PERSONAL CASE ANALYSIS: HUMAN RESOURCES

Personal Case Analysis: Human Resources

Christapher Cutting

Arizona State University

Pro-Seminar I
PERSONAL CASE ANALYSIS: HUMAN RESOURCES

As a refresher to the situation, our organization was in need of an information technology (IT)

systems refresh, with ageing equipment our mission was exceeding the existing network and technical

capabilities. As a preferred vendor with an pre-existing relationship and facility access, I engaged with

Dell EMC for their services. However, due to poor documentation and personnel departures, I was gifted

this project with very little information on the previous acquisition and processes. The Dell EMC

representative was eager to capitalize on this situation, and sought to garner a lucrative and inflated

government contract. My role was to consolidate and define the organization’s requirements, garner

the best solution for both our organization and the tax-payer, while doing so in a relatively short period

of time.

As an organization within the Department of Defense, our unit was a combination of military

represented by all four branches, as well as civilian and contractor personnel. In effect we had up to 10

different human resource structures working in parallel or against each other at any given time. Military

organizations traditionally have limited control to selectively choose talent or personnel. Quite honestly,

it’s reflective of a lottery system, in that it is an arbitrary process of moving personnel every two to four

years based on global manning gaps, versus talent alignment beyond basic generalized career field

delineations. Understanding that organizations need ideas, energy, and talent, and people need careers,

salaries, and opportunities (Bolman & Deal, 2017) makes it a difficult system to implement human

resource programs in this non-traditional style of organization. Bolman and Deal state that the

everchanging skill requirements of organizations often outpace the ability of employees to remain

relevant and proficient, where the skillsets needed to succeed yesterday are already outdated (2017, pg.

130). My position was very much a reflection of this conundrum, the role I was placed in fit well with the

skills I had attained outside the organization more than 15 years prior to this situation. Meaning that my

knowledge and skillsets were already obsolete in this context. Without a training program or preexisting

knowledge base within the unit, I was forced to drink from the proverbial firehose and get reacquainted
PERSONAL CASE ANALYSIS: HUMAN RESOURCES

with IT systems and hardware immediately, and on my own. Another human resource issue was that

open communication was often touted as a core belief, but in practice was met with barriers and

hierarchical dogma, rank determined intelligence and understanding rather than positional authority

and access (Bolman & Deal, 2017). Artificially generated checklists and routing processed hindered

decision making and delayed even the most modest levels of progress.

Now for the other contributing organization in this situation, Dell EMC. Based on the Dell

representatives’ actions, there was an apparent high motivation to close on contracts quickly and with

the most financially beneficial contract possible for Dell. Quoted system specifications were vastly

beyond the required needs of our offices, even if we were to consider “future proofing,” by spending

more now rather than reassess and replace it all in another six to eight years. This was an evident

application of the “what’s in it for the workers?” principle, where Dell focused on commission rather

than customer satisfaction (Bolman & Deal, 2017, pg. 117). Dell’s team was a chaotic combination of

technical experts, salesmen, acquisition officers, who were all stove-piped and understood little of their

coworker’s roles or processes. Dell’s framework mirrored the application of McClelland’s motivation at

work model of three needs: achievement, power, and affiliation. Reflected as the drivers to seek out the

best bang for the buck, pursue large contracts that were easily navigated and quickly committed to, and

then resolved for peak efficiency. These aspects of Dell’s human resource principles led this team to

often ignore our smaller contract, as compared to those that the Department of Homeland Security or

other governmental agencies were pursuing. Carrying greater notoriety by affiliation, the success of

winning those contracts was a greater draw than our comparably smaller contract.

For my organization there were a great deal of courses of action that I had provided as an after-

action report, not just from this situation but others that met with varying degrees of success or failure.

My top course of action was to encourage and implement autonomy (Bolman & Deal, 2017, pg. 147), to

get out of the mother may I mentality and empower decision making processes at the lowest possible
PERSONAL CASE ANALYSIS: HUMAN RESOURCES

level, versus a crippling bureaucracy that was borne from the fear of failure and careerism. To do this,

communication flow had to be cleaned up, clear expectations needed to be presented to all levels with a

singular vision and voice. As well as the activation of a tiger team empowered to make key decisions,

and report up to a single entity vice committee of unaligned managers. Bolman and Deal captured the

central core of human resource frame: people’s skills, attitude, energy and commitment are vital

resources (2017, pg. 118). We as an organization failed to value these elements and capitalize on a

talented and motivated workforce. From this vantage point, there was a clear lack of empowerment and

commitment which led to a protracted acquisition process. Another course of action was to develop a

more dynamic training program that could change and respond to the changing operational

environment; as well as review the talent pool we were bringing in on the civilian and contractor side of

the house in order to properly align with our organizational needs.

Switching back to Dell, there was a clear need to redesign the work, most if not all of the

representatives failed to understand systems capabilities or acquisition processes and were ineffective

in communicating with me what they could or couldn’t offer (pg. 148). My recommendation would be to

implement sociotechnical systems, integrate not just structural considerations, but those of the human

resources frame. Specifically, where employees cross-train on multiple work roles to better understand

the interdependencies and functions across an organization. Without knowing the basic capabilities and

functions of the systems available to offer, the Dell representative had to constantly reach out to his

technical team, with slow or non-existent responses, and often were misunderstood or

miscommunicated. I would encourage the company to pursue a more flattened team model, with less

constrained cross-flow of skillsets and capabilities within their customer outreach and contracting

teams.

Knowing what I know now, there are a lot of different things I would have done. Understanding

that some of the human resource strategies covered in the text are difficult to implement in the military
PERSONAL CASE ANALYSIS: HUMAN RESOURCES

construct, especially from the prospect of talent retention, selective hiring, and personnel investment

programs (2017, pg. 138), there are opportunities to maximize the talent we have, for the limited time

we have the personnel. In the context of human resources, I would have pushed for training and a

separate tiger team earlier on. I would have taken the time to draft a white paper explaining the

benefits and expectations of such a construct. One that focused on the lasting implications of developing

teamwork, ownership of the processes, empowerment and efficiencies. Oversight and authority are

constants in the military realm, but they don’t have to be crippling and dogmatic. Pursuing these

elements would have greatly enhanced not just the ability to achieve success in this situation, but could

have been instituted as a best practice, as other parallel projects were being affected in a similar way.

Specifically, the investment in personnel was woefully lacking. Here is an area I would have liked

to establish more deliberately. In my haste to learn what I could quickly, I failed to document the

training for my replacement due to an unexpected and short-notice order to move on to another region.

An investment in people needed to be more deliberate, and take into account the continual transitions

that occurred within this organization. Advocacy for more investment in people was an additional area

that needed to be pursued. Challenging the status quo of use what we have and “just figure it out” set

us up to fail in the long-term. The problem is nothing moves quickly in government, and we were

constrained not just by ourselves, but by the lager industry as well.

PERSONAL CASE ANALYSIS: HUMAN RESOURCES

References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (6th ed.).

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass