BUAD 450 Organizational Behavior

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BUAD 450 Organizational Behavior

• Ch. 17. Empowerment Case
• Dr. Chris Mausolff
• Western State College of Colorado

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Nobodys as smart as everybody Empowerment at
Monarch Marking Systems (p. 378)

• Before the empowerment effort, why were the
  workers so resistant and unmotivated?
• Why did empowerment work in this case?

3
Empowerment at SportsGearLawrence Rothstein.
(1995). The Empowerment Effort. Harvard Business
Review, Jan-Feb.

• Problems at SportsGear
• Market share declining in the face of increased
  competition
• Few new product ideas
• Departments barely spoke to each other
• Morale was low
• Introducing empowerment, Martin Griffin, CEO
• As we face increasing competition, we need new
  ideas, new energy, new spirit to make this
  company great. And the source for this change is
  you.
• Under the new empowerment campaign, youll be
  getting more information about how this company
  is run. You will work with your fellow employees
  in new and creative ways. And, perhaps most
  important, youll be able to follow your dreams.

4
Harry Lewis impression

• Just another management fad, one minute they
  will try downsizing. The next minute
  reengineering.
• if he really wants to empower us, he can give us
  a raise.
• all thats going to happen is a whole lot of
  meetings, a whole lot of money spent on
  consultants, and a whole lot of wasted time.
• To succeed, the effort would have to win over a
  lot of Harrys.

5
The consultants presentation to the
manufacturing team

• Senior management from each department is present
• The consultant defines empowerment
• Providing information
• Delegating decision making authority
• Cooperating, sharing, and working together
• She gives the manufacturing team its assignment
• Improve how retail stores get the merchandise
  they need when they need it.

6
The consultant describes how the self-managed
team will work

• The team can structure itself any way that it
  wants it can use any information it needs, and
  it can draw on any company resources.
• You must work together to develop consensus
  solutions.
• Once youve determined your solutions, youll
  issue a written report and present them orally to
  the department heads and to Martin Griffin (the
  CEO).

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The manufacturing teams work

• The team members worked hard, good camaraderie.
• They studied marketing, design, and sales, and
  visited a number of SportsGear stores.
• They completed their report on time, working
  overtime to meet the deadline.
• They developed a number of innovative proposals
• Permit managers to follow a product from design
  through to sales (start to finish)
• Allow salespeople to refund 500 of goods on the
  spot
• Swap sales and manufacturing personnel for short
  periods to provide insights about customer
  preferences
• Establish a hotline so that sales people could
  keep manufacturing informed about what is selling.

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The presentation to department heads

• Shortly after the team began its presentation,
  the CEO excused himself because of a
  late-breaking deal with a major department store.
• Without the CEO present, the department heads
  formed a wall of resistance.
• The HR Mgr worried that swapping mfg and sales
  jobs, even for a short period, would destroy
  their carefully crafted job categories.
• The finance head thought that allowing
  salespeople to make refunds would create a gold
  mine for unethical customers.

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The presentation to department heads

• The legal counsel claimed that providing
  information to sales people about future products
  would invite industrial spying.
• Another dept head said that with a telephone
  hotline to manufacturing, the phone would ring
  every 5 minutes and waste everyones time.
• The team members were stunned and disheartened by
  the response to their report.

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Discussion

• What went wrong with this empowerment effort?
• What can be done to save it?