Interactive Behaviour at Work - Case Study Example

Interactive Behaviour Interactive Behaviour at Work: Creating Functional Team and Communication Performance at Dupont Company YOU ACADEMIC ORGANISATION Interactive Behaviour 2 Abstract This purpose of this work is to identify the problems (and realities) involved in establishing effective teamwork within a growing organisation. Specifically, workplace team development is more than simply establishing members to function within the group, but involves extra effort on behalf of the company to promote positive communication methods within the team and eliminating potential barriers to communication that affect productive teamwork. The way communications are handled within an organization also has an impact on organizational efficiency and the attitudes of its members (Morris & Maisto, 2005). At Dupont Company, a rapidly expanding global organisation, focus is often placed on safety (with appropriate teams established for the issue) while failures in departmental communication remain a problematic issue. In order to highlight methods to promote a more functional team methodology within the company, specific objectives and issues will be identified in this project. The information in this work reflects secondary research methods and first-hand information expressed by an individual associated with the organisation. All proposed changes to Duponts existing policy are generated by the author as if established in the role of manager in the company. Interactive Behaviour 3 Interactive Behaviour at Work: Creating Functional Team and Communication Performance at Dupont Company Introduction E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Co, a United States-based organisation, is a rapidly expanding organisation that continues to exert its scientific and innovative developments all across the globe. Its mission: To achieve sustainable growth and to vigorously pursue knowledge intensity in all (of its) businesses (Dupont.com, 2006). For an organisation that makes its objectives so widespread, by establishing multiple operations across many continents, establishing appropriate team-building philosophy and employee communication is a necessity. When a company is small, internal communications are not much of a problem, but when it undergoes rapid growth, it has to make a bigger effort to keep its workforce engaged (Fitzsimmons, 2006). The Dupont Company, a somewhat massive industrial-based company that produces multitudes of products used worldwide, maintains a solid research and development framework in order to stay competitive in the industrial, paint coatings, and chemical fields. With this brief breakdown of the companys product and organisational mission, it is appropriate to point out potential problems with team establishment and communication breakdowns that can occur within a large-scale industry. One cannot establish such a broad mission of sustained growth and globalisation without a team-building and communication concept (and the tools to implement them properly). For instance, if the R&D section of the organisation is not built on team research, new and innovative product breakthroughs will rest on individual accomplishments rather than through open group communication channels. Further, if a research team is established and no medium is available to generate continuous feedback between group members, a Interactive Behaviour 4 barrier to team success begins. Companies, such as in the case of Dupont, must recognise that team members bring to the table a wide range of personalities, expectations, experience and knowledge (Caudron, 1994). In a R & D situation, preparing for innovative product development relies on positive contributions from team members. Where the Dupont company specifically fails to recognise problems is in its day-to-day operations, including payroll, customer service, and operations, where communication breakdowns and team failures plague some of its divisions. Establishing appropriate team measures for product innovation and safety are worthy objectives, and Dupont is well on its way to being a company worthy of benchmarking for these practices, but failure to recognise the strategic importance of cohesive work units in its operational divisions will likely hinder the strategic objectives of sustained growth and global expansion. For instance, if a UK-based logistics department of Dupont maintains internal communication failures, driving down productivity and increasing costs due to miscommunication, the strategic mission of the company is not satisfied. This project will address the specific factors affecting the strategic mission of the Dupont organisation, offer methods in which to solve the problems, and the implications of the proposed corrective measures for improved communication and effective team-building. Customer Service Teamwork and Communication In the customer service division of Dupont global manufacturing, it is the responsibility of a team of individuals to carry out order processing and is headed by a singular managerial leader to coordinate the activities of the customer service staff. Interactive Behaviour 5 Recent implementation of a software programme, SAP, allows global operations to view, electronically, the in-house inventories and supply orders of multiple Dupont divisions across the globe. To enhance communications between operating divisions, an email and communication system, Lotus Notes, was established to improve response time between divisions and to manage internal controls (Bui, 1999). Though improved email systems are vital to low-cost messaging, the customer service division relies far too heavily on Lotus Notes as a viable communication method and it subtracts face-to-face interaction between its staff. When an issue arises, the customer service staff "fires" off an email to their leader assuming she will retrieve the message in time to respond appropriately to the problem. (Keep in mind that the manager is physically located within the customer service department). More times than not, the manager is too heavily involved in other managerial issues and fails to respond to the email. In this situation, the barrier to effective communication is in the communication channel itself. A written memo is inadequate to completely understand the scope of the issue, however, it has been engrained within that organisational culture that Lotus Notes is the singular, most viable source of communication within the division. It is appropriate to explore the issue further: A customer contacts a customer service representative (CSR) with an urgent need for a drop shipment of chemical product in order to prevent manufacturing slowdowns. The employee scans the SAP database and realises quickly that there is no product available in any area Dupont division to satisfy the urgent problem. The CSR, having no authority to create a purchasing order to retrieve the product from another company, sends his/her manager an email asking for assistance; rather than walking down the corridor to discuss the urgent Interactive Behaviour 6 issue in depth with the CSR leader. This employee, believing to have satisfied the companys requirement for Lotus Notes communication, moves onto another issue believing it to be in the managers hands to correct. Later that day, the customer, who is outraged at the lack of response to the crucial issue, begins contacting senior leadership demanding an answer. Because of the poor communications method, the company now has multiple senior managers "scrambling" to find last minute product to satisfy the customer which wastes company resources. When the customer service employee is confronted about the issue, his/her excuse for improper communication is that they "sent the manager a Lotus Notes message about the problem." Where most efficient organisations would ask the employee why he/she did not make face-to-face contact with the CSR leader, at Dupont the pressure is removed from the customer service representative and the "blame" is placed on the managers failure to respond to the email memo. In such a situation, the most routine outcome is a rushed shipment of product from another facility that costs the company countless thousands of dollars on transportation, rush delivery fees, and wasted labour resources for the business being forced to respond in a crisis that should have never occurred. From a business standpoint, this should be an intolerable situation that demands immediate correction by establishing new protocols about face-to-face communication or in establishing a project/work team that researches better methods of response, possibly implementing training for the customer service rep to be granted purchasing authority in order to satisfy customer demand independently. Interactive Behaviour 7 Communication helps employees understand the companys mission and get involved in implementing it (Sinickas, 2006). In the previously-mentioned situation, the employees are not driven by exposure to corporate objectives and are hindered by the ineffective organisational culture that places little emphasis on communication outside of safety issues and research. Further, great workplaces are all about the quality of relationships and you cant have strong and positive relationships without effective communication (Lowe, 2005). In the customer service division of Dupont global manufacturing, there is essentially no established relationship with the CSR leader and the staff. More over, there is virtually no cross-communication between the customer service employees who all sit together on the same floor of the company. There are zero feedback mechanisms in place, other than email, which allows for continuous breakdowns of vital information and costs significant financial resources due to a lack of managerial focus on improving communication systems within the division. In a strikingly similar situation, the customer service representatives are often harbouring malicious attitudes towards one another due to minimal availability of departmental transfer options. To illustrate, at Dupont global manufacturing, there is a bidding process in place that focuses primarily on seniority status to generate promotions or transfer to higher paying positions. Because of this, whenever a team-related issue arises that involves the entire CSR staff, a dysfunctional team conflict begins that hampers effective communication. The competition that arises between the team members, due to scarce promotional resources or transfer options, creates an animosity within the customer service group and, essentially, little is accomplished by establishing a team concept. A popular trend in business circles today is that of using teams of Interactive Behaviour 8 individuals as problem-solving entities within organisations (Butterfield & Pendegraft, 1996), however, in this business case, it is an ineffective tool for establishing positive relationships between the customer service department and its entire staff. Proposed Enhancements to Communication Methods The first, most important development that strategic leadership must recognise is that its current communication channels within the Dupont CSR department is growing increasingly ineffective. The company must analyse the vastness of its wasted resources due to improper communication and express the impact on the corporate mission to the entire department in a formalised meeting forum. It should be expressed to the customer service manager that she must take on a relationship-building role in order to facilitate unity and harmony among her staff. Addressing the minimal availability of employee transfer/promotion options is the best place to begin in order to remove the animosity between the CSR employees. A simple gesture, such as team lunches or other unifying systems that offer reward and camaraderie between staff members is a great place to begin to satisfy company productivity objectives. A team that cannot work together significantly hampers productive operations and the manager must make herself far more visible to energise and support her staff members concerns. Because the customer service department is a vital area for coordinating the movement of high dollar product, and plays a large role in spending operational financial resources, establishing an effective relationship among the staff is crucial in order to satisfy sustained profitability; as is the companys mission. High pressure, crisis situations require substantial teamwork in order to satisfy customer demand and if the CSR staff Interactive Behaviour 9 cannot (or will not) communicate with one another, the department, as a whole, is a disaster. Implementing team-building or relationship-building exercises designed to unify the group is a short-term objective, accomplished through no substantial expenditures on behalf of the company. Management must get to the "root" of the animosity between its staff members in order to support their aspirations for growth within the company and to allow team members to work interdependently as mediums for satisfying corporate growth objectives. The communication channel barrier, in this case Lotus Notes, cannot possibly provide the "richness" of information necessary for the CSR manager to decode properly. If there is an urgent issue being faced by an external customer, and it has the potential to cost the company significant monies if left unhandled, this barrier must be broken down. Though the organisational culture believes that Lotus Notes is an acceptable mode of communication, it is obviously not a workable system. It must be expressed to the customer service group that they need to improve face-to-face relationships with the CSR manager and completely avoid Lotus Notes when dealing with potentially costly company disruptions. The availability of the SAP system, and its inter-linked database of divisional product, is a positive system for recognising product shortages, but beyond this the issue requires human connection and thoughtful exploration of options between the entire customer service staff. In order to properly express the issue, while allowing the staff to feel more integrally involved in the companys strategic mission, a presentation that highlights the breakdown to effective communication involving email response times should be established for the entire customer service group. A few well-placed examples within the Interactive Behaviour 10 presentation that highlight previous failures (and the high costs associated with the failures) might indicate the role of the customer service group in aiding profitability objectives. There is also a receiver barrier, in regards to effective communication, as the CSR manager is often engrossed in other managerial issues and fails to understand the urgency surrounding email communications. With expending little corporate resources, the CSR manager should take a proactive role by meeting with her staff, informally, several times per day just to touch base (personally) and identify potential issues in the customer service group. In order to satisfy response times to issues, the entire customer service group should meet, formally, with the purchasing group to establish an objective for the CSR staff to be granted authority to create purchase orders when SAP stock is not available. If the customer service group were granted responsibility for coordinating emergency shipments, it would virtually eliminate the problem of costly crisis deliveries and satisfy the breakdown to communication. To illustrate, the purchasing group can interact during the meeting to highlight the ordering process, the means to coordinate shipments with little cost, and help to (again) satisfy the customer service staffs need to recognise how to aid in Duponts profitability mission. Extending knowledge-sharing between different departments can allow a better camaraderie within the entire company while minimising the need to manage crisis situations. This could also serve as a breakdown of the receiver barrier as the CSR manager can continue about her managerial business and rely on her staff (and cross-departmental communication) to satisfy the customer demand without her continuous micro-managing of staff issues. The cost of such interactive meetings is quite minimal and require little labour to implement. The rewards on sustained profitability Interactive Behaviour 11 within the customer service department would far outweigh the time involved to create knowledge-sharing between work units. Organisational culture is a system of shared values, assumptions, beliefs or norms that unite the members of an organisation (Gomez-Mejia, 2005). In Duponts case, regarding the implementation and acceptability of email systems as a mean to drive proper communication, starts with senior leaderships approval of the system. In this case, changing departmental organisational culture, on behalf of the CSR leader, is a difficult challenge. Likely, she is facing a "downward" flow of senior-level memos that highlight the uses and functionality of Lotus Notes as a viable communications channel. Since that particular email system is not working for the organisation, the best defence for her group is to communicate that it should not be used in urgent situations, but only for somewhat informal message delivery. In such a situation, the manager may meet with increased staff resistance to the long-standing policy as it requires increased effort on behalf of the staff for a more interactive communication approach. However, the strategic importance to the business in regards to wasted resources, due to improper or untimely communication, drives her authority to demand compliance to the new departmental email policy. Should the CSR manager be questioned as to the decision, preparedness memos highlighting an attempt to satisfy sustained growth should be distributed to senior leadership backing her decision. The customer service group, traditionally somewhat self-managed, might actually benefit from a tighter control policy relating to their communication methods. If non-compliance arises from certain individuals, who fail to utilise the new policies regarding face-to-face, interpersonal communication, formal reprimands might be the most logical Interactive Behaviour 12 course of action to improve profitability within the CSR group. Though this is not a radical policy, the wasteful expenditures within Duponts customer service department needs an extreme overhaul. Though most employees genuinely appreciate self-managed work environments, it is vital for the company to establish a certain stability within the CSR group and somewhat radical compliance measures may need to be created to ensure the proper flow of crisis information. As with other objectives designed to improve communications, this requires little investment on behalf of the organisation other than the customer service managers accurate monitoring and record-keeping of employee behaviours and to reward/punish accordingly. In a reasonably short time period, forced compliance to new interactive communication methods can guarantee that CSR department stability in terms of driving down costs associated with poor response times. Strategic Level Impacts to Poor Communication Performance With Duponts strategic mission in mind regarding sustained growth, globalisation and increased profitability, the strategic impact to the poor communication within the CSR division at global manufacturing is higher than one might initially think. From a customer standpoint, which relies on timely and accurate deliveries (and information) from the shipment/delivery coordinators, a company that maintains a proven track record of delivery failures is bound to take their business elsewhere in order to improve service. The most logical impact is in a decreased profitability ratio and lessened market share within the industry as a result. Therefore, the CSR manager maintains a great deal of pressure to improve the communication performance amongst her staff (and all other associated departments) in order to satisfy her role in strategic growth. Continuous Interactive Behaviour 13 wasteful expenditures in the CSR department, largely due to inefficient, interactive communication and low teamwork mentality, should be a target for continuous improvement within her division. All of the improvement techniques at the disposal of the CSR manager are effective, involve little labour resources, and have the potential to rapidly alter response times to meet urgent customer demand. In order to satisfy strategic growth initiatives, customer loyalty (generally the heart of all corporate profits) is something worth considering from a middle management standpoint and all of the CSR managers decisions to improve teamwork, interpersonal relationships, and better communication channels should be focused around the customer. To guarantee this customer loyalty, Dupont must come to recognise that its CSR department maintains significant weaknesses in communication, perform a somewhat formal SWOT analysis of its internal breakdowns, and then highlight all appropriate departmental changes needed to satisfy the CSR role in aiding corporate growth. With just a small time investment for research and presentation, the CSR manager can get more than simply her department on-board to the communications changes, but can alert senior officials to her departments pressures and may receive additional help (financial aid or support) to coordinate her new communications initiatives. Part of the communications breakdown is not only within the CSR managers managerial jurisdiction, but involve knowledge-sharing with everyone involved in aiding the strategic mission so as to support effective policy changes. Gathering other individuals, possibly from somewhat unrelated departments, highlighting their own personal experiences in email communications breakdowns might serve to gain higher-level support for her relationship-building techniques. The strategic mission is the focus of all Interactive Behaviour 14 individuals within a contemporary business and without the support of senior leadership, likely the CSR communication problems will continue to drive wasteful crisis expenditures. This is a situation that any organisation faces which cannot rely on adequate interactive communication between staff; and a situation that no business can afford to overlook. Conclusion and Recommendations Dupont Company maintains a vision to "improve the quality of life and enhance the vitality of the communities in which they operate" (Dupont.com, 2006). From a strategic standpoint, based on communications failures causing lowered profitability, each manager within the corporation must adopt a similar vision in order to ensure viable methods of teamwork and knowledge-sharing within their departments. If the company managers decide that work team projects to enhance communications are vital to aiding the strategic growth of the company, they must carefully choose members who can bring value to the project. Innovation tends to fuel success, however, innovation is not only in developing new products, but can involve inventive policies surrounding establishing new methods of departmental communications that drive the mission of sustained growth. The most appropriate course of action for the CSR manager is to work on promoting a change to the organisational culture that drives interdependency between the CSR staff and witness the impact to decreasing wasteful spending. If her initial results, within a reasonably short timeframe, are effective, the manager has impacted strategic growth with minimal investment. However, should she encounter staff resistance based on traditional organisational norms that have highlighted the "magnificence" of Lotus Interactive Behaviour 15 Notes communication, a more labour intensive method of driving face-to-face communications becomes necessary. In this scenario, the CSR manager must place tighter controls on her staff, gain senior leadership support for her initiatives, and extend a rather time-consuming method of gathering supporting data to reprimand for non-compliance. Whatever approach the manager must take, the communications breakdowns leading to poor customer response times can no longer be avoided or dismissed. A contemporary corporate entity is comparable to a machine, with each of its departments as a mechanism that drives its operation. Applying team-building and communication philosophies that highlight one particular issue (such as safety) while completely ignoring less-visible, however as strategically important as establishing a more interactive communication method, is a significant oversight for todays business. Once everyone realises that they each, individually, play a role in satisfying strategic objectives, the faster they will move inline to enhanced communication policies. However, it all starts with a managers understanding of the business and the psychological issues surrounding breakdowns to communication. The result of failure to communicate is seen in the breakdown of teamwork, performance issues and lack of loyalty (Healy, 2004); something Dupont cannot afford. Top managers must create places to talk, and they must show employees that talking with superiors counts - by providing feedback, adopting employee suggestions, and rewarding upward communication - even if the discussion is negative (Nickels et al, 2005). Productivity improvements currently being undertaken at Dupont will focus on Duponts supply chain and business support functions (Westervelt, 2005). Some of that investment should be emphasised in communications systems. Interactive Behaviour 16 Bibliography Beecham, Matthew. (Apr 2004). Dupont: Company Profile – 2004 Edition. Just-Auto. Bromsgrove: (Knowledge Reading). Bui, Andrew. (Aug 1999). Staying in Control. The Internal Auditor. Altamonte Springs: 56 (4), p.25. Butterfield, Jeff & Pendegraft, Norman. (1996). Gaming Techniques to Improve the Team Formation Process. Team Performance Management. Bradford: 2 (4), p.11. Caudron, Shari. (Feb 1994). Teamwork takes Work. Personnel Journal. Santa Monica: 73 (2), p.40. Dupont.com. (2006). Sustainable Growth. http://www2.dupont.com/Our_Company/en_US/glance/sus_growth/sus_growth. html. Fitzsimmons, Caitlin. (Apr 2006). More than a Number. Human Resources. London. p.38. Gomez-Mejia, Luis R., Balkin, David B. & Cardy, Robert L. (2005). Management: People, Performance, Change. McGraw-Hill Irwin. London. p. 145. Healy, Betty. (2004). As e-mail sterilizes communication, workplace relationships wither. Canadian HR Reporter. Toronto: 17 (22), p.22. Lowe, Graham. (Sep 12 2005). Want to Reach Staff? Tell Them a Story. Canadian HR Reporter. Toronto: 18 (15), p.16. Morris, Charles G. & Maisto, Albert A. (2005). Psychology: An Introduction. 12th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall: p.594. Nickels, William G., McHugh, James M. & McHugh, Susan M. (2005). Understanding Business. 7th ed. McGraw-Hill Irwin: p. 317. Sinickas, Angela. (Apr/May 2006). Communication, Culture and Surveys. Strategic Communication Management. Chicago: 10 (3), p.12. Westervelt, Robert. (Nov 16 2005). Dupont to Cut Costs, Boost Growth. Chemical Week. New York: 167 (39), p. 6. Read More