The Impact of Top Management Change:

1
The Impact of Top Management Change An OD
Practitioners Perspective
In early 1990, a major steel manufacturing
organization in the United States was
experiencing high numbers of industrial
accidents, low productivity and low quality of
manufactured product at a particular plant.
The General Manager of the facility, recognizing
the necessity for system-wide change, engaged the
help of a nationally known Organization
Development (OD) consultant. A program of
intervention using the Continuous Process
Improvement model was implemented. However, over
the 14 years of the program, several changes in
top management took place.
1. A high level of support from top
management accompanied the implementation of the
organization development project at the outset.
Safety issues provided a set of shared concerns
between management and union officials. The
Consultant initiated collaborative group
activities and team-building exercises before
allowing the groups to identify problems and
beginning to work on solutions. The project was
recognized as a long-term commitment, and all
stakeholders were involved from the beginning.
4. At implementation, the level of accidents
began to drop quickly, productivity and product
quality increased, and cooperation between
management and union workers spilled over into
other areas of operations within the plant. In
1995 and 1997, the plant had been designated by
the home company as the Best in America, and
had won industry-wide awards.
2. A system of rewards and consequences was
designed cooperatively, monitoring procedures
were established and Two-Minute Huddles were
instituted. The Two-Minute Huddles were ad hoc
meetings of the persons actually involved in the
work to be done, and served the purpose of
providing a framework from which management and
floor personnel reviewed difficult or dangerous
procedures prior to attempting them. The Huddles
allowed members of the work group to anticipate
dangers and difficulties, and establish
contingencies and personnel roles in the event
of emergencies.
3. The Consultant terminated his involvement
with the Company in 1993, and the implementation
of the Continuous Improvement Program was left in
hands of management and union personnel. Joint
Continuous Improvement Coordinators from both
union and management ranks were established to
communicate program activities, to monitor the
on-going CI activities and to facilitate
adjustments when the need emerged.
5. In 2001, the existing GM who had
supported the continuing CI program was replaced
by a new person with no commitment to the
program. Rewards were omitted or delayed, CI
coordinators were returned to the floor as
workers, and resources were no longer made
available to the program. Accident rates
increased, productivity declined, and quality was
reduced.
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
2003 2004
John Goodman
Jeff Minoski
Dennis Lowa
Bob Mason
From 1990 through the end of 2001, all three
General Managers (Goodman, Minoski, and Lowa) had
provided personal buy-in and organizational
support to the Continuous Process Improvement
program. At the time the consultant separated,
the program was self-sustaining. Support from
the top was allowed to fade during the Mason
administration. Starting in 2001, accident rates
climbed, production and quality declined, and
interactions between management and union become
more confrontational and less cooperative.
The names of the general managers are fictitious