Motivation and leadership

You are the Director of Order Fulfillment Applications in the Information Technology department of EEST Company. Your staff consists of a Manager of Inventory Systems and a Manager of Order Processing Systems as well as a team of 20 analysts and programmers divided equally between the two managers. You report to the VP of Applications Development, and she reports to the CIO.

Currently, most of your department is midway through a two year project to upgrade an outdated order fulfillment application system that was originally written in-house and no longer meets the company's functional needs. The project consists of major rewrites to the existing system modules which when completed will meet the new requirements of the company's customers and marketplace. Those few staff members not assigned to this effort are engaged in day-to-day support and minor maintenance to the existing system.

It was recently announced by corporate management that EEST is being purchased by a competitor from the same industry, the Ouest Corporation. Ouest is of roughly the same size (in terms of revenue and staff count) as EEST, but has a very different market philosophy and internal culture. As senior managers have begun planning for the acquisition, it has come to light that these differences extend to fundamental IT philosophy as well. For example, Ouest has a corporate policy to use only vendor-written software packages and not to develop software in-house.

Out of the acquisition planning process has come a directive that similar headquarters administrative departments from the two formerly separate companies, such as Finance, HR and IT, will be combined, and "excess" positions will be eliminated. Preliminary expectations are that you and your VP will be retained, but about one half of your existing staff (including one of your managers) will be let go and several Ouest programmers will become part of your new organization. Additionally, the senior corporate management team has stated that the combined IT department must quickly become an effective team that fits the corporate and IT cultures. Obviously, you realize that these changes will have major effects on both your staff members and on your ongoing project.

Turn your attention to the upgrade project and imagine yourself as a member of a team comprised of EEST and Ouest employees (your instructor will assign you to a team, but you will need to decide among yourselves who is EEST and who is Ouest) Members of the former EEST programming staff have been in the department working on the upgrade project. Members of the Ouest staff have been transferred to the department.
The Manager of the newly merged department has asked each team to prepare a presentation describing the corporate and departmental culture that existed in their organization prior to the acquisition. The intent is to hold a departmental meeting later and discuss the differences and similarities. EEST is in general an open, people-oriented organization. Ouest is a hierarchical, results-focused company.

You are a member of the Ouest team. Develop notes on Motivational Methods & Management Style lower/senior level department heads.