The type of communication problem that exists at Wegmans Company is an internal one, and it is particularly evident in the way Wegmans’ employees communicate with their leaders. The employees do not freely communicate with their leaders who happen to be coming from the same family background. The employees of Wegmans Company are, therefore, not free to effectively report the feedback that they receive from the clients. The internal communication problem that is present at Wegmans Company has affected the company in different ways and thus has made it lose some of its clients (Dana, 2010).
The internal communication problem at Wegmans Company is being caused by different factors. Key among them is the poor leadership style and the centralized organizational structure. The company is known to be led by people coming from one family background. Therefore, one is qualified to be a leader in this company provided he or she comes from the Wegman’s family regardless of whether he or she has the leadership skills or not. As a result, the company has a centralized organizational structure that does not allow for free communication among the members of the organization.
Analysis
The common phrase “not all people can make great leaders” seems not being considered at Wegmans Company because the company considers everyone to be a leader provided he or she comes from the Wegman’s family. The company has been led by the members of Wegman’s family since its foundation in 1916. For instance, currently, it is being led by Danny Wegman as the Chief Executive Officer, Colleen Wegman as the president and Nicole Wegman as the vice-president (Wegmans, 2015). It is not likely that all the members of Wegman family can have the qualities and skills of a great leader, and thus some of them have not managed to lead effectively.
For an organization to be very successful, one of the things that it has to have is a decentralized organization structure (Greenberg, 2011). Wegmans Company has a centralized organizational structure, where the power of decision making is only concentrated at the top, and the other members of the organization have little degrees of independence. Due to the fact that the organization suffers from aspects poor leadership styles, the company also has unclear organizational structure that does not effectively define the authority lines of the leaders, responsibilities of the members of the organization and the information flows within the organization.
Recommendations
Wegmans Company should adopt the following set of recommendations to solve the internal communication problem.
Adopt a decentralized organization structure
A decentralized organization is ideal for almost every organization since it makes every member of the organization feels that he or she is valued (Greenberg, 2011). The decentralized organizational structure will allow for the contribution of every member of Wegmans Company and thus Wegmans’ employees will be free to report the feedback from the clients freely to their leaders.
Adopt effective method of selecting organization leaders
Wegmans Company should restrain from the idea that the leaders of the company are only from Wegman’s family. The company should do away with this policy and start having leaders even from different family backgrounds provided they have the right traits and qualities of good leaders. By adopting this recommendation, the company will ensure that it eliminates the aspects of poor leadership styles present in the organization.
References
Dana, L. (2010). Wegmans Company. American Food Journal, 479-484.
Greenberg, J. (2011). Behavior in Organizations (10th ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
Retrieved June 30, 2015, from http://www.wegmans.com.
