Corporate Culture: Nardelli's Transformational Change

When I think about Savior’s leadership attributes I feel amazed of how he ministered people one by one and how he was able to see the heart of the people. In the article “Jesus: The Perfect Leader,” clarified my mind to see that even Christ follow leadership principles that are very important in a business environment. The leadership attributes that most spoke to me were leadership based in fixed principles, responsibility, and accountability.

Increasing productivity and sparking motivation in employees, are challenges that managers, businesses, and organizations have struggled with for centuries. While there are many beliefs about which method(s) yield the best results, and what is considered to be the desired result, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ management technique still does not exist. The current movement in psychology, called Positive Psychology, focuses on what is “right” in an individual, and not on their faults. This basic concept is starting to extend its influences into the workplace, making it seem that Positive Psychology may become the key ingredient corporate culture, and all places of employment alike, have needed to promote success and satisfaction in their lines of work.

To understand the organizational culture of a company, one needs to start by looking at the history. Lakeshore Learning Materials was born from a divorced mother of three named Ethelyn Kaplan, who took a dream and a chance by moving her family to California in 1954 to open a toy store. When she started noticing that teachers were interested in her material, Ethelyn realized that she needed to expand her business into educational materials. 60 years later, Lakeshore Learning Materials has grown into a company with over 2000 employees, 60 retail stores throughout the United States and growing. Lakeshore Learning Materials is currently headed by Ethelyn’s grandsons, Bo and Josh Kaplan. Under the supervision of Bo and Josh, Lakeshore continues to be a leader in the Educational Materials, yet still able to keep the family culture that their grandmother started. Highest quality customer service and hard work are the core values that shape Lakeshore’s Organizational Strategy. These high expectations aren’t hard for employees at Lakeshore because the company is so loved by everyone that works there, that they give nothing less than the best.

The setting of this case study was the Texas Plant. The Texas Plant produced excellent quality goods, but it was not competitive because of its slower speed of product changeovers, higher costs, and environment of “bureaucratic status quo” (Pryor et al., 2011, p. 111). In addition, the plant’s union leaders, management, and employees lacked positive, working relationships. Corporate leaders hired a new, aggressive vice president, David, to transform the plant by empowering employees and establishing continuous improvement processes (Pryor et al., 2011). David, in turn, bypassed the plant’s Human Resources (HR) and hiring director, Harvey, and hired Paula

The Home Depot learned the hard way that you must hire a leader that will stay true to the core values. The leader’s ethics and values will play a huge role in determining if the company will succeed or fail. The founders of The Home Depot built a culture on the foundation of respect, integrity, and compassion. The culture and customer service under the influence of the admired founders prospered.

Through these nine key concepts, Dr. Grudem illustrates how a variety of business techniques, when implemented in a Godly manner, allow those to pose certain characteristics of God. Grudem isn’t naïve, though. He does, after all, explain that in every aspect of business there are multiple layers of opportunities to give glory to God, as well as multiple temptations to sin (Grudem, 2003, p. 17). He is also aware about the easy ways these activities can be perverted and used as a means to sin ("Business for the," 2003). This book is tailored to echo God’s glory in relation to correlation with employees, co-workers, customers, and other businesses involved in the business unity. Furthermore, it does not only promote a positive impact within the business realm, but also in the personal realm of one’s life in business.

He found out that the company was latent with financial and operational problems which threaten Home Depot’s future. The company was distinct in retail and extremely entrepreneurial based, along with customer focused business. Nardelli was not necessarily a tyrant, he just assumed he could treat Home Depot the same way he would any of his previous companies he worked for. With Nardelli being industrial based versus retail based, he concentrated on overhauling the processes but swept aside the elements that made Home Depot special in the process. Nardelli has a tough-minded approach to changes, which he probably learned at GE, but this set him on a collision course with the free spirited and close-knit culture fostered by his Home Depot predecessors. By the end of this case study, many of the original leadership for Home Depot were gone, whether they retired, were let go, or quit. Of course, Nardelli would still make himself accessible and was comfortable interacting with all levels of an organization, from CEO’s to factory workers. He was firm but still considered to be “a breath of fresh

There are many reasons that change can or must occur within and organization. The key will be in understanding the organization and the prospective change. According to Mangundjaya (2015) "there are many variables that can influence the success of organizational change, such as the content of the change, the process of the change, individual characteristics, leadership, external environment and organizational context" (p. 67). Organizational change has the potential to successfully align an organization with its goals or completely derail any future success and progress. It is important that the organization takes the proper steps to prepare for, implement, and evaluate change.

First, the manager's team will begin to change Home Depot’s culture by creating a team-oriented culture. The managerial style is to treat the workers with the same amount of importance as the customers. After reading the article, one might think that the problem is that Home Depot has a fractured relationship with the store’s associates and corporate office. The manager's job is to mend the relationship between store associates, corporate office, and the customers.

As a successful Fortune Fifty company, Lowe’s depends on great leaders to help the organization achieve its financial and organizational goals, motivate its extensive workforce, and build a culture where employees share and cultivate the purpose of the organization. While many great leaders, including Wheatley, Cashman, Peters, and others have written on the subject of leadership, the success of Lowe’s Companies has demonstrated that since 1946, it has been the home of many great leaders. By interviewing recognized leaders in key positions at Lowe’s, I hope to learn several valuable aspects of effective leadership, which I plan to incorporate in my personal leadership style.

Maxwell also makes an emphatic statement when he says that ‘Everything rises and falls with leadership.’ This bold statement would suggest that leadership plays a significant part in determining the success or failure of anything and everything – whether it is in a home, in a business, in an organization, in a church or in a nation. Supporting this thinking and in the context of the Christian community, George Carey talks about the importance of leadership and attributes the growth of a Church (and the people in it) to effective leadership, suggesting that when entities succeed, it is not due to happen-chance but to visionary leadership, whilst the converse can also be attributed to poor leadership.

It has been proven time and time again, throughout history, around the world, in government and in business alike. Forced change results in rejection, resentment, and in many cases, retaliation in some shape or form. It leads to mistrust in leadership, hard divisions between the people, anger, hatred, and sometimes violence. I do not believe that this is what we want for America.

The purpose of this book is to make us see that nearly all-operating prescriptions for creating large-scale corporate change are nothing but myths and that changes do not happen from one day to another by a miracle, the change from good to great is the result of a successful plan who

The case deals with two major transformational organisational changes that take place within a span of 5 years in Marconi PLC. The first change process was under the leadership of Lord Simpson who took over this large diversified conglomerate in 1996 when the company was in a mature phase, already in decline. The company was under performing, had a rigid structure, lacked a clear vision and the employees had become change averse and complacent. To recharge the company Lord Simpson lead a change process with a clear vision with a growth oriented strategy, acquisition and a cultural change process for the employees. To motivate the employers to embrace the cultural change he introduced an attractive stock option plan.

I have learned many lessons from Jack Welch on leadership. Jack Welch has been with the General Electric Company (GE) since 1960. Having taken over GE with a market capitalization of about $12 billion, Jack Welch turned it into one of the largest and most admired companies in the world by the time he stepped down as its CEO 20 years later, in 2000. Jack Welch used his uncanny instincts and unique leadership strategies to run GE, the most complex organization in the world and increased its market value by more than $400 billion over two decades. He remains a highly regarded figure in business circles due to his innovative leadership style. Jack Welch demonstrated Kouzes and Posner’s five practices of modeling the way, inspiring a shared