Case Analysis 4, John Smithers - detailed questions

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Matthew Oss Case Analysis 4: John Smithers Case Analysis – Individual MGMT-631-ON01.2023FAB John Smithers at Sigtek The goal of this case is to help you understand how to manage change. The case covers the topics of Management of Change and Organizational Culture. Before you analyze the case, make sure to read the assigned readings. If you understand what helps and hinders change, you can easily identify the mistakes that are made by various stakeholders in the case. The case also covers other topics that we have covered in the past which you should be familiar with already. As always, remember to distinguish between facts, opinions and assumptions. Please answer all questions. I will grade Q 4, 5 and 6. You must do 1, 2 and 3 to do 4-6 well. We will discuss all of them in class. 1. What was the situation faced by Smithers in this assignment? Don’t forget to discuss the environment faced by the company, unit etc (discuss the context). The situation being faced by Smithers was that he was anticipating that he was going to be laid off from his job role at Sigtek due to his managers being demoted and new management implemented in the company. There have been some factors mentioned that act as barriers for change in the company such as managers showing an unwillingness to change and John had to deal with this by removing those managers from their job positions. Another issue that created a barrier was the difference and diversity taking place between the manufacturing team at the company and the engineers responsible with designing and helping to give instruction on how to build their products. Another barrier has been Richard Patricof who is the lead for the manufacturing team as they have been a barrier for change in the organization. He has been unwilling to accept new practices by management and has also not rewarded those who have adopted the new practices. This has made it difficult for Smithers to implement the total Quality program because Patricof’s employees have not accepted the new management practices. Team work has also been a barrier to change, in a manufacturing organization cross functional meetings are crucial and many have been unwilling to attend these meetings and attendance has been low. Regardless of these barriers that were present, there were also drivers for change in the case. One of the managers before they resigned wanted the conflict between manufacturing and engineering to end to get better clarity for the manufacturing process. Sigtek was also looking to grow within the coming 5 years in the telecommunications industry and change was necessary to bring about coordinated group efforts within their operations. The market is competitive and Sigtek needed to diversify to compete. The company that purchased Sigtek (Telwork) also required change for Sigtek to be grouped into their corporate umbrella and implementation of their total quality program.

Matthew Oss Case Analysis 4: John Smithers Case Analysis – Individual MGMT-631-ON01.2023FAB 2. What forces in and outside the company are likely to push for change? What forces are likely to act as a hindrance to change? The 8-stage change management process proposed by Kotter can be used to evaluate the change management underway at Sigtek. Sigtek could have improved by being proactive in their approach for change rather than reactive. The sense of urgency mentioned in Kotter’s model was apparent as Telwork wants to influence the way their suppliers operate. The Total quality program sense of urgency had already been implemented by Telwork in order for Sigtek to adapt to their corporate culture. The 2 nd step in Kotter’s model is for the creation of a guiding coalition or a group that can make change easily. Smithers was chosen as a leader for this coalition as they showed enthusiasm at work and believing everyone deserved an equal opportunity. Another Leader Sam Murphy was also chosen to lead the manufacturing team and work with Smithers, both employees showed their commitment to implementation of the Total Quality program. Kotter’s 3 rd step covers instructions for change and how they should develop a vision and strategy to change the future of the organization. This requires business leaders to drive motivation but also make important decisions. Sigtek did a good job of implementing this 3 rd step when implementing the Total Quality Goals. 3. Chronologically list the activities related to the change process. (Although you do not need to turn the response to this question to me, you will find it impossible to do the case even reasonably well if you do not do this for yourself. Consider each step in the change process as it unfolds to identify where errors were made) Sigtek, which was founded by three Western Electric veterans 25 years ago, manufactures printed circuit boards for signal handling. Sigtek, a small telecommunication company, sold its products to AT&T and long-distance carriers. In the beginning, the company comprised of 1000 employees with the sales of $60 million. However, the strategy of the company failed to achieve its targets and goals that reduce the company’s workforce to 800 employees and sales dropped to $40 million. During this time, another company known as Telwork, a Europe telecommunications company acquired Sigtek. After acquiring the company, Telwork formulated Six Sigma Quality Program to improve product quality, best management practices and create diversification in the company. In the case the engineering manager John Smithers was hand-picked by the vice president of Sigtek to be one of the leaders for their Total Quality Program. Although Smithers was a promising leader, Sigtek failed to implement the Total Quality Program. Smithers had a difficult path laid in front of him and faced several challenges that were covered in the previous section such as division between engineering and manufacturing, and the negative relationship with Richard Patricof. There was a lack of strong leadership, the lack of employee commitment coming to the cross functional meetings, market competition, and the low level of trust in the company led to low employee morale. TO correct these issues Smithers and team need to implement a strategy to win. To achieve

Matthew Oss Case Analysis 4: John Smithers Case Analysis – Individual MGMT-631-ON01.2023FAB this Smithers needs to improve his professional network inside and outside of Sigtek to learn from other managers that have successfully implemented this Total Quality Program. He can learn about the challenges they have faced and the things they have done to overcome those challenges and he would also gain important allies to help him. Smithers also needs to work on repairing the relationship with Patricof. The two need to work together to develop a collaborative strategy together along with other senior managers for the betterment of Sigtek. Smithers also needs to educate Patricof on the Total Quality Program/Six Sigma Quality Program so that Patricof can better understand what is trying to be implemented as well as give Patricof more information to assist with the initiative. Smithers needs to remove management barriers by developing open communication and diversification to encourage manufacturing Operations and engineering teams to better work together and achieve company goals. Implementation of a cross functional team would be beneficial to communicate conflict and overcome it as well as HR training to allocate time budget and expenses to effectively run the Total Quality Management Program. 4. Discuss why things went wrong. Who was responsible? This is an important question – make sure to think broadly and consider the roles of various stakeholders in the change process. (75% effort and space) John Smithers is faced with a difficult situation as he expects to be let go as one of the two people picked to implement the TQP at Sigtek. This is due to his boss being demoted. Strong circumstances have been preventing the needed reform. Smithers had to remove a couple of managers that were resistant to the change from their roles. Another issue was the division between the engineering and manufacturing groups covered in question 1. This significant division between these two groups made it difficult for these two critical organizations to work together. Diverse culture makes it hard to make changes and achieve consistent improved upon results like with the TQP. Patricof, the leader of the manufacturing group also made it difficult for Smithers as he was unwilling to implement new changes and did not provide incentives for any of his manufacturing employees to implement these new changes. The organization also has a resistance to working together as a team, also covered in question 1. For the organization to thrive employees needed to work together and attend each other’s cross team meetings but attendance was low and many were unwilling to work together. 5. Was Smithers effective? (Discuss. (5%) (what criteria did you use to make this decision) Ultimately, I believe Smithers was effective and did as good of a job as could be expected which was shown in part by why he was chosen to leader the initiative. Smithers followed the Kotter model methodically at each step and when the Total Quality Goals were created. But as challenges arose and there was difficulty getting these groups to work together, I believe that Smithers struggled to successfully

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Matthew Oss Case Analysis 4: John Smithers Case Analysis – Individual MGMT-631-ON01.2023FAB navigate these challenges and bring about major changes. I believe his abiity to be effective was limited due to no support from senior managers, the cultural chasm and the organizations hurdles. 6. What could Smithers have done differently? As in the past, provide specific actionable recommendations chronologically (20 %) I think Smithers could have done a better job with stakeholder buy in. as addressed earlier I think expanding his network and including the key pieces like senior management that he needed to make this work is something he could have done better to get shared commitment. Smithers could also do a better job with cultural integration to address the divide between engineering and manufacturing to build a shared understanding and get the two groups to commit to change. Smithers could also get first line managers on board like Patricof to get their support with the change initiative. Communication is another key piece to develop. Clear communication keeps employees motivated and engaged during the change. Addressing organization problems is important as well, coming up with a way to identify problems and implement solutions in an efficient way. And finally prioritize the victories and focus on achieving visible and significant wings early and often to demonstrate value added. Detailed comments on the above questions. 1. We start all our analyses with such considerations: Think about the issues the organization has been facing, and as a second issue, that Smithers is facing. Identify key stakeholders in the change process. Understand their goals and actions. 2. Look at Sigtek as “the company”. Consider forces that are likely to help (or push for) this particular change (the TQM effort) to take place. Then consider forces that are likely to hinder change (be resistant to change). You can consider the broader environment, the HO, people in Sigtek in various departments etc… Look at different stakeholders and their positions. 3. The question does not ask for your opinion or analysis. All you need to do is to chronologically list out how the change in question (the TQM) was rolled out. This non- evaluative list will help you identify underlying issues at each stage as the change was rolled out. 4. This is the most important question to answer and is the heart of the analysis. You have to think about what mistakes were made at various points. Many stakeholders (parties involved or impacted by the change initiative) were involved in the change process. If they made any mistakes identify them. It will be very useful for you to

Matthew Oss Case Analysis 4: John Smithers Case Analysis – Individual MGMT-631-ON01.2023FAB understand how to make successful changes so you can identify errors made by various parties here. 5. Take a stand on whether you judge Smithers to be effective (or not). You need to explain the standards by which you judged his effectiveness (or not). Defend your opinion with facts. 6. This is also pretty obvious – we have done questions like these in all the cases. Support your views.

Case Analysis 4, John Smithers - detailed questions

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