Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence 10th Edition by James Evans ,William Lindsay

Exercise 15

At Ablecor, Inc., senior management announced a restructuring/reorganization plan every January, with a target completion date of June. The reorganization directives mentioned strategic objectives and the competitive environment, but this changed very little from year to year. There were no announcements from leadership on what was to be accomplished by the reorganization, nor were any process changes explained. In addition, there was no effort to get the workforce involved in new initiatives. At the end of the day, nothing ever changed from these reorganizations, just a shuffling of managers and departments to justify reducing staff. First-line managers, middle managers, and junior executives throughout the company spent the year dreading the reorganization, sweating through the process wondering if this was the year their job was to be eliminated, and then being thankful that they were spared for one more year. The economy was down, so it was difficult to leave and take a job elsewhere. Except for a few critical positions, there was little training or management development for those employees with new responsibilities. Customers were often confused and frustrated by having to deal with a succession of new or "re-shuffled" contact people each year.
At Baycor, Ltd., one department was asked by senior leadership to develop action plans and projects needed to launch a new product. The department manager took the initiative to implement a transformational change and appointed a lead team consisting of her section managers and a few key subject-matter experts. As the employees became more inspired by the thoughts and ideas surrounding the transformation, the lead team became aware that their power base was going to disappear if the changes were actually implemented, especially if employees were empowered to recommend changes and make some decisions on their own. The lead team decided implicitly and explicitly not to allow any significant changes to occur. After four months of anticipation by supervisors and employees, the lead team just declared the transformation finished and went back to business as usual. This was frustrating and demoralizing to the employees.
Discuss how the leadership failed to foster change in order to create a sustainable organizational structure and environment at Ablecor.