Wallace Group and Organizational Change

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Please see response attached (also presented below), and two relevant resources as well. I hope this helps and take care.

Posting 47277.doc:

1. What is the most important problem facing the Wallace Group?

I agree with Wallace, that the problem facing the Wallace Group revolves around how the company manages people. "It's a personnel problem". (Wallace). This is reflected by a number of people interviewed. "Being head of human resources around here is a tough job. We don't act. We react." (Campbell). However, these problems are rooted in management style and how Wallace rules with an "iron fist."

So the most important problem facing Wallace Group is that of increasing employee morale by making the corporate structure reflect a more employee-centered style, a more flattened structure - by letting the employees have a say in the decision-making process (i.e., team approach) and this would help to increase the morale of the employees. It would stop the type of organizational "paralysis" that one of the worker talks about. Therefore the corporate structure needs to be flattened (see http://www.csuchico.edu/mgmt/strategy/module9/tsld058.htm) and Wallace will need to learn the importance of team and group work, giving up his traditional managerial style, that of "control" to a more egalitarian (i.e., participatory/transformative style of leadership). However, communicating this team approach to Wallace may be no easy chore. Wallace Group could consider introducing strategic restructuring as demonstrated in the diagram below:

SEE DIAGRAM IN ATTACHED RESPONSE

2. What recommendation(s) would you make to Mr. Wallace, and in what order of priorities?

- Create a strong employee-centered management team to meet with groups of employees to involve them in the decision making process
- Develop a management development program for the employees who need extra training in their new job positions
- Revisit position entrance requirements to attract high quality employees
- Increase pay scales for engineering positions and lower the job specs and find new ways recruiting channels.
- Develop Groups/Marketing/Sales function to lead the company in business expansion effort
- Integrate marketing planning efforts between our group and Corporate. This is especially true if the Wallace group is to successfully grow in non-defense oriented markets and products.

3. How do you educate a manager to manage an organization as it evolves over time from an entrepreneurial structure to a more sophisticated and complex organizational structure?

As a business emerges, the owner of the business needs to continually assess the training needs of his or her employees and managers. There are a number of steps to follow to ensure that the company is focusing attention and investment on the areas that will add most value. Effective Training and Development can make a tremendous difference to the business and employees, especially as the company becomes more complex. As with other key business decisions the principle should be
- do the right thing right, at the right time. Information technology has come to the fore, for example.

Effective Leadership and Management are based on making the best decisions and for this, you need to have the best information. That's why Analyzing your Business (Click on underlined words for more detail on each concept) and Assessing your ...