Case 2: Datavision

Prepared by Royce Lee Leadership Theory and Practice Michael Hostetler November 14, 2011

1. The most significant problem at Datavision is the lack of strong and effective leadership. Of the six issues, confusion about company goals is the most significant symptom of this poor leadership. The lack of direction is itself significant but also contributes some of the other identified issues: lack of trust, poor decision-making and organizational structure. It appears that Datavision employs a command and control leadership model, and one of the downsides is confusion at lower levels. Since company goals are unclear, there is lack of alignment between departments. For example, marketing and engineering blame each another for missed deadlines. Also, marketing promises systems that engineering has not yet or cannot develop. If company goals were clear, engineering would know what types of products to develop, and marketing would be able to focus on selling these as well. There would also be a greater level of trust because each department would understand its role in achieving goals and would be able to work more effectively together. The confusion about company goals also causes decision-making problems. It appears that action plans are made during meetings and then they are later changed without consulting the involved parties. This is usually because the president finds new information and he alters decision based on this. Right now, decisions are made based on Larry Campbells whims, and he is not following a plan, or at least, it is unclear to others if he is. According to Where will we find tomorrows leaders? a successful leader needs to be comfortable sharing power and be generous doing so. This is even more important in sectors that rely heavily on innovation, such as the technology industry. Campbell is micromanaging and changing decisions that should not be his to take. With clear short and long-term goals, each department would be able to align its decisions to reach these goals and there would be fewer decisions required from Campbells part.

We see this confusion about goals in other areas as well. Staff meetings are long and sometimes have no direction, likely because there are no clear goals or milestones to work with. With clear goals and plans, executives would know where their progress should be, and meetings would have clearer goals. More importantly, Datavision is suffering loss of market share, orders and revenues because of this lack of goals. 2. The teambuilding retreat was not successful. First of all, the goals of the two-day retreat were lofty and unclear: Promote discussion of issues and devise strategies for dealing with Datavisions weaknesses. Brennan did a good job of identifying issues and facilitating discussion the first day, the greatest failure is that it did not continue without him. He was not able to create an environment where the executives felt comfortable talking and discussing problems with each other, and thus, failed to address some of the problems. While a consultant is not responsible for implementing everything, he needs to ensure that there is enough groundwork or tools for continued success after his departure. There are also mixed reviews from the participants regarding the success of the event. However, the positive comments were mainly regarding more open communication and better understanding of each other. While this was important, it did not really address any of the issues except maybe trust. There are no action plans to fix the bigger issues such as lack of market share and poor collaboration between teams. The progress that was made may create a feel good environment for a week or two, but there are no plans in place to change anything concretely. Brennan was successful at being an effective coach, moderator and guide and was able to control aggression and conflict during the retreat. However, he wasnt able to address the key issues and sources of these problems.

3. Datavision has grown from four to 470 employees in only eight years, and there lacks structure and planning due to this rapid growth. Campbell is still leading as though it was a smaller company, but there are serious problems communication, collaboration and management skills. Since the retreat was not a success, the first thing that should happen is another retreat where there are clear objectives. Now that some teambuilding has been done, it is necessary to work on defining a strategy and then clear goals for Datavision, since this appears to be a big problem right now. However, before defining goals, Datavision needs to do some market research. The company is in a very competitive industry and there are major criticisms towards the marketing department. Sales are dropping and the company does not seem to understand the customer or the external environment. To address this, Datavision should focus some of its marketing energy on analyzing the market and in collaboration with engineering, determine what the trends for the next few years will be in the field. The executives and managers should then have a retreat where they refresh their comprehension of, or completely review the vision, mission and goals of the organization. The team should then determine a year plan as well as a five-year strategic plan. Since no one is skilled enough to plan, either Campbell or one of his vice-presidents would have to take courses, or the company could bring in an external consultant with experience in strategic planning. In the year plan, priorities need to be defined, as well as clear goals in terms of sales and development. From these goals, action plans for each department should be created with the responsible parties and deadlines. This year plan should contain the outline for the company, and then be brought down to the department managers to flesh out, and to give a sense of ownership to less senior employees.

In order to clarify communication, these plans should be presented at a general employee meeting so that everyone knows what is going on. As well, this will alleviate some of the tensions between marketing and engineering because they will both see each others goals and plans, and therefore, will be able to work together more effectively. All communication should come from Campbell to ensure consistency. Campbell needs to be the spearhead of the plans and use his monthly meetings to follow up on action items with vice-presidents, altering them only when necessary. To increase collaboration amongst departments, Datavision could implement cross-functional rotations where for example, a marketing manager works with engineering once a week or attends their meetings to bring updates as well as contribute marketing vision. This would give departments opportunities to give feedback to one another as well as promote better comprehension of others activities. In order to address lack of management skills, cronyism and organizational structure problems, Datavision should invest in a human resources department. Companies with over 100 employees can benefit from having a small department. With an HR Director at the executive level and to begin with, an HR manager in engineering and marketing, this team can analyze the current structure and propose changes to optimize the workflow. As well, they would be able to assess what management skills are lacking specifically, and develop trainings to develop these competencies in managers. For example, HR could start by training on conflict management. This new department would also reduce cronyism because HR would be able to develop clear and transparent promotion and hiring and promotion criteria.