Lvv Company

LVV is a company that collection and distribution to customers of goods and parcels shipped by rail to central depots. The problem is, the previous managing director for LVV is despite being a former director of human resources, had not had the people skills necessary to work with the different groups at LVV, from the truck drivers to his own executive committee. It would be essential to find someone who would not only be very good in process thinking, but would also be a people manager. Then they choose someone who is very capable and willing to take risk and learn. Her name is Emma van Nijmegen.

As a manager in Neerlandia, her job before in LVV, Emma had shown an outstanding operational performance in container logistic, one of the most difficult jobs in shipping industry. Emma also had a sense of responsibility toward her people that were appreciated. She also has a sense of curiosity and flexibility. Her main objective for LVV was to gather the right people around her and to establish a cohesive team. The first thing she does was gathering the trust for her. She would have to be open to suggestions as well as criticism, knowing this to be the best way to encourage employees to trust her. She meets and talked with many people in LVV. By doing so, she get the information about her teams. What went wrong in the past, how they saw the future, and what should be change?

Another of Emma's early moves was to reshape her management team. Emma and the whole team needed to trust each other completely. She picked people with the same vision. Before working on implementing her new strategy for LVV, Emma emphasised the importance of her new management group's functioning as a real team. The main thing was for management to learn to trust and respect each other. Emma also invested a lot of time in training on self-assessment for her management team. Once the management team began to function efficiently, they were able to turn their attention to LVV's bottom line

Her own leadership characteristics contributed to the development of an authentizotic culture of trust, affiliation, and meaning for employees, and how the financial situation of the company was turned around as a result. One issue is that all the organization is revolving around her as the inspiring element. Everyone is inspired by her, and if a merger done with the Dutch company and a Dutch manager with the autocratic Dutch management style replaced Emma, then there is a probability that the team spirit and values that Emma created would fade away and hence would affect the continuity of the organization.

This case study told us about Emma van Nijmegen who was appointed to lead Luijk & Van Vaest which its core business was providing logistics solution to the customers, and this typical male-dominated industry land transportation business was completely new to Emma. The situation in LVV prior to Emma was a rocky one and described as the management team wasn't a team at all and they set a questionable strategic decisions with a focus on volume growth quickly led the company downhill. People were pushed to do work they didn't believe in, working under pressure without trust in their management team. The LVV was very fossilised and hierarchical in the way it was run, and there was a huge communication gap between the head office and the regional offices To make it even worse, people warned her that it was one great snake pit (highly political, no cooperation) and they thought she was a woman, too young, and don't know the business, so how she can turn it around.

Emma's key actions in handling LVV were:

1. She started with gathering the right people around her and establishing a cohesive team

2. Together with her team she developed a vision and figured out which way to go, what products to use, in which markets to compete and which clients to serve

3. She convinced the LVV people that a corporate culture of innovation and openness was in their best interest

4. And as a pre-requisites Emma created an open communication culture and gained trust from her people

5. She did management by walking around, go to the shop floor and open for suggestions as well as criticisms

6. She told her management team to not hide their feelings and admit feeling as a fact to move forward

7. She had a consultant from outside as personal coach and had a mentor within Neerlandia who stayed in the background, quietly but surely supported her. Her personal qualities could be described as intuitive yet analysing, people and number person, know when to stop and find balance, know her own weakness and having her correct set of vision, values, ethics, beliefs and motivations to be successful leader

http://www.scribd.com/doc/115305364/Building-Effective-One-on-One-Work-Relationship-20110818

http://www.scribd.com/doc/115303407/A-Process-for-Changing-Organizational-Culture-20110930

1. Comment on Emma's different approach

As a Managing Director of Luijk & Van Vaest in December 1995, a Dutch company in the parcel shipping business, she does not have experience in the shipping line. In the first day, she starts her presentation and wanted to build trust in her team. Her suggestion is to encourage people or employee to trust her. Besides, she has suggested some ways to build up trustee between each other.

Walking The Talk

Emma as a new Managing Director of L&VV, she plans to meet every level of staffs as many as she can, understand and listen to them, talk to them as well. Furthermore, she travelled around the country to all the local sub regions and talk with the management teams. She needs them to talk with her everything, what is the future of a company, what was wrong for the past and what should be changed.

She work with parcel sorting personnel in the hubs and terminals to understand their needs and what is their comments on L&VV. Every time she has a regional meeting, she will walk around to the regional terminal before half an hour early and talk with the people on the shop floor. Since has many visiting, the people on the shop floor turned out to be very educational and practical.

Feelings Are Facts

Another of Emma's early moves was Emma reshape her management team and needed to trust each other completely. Otherwise, Emma emphasizes the importance of a group as a real team in functioning. She told them a story and was regarding what is the meaning of teamwork. She needs them to understand