Presentation of the Facts Surrounding the Case
This case is about the events that took place during a change in the organizational structure of DSS Consulting Company. Established in the 1990s, DSS Consulting provides administrative support to small school districts located in the mid-west and mountain west regions. The company specializes in helping schools that have limited employees to deal with challenging and unique administrative issues like setting up procurement systems and negotiating labor agreements. In their early years, DSS Consulting experienced significant success solely attributable to the founder’s relationship with each single school district that used their services. The changing dynamics of challenges confronting each school district made the demand for the services offered by DSS to grow drastically. Some of these challenges were associated with budget reductions and subsequent reductions in the administrative staff. The company restructured to accommodate the changing demands of their clients. The result was that DSS created an organizational structure comprising of four specialization areas: facilities planning, contract negotiation, information technology, and procurement and systems.
As of mid-2000s, there were some major changes in the company’s organizational structure and their client base. The company’s founders decided to cut the amount of time spent in client engagement and relying on the expertise of the management teams for each specialized area. This created a gap which in turn sparked a need for a strategy to attract and retain new business. This meant that the company must adapt their service offerings to fulfill the demands of the dramatically changing consumer base. Combined, these factors stopped the company’s growth and forced them to redefine their organizational structure in order to remain competitive in the market.
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Identification of the Key Issues
The key issues in this case were caused by the management style and transformation of this company. First, the company’s project team lacked proper communication skills. In any company, communication is the key to success. It promotes smooth flow of messages from downward to upward the hierarchy and vice versa, which gives birth to a favorable workplace environment. It is important for managers to communicate business goals to their subordinates to work towards the same purpose. Likewise, the subordinates must find ways to communicate with their bosses for the company to perform effectively.
Another key issue facing DSS Consulting is lack of managerial support. Though the management develops strategies, they do not support the implementation of these strategies (Turregano & Center for Creative Leadership, 2013). It is important for both mid and upper management to communicate to the subordinates the meaning of the organization’s goals and to encourage them to achieve those goals. For instance, Meg Cooke the Chief Operating Officer did not provide any feedback on the team’s progress and the approaches that could be applied to acquire new customers.
Finally, the decision to change the management style and organizational structure affected the company. The employees did not appreciate the decisions made by the management and they feared the possible consequences of the changes. After reviewing this case, the key issues identified can be classified as leadership, communication, organizational change and organizational culture.
Listing of Alternative Courses of Action that Could be Taken
In this case, Cooke displayed poor management approach, leadership skills and communication skills. Alternative courses of action would involve the Board calling for a meeting with Cooke to discuss the entire situation. This will allow them to obtain her opinion and hence make further decisions. Alternatively, the Human Resource department could consider analyzing and testing Cooke’s leadership and HR capabilities from a wider perspective and in detail to ascertain or refute any findings. The HR department could also consider creating an individual training plan for Cooke (Turregano & Center for Creative Leadership, 2013). This will help address her weaknesses, which will in turn enable her understand and improve her leadership skills required for her position. On the other hand, Peterson displayed effective teamwork and communication skills within her team. Though the HR department acknowledged numerous positives based on HRM and Organizational Behavior perspectives, she lacked proper upward communication skills. She led her group in a manner that caused groupthink (Manktelow & Birkinshaw, 2018). Therefore, the HR department should consider a training scheme for Peterson aimed at further advancing her management skills.
The employees of DSS Consulting are discouraged and lost focus on the company’s objectives and vision (Czerniawska, 2007). They do not know their individual obligations in attaining the company’s goals. Basically, the transition from the old to the new organizational structure is unclear to them. Certainly, this is due to the lack of coordination and support from the upper management and among team members. As it stands, the consultants and the leaders are not working together as a team to support each other in achieving the company goals. The management came up with a new cross-functional strategy but they did not fully support its implementation. There was scare and poor communication between Cooke and Peterson. This essay identifies the following alternative courses of action. (1) Increase communication among the staff and from the management. (2) Increase employee motivation. (3) Cookie should adopt a new management style
Evaluation of Alternative Courses of Action
A sound communication plan must be designed to increase communication among employees and the management team. DSS can reap numerous benefits by improving employee communication. First, for any project and strategy to be successful, DSS must prioritize team building. With team building, a company can transition its organizational culture from cooperation to collaboration. Also, a team environment will make employees to develop the feeling that they are part of the organization. Such a feeling of belonging and involvement will increase employee motivation hence they will increase their efforts towards the company’s projects and designated tasks. Another benefit of better communication is that it fosters a culture of transparency throughout the organization (Manktelow & Birkinshaw, 2018). By encouraging employees to communicate and give feedback honestly without worry of repercussions, companies can transform transparency form a mere ideal to a reality. A company that creates an environment of honesty cultivates respect amongst its employees. Increasing honesty and communication serve to boost innovation and revenue.
Cooke needs to adjust her leadership approach. First, Cooke must accept that her leadership style is flawed and not just in the current situation with Peterson but also in her position in the company (Czerniawska, 2007). When dealing with employees, she used methods that led to confusion. Her managerial direction and control were minimal because she delegated most of the direction to Peterson (Turregano & Center for Creative Leadership, 2013). In turn, this gave her the maximum freedom to act. She allowed Peterson to develop a particular product for a certain school despite the new strategy of refocusing company resources on acquisition of large school districts. Cooke must concentrate on redirecting Peterson and the employees to achieve the newly set organizational goals and mission. This entails providing a strategy and direction that can integrate individual and organizational needs. If Cooke could have given Peterson proper direction and control pertaining to the direction the company is heading, they could have avoided the negative outcome (Turregano & Center for Creative Leadership, 2013).
According to Wellington (2012), effective managers are those that can identify what solution works and what does not work for the project or company. It appears Cooke does not heed this advice when running her projects. Cooke was not sufficiently rigorous in defining the problems that were facing the company and articulating why it was important to solve those problems. Without this rigor, she missed all the opportunities, wasted company resources and ended up pursuing things that are not aligned with the company’s strategies. She needs to become better at identifying what works and what does not in order to tackle the right problems.
Recommendation of the Best Course of Action
The best course of action is to increase communication among employees and within the management team. Better communication is all about keeping all employees in the loop. Increasing communication between employees and actively soliciting everybody’s input and feedback guarantees that the company considers a wide range of impacts likely to affect the company both negatively and positively (Lund, 2011). In addition, through better communication among employees offers updates about the project’s progress. As it appears, DSS is struggling with the implementation of its strategies. Continuous upward and downward communication as the strategy is implemented, sharing updates about the project’s progress, changes and barriers to the project can help keep the project going (Wellington, 2012). As Cooke assigns individuals to achieve certain project objectives, she should also ask them to report on their progress regularly. By ensuring that wide ranges of individuals are effectively kept in the loop during the development and implementation of the projects, DSS Consulting can certainly achieve success.
After developing better company-wide communication, it is extremely vital to solicit for internal and external feedback (Manktelow & Birkinshaw, 2018). Though human beings hate being criticized, constructive criticism helps companies to determine the effectiveness or the lack of it, of their communication plan. Providing and receiving feedback on a project can help DSS Consulting to establish the connection between its assets and the overall business performance. Feedback leads to successful and improved communication in the future.
Besides soliciting for feedback, Cooke should repeat her messages as often as possible. Repetition is a key prerequisite to communicating effectively. Cooke’s intended message could gain clarity by being affirmed. A report published in the New York Times by Russell Lewis argues, “You almost cannot communicate a message enough, particularly to the employees” (Manktelow & Birkinshaw, 2018). This means that for Cook to successfully engage her team members, she must ensure they understand the project or organization’s mission. Social media, press releases, proposals as well as all other company messages should communicate the same message for the company to succeed. Cooke must establish a clear message and repeat it frequently to reinforce its significance and help attain successful company-wide communication.
Two themes are evident in this case; one, top management is extremely distant and two, middle management is extremely independent. These two themes are sending one message; there is a disconnect between the management levels which is causing poor moral, animosity and an inability to get tasks dome effectively and efficiently (Lund, 2011). As the leader, Cooke must shift her mindset from attempting to improve relationships between management layers to aligning the management layers in a strategic manner to give the company a competitive edge. The best thing to do is to create a multi-level management team culture characterized by collaboration.
References
Czerniawska, F. (2007). The trusted firm: How consulting firms build successful client relationships . Chichester, England: Wiley.
Lund, A. (2011). User experience management [recursoelectrónico]: Essential skills for leading effective UX teams .EstadosUnidos: Morgan Kaufmann.
Manktelow, J., &Birkinshaw, J. M. (2018). Mind tools for managers: 100 ways to be a better boss .https://is041.skillport.com/skillportfe/main.action?path=summary/BOOKS/139077.
Turregano, C., & Center for Creative Leadership. (2013). Delegating effectively: A leader's guide to getting things done . Greensboro, N.C: CCL Press.
Wellington, P. (2012). Managing successful teams . London: Kogan Page.
