Leadership And Organizational Behavior Of New Belgium Brewing Company, Inc.

Submitted By jonathansabu
Words: 3719
Pages: 15
Open Document
GM591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Instructor: Dr Stephanie Johnson
Organizations and Leadership Paper

By
Bruce Hatch
(719) 761-8269
August 26, 2009

INTRODUCTION

New Belgium Brewing Company, Inc. is one of the largest regional specialty brewers in the United States, producing about a dozen distinctive beers which are distributed to fifteen states in the West. Its brands include top-seller Fat Tire Ale, Sunshine Wheat Beer, and Abbey Belgian Style Ale, as well as seasonal offerings like Biere de Mars, Transatlantique Kriek, and Two Cherry Ale (www.newbelgium.com). The environmentally-friendly firm uses wind-generated electricity as well as heat and energy derived from byproducts of the brewing process. Founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch hold controlling interest in the company, which is partly owned by their employees. The New Belgium Brewing Company (NBB) was founded in 1991 in Fort Collins, Colorado by the husband-and-wife team of Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan. Lebesch, an electrical engineer, had taken up the hobby of brewing beer at home a decade earlier, and had later volunteered at breweries in California to sharpen his skills. He became interested in founding his own brewery after going on a bicycle tour of Belgium, where he visited a number of breweries and acquired a special strain of yeast to bring home. Although Belgian beer was not as well known in the United States as its German and English cousins, the country had its own distinctive approach to brewing, with a long tradition akin to that of winemaking in France. Belgians were particularly fond of adding flavors, like spices or fruit, to their brews, and also produced barrel-aged beers with higher alcohol content. After working up a business plan during an Easter Sunday hike in the mountains, Lebesch and Jordan, a social worker, decided to start a brewery in the basement of their home, and took out a $60,000 second mortgage to finance the endeavor. The company's initial offerings were the flavorful Abbey Trappist Style Ale and the lighter Fat Tire Ale, which was named after the bike Lebesch, had toured Belgium on. The first bottles were capped in June 1991, and featured a neighbor's watercolor paintings on the labels. Having persuaded a few local stores to carry their beer, Jordan, who handled the marketing, delivered it in the family station wagon. During their first year, the couple turned out 3,300 cases of 22 ounce "bomber" size bottles. Lebesch's Fat Tire Ale was especially well-received, and as its popularity grew its size was switched to the more standard twelve-ounce bottles (www.newbelgium.com).
With sales climbing steadily upward, Lebesch and Jordan quit their day jobs to brew beer full time. In the fall of 1992 the company's operations were moved into a former rail freight warehouse in Fort Collins, and distribution was gradually expanded to cover much of the state of Colorado and a few outstate metropolitan areas. By 1994 NBB's annual output had grown to 28,000 31-gallon barrels, and the firm had begun offering public tours of its plant (www.newbelgium.com).
In November 1995 NBB opened a new $5 million brewery down the street from its existing location. By now the firm's beers included several additional varieties, including Old Cherry Ale, which was flavored with fresh berries. The company employed 50, with Lebesch serving as vice president and head of brewing operations, and Jordan as president and CEO.
The so-called "microbrewery" segment of the marketplace was now experiencing tremendous growth. In 1994 Colorado had less than forty breweries and brewpubs (bars or restaurants which brewed beer on the premises), but just two years later the number had increased to more than sixty. Fort Collins was a hot spot, with one brewery per 12,000 residents, more than four times the statewide average of one per 51,000. In addition to NBB and several other small breweries and brewpubs, the city was also home to a major
Show More

Related Documents: Leadership And Organizational Behavior Of New Belgium Brewing Company, Inc.

Leadership in Organizations Essay

© National College for School Leadership 2003 1 Leadership in Organizations Gary Yukl 2001, Prentice Hall Gary Yukl is Professor of Management and Leadership at the State University of New York in Albany, and a board member of the Leadership Quarterly journal. He is a well-known scholar and author on leadership. Leadership in Organizations was first published in 1981. This fifth edition was published in 2002, and the formerly 19 chapters have been consolidated into 15 (which includes…

Words 2020 - Pages 9

Innovation And Leadership In The Organization

Innovation and Leadership in the Organization-MAH_231214_24437_4_47971 1.0 Introduction The present day business existence is such that the refinement in the middle of “inner” and “outer” commitments to work environment and development get to be distorted. In like manner, information improvement and development are progressively seen as the aftereffects of the offering of data and experience inside, and over, hierarchical limits. In the present paper, the researcher present the idea of “innovation…

Words 3157 - Pages 13

Why Leadership Is Important Organizations

Bus 832 Final Essay IS LEADERSHIP IMPORTANT IN MANAGING SUCCESSFUL ORGANISATIONS Name: Ximing Chen Student ID: 43365035 It brings to mind many images when talking about the word “leadership”. For instance, the political leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher who led their people went through hard times and directed their counties on the right track, the company executives who make directions and strategies for the company to win the competition…

Words 3133 - Pages 13

Summary Of Learning Organizations And Leadership

Review Bob Coutu MGT/426 August 3, 2015 Sandra Walsh Summary of Learning Organizations and Leadership A form of an adaptable organization that can be described as innovative is the learning organization. The principle perspective of the learning organization is its significant capability on being adaptable. Both adaptive learning and generative learning are the two underlying aspects that influence and organizations malleability. This form of reactive learning assists in managing or obtaining…

Words 764 - Pages 4

Essay People Organizations and Leadership

Career Goal and Career Opportunities Six years ago, after graduating from high school, like other classmates, I chose hospitality management for my bachelor degree without any excitements about this. Nevertheless, through enthusiastic lecturers and efforts of myself in learning and part-time jobs in some famous hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam during four years; besides completing my bachelor course, I also realized that I am really interesting this industry because it gives me the chance to interact…

Words 2491 - Pages 10

Leadership and Organization Assignment 1 Essay

1. In Chapter 2 of Reframing Organizations, the authors describe four significant properties of organizations: Organizations are complex Organizations are surprising Organizations are deceptive Organizations are ambiguous a. Describe the management implications associated with each of these properties Organizations are complex because of the ever growing technology, the type of work involved, the skillsets of people, the hierarchical structure of the organization, and the development of relationships…

Words 1957 - Pages 8

Grassroots: Leadership and Grassroots Organization Essay

from the grassroots rather than from a charismatic leadership. This is shown first of all in Document D, because it shows all the people gathering together without a leader, all sharing the same goal, to get jobs and freedom. Document F backs up my claim in that this march started from grassroots since there is no leader in either picture, or its just people standing up for what they believe in. The march on Washington was a grassroots organization, but the reason people doubt that is r it got so much…

Words 412 - Pages 2

Leadership in Organization Discussion Post Essay example

unethical leadership? Can you think of any that are related to health care? What can be done to increase ethical behavior and decrease unethical behavior? Ethical leadership are the influential role models in organizations who shape attitudes and behaviors by demonstrating appropriate conduct in their own actions and interactions with others and by promoting ethical conduct by communication, reinforcement, and decision making (Neubert, Wu and Roberts 2013).Generally, ethical leadership is very important…

Words 902 - Pages 4

Leadership Presentation Organization F Essay

and other items. In the office you should have bins for things you’ve done, things you need to get done and everything else. Make sure you can easily access the things that you use most often, as this will save you a lot of time. Tip: Purchase organization products; they are well worth the investment. 3. Get Rid of Clutter A lot of people hang onto things that they think they “might need/use” later on. Unfortunately these cause a lot of clutter and generally never end up being used. Simplify your…

Words 1150 - Pages 5

Article Critique – Minimizing Deviant Behavior in Healthcare Organizations: the Effects of Supportive Leadership and Job Design Essay

Article Critique – Minimizing Deviant Behavior in Healthcare Organizations: The Effects of Supportive Leadership and Job Design 1. List all authors, the year, article title, journal name, volume number, issue number, and page numbers. Minimizing Deviant Behavior in Healthcare Organizations: The Effects of Supportive Leadership and Job Design C. Logan Chullen, Benjamin B. Dunford, Ingo Angermeier, R. Wayne Boss, and Alan D. Boss…

Words 2135 - Pages 9