NEW YANG SING HOTEL: LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLES

MANAGEMENT SKILLS

BY

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 Executive Summary
This project plan aims to provide a viable roadmap for people management and leadership for the
new yang sing hotel. The yang sing hotel is an oriental styled luxury hotel which is situated in the
prominent positions on the corner of princess and Portland streets, close to the china town area
within Manchester. It offers 48 individually designed bedrooms and was inspired by the culture of
China, Thailand, Japan and India where guests can custom make their services using online
booking system, selected from an extensive personalized menus ranging from pillows, which scent
will fill your room, Japanese silk duvets to complimentary bathrooms (Sapountzis and Kane,
2021). The initial yang sing concept failed due to the deepening economic crises at the time
according to its managing director Gerry Yeung.
Our mission is to relaunch the yang sing hotel and return it to its place as the best hotel in
Manchester and the United Kingdom while avoiding the stings of the deepening economic crises.
We aim to achieve this through excellent leadership and management tailored specifically for this
project. This mission will be achieved by identifying situations where conflicts could arise and
proffer possible means to resolve them, analyzing the need for project sponsorship, evaluating and
choosing the most suitable management style for the project and managing identified areas where
the project can experience communication difficulty.

Possible sources of conflict that could affect the project include poor project management, conflict
of interest, conflict as a result of stakeholders interests, inadequate resources and conflict as a result
of cultural differences. The strategy suggested for handling conflict in this project is the Thomas
Kilmann’s model where conflict is handled by compromise, competition, avoidance,
accommodation or collaboration based on the level of assertiveness and cooperativeness.

The hotel relaunch project needs a sponsor to provide mentorship, act as a voice for the project,
evaluate and supervise the project and also work with the project manager to manage risk for the
project.

Management style for the project will be cooperative where a people before task approach will be
used to manage the human resources for the project.

With all these planned out and executed accordingly, the new yang sing hotel relaunch will have
reduced chance of failure resulting from poor management and leadership.

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 Content Page
Cover Page ……………………………………………………………………………………….1
Executive Summary ………………………………………………………………………………2
Table of Content ………………………………………………………………………………….3
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….5
1.1 Project mission………………………………………………………………………………...6
1.2 Aims and Objective……………………………………………………………………………6
2. Sources of conflicts and means of resolution ………………………………………………….6
2.1 Poor management, control and coordination………………………………………………….6
2.1.1 Conflict of interests………………………………………………………………………....6
2.1.2 Inadequate Resources……………………………………………………………………….7
2.1.3 Conflict due to stakeholders’ interest……………………………………………………....7
2.1.4 Cultural and behavioural differences……………………………………………………….7
2.2 Strategies for resolving the conflicts………………………………………………………….7
3. Planning, scheduling, resource utilization and cost estimation………………………………...8
3.1 Mentorship…………………………………………………………………………….............9
3.2 Provide a voice for the project…….………………………………………………………….9
3.3 Project Evaluator………………………………………………………………………………9
3.4 Risk Manager …………………………………………………………………………………9
4. Suitable Management Style…………………………………………………………………...10
4.1 Workflow management style ……………………………………………………………….10
4.2 Human resource management style …………………………………………………………10
5. Communication Management………………….…………………………………………..….11
5.1 Conflict resolution…………………………………………………………………………...11
5.2 Poor communication with team due to culture …..………………………………………….11
5.3 Dealing with difficult stakeholders ………………………………………………………….12
6. Discussion, conclusion and recommendation…………………………………………………12
6.1 Discussion……………………………………………………………………………………12
6.2 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...13
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6.3 Recommendation…………………………………………………………………………….13
References………………………………………………………………………………………..14

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1. Introduction
The yang sing hotel is an oriental styled luxury hotel which is situated in the prominent positions
on the corner of princess and Portland streets, close to the china town area within Manchester. It
offers 48 individually designed bedrooms and suites inspired by the culture of the Chinese,
Thailand, Japan and India where guests can custom make their services using online booking
system, select from an extensive personalized menus ranging from pillows, which scent will fill
your room, Japanese silk duvets to complimentary bathrooms (Sapountzis and Kane, 2021).
According to TripAdvisor (Sapountzis and Kane, 2021), the yang sing oriental hotel rated the
number 1 among 147 hotels in the Manchester in its popularity index, despite this rating, the
prestigious yang sing hotel could not overcome the sting of the economic crises at the time and
was finally liquidated. however, this did not stop the liquidation of the prestigious oriental hotel.
Relaunching the yang sing hotel under a new name and making it successful is a monumental task,
however it can still be achieved through applying project planning techniques. According to the
managing director of the hotel, Gerry Yeung, the failure of the yang sing hotel was as a result of
the deepening economic crises (“Yang Sing hotel closes”, 2009). The effect was a 60 percent
operational capacity and customers waiting for discounts to enjoy the luxury of the hotel. From
these reasons, it is evident that poor project planning has contributed to this failure. The executors
of the project did not take into consideration the economic depression at that time and also they
did not read closely into the economic trends on the hospitality industry, nevertheless the failure
could have been prevented if a good project manager had been hired to redirect the course of the
project. Simple policies such as increasing weekends rates, charging according to grade of
customers and also strategically wait for customers to pay more could have sustained the business
on the long run. Understandably, this business model had also been financed by loans from third
parties – private investors and NatWest national banking which means there was little time left for
the managing director to avert the looming failure after launch.

This report is a project plan of people management and leadership that is needed for a successful
relaunch of the yang sing oriental hotel. Areas of concentration include conflict resolution, need
for sponsorship, most suitable management style for the project and areas where communication
could prove difficult.

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1.1 Project Mission
The mission of this project plan is to provide a viable roadmap for people management and
leadership for the new yang sing hotel.

1.2 Objectives
1. To identify the areas where conflicts are likely to arise and the most suitable management
techniques to apply to resolve these conflicts.
2. To evaluate reasons why a sponsor is necessary to the relaunch of the yang sing hotel.
3. To identify areas where there could be communication breaks and use the information to
devise a functional communication plan for the yang sing hotel relaunch.

2. Sources of conflicts and means of resolution

2.1 Poor management, control and coordination
In accordance with Hobson (2019) who noted that employees are important assets, members of
our project team (employees) are our number one asset in the relaunch of the hotel. However, poor
team management can adversely affect the team and lead to conflict among members of the team.
If a team is poorly managed, it may find it difficult to coordinate it activities so achieve its
objectives. Individuals can feel alienated if they do not get important information and instructions
on time and in the right format (Perera, 2020) due to ineffective and inefficient communication. If
not taken care of quickly, frustration, lack of trust and negative feelings may set in the team
destroying team spirit and further disagreement, division and disappointment in the team, thus the
overall yang sing project may be adversely affected if this happens.

2.1.1 Conflict of Interests

Conflict of interests may occur when personal interests of individuals are put above the interests
of the project or when an individual try to influence decisions in his or her favour regardless of the
outcome of the project (Egeland, 2010). It may also occur when team members have mutually
incompatible desires or needs, for instance when team members with similar skills may both want
a certain assignment, the one who does not receive become resentful. Conflict of Interests if left
unchecked can jeopardize team spirit and lead to unhealthy conflict.

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2.1.2 Inadequate Resources
One of the objectives of the yang sing relaunch is to maximize the use to limited human and capital
resources and as noted in the part one of this plan, our aims to accomplish the project within a
defined budget. This means management has to be shrewd in decision making.

At some point, we may find ourselves in situation where resources are inadequate, and hence
competition over these scarce resources may lead to conflict. For instance, in a case where 2 team
members depends on another member to complete a task, disagreement may arise over who gets
the attention of the third member.

2.1.3 Conflict due to stakeholders’ interest

One of the key tasks of a project manager is to be able to manage stakeholder expectations
(Sapountzis, 2020). Stakeholders’ interest may be positively or negatively impacted depending on
the outcome of the project execution therefore stakeholders may tend to influence the project. This
can have an effect that is very similar to that of conflict of interests. As we all know different
stakeholders have different expectations. Also, failing to meet the expectations of some of our
stakeholders can lead to conflict. For example, failure to meet up early key performance indicators
and Critical Success Factors can be source of conflict between project team and key sponsors of
the project.

2.1.4 Cultural and behavioural differences

Conflict can arise when team members clash over little things such as communication practices,
attention to detail, tone of expression and work habits. Coordination of tasks which depends on
each can be affected and also collaboration. Conflict can also ensue when team members show
attitude or behaviours that goes against agreed norms and values of the team.

2.2 Strategies for resolving the conflicts

To avoid and work through conflict in the yang sing project relaunch, working closely with team
members is the best way we can do it. Conflicts management techniques will be applied to manage
conflict as soon as one arises using the Thomas Kilmann’s model (Kane, 2020). The diagram for
this model is shown in figure 1 below.

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Figure 1: The Thomas Kilmann’s model for conflict resolution (Sapountzis, 2020).

This model requires resolution to conflict to analyzed from two perspectives – assertiveness and
cooperativeness. To resolve conflict in this project, conflict that arises will be placed in any of the
five quadrants of the Thomas Kilmann’s model and resolved according. Competition will be
applied to a conflict that is highly assertive and not highly cooperative. For ones which are highly
assertive and cooperative collaboration will be applied, conflict with low assertiveness and
cooperativeness will be avoided and the ones which are not highly assertive but highly cooperative
will be resolved by accommodation. For conflict which fall in the middle of this two perspective
will be resolved by compromise.

Team member would be trained or provided with professional development on conflict

management skills, so that each team members can build skills which will allow them identify
conflict, quell them as they come and avoid potential future conflicts.

In the case of conflict of interests, individuals on the project would be allowed to be part of decision
making process so that decisions can be made jointly on how tasks are to be executed. Proper
documentation of processes will also go a long way to avoid future conflicts.

3. The Need for Sponsorship

The project sponsor is an executive who is accountable for the project and whose primary
responsibility is to ensure that the agreed business benefits of the project is delivered. The project
sponsor plays a very important leadership role in the project (Schibi and Lee, 2015). He also acts

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as the representative of the organization and plays a vital leadership role (Schibi and Lee, 2015).
The benefit of a project sponsor to the yang sing team is discussed below:

3.1 Mentorship
The project sponsor will provide support, expertise motivation and guidance to the team and the
project manager of the yang sing hotel project team. The team can tap from the wide range of
experience offered by the project sponsor.

3.2 Provide a voice for the project

The project sponsor will provide a much needed voice for the project. He will help to sell and
market the project to ensure funding, capacity, priority is given to the project by investors while
the project team focuses on the technical work. His voice will serve as a support for the project
manager and the team. The project sponsor will also be tasked with handling matters that are
beyond the authority of the project manager. He will act as a link between team members and
stakeholders as well as an interface between the project team and external influences such as the
business community and strategic decision making groups.

3.3 Project Evaluator

The project sponsor will provide external supervision for the status and progress of the new yang
sing hotel. He will ensure that reviews and control mechanisms are in place to ensure successful
completion of the project. He will be responsible for approving deliverables or ensuring that the
project delivers the intended value while assisting with decision making and taking responsibility
for the overall quality, benefits and value of the project from the beginning to the end.

3.4 Risk manager

The project sponsor alongside the project manager will also have a role to play to ensure proper
and sufficient risk management.

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4. Suitable Management Style
The management style adopted in the project will be on two front:

1. Workflow Management style.

2. Human resource management style.

4.1 Workflow management style

Management style adopted to manage workflow is the critical path method (Kane, 2021). The
Gantt chart of part one of this work visualizes the critical path of that was used to determine the
duration of this work. With this method critical tasks were identified and scheduled sequentially.
The duration of each task was determined and was used to determine the total time the project will
take. Task are carried out in a sequential process starting from the least dependent task to the most
dependent task.

4.2 Human resource management style

To ensure motivation in the workplace, a people first approach will be taken by to manage the
individuals involved in the project. This means adopting the cooperation style (Maylor, 2019) of
management. This style will involve educating members of the team the reasons why participating
in this venture is in their interest and will require active participation rather than grudging
acceptance (Maylor, 2010).
Therefore, management style here will tend to be democratic and people first while also exercising
reward power (Kane, 2020) to influence the outcome of individuals involved in the project. This
choice of management style is aimed at enhancing relationship between the project manager and
individuals in the work place.
To achieve this, task completion will be second to individual happiness and motivation, conflict
avoidance will be prioritized, team effort recognized and encouragement of individuals to be part
of decision making.
The benefits of this style of management to the yang sing relaunch include trust and relationship
building, cooperation among employees, better conflict management, flexibility and multiplier
effect on the moral, self-esteem and worth of employees.

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5. Communication Management
It is expected that in the course of the yang sing project that communication issue will be
encountered in some areas. Areas where communication issues can be encountered are discussed.
These areas include conflict resolution, communication between employees and managing
communication between stakeholders.

5.1 Conflict Resolution

Conflict can be constructive and healthy for an organization when viewed from the modern
perspective as well as destructive and unhealthy for an organization when viewed from the
traditional perspective of management (Sapountzis, 2021). If an unhealthy conflict goes
unresolved it can lead to difficulty in communication which can be detrimental to the ambience of
the project team. Most times, Destructive conflict occurs when an issue remains unresolved or
energy is not put into important issues or activities, team members’ moral is destroyed and groups
of people or teams are polarized which may lead down to breakdown in communication in the
team.

Without a proper understanding of the dynamics of conflicts in the team, project manager for the
yang sing project may find it difficult to proffers a suitable solution for it which can further lead
to deterioration in communication with the team and management.

To avoid this threat to communication, appropriate conflict resolution techniques such as the
Thomas kilsmann model (Sapountzis, 2021) will be applied to manage conflicts.

5.2 Poor Communication within team due to culture or behavior

Culture also gives rise to prejudices, ethnocentrism, manners and opinions. It influences the way
people think and behave (Tomar, 2017) which can cause behavior and personality differences like
thinking, communication, manners, body language, norms and so on. Therefore, the presence of
individuals with different cultural backgrounds could affect communication in the team. It can also
affect the way a message is interpreted based on tone and manner of language. The way you
communicate is affected by the culture you were brought up in.

The solution to this will be to create a standard communication code in the workplace which will
be followed by every regardless of cultural background to avoid the effect of cultural differences
in communication.

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5.3 Dealing with difficult stakeholders
Managing stakeholders can be a challenge, especially if they take actions that undermine the
common cause of the project. When stakeholders begin to crave for personal gratification it may
become difficult to identify the real interest of the stakeholder and establish good communication
plan with them.

Communication between team and stakeholders may be difficult in situations where stakeholders
may be rude and uncooperative for no actual reason. A warning sign that we may be dealing with
a very difficult stakeholder is when they make negative comments while delivering their remark.
In such scenarios, it may be very difficult to figure out how to respond to one who is unhappy with
the project status report.

6. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendation

6.1 Discussion
This report has planned the people management and leadership section of the new yang sing
relaunch. In this report, we have discussed areas where the project can encounter conflict and the
best means of resolving conflict in the work place. We have also elaborated on the need for
sponsorship for the project, the most suitable management style to be adopted and the areas where
we could encounter communication problems while on the project. Each of these areas discussed
have been linked to at least to one project management theory, tool or application.

The possible source of conflict identified for the new yang sing project include poor management,
control and coordination, conflict of interest, inadequate resources, conflict as a result of
stakeholders’ interest and cultural differences.

We also observed that other challenges could arise from the source of conflict discussed here which
include poor coordination of a team activities, alienation as a result of poor communication,
frustration, demoralization and disagreement.

The Thomas Kilmann’s model is the model proposed for handling of conflict in this project. This
model of conflict resolution handles conflict based on level of assertiveness and cooperativeness
of the conflict. When a conflict which is highly assertive with low cooperativeness occurs, it will
be resolved through competition. Other method mentioned in this model include collaboration for

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high assertiveness and high cooperativeness, accommodation for high assertiveness and high
cooperativeness and compromise for conflict which is fairly assertive and fairly cooperative.

Four reasons why sponsorship is important to this project were identified and discussed. These
reasons include the need for a mentor for the project team, voice for the team, project evaluator
and risk management.

Management style for the new yang sing project is based on workflow and human resources. For
workflow management, the critical path method fully discussed in part 1 of this work was adopted
while a cooperative style of management where a people first approach was suggested. This to
ensure that employees are fully motivated.

This work identifies areas where the project team can experience difficulty in communication to
include unhealthy conflict situations, communication with difficult stakeholders and as a result of
difference in cultural background.

6.2 Conclusion
The yang sing project is a very interesting project when viewed from the direction of management
and people’s leadership. In this plan, we have provided a template for management and leadership
for the yang sing relaunching project. We can conclude that leadership can be planned in a project
just as we have done in the new yang sing project and with planning on management and leadership
which allows us to prepare for possible leadership and management challenges that can be faced
by the yang sing hotel relaunch. If this plan is properly executed, the new yang sing hotel relaunch
will have reduced chances of failure resulting from poor management and leadership.

6.3 Recommendation
The following recommendation will be required to ensure a successful people management and
leadership for the new yang sing hotel.

1. Develop a leadership and management culture that provides consistent, clear, executive
communication that aid achievement of project missions and objectives.
2. Develop communication culture among team members and management that would
traversed cultural background and differences.
3. In future the effectiveness of other management styles such as the coercion should be
explored to see where it can be applied in the yang sing project.

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References

Egeland, B., (2010). Dealing with Conflict of interest on the Project. Retrieved from
https://pmtips.net/article/dealing-conflict-interest-project
Giri, V., N., (2006). Culture and Communication Style, Review of Communication, 6:1-2, 124-
130, DOI: 10.1080/15358590600763391
Hobson, K., (2019). Five Reasons employees are your companys no 1 asset. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2019/12/12/five-
reasons-employees-are-your-companys-no-1-asset/?sh=3331849b2563
Kane, K., (2021), Projects and People [ppt]. Retrieved from (http://website)

Maylor, H., (2010). Project Management, Prentice Hall, 4th ed.

Perera, G., (2020). The five main causes of conflict in a distributed teams - and how to manage
them.Retrieved from https://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-and-
insights/article/manage-five-causes-conflict-distributed-teams/
Sapountzis, I., (2021), Scheduling using network diagram [ppt]. Retrieved from (http://website)
Sapountzis, I., (2021), Stakeholder management in project [ppt]. Retrieved from (http://website)

Sapountzis, I., Kane, K., (2021). Assessment in project planning and control [ppt]. Retrieved from
(http://website)

Schibi, O. & Lee, C. (2015). Project sponsorship: senior management's role in the successful
outcome of projects. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2015—EMEA, London,
England. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Tomar, S., (2017). How does culture influence behaviour. Retrieved from
https://medium.com/@tomarsamar/how-does-culture-influence-behaviour-27223c4c32f9

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