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Madeline Keller

Case Study Analysis

Overview

In this case, the company that we are looking at is called Mountain States Healthcare (MSH)

which has buildings in Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Acapulco, Mexico. They

recently hired a new director for a new unit. When deciding on someone who would be best for

this promotion the top two the company decided over was Kyle from Utah and Colleen from

Denver. Kyle was the manager of the state billing office after his former boss Aaron was

promoted to Vice President after his, “successful consolidation of the Utah facilities billing into

one entity” (Cohen, p. 2). Colleen was the manager of her states billing office as well as she

helped start up the whole thing when she started with the company towards the beginning of its

life.

Aaron, Kyle’s former boss, was a member of the deciding committee for this new

position and when it appeared that Colleen was highly likely to be chosen, Aaron brought up the

fact that Utah is too conservative to have a women director. Her promotion could cause problems

and resentment from the males that already work in the branch. This statement had a lot to do

with Kyle getting chosen for the director position.

He started out saying that nothing would be changing and promising that the only things

he did change would be to make everyone's work easier. He then decided that it would best for

all the branches to move to Utah and to eliminate several positions, consolidating them to one

department in Utah. However, after moving to Utah, Colleen quickly realized that Utah's system

could not handle what her team needed to do and they now must send their billing information to

Mexico, however, no one speaks Spanish or knows anything about their office. After bringing up
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all these issues, and more, to Kyle he never wants to listen, always says he will "get back to

them" but never does and continues to insist that it's the employee's faults that the plan isn't

working. People are starting to go to other jobs and Colleen has decided that she no longer wants

to stay and continue to watch him ruin the company.

Analysis

Management Process.

The management process is composed of 4 parts, Planning, Organizing, Leading and

Controlling. Starting with planning which is, "identifying and selecting appropriate goals and

courses of action; one of the four principal tasks of management" (Jones & George, 2019, p.

190). Kyle's started well after the promotion. He appeared to have a well thought out plan and

knew what actions he needed to take to make that plan a reality. However, along the way he

would waver or adapt his plan so even if something proved over and over again that it wasn't

working, he continued to force the same idea at everyone. Failure is always a possibility in the

planning process, however, there are many steps Kyle could have taken that allowed him to work

through problems that arose before they became such big issues. For example, even though he

was following his plan to move everyone together and consolidate the billing team, the Denver

group could not do their work on the Utah equipment. Since there was a new machine being

built, the plan should have been adapted to only move everyone once the machine had been

finished and tested so all work could proceed normally.

Second organizing is, “structuring working relationships in a way that allows

organizational members to work together to achieve organizational goals” (Jones & George,
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2019, p. 8). It is incredibly important to maintain organization throughout any management.

When you have a team of people working under you and that team depends on specific

information getting to them at specific times, it's important that as a manager everything has a

place. This is also important when deciding where people will be moved too, or if new groups

need to be developed for the company to be more successful. In regards to Kyle, he did not

consider the companies organizational structure at all when he made his plan to change

everything. Similar to the planning step, he was not aware of all situations that could occur with

this consolidation and when they did occur he did nothing to try to fix them. His organizational

approach to move the department together into one office was inefficient and not well

maintained.

Next, leading is, “ articulating a clear vision and energizing and enabling organizational

member so they understand the part they play in achieving organizational goals” (Jones &

George, 2019, p. 9). This is important to uphold an organization's goals and ethics within the

workplace. As a manager, you are the leader of a team of people whom all look to you for

advice, help and as a role-model. The leadership qualities Kyle possessed were very minuscule.

Any time there was a problem that someone brought up to him, he would never give a straight

answer or solution back to that person. In the case, it says, "One staffer, seeming to speak for all,

expressed her lack of faith in this approach and an unwillingness to change a successful

operation. In exasperation, Kyle felt the need to exert authority and told her that his approach had

always worked, it would work here, and she needed to do something about her bad attitude”

(Cohen, p.7). This is a great example of a poor leader, someone who uses their power as a

weapon, while never actually answering anything. Kyle turned the problems he caused around on

this staffer by saying it would work and she needed to have a better attitude. Not only does this
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eliminate any glimpse of trust the employees had for Kyle but it also eliminates everyone else

ability to ask questions because of how rude he was and how he just shut everything down with

no real solution.

Finally Controlling is, "evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and

taking action to maintain or improve performance" (Jones & George, 2019, p. 9). This was

unsuccessful in two ways in the company. One with higher-level management not keeping track

of Kyle or what he was doing after being promoted. Either looking at the high turn-over rate, the

lack of productivity or work that was getting done, and the decrease in profits and money should

have been done and addressed early on. These are all things that build on themselves in

situations and poor management accountability is something that can easily put a stop to it. The

second person that failed the controlling task is Kyle. He did not make an effort to monitor the

performance of any of his employees even though there was a major problem with the Utah

employees not being able to do their work. This is an essential task to make sure that the

company is running smoothly and problems can be fixed as soon as they arise.

Following the four main managerial tasks are essential to a successful company in all

level of management. This is a large part of the failures that occurred in this case and the lack of

productivity and money being made are a direct result of these not being followed or maintained.

Management Ethics and Workforce Diversity.

Management Ethics and Workforce Diversity are essential items to consider to have a successful

and cohesive workforce. Ethics are, "the inner guiding moral principles, values, and beliefs that

people use to analyze or interpret a situation and then decide what is the right or appropriate way

to behave” (Jones & George, 2019, p. 81). In regards to management ethics, this is something
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that all managers have to keep in mind during any decision making process. It is very easy for

managers to get distracted or lose sight of what the goal of every decision is so following a set of

ethics, a personal set of ethics, and an organizational set of ethics is important so every employee

is comfortable and satisfied.

Workforce Diversity is, “dissimilarities, differences, amount people due to age, gender,

race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, education, experience,

physical appearance, capabilities/disabilities, and any other characteristic that is used to

distinguish between people” in the workplace (Jones & George, 2019, p. 97). It is essential to

keep this concept in mind when hiring and firing people as well as in this case, promoting

people. The biggest problem that was shown when deciding on whom to promote either Kyle or

Colleen was that Colleen was a woman and the men that are already in the office might not like

that. This was also brought up by Kyle's former boss who was a big supporter of Kyle and

wanted him to get the promotion. This is a good example of higher-level management listening

to a statement like this and considering the credibility of it, and then promoting the male so the

employees, that may or may not get upset, stay happy.

As stated early it is important to keep your employees satisfied, but this issue was

speculation brought about by a former boss only to put doubt in everyone's mind about Colleen's

capabilities. In this situation, the rest of the committee and higher-level management did not

follow this idea of workforce diversity or the idea that everyone should be promoted based on

their capabilities and qualifications, not on their gender.

Organizational Structure.
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The organizational structure of a company is, “a formal system of task and reporting

relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members so that they work together

to achieve organizational goals” (Jones & George, 2019, p. 8). This is what all employees refer

to when deciding if they should ask for help, whom they should ask and how they should ask it.

A strong and defined organizational structure is essential to a great business.

Before this promotion occurred, it appeared as though MSH had a good organizational

structure and each department was stand-alone within its location so everyone reported to a

manager at their location instead of someplace else. This locational separation also allowed every

employee to feel connected with their superiors seeing as they were in the office and could go

them and ask any questions. This connection is important in an organizational structure because

people need to feel comfortable to ask questions.

After the promotion, this was not the case anymore. Since Kyle combined all the billing

departments into one and moved them all to Utah, many people felt less connected with the

employees because they were all new and used to doing things differently. Many people were

unable to ask their questions and many of the questions and concerns went unanswered. Colleen

was the go-to-gal for many employees to express their questions and concerns and once she

brought them up to Kyle he would completely dismiss her or say he will get back at another

time, which he never followed up on. All this does is decreases productivity in the workplace and

motivation. Employees work better when they have a trusting relationship with the people that

work above them, however here no one felt comfortable to bring any concerns to Kyle because

they know what the potential answer would be.

Findings
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The findings of the issues, in this case, were all stemmed from not following the four managerial

tasks as well as many other ethical and organizational errors. There was no accountability on

anyone's part except for Colleen causing this problem to escalate quickly and vastly into an

almost unsolvable situation. The ethical mistakes that were made when promoting were the first

issue. Workplace diversity is incredibly important and allows for different groups of people to

come together and work towards a goal. Colleens qualifications and resume alone should have

ensured her this position seeing as she was incredibly more qualified than Kyle. Also, her

leadership skills of starting up her department in Denver and successfully running it until this

promotion occurred should have been something the committee looked at and did not turn away

from.

The organizational structure or lack thereof once Kyle came to power was the stem of a

lot of the issues. There was no working system for half of the employees, and nothing was done

about it. This alone should have been immediately handled so work could continue and the

company wasn’t put behind. Also, he had no interaction with his employees and when they tried

to communicate with them he wouldn't allow it or would blame them for the problems that were

occurring. These are all signs that point to a bad leader.

While all of that was happening with Kyle, Colleen was the one trying to fix everything

and taking the responsibility upon herself to keep the employees happy and productive, when it

was even her job. She was the go-to person for everyone to ask their questions and she got the

brunt of Kyle's rudeness anytime she tried to work with him or get an answer. Overall, there

were many faults by many people that cause this problem.

Conclusions
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Overall, the decisions and action taken by Kyle have proved that he is not qualified to

have as much power as he does and to be in a position where people are relying on him to make

decisions. As seen through his lack of communication and his inability to work with anyone on

anything, he does not represent great leadership qualities, while Colleen does. The promoting

committee was inadequate for finding who would be best for the job by looking at qualifications

instead of gender. Also, there was no accountability required from up higher-level management

to keep an eye on Kyle and making sure that everything he was doing was beneficial to the

company and the employees were still satisfied and comfortable at their job.

Recommendations

The primary problem with this whole situation is that Kyle was never really qualified to be

promoted to this position, which after he was promoted this lack of qualifications was shown

through his poor management abilities. Kyle was only promoted to manager of his department

because his boss got promoted and they needed someone to fill the spot. He then was only

promoted to director because his former boss put the fact that Colleen was a girl and that would

be bad into the committee's heads. Colleen, however, helped start the billing system for her

branch and then became the manager because she knew the ends and outs of what needed to

happen. She also has good leadership skills as shown through her time in the air force and her

abilities to lead the highest performing branch before the promotion.

Recommendation 1- Remove Kyle from his current position of power and go over the

many issues that he caused including his lack of communication, his inability to listen to anyone

else and consider their ideas and his failed plan.

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Recommendation 2- Sit down with Colleen and other top members of this department

and determine which route to fixing this situation would be best. Whether it be staying in Utah

and fixing the situation there or sending everyone back to their original locations so the business

can carry on as it did before or another option. Then act upon what she and the team decide that

they think is best.

Recommendation 3- Remove the systems that were put into place by Kyle that don’t

make sense and don’t work. For example, the billing system that includes shipping information

to Mexico should be removed since it is incredibly unproductive. Also making sure that all

systems are adequate for the tasks that the employees need to get done and removing/replacing

ones that aren’t immediately.

Recommendation 4- Make sure that higher-level management has a better understanding

of the issues that occurred and make sure they put policies in place so they can keep a closer eye

on newly promoted employees. They also should be reintroduced to the company

hiring/promoting process and the ethics of the company so a discriminatory act, such as this

won’t occur again.

Outcome- After all of these recommendations are taken into consideration and acted

upon the employees should be happier, more productive and more prepared to get their work

accomplished. Colleen will still have the ability to make changes and adjustments where she sees

fit so the company can make up for the lost time and money during this down period.

References

Jones, G. & George, J. (2019). Essentials of contemporary management (8th ed.). New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill Education.