INLS 131: Penina

Matthew Carroll
July 2002

Electra-Quik Case Study

The main problem of this case study lies in the existing corporate culture of the

business and the newness of the proposed company revisions. Electra-Quik is an

established company that has historically done well until recently, when a host of

problems ranging from outside competition to company moral became apparent. It

would be nice to know more information concerning the extent of the company’s

problems, but since they are not talked about in detail, this case study will assume that

they are moderately severe since people are actively seeking other employment.

Martin Griffin, the CEO hired to turn the company’s fortunes, wants to address

the corporate culture first and foremost with his new empowerment campaign. The

challenge he faces is multi-faceted, but the root problem lies with the corporation’s

culture and its lack of open communication channels and flexibility. It would be nice to

know more about Martin’s track record as a CEO, the types of business he worked for in

the past, and the other problems he addressed.

From the case study it seems that many employees are thoroughly disenchanted

by the current culture (employees are “actively seeking” other employment

opportunities), and may see upper management as unbelieving in their abilities (Harry’s

statement concerning faith in the employees is an example). As well, change is frowned

upon as previous attempts (downsizing, reengineering, restructuring) have all failed. The
reasons why these other attempts failed is a mystery, but from this case study it can be

assumed that among other factors there existed a resistance to change from the employees

and department heads. It seems apparent from the case study that employees who believe

in Martin’s designs from the beginning, like Barbara Russell, are a minority.

Martin started his campaign on empowerment by having upper management

teams meet and devise methods to implement empowerment among the corporation. The

goals of these teams were to brainstorm, and indeed, Barbara and her manufacturing team

did come up with many interesting ideas. One initial problem here is that these teams

were all divided according to departments and were staffed accordingly. Thus, Martin’s

campaign suffered a critical blow in its earliest stages in two ways.

First, Martin may not realize the problems with inter-departmental

communication that exist at Elextra-Quik as he may not have been with the company for

long enough a period of time or have gotten to know the key personnel in the

departments. This could be why he left the second meeting leaderless, with Barbara and

every other team manager to fend for him or herself. Had Martin met with each

department head in advance and tried to glean information about the corporate culture

and each department head’s opinion of his empowerment campaign, he might have had a

better idea as to how he should implement his reforms. By meeting with each department

head, Martin could also have asked for their input and possibly gotten them all on the

band wagon individually. Thus when his ideas were released to everyone at the meeting,

each department head would have a sense of ownership of the idea and would likely be

more in favor of the changes Martin wanted to institute.

 Second, by having each team membership consist of only one department, each

team invariably brought an ethnocentric list of possible company changes that ultimately

missed critical issues that related to other departments and that did nothing to contribute

to the poor departmental communication. The people in Barbara’s team, while confident

of their proposed changes, failed to look at critical issues to other departments because

those issues were simply not important to the manufacturing department. Thus the

project proposal her team presented appeared to discount the importance of the other

departments and did nothing to nurture inter-departmental communication.

In the current situation, there now exists an enthusiastic CEO who wants to

reform the company but who appears clueless about the current corporate culture, a

number of unrefined ideas for implementing the empowerment campaign from each

department team, and a number of employees that are both for and against this campaign.

The project proposals that Barbara’s team presented at the second meeting were well

received by Martin, but no mention is made concerning either the reactions of the other

department heads or of the other department-team project proposals. It can be inferred

from the reactions to Barbara’s team’s proposal that each department took a critical view

of each other department’s proposals and there existed a general resistance among all the

department teams to change according o the standards of another department. One could

also surmise that Martin holds some respected power here since there was no voiced

opposition to the Barbara’s proposal while Martin was present at the meeting. This could

be another element of the corporate culture, where upper levels of management do not

communicate effectively for some reason.

 In this situation, one of the most important things for Barbara to do is to

communicate to Martin the existing problems concerning communication and trust

between departments. Nothing positive will be accomplished in the second meeting with

Martin absent, and the chances of people further entrenching against these empowerment

changes is great since there already exists a mood of resistance. Because of the flawed

nature of the initial problem-solving teams, further work along these lines will serve only

to further skew the empowerment campaign.

Barbara’s other choices, to push ahead with grim determination while the CEO

remains ignorant to the real cultural standard, is doomed to failure if for no other reason

than that Barbara has no definitive clout among the rest of upper management, and thus

not enough weight to throw around to effect change. She could try to make new teams or

to debate the proposals of her team, but she may not carry enough authority to lead the

other departments in such an action. Such actions could inevitably strain the current

inter-departmental communications further and may not provide any positive results

without lots of hard work.

Quitting seems a bizarre choice for Barbara as she is content with her job and

eager to work for Martin’s empowerment campaign, and simply shutting up over the

matter would do nothing to solve the problem and would only serve those who are

against the empowerment campaign.

Once Martin is made aware of the poor communication relationships that

currently exist, steps can be made to attack the problem from a different angle. Barbara,

by confronting Martin on these issues, serves herself and the campaign by showing her
supervisor that she is both interested in his idea and its success and by providing Martin

with necessary insight into the corporate culture that he may have yet to fully realize. As

a CEO who’s main function is to please the stock holders of this publicly traded

company, Martin should value the information Barbara can provide him as it would serve

to both increase his plan’s potential for success and to please his bosses.

Once he is made aware of the current situation, Martin will have a better grasp on

just what the problems are that exist at Electra-Quik and how to solve them. As the CEO,

Martin should take a strong management stance and exert his power over the department

heads by clearly demarking the chain of command. Done effectively, Martin would thus

have established among upper management that his ideas will be implemented and that it

would be wise to support him in the campaign. This can be done by simply repeating his

credos among the employees, by being very clear on his ideas, and by encouraging open

discourse among the levels of upper management. This serves to not only define the

company goals but to instill a new sense of purpose among the employees through strong

leadership.

Next, Martin needs to regroup the initial project teams so that each team consists

of a variety of employees from different departments. Having employees from different

departments actually work with and speak to each other is the first step to eventually

tearing down the communication barriers that currently exist in the company. This

methodology serves other useful purposes as well.

By having the teams be comprised of employees from the various departments,

each team now has a wider perspective on innovation ideas and their consequences on
various departments in the company. When one team member from manufacturing

presents the idea of having a sales person step into a manufacturing role to gain an insight

into the job, there would be another team member from sales to actually offer input about

the idea, and a member from human resources to object to it. Debate would be carried in

the team environment, and a final decision would thus have a strong reasoning behind it

when presented to all.

As well, by having a team make-up that is cross-departmental, when teams

present their ideas there will no longer exist a “you against us” attitude. Ideas presented

would not just be from the manufacturing department, but from a team member who can

be identified with by members of a particular department. This inclusion is a key factor

in any idea’s success as it provides the necessary support to keep that idea alive and

healthy. Homogenizing the departments also serves to break down the existing barriers

by denying the team members personal flags to rally around. Instead, the company

banner becomes dominant and each team ultimately identifies with the company and not

merely their department (Can I say “think outside the box?”).

At this point it would be nice to know more about Martin and his history in the

corporate world, and the relationship between Barbara and Harry. With this knowledge,

it becomes possible to study Martin’s management style and track record so that more

definitive conclusions can be drawn concerning what he should do. As well, knowing

how Barbara and Harry relate can offer guidelines to how Barbara may be able to use

Harry as an information tool for gauging employee’s opinions regarding the

empowerment campaign and the corporate culture in general. This is just the first step
towards launching Martin’s empowerment campaign and turning the company into a

motivated, profitable entity. Much work has yet to be done to ensure that Electra-Quik

even has a chance of becoming a market leader again, although Martin is correct in his

desires to change the corporate culture.