The issue of tax is also an external factor that needs to be considered. The debate of higher Vs lower taxes will always continue. The lower the tax the less money for leisure centres. As a result, which means that the money provided has to be used wisely and allocated to the best of the manager’s ability. The idea is here is using the public’s money to provide a service to the public. Therefore, they would want to see their money to good use, and for example they would not want to walk to a leisure centre and be dealing with poor service and attitude. (Sabatier, P.A. 1999. Theories of the Policy Process.’ pp 36-37) Strategic management enables the senior management to match responsibilities and tasks of the organisation to its resources. In dealing, with the finance provided by the public, there will always be an issue of probity. Probity is the values and principles that a PSO should be committed to carry out all duties with integrity.
A major internal factor is the public dissatisfaction with the quality of the service they are receiving. The leisure centre is funded by the public and provided to the public, so the users of the facilities should feel satisfied with the level of service and facilities. The difficulty here is that people have different definitions of the word ‘quality.’ For instance, the sports hall may look clean and safe to the members of the staff, but maybe to the users of the hall, it may not. There is variability in defining quality, which means maintaining the level of service should be kept as high as possible. Many users of the leisure centre will solely judge the fitness of the service to the provider’s needs, whilst others may look at how timely the service the service is provided. (Joyce P. 1999. Strategic Management for the Public Services Open University Press pp. 40-43) The inconsistent definition of the word ‘ quality’ makes it difficult for the leisure centre to set its quality target. The leisure centre should aim to find a balance of the word between managers, team members and the public. This target however is very difficult to attain and may require actively asking the people concerned with the leisure centre on their thoughts on this issue. Is the finance and time available to carry out market research?
There are many ways to measure quality in public service organisations. A well-known strategy is Total quality management (TQM). TQM is a management strategy, which focuses on instilling awareness of quality in every aspect of the organisation. This strategy strives on continuous improvement known as ‘kaizen’, where in this case the leisure continues to improve its level of service quality. TQM aims to reduce variability and become more consistent with the level of service. Therefore, as a result, each customer is more likely to receive the same treatment. For instance, monitoring swimming pools and sports hall at regular intervals to make sure that it is in fact safe and hygienic to be used. The management must lead and take part in the process, as a large financial amount would have to train the team and hence instil this way of thinking. (Gaster, L and Squires, A. 2003 Providing Quality in the Public Sector: A practical approach to improving public services. Open University Press pp 123-6) Despite all the benefits of TQM, the implementation of such a system, and the transition period for the team members to get familiar with it would yield long term benefits. This will always raise an issue with the shareholders, would they be patient enough to see the full benefits of the system?
The future is difficult to forecast and a new plan will hinder creativity and be proactive to changes that occur suddenly. In my opinion, the leisure centre would be expecting that the changes they have forecast would occur. Although, a strategic plan hinders creativity, but it would ensure that the tasks done by the team members is followed to the letter. The team members are aware of what they need to do and not do. The job roles are clearly defined. This is called bureaucracy. (Doherty, T. and Horne, T. 2002 Managing public services: Implementing Changes Routledge. pp 147)
The internal factors of a public service organization revolve the organizational culture. Organizational culture ‘comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organisation.’ (Wikipedia. 2003. ‘ Organizational Culture.’ Available from [Accessed 29 Dec 07])
The organizational culture is the way the organisation is run from day to day and provides an insight on how the management thinks and their values. The way it is run is down the management and how they want their organisation to run. For instance, some managers may opt for a centralised way of decision-making and others would adopt a decentralised approach. Centralization would retain the major responsibilities and powers in the decision making process. A decentralised approach would delegate and hand down responsibilities for certain decisions. For instance, if the management of the leisure centre trusts the competency of the team, they perhaps would be more willing to delegate certain decisions. There are many ways culture could be defined by the leisure centre. It all hinges on the management’s way of thinking.
The new strategic plan will inevitably mean that new cultural values will have to be instilled within the organisation. The responsibilities of the success of the strategic plan will not only rely on the management but also the team member’s transition to the change as quickly as possible. Strategic change is ‘ proactive management of change, which may require new patterns of action, believes and attitudes among substantial number of members of an organisation.’(Broome, A. 2nd ed 1998 ‘Managing Change’ Basingstoke: Macmillan pp 8). Moving onto a new level revolves around finding solutions to the existing problems with the leisure centre.
The members of the team also should be involved in the planning process. The team will have some input to essential to the new strategic plan. The team of the leisure interacts with different people especially the customers. Since, the leisure centre is providing for the public, it makes sense to have the input of team members. The employees have more interaction with the customers than the senior management. Therefore, it is vital to consider the input of the employees. There should be communication between the senior management and members of the team should be very strong and constant. This is because the team should be aware of any new organizational cultures that will be instilled and any changes in their job role. Despite all the positives of including the employee’s opinions and thoughts, there will be an issue of trust. For example, some employees may try to mislead senior management in order to make their jobs easier and perhaps more simple. The information provided by the employees may not be accurate and may not be in line with the senior management’s new strategic plan. For that reason, senior managers should not only keep an open mind about the ideas given by the team, but also treat the information with caution. (Ranson, S and Stewart, J. 1994 Management for the Public Domain MacMillan. pp 123-5)
The senior management is sometimes better off planning the as much as possible because of the time it saves, in asking the members of team for their opinions. These opinions can be gathered in a number of ways, face-to-face interview, surveys, focus group etc. Despite, all the problems that could potentially occur, I firmly believe that the team’s input should be taken into consideration. Mixing the senior management and the team members during planning helps the management to understand the day-to-day issues. Furthermore, this helps the team members to understand the senior management’s objectives and the direction they want to head in, and spreads light for the future of the leisure centre.
The implementation process whereby all the installation of the new strategic plan should also mean that the members of team should get involved. The managers should communicate to the team members the essence of the new strategic plan to make them aware of what is going to happen. Ideally, the input gathered from the team during the planning process should be incorporated into the implementation process. This gives off a positive impression that the senior management considers the team’s ideas and helps them to ‘own’ the new plan. (Doherty, T. and Horne, T. 2002 Managing public services: Implementing Changes Routledge. Pp 130-3) The way the team would incorporate to the new plan would be influenced how well the leader has got his ‘vision’ across.
In order for the new strategic plan to take a place, a leader must take charge of the process to try and turn around the team members and eliminate the current problems. Leadership is simply a leader of a team and helping them to achieve the objectives of the organisation. The style of leadership that should be adopted is a ‘visionary’ type. This style enables the leader to convey the ‘future’ and instills motivation into the team members of the ‘perfect’ business. This leader should be a positive person and decisive. The leaders should consider the opinions of the team members and use that information to make an informed decision. Therefore, in this leadership style a democratic-style must be incorporated. The leader should respect the team and be willing to delegate certain tasks to the employees. (Hartley, J and Allison, M 2000 ‘The role of leadership in the modernisation and improvement of public services’ Public Money and Management pp 35-40). In my opinion, there is no certain way of leadership; there is no ‘right way.’ As situations and conditions are different, and they require different ways of decision making. Would the manager would be flexible enough to adopt different styles. For example, the members of team are performing badly and poor motivation is a factor, so a solution would be to strengthen communication between the manager and the team to find out why, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will find out. If the leisure centre decides to adopt any quality-orientated approaches named earlier, the success of these approaches is going to depend on how the leadership is going to convey the ideas of any new strategic plan. (Bichard, M 2000 ‘Creativity, Leadership and Change’ Public Money and Management 43-5)
Since we live in a world, where virtually everything is unpredictable and it’s difficult to forecast change. The leader should be versatile and able to adopt to changes in circumstances e.g. internal, environmental, external. The leadership style should be able to balance between the team and achieving short-term goals, but not loosing sight of the main objectives of the leisure centre. The team and the leader should be able to find solution to problems together, as this means that both parties are willing to fight for the cause.
In conclusion, the development of a strategic plan requires leaders to use all of their abilities as a leader and their personality to overcome all the problems, which stop them from installing the new strategic plan, and help to achieve the objectives of the new plan. The new strategic plan will revolve around the leader and it’s up the leader that they get the team members on board with the essence of the plan. The team members of the plan will be motivated if they have a part to play in the planning process. This ensures that the goals and objectives are ‘owned’ throughout the organisation, from the top to the bottom of the hierarchy. Strategic management should be thought of a continuous process, to improve motivation and prevent barriers to success. Finally, it is important to bear in mind that the new strategic plan does not hinder creativity, as it is very difficult to forecast the future, and any sudden changes that occur, a structure should be in place to react to these alterations whether it be internal or external.
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