Falcon Computer Company - Case Study Example

Partha Kar 08th June 2007 Falcon Computer Company Case study: Case Summary: The main idea is the clash of values identified and its implementation technique. The company did well in identifying the crucial values for the organization for which it invested time and effort of the higher management. The values served them good to get the policies have a stated outline and was done to capture the expanding market conditions and instill ethics and professionalism in behavior and performance. The problem was in unsuccessful delivery of the values and their accordance or compliance with them. The company employees did not feel that the values are in place and there was no opportunity or boost from the management to enforce them in the first place. The point of failure was in delegating the culture statements appropriately and not exercising it in the correct sense. There was a lack of management practice to encourage employees to come up with value for the organisation and not enough encouragement was provided in that respect. Lack of top management support, encouragement and timely appreciation was exclusively responsible for wrong interpretation of the values and their non adherence to it. Answer: 1 Discrepancy was largely witnessed as the promotions of the values were not appropriately communicated and enforced in practice by the management. The factors which were largely responsible for the existence of the discrepancy are as follows: 1. Lack of initiative from the management: The higher management was great in formulating the values to be followed by the employees but only formulation was not the very success of it. The prime influencing factor is in appropriately propagating the values and the support of the management to exercise in practice. 2. Confidence of employees were not boosted: The employees were not provided with an opportunity to get the values to be worked across them. At the same time they felt no space to implement a value and work accordingly. 3. Freedom of speech was lacking at the employee front: "Attention to detail is our trademark; our goal is to do it right the first time". However it was observed that the design flaws caused the main hurdle and in the first place it needed to be corrected to prevent flaws in the forthcoming steps. Employees were pressurized to rush for getting the product out to the customers without putting a check on the quality. Employees were afraid of their immediate manager which would result in insult and embarrassment. The employees did not feel safe to stand up to the problems they were facing. 4. Openness was greatly lacking: The culture statement promising to encourage open, direct, person-to-person communication as part of the daily routine was not at all followed in practice. At Flacon it was more of secrecy than openness. 5. Lack of management participation: Even after the value document was formulated and was expected to be followed, lack of management enforcement was greatly lacking to get the values embedded into the employees. If the formulators are themselves lack the will t support the values and make sure they create examples so that there is an evidence of its usage in the proper context, the employees cannot be expected to envelope anything from it. It will stay in the books only. 6. Lack of interest from the Employee side: Lack of interest from the employee side was a turnaround feature in exercising the values. They did not take it seriously and never bothered to come up with valuable suggestions so as to prove that there was an initiative from their side. They have never held the management accountable for the non-compliance of values. They instead have understood what was really emphasized in the organization namely hierarchy, secrecy and expediency. They never moved out of their comfort zone to take a stand. The lack of initiative also made the other employees to follow the similar notion to take a back seat. The above points to contemplate the discrepancy between the actual culture and the written values document. Answer: 2 The top management was solely responsible for the bankruptcy of the organization in the long run. The mistakes that were made by the top management in their effort to change the culture can be identified as follows: They took a great effort to formulate the values by putting their time and effort. Spending effort and time is equal to spending money for an organization. They failed to identify that any sort of formulation is not the entire success of it. It needs to be put into practice with a greater strategy. They delegated the task of knowledge transition to the employees of the organization to the departmental heads and their job was over which presumably was not in the right place. The actual strategy to check back the delegation was not done and there was no feedback mechanism to regulate in time. The top management failed to put checkpoints to get to know what is happening in the organisation and whether their time and effort investment is bearing fruit or not. It was lacking totally. There were no reviews of the organizations processes and they focused on sales rather than quality which proved to be a disadvantage in the long run. There was no system for direct interaction of the employees with the top most management to communicate directly their problems as employees feared to communicate it to their immediate supervisors. There were no ethics in the organization which would instill the employees to feel free and open. This was the biggest drawback of the top management. No such reward system was promoted by the management for the benefit of the employees which would give them a stand so that they get an opportunity to voice their opinions. What they think is of priority as they are the ones who work at the ground level in getting the job done Encouragement from the top management was massively lacking which accounted for most of the problems faced in the regulation of the values. The primary factor that was largely influential was that at the time of formulation of values the employees were not asked to give their valuable suggestions in the final draft of the values document. They were not taken into account when framing the values. It would have given them a sense of belonging to the organization if asked to participate in the decision making. It was done secretly in the first place which proved to be an act of secrecy and reticence at the top management front. Reluctance shown by the top management to bring the participation of the employees at the table greatly accounted for their outlook towards the framed values which they ultimately did not take seriously. There was a sense of fear and not belonging to the organization for the employees which was again flagged as top management's fault. Proactive ness and ownership were crucial factors which were not built into the employees and the top management was entirely to be held responsible for their actions. They never made the employees feel that organization belongs to them and they must all cooperate and work towards the achievement of organizations policies which is to win customers satisfaction for their growth and development. Read More