Bussiness Transformation

Every developing company or enterprise wishes to follow a spectacular path of growth employing various marketing and management methods. Therefore, to successfully run the business its leaders should be open to operational changes and provide their employees with definite vision of their overall activity.
Typical situation may be observed when a company carries out numerous projects, monthly conferences, and well-organized workshops, but, nevertheless, they do not appear to be efficiently put into practice. The members of the team oftentimes lack mutual solidarity and unity in terms of common goal, psychological compatibility, and ending results. It seems impossible for them to attain commercial success, as each of them perceives the situation according to hisher own experience and therefore takes a narrow view of a particular problem. Consequently, not only the divergence of opinions, but also the divergence of results take place and prevent the company from achieving success. That’s why, the colleagues should always share their experience and express ideas with respect to a certain notion. It especially concerns those companies who are involved in international relationships or trade having most of the staff of foreign origin and thus with non-typical skills and credible knowledge. For instance, an African American young man would be the best candidate to be sent to Kenya to conclude a treaty as he gains the best understanding of cross-cultural diversity.
With these preliminary considerations in mind it might be well to note that this is a leader who is responsible for fruitful results of his/her subordinates. It is a must for the CEO to portray a full picture of the situation without polar exaggeration of such aspects of the working process as competitiveness, money supply shortage, or immediate success. The confidence in final victory of the project (meeting, conference, long-term objectives of the company/campaign) should remain unshakable for all the members of the team. Their outlook for the future has to be optimistic based on their positive emotional mood. When the staff is provided with all required data on the issue, which gives it the full vision of the company’s goals, it is more likely to be disposed to the implementation of new ideas and projects. (Kotter 1995). For example, after the MTV Network has established strong permanent audience in the USA, the leadership of the company has made a decision to branch out and extend relations with other countries.

Although this drastic change required incredible effort of the MTV Network team, the international expansion has yet been achieved but at first brought no results. It posed a financial threat on the entire company as capital inputs and transaction costs to great extent exceeded the revenues. It turned out that European viewers tended to appreciate local bands and showed little interest in American pop-music. After a number of conferences and debates, the staff of the MTV Network set up local stations in each European region intending to broadcast both local and international music programs. Eventually, the company has become international and significantly increased its revenue. Stated simply, the company managed to employ the majority of the methods indicated by John P.Kotter in his Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail, including the creation and communication of the vision, introduction of new approaches, etc.
In case when the company’s representatives are provided with all necessary data but lack general vision of business their actions may be compared to the actions of robots or machines concerned only with the implementation of short-term objectives and activities. Interestingly enough, the staff with undetermined vision is easily manipulated, which may be advantageous for the leader, but not beneficial to the team itself. Although usually employees are in constant search for better solutions, it has been proved, however, that successful companies are characterized by low percent of introduced modifications (Kotter 1995). Experience associated with my uncle has taught me an important lesson to be remembered. In 1970s setting up a local publishing company along with a couple of his peers, my uncle was still making two ends meet and could only afford himself to buy a small house in a non-prestigious region of the town.
Their small business specialized exceptionally in the periodical press and was not a successful enterprise. Having critically analyzed the situation my uncle made a proposal to expand production and establish other affiliated societies in other parts of the state. The suggestion was rejected and he was put faced to face with the problem of starting a new business by himself. Being open to changes, he moved to the community where students and aged people were the prevailing part of the local population and started publishing books and magazines. At the beginning he encountered numerous obstacles concerning new environment and vagueness of the situation causing emotional instability inside the team, which could have affected the business (Kotter 1995). However, setting long-term objectives and celebrating short ones the company has become one of the leading publishing houses in the city.
In conclusion it would be appropriate to state that regardless of the fact that every company experiences its rises and falls and is characterized by the presence of a to-do-list including major professional techniques such as planning and conducting, it is important to keep in mind an outstanding contribution of necessary business skills like overall vision of the business, devoted collaboration between the leadership and subordinates, confidence and emotional stability among the employees, and rationally grounded inclination towards the change.
REFERENCES

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved February 22, 2007, from www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/articles/hbronpoint.html