Case Study: A Leadership Transition in Corporate Finance, Assignments of Human Resource Management

Download Case Study: A Leadership Transition in Corporate Finance and more Assignments Human Resource Management in PDF only on Docsity!

Graduate School Case Study: A Leadership Transition in Corporate Finance 2018

A Leadership Transition in Corporate Finance: Jake Ward quietly closed the door to his office and sat calmly at his desk. He considered briefly putting his head down, closing his eyes, and taking a short nap to regroup after the most contentious initial staff meeting, he had ever led in his 20 - year professional career. He slowly came to the realization that this was not only going to be the most difficult leadership transition he had ever experienced but it was going to be personally and emotionally exhausting as well. When Lauren McGee, chief financial officer at Divisional Plastics, Inc., offered him the job and asked him to take over the corporate finance team last month, she mentioned offhand that "this team is going to need a lot of your help." He assumed that was generic motivational corporate-speak that Lauren would say to any new leader, but it was looking more and more like she was being kind and understated. It was the kind of promotion that Jake had dreamed of for a long time, and he never considered turning down the opportunity. In his old job as head of accounts payable, he was familiar with this team and its previous leader, Bill Butler, but only marginally. Bill and Jake were peers who had not spent a lot of time together, but Jake knew that the team's performance was not meeting Lauren's expectations. Suddenly, Bill was out and Jake was in. He decided right then in Lauren's office that he would do with this team what he did every other time he had been given the opportunity to work with a new team. He would get to know them, their work, their styles, and their unique personalities. He would show them that his style was to be a boss who would seek their input and opinions, be positive and optimistic, encourage collaboration, and drive accountability for every member of the team to achieve the very best. He would mold them into a team that reminded him of his collegiate championship-winning lacrosse team, a team that brought out the best in each person and used each person's skills to the team's advantage. He could not wait to get started. But now, as he sat alone at his desk, he was having a hard time maintaining his usual positive outlook. Jake replayed his first staff meeting in his head. THE FIRST STAFF MEETING: “Good morning, everyone," Jake had started off. “I stopped at a bakery on my way in and brought donuts and coffee, so feel free to help yourself and we'll get started." "Who eats fat-laden gluten bombs these days?" Gabriel muttered under his breath, just loud enough for everyone to hear. "There's only creamer, no nonfat milk?" Paige observed and added, "Creamer is all chemicals. “She dumped out her coffee in the garbage can. No one said anything for a few moments while Jake set up his laptop. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead while he felt himself getting very warm. Okay, so this is not a coffee

repeating a speech she had given many times. "As I said last year, we take that into consideration at the company level." Paige rolled her eyes, opened her mouth, stopped and shook her head. "I'm thinking”-Jake tried to intervene. “I’ll do whatever you want," Eliott added. "But please be clear about what you expect from us when. Last time, you moved all of the dates so often I could not keep track." This time Austin rolled his eyes and muttered. Jake only heard "can't keep track of anything.” "I have no control over the dates, just so you know," Kelsey said defensively. "If we just-Jake tried, again. I 'll be sending you my file separately, Tyler said, looking at Jake. "I don't play games, and I don't agree with just one template for everyone." Tyler went back to typing something on his phone. Kelsy stared at Jake. "This is basically how it goes," she said. There was a long pause. We will have challenges," Jake said as he tried to pull the team together. "We can only overcome them if we all work together and have the best interests of the team in mind.“ Jake couldn't tell who snickered at that point. No one spoke again. GATHERING ADDITIONAL DATA: Cody Schaeffer was Jake's organization development consultant. When Jake called Cody and told him about his new role and the challenges with the first staff meeting, Cody suggested that he interview each member of the team. "The goal would be for us to learn more about this team, its history, what's working well, and what needs improvement”, Cody offered. "This will help us understand the state of the team so we can plan what to do next." Jake agreed, and over the next 2 weeks Cody would interview each member of the team in a 1-hour personal interview. Cody agreed to keep the data anonymous without any names attached, so everyone could feel free to be as honest as they felt comfortable. Cody proposed asking the following questions of each person on the team:

1. What is your role on this team?
2. What do you think this team does really well? What are the team's strengths?
3. How well does this team communicate?
4. How well does this team collaborate to reach its goals?
5. What do you think needs to change on this team?
6. What questions do you have about Jake's leadership of this team? Jake agreed with each of these questions and was eager to hear the summary from Cody. They made an appointment to meet three 3 weeks later.

FEEDBACK TO JAKE

Later in Jake's office, Cody presented the following synopsis of his interviews. He had extracted quotes from interviewees along with a set of overall themes that summed up what the participants had shared in their interviews. "To be honest, I've been worried about this meeting”, Jake admitted. “I don't have any idea what to think at this point.” “Let's go through what I heard, and then I will be interested in your thoughts. Cody aid, and handed Jake the following report: Strengths: The team generally sees members as hardworking "We're not best friends, but know that people work hard here” "This is a stressful environment, but everyone puts in.” “The team has a great deal of respect from others in the company.” "Leaders trust our decisions and look to us for guidance and advice.” Opportunities to Improve the Team "We each do our own thing, isolated in our own silo. When it comes to collaborating, we have never been very good at that.” "We go around and around with every process. They need to be simplified, and we need more communication.” “Even to ger people to respond to e-mail about the process is a challenge. We don’t communicate with one another.” Many team members desire a more collaborative atmosphere “I wish I had a coworker to bounce ideas off of, to say ’hey, can you take a look at this, is this right?” “I miss a sense of community, a sense of team. We aren’t a team right now.” The team's quality suffers as s result of the lack of coordinated effort "We make the same mistakes over and over again. It’s like we never learn." "Every year we have the same conversation about the budgeting process, format, and templates. Every year we are disorganized, late, and make stupid errors.” The Team's Past History Has Created a Culture of Blame and Fear Past management communication practices may have contributed to this culture “Bill was very different. It was no communication, period. You never knew whether you were a superstar or whether you were about to be fired. It kept us all on edge.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Imagine that this case took place in each of the eras below. Based on your knowledge of the history of organization development, what do you think a practitioner would have done about this situation in that era? - 1950s Cody will use Laboratory Training meaning He will gather all team members of Bill’s team and at the end of the session Cody will discuss the behaviors he observed. - 1960s Cody will coordinate to the Information Technology Department/ or will create computer-based system. As per the case facts, one of the concerns is a system that is too hard to manipulate or use. This scenario is called a Socio-technical approach. - 1980s Cody will assess the members individually according to different activities (i.e. team building, and interpersonal interventions) - 2000s. Cody will enable team members to share their experiences and knowledge on a particular subject. Cody can check “the edge of chaos” – a place where creativity is greatest and new ideas can emerge. This is where Open Technology/Space occurs.
2. Use any of the following management concepts to apply to the case. What does the concept help you understand about what is happening in this case? - MacGregor’s Theory X/Theory Y - Likert’s Four Systems of Management - Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid - Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid depicts two dimensions of a leader behavior; Concern for people, on y-axis, and Concern for production, on x-axis. Furthermore, each dimension ranges from 1 as the lowest to 9 being the highest. Thus, creating different positions in which the leader’s style may fall. This being said, the study can be correlated to Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid basing on Bill Butler’s former management. Moreover, Bill was solely focused

on doing the work assigned to the finance team; Neglecting the welfare and condition of his subordinates. Thus, the type of management Bill was enforcing was falls under Task Management; Output may increase but only for a short run, but there could be high employee turnover. Likert’s 4 Systems of Management is interrelated with the study since its premise can be categorized as to one of Likert’s Systems, Exploitative Authoritative. In the study, Bill Butler was described by his former subordinates as a boss who does not seek input and suggestion from his employees. Consequently, all decisions are made by Bill, himself, and relays it to his employees to let them do the work; A clear example of a downward communication. In addition, the employees then are not given any feedback regarding their work. Hence, leaving them adrift and clueless about the outcome of their work; Subordinates then do not know which areas are to be improve.

3. Based on your knowledge of the role of an OD practitioner, what could Cody’s role be in helping Jake as his organizational development consultant? What would be an inappropriate role for Cody to play? Cody Schaeffer as Jake Ward’s OD Consultant has various possible roles to take such as a consultant, an expert, a facilitator, a coach, a mentor, a researcher and an influencer; Each role is to be taken as it is seemed to deem fit with the situation. Furthermore, Cody can take several roles and not solely one if the situation calls for it. Cody as a mentor could be inappropriate considering Jake Ward’s situation. Jake Ward is still in the adjustment period, and his subordinates have an abrasive reaction to this change. Consequently, if the team members would see Cody as the ‘mentor’ they could count on, then it would be harder for Jake to take his stand and position.
4. If you were in Cody’s shoes, what would you recommend that Jake do next? What actions could be taken at the individual, team, and organization-wide levels? Cody decided to interview each team member to delve deeper regarding the problem. On the other hand, it would also be better if Jake will do his own interviews with each team member to know their work ethics, personalities, etc. Additionally, Jake should also convene regular meetings to update his members about their work and projects; Contrary to the former management’s style. It is paramount importance to instill