Datavision

1. In my opinion, Datavision followed the Command and Control leadership model. Their organizational structure was hierarchical and the questions raised where restricted to verticals of the organization instead of horizontal, i.e., the problems and concerns were limited to Executives, Vice Presidents (VPs) and no inputs were considered from the managers or other staff members.  So in my view, the major problem was with the company’s top management. The company follows a centralized decision making process. For instance, Campbell made all the decisions by himself and did not include any senior executives. The work of VP and staff members is also not recognized and appreciated. The level of hierarchy has taken a formal tone amongst the Vice presidents and the President, leading to ineffective communication, zero collaboration. To the lower employees, closed door represents that the top management are not easily available to approach. There are many negative points of following such a model that I learnt in the class. In a command and control model, the decisions are taken from top to bottom but the information is provided or obtained from the lower level employees. This does not guarantee the accuracy of information. The study shows that Campbell is known for being unpredictable about his decisions which meant he was an ineffective leader. Because the VPs do not intervene in each other’s department, there was lack of transparency which left no room for innovation. There is also lack of clarity in the vision of the company which is the reason for decline in sales. Marketing was the major focus of all the activities related to Datavision. Fowler lacked a lot of managerial experience as he was known for playing the blame game and appeared to be very aggressive and verbally loud to the other vice presidents making it difficult to work with him. As the other department had little to no trust in Fowler, it led to a lot of inefficiency in different department. Although such kind of leadership model works great where speed is required and everyone in the company had the same purpose to work for, in my view, all the above are still a major reason to believe that Datavision had a lot of commotion and problem in their top management.
2. The teambuilding session did help in creating an open platform for discussions and receiving feedback. Positive feedback was received not only from the lower level employees but also from senior executives. The sessions were like unloading everything off their chest, but in a more aggressive manner. Many individuals were shocked to hear negative feedback from their co-workers and the confrontation was mostly to point fingers and blame for someone else’s mistakes. It was very evident that in these session everyone had some flaw that was lying within the organization to talk about but no one bothered to cast some light on the things that they felt was good or could be improved. When we as a class were performing team-building activities, one of the many things we practised was to create trust within the group. And I believe that trust exercise was missing in Datavision’s team building session. Although the consultant did identify that trust in the organization was an issue, he never really took any steps to improve that. Nor there were any efforts to bridge the communication gap between the President and VPs or even the staff employees. We understand from the case study that the organization had become very formal with the employees, this clearly states that senior executives were connected with their employees only professionally. Whereas, articles like “Where will we find Tomorrow’s Leaders?” and “Making yourself indispensable” talks about the importance of connecting emotionally with others to inspire and motivate. So the emotional quotient amongst the employers was missing. Also, in my opinion, Bob was harshly criticized for his managerial working style. This could create more closed doors if the criticism is not taken positively. A sense of compassion used towards criticizing Bob or other Executives could have proven to be more worthy.
3. In recommending steps for Datavision, I believe that the company should follow the Empowerment model of leadership. This way decisions are made as low in the organization as possible. People will be willing to collaborate and share more. Decision making process should become more decentralized and acknowledging the work of staff members will give them confidence. Following this kind of model, will help to be more aware of the customer, be more productive and the issues being raised by lower levels would be noticed faster.

There were issues that the marketing department had committed more to the customers than the engineering department could deliver which created a lot of backlogs. To avoid this, I would recommend that engineering, manufacturing and marketing team should work together when making any important decision. This would help create more transparency.

The President should also build more effective communication with all departments. Instead of monthly meetings, the department should come up with weekly meeting and reports so that all the departments are informed of the policy being followed and help employers be better informed when making any future plans.