Organizational Learning And Transformation -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Organizational Learning And Transformation? Answer: Introduction Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, better known as ANZ bank is considered one of the largest as well as the most successful organization in Australia. It is also considered a leading bank in New Zealand. The case study analysis the bank`s case. The organization started its journey as the Bank of Australia in 1835, in the city of Sydney (Anz.com.au. 2018). In 1838, the company started its office in Melbourne where its head quarter is located in. The organization is a popular attraction for investors with its majority of shareholders in Australia. The company also operates in several other countries apart from New Zealand and Australia, which are Europe, the Pacific Asia and Dubai. Since its inception, the organization is one of those few companies who have been able to maintain a good performance by reflecting consistent profits (Arnold et al. 2015). Even during the global financial crisis in 2009, the company was able to upheld their name and earn profits. The banking corporation has been divided into five prime units, which comprise of Australia, Asia Pacific and Australia. The retail services offered by the company include services like credit card services, mortgages, deposits and other banking transactions. The organization is involved in various fields like Wealth Management, Institutional and Operations Technology and Shared Services and commercial banking (Buble, Juras and Mati? 2014). The report elaborates on the three broad aspects given in the case study which range from the elements of organizational change, the various challenges faced by managers to implement the internal change and the key attributes of the ANZ leaders. Answer to the first question: Attributes related to Change In the year 1990, John McFarlane was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer at the ANZ. This move was taken after the organization was going through certain turbulent times. Mc Farlane along with his management team brought about a huge change in the organization. The primary motive of the given programme was to bring about considerable change in the operations of the bank and to bring about sustainable innovation and achieve comparative advantage. The various highlights of the program and various characteristics have been discussed in the given case (Buble, Juras and Mati? 2014). After he was appointed as the CEO, it was seen that the bank had started making considerable profits and McFarlane was praised for his leadership style and management capability with special reference to bank finances. At that time, the banking industry of Australia had been facing considerable problems and distrust prevailed. It was at the same time when many banks had closed down, as they could not cope up with the various charges, which had increased tremendously at that time. The distrust had raised and prevailed in the banking industry was because the perception of the various citizens of the country had changed about the given company. This distrust was converted into an advantage by the new CEO of ANZ who undertook major steps to remove the distrust and improve the image of the bank in front of the nationals (Canterino, Cirella and Shani 2017). McFarlane took various steps to improve the scenario. Some of them have been stated below: Criticism of various banks, which had taken actions and retreated from serving the various rural communities. The rural committees of Australia comprised of various tribals who felt left out. Addressing the issues relating to empowerment of women in the banking Industry in Australia. He believed that women were equally capable and should be given higher roles in various banks. John is also considered one of the first few leaders in the globe who had taken interest in the issue of the corporate social responsibility that needed to be taken by the companies for the welfare of the society they function in. His immense talent in this particular field helped him to gain a competitive advantage in this regard and helped the bank to operate to the new operations effectively. These efforts of the McFarlane helped the citizens to view the banking industry in a new light once again. When John McFarlane had joined the organization, he had promised to bring about a vast number of changes in the organization (Cooper 2015). He had intended to reflect profits in the bank and change the perception of the people. The primary action taken by the CEO was that he started a cost-cut drive, which led to the reduction of redundant bank labor in the branches. He also believed at lowering the risk quotient of the bank and investing in the recently emerging markets. The transactions and operations related the head office of the bank was sent through a complete change. The operations were restructured, streamlined and thousands of unnecessary staff was removed from the office. The costs had risen tremendously before John was appointed which was reflected in the cost to income ratio of the bank. After his appointment, the ratio was brought down adversely. McFarlane realized the importance of the retail customers and shifted their focus from corporate clients to the retails one. H is estimate was correct and the business of the organization increased considerably. The organization took its first step towards changed in the year 2000. The CEO of the bank wanted to change the positioning of the bank into a bank with a human face (DuBois et al. 2015). The leadership team comprising of various executives, which was lead by John, was named the Perform, Grow and Breakout, as a management consultant, McKinsey and Company was appointed which was trusted with the responsibility of providing the company with new solutions. At first, the consultancy was given the responsibility to study the culture of the bank. The results displayed various problems relating to the present values of the banking organization. It also showed various problems relating to the value orientation of the various employees of the company and the way in which the bank was being perceived by the bank. The organizational report reflected to a positive result with respect to result orientation and goals of the organization (Farrell, Kawecki and Branham 2017). However, this was not th e case of orientation of the employees who believed that the banking organization ANZ was filled with hierarchy and extreme bureaucracy. They also believed that the management withheld hold amount of relevant information with them and that there was a lack of transparency in the organization. Hence, after this observation was made, it was seen to it that the values and cultures of the organization were made based on the viewpoint of the employees as well and not just the vision of the senior management. McKinsey also compared the bank to various other leading organizations present in the country. In terms of financial performance and operational excellence, the company fared extremely well. However, as stated earlier the company scored low in comparison to others in terms of values. Eleven measures, which included aspiration or mission, goals or targets, feedback related to the performance of the business unit, organizational approach, financial control, coordination and control, motivation related to opportunities, consequence management and motivation related to values, were considered (Fernandez 2017). John McFarlane after the given report formulated strategies under the Perform, Grow and Breakout Programme. As analysed from the given result of the report by McKinsey, the primary focus of McFarlanes strategy related to the Breakout, which was related to the cultural orientation and value system of the organization (Keskes 2014). After the given strategy was carried out, the banking corporation formed a new process in reference to the transformation of culture and the major initiatives taken by the company were: breakout charters breakout workshops and, Breakout consulting. The emotional ability and development of personality was the main area of concentration in the area of employees with respect to the Breakout workshops. The business projects were the main area of the breakout chapters. These projects, which were chosen, were closely related to the various culture and value aspect of the bank. The Breakout consulting refers to the process by which the diagnostic and consulting services are provided in the organization so that they are able to help the business units in performing better. One of the key points of the breakout program was that it was carried out on all the employees in the given organization and even across the various units as well as branches of the baking corporation (Malhotra and Hinings 2015). The given program took place for a period of around two to three days. The primary motive of the program was to provide the various employees the ability and the tools to realize their given potential and think in detail about the various motivating factors present in the given organization. The purpose of the program also included towards helping the given organization in increasing its engagement of the employees and to help it to optimize its work processes. The aims as well as areas of advancement were recognized by the various employees with the help of this program. The given change was brought about in the culture of the organization after the realization and observation of the CEO of the given organization. The Breakout project was also followed by a performance management of the employees whereby the employees of the organization could be retained and build (McCleskey 2014). The major phases relating to the performance management program relating to ANZ are: Performance planning Coaching which is interrelated to the performance of the employee and, Assessment of the given performance. It was realized that the process of performance management is of utmost relevance and that it needs to be clear and also measurable. The targets that will be set out by the management for the employees should be realistic. The manager and the employee will be required to sit together and discuss the various targets. The first phase of performance management involves performance coaching which requires meetings at regular intervals of the employees with their managers so that their capabilities are bold up throughout the year. This helps in tracking of the progress. The primary focus of the move is to make sure that the performance and value system of the employee is developed according to the set plan (Monzani, Ripoll and Peir 2015). The e particular program at the ANZ Banking Corporation also aimed at development of the personal goals of the employee. Hence, in the section, the various highlights of how the organizational transformed over the years has been elaborated. The above-discussed points are therefore the major features of the transformation of the organization after the appointment of McFarlane as the CEO of ANZ. Answer to the second question: Internal Change in the Organization Under the supervision and guidance of John McFarlane, various changes took place throughout the organization. These changes could be easily witnessed and were relevantly designed for identifying and developing talent throughout the organization. The primary focus of the banking corporation has always been on the learning of the employees at every level of the banking department (Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy 2014). The bank makes use of advanced global systems in order to see to it that the right knowledge is given to the right customers when required. The management also aimed to bring about an internal cultural change in the organization, which it implemented through three basic leadership programs that were introduced by John McFarlane. He brought about huge investments in the leadership programs. The given program started with identification of efficient leadership in the organization, which was carried out by the human resource department of the organization. The HR managers and the line managers conducted a program together, which was popularly known as The Emerging Leader Radar Talent program (Saeed et al. 2014). The given program conducted steps, which were useful in identifying young talent in the company. However, while this program was being implemented, the company was faced by certain challenges. These challenges include challenges like engagement of the various employees. Engagement of the various employees proved to be a huge challenge because the organization is relatively large. McFarlane also faced a huge amount of challenge in getting support from all the employees. The employees were quite restricted in their thoughts with respect to culture. They did not want new reforms, which according to them would result in the mitigation of the essence of the organization (Saleem 2015). The action plan in order to address the given challenges was that the organizational change was not only bought about in the lower part of the organization but also in the top management. The change, it was decided that will be bought about in the top management first and then in the rest of the organization. This fulfilled the main aim of the CEO, to build a trust factor among the employees. The data and statistics, which were analysed, post the change as per the staff survey reflected that there was significant improvement. The satisfaction level has improved greatly from 50% in 1997 to 62% in the year 2001, 78% in 2002 and lastly 85% in the year 2004. Since the adoption of the above stated program and its success, the ANZ has become one of the leading organizations in the globe (Sethuraman and Suresh 2014). It has become the most engaged workforce around the globe. Leaders who want to bring about the change in the organization need to take steps from the given. Another primary challenge that the company faced was with regard to the tenure of the CEO, John McFarlane. There was a time when the bank was exposed to the telecommunications industry. The industry had collapsed in 2000 and this has affected the organization adversely (Prooijen and Vries 2016).Other banks started giving the organization fierce competition during the reign of McFarlane. Hence, during this phase, he undertook certain wrong decisions, which had an adverse impact on the organization. Answer to the third question: Leadership Attributes The CEO of the company, John McFarlane entered the organization at a time when the organization was under a crisis phase. The role played by the leader was that of providing guidance to the rest of the organization and taking the organization to a phase whereby the whole structure of the organization had to be changed (Shani and Noumair 2017). McFarlane took a big initiative and made sure that the image of the company was changed to `a bank with a human face`. McFarlane also started concentrating on Corporate Social Responsibility and was one of the first leaders to do so. Another good characteristic about the author was that he realized the importance of employee involvement in an organization and involved them in various performance management activities and setting the targets task. Michael Smith replaced McFarlane as the CEO of the ANZ in 2007 and took the organization forward with his capability. Under the guidance of the new leader Smith, the organization got the AA certification. Smith`s main goal was to make ANZ one of the most popular banking corporations round the globe (Sommer, Sprog and Andersen 2017). Various losses of jobs had resulted from the organizational change activities. Hence, to avoid this Smith focused on efficiency and transparency, which aimed to improve the profitability of the organization. The current CEO of the organization is Shane Elliott. The banking industry is undergoing changes right now and these will be reflected and acted upon by him. Conclusion Therefore, it can be concluded that leadership plays a key role in the transformation of the organization and that the organization can undergo a change only if it gets proper guidance and help. The change in the cultural process of the organization is not an easy task and involves change in the attitude of the employees as well. The middle level managers have a lot to learn from the senior leaders as well. Hence, it would not be incorrect to say that organizational change is a result of leadership style. References Anz.com.au. ,2018.ANZ Personal Banking | Accounts, credit cards, loans, insurance | ANZ. [online] Available at: https://www.anz.com.au/personal/ [Accessed 21 Jan. 2018]. Arnold, K.A., Connelly, C.E., Walsh, M.M. and Martin Ginis, K.A., 2015. 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