Continental Airlines

Q1: I would take the following steps to turn a distressed organization around: * Leadership: I would make sure that the right talent is the right place. * Stakeholder Support: I would communicate with those involved in the business, and ensure that they are part of the decision-making process. * Organizational Change: Establish new terms and conditions for employment and make structural changes to run with a smaller team. Once the strategic direction of the business is set, the team needs to be shaped to implement the plan. * Cost Containment Initiative: Focus on cost reductions, quality improvements and increasing revenues. The focal point is the core business processes and indentifying opportunities to operate more efficiently while increasing revenues.

Q2: * Employee involvement in the decision making processes. * Employees were able to express their grievance by using the toll-free and personal voicemail. * Bethune tied in performance appraisals with incentives. * Employees were provided with the proper resources to achieve goals.

Q3: To ensure that a continental airline improves on performance over next decade, continuing employee recognition would be one of the priorities on the list. Employee satisfaction plays a large role in ensuring they are following all policies procedures and in addition providing great customer service which in turn creates the revenue needed. Employee incentives are also another great tool used in obtaining certain performance goals desired. Streamlining operations should be continued as well, one of the first steps Bethune took was to refocus the company and streamline operations through out continental and this in turn created a sense of uniform through out the organization.

Q4: Job enlargement, job enrichment and teams can serve to continually improve Continental’s performance by providing: lower production costs, greater satisfaction, higher