An Assessment of Elizabeth Winters as a Manager of DMPS
Relationship building
Ms. Winters’ predecessors had learned the hard way the importance of an integrated peer network. When Maddox reorganised the divisions in 1999 in order to encourage collaboration and enhance the combination of expertise across units, he unintentionally separated the marketing and product development teams. Similarly, as some DMPS employees had noted, CW tended to isolate their new ventures “while they were ‘incubating’ ” – possibly stemming from the existing culture that valued individual contributions over combined efforts – and that there was indeed a need to have a more integrated network of groups.
An important first step that Ms. Winters took was the way that she moved rapidly to take advantage of top level management support given to her by Nick Kennedy and Anita Fields to meet with mid level management. This helped to achieve two objectives. Firstly she managed to spread the news of her arrival and of the new direction and plans for DMPS thus building momentum. Secondly she was able to quickly introduce herself and network among multiple players in the company – a method that proves invaluable in determining allies and gaining support by personally bringing a top level initiative to the mid level at a time when many felt that they were facing a crisis. Involving managers both internal and external to the project would have helped with the reorganisation of DMPS.
Organisation
The existing individualistic culture was one that had developed around a product development need. Whilst smaller “silos” were indeed conducive to supporting the flexibility and innovation inherent in this culture, and suitable for the creation of a wider array of product designs within the existing firm, they proved to foster a degree of duplication of efforts as well as the limiting knowledge sharing throughout the organisation. New ventures require the support of the parent company and its resources and this needed to be changed for the success of DMPS.
With this in mind, Winters’ efforts to change the structure of DMPS was, in my view, a necessary one. The creation of a system whereby individuals reported to multiple managers accomplished several goals. Firstly, it facilitated a wider awareness of ongoing activities across the organisation. Secondly, it allowed for more solid strategy formation by having advice and guidance come from multiple inputs with a wider range of experience. Lastly, this structure paralleled that of the parent company, allowing for easier understanding of what these activities represented.
“It’s not surprising that there’s distrust and a lack of communication among managers.” Outside DAC meetings, we rarely work together,” said one DAC member. “There’s been no attempt at team building, and with eight managers with widely varying management styles, we’re bound to step on each other’s toes” (Chell, 1996, pg. 12).
Van Alstyne, M. W. (2005). Create colleagues, not competitors . Harvard Business Review, 83(9), 24-28.
RL Wolfe decided to try the SHRM through self-driven teams. In the past, the company had highly unionized stru...
Hughes, M 2006, 'Strategic change', in M Hughes (ed.), Change management: a critical perspective, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London, pp. 52-63.
Technology’s direct effects on organizational structure have been readily visible over the past twenty years. The ascendancy of personal computer networks over mainframes has accelerated the shift away from ponderous bureaucracies toward nimble networks. In other words, technology moves decision making closer to the immediate situation. The Wall Street Journal article about Captain Ayers demonstrated how even such traditionally rigid hierarchies as the U.S. military now see the value of empowering lower level decision makers and encouraging shared experiences throughout the organization. Because of this, technology has been one of the key enablers for eliminating layers of management and encouraging the use of self-organized teams and networks of individuals, moving toward Miles and Snow’s projected cellular form of the future. They discuss how each cell can continually reorganize and use technical, collaborative, and governance skills to customize and improve its output. These teams can even assemble over long distances to share expertise, which enhances productivity, as Margaret Wheatley notes, “…self-managed teams are far more productive than any other form of organizing.”
Tuckman (1965) describes four stages of team development, these being; Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing. The team began to form before I even arrived, as the existing team were aware of my imminent arrival, and most knew me or knew of me. As Tuckman (1965) wrote, team members often display excitement, fear and anxiety, and this was apparent in that some felt that I was a “new broom” brought in to clear out the dead wood, and others were excited at the prospect of change.
Mr. Nardelli could have spent more time demonstrating why the changes were necessary and why the urgency. Taking a look at the communication strategies (discussed later in this paper), there appeared to have been a great deal of one way communication, but less collaboration and some employees could have felt their opinions did not matter. As such, not everyone agreed with the changes, however, he did place a sense of urgency.
...world has become extremely fast and full of change. If the leader can’t adapt to changing conditions, it is very possible for his firm to be kicked out of the game. How can the firm change, though? The most effective way is to go through new ideas. Here, it reminders me Welch’s famous saying: "Change before you have to."
Going back to DG directorate and the two drivers of change mentioned above, there are many resistors that leaders could face. The first thing that leader needs to do when applying any change is the acceptance of change and the full understanding of the change and its benefit. If the leader passes this stage, then he needs to start thinking of the employees at work and how to explain to them and convince them with the change.
In addition to urgency, Gustavsson could not create a powerful guiding coalition. He established a cross-functional team to develop a new moisture-resistant product. But the team did not include a sales manager who knows customers' needs and eventually sells the product. Although the team developed a commercially-viable product, their efforts, at least in the short term, were unsatisfactory, because with sales people's own doubts about the new product, they were afraid of jeopardizing the reputation of current product. Moreover, these cross functional teams operated within the established organization maintained the company's dominate culture and past norms. We know that structurally independent teams that are tightly integrated into the existing hierarchy with different cultures and processes are often more successful.
However, Lewin’s central model centres on unfreezing, effecting change and then refreezing, starting from the status quo, then moving things and then continuing with the new status quo (Green, 2007). Kotter’s change model focuses on establishing urgency, guiding coalition, developing strategy, communication, empowerment, short-term wins, consolidation of gains to produce and anchor new changes (Sabri et al, 2007). Kotter does not engage with the complexity of organisational systems and potential clashing, he sees change being systematic, architectural, political and doesn’t engage strongly with the less deterministic metaphors in the latter steps (Smith et al, 2015). However, Kotter does highlight the importance of communicating the vision and keeping the communication high throughout the process although this starts with a burst of energy and in later stages its followed by delegation and distance (Cameron and green, 2009). Lewin’s change model focuses on people with the collaboration, contribution creating a force field approach to change including the power holders socially, culturally and behaviourally to drive change (Smith et al, 2015). However, Lewin’s approach ignores the metaphor of groups of people only willing to change if there is a need to do so, the model is more of a planning tool rather than an organisational development process (Cameron and green,
“Informal groups have a powerful influence on the effectiveness of an organization, and can even subvert its formal groups. But, the informal group’s role is not limited to resistance. The impact of the informal group upon the larger formal group depends on the norms that the informal group sets. So the informal group can make the formal organization more effective, too.” Informal groups can either be a manager’s best friend or worst enemy. Group Development: The Formation of Informal Work Groups Informal work groups are part of any working environment; how they form, the leadership within the group and how these groups communicate, follow the same basic model. “Groups are particularly good at combining talents and providing innovate solutions to possible unfamiliar problems.” “There are five stages of group development. The first is forming,which is where the group first comes together. Everyone is usually polite. Conflict is seldom voiced directly. Individuals will be guarded in their own opinions and reserved.” The second form of developmentis “storming a chaotic vying for leadership and trailing of group operates.” The third is norming as the second stage evolves the rules of engagement for the group becomes established, and the scopes of the group’s task or responsibilities are clear and agreed. Fourth is performing,not all groups reach this point. Everyone knows each other well enough to be able to work together. And the fifth stage is adjourning; this is about the completion and disengagement of the tasks and group members. The formations of informal work groups are employed by an organization to perform specific functions. Informal groups almost always arise ...
...ir knowledge base through the lessons learned by working with a multitude of companies, each with their own distinct characteristics, they were able to transition from a product development company to a company that offers a strategic partnership that provides innovative solutions focusing on the business as a whole. Now, IDEO creates and enhances some of the most creative organizations on the globe. A major shift in the paradigm established in 2000 focus on invention and the individualist nature of product design. Innovative companies such as Procter & Gamble have benefited immensely from the years of innovative evolution and learning experienced by IDEO. The more IDEO learns, the more their customers learn. This in turn helps IDEO to further their knowledge base creating a continuous loop of design thinking seemingly driven by a perpetual motor that breeds success.
Nike is made up as a matrix organizational structure, which consist of several specialists and some individuals report to at a minimum of two managers. In the company, the staff informs to a crew of managers who dispatches the development report to the manager of the department. Each product within the company includes of it is own section and has its own department who performs independently of the CEO. The managers and employees of Nike decide concerning design and manufacture while the department managers concentrate mainly on ethical issues. In addition, the managers are completely accountable for the employees. While operating a matrix structure, Nike makes choices and responds quicker than any other department. Unlike Nike, Microsoft uses a divisional structure because it offers various separations within the company that functions almost as their own separate entities. However, this does not mean that they do not collaborate on projects or cross reference with each other. The divisi...
Access to resource - One of the reasons to collaborate is to take advantage of resources. For example, an inter-company collaborates to place a product in the market where one compa...