Organizational Behavior: Remaking Jcp's Organisational Culture
SYNOPSIS
JC Penney Corporation (JCP) is a more-than-one-hundred-year-old company which has got into trouble in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, but a dramatic turnaround happened after the good leadership quality of few key people, Questrom and Castagna between year 1999 to 2004; Mike Ullman and Theilmann between year 2004 and onwards. The contributions of Questrom and Castagna were more on optimizing business operation while Mike Ullman and Theilmann were more on changing the organisational culture. Shortly after joining as chairman and CEO of JCP in December 2004, Mike Ullman along with his top management team took various initiatives to change the climate and culture of JCP from the rigid one into more flexible and democratic environment. The most notable among these were the “Winning Together” principles (WTP), poster campaign “Just Call Me Mike!”, Associate Engagement Survey (AES), the relaxed dress code, workplace decorations, new security ID badges, more flexible working hours, Christmas party and so on. Besides, they started various people development initiatives such as “Retail Academy” and the use of IT in training its employees. In early 2007, JCP has opted of new brand positioning ‘Every Day Matters’ in order to spur the growth by forming “Deeper, Emotionally-Driven Relationships” with customer. All the 151,000 Associates were trained to execute the various new initiatives and briefed by the managers on the new branding and why they were the key to making it a success. On December 28, 2006, JCP announced that it has fired COO, Catherine West due to her failure to satisfy performance objectives. The firing triggered a US$ 10 million severance pay. This issue has brought out some message on hiring outsiders from different industry. Analysts felt that retail was a fast moving industry and it was difficult for an outsider to absor the details in a short time and mostly will become a failure. The results of initiatives taken by Mike Ullman and top
JC Penney Corporation (JCP) is a more-than-one-hundred-year-old company which has got into trouble in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, but a dramatic turnaround happened after the good leadership quality of few key people, Questrom and Castagna between year 1999 to 2004; Mike Ullman and Theilmann between year 2004 and onwards. The contributions of Questrom and Castagna were more on optimizing business operation while Mike Ullman and Theilmann were more on changing the organisational culture. Shortly after joining as chairman and CEO of JCP in December 2004, Mike Ullman along with his top management team took various initiatives to change the climate and culture of JCP from the rigid one into more flexible and democratic environment. The most notable among these were the “Winning Together” principles (WTP), poster campaign “Just Call Me Mike!”, Associate Engagement Survey (AES), the relaxed dress code, workplace decorations, new security ID badges, more flexible working hours, Christmas party and so on. Besides, they started various people development initiatives such as “Retail Academy” and the use of IT in training its employees. In early 2007, JCP has opted of new brand positioning ‘Every Day Matters’ in order to spur the growth by forming “Deeper, Emotionally-Driven Relationships” with customer. All the 151,000 Associates were trained to execute the various new initiatives and briefed by the managers on the new branding and why they were the key to making it a success. On December 28, 2006, JCP announced that it has fired COO, Catherine West due to her failure to satisfy performance objectives. The firing triggered a US$ 10 million severance pay. This issue has brought out some message on hiring outsiders from different industry. Analysts felt that retail was a fast moving industry and it was difficult for an outsider to absor the details in a short time and mostly will become a failure. The results of initiatives taken by Mike Ullman and top