Bridging the Two Worlds – The Organizational

Case Study – Bridging the Two Worlds – The OrganizationalDilemmaBy William Todorovic, University of WaterlooI had been hired by a Toronto based company, ABC Limited, and it was my first day of work. Iwas 26 years old, and I was now the manager of ABC’s customer service group, which lookedafter customers, logistics, and some of the raw material purchasing. My superior, George,was the vice-president of the company. ABC manufactured most of its products fromaluminum, a majority of which were destined for the construction industry.As I walked around the shop floor, the employees appeared to be concentrating on their jobs,barely noticing me. Management held daily meetings in which various production issues werediscussed. No one from the shop floor was invited to the meetings, unless there was aspecific problem. Later I also learned that management has separate washrooms andseparate lunchrooms as well as other perks, which floor employees did not have. Most of thefloor employees felt that management, although polite on the surface, did not really feel theyhad anything to learn from the floor employees.John, who worked on the aluminum slitter, a crucial operation required before any otheroperations could commence, had had a number of unpleasant encounters with George. As aresult, George usually sent written memos to the floor in order to avoid a direct confrontationwith John. Because the directions in the memos were complex, these memos were oftenmore than two pages long.One morning, as I was walking around, I noticed that John was very upset. Feeling thatperhaps there was something I could do, I approached John and asked him if I could help. Heindicated that everything was just fine. From the looks of the situation, and John’s bodylanguage, I felt that he was willing to talk, but John knew this was not the way things weredone at ABC. Tony, who worked at the machine next to John’s, then cursed and said that theoffice guys only cared about schedules, not about the people down on the floor. I just lookedat him, and then said that I had only begun working here last week, but thought I couldaddress some of their issues. Tony gave me a strange look, shook his head, and went back tohis machine. I could still hear him swearing as I left. Later I realized that most of the officestaff were also offended by Tony’s language.On the way back to my office, Lesley, a recently hired engineer from Russia, approached meand pointed out that the employees were not accustomed to management talking to them.Management only issued orders and made demands. As we discussed the differentperceptions between office and floor staff, we were interrupted by a very loud lunch bell,which startled me. I was happy to join Lesley for lunch, but she asked me why I was noteating in the office lunchroom. I replied that if I was going to understand how ABC worked,had to get to know all the people better. In addition, I realized that this was not how thingswere done at ABC, and wondered about the nature of the apparent division between themanagement and the floor. In the lunchroom, the other workers were amazed to see methere, commenting that I was still new and had not learned the ropes yet.After lunch, when I asked George, my supervisor, about his recent confrontation with John,George was surprised that John had got upset, and exclaimed, “I just wanted John to knowthat he had done a great job, and as aresult, we will be able to ship one large order from the west coast on time. In fact, I thought Iwas complimenting him.”Earlier, Lesley had indicated that certain behaviour was expected from management, andtherefore from me. I reasoned that I didn’t think this behaviour worked, and besides, it’s notwhat I believed or how I cared to behave. For the next couple of months, I simply walkedaround the floor and took every opportunity to talk to the shop floor employees. Often whenthe employees related specific information about their workplaces, I felt that it went over myhead. Frequently I had to write down the information and revisit it later. I made a point oflistening to them, identifying where they were coming from, and trying to understand them. Ineeded to keep my mind open to new ideas. Because the shop employees expected me tomake requests and demands, I made a point of not doing any of that. Soon enough, theemployees became friendly, and started to accept me as one of their own, or at least as adifferent type of management person.During my third month of work, the employees showed me how to improve the scheduling ofjobs, especially those on the aluminum slitter. In fact, the greatest contribution was made byJohn who demonstrated better ways to combine the most common slitting sizes, and reducewaste by retaining some of the “common-sized” material for new orders. Seeing theopportunity, I programmed a spreadsheet to calculate and track inventory. This, in addition tobetter planning and forecasting allowed us to reduce our new order turnarounds from four tofive weeks to in by 10 a.m. out by 5 p.m. on the same day.By the time I had been employed at AC for four months, I realized that members from otherdepartments were coming to me and asking me to relay messages to the shop employees.When I asked why they were delegating this task to me, they stated that I spoke the samelanguage as the shop employees. Increasingly, I became the messenger for the office to theshop floor communication.One morning, George called me into his office and complimented me on the level of customerservice and the improvements that had been achieved. As we talked, I mentioned that wecould not have done it without John’s help. “He really knows his stuff, and he is good,” I said. Isuggested that we consider him for some type of promotion. Also I hoped that this would be apositive gesture that would improve communication between the office and shop floor.George turned and pulled a flyer out of his desk; “Here’s a management skills seminar. Doyou think we should send John to it?”“That’s a great idea,” I exclaimed. “Perhaps it would be good if he were to receive the newsfrom you directly, George.” George agreed, and after discussing some other issues, wedeparted company.That afternoon, John came into my office, upset and ready to quit. “After all my effort andwork, you guys are sending me for training seminars. So, am I not good enough for you?”