Essay on Sportsman Shoes Cultural Shift Assessment

Sportsman Shoes Cultural Shift Assessment and Recommendations

Objective

As our CEO looked to the future of Sportsman Shoes he saw an opportunity to make a change. After exhaustive market research he saw that if Sportsman moved from manufacturing general athletic shoes to manufacturing for niche markets in unique sports we could improve profits while putting very little capitol into changing our existing manufacturing infrastructure. However when he assessed the organization he saw a need for a culture shift, a need for a more open and innovative environment here at Sportsman Shoes. To achieve this goal of culture shift, he tasked us, the Executive Leadership team to create a plan for the next few years that will create an environment where all employees are free to be creative and innovative.

Current Conditions In order to understand how to change the company, we first had to look at the current organizational structure of the company. The company is laid out fairly simply, as can be seen in the diagram. The company is headed by the board of directors. Directly below them is the Executive Leadership team, upper management. Reporting to us are the heads of all departments, Manufacturing, Design, HR, Finance, and Sales and Marketing. Each one of those departments have their own hierarchy not addressed here. Also while looking at the current condition of our company, we looked into the current cultural climate here at Sportsman. In this cultural assessment we saw many of the same things that our CEO saw, in general an atmosphere of employees just doing their jobs. The current atmosphere of our company is far from being repressive and controlling, but we have work to do to make a shift to an resonant environment, open and innovative. Recommendations for Change In order to make the cultural shifts that are desired all management at all levels will have to be engaged in the change, especially the board of directors and senior management. We cannot expect employees to change if we do not change. In our search for procedures and changes that will help to create our desired corporate culture we found a number of solutions, ranging from management practices, to better communication and education, to physical improvements.
Total Quality Management We believe that if we train our managers in, and implement Total Quality Management practices in our business it will go a long ways towards creating a more open work environment. This quality control philosophy stems from the Japanese philosophy Kaizen. The process helps to eliminate deficiencies and improve output quality by involving employees in decision making, continually improving the processes, and focusing on the customer. This incremental improvement of processes, and inclusion of employees in decision making will fit perfectly in our plan to initiate change over time, and help create a more open environment.
Using HR (I don't remember all that was said for this section, so I’ll let you handle it)
Improve Factories As we move from manufacturing general athletic shoes to making shoes for unique sports, we can take this time to improve our factories. We can invest in improved machinery, as well as improving the workers space. It has been proved in many situations that workers will be more creative when they are working in an enjoyable atmosphere. We can make some simple changes on the factory floor, that will go a long ways to improving the work. Improving lighting, an uplifting paint color, making music available and orthopedic floor mats for

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Essay on Sportsman Shoes Cultural Shift Assessment

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