Coles Company, which will have the issues that the company is experiencing. There are many challenges that are faced by the company while planting any innovation in their process. Coles being a huge retail company operating its business in the Australian market has also faced many challenges while implementing innovations in their business and processes. The company has planned of implementing innovations in their technological and operational departments this has casted them huge drawback and the company experienced many challenges while planting them. However, it is equally important for the company to implement innovation in their business in order to sustain in the intense competitive market. The company also must consider the various other factors, which can be both negative and positive for the company. Thus, the aim of the project is to understand and identify the innovation challenges faced by the company and the potential leadership strategies that are being used by the operation manager and the other supervisors acting as the leaders of the company. The leadership style and the strategies that the leaders of the company are using to overcome innovation challenges that the company is facing. The other leadership style and the strategies that the contemporary business leader are using to overcome the challenges that they are facing will be discussed in the report. There will be leadership theories that will be helpful for the company to overcome the difficult issues of the company. The report will also include a set of recommendations that will help the company in overcoming the innovation challenges.
There are many challenges that the company has been experiencing in terms of innovation that has been discussed below:
The leaders face communication problems with the subordinates, the innovation plan that the leaders of the Coles Company is planning to implement is poorly communicated to the subordinates. The transparency that is required in the communication between the leaders and the subordinates is interrupted because the supervisors are not being able to convey the effort that they want from the juniors or the employees. The employees are not informed about the innovation plan that the leaders of the company has decided and the opinions of the employees are not valued, which also results in communication gap (Massa & Tucci, 2013). The challenges in communication is also faced due to the knowledge gap that exists amongst the employees and the potential of each employee is not adequate to understand the importance of the innovation plan. Communication Theory propagated by S. F. Scudder, this theory states that communication is very essential for any individual to stay alive. Thus, the importance of communication is to exchange ideas and vision that the company holds about the new implication that they are planning to implement and the leaders of the Coles Company failed to plant this theory led to ineffectiveness of the innovation plan.
Leadership Theories Effective for Coles Company
This challenge is a very crucial problem that the leaders face in having a coordinated relation with its subordinates. This is mainly due to the cultural and the linguistic gap that occurs between the leaders and the subordinates due to which the leaders face difficulty in coordinating with their subordinates (Pisano, 2015). The shortcoming in the leaders that leads to problem in coordination is due to improper distribution of work amongst the subordinates. This also triggers a feeling of biasedness amongst the juniors and the productivity of the team hampers. Crowston and Malone propagated the system theory, and it sates the basic ideology of maintaining the groupware in a team. They state that individuals in the team must be assigned with independent tasks and the allocation must be equal and not clubbed this will help in maintaining a proper and organized workflow. Thus, the leader has failed in placing the theory that led him to unsuccessful implementation of innovation plan.
It is very important for the leaders to provide constant motivation to the subordinates so that they can provide their full efforts for the achievement of the goals. Yet, this is the factor that is mainly overlooked by the leaders due to the pressure of achieving the target that they have for the company to achieve. The targets are mainly earning more revenue, acquiring good place in the industry and generating more client base and due to the pressure of attaining all the targets the leaders become very impatient and they tend to scrutinize the work that the subordinates are performing and criticize their mistakes. This highly destroys the motivation and the urge in the employees towards performing their duties. Thus, this also leads towards attrition within the organization and hamper its productivity at the same time. The motivation theory propagated by Herzberg states that motivation must be thoroughly provided to every individual and the motivation is based on two factors hygiene and motivators, which the leaders should instill in them to keep them encouraged. The leader of the company failed in planting this theory which led to failure in the innovation plan.
The leadership theories that are effective for planting innovation in the chosen company are discussed as follows:
Transactional theory
In this type of theory, the leader mainly values and respects the structure and the order of the company. The leaders tend to maintain the status quo, the leaders also believes in the exchanging processes and promotes the ideology of rewards to the employees and the subordinates. The leaders following this leadership tends to make the employees and the subordinates understand the efforts that are expected from them. These type of leaders maintain constant motivations to their subordinates and they do not criticize the mistakes that are committed by the subordinates rather they provide suggestion to mitigates those issues and mistakes in their forthcoming days. According to Epitropaki & Martin, this theory of leadership provides a clear structure to the employees and the picture of the job that they asked to perform. The employees are also able to achieve their individual and organizational goals at the same time. The leaders under this style also motivates the employees thoroughly. The leaders of the style helps in increasing the productivity of the company but diminishing the costs. However, according to Baloch, Ali & Zaman, this theory of leadership does not promote creativity, and the leaders provide tasks to the employees based on the principles and policies that are strictly to be followed. Then leaders are not emotionally attached to the employees thus they have no empathy towards them.
Recommendations
Democratic Theory of Leadership
In this theory of leadership the leaders of the company demands effort and input from the employees end also values and asks for their constant feedback before formulating any decisions. This also helps the team members feel that their opinions and view are being valued and they exert extreme dedication and performance towards the company. This helps in them in attaining their individual and company goals. This theory of leadership also helps in building workplace environment and brings a positive flow within the company that greatly motivates the employees or the subordinates. This theory greatly encourages active participation and discussion with the employees and the subordinates. These type of leaders mainly focus on innovation and creativity for the organization for Coles and other contemporary companies this type of leadership is very effective. According to McCleskey, the leaders under this style tends to solve complex issues with the knowledge and experience that they gave gained and help others also to overcome the issues in a simplified way. This type of leadership also helps in strengthening the core relationship of the team; the leaders are also honest and promotes honesty within the team as well. On the contrary, according to Hendriks & Karsten, this theory of leadership can be uncertain and time consuming for attaining the goals of the company. The leaders might not be able to properly, circulate the ideas and the concepts that the employees should know about the roles that they are playing. The leaders tend to give a vague picture to the employees about their duties.
In this type of theory, the leaders mainly focuses on transparent communication between the employee and the employers to avoid any disputes in the future. However, leaders under this theory mainly focus of the objectives and the aims of the company and not on the employee’s or the subordinate’s aims. They mainly tend to attain the objectives that the company has planned to achieve. These type of leaders are mainly concerned about the company and not about the development of the employees. According to Odumeru & Ogbonna, this style of leadership helps in employee motivation and achieve the goals of the company. The leaders also provide a clear structure and picture to the employees about the pressure and performance that they need to put. On the other hand, according to Breevaart, et al, states that this leadership theory eradicates individuality from the manufacturing process, the influence that the leaders create can also backfire at times; the decisions that are being undertaken can also result in being ineffective. The leaders might overlook the challenges that the employees have to face in their forthcoming days.
In this theory, the leaders are mainly focuses on the duties that are within the hierarchy where all the employees have their own set of responsibilities towards the company. That requires a little creativity and collaboration. This type of leadership helps in mainly effective for industries and departments such as healthcare and finance. They tend to follow all the rules and regulations that are formulated and by the company and they also formulate a set of rules for the subordinates or the employees without consulting them this makes them feel suffocated to work within the team. The team leader does not properly motivate the employees and they not awarded with any reward or appreciations. According to Van der Voet, this leadership style hinders the productivity of the company. This theory also restricts freedom for creativity; this leadership is also not suitable for efficient work conditions. On the contrary, according to Khan, et al, this leadership style promotes roles and duties within the team and sturdier level of job safety. This also helps in creating good and best practices.
The recommendations that will be effective for the company to mitigate the challenges. Transformational leadership will be the most effective leadership for the company to mitigate the challenges that the company is facing in implementing the innovation in their business.
- The leaders must circulate the responsibility amongst the employees so that they can also feel valued and understand the innovations that Coles is trying to implement.
- The leaders must provide proper information to the employees about the innovation that the company has though of implementing so that they can also carry out a study and gather information about the innovation that the company has planned to implement (Harris, 2013).
- The potential transactional strategy is to promote innovation and creativity along with help the employees cope up with the new modifications that the company is planting. Providing them constant motivation and helping them in the areas that they are facing issues in performing (Glatthorn, et al. 2016).
- The leaders must formulate strategies that will effectively influence the customers and make them attracted towards the launched products (DeMatthews, 2014).
- The potential transformational strategy is concerned about the company’s development and not about the development of the employees, which is not suitable to make the in ovation successful for the company (Menaker, 2013).
Conclusion
Thus, the report can be concluded as all the challenges that Coles Company has faced in implementing innovation in their business has clearly been discussed in the content of the study. The various types of the challenges that are associated to innovation implementation in the business has been discussed along with the various leadership theories that are effective for planting innovation in the company has been stated and an critical analysis is also stated for all the leadership styles. The potential leadership strategies are also identified and stated in the report and recommendations are provided that will help in mitigating the challenges that are identified in the above report.
Reference
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This challenge is a very crucial problem that the
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