An Assessment of Elizabeth Winters as a Manager of DMPS

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.