“It is going to be difficult to meet the targets the head office has given to us. As departmental heads, you are expected to give me all the support.
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Essential of Management
Case Studies
CASE STUDY (20 Marks)
“It is going to be difficult to meet
the targets the head office has given to us. As departmental heads, you are
expected to give me all the support. Next week, I will spend one day or half
with each of you to see the present state and coordinate things you need to
meet your targets. Some internal procedures are changed and you will get a
written statement by today evening giving new procedures and your targets. Ajay
Sharma, the new GM was addressing his first meeting and one of them, Rajiv
Sinha commented, ”Things have changed since Mr. John has gone away. I can’t
imagine working for this guy”. John, the previous GM for last 6 years at
Premier auto, had resigned 2 months back to join a Korean multinational. He had
built – up the quality standards in the company and had a very easy –going
relationship with all his people. Ajay Sharma had been in production for almost
a decade with a large automobile company. His experience and qualifications had
made him the first choice for this post. Ajay is a very sure of his abilities
to work at the sharp end of management and keeping control of his people. At
Premier Auto, he was not satisfied with the friendly and easygoing attitude of
his managers and felt the need to tighten things up. First thing he noticed at
the departments was laxed systems and poor performance. The sales and
production departments were not meeting their targets and business was in bad
shape. Ajay met the production manager and briefed him
about his views. “You have to do the best you can. Our operation and stocks
decisions are out of sync. Unfinished goods are lying everywhere. We will work
exactly accordingly to your production plan made last week.” Ajay discussed the
problems of small orders with the sales manager and finalised projections for
their regular customers and small and infrequent customers. Anil Shrivastva,
the sales manager, was also advised to immediately improve on MIS. Ajay Sharma,
in the following one month, charted out weekly targets for all managers and
called them for a meeting every month to discuss their performance. Six months
later, after one such meeting the managers assembled together and discussed his
work. “But we are actually working towards better days. My business is growing
faster and the regular clients are turning up with more work”, the sales manager,
Anil said. In the following meeting next week Ajay said, “We seem to be getting
closer to our targets now. You all have worked really hard, thank you. I know
it was difficult for you to have a new person with different ways of doing
things. I was very particular on targets because all your departments were in
lethargy. All of you needed to reorganize your systems and consolidate to show
better results. Your order and MIS systems were outdated and production lines
were cluttered. But today I feel. I no longer need to put such tighter controls
on you. Rather I want you to work as a team with me, not as mere followers of
my instructions.” The production manager, Manish Chawla said,” We were not
happy with your work and controls. But now I agree that you’d forced us to shed
complacent attitudes and perform better. We got very little appreciation from
you in the last six month though.” Ajay Sharma replied,” So have I. All of you
represented my controls. But now you can see for yourself why I avoided
informal meetings and weekly meetings. You were busy planning in the meetings
which happened in the past. Without meetings you worked more as a team and
shared your skills. I hope, in the future, we shall have lot more of
communication; now all of you are aware of your goals and are committed to your
schedules.”
Answer
the following question.
Q1.
What were the immediate challenges before Ajay Sharma in the initial stages?
Q2.
Ajay Sharma initially opted for a high task low relationship style of
leadership. Was it appropriate? If yes, then why is he changing it now?
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