ASDA CASE

Mini Project Case: ASDA

Name: Andrew Akinmoladun
College: California Intercontinental University
Course: MGT 616
Instructor: Dr. LaRon V. Doucet
Date: 01/27/2015

ASDA CASE
Introduction
ASDA, a grocery store chain led the market for a long time since it began its operations.
The United Kingdom is currently a multinational company with more than 65 000 employees in
its various stores. The organization began experiencing reduced sales due to poor management
accompanied by poor decision making processes. The company was on the verge of getting out
of business when Archie Norman joined the company and became the chief executive officer.
With his management skills, he lay down strategies with the objective of restoring the company
to its former glory. On joining ASDAs management team, he immediately began by
restructuring the companys top management. The companys management was the main cause
of the failure.
Tony Campbell became the vice president, trading, Phil Cox became the chief financial
officer and Allen Leighton the vice president, marketing. For the first six months in office, he
met regularly with the management to discuss the way forward. At that time, they came up with
the strategy which came to be known as the ASDA way of working. There are a number of
guidelines that would be useful for the companys communication and if adhered to would
guarantee the company success. The organization will also have to adopt the best leadership
development program so that the companys management will align the customer needs and
effectively respond to the staff needs. The guidelines and management approaches that are
beneficial for the companys success are highlighted in the paper.

ASDA CASE

Guidelines that would assist the companys communication process and the leadership
characters that would support the process
Upward communication refers to flow of information from the bottom to the top
(Montana & Charnov, 2008). In the communication, the subordinates convey information of their
problems to the managers. This type of communication makes the employees loyal since they are
accorded the chance to speak about their concerns. The management easily gets to know about
the general business. As such, the management takes action and thereby improves situations that
might be disastrous to the organization. To reverse the failure of upward communication within
ASDA, the entire ASDA employees ought to be told the importance of the upward
communication to be adopted.
The type of information to be communicated should be made clear. Accordingly, the type
of information that should be communicated should include: problems and exceptions ;which
normally describe the problems faced in operations so that the leader becomes aware of the
problems, suggestions for improvement; which are ideas on how procedures may be improved so
as to increase the efficiency of the organization, grievances; which are employees complaints to
the management, performance reports; which are information concerning performance and
financial information; which are messages concerning the finances involved in the operations.
The barriers that usually lead to ineffective upward communication should also be known
so that they may be avoided (Lawson, 2008). Accordingly, some of the barriers are: Failure of
the management to respond to the problems presented to them, the defensiveness of the
management, negative attitude by the management in relation to their being concerned about the

ASDA CASE

rest of the employees grievances presented to them, physical barriers such as working from
different physical locations and time lags between communication and action.
To improve the effectiveness of upward communication a number of methods could be
used. A participative technique is such one method. In the method, decision making processes are
made in groups. The groups could be encouraged through suggestion boxes, committees and
quality circles among others. An ombudsman could also be utilized as a method to make the
communication effective. Such a person listens and investigates complaints of the operational
employees and communicates them without bias to the management. An open door policy
method will also work. In the method, the staff members should freely communicate to the
management about the ideas. Counseling sessions, attitude surveys and interviews will also
enable effective communication by the operational staff to the management. Grapevine too could
be instrumental and the management should listen to them even though they are reluctant about
it.
Communication should be conveyed to the upper management in an effective manner. As
such, there is certain leadership characteristics needed to report customer information to the
upper management. The leader should have both good verbal and non verbal communication
skills. Verbally, the leaders should be audible, courteous and good at articulating words. Such a
leader will effectively communicate to the upper management. Through the leader, the upper
management at ASDA will be able to understand the opinions of the staff members. In the non
verbal communication, the leaders should communicate with the right posture and facial
expression so as to convince the upper management.

ASDA CASE
The leader should also be a good listener. The leader should listen actively and focus on
the language of the speaker. The leader should not interrupt the upper management or the other
staff when he or she is being communicated to. He or she should give the speaker time to talk
and in the process use the non verbal cues which show that there is an interest in the
communication. The leader communicating to the upper management should be a good role
model so as to portray good intentions of the parties to the communication. The leader should
also show flexibility and adapt to the communication style of the audience (Lawson, 2008).

Effective Leadership development program

To keep managers aligned with the customers needs and to be responsive to their staff,
the leadership development program should incorporate lessons which help the leaders to
develop personal mastery, relationship mastery and a high organizational performance culture
(Avoid, 2011). In the development of relationship mastery, the lessons should include
collaborations and partnership skills. The leader should be taught how to deal with conflicts,
negotiate with various individuals and communicate with the various people that are consistent
of an organization.
Emotional intelligence should be mastered and the leader should be made to have the
skills necessary to deal with the various people and their differing emotions. The leaders should
be enabled to lead organizations and develop a culture of high levels of performance at the
organization. That is to mean that the program should incorporate lessons on how the leader
should incorporate change, ensuring sustainable organizational performance, and develop
effective strategies that will see the organizations success. On an individual level, the leaders

ASDA CASE

should be taught in the program of how to articulate their personal vision to that of the
organization.
Conclusion
The factor which mainly led to the failure of ASDA is poor management. The poor
management affected all the departments of the organization. The more than 65 000 employees
depended on the management for better direction. The previous head of the organization neither
had experience in retail nor did he have good management skills. Archie Norman on the other
hand had no experience in the industry but has good management skills. His management skills
saw him lay down strategies that will probably restore the company to its former glory. That is
evidenced by his immediate restructuring of the management. Tony Campbell became the vice
president, trading, Phil Cox became the chief financial officer and Allen Leighton the vice
president, marketing. The first six months in his office, he met regularly with the management at
hotels to discuss the way forward. At that time, they came up with eh strategy which came to be
known as the ASDA way of working. There are a number of guidelines that would be useful for
the companys communication. The organization had no option but to adapt the best leadership
development program so that the companys management would align the customer needs and
effectively respond to the staff needs (Newton, 2011).
Lessons and recommendations
Management is surely influential and a determinant of the organizations success. An
effective one will lead to the realization of the objectives. For ASDA to realize success, good
management practices should be adapted. The communication should be effective and the
barriers that usually lead to ineffective upward communication should be known and avoided.

ASDA CASE

The management should respond to the problems presented to them, they should not be
defensive, they should not have a negative attitude in relation to their being concerned about the
rest of the employees grievances presented to them, and the time lags between communication
and action should be checked.
Basically the upward methods below should be adapted, and combined with the
downward method. A participative technique in which the decision making process is made in
groups. The groups should be encouraged through suggestion boxes, committees and quality
circles among others. An ombudsman should who listens and investigates complaints of the
operational employees and communicates them without bias to the management should be
appointed. An open door policy method in which the staff members should freely communicate
to the management about the ideas could also be used. The other methods that could be used are
counseling sessions, attitude surveys and interviews.
To keep managers aligned with the customers needs and to be responsive to their staff,
the leadership development program that incorporates lessons which help the leaders to develop
personal mastery, relationship mastery and a high organizational performance culture should be
adapted at ASDA. In the development of relationship mastery, the lessons should include
collaborations and partnership skills. The leader should be taught how to deal with conflicts,
negotiate with various individuals and communicate with the various people that are consistent
of an organization (Avolio, 2011).

ASDA CASE
Reference
Avolio, B. J., & Avolio, B. J. (2011). Full range leadership development. Thousand Oaks, Calif:
SAGE Publications.
Lawson, K. (2008). Leadership development basics. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Montana, P. J., & Charnov, B. H. (2008). Management. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational
Series.
Newton, R. (2011). The management book: Mastering the art of leading teams. Harlow,
England: Prentice Hall.