MAKERERE UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL MASTER OF

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

COURSEWORK FOR MBA 2022/2023

COURSE UNIT: ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

COURSE CODE: MBA 8101

FACILITATORS: Mr. Collins Aijuka

SEMESTER: MODULE V

GROUP 8 MEMBERS

TOOL REVIEWED: PURPOSE AND POSSIBILITIES: SEEING THE FOREST FOR

THE TREES

S/ NAME OF MEMBER REGISTRATION STUDENT

N NO. NO.

1. KISYENENE JAMUSI 2021/HD10/22707U

2100722707

2. AINEMBABAZI 2021/HD10/22586U
2100722586
DOREEN

3. AISHA KIBIRIGE 2021/HD10/22697U

2100722697

4. MIREMBE SANDRA 2021/HD10/22739U

2100722739

5. NAKIZIYIVU 2021/HD10/22786U
2100722786
SANDRA
Preamble

Seeing the Forest for the Trees is about applying systems thinking to solve the complex
problems of business and organizational life.

Systems Thinking. We all know that leaders should help people see the big picture. But the
actual skills whereby leaders are supposed to achieve this are not well understood.

Central Messages

· Building Leadership community

· High-performance work systems

· Building a learning organization

· Stakeholder engagement

· Successful organizational Purpose and Possibilities

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Successful leaders are systems thinkers. Though good leaders’ actions and behaviors can adopt
methods and systems that facilitate employee and organizational growth. Creating a committed
workforce that is absorbed and well equipped with knowledge, skills, the zeal to learn, proper
utilization of employee strengths as a team and being empathic towards each other.

1.2 Systematic change at Quality Chemicals

Quality Chemicals (QC) Ltd is the leading supplier of quality science solutions that spun the
panoply of Human Health, Animal Health, Public Health and Crop Health products with a vision
of “becoming the leading life science products supply company in the Sub-Saharan region”.
Incorporated in 1997 as a private Limited liability company, the company was founded on the
premise that there existed within the life sciences marketplace; a niche for a company that could
provide a quality, eminently professional service and yet at the same time was attentive,
responsive, helpful and friendly to the needs of the African markets. The company deals in
manufacture, marketing, and distribution of Pharmaceuticals in the Ugandan Market. QC has a
manufacturing plant in Kampala Municipality with operating branches in Masindi, Masaka, and
Mbarara Municipalities. It employs a total of about 100 people in its departments of Marketing,
Research and Development, Human Resource, Finance and Procurement and Production.

The company has nationwide dealerships to ensure customers across the country have access to
its products and services.

In its early days, the Chief executive officer believed in the power of distance culture where the
leader is the boss and the rest are followers. His style of leadership was more about giving
orders and expecting employees to act. There was no specific work system as all employees were
expected to report to the CEO and not their superiors or department heads. This system created a
loop-hole in the coordination system in the marketing and accounts department. The system was
so bureaucratic since all final approvals on production, procurement, marketing and distribution
of products was done by the CEO and department heads had no authority which led to delays in
the production process, customer order delivery and delayed payments to suppliers.

Employees’ abilities to create and innovate were stunted since they were only required to do as
they were told. There was no zeal to learn more or do more as that wouldn’t contribute much to
their required performance. If anything, it would cause more chaos. There was limited or no
sharing of ideas amongst the employees and the various departments and a few opinions brought
forward were not valued by superiors.

Employees cared less and lacked empathy towards each other. Everyone was literally on their
own and did not matter in another one's personal life. They never attended each other’s functions
such as weddings and no considerations were given to grieving members who had lost their
loved ones and the grieving staff was expected to be at work the following day after burial, not
even embracing social events such as birthdays for their fellow staff.
Employees were bullied and forced to work as quickly and efficiently as possible without the
required skill sets, trust and capacity building compromising safety rules and practices in any
way. Employee morale and facilitation were very low and frustrating. Safety programs and
safety measures in the workplace were below minimum required and acceptable standards but
the company routinely violated safety standards in its push to avoid production down time and
decline. There were reports of multiple mistakes, incompetence of managers and supervisors,
poor performance and compensation. There was also mismanagement and poor practices, lack of
pride and identity with work and mistreatment spread to customers, end users and beneficiaries.
Customer care and delivery services deteriorated and negatively affected the organization. By
2000, these challenges led to problems such as quality control and safety, high injury rates, low
employee morale, high turnover of 46%, strike and profit soared and declined from 70% to 30%
due to reduction in the sales revenue since the plant was producing less than what customers
ordered. The delayed procurement approvals caused reduction in the production of human and
animal health products. In 2002, employees strike over their poor working conditions, concerns
and welfare that were fully ignored and violated. Supervisors and employees often made
mistakes, got hurt and left with injuries. Absenteeism and frustration of people’s needs were the
order of the day and ever declining performance with poor public relations and customer care
and service delivery.

Due to the above decline, The board of directors appointed John Musoke with a strong
background in the Pharmaceutical sector leadership as new CEO who created a senior
management team composed of all department heads such as production, human resource,
procurement and operations, production, marketing and distribution and empowered them the
authority to take decisions at department levels. With his experience from private sector health
businesses, he employed viable business models for the organization to thrive in the dynamic
changing environment. In his first 6 months, he took time to analyze, learn and understand the
current organizational culture. He interacted with the different employees on all levels,
conducted field visits to some customers,distribution outlets and also the suppliers. Through
these conversations, he realized several issues that needed to be addressed to enhance
performance improvement and embrace a diversity workforce.
With support from the human resource manager, he conducted a meeting with female staff, and
they indicated that they were denied maternity leave. Mr John remembered that at his former
company, women were given 60 days maternity leave after giving birth and there was a
specific room at the office allocated for nursing mothers to care for their babies. He therefore
suggested the same in this environment.

The employees at times were surprised with Mr. John’s behavior, as he sought out advice from
the least expected person. This included the office attendants, cleaners, and many others. At one
point he was found teaching one of the cleaners how to use the scanner. When asked why, he
claimed that we lived in a world that was not predictable.

The marketing and distribution team conducted a market analysis to understand better what the
customers wanted and provide products that reliably met their needs and targeted respondents
during the analysis were customers and suppliers. Based on the results from the analysis, the
production and marketing and distribution departments merged their activities in an integrated
way to meet the projected forecasts in production and sales so as to meet the needs of customers
such as order taking and timely delivery, customer service and retention, quality control and
reducing production costs.

During departmental meetings, John Musoke encouraged each member to come up with an idea
or opinion for a project to be discussed in the next scheduled meeting and encouraged
departmental heads to ensure all their respective teams participate. These ideas were explored as
a team, and they collectively selected the best idea. He discouraged the idea of assigning a
project to one person as he believed in the idea of ‘none of us is as smart as all of us. The team
would meet twice every month to plan, review and develop new marketing strategies .

With the resignation of the head of procurement, every employee believed the next head would
be the assistant manager. Mr. John employed the assistant store Manager, who he believed had
mastered the work of the department and was well conversant with the department affairs.

The company introduced weekend and leadership courses, including training, which surprised
every employee since it was the first one of a kind in the organization where the CEO himself
attended. Mr. John encouraged each employee to view themselves as a leader and hold
themselves accountable to each other and the organization activities regardless of the
department.

In 2003, management improved working conditions and welfare. It increased salaries based on
performance 360 feedback and team assessments, bonuses including other intangible and
tangible benefits and compensation. It organized and conducted several seminars and workshop
activities, encouraged group work activities and coaching with the recognition of employees
participation in decision making, autonomy and engagement to increase employee morale.
Management practices and policies were improved and harmonized in an attempt to increase
capacity building programmes, instilling innovation, creativity and cooperation in the workplace
and departments.

During John’s tenure, the company doubled its clientele base and profits increased by 360%,
turning it into a $10 billion. He encouraged the employees to work with commitment and hard
work since employment was based on merit where men, women, the lame, blind and others were
able to attain employment based on their abilities. Even in his absence, employees were able to
take the lead and follow through with the different activities without necessarily waiting for the
boss or whoever is in charge to tell them what to do.

The senior management team carried on their roles well and took the lead in designing more new
projects. Work and other functions followed a routine as a result of new work systems. The
company built a network relationship with trusted suppliers from the market analysis conducted,
eliminating delays in the production process, improved customer service delivery and increased
staff productivity. These were followed by supervision from superiors such as the managers and
the board. This saw the introduction of improved communication and interdependence of the
various departments. Hence increasing creativity, learning and innovation in Quality Chemicals.

Breastfeeding mothers didn’t have to worry about rushing home to check on their children hence
improving their concentration, productivity and time spent away from work. This and more
strategies to help employees facing personal issues were introduced as the company now
understood how an individual issue affecting an employee in turn affects the organization.
By 2004, employee morale and cooperation improved gradually. Performance and profits
improved from 30% to 50%, turnover also reduced from 46% to 30% while injury rates from
40% to 10%. Teamwork spirit and synergism resurrected.

In 2005, performance and profits further increased from 50% to 60%, employee morale and
cooperation continued to shine, and spread to all management levels. Turn over went down from
30% to 10% while injury rates scaled down further from 10% to 4%.

By the end of 2006, employee morale and cooperation were the highest than ever recorded in the
company's history. Performance and profits shoot up and reached 80% while the employee
turnover and the injury rates reduced to almost none. Absenteeism was no more with maximized
efficiency and effectiveness.

For organizations to thrive, energy for change comes from the vision and what they want to
create with current reality where employees and other stakeholders are fully involved in
redesigning viable business approaches to achieve the change we want to see towards improving
organizational health and effectiveness.

1.3 STATEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY

Quality chemicals performance and profits increased from 30% to 80%, employee morale and
cooperation continued to shine, and spread to all management levels. Turn over went down from
46% to 10% while injury rates scaled down further from 40% to 4%.

The company built a network relationship with trusted suppliers from the market analysis
conducted, eliminating delays in the production process, improved customer service delivery,
increased staff productivity and quality control. Organizational capacity building through
learning courses enrolled by employees that improved their skillsets towards work, breast
feeding mothers also focused on work productivity since their issues were considered
1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between building a leadership
community, high performance work systems, building a learning organization, stakeholder
engagement and successful organizational purpose and possibilities.

1.5 Conceptual framework

 Building Leadership
community
Self-consciousness
Effective communication
Self-Knowledge
Reaching Out

High-performance work Stakeholder Engagement Successful

systems Community participation organizationa
Empowered units Workforce Diversity l Purpose and
Following design principles Shared vision Possibilities

Building a learning
organization
Continuous personal reflection
Adaptive learning
Action learning
Creative tension

Building a leadership community leads to stakeholder engagement and stakeholder engagement

leads to purpose and possibilities

High-performance work systems lead to stakeholder engagement, and stakeholder engagement

leads to purpose and possibilities

Building a learning organization leads to stakeholder engagement, and stakeholder engagement

leads to purpose and possibilities

2.0 SECTION TWO: EXPLANATION OF VARIABLES.

2.1: BUILDING A LEADERSHIP COMMUNITY

This is far from the daily definition of leadership. A leadership community draws itself from
individuality to the collective approach of leadership. This is where leaders share responsibility
and values being together. In this kind of approach, business problems and questions are handled
as a “whole".

To build this kind of environment, our tool teaches us certain approaches such as;

2.1.1 Self-consciousness

Self-consciousness is crucial, as only those who can “lead from within” are able to connect fully
to others and forge mutual, reciprocal ties. Efforts to deepen person-to-person relationships, in
turn, create a sense of trust and unity that brings a collection of individuals into community

2.1.2 Effective Communication

Effective Communication is integral to building community, which is not surprising considering

that they have the same root word, communus, “to share.” To build a sense of community,
leaders would be asked to open up about their life experiences, values, and dreams; talk frankly
about their own leadership, national culture, and business; and listen thoughtfully to one another
in search of commonality and differences.

2.1.3 Self Knowledge

Self-reflection and storytelling are part of every leader’s work.

Our experiences shape who we are as leaders. Through self-reflection and openly talking about
our life experiences and history, we are able to understand one another. It gives us the
opportunity to share our stories and build a deeper connection between the leaders and its
followers. It helps us see a commonality in everyone’s life experiences.

2.1.4 Reaching Out.

Reaching Out. In principle, knowledge about environmental and social conditions can be gleaned
from text, talks, and conversations in any forum. But the experience of being there and seeing
firsthand adds texture and has greater potential to raise collective consciousness.
2.2. High-performance work systems

The high-performance work systems (HPWS) approach to the design of human work
organizations, in its simplest form, is an organizational architecture that brings together work,
people, technology, and information in a manner that optimizes the congruence or “fit” among
them in order to produce high performance in terms of the effective response to customer
requirements and other environmental demands and opportunities (Hanna, 1988; Sherwood,
1988; Nadler & Tushman, 1988; Tushman & Nadler, 1978; Brown, 1989; Nadler, 1989).

High-performance work systems can be characterized as follows: A way of thinking about

organization. Instead of fitting people to the requirements of the technical system with a focus on
internal efficiency, the HPWS approach emphasizes the fit among work, people, technology, and
information with an external focus on the effectiveness of the system in meeting the changing
requirements of the environment.

A set of principles for designing organizations. The HPWS approach comprises very specific
design principles that guide the designer in making choices. These principles reflect a set of
values about people and work.

A process for applying those design principles. The HPWS approach also includes a design
process—a series of generic steps for the design (or redesign) of work systems and
organizations.

A variety of specific organizational design features.

Very specific design devices or features, such as autonomous work teams, enriched jobs, and flat
hierarchies, are employed as a consequence of using the design.

High-performance work systems can be traced back to a series of experiments conducted in the
United Kingdom during the late 1940s. Researchers from the Tavistock Institute, studying the
introduction of new technology in British coal mines (and later in the weaving industry in India),
discovered that technological innovation alone could not explain differences in performance
(Trist & Bamforth, 1951; Rice, 1958).
2.3 BUILDING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION.

Continuous improvement programs are sprouting up all over as organizations strive to better
themselves and gain an edge. In business management, a learning organization is a company that
facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself. Learning organizations
may develop as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations; this enables them to
remain competitive in the business environment.

The concept of building learning organizations is largely anchored to motivating staff to be

creative and innovative and then be rewarded for their new discovery that reduces the cost of
doing business as well as increasing efficiency and effectiveness. This eliminates the traditional
or primary institutions of our society that are oriented predominantly towards controlling rather
than learning, rewarding individuals for performing for others rather than for cultivating their
natural curiosity and impulse to learn.

2.3.1 Adaptive Learning

Adaptive learning is concerned with adapting to environmental changes and improving the
organization's capacity to achieve known objectives in a reactive manner.

2.3.2 Action learning

Action learning goes beyond just adapting to change in a reactive mode. It involves creativity
and innovation, anticipation of change, staying ahead of competition, and change in a proactive
mode. Action learning involves a creative reframing of an organization's problems and
experiences. It involves formulation of and experimentation with novel approaches to problem
solving and decision-making, and learning from those processes.

This concept encourages the organizations and employees to be adaptive to the changing
business environment. With the example of the invasion of Covid-19 where the businesses are
forced to refocus, the adaptability and action learning of the employees will guarantee the
survival of the firms.

2.3.2 Creative Tension:

Creative Tension, focuses on the Integrating Principle

Leadership in a learning organization starts with the principle of creative tension (Fritz, 1989,
1990). Creative tension comes from seeing clearly where we want to be, our “vision,” and telling
the truth about where we are, our “current reality.” The gap between the two generates a natural
tension.

Creative tension can be resolved in two ways: by raising our current reality towards the vision or
by lowering the vision towards the current reality. Individuals, groups and organizations that
learn how to work with creative tension learn how to use the energy it creates to move reality
more reliably towards their visions.

3.1 Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholder engagement is the process used by an organization to engage relevant stakeholders

for a purpose to achieve accepted outcomes (AccountAbility, 2008).

Stakeholder engagement is essentially the process of communicating with, interacting with and
influencing the organization stakeholders to the overall good of the organization as a whole.
Stakeholder engagement is particularly important to a project as its completion often depends on
how stakeholders see the project.

4. 1 Systems Thinking

We all know that leaders should help people see the big picture. But the actual skills whereby
leaders are supposed to achieve this are not well understood. In my experience, successful
leaders often are “systems thinkers” to a considerable extent. They focus less on day-to-day
events and more on underlying trends and forces of change. But they do this almost completely
intuitively. The consequence is that they are often unable to explain their intuitions to others and
feel frustrated that others cannot see the world the way they do. One of the most significant
developments in management science today is the gradual coalescence of managerial systems
thinking as a field of study and practice. This field suggests some key skills for future leaders:

• Seeing Interrelationships, Not Things, and Processes, Not Snapshots. Most of us have been
conditioned throughout our lives to focus on things and to see the world in static images. This
leads us to linear explanations of systemic phenomenon. For instance, in an arms race each party
is convinced that the other is the cause of problems. They react to each new move as an isolated
event, not as part of a process

• Moving beyond Blame. We tend to blame each other or outside circumstances for our
problems. But it is poorly designed systems, not incompetent or unmotivated individuals, that
cause most organizational problems. Systems thinking shows us that there is no outside— that
you and the cause of your problems are part of a single system.

• Distinguishing Detail Complexity from Dynamic Complexity. Some types of complexity are
more important strategically than others. Detail complexity arises when there are many variables.
Dynamic complexity arises when cause and effect are distant in time and space, and when the
consequences over time of interventions are subtle and not obvious to many participants in the
system. The leverage in most management situations lies in understanding dynamic complexity,
not detail complexity.

• Focusing on Areas of High Leverage. Some have called systems thinking the “new dismal
science” because it teaches that most obvious solutions don’t work—at best, they improve
matters in the short run, only to make things worse in the long run. But there is another side to
the story. Systems thinking also shows that small, well-focused actions can produce significant,
enduring improvements, if they are in the right place. Systems thinkers refer to this idea as the
principle of “leverage.” Tackling a difficult problem is often a matter of seeing where the high
leverage lies, where a change—with a minimum of effort—would lead to lasting, significant
improvement.

• Avoiding Symptomatic Solutions. The pressures to intervene in management systems that are
going awry can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, given the linear thinking that predominates in
most organizations, interventions usually focus on symptomatic fixes, not underlying causes.
This results in only temporary relief, and it tends to create still more pressures later on for
further, low-leverage intervention. If leaders acquiesce to these pressures, they can be sucked
into an endless spiral of increasing intervention. Sometimes the most difficult leadership acts are
to refrain from intervening through popular quick fixes and to keep the pressure on everyone to
identify more enduring solutions.