M3 Assignment 2: LASA 1 Assignment—The Leader As A Strategist Report

For this assignment, you will choose an organization to analyze. This organization can be one you are personally familiar with, or one you have observed to be an effective organization, You now become a newly appointed senior leader in that organization.

As a new leader, you must prepare a report for the CEO that assesses the organization’s overall alignment between its vision, mission, values, and strategy. This report should consist of the following sections:

An analysis of the strategic cascade of the organization

1. This includes assessing the organization’s strategy and market position. Use the framework implied in Michael Porter’s (1997) article “What is Strategy.” When describing the business strategy of your organization, consider the following questions:
   • What is the target market (target customer)?
   • What is your organization’s value proposition (How does it deliver value that satisfies the target’s wants and needs?)?
   • How is your product or service positioned in the market (What specific features and attributes define the product/service and how is its value reflected in its pricing, distribution, marketing communications, etc.?)?
   • How is your organization sustainably different from your competitors (What is the source of uniqueness and how sustainable is it from being diminished by competitors?)?
2. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis
   A SWOT analysis is a strategy planning tool that examines both internal and external environments for factors and trends that should shape planning and operations over the next five years. Environmental factors internal to the company are classified as strengths (to be leveraged) or weaknesses (to be mitigated), while external factors are classified as either opportunities (to be pursued) or threats (to be monitored and responded to).

   Some primer questions for the SWOT analysis include the following:
   Strengths

   • What advantages does your organization have?
   • What do you do better than anyone else?
   • What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others cannot?
   • What do people in your market see as your strengths?
   • What factors mean that you “get the sale”?
   • What is your organization’s unique selling proposition (USP)?
   • Weaknesses
   • What aspects of your product or service could you improve?
   • What market segments or competitive areas should you avoid?
   • What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?
   • What factors can make you lose sales?
   • Opportunities
   • What good opportunities can you spot?
   • What interesting trends are you aware of?Useful opportunities can come from such things as the following:
     • Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale
     • Changes in government policy related to your field
     • Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on
     • Local events
   • Threats
   • What obstacles do you face?
   • What are your competitors doing?
   • Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products, or services changing?
   • Is changing technology threatening your position?
   • Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
   • Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?
3. A summary of the internal environment, including the organization’s values and the key elements of the organization architecture that influence worker behavior.

   Include the following characteristics when analyzing the internal environment:

   • Structure: This includes the ways the organization assigns formal roles and responsibilities, decision-making authority, expertise and skills, and work tasks. Think of the organization chart and how its implied structure directs the decision making, resource allocation, and workflow of the organization. Is it consistent with the strategy?
   • Systems: This comprises the information flows that coordinate activities between groups and across the organization structure while helping direct worker behavior, including performance management, financial management, operating, forecasting and planning, and other regulating mechanisms. How do these systems help align workers and their actions with the strategy?
   • Culture: This consists of the unwritten rules and norms that govern worker behavior and help coordinate the activities across structural boundaries. Is the organization culture an enabler or impediment to the corporate strategy? What specific behaviors embedded in the culture support the strategy? What specific behaviors block the strategy?
4. A synthesis of the information evaluating the ability of the organization to implement the strategy using Kouzes and Posner’s Five Practices (for example, modeling the way) as a framework.
   Include answers to the following:
   • Company Culture
     • Describe the values and culture of your organization.
     • What are the values of your organization?
     • How are they reflected in the behaviors you see at work?
   • Employee Behaviors
     • Describe the behaviors in your organization.
     • Are these behaviors consistent with the business strategy?
     • Where do they conflict with the strategy?
     • What new behaviors are required to align with the strategy?
   • Leadership
     • How might you and other leaders create new behaviors to support the strategy?
     • What specific actions would you implement to communicate, motivate, model the way, coach, inspire the vision, challenge the process, and encourage the hea

Your response to each part of the assignment should be approximately three pages.

Your final product will be in a word document and be approximately 6–8 pages in length and utilize 4–7 scholarly sources in your research. Your paper should be written in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrate ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; and display accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Sustainability Initiative: Part 6- Final Sustainability Initative

This assignment has two task.

#1 Compile a paper of your sustainability initiative, including your annotated bibliography.

#2 Create a video to advocate for your initiative and to petition for your intitative to your health care setting’s leadership. 

Resource: Annotated Bibliography Template

Task #1:

Finalize your sustainability initiative by combining parts 1 through 5 of the sustainability initiative assignments:

• Sustainability initiative proposal
• Analysis of the costs and benefits associated with your initiative
• Evaluation of how your initiative will improve patient care and outcomes
• Evaluation of how your initiative will reduce waste
• Suggestions for community partnerships and education programs

Compile 6- to 8-page paper of your sustainability initiative. Include diagrams, flowcharts, and other visuals that support your initiative.

Create an annotated bibliography that contains each article you identified in the Weeks Two through Five Article Search assignments and include it in your paper.

Task #2

Create a 2-minute executive summary video to advocate for your initiative.  In this video you are to petition to the leadership for resources to enact the initiative.  Be sure to include the following:

• Summarize the initiative
• Discuss short- and long-term sustainable needs
• Stress to leadership the required resources needed for the initiative
• Identify obstacles
• Emphasize the benefits of the initiative

Cite 3 reputable references to support your assignment (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality).

Format your assignment according to APA guidelines.

EXPECTANCY THEORY

Probability Analysis Paper

A General Manger of Harley-Davidson has to decide on the size of a new facility. The GM has narrowed the choices to two: large facility or small facility. The company has collected information on the payoffs. It now has to decide which option is the best using probability analysis, the decision tree model, and expected monetary value.

Options:

FacilityDemand OptionsProbabilityActionsExpected PayoffsLargeLow Demand0.4Do Nothing($10)Low Demand0.4Reduce Prices$50High Demand0.6$70SmallLow Demand0.4$40High Demand0.6Do Nothing$40High Demand0.6Overtime$50High Demand0.6Expand$55

Decision Tree

Determination of chance probability and respective payoffs:

Build Small:Low Demand0.4($40)=$16High Demand0.6($55)=$33Build Large:Low Demand0.4($50)=$20High Demand0.6($70)=$42

Determination of Expected Value of each alternative

Build Small: $16+$33=$49

Build Large: $20+$42=$62

Assignment: Course Project—Need For Sustainability Manager

Module Readings and Assignment:

Complete the following readings early in the module:

Read the overview/online lectures for the Module 

From the textbook, Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World, read the following chapters:     

Re-embedding innovation strategy

Building the sustainable global enterprise

From the Internet, read:     

GLOBE-net. (2008, January). CleanTech investing: The green gold rush. GreenBiz. Retrieved from

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2008/01/05/cleantech-investing-green-gold-rush

CASE STUDY: U. S. Stroller: Lean (see attachement bellow) Discussion Questions:  

What Are The Internal Operations And Future Orientation Of Starbucks?

Read through the Case Study entitled “M&L Manufacturing” in Chapter 3 of your textbook. Examine the historical trend this company has experienced for the two products discussed.

Prepare weekly forecasts for the next four weeks for both products, describe the forecasting method you chose and explain why that forecasting method is best suited to the scenario. Explain why you did, or did not, choose the same forecasting method for each product. What are the benefits of using a formalized approach to forecasting these products?

Your forecasts can be developed within a Word document or Excel spreadsheet.

Be sure to use at least two current, scholarly references beyond any required course readings. Current sources are those published within the most recent five-year period, and scholarly sources are those from peer-reviewed journals.

Case Scenario:

Mr. Barney, the CEO, has received your memo request to be considered for further leadership positions.  He has decided to put you to the test!  He assigns you to help his Director of Payroll, Loretta Cash with a problem. 

You walk over to Payroll and visit Loretta.  She is visibly upset.  She has just received her annual performance review from her manager.  This is a 6-month review, as Loretta was recently assigned to this role after working with great success for 10 years in another area of the Accounting Department.  As part of this review, her manager interviewed the six members of the Payroll Department, who all answer to Loretta. Loretta shares with you some of their comments: 

“Loretta marched in here thinking she knows everything.  She doesn’t want to listen to any of our ideas.  It’s her way or the highway.” 

“We really don’t know Loretta all that well.  She keeps to herself…except of course when payroll deadlines are due, and then she’s all over our backs.” 

“She acts as if she is perfect.  I’m scared of getting yelled at when I make a mistake.” 

“Most times, Loretta is fine, but when we have a deadline she micromanages us.  I literally dread coming in to work on days payroll is due because I know Loretta will be watching over us like a hawk.” 

Answer the following questions, and support your answers with the course materials: 

What is the root cause of Loretta’s problem?

List three specific recommendations that Loretta can do today to turn this situation around.  Make sure the three recommendations are actionable (in other words, Loretta can take your advice and put it into practice immediately) and specific (in other words, not too general that it cannot be easily understood). For example, “improve communication skills” is not actionable today, and too general to be clearly understood.  However, “give immediate feedback to demonstrate she is actively listening” can be put into practice today and is specific enough to be understood. (Do not use this example in your answer!).

Completing the Learning Activity 

Read the grading rubric for the project.  Use the grading rubric while completing the project to ensure all requirements are met that will lead to the highest possible grade.

Third person writing is required.  Third person means that there are no words such as “I, me, my, we, or us” (first person writing), nor is there use of “you or your” (second person writing).  If uncertain how to write in the third person, view this link:  http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/first-second-and-third-person.

Contractions are not used in business writing, so do not use them.

Paraphrase and do not use direct quotation marks.  Paraphrase means you do not use more than four consecutive words from a source document, but put a passage from a source document into your own words and attribute the passage to the source document.  Not using direct quotation marks means that there should be no passages with quotation marks and instead the source material is paraphrased as stated above. 

Provide the page or paragraph number when using in-text citations.  Note that a reference within a reference list cannot exist without an associated in-text citation and vice versa.   

Ellingsworth V. Hartford Fire Ins. Co.

In two paragraphs, explain the main components of the case and state applicable federal, state, or local employment law. Then, discuss whether you agree or disagree with the final ruling in the case. In your discussion, be sure to include the implications of the case for both the organization and the employee(s) in question.