Managing and Leading people Case Study

Introduction

Managing and leading people is known as taking up the responsibility of performing the activities of the management with the help of team coordination so as to achieve the overall objective of the firm(French & Rees, 2016). Managing and leading people includes skillsets and traits which helps the organisation in inspiring the people to work with higher authority and increase the performance and productivity of the firm. This report will briefly explain about the individual change that has taken place in Biogen Idec and determine its effect on the overall process of the management. The role of team work has also been explained in this study where the effectiveness of the team work within the management has been explained followed by proper justification. Organisational change process for Biogen Idec has been explained through the help of Kotter’s 8 step which has helped the management in understanding the overall functions of the management. Finally, this report will discuss about eight most influencing emotional competencies of Goleman.

Individual Change

1. What elements of the different motivation theories might be relevant in this change process?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is commonly termed as motivational theory in psychological aspect which comprises of five-tier model that is associated with human needs. Lower needs of the humans needs to be fulfilled before moving up to the higher needs(Fallatah & Syed, 2018). The five needs of Maslow’s hierarchical needs comprises of safety, physiological, love, esteem and self-actualization.

Physiological needs-Biogen Idec is a globally acknowledge biotechnology company that is famous for manufacturing major drugs like immunology, oncology and neurology. The firm is committed towards providing high quality drugs that can cure the diseases of the patient and build good relationship with them. Furthermore, the firm is also focused towards providing good quality services to the caregivers, patients, colleagues and shareholders.Moreover, considering the physiological needs in mind the firm has thought to provide good salary packages to the employees(Stoyanov, 2017).Biogen Idec is consistent with their core values and hence for the same the firm has taken up the option of building new research and medical facilities in all over the world. The new medical facilities will provide better treatment process along with advanced medicine drugs that will help in cure the disease of the patients and caregivers.

Safety needs-Safety needs in Maslow hierarchy is considered as providing protection and security to the people in order to provide them basic needs so that they can lead a happy life(Lee & Hanna, 2015).Biogen Idec has taken up the strategic decision of opening up new facilities in Zug, Switzerland in order to perform their strategic benchmarking review. With the help of the benchmarking review process the firm has thought to maintain the new standards while producing their medicines such as immunology and oncology. The new facility center in Zug, Switzerland comply with maintaining standards in the drugs so that each and every medicine are of high standard and can promote well-being among the people.Furthermore, the company in the year 2005, has invested around $ 684 million in their R&D facilities so that better medical drugs can be invented and health safety of the people can be retained.

Love and belongingness needs-Biogen Idec has provided love and belongingness to the people by collaborating with different business ventures in terms of providing them better medical treatment facilities. The firm is focused towards providing quality healthcare services to the people which in result builds trust and relationship with the customers which earns the firm future growth opportunities(Hill & Alexander, 2017).The biotechnological firm also provides flexibility to the employees to perform their job roles according to their specific skill sets which helps the firm in achieving their desired results within limited time period.Moreover, Biogen Idec also motivates their employees to foster growth, innovative ideas and suggestions that can enable the firm in growing their overall performance and productivity of the firm.

Esteem needs-The biotechnological business firm Biogen Idec also keeps special notice towards providing flexibility to the employees in terms of their decision making process. The organisation provides regular training and workshops to the employees so that they can develop their skillsets to take strategic decision. Developing the skill traits helps the employees to build their professional career which helps them in achieving their esteem needs(Cohen, 2017). Additionally, the business culture of Biogen Idec follows centralized controlling style which furthers develops the esteem needs of the employees to take decision of bureaucratic level.Moreover, the employees working in the management of Biogen Idec are also being provided with the opportunity of taking higher responsibility where they takes strategic decision along with managing the resources of the organisation which increases the esteem needs of the employees.

Self-actualisation needs- The process of self-actualisation and fulfilling the personal growth is known as self-actualisation needs. Biogen Idec has motivated its employees in Paris to visit Zug in Switzerland in order to understand the work procedure along with acquiring knowledge about new ideas and information.The management of the biotechnology divided the job roles and responsibilities based on the skill sets of the employees so that they can perform the task according to their skill sets and achieve the desired results and outcome for the management.The team co-operative work process successfully planned down activities and helped the firm in serving their customers better, which in turn earned the employees self-actualisation needs.

Team Change

1. Would you have advocated more or less team-work throughout this period of change? Justify your assertions.

Biogen Idec is world famous biotechnological company which is famous for producing neurology, immunology and oncology. The two famous drugs that the firm uses for treatment is Non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas and multiple sclerosis. Since the company has formed in the year 2003, the firm has underwent through major changes which includes developing partnership in order to develop new medical drugs for better treatment process along with opening up new operational facilities in all over the world. If I would give the opportunity of advocating the operations of the firm through their change period I would have appointed more team for the same purpose. The firm had it’s headquarter in Paris, But the firm thought to establish new facilities across Europe as part of their benchmarking review process. My decision of appointing more number of team-work through the period of change would have provided benefit to the firm in perform complex task of maintaining logistics along with performing daily activities of the management. Due to inclusion of more number of team-work will help the management in launching new products in emerging market along with increasing the brand reputation of the firm among the customers(O’Neill & McLarnon, 2018). Furthermore, I also identified that the decision making process in the bureaucratic process was slow, hence appointing more number of employees towards the decision making process would have helped in taking up decision that can provide better growth opportunities to the firm.

Biogen Idec has appointed a team for performing project team work, where the main objective was to maintain benchmarking in order to develop effective relationship along with performing the overall task of the management successfully. Appointing more number of team-work will also help the organisation in gathering large number of both internal and external information in order to maintain best practices within the firm. Furthermore, evaluating the case it has also been identified that the management has also though to expand their distribution and functions across different geographical location of Europe where predominantly the firm has though to create three centers of excellence. The first change that was inducted by Biogen Idec was to relocate the administrative and commercial functions to Switzerland, relocating the regulatory affairs and drug safety to UK and the logistic to Holland where operational activities such as packaging are being performed. Furthermore, assigned large number of team-work will also prove to be fruitful for the management as because they can perform their assigned job within limited time period that increases the chance of success(Katzenbach & Smith, 2015). Hence, considering this overall change management process, I would have appointed large team-work, where my first priority would have been to divide the task according to the assigned roles and responsibilities of employees so that best outcome can be expected.

Moreover, my decision of appointing large number of team-work is also justified as because, the firm decision of extending their reach into different geographical location is very complex task. Allocating large number of team will help in gathering data in regards of the current business environment of the location. Additionally, with the involvement of large number of team-workers it will also became easier for the management to take decision along with increasing the organisational flexibility resulting the firm in increasing their overall performance and productivity. As per my decision, if large number of teamwork are being appointed for the purpose of performing the task of change management then it increase the chance of achieving the objectives of the firm within limited time scale. Considering the ongoing change process within Biogen Idec where the firm is considering their decision of expanding their roots in West European countries such as Latin America along with Central and Eastern European countries. Therefore, keeping in mind the growing number of business expansion the HR department of biotechnological firm has thought to recruit more number of employees(Reilly & Williams, 2016). The HR department has also though to provide training and workshops to the employees so that they can shape their skills towards performing task with high authority and enjoy success.

Organisational change

1. Map out the change process at Biogen Idec using John Kotter’s 8 steps. Activities performed at each stage?

Kotter’s 8 step model is known as the process which are used to improve the organisation’s ability to identify the change and develop strategies in order to increase the chance of earing higher success rate(Calegari, et al., 2015). Following the Kotter eight steps business firm can avoid the risk of failure along with implementing changes so as to achieve the overall objectives of the firm. The first three steps of Kotter change model explains about creating right set of climate fir change, the stages of 4 to 6 details about change that takes place within the organisation and finally stages seven and eight aims towards consolidating and implementing the change within the firm.

1. Create a sense of urgency-Biogen Idec being a biotechnological firm has though to transform their business operations by investing and developing their research facilities in terms of providing better healthcare facilities and caregiving support to the people. The sense of urgency in terms of opening up more new facilities in diversified locations helps the firm in manufacturing lifesaving drugs that might cure the patients within no time. Establishing new facilities in all over the world also created opportunities for the management to launch new products in emerging markets that open up new business routes for the management(Hayes, 2018).
2. Create a guiding coalition-Biogen Idec has established coalition with strategic fit where the firm has taken up the decision of manufacturing drugs with them and for the same purpose the firm has also invested 31% of its revenue on the operational activities. The strategic alliance with different business venture is with the purpose of maintaining strategic benchmarking while manufacturing the drugs(Doppelt, 2017). Moreover, the decision of the firm to operate through Paris headquarter also turned out to be fruitful where the firm performed all the financial, HR, Legal and Commercial activities through one location. Henceforth, creating strategic coalition for Biogen Idec turned to be successful for the management.
3. Create a vision for change-Biogen Idec is dedicated towards manufacturing lifesaving drugs and medicines for the patients and caregivers. The firm has created vision for the same which includes “we passion, purpose and partnership, we transform scientific discoveries into advances in human healthcare”.Considering their vision Biogen management focuses towards providing quality care services and facilities to the patients and caregivers so that their health status can be improved.Moreover, the vision of the firm also comprised of constructive growth where the firm is in regular pursuit of innovating new drugs that can save the life of people.
4. Communicate the vision-Biogen Idec has taken up the decision of opening up new facilities and headquarters in different parts of the world so that the vision of serving people can be fulfilled. In order to taking up strategic decision the management has opened up headquarter in Zug, Switzerland, whereas Paris became the headquarter of legal, finance and HR activities and finally most of the packaging facilities has been moved up to Holland. The vision of transforming human healthcare has been communicated to the employees, hence all the activities has been constructed in same way in order to achieve the vision of the firm.
5. Remove obstacles-The obstacles that Biogen Idec faces while taken up the decision of extending their roots in different parts of the world are conflict among the employees related to their job roles and responsibilities.Therefore, in order to resolve the growing tension the firm has taken up the option of opening up strategic business units in different locations where the roles and performance of the employees will be viewed so as to mitigate the risk(Pugh, 2016). Moreover, the employees are also being provided with best practices training and operational training so that employees can perform better towards the organisation and earn future growth opportunities.
6. Create short-term wins-Biogen Idec has planned down short-term wins which comprises of establishing a direct report line structure, where all the employees were directed to report under one centralized structure. The employees were also directed to collect data of both internal and external sources which made it easier for the management to understand the business environment and take strategic direction.
7. Consolidate improvements-The adaptation of centralized corporate structure helped Biogen Idec to maintain benchmarking of activities in their products and services in order to provide standard quality of care giving services to the people.In order to improve their overall functions the firm also evaluated 30 quality life criteria which included environmental factor, economic factor, political factor and other services. Comprising of all this factor the firm maintained consolidate improvements.
8. Anchor the changes- The final stage of the process is to anchor the overall changes which includes establishing the operational and logistic firms in both Zug and Holland. Similarly, it also becomes necessary to provide training to the employees so that they can understand the overall change management process and comply according to it.Therefore, managing the changes resourcefully helps the firm in earning higher success rate.

Leading change

1. Revisit the emotional competencies listed by Goleman. Which eight do you think would have been most important for the project leader at Biogen Idec to have had as strengths?

Emotional intelligence is the process of recognizing one own feelings with that of the others along with managing the emotions effectively to build relationship(Khalili, 2017). Emotional intelligence helps in building better relationship among each other which increases team trust and mutual respect, turning out to be influential for the management. The eight emotional intelligence that leaders of Biogen Idec needs to maintain while performing the role of project leader are as follows.

1. Emotional self-control- The first and foremost task that project leader in Biogen Idec needs to follow is maintaining their own emotions where they need to keep themselves calm and compose while interacting with employees. The project leader also needs to make the employees follow his instructions by setting up guidelines for activities(Farnia & Nafukho, 2016). Emotional self-control among the project leader of Biogen Idec also helps them in taking good strategic decision that brings out better results for the management.
2. Positive outlook-The project leader of Biogen needs to have positive outlook where they need to identify the strength of each and every employee along with providing them training that shapes their skills. Positive outlook of leader is their strength where they identify the strategic change of opening up new facilities in different corner of the world(Tyczkowski, et al., 2015). Therefore, the positive outlook of leaders becomes essential for achieving success.
3. Adaptability- Leaders strength lies in adaptability and making themselves accustomed towards situations. While Biogen Idec took up the decision of opening up different facilities in different location such as logistics in Holland and finance and HR department in Paris the leader readily adopted according to the situation. It is because of the adaptability of the leader the firm successfully performed its overall business activities.
4. Empathy- The leaders of Biogen Idec has significant amount of empathy for patients and caregivers and hence for the same the leaders are dedicated towards providing them better facilities(Zysberg, et al., 2017). Furthermore, respecting the feelings of the others the leaders also builds trust and respect by benchmarking it products.
5. Organisational awareness– The leaders of Biogen Idec are well aware of the organisational activities such as the strategic alliance in order to produce new drugs that can be used to provide better treatment facilities to the patient. Furthermore, the leaders of Biogen Idec are also aware of the strategic alliance between EMEA (European Medicines Agency) to access permit for manufacturing drugs.
6. Influence- The project leaders within Biogen Idec also play a vital part of motivating and influencing people to work with higher accountability to achieve success. Leader’s motivation helps the employees in shaping their skills and build their competencies(Guinalíu & Jordán, 2016).
7. Coach and mentor- Leaders of Biogen also need to perform the role of coach and mentor where they need to provide monthly and weekly training to access their performance and shape their skills. Furthermore, leaders coaching skills also makes the employees computable to identify change and work accordingly to achieve success.
8. Conflict management– The leaders also are responsible towards resolving the conflict among employees so that better team work and co-ordination can be maintained for better work activities.

Conclusion

The overall case study was based upon evaluating the change within the management of Biogen Idec where it has been identified that the management has though to open up new facilities in different corner of the continent to take control of their activities. The firm has also strategically partnered with different stakeholders in order to manufacturing drugs that can be used to provide better medical facilities to the people. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been evaluated in this case along with identifying the changes that the management has went though. Finally, the case has also explained about Kotter’s 8 steps activities which briefly determines about the process that Biogen Idec follows while identifying change within the management.

References

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