A Home Depot Analysis

Final Exam Questions 1a. The way that Nardelli laid out his plan for modify was one of the intellectuals I see it was so supremacyful. He came in and intercommunicate the problems that were easy to point out and also the ones that werent appargonnt to another(prenominal) employees. Nardelli undeniable to rebuild an arranging that could easily compete with other with child(p) names, and this was relatively easy because the people at planetary house term k naked as a jaybird the vastness of pickings advantage of its growing size. Nardelli did this by implementing a three system plan that involved enhancing the core, extending the business, and expanding the market.Nardellis prime(prenominal) mistreat in the exploit was enhancing the core. This involved improving the profitability of current and future stores, as healthy as in existing markets. From the article Heart of Change, I remember that Kotters initial step, increase urgency, relates the most to Nardellis first step. Kotter describes his first step like this A brain of urgency, sometimes developed by very(prenominal) creative means, gets people off the couch, out of the bunker, and ready to play (Cohen and Kotter 690) essay writer life hacks. I weigh that this is what Nardelli was trying to prepare happen in his first step for change.He needed the people of the corporation to see what the issues were, and make a point to say that if we stay where are now, we will fall behind in a few years. This sense of urgency and improvement was the right step to getting Home Depot employees to care and start to make the best change for the company. The first step leads right into Nardellis second step which was, extend the business. Nardellis excogitation with this step was to get employees to come up with ways to better parcel out the customers. This was to not only enhance customer service, only when to become a standout figure among competitors.This was probably one of the most important s teps and I study that Nardelli implemented it very well. I related this step to Kotters fifth step of empowering action. I chose this because Kotter outlines this step as Key obstructions that correspond people from acting on the vision are removed (Cohen and Kotter 697). The obstruction that Nardelli needed to remove was the similarities between his company and competitors. He did this by fling related home improvement services such as nib rental and home installation of products. This set them a partially and allowed them to cross that obstacle and continue to move forward.I think that this was the most important step because it repre moves the major(ip) bump in the road that Home Depot needed to overcome in order to continue to keep growing. The final step in Nardellis plan was expanding the market. This was one of the easiest steps to correlate to Kotter because I think that it made the most sense, without limitedally saying that same affaire. Kotters 7th step of dont let up is exposit as this a change effort will bemuse direction and pulse build on this momentum and make a vision a reality. (Cohen and Kotter 700).The whole point of Nardellis third step is to stimulate what they have learned and implemented in the company thus removed and expand geographically, even serve new liberals of customers. This was his way of carrying the momentum of success out as far as it could go, and making sure that Home Depot didnt let their success slip through their fingers. This a very good move on Nardellis part, and attracting new customers such as commercial contractors and even women, made a huge squeeze on the overall morale, and success of the store. The only thing that I would have suggested Kotter adds to his plan, was the implementation of metrics.The Home Depot article talks about(predicate) how in the beginning there was some harsh resistance to the change, Resistance to the changes was fierce, particularly from managers Much of the top exec utive team left during Nardellis first year (Charan 64). Nardelli did use metrics, and they did make a difference. However, I think that if he had made them a part of his plan and used them earlier in the process they would have made an impression on the executives that did end up leaving. If Nardelli had used metrics I think that they would have correlated with Kotters fourth step, communicate for buy-in.This is expound as simple heartfelt messages sent through many unclogged channels (Cohen and Kotter 697). Those metrics were the heartfelt messages that needed to be expressed to get people motivated even sooner. With my tracing Nardellis plan should have looked like the following Enhance the Core, evoke Metrics, Extend the Business and Expand the market. Overall, I think that Nardelli did an excellent job, and that taking my advice, would have only yielded better results. 1b. When Nardelli first arrived at Home Depot, the burnish was one that was very taut-knit and family ori ented.I chose this term to describe the burnish because the creator CEO and chairman were often thought of as receive figures by other employees Many employees simply couldnt picture this company without these father figures (Charan 63). When reading the article about Home Depot, there was one unique(predicate) sentence that stood out to me because it described the pre-Nardelli refinement very well, It was marked by and entrepreneurial high-spiritedness, a willingness to teach risks a passionate allegiance to customers, colleagues, the company, and to the confederation and an aversion to anything that felt bureaucratic or hierarchical (Charan 62-63).Looking specifically at this description of the culture, I can find characteristics that relate directly to low- place setting cultures, as well as to OReily, Chatman and Caldwells Cultural Characteristics. I came to the final stage that the culture at Home Depot was a low-context culture specifically because high-context cultur es are based largely on hierarchy. According to our class notes on culture low-context cultures are described as cultures that cerebrate on that which is explicit. slew are specific and clear in their communication (Culture Notes 1).This description fits the culture of Home Depot, not only because it strays away from hierarchy, provided also because it was very much based on entrepreneurship which requires specific and clear communication. I cerebrate that the entrepreneurial high-spiritedness that is described above contributes to the feeling of a family oriented and close knit company. Relating the culture to the cultural characteristics of OReily, Chatman and Caldwell was relatively easy as well. Specifically there were three characteristics that stood out to me innovation and risk taking, perplexity to detail, and people orientation.I chose these because of the way the culture is described. Innovation and risk taking is described as the degree to which employees are encoura ged to be innovative and take risks. Not only was it said outright that this was a characteristic of the company, but I feel as though the close-knit purlieu promoted this kind of thinking making everyone feel comfortable and open to sharing their ideas. fear to detail was not as direct as the previous example, but I related this to the description of entrepreneurial high-spiritedness.Attention to detail is described as the degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis and attention to detail. This translation drew me to lean towards entrepreneurship because I thought that all of the qualities listed are qualities that would be necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. Again, these are all characteristics that elaborate in a close-knit family style culture. Finally, I chose people orientation. This is described as the degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organization.This comment not onl y relates to the passionate commitment to customers, colleagues, the company, and to the community part of the description, but it also relates to the definition of low context culture. I know that specifically people orientation talks about people within the company, but I think that part of the reason Home Depot was so successful was that it reached outside of the company to intrusion peoples lives. Lastly, a major part of the low-context culture definition is that people are specific and clear in their communication, and I view that people orientation would not be successful if this were not a major factor.The pre-Nardelli culture was very easy to define, and point out specific aspects that made it easy to describe and compare. When talking about the post-Nardelli culture, the only thing that really stood out to me was a difference in the feel of the culture. By this I mean specifically it went from a close-knit, family style culture, to a huge corporation style that is highly snaped on building the organization to take advantage of its outrageous growth. Instead of centraliseing specifically on the people in and outside of the community, this post culture was a focus on merchandising and collaboration between regional and store operators.Everything was on a larger scale, and even little thinks such as shelf organization and signage were standardized and enhanced, so they were able to stay on the playing field with competitors such as Wal-Mart. While I think that this doesnt change the fact that it is a low-context culture, because there is still a focus on people and communication and an avoidance of hierarchy, I do think that it changes some of the relatable characteristics of OReily, Chatman, and Caldwells cultural characteristics.I do not think that they lost innovation and risk taking, attention to detail and people orientation, but simply that the focus was significantly diminished. Instead a focus on team orientation and aggressiveness was emp hasized. Team orientation is delimitate in our notes as the degree to which work activities are organized around teams quite an than individuals. While the pre culture wasnt so individually focused that it was everyman for himself, its that the post culture needed teams to make sure that all of the new projects like, merchandizing and reevaluation of the store environment, were successful.Finally for the post culture, there was a definite lean toward aggressiveness, which is defined in our notes as the degree to which people are aggressive and competitory rather than easygoing. I do not think that in the pre culture that they were quite on the level of stability from our culture notes, but that Nardelli promoted an environment that allowed people to be assertive and aggressive towards achieving more growth. For the most part I thought that pre- and post-Nardelli cultures were very similar, minus the shift in focus from family business, to large corporation.