Class Assignments

Case# 1

Merger of the Hospital

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) was experiencing a time of enormous change in the
mid-nineties. The whole health-care industry was in the midst of a revolution, but public hospitals were
even more under duress. Columbia HCA was gobbling up hospitals across the country, and it had set its
sights on the hospital that was affiliated with MUSC. Negotiations were under way to "sell" the hospital
(not the medical school) to Columbia HCA. Just a few months prior to the beginning of these
negotiations, MUSC had experienced its first-ever reduction in force due to significant budgetary
distress. Employee morale was sinking fast in the result. The hospital was based in Charleston, and
most of the employee population came from impoverished, minority communities in surrounding
townships that have traditionally served the wealthy Charlestonian society. Employees felt a strong sense
of distrust of those in power, as well as an intense feeling of entitlement as public employees of the state
of South Carolina that their jobs should be completely secure. While the negotiations with HCA were
going on, rumors were flying throughout the hospital that many jobs would be eliminated and that
everyone would suffer from pay cuts or loss of benefits. As you might imagine, patient care was suffering
as a result of the high levels of organizational distress.

Adding to its woes, MUSC was trying to create multidisciplinary teams to help provide higher-quality
service while more effectively leveraging its resources. Its competitors were moving fast in creating
community-based delivery systems that were more responsive to the unique needs of the local
citizens. It was clear to the hospital's administrators that they had to change the way they thought about
delivering medical care, treating patients, and managing their human and capital assets. Initial efforts to
build cooperation across clinics and to improve customer satisfaction ratings from patients were completely
ineffective.

These initiatives almost paralyzed the organization. The employees came to the job but did not work.
Groups of three to four standing here and there or sitting in the cafeteria and babbling about the changes
became norm. Hal, the consultant and the change agent understood that it was because the employees'
inability to understand what was going on, why all these changes were being made, and what the impact
would be on them created a highly dysfunctional atmosphere that prevented any and all progress on their
other initiatives. Hal came up with a communications strategy that focused on the midlevel managers and super-
visors—a group that predominantly consisted of the nurses who ran the clinics and managed the work force.
He figured that by making sure these managers were fully informed about what was happening, they would be
the key to communicating the information accurately to the employees. Hal convinced the other senior
administrators to hold weekly "communications meetings." Every Tuesday afternoon, from 2 to 3 o'clock, members
of the senior team met with all 50+ midlevel managers and supervisors in the auditorium. The members of the
senior team provided updates at the beginning of each meeting, sharing the latest information they could
regarding the potential merger. Many times, there was information that could not be provided, as it would have
been in violation of the rules for the negotiations. At these times, the senior group would tell the managers
what little news they could share and explain why they could not say more. Then, they would open the floor
for questions, and they urged the managers to raise questions they were hearing from the employees.

It was not easy to schedule everyone at a set time each week, but the meetings became so important that
everyone made a commitment to be there. Many of the managers and senior administrators point to the
beginning of those weekly communications meetings as the key turning point in the struggling change process.
The merger was held successfully through a big gathering at the hospital lawn where almost everyone participated.
The effort put into the communications meetings had a long-lasting positive impact on the subsequent
organization as well.

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Case# 2

A Shift to Self-managed Teams

During the period when many manufacturing companies were changing from traditional shifts to team-based
processes, supervisors saw themselves as the ones with the most to lose. Instead of the supervisor telling the
associates what to do, the team members were charged with deciding the assignments. Team members did
the hiring, discipline, and firing in many circumstances – shifting the supervisory role from authoritarian to
team facilitator. As a result most supervisors felt that the use of work teams was simply a way to get rid of
them without doing so directly. Once the teams learned how to manage themselves, supervisors were
redundant (or so the supervisors thought).

The change agent decided to meet with the supervisors one-on-one to discuss the reasons behind the change
process and to explain how important their contribution was to its overall success. The supervisors were
informed during the meeting that they would in no way lose their jobs if they were positive contributors and
proponents of the team approach. Then the HR manager followed up and explained that the supervisors
would be receiving comprehensive training in ' how to facilitate work teams to help them develop the
necessary skills to be successful. It was also pointed out to each supervisor that the world of work had
changed in most manufacturing facilities across the country. A lot of companies were developing team-based
organizations, and so it would be very beneficial to each of the supervisors to learn how to be effective team
leaders. Even if they left the company, it would make them much more marketable if they ever wanted to find
another job in manufacturing. Most of the supervisors understood the situation and committed themselves to
becoming good team leaders. The few who did not see the light were ineffective and were eventually let go by
the company.

Case# 3
Motivating Change at Johnson Ville Sausage

Johnson Ville Sausage was a successful manufacturer in the early 1980s, with an annual growth rate
of 20 percent and with steady growth of market share in neighbouring states. Its product quality was
good, and it had respect in the community. But it had a problem: it was neither large enough to
advertise its product to compete with bigger players, nor small enough to provide superior customer
service as a local producer. Its CEO, Ralph Stayer was concerned about other problems as well, such
as:

 Poor awareness about the company’s position among its organizational members.
 Growing boredom and the increasing mistakes by people on the job.
 People not taking responsibility for their work.

To arrest all these problems, Stayer resorted to different strategies as:

 Increasing the workers’ involvement and making them responsible for their decisions.
 Changing from his authoritarian controlled decision-making style to decentralized directive
and participative decision-making style.

He managed resistance to change by taking recourse to the following:

 Sending customers’ complaint letters directly to the line workers.

 Making line workers aware how their method and style of work is affecting customers.
 Making line workers realize that the customer complaints were a function of workers’
tardiness and absenteeism, sloppy maintenance, slow shifts start-ups etc.

Once the employees realised that they were the part of the problem, change started escalating and
resistance started dwindling. Moreover, the quality control process was also changed and the package-

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ready sausage was inspected for taste, flavour, colour, and texture by the quality department. Teams
of workers began tasting sausages every morning and discussed the problem related to it, such as cost,
customer reaction and the like. Eventually, the company also changed its work design, compensation
system and performance appraisal system. Thus, Johnson Ville Sausage became a benchmark
company and a much quoted example of how self-managed team can bring about successful
organizational change.

Case# 4

Developing and Implementing a New Performance

Appraisal Program

When I joined IMC, my first assignment was to develop a new performance appraisal program. My
plan was to develop a program, sell it to my boss (the director of industrial relations), and have it
adopted as a corporate program to be implemented in all divisions of IMC.

The major objective of the program was for each manager to work with his or her subordinates to help
them improve their performance. A secondary objective was to provide performance information that
would be useful for personnel actions including salary increases, transfers, and promotions.

This approach was not only very different than any previous IMC program but it was also more
complicated and would require more of the manager’s time. We realized that most managers would
probably resist it unless they were convinced that the resulting improved performance and better
relationships with subordinates were worth the time and energy needed to implement the program.
Many IMC managers had been exposed to some type of performance appraisal program that hadn’t
been helpful to them. Therefore, in order to get the managers to accept and hopefully welcome the
program, we realized that three things had to be done:

We started the programme at Carlsbad, New Mexico, mining division as a pilot project. I went to
Carlsbad and described the program to Jack Devlin chief of the division, along with the general
manager and the management development supervisor. With minor modifications, they accepted the
program and asked me to help them implement it. We discussed the best approach and agreed on the
following:

1. I would communicate the program to the eight major department heads so that they would
understand the objectives and various steps of the program. They must realize that it was a
tool to help them manage and not a personnel department program.
2. They would, in turn, communicate the proposed program to the supervisors who reported to
them.
3. At a dinner meeting of all salaried employees, the general manager would announce the
programs and explain that I had been invited to help them implement the program. I would
then communicate the program.
4. I would train 35 managers including department heads who would conduct appraisal
interviews with their subordinates.
5. The management development supervisor at Carlsbad would coordinate the program.

Everything proceeded as planned. All except one of the general manager’s subordinates were
enthusiastic about the program. The mining superintendent didn’t like the paperwork that was
involved but agreed to go along with it. The date of the dinner meeting was set and announced.

At the dinner, the general manager explained that his management team had decided to implement the
program. He made it clear that it was not imposed by the home office in Skokie. He introduced me as
the person who had developed the program and would help with its implementation, while mentioning
that it would be coordinated by the Carlsbad management development supervisor.

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The next step was to train the managers. The 35 managers were divided into groups of 17 and 18 and
training meetings were held to develop skills and knowledge in the following steps of the performance
appraisal program. In each meeting, discussions were held, assignments were given, and skills were
developed.

In coordinating the program, the management development supervisor prepared the proper forms,
established performance interview schedules, and provided help where needed. Each month, the
general manager was given a report of interviews scheduled and conducted. The programme was a
success that won the applause of the top management and its company-wide implementation began.

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Case# 5

Jennifer – the failed agent

Jennifer was a new customer service agent in a call center. Her primary role was to take customer
calls and process orders for products. The call center manager decided to implement a change for all
agents that would increase the total revenue for the center. Each agent was to begin cross-selling
products based on the customers' past history and what they were buying.
The change was announced and a training course was conducted for all agents. Jennifer loved her job
and looked forward to this new challenge. She was aware of the business reasons for this change and
wanted to support this new initiative. She was also excited about the additional commissions she
would earn from cross-selling. She attended training with the other agents and developed a good
working knowledge of the new process for cross-selling to customers.
A month passed and Jennifer had not been successful at cross-selling any products. Her supervisor
noticed that she was not making progress and he began more careful observations. After monitoring
several calls, he noticed that Jennifer was not even attempting to cross-sell. She simply took the order
from the customer and hung up. When the supervisor asked Jennifer about this, her reply was that she
was not sure what to say to the customer. After careful thought, the supervisor prepared scripts that
Jennifer could use during the calls. He was sure this would solve the problem. Weeks went by and
Jennifer was still not cross-selling. When asked why again, Jennifer responded that she was not sure
what scripts to use in different situations, and she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. This
prompted the supervisor to enroll a co-worker to conduct role-plays with Jennifer until she was more
comfortable matching the scripts to different call situations. Again, weeks went by and Jennifer
showed little progress. The supervisor was puzzled about it. He was confident about her potential to
act as cross-seller agent. He concluded that in fact Jennifer has been paralysed by the psychological
blocks. He called her to her office in the afternoon next day.
In the meeting he told Jennifer that a new program was implemented where every customer would be
called to confirm that their order had arrived in good condition. In these follow-up calls, if
appropriate, the agents would learn more about the customer and attempt to cross-sell other products
and services. All the agents were to be included in this process except you. He said he was sorry to
tell her that she would not be needed for this additional role because the other agents were better able
to interact with and cross-sell to customers.
Jennifer was dramatically affected by this turn of events and personally hurt. She was being left out.
She was told that she could not do something that was part of her job. Something clicked. The next
day she asked another agent what was the single most effective cross-selling line. On her very first
call she tried it out. To her surprise, the customer said yes. She had taken the first step into uncharted
waters and it worked. She tried it again on the next call, and then the next. Within a matter of weeks,
Jennifer became the highest performing agent in terms of cross-sold products for the center.

Case # 6:

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Read the following case study carefully and construct the answers of the given questions.

Dhaka Automobile is on of the top twenty manufacturing companies in India. This

company is engaged in the business of manufacturing sports utility vehicles and
tractors . Around mid- eighties the organization had been facing intense competition from
the new entrants and multinationals leading to a reduction in the
market share .Hence organization decided to go for Business Process Reengineering.
the organization hired a costly consultant from abroad. However the first 3-4 rears went
only n the process planning exercise .The company faced the problem of reduction in
market share higher inventory large amount of non value adding activity low productivity
level frequent change in production planning and idle machine capacity. The organization
further had the problem of organization poor communication centralized control system
and lack of process ownership.
After identifying all these problems the CEO of the organization kept a ten year target
to achieve the following parameters.

(1) To reduce customer complains by 90%.

(2) To increase sales per employee by 175%
(3) To reduce price of vehicles by 15%
(4) To reduce cost of material as percentage of sales by 10%
(5) To improve the stock turnover ratio to 4 times a year.
(6) To reduce the lead time by 70% and
(7) To achieve 100% schedule adherence.

However the target could not be achieved as per stipulation and t was extended
further by an year and half.
Some of the goods results achieved due to this effort of BPR were inventory reduction
division by almost 50% n these eleven years. Unloading time came down from the
48 hours to 30 days. Rejection was lower by 25% .However the organization could not
Shoe any significant improvement in its bottom line .Even f there was some
improvement n Selected areas was the duration of eleven years and the heavy
investment in BPR justified ?

Questions:

1) Explain the high points of the case.

2) Is BPR a success or failure in India?

3) What are the areas where you can get easy success through BPR?