LEADERSHIP CONSULTING EXERCISE *

The Brief

PlasticCo is a leading plastics manufacturer producing blow-moulded plastic bottles for

the UK food and drink industry. The company operates from eight sites across the UK and has a
turnover in excess of £100 million. It currently has a workforce of around 650 employees and is
part of a multinational group of packaging companies.

The majority of PlasticCo employees work within bottle-producing factories operating

the blow-moulding machinery. There are head office functions, , including human resource
management, and general managerial and administrative roles outside of the factory, but the
number of these positions is relatively small. The majority of the workforce work on machines
on the shop floor. The factory work setting presents many challenges for managers who are
trying to increase employee engagement. Many of the jobs require a relatively low level of skill
and are repetitive, with tasks including transporting materials around the factory and operating
particular parts of the machinery. In general, employees have few educational qualifications.
Around 80% of factory employees work a strict 12-hour shift pattern, with four days on
followed by four days off. Shifts either run through the day (8am–8pm) or night (8pm–8am).
The production process runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including all bank holidays and
Christmas Day. Employees have to adjust their home lives to the system and adapt to unsociable
working hours. A further potential challenge is the factory working environment, which is noisy
and hot. Although PlasticCo has been successful in many ways, the board saw potential to
increase employee engagement.

A common issue identified by managers across the organisation was that problem-
solving tended to be ‘reactive’ rather than ‘proactive’. In practice, this meant there was little
effort put forward by employees to generate ideas for improvement. Instead, issues were
resolved only when problems arose. A plant manager summarised this:

‘I think it’s probably more based around problems rather than them sitting around and asking how am I
going to improve my job? It’s very much if there’s an issue – how can we improve it? So I think it’s more
reactive problem-solving.’
(Plant manager)
 This problem linked into how decisions were made more generally in the factories.
Control and responsibility tended to be concentrated with a few managers who made changes on
an ad hoc basis. There was very little encouragement from managers for shift workers to become
involved in decision-making. With little chance of influencing decisions, employees tended to
ignore issues unless they were told directly by managers about them. This problem was picked
up by one senior manager who reflected on the level of involvement in the factories:

‘Very little at the moment, very little I would think. As far as people actively talking about [ways to
improve their job] instead of talking about the weather or the traffic or the newspaper or TV, do they
then say “how can I do my job better?” I doubt it.’ (Senior manager)

The leadership style at PlasticCo has traditionally been described as ‘top–down’ with an
autocratic approach to problem-solving. In most factories, the leadership style was described as
performance-focused and the culture was seen as ‘hard-nosed’, to quote one manager. Little
attention had been paid to people management in the past.

‘My perception of what’s actually wrong with this organisation is that we have a lot of very good people
who are not good people managers. The problem this creates is that people at the bottom, who probably
have most of the ideas, can’t communicate those upwards because the people in the middle over-filter or
don’t bother at all.’ (Accountant)

Considering the challenges in the manufacturing setting and traditional management

approach at the company, the senior managers sought to change towards a more participative
approach. A new managing director was appointed in 2016, bringing with him a new vision.
With full board support, a business case was made for a three-year transition towards an
involvement-orientated culture. The newly recruited leadership and development manager
described the company as being at a crossroads:

‘We either go on as before, or we take some risks, evolve and let go gradually. Change is not about
driving employees to work harder, but about providing the conditions under which they will work smarter
and offer their opinions, ideas and solutions to problems that they encounter.’

* Adapted from Alfes, K., Truss, C., Soane, E., Rees, C., & Gatenby, M.
TASK:

Recognising the state that his organisation is in, the new managing director has decided to seek
the advice of top leadership consultants. Your team has been invited as one of these consultants.
Thus, your task is to:

1) Diagnose the major issues concerning leadership at PlasticCo.

2) Select ONE of the topics of leadership covered throughout this term, and use that
topic to propose recommendations to the new managing director and PlasticCo board of
directors. Your team’s recommendations should be justified by research.

Please note and adhere to the following:

1) Only ONE leadership topic (e.g., individual differences, contingency theories, LMX,
communication, coaching/mentoring, power/influence, shared leadership, social
networks) can be covered within the same seminar session. In other words, there cannot
be two teams with the same topic per seminar (e.g., two teams cannot choose
'communication' as their analytical lens).

2) Your team should let your seminar leader know which topic you would like to use by
the end of Week 26. Topics are on a first-come-first serve basis (so act quickly!).

3) The team with the best proposal will win PlasticCo’s bid, as well as an additional 10
points on the assignment.

4) Please remember you are not meant to regurgitate/re-lecture theory but you are
to become Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the leadership area your team has selected.
Therefore, you should be able to propose solutions and answer any questions that might
relate to your chosen area. For example, if you present on social networks, you will need
to confidently demonstrate how social networks solve the problem at PlasticCo and be
prepared to answer questions from top management around your proposed solution.

5) If any of the above is not clear, please ask your seminar leader to clarify any questions
you might have. Do not leave preparation to a few days before your presentation, as this will come
across as unprofessional and underprepared.