Managing Stability & Managing Change

Managing Stability & Managing Change HDCS 4393/4394 InternshipDr. Shirley Ezell

Myths 1. There ought to be significant distinctions between managers who manage what appears to be stable systems and those who can cope effectively with change. 2. Only line managers with product responsibilities can assume general management like responsibilities with management interrelationships among functions, and balancing and trading off among various activities, with bottom line results that measure effectiveness. 3. So-called self-managing autonomous groups or teams require little external leadership.

Intervention What Are 3 Kinds of Managerial Interventions? 1. Systems Maintenance (Maintaining work) 2. Adaptation 3. Consequential Change

Intervention (Cont.) • In Systems Maintenance good managers spend significant time identifying causes of system malfunctioning. They look at quality, service, integrated whole , efficiency, and even safety.

Systems Maintenance • When customers complain about late delivery, changes in tooling take too long, new employees make too many errors or quality defects in the products, the manager can take the following steps: 1. Manager can work with sophisticated technology with all interfaces designed and fine tuned to company needs and collect real time data. 2. Manager can look for ways to improve system continually. 3.One can always use training or retraining or staff development. 4. In contrast, less effective managers are passive until some plan or budget deviation forces them to take action.

Change is Required to Get Stability • Good managers will be finding ways in which their systems have subpart performance, or can improve performance with regularity. • All managers need to be change agents. • The response required for failure is adaptation.

Managers are not Islands unto Themselves If quality and performance and service are to remain at high level, such external changes require internal adaptations. And they are very similar in terms of leadership energy and skill.

A Line Manager’s Struggle • There are many lessons to be learned from Kay Cohen’s experience in this chapter. • Kay managed a relatively self-contained unit that produced a variety of glues and adhesives for other manufacturers. She was relatively new on the job and knew that some of her fellow managers questioned whether a woman could make it on the manufacturing side of the business.

Beginning to Plan for Change • As she put her plans and budgets together for 1991, she realized that she could improve performance. Her sales revenues depended on the division’s marketing department, and most of her raw materials were purchased in small quantities from large chemical companies. This gave her little room to maneuver on price, however she knew that her employees worked as an effective team, morale was high and quality was excellent.

Beginning to Plan for Change (Cont.) Improvement: Kay realized that she depended on an internal source for unique solvents that were used to make about ½ of her custom glue. Unfortunately she was a small customer and she frequently had to wait days for a delivery from Process Chemicals (PC). This hurt her fast turnaround for her customers.

Managers Must Do Their Homework In her research she found a small company Dill Chemicals that had some new equipment that could be used to produce relatively small quantities of materials. She then undertook an extensive investigation to find who sold and serviced the equipment. 15 calls later she decided that Dill was a good company. She flies to Chicago to interview the company and after further analysis finds that for an investment of $450,000 she would have a ROI close to 20%.

Managers Must Do Their Homework (Cont.) Kay has a preliminary discussion with her boss Mike Graflin. She made a presentation and he said he would think about it. He also suggested she contact Jim Travis an engineer in the corporate staff technology group before going any further with Dill.

Developing Relationships She received a slot with Jim Travis to present her ideas to the committee and then realized she needed to talk to marketing, to prepare a detailed report. In addition she needed to talk to an old friend in the finance group since she had never gone through the process of all the paperwork required for the purchase of equipment.

Developing Relationships (Cont.) • She books a flight to see Travis and prepared a compact summary version of her proposal. He thought she had done a good job on her research with Dill but felt it would be wasteful to use the equipment for more than mundane solvents. • Kay agrees to start out for the first 6 months splitting the sourcing but felt the trial might prove that she could get rid of the PC connection.

Change Process Takes Time • He also suggested that she see Phyllis Cyzak because she was an expert on maintenance and that she was to send Travis a copy of her response. • Kay returns to talk to her contact in finance, who says go back to the drawing board to sure that you can justify and increase ROI to 25%.

Change Process Takes Time (Cont.) • She makes her contact with marketing, talks with Chris Doppi of PC who is angry and invites him to lunch. He is not cooperative but Kay realized that by this time she has her boss on her side. Just as she is making progress she finds out that Chris Doppi of PC is spreading rumors suggesting that Dill Co. is having problems.

Managers Need Team Support • Kay immediately puts together a task force. This works because they develop a loyalty to Kay and even bring in new equipment on a weekend to make the deal happen. Kay finally gets the equipment and problems emerge. Then employees begin to get headaches from fumes coming from the Dill equipment. Once again, Kay must find a solution to another problem. How does this case end?

What Can Be Learned From This Case? • Many decisions require managers to spend effort skill, and persistence in working the organization to introduce change. • Small technical details often make a critical difference and there are many compromises. Change opens a Pandora’s box of problems, many trivial but each threatening performance. • One has to wonder how many managers would go thorough all the trials and details, and meetings and spend the energy in the full measure of this case by Kay?

Working Managers The important lesson is that Working Managers don’t seek to insert ready-made, consultant solutions. They recognize that in order to work well, any fix must be fully integrated into the routines of the organization.

General Managers vs Functional Managers: Is The Leadership Different? • General Managers have to develop those leadership skills associated with balancing and trading off or optimizing the contribution of each of the key functions necessary for completed work. • Although functional managers usually aren’t profit centers they are more likely cost centers. They obviously don’t control a wide range of other functions, and their challenges can be quite similar to general managers.

General Managers vs Functional Managers: Is The Leadership Different? • It is often asserted that functional managers cannot be real leaders because they don’t have profit performance measures. • There are however many measures for functional managers to use including service, quality, cost savings, innovativeness. These all can be measured and their contributions can be as important as profit.

Do Self-Managing Groups Need Managing? • In self-managing groups the group itself can handle materials requisitions, negotiations with human resources, quality control department and even selection of new employees. But this does not eliminate their need for management and a manager with leadership skills. • Managers have a role in working with autonomous groups. The manager has critical role in negotiating with external groups whose routines contradict or interfere with the work of the autonomous units.

Do Self-Managing Groups Need Managing? (Cont.) • The greater the self-managing capability of the work group, the more the manager’s focus shifts to developing a strategy for the future, negotiating for new resources and new technology and getting final approval from higher management.

Managers asWorking Leaders • In summary, management in modern change-oriented and competition-pressured organizations requires leadership skills to routinize, to adapt, and to introduce change. And both functional managers and managers of autonomous groups can't get an exemption. • Management and Leadership are synonymous in the contemporary world.

Managing Stability & Managing Change