Blake Sports Apparel

Blake Sports Apparel Introduction Baker Sports and Apparel was an apparel manufacturer headquartered in Birmingham, England. The company started as a small company manufacturing sports apparel and accessories using the league logos and later sold to retailers. The company management decided to expand its operations by partnering with a mid-size brand called Cartlock. As the company continued to grow, problems settled in, and it went from a lucrative to a troubled company. Some of the issues faced by the company included leadership problems, inadequate communication, mistrust, lack of transparency, and lack of involvement of employees in decision-making. At the beginning of the case study, Cameron Baker, the founder and the CEO of the company, is engaged in a phone conversation with a member of his executive team. The discussion concerns two management team members who have failed to resolve their dispute, hence requiring the intervention of the CEO. The picture depicted in this scenario is of a highly disorganized team and a failed management with no appropriate structures for conflict management. However, this issue appears to be the tip of an iceberg as other chronic problems occur regularly due to lack of leadership, miscommunication, and lack of involvement and interaction. Studies indicate that most executives who consider themselves a team are a group of senior leaders who regularly meet in the offices to battle each other for limited resources. They leave their offices and evaluate whether they won or lost. The office battle is hinged upon the number of resources one can secure to outcompete their rival. In the company, the executives work as a group rather than as a team. The top management is undeniably talented. Their efforts and skills led to the growth of the company. As the company expanded, the chief executives found themselves running more extensive departments than before. However, efforts and abilities were not enough to sustain the company's growth and future development. Communication and collaboration was a critical link that the management team needed to keep them on the game. Lack of collaboration became a significant challenge for the company. For example, individual departments built separate reporting mechanisms rather than unified reporting systems leading to variation in evaluation metrics. Even when a department presented some favorable metrics, lack of cooperation crippled the harmonization and actualization or projection into a bigger picture. Many things indicated that the executives were a group rather than a team. For example, when the company received multiple inquiries from potential clients, the management failed to process the new customers promptly. The management team could not make crucial business decisions, such as the amount of credit to its customers (Boris and Baden, 2016, 2). These delays resulted in missed deadlines, failure to deliver products, prolonged decision-making, and the setting up of new systems. Lack of teamwork was extended even to the finance department leading to delays in determining prices for products and delayed release of products. Andrew Cook, the company's CFO confirmed that lack of cooperation resulted in misalignment of goals as some executives focused on revenues, targets, others concentrate on revenue margins, and others on production targets. Blake's Sports and Apparel had a flawed organizational structure. The executive team was not properly structured to provide effective leadership in the company. A successful company should identify the three primary structural considerations of an organizational structure; company age, structural design, and company size. The structural design that should be considered is functional and divisional structures. Functional systems are critical organizational pillars that ensure that departments are created according to the business activities it undertakes, including production, finance, and marketing. These departments should categorize employees according to product, customer, or geography, enabling the company to run the critical departments simultaneously. The company's executive failed on the structural design as power imbalance in its department prevented performance as a cohesive group. The finance department controlled most of the company's decisions and created mistrust between it and other departments. As the company experienced increased growth, the executives failed to develop comprehensive policies that align employees with business goals. The management focused on the tactical approaches to running day-to-day activities rather than having strategic plans to sustain its growth. Blake Sports and Apparel management failed to develop the future leadership of the company. It lacked a robust succession planning that enables identification and upgrading the talent pool of people. At this age, the company still lacked a company website and functional online sale systems. The primary cause of all the problems that affect Blake Sports and Apparel is attributed to the failures of the company executives to collaborate and communicate effectively. Even though the executive team was talented, competent, dedicated, and passionate, all their efforts were dampened by the failures of communication and collaboration (Boris and Baden, 2016, 2). Poor collaboration caused misalignment of goals and the setting of wrong priorities. All the efforts were affected because the executives could not get themselves on the same page. Mistrust leads to the withholding of crucial information that could help in the management of the company. The duties and responsibilities of the company employees, including the executives, were not clearly defined. The fiancé section controlled the company's activities, and the executive team member blamed one another for performances. Conflict resolution was one of the significant problems in the company. There were no established approaches for conflict resolution among the company employees. During conflict resolutions, some executive members involved the subordinate staff as witnesses. Most of the conflicts had to be resolved by the organization's CEO because other members of the executive lacked the capacity and skills for conflict resolution. Part one and part two point out that the company's major problem is lack of cooperation and communication. Part one reveals that the executive member worked as a group rather than as a team. When working as a group, independent individuals are drawn together by a common objective. However, the individuals will only come together when beneficial or when seeking individual goals (Zoltan, 2015, 6). The company executive worked as a group with different personal objectives, which were often antagonistic. Working as a team requires individuals to join hands for the realization of a specific goal. In part two, failed organizational structure causes multiple complex issues ranging from power imbalances, lack of succession planning, and misplaced priorities. A failed organizational structure is confusing and disruptive, especially when no recognized authority maintains discipline and leadership programs. The finance office should not be allowed to manage the company affairs in place of the CEO. The CEO should start working on building a solid and united team of executives. A united team places a company better positioned to address its challenges (Demirci, 2018 3). Baker is confident that his team is capable of taking the company to the next level. However, the team needs practical conflict resolution approaches and effective CEO. Baker needs to work on his social skills to enable him to interact with the executive team and subordinate staff to bring them together to realize company goals. The company should develop comprehensive communication strategies to eliminate mistrust and facilitate information circulation in the company. The company should reassess its business models to stop the things that hurt performances and introduce new and effective systems such as eCommerce and other innovations that can grow the company. This exercise has significantly helped me in achieving the learning objectives of this assessment. I have learned that communication and collaboration are some of the most critical factors that determine the success of an organization. The management of every organization should consider working as a team rather than as a group to achieve organizational goals. A good organizational structure is necessary to ensure a balance of powers, upgrading talent, conflict resolutions, and smooth running of an organization.