First Step 3
Decision maker and responsibilities 3
Issues and significance 4
Reasoning for current issue and decision maker involvement 5
Timeline and urgency 6
Exhibits analyze 7
Second Step: Analyzing the Case 8
Defining the issue 8
Analyzing the data of the case 8
Genearting alternatives 8
Selecting decision criteria 9
Analyzing and evaluating alternatives 10
Selecting the preferred alternative 10
Developing an action/implementation of plan 10
References 12
First Step
Decision maker and responsibilities
The decision maker in this case is Jim Kilts. Kilts is a former CEO of Nabisco and was appointed as Gillette’s new chairman and CEO in 2001. Kilts has spent his life building brands. He is has contributed to some of the world’s largest brands: Oscar Mayer, General Foods, Nabisco, and Kraft. He intends on devoting his time and energies to Gillette to make the company an even greater brand. Kilts was brought into the organization in order to define and assess the current issues throughout Gillette’s operations. Kilts traveled to different offices and factories in order to increase his understand of the business and met the employees throughout the organization (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 1). Thus, his main responsibly was to assess the firm’s current operations and the issues that were currently present
Kilts’ responsibilities included the GBUs (global business management units) and the commercial operation groups. Individuals in both work forces were left under the direction of Kilts. He left President and COO, Ed Degrann, in charge of supply chain activities, manufacturing, and all non-North America regions. However, these changes only involved top executives and did not affect other aspects of the organization (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 3). Kilts time was better spent analyzing the current issues that were affecting the organizations performance.
Kilts’ main professional focus was on building the brand to be better than its current state. In his first days, weeks, and months at Gillette, Kilts established a process for conducting business, including coordination, reporting, and communication. He traveled widely and made himself accessible to the employees. His main responsibility was to define and prioritize the challenges that Gillette was currently facing and mobilizing the organization to fix the issues (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 4).
Issues and significance
Kilts was brought in to the organization to define and fix the current issues going on throughout the organization. When Kilts analyzed the firm, he realized that reorganizing the structure of the company would cause a disruption that is not needed. Kilts noticed that the main problem existed with the matrix structure of the organization, however, he believed that over time these issues would be handled (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 3). There were, however, other sustainable issues that needed to be handled throughout the organization.
Kilts found that one of the main issues is that employees throughout the organization are knowingly doing their job incorrectly. However, they are still conducting their job in the incorrect manner due to the fact their supervisors were directing them to do. Kilt also realized some individuals were not understand what was going on throughout the firm. This can cause problems on all levels for the firm. However, Kilts did not worried about this current issue going on at the firm. He was mainly concerned with the company’s strengths and weakness. After he has assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the firm, Kilts will be able to develop action and strategy plans to help target current issues throughout the firm (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 2).
In order to analyze the company, Kilts went around to different international location and assess the organizations strengths and weaknesses. Kilts then created a presentation that gave an outline of his management structure and what he expected out of the organization. In this presentation, Kilts management philosophy and employee expectations were clearly outlined. He placed an emphasis on weekly staff meeting and setting quarterly priorities. He also outlined annual objectives. An organization chart was also included in the presentation, which gave the viewer a clear outline of the top executives and their responsibilities in the firm (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 7).
Reasoning for current issue and decision maker involvement
The issue arose because of the lack of proper communication throughout the firm. Gillette’s headquarters are in Boston, however, the company operates all over the globe. After a month of being CEO of Gillette, Kilts realized that the reason why so many people were doing their jobs incorrectly was due to the lack of proper communication throughout all of their operating locations. Being an international company, Gillette quickly discovered that different international areas were not conducting business in the same manner as other locations (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 3). This is due to the lack of proper communication through different management levels of the firm.
The employees at Gillette have excellent backgrounds. They are from good schools with great experience bases. These individuals want to be told want to do and to be assisted in accomplishing it. However, the insular culture of Gillette did not allow for people to follow up on their employees (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 2). In other words, supervisors were not properly assisting or assessing their employees. Kilts also discovered that Gillette’s employees had a problem with accountability. When something was wrong, no one knew where the responsibility laid. This can be due to supervisor issues throughout the firm.
The decision makers were involved because the communication problem was starting to affect the companies supply chain. Communication throughout the firm was needs to be fixed in order for the company to work well throughout its parts. When Kilts first arrived, he realized that employees did not truly understood the true nature of their job. They simply were just told what to do without giving proper explanation as to why. Also, he discovered that the different international locations were doing their job incorrectly compared to the other locations. When Kilts asked the employees at the international locations why they were conducting their job that way, one of the employees informed Kilts it was the way the people in Boston told them to. This was due to the lack of communication throughout the management chain. Thus, proper communication became a pressing problem for the organization and Kilts was brought in to handle the situation.
Timeline and urgency
The decision maker has to resolve the issue by implementing strategy in order to fix the communication problem throughout the company. Due to the lack of proper communication, employees throughout the firm are not properly being told how to implement their job. In order to overcome the issue, Kilts was required set targets in order to allocate resources that are necessary in order for the issue to be overcome. Kilts stated that he expects outstanding performance from his employees. He also expect that the firm will make their numbers and do what they say they are going to do.
The urgency of the situation is that people will continue to do their jobs incorrectly if the communication problem is not fixed. If the company continues this communication path, the company’s organization structure will differ based on geographical location. Further, the employees will continue their job without any type of direction. Without knowing the exact nature of their job, employees are not able to adequately perform their job at their potential level. Thus, there is an urgency for Kilts to fix the current communication problem between operating locations.
Exhibits analyze
Numbers were not included in the exhibit. In the exhibit, Kilts outlines his objectives for the firm. He discusses what his goals are and how he aims to achieve them. However, Kilts did not use numerical representation to get his point across. Instead, Kilts stressed the importance of proper communication throughout the firm. He also set quarterly and annual goals for the organization, however, numbers were not use to highlight his goals. Instead, Kilts took a more qualitative approach with the organization and stressed the importance of communication throughout the firm.
The areas that are cover more in depth are weekly staff meetings and Kilts’ management philosophy. In these areas, Kilts outlines his expectations for the employees and the organizations structure. Through the exhibit, it is obvious Kilts pushed the communication aspect of the organization. One of the main areas covered in depth was the weekly staff meetings. Under this subtitle, Kilts made weekly staff meetings required for all employees. These staff meetings were conducted in order for employees to fully understand what is going on throughout the organization so they can properly implement their job. These staff meetings were weekly and were set to last for two hours. However, Kilts allowed more time if the weekly staff meetings needed to be extended (Kanter & Weber, 2005, p. 7).
Second Step: Analyzing the Case
Defining the issue
The issues is the company lacks proper communication through its supply chains. Kilts believes that open communication is key in order to help the company reorganize. Kilts met with as many employees as he could, however, given the geographical scope of the company, videotape presentations were distributed worldwide. Kilt also held employee roundtables with 6-8 people from different management levels and functions. Kilts strongly pushed weekly staff meetings in order to educate all employees about what is currently going on throughout the organization so they can properly do their job. Thus, Kilts focused on the communication problem and attempted to overcome this issue with staff meetings and proper communication through management.
Analyzing the data of the case
There was not much data in this case. Kilts stated in his presentation that it was mainly information and insights that he was after, not data, in order to understand what is going on throughout the organization. Thus, the information was more concerned with communication and less with data interpretation.
Generating alternatives
Effective communication is needed in the case at hand. The alternatives for this case are implementing communication technology or transferring willing employees to different locations. The Gillette case was in 2001, thus, they did not have access to the type of technology that is available today. However, implementing technology in order to decreases communication problems is an excellent way of educating employees (Tang & Zimmerman, 2013, p. 27). The only problem with implementing communication technology is information security. Thus, implementing communication technology would require a firm to implement an IT branch as well (p. 27).
Transferring willing employees to different locations can also help with the communication problem. This can also help show employees across the company the proper way of conducting their jobs. Companies have historically found international success by transferring employees in and out of those international location (Jacobs, 2012, p. 151). This allows an organization to maintain the organizations culture while conducting business in different countries. An organizations culture can be easily altered or loss when conducting business internationally. However, frequently transferring willing employees can help maintain the organizations culture (Ainsworth, 2013, p. 28).
Selecting decision criteria
The decision criteria for this case involves financial and operational costs. The decision criteria also involves the expected employee impact. However, the ultimate selection decision criteria is the future impact of the alternatives. In other words, the decision was based on which alternative had the best future outcome for the organization. For example, creating and monitoring communication technology does come with a substantial expenses. However, given the current and future need of communication technology, the organization would have to adapt the technology at some point. Transferring employees, on the other hand, has other impacts for an organization. These impacts impact the employees more than the financial stability of the company. However, the company cannot conduct business without the employees (Mayfield, 2016, p. 3).
Analyzing and evaluating alternatives
While analyzing the alternatives, it is important to analyze the future impact both alternatives would have on the organization. Implementing communication technology would be the easiest on the employees, however, may be more of a financial investment than transferring employees. However, not all employees want to work internationally. If there are not enough willing employees to travel to different international locations, then Gillette may be harmed with the possibility of losing their workforce.
Selecting the preferred alternative
The preferred alternative is implementing communication technology. This alternative comes with more of a cost for the organization, however, communication technology is a growing need for organizations today and need to have their own proper communication to communicate with their operation units all over the world. While transferring employees to different locations is more cost efficient for the organization, it could decrease the quantity of workforce throughout the organization.
Developing an action/ implementation of plan
The plan should be implemented by creating a specific technology that can allow all operation units throughout the firm to properly communicate with one another. Then, implementing an IT department that can properly manage the security aspects of the communication technology. In this case, Kilts made a videotaped presentation to hand out to different departments across the globe. However, videotaped presentations do not allow the viewers to ask questions and retain proper responses. Thus, these videotaped presentations could actually lead to more communication problems throughout the firm. Having a specific technology that is designed for the organization would allow all units to communicate virtually anywhere. Having communication technology would allow Kilts to make one presentation to all employees at one time, while also taking questions to make sure all employees are on the same page.
References
Ainsworth, J. (2013). Business languages for intercultural and international business communication: a Canadian case study. Communication Quarterly, 76(1), 28-50.
Jacobs, G. (2012). The language factors in international business: new perspectives on research, teaching and practice. Language and Communication, 151.
Kanter, R. & Weber, J. (2005). Gillette company (B): leadership for change. Harvard Business School, 1-8.
Mayfield, J. (2016). International journal of business communication special issue: leadership communication. Journal of Business Communication, 53(1), 3-4.
Tang, C. & Zimmerman, J. (2013). Information and communication technology for managing supply chain risks. Communications of the ACM, 56(7), 27-29.
