UNIV 1213: Leadership & Teamwork
Introduction
Organizations are governed by leaders who possess varied styles, traits, and skills. With increasing competition posed from global organizations, leaders need continuous training and development to be apprised of best practices, as well as innovative approaches for effective governance. Aside from pursuing higher education to gain advanced theoretical frameworks in management and leadership, organizations without internal competencies to train and develop their human resources could solicit the services of training and development firms to provide programs and cater to professional growth. In this regard, our group has conceptualized the provision of leadership training and development through our newly established organization, the Smart Solution Training Organization (SSTO). The SSTO has the core competency and expertise in developing leadership training and development programs for private and public organizations. As such, the current discourse hereby aims to present a business proposal to justify the viability of offering leadership training and development to cater to contemporary organizations’ needs. The proposal would be structured according to the Define, Analyze, Plan, Execute, and Evaluate (DAPEE) model . Using the conceptual framework, the analysis portion would use the SWOT analysis, and the rest of the components, as identified in the model: project details, analytical portion, planning the solution, plan execution, and plan evaluation .
The DAPEE Model
According to the DAPEE model, the steps which would be undertaken by the group in presenting the leadership training and development proposal to contemporary organizations are shown in Figure 1 on the next page. Under the Define step, the details of the project would be presented. The Analyze step would use the SWOT analysis as the tool for examining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the project. In addition, our group would develop the Plan and strategies through assignment of tasks, roles, and responsibilities. Concurrently, the Executive step provides crucial information on the implementation of the plan. Finally, under the Evaluation step, potential outcomes of the proposed project would be envisions against standards and goals which are initially earmarked to be achieved.
Figure 1: The DAPEE Model
Source: Griffith & Dunham, 2014, p. 174
The Project
The Smart Solution Training Organization (SSTO) is established with the goal of providing leadership training and development programs which would be tailored to the distinct and specific needs of various organizations. The mission is to provide solutions to training and development where organizations do not have internal resources and competencies for this human resources management function. Since SSTO is a newly established organization, the competitive advantage includes the professional expertise of our trainers who have gained professional competencies through rigorous leadership training in varied programs. As such, SSTO would enable sharing professional leadership skills through initially assessing the skills sets of leaders and managers. Subsequently, SSTO team would design leadership training and development programs depending on which skills, traits, or styles need to be improved according to the organizations’ needs.
Analyzing the Project through SWOT analysis
The launching of SSTO in the domestic market is timely given the increasing number of private and public organizations that proliferate in current times. In addition, more organizations venture into the international market due to the lucrative potentials of expanding globally. As such, the SSTO’s offer of providing leadership training and development would be beneficial, not only to the organization; but more so, to the organizations which would avail the training solutions. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis would be presented to highlight internal and external facets influencing SSTO’s operations .
Strengths: SSTO possesses highly competent and qualified trainers who were equally trained in diverse professional development programs focusing on leadership, motivation, cultural competencies, conflict resolution, customer service, problem-solving and decision-making. Likewise, the team is composed of diverse experts from varied cultural and demographic backgrounds. The program and services being offered caters to the clients’ needs. In addition, the performance evaluation and monitoring extends beyond the provision of initial services to determine future leadership needs for further professional growth of the clients’ requirements.
Weaknesses: Since SSTO was recently established, the number of personnel is limited. As such, team members are initially expected to multi-task while transitioning to peaks in volume of clients. The assessment of training needs per organization could be tedious and time consuming and could curtail immediate generation of expected revenues. The team’s experts also need to undergo continuous training and development to be kept abreast of current and future trends which could be costly and challenging.
Opportunities: The increasing numbers of private or public organizations in the domestic market that venture into the international markets necessitate solicitation of training and development programs. The expertise of the trainers makes SSTO highly competitive to provide human resources development to organizations within the internal resources for training. The SSTO team is more knowledgeable of the local market, as compared to other international training firms offering similar services. SSTO plans to forge alliances with educational institutions to ensure that new graduates would possess the needed skills in entry positions.
Threats: Increasing competition from other training and development firms is a perennial threat. Compliance with regulatory requirements, taxes, and labor standards could initially take a toll to the organization’s financial condition. The lack of historical performance due to SSTO’s being newly launched in the market poses derailment to gaining market share. Finally, there is a threat from other international management training and development firms which establish corporate offices in the domestic market.
Planning the Solution
The SSTO team therefore prepares the following work plan to offer the leadership training and development program to various organizations in the area through Table 1 below:
The work plan is diagrammed according to consecutiveness in tasks or endeavors to be undertaken, duration in number of days, as well as in time frame for the entire 2015. For tasks, the group plans to offer the leadership training and development program through planning for the following major activities: (1) compliance with business requirements, licenses, capitalization and start-up resources; (2) setting up the office; (3) making market research for potential clients; (4) setting up official website; (5) sending flyers, advertisements, and promotional campaigns; (6) actual launching.
The members of the team who are tasked to assist and undertake needed responsibilities are as follows: (1) team leader officiates meetings, delegates tasks and responsibilities equitably, follows up adherence to schedule and progress of performance of tasks; (2) members responsibilities include: (a) completion of business requirements through field work to actual government agencies; (b) soliciting areas for office location; (c) conducting market research for potential clients; (d) design of official website; (e) preparation of flyers, promotional and advertising campaigns (including placing ads in appropriate media – online, print); and (f) actual launching of services. These roles focus on tasks and goal accomplishments .
Executing the Plan
The group is scheduled to arrange weekly meetings during the compliance with business requirements stage, preferably every Friday of January 2015. The group leader would officiate the meeting and require team members to report on the accomplishments based on assigned tasks. The reporting structure is open; meaning, any member could communicate directly to the team leader and vice versa. The team leader ensures that all tasks are completed on time through regular follow up based on schedules that have been agreed upon during the weekly meetings.
During setting up the office and conducting market research, the schedule of meetings could be changed according to the needs of the group. If there are urgent matters to be addressed, the team leader calls for emergency meetings which could be communicated through their social networking sites, email, or smartphones, as needed.
Evaluating the Results
The potential obstacles that the group is perceived to face includes: communication problems, conformity to schedules, compliance with external regulations where no member has control of . Likewise, social loafing, which is defined as “the
tendency to reduce one's effort when working collectively compared with coactively on the same
Conclusion
The business proposal justified the viability of offering leadership training and development to cater to contemporary organizations’ needs. The proposal was structured according to the Define, Analyze, Plan, Execute, and Evaluate (DAPEE) model (Griffith & Dunham, 2014) with the use of the SWOT analysis, as well as presenting project details, planning the solution, presenting the execution and evaluation process. From the plan, it could be deduced that the thrust of offering leadership training and development services to private and public organizations would be a productive and rewarding endeavor.
References
Griffith, B., & Dunham, E. (2014). Working in Teams: Moving From High Potential to High Performance. SAGE Publications.
Karau, S. J., & Williams, K. D. (1993). Social loafing: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 65, 681-706.
Martires, C., & Fule, G. (2004). Management of Human Behavior in Organization. Quezon City: National Book Store.
Worchel, S., Rothgerber, H., & Day, E. (2011, October 5). Social Loafing and Group Development: When "I" Comes Last. Retrieved December 15, 2014, from uiowa.edu: http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp17_5.pdf
