A FORMULA FOR CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP

In the world of business, any leader have to encounter with change at some point regardless the actively want or not. However, resistance to change is the major problem to organizational change, the reasons are; Belief that change is unessential and not feasible, lack of trust, fear of personal failure or economic threat and so on. Thus, understanding the resistance and use appropriate ways to minimize it is a difficult task that requires effective leaders to implement.Leading change in organization culture is a key and crucial leadership task to help a leader revitalize and instill a new culture in organization. More specific, effective leaders are people who understand the different types of organizational changes, particularly the feature of efficient vision, the improvement in appealing innovation and the sense of motivation (Yukl,2006).

I met miss Lam Nguyen Quynh Anh in my visit Lam Boutique as a shopper. She completely impressed me with her grateful smile and the friendliness. Lam is now working in Lam boutique retailer as the position of a general manager. I could not hold my curiosity about how a tiny, young lady can handle such a tough role in a competitive environment of a fashion industry. “It is about the ability to be influenced in organization culture, prepare yourself the ability to cope with change, that what a leader really do” said Lam.

Figure 1 Quynh Anh Lam in Lam dress, reproduced from Lam’s homepage 2013

Developing a Vision

To Lam, the sense of vision in leadership is an inevitable aspect to become a potential leader. “Wide vision helps me clarify the overview destination of the organization and support the ability to simplify the bunch of decisions I have to make” She said. In fact, the competency of direction-setting  of leadership creates visions that help defining  a business, technology or corporate culture in achieving the company goal (Kotter, 2001).Creating vision firstly to inspire employees, then helps the leader motivate employees to take part in the right direction (Kotter,2001).  If Lam create the company vision that is simple and can be clearly understood, she can motive and align people to the core values of what company is doing : staff development, decision-making or recruitment.”It is important for a leader to create a vision that understandable, realistic and achievable to appeal the action of a wide collection of individuals within company” said Lam

Why Motivation is Important?

It is vital to advocate business leaders applying the sense of motivation into practice. The success of a leader depends on retaining cheerful workplaces.  Changing in organization culture requires the ability to ignite the motivation that requires a leader to read and understand people (Grout and Fisher,2011). “Actually in work we spend most of our time making people feel good about the job they are doing, so they don’t go around with the voice inside criticizing their ability.by doing that we consciously build motivation within employees” Said Lam.“To build a change in a consistent company first is to build a comfortable ambience that helps release stress in workplace” Lam shared her experience. Later in internal relationship, the sense of motivation is helpful in solving problems caused by human’s mistake. Understanding employee helps the leader goes beyond the narrow corners to clarify and solve problems thoroughly (Grout and Fisher,2011)

Implementing Innovation

Figure 2 :Model in Lam pyjama shirt, reproduced from ELLE Vietnam, 2013

Leaders are also the people who encourage themselves and employees to apply creative ideas for improving work processes. One way to stimulate the creative idea is to set innovation objectives for individual or teams (Yukl,2006). “I often advocate employees’ activities to help my staff find the time to pursue their ideas for new or improved product or process”. Besides, arranging a special meeting monthly to encourage staffs to discuss new ideas or inviting experts to share their experience about relevant practices or improved ideas are also needed. “There was a time I invited outside consultants to inspire employees regarding creativity in fashion industry. Later on many ideas about changes in company was created, how effective it is” Lam said in excitement.

Figure 3 Reproduced from Pinterest,2013

Staffs who create new idea to promote products or suggest new way to enhance existing service that make a huge change within company deserve appreciation and reward (Yukl,2006). “In company, all employee has right to share their opinion about the product or service and of course they will be obtained recognition a reasonable reward” said Lam .We are working in such a competitive environment, without the creativity in product or service, a firm will be broken. Lam understands that fact and she evoke the practice creativity among employees by rewarding those who do contribute.

Figure 4: Ms Lam Nguyen Quynh Anh and me in Lam Boutique office- Taken by Vuong Han Lam (2013)

“The difficulty is not developing new ideas, but escaping the old ones” (John Maynard Keynes, cited in Grout and Fisher,2011) . To Lam, wide vision, the ability to understand people and the sense of creativity are special formulas that make it easier to implement change in organization. Change is one of the most sophisticated things for a leader to bring about in an organization but it has recognizable progresses to implement successfully if leader knows the way to break the resistance to change of people.In brief, leading to change should never be missed in everyday life of the business.

word counts: 800

Gerhart,B 1996  The impact of human resource management on organizational performance: progress and prospect The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 779-801,viewed 25 December 2013

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/pdfplus/256712.pdf?acceptTC=true

John, K 2001 What leader really do Vol. 79 Issue 11, p85-96 .viewed 25 December 2013 .

Yukl G,2006 Leadership in Organizations, 6th edn, Pearson, New Jersey

Grout J, Fisher L, 2011 What you need to know about leadership Capstone, United Kingdom

Carnie, L 2013, ‘Lecture 7: Organizational Culture’, PowerPoint slides for COMM2384 Client Management, RMIT University, Saigon South, viewed 9 January 2014, Blackboard@RMIT

Image:

Lam, NQA 2013, Facebook, viewed 5 January 2014

<https://www.facebook.com/lamnguyenquynhanh?ref=ts&fref=ts>

ELLE 2013 Homepage ELLE Vietnam, viewed 7 January 2014

<http://www.elle.vn/elle-network/brand/lam-boutique/>

“House theory” – It is almost impossible to rebuild a damaged trust.

Words and interview by Lai Thi Van Anh – s3373503

Many men of his age had the same start; they were all poor college students who graduated with nothing but a certificate and dream of changing life. Mr. Truong Hung, currently the CEO of SonHung Construction, Trading, Service Co., LTD, began his career as an electrical engineer in a government-owned cooperation. It was a steady job at that time.

“Why did I leave, you ask?” He laughed. “It was because I didn’t have any faith in my own boss.”

In any business, it starts and ends with the word trust. For Mr. Hung, it is the key point to keep his company developing for over 20 years. Galford & Drapeau (2013) stated that trust within an organization is fragile, complicated but very critical. Trust links directly to organization’s performance and can be built with old-fashion virtues like clear communication, consistency, willingness to deal with problems (Galford & Drapeau 2013). It sounds simple enough but that is only the theory.

A case of dishonesty at its best.

Figure 1. Trust. Reproduced from pastoralyn.files.wordpress.com

Mr. Hung and his best friend Tran Thai Son – the main shareholder, started SonHung Company in 1992 as a sub-contractor in charge of providing construction machines and transportation. Since July 1997, SonHung Company had successfully developed into a Construction, Trading and Service Company, which provides full service as the main contractor. His company had been through many up and down but only once, which they were on the verge of bankrupt.

It was in 1998, two years after SonHung Company had developed from a sub-contractor to a main contractor, a big client came to him. They offered him a contract worth one billion with many benefits and support. However, when Mr. Hung finished his job, he did not get what he deserved and the client simply refused to pay. The client had taken advantage of Mr. Hung’s trust and lack of experience to break the contract.

“I tried to sue.” Mr. Hung said. “But it was a government-owned company so there was nothing I could do.”

At that time of crisis, he decided to speak the truth to all of his employees, management board and the shareholders about company’s state. Fortunately, most of them elected to stay with the company and agreed to work with late-payment. After over 3 years, SonHung Company started recovering from its worst state and running smoothly again. Currently, his company is working on a big project as the main contractor – Phu My Factory in Vung Tau which worth approximately 40 billion. That incident was both an unforgettable and valuable lesson for Mr. Hung as he continues to lead his company.

Figure 2. Mr. Hung at his office. Photo by the author

Figure 3. Mr. Hung and the main shareholder – Mr. Tran Thai Son. Photo by the author

What is the lesson?

In business, you might get away with your lies once or twice but at some point, you won’t. When you are caught in a lie, your single greatest assets, which is your credibility, will be gone forever (Solomon 2008). This theory is proved true through Mr. Hung’s experience; it is not the incident that will damage the company but the wrong way of handle internally will. In time of crisis, when trust within the organization is at its most vulnerable state, the leader must always be honest and deal with the trouble head-on. On the bright side, when the storm passed, who were left are those have faith in the bond within the company and you – as the leader – have successfully gained their trust.

The ‘House theory’  

Figure 4. House rebuilding. Reproduced from wisfer.com

“I am a man of construction,” Mr. Hung stated. “So the only theory I know is the house theory.”

It is very simple and familiar to me, as a Client Management student, how his theory of rebuilding trust and what I have learnt in class collided.

When starting to build a house, you have nothing but scratch, it is the same with building trust. It begins with a firm ground and is built step-by step with one block then another over time. This is a long process and took both parties hard work since trust, according to Reina & Reina (1999), is reciprocal, which means in order to be trusted by others, you must first be willing to trust them. However, also like a house, trust is hard to build but very easy to break. What will you do if your house broke down?

1. Find out the cause of damage: Lewicki & Wiethoff (2000) stated that it is best to start with managing distrust first. Before finding a solution, you must know the behaviors, which created distrust in the first place.
2. Take responsibility: You cannot build a bad house than walk away when it crash. It is necessary in any rebuilding process to have each responsible person apologize for violation of trust and explain (Lewicki & Wiethoff 2000).
3. Willing to repair: At this state, both parties need to negotiate and agreed to the term of expectation.
4. Starting over: It is fundamental to start over in a new manner. You must not rebuild a house, which is worse than the last; you already know where is the weak point so harden it step-by-step.
5. Throughout supervising: When rebuilding a house, it is natural that both client and the contractor will pay closer attention to the process to avoid making mistake. It is the same with trust repairing; both parties need to help each other to establish ways to achieve mutual trust (Lewicki & Wiethoff 2000).

It was a great metaphor – the house of trust. At the end of the interview, I understood that building trust is hard but rebuilding it is even harder; as Mr. Hung insisted:

It’s almost impossible to rebuild damaged trust if you are not willing to

Trust is critical in every relationship whether it is internal or external and the key point to build trust is clear communication, willingness to trust and to deal with the trouble head-on. You might need to experience many up and down in your career path before these theories can be applied in the right ways but when they do, you are ready to build your own house.

Figure 5. Mr. Hung and the author. Photo by the author.

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Reference:

Galford, R. & Drapeau, A. 2013, ‘The enemies of trust’, Havard Business Review, pp. 88-95.     

Solomon, R. 2008, ‘Deal with trouble Head-on’, The art of client service, Kaplan Publishing, New York, US, pp.137-139.

Reina, D. & Reina, M. 1999, ‘The need for trust in the workplace’, Trust and betrayal in the workplace, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, pp.10-11.

Lewicki, R.J. & Wiethoff, C. 2000, ‘Trust, Trust Development and Trust Repair’, The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice, San Francisco, pp. 86-107.