Page 196 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Introduction

Managers seemed obsessed with objectives set years ago. For example, in production,
the main concern was with the sales value of output and with efficiencies. The disrupted
schedules made both harder to achieve. Little concern was directed at quality of output. In
fact deliveries were often late and there was a high level of returned goods. Attempts to start
discussion of these latter problems led to intensely defensive reactions by production man-
agement. However, much patient work by the finance director, with the production direc-
tor, created some movement here. A review of quality control procedures led them to agree
to appoint more quality inspectors who were to be located at the problem areas in the pro-
duction sequence. One of the concerns was that quality problems were being discovered
late, subsequent to further work having been carried out on the already defective items.
The company had originally experienced strong growth between 1978 and 1986,
but since 1986 profits had stagnated, and even begun to decline. The morale of the
company appeared to be low. Delegation to middle and junior management was very
limited. No management training ever took place. Promotion was entirely from within.
The managing director expressed the view that someone who had been promoted
would ‘know what to do or else we should not have promoted them’. Discouraged in
taking the initiative or in promoting ideas, and thus lacking in self-confidence, many jun-
ior or middle managers tended to leave decisions to the directors. In consequence the
directors were often vocal in their criticisms of the managers, and felt that the managers
were unable to make effective decisions.
As can be readily seen, there is something of a ‘vicious circle’ at work here. Given the
management style in use it seems quite likely that the growth between 1978 and 1986
placed senior managers, directors and the company’s various systems under pressure
leading to declining performance. This appears to have led to a redoubling of the direc-
tive management style in an effort to regain control. However, instead of gaining control,
this merely made matters worse. More staffing in key areas would help and the recently
agreed increases in the number of inspectors was the first such increase. In fact, the
declining performance meant that the managing director had always opposed increased
indirect staffing. Ultimately, of course, more staffing was not the answer. An approach to
improving style and managerial effectiveness and performance needed to be developed.
The finance director often suggested that management performance needed improve-
ment. He thought that management training was worth investigating. The managing
director tended not to listen to other people’s views; thus there was very little exchange of

ideas. People tended not to approach the managing director to discuss problems, the only
exception being the finance director who had worked with him as a senior colleague for
16 years. The managing director and others found discussing attitudes and feelings diffi-
cult and they thus avoided doing so. This was often explained as a means of protecting
other people’s sensitivities: ‘We don’t want to press the point for fear of upsetting X, who
is under a lot of work pressure.’ There was very little open statement and testing of views.
The finance director’s early attempts to discuss quality were hindered by the managing
director claiming that quality was a production responsibility and refusing to talk about the
problems with anyone other than the production director so as not to undermine him.
However, if an important customer complained about the level of returns the managing
director would often criticize production bitterly, aggressively and openly. Eventually, the
finance director’s attempts to discuss quality problems were welcomed by the production
director with a great sense of relief. Someone was interested. Someone was listening.
Appraisals of senior staff were not carried out. Indeed, recording performance reviews
on paper was seen to be counterproductive. However, the managing director had, and
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