DQ 1

You are the owner of a 100 employee retail dry goods store. You are located in a town where the major employer is an automotive support industry who has just announced that they are relocating their facility to Mexico. Analyze the challenges facing your company using OD principle. How would you apply OD principles in order to ensure the continued operation of your business?

CASE: THE FARM BANK

The Farm Bank is one of the state’s oldest and most solid banking institutions. Located in a regional marketing center, the bank has been active in all phases of banking, specializing in farm loans. The bank’s president, Frank Swain, 62, has been with the bank for many years and is prominent in local circles.

The bank is organized into six departments, as shown in Figure 7.7. A senior vice president heads each department. All six of them have been with the bank for years, and in general they reflect a stable and conservative outlook.

The Management Information System

Two years ago, President Swain felt that the bank needed to modernize its operations. With the approval of the board of directors, he decided to design and install a comprehensive management information system (MIS). The primary goal was to improve internal operations by supplying necessary information on a more expedited basis, thereby decreasing the time necessary to service customers. The system was also to be designed to provide economic operating data for top management planning and decision making. To head this department, he selected Al Hassler, 58, a solid operations manager who had some knowledge and experience in the computer department.

After the system was designed and installed, Mr. Hassler hired a young woman as his assistant. Valerie Wyatt was a young college graduate with a strong systems analysis background. She is the only woman at this level and considerably younger than any of the other managers.

In the time since the system was installed, the MIS has provided thousands of documents of operating information, including reports to all the vice presidents, all the branch managers, and the president. The reports provide weekly, monthly, and quarterly summaries and include cost of operations, projected labor costs, overhead costs, and projected earnings figures for each segment of the bank’s operations.

The MIS Survey

Mr. Swain was pleased with the system but noticed little improvement in management operations. In fact, most of the older vice presidents were making decisions and functioning pretty much as they did before the MIS was installed. Mr. Swain decided to have Ms. Wyatt conduct a survey of the users to try to evaluate the impact and benefits of the new system. Ms. Wyatt was glad to undertake the survey, because she had long felt the system was too elaborate for the bank’s needs. She sent out a questionnaire to all department heads, branch managers, and so on, inquiring into their uses of the system.

As she began to assemble the survey data, a pattern began to emerge. In general, most of the managers were strongly in favor of the system but felt that it should be modified. As Ms. Wyatt analyzed the responses, several trends and important points came out: (1) 93 percent reported that they did not regularly use the reports because the information was not in a useful form, (2) 76 percent reported that the printouts were hard to interpret, (3) 72 percent stated that they received more data than they wanted, (4) 57 percent reported finding some errors and inaccuracies, and (5) 87 percent stated that they still kept manual records because they did not fully trust the MIS.

FIGURE 7.7        Partial Organization Chart

The Meeting

Ms. Wyatt finished her report, excitedly rushed into Mr. Hassler’s office, and handed it to him. Mr. Hassler slowly scanned the report and then said, “You’ve done a good job here, Val. But now that we have the system operating, I don’t think we should upset the apple cart, do you? Let’s just keep this to ourselves for the time being and perhaps we can correct most of these problems. I’m sure Frank wouldn’t want to hear this kind of stuff. This system is his baby, so maybe we shouldn’t rock the boat with this report.”

Ms. Wyatt returned to her office feeling uncomfortable. She wondered what to do. (Use the Case Analysis Form on the following page.)

DQ 2

Think about the manager that you have in your current job or one that you have had in the past. Identify and explain the communication processes that the manager uses or used in a work group. What could the manager have done to more effectively apply the communication process? How would you have communicated differently if you were the manager of the work group?