Sigitek Case

Barriers and Drivers to change facing Smithers:

Smithers has in his favor experience in reengineering business processes from when he was and engineering service manager. His style of personal management aided him in instituting corporate culture changes in a manor that was well received by Sigtek employees. This experience was needed given the long-standing organizational differences that Smithers faced between Sigtek's engineering and manufacturing divisions.

Another challenge faced by Smithers was the different management style of his counterpart, Richard Patricof, who was vice president of operations. Patricof's focus was not on results or productive feedback from employees. He felt that style and a tolatarian approach to personnel management was best suited for this total quality (TQ) training program.

Other barriers Smithers faced was the possibility that employee expectations on the success of this new program may be too high given previous attempts to change Sigtek's differing engineering and manufacturing corporate culture. It would be difficult to unite these two internal organizations.

The major drivers to the success of the TQ program was that Sigtek was in desperate need of a change in its processes or face the risk of going out of business. This rift between operations and engineering would drive the company into the ground given the weak leadership of the President, Charles Bradley.

How efficiently was change introduced?

The team at Sigtek established a set of goals for the implementation of the TQ program. An outline of the training process was created and presented to senior management. The response was non-plus, which instilled a great amount of concern to Smithers. The cold response from senior management clearly indicated that their support in the implementation o this new program was questionable. Sigtek's approach to change involved choosing one manager from the engineering and operations sector respectively to be trained as site instructors for TQM. They in turn would train other employees to implement TQM. There was already a history of discontinuity between Smithers and Murphy. There was no unified team effort between these to key players.

Signs of failure also came when Patricof handpicked a cross-functional group of managers to form a site Quality Improvement Team, which was to coordinate and facilitate the implementation of TQM. This was a mistake. The one sided selection only deepened the divide between operations and engineering given the lack of corporate diversity on the team.

Smithers lost credibility with the first TQM graduates given the basic concepts being taught proved ineffective when employees attempt to implement what they learned. Employees saw first had that their efforts were ineffective in resolving a simple bouncing cart or protruding electrical outlet problem. Smithers and Murphy clearly did not have the support of senior corporate management on the TQM concept.

After a month into the training program, activities of the Quality Improvement Team was virtually transparent. Little follow through could be seen, which only deepened employee belief that the program should not be taken seriously.

What should have been done differently?

As Kotter outlines in his book Leading Change, any new program has a marginal chance of success without the backing of senior Sigtek management. Successful changes in corporate culture can only be accomplished when the major players in the organization are unified.

Smithers should have established open communication with operations management early on. When the TQM program began to falter, he only expressed his frustration and concerns about the program to a close circle of people in the engineering group, and seemed to never have an open, in-depth talk about this problem with Patricof or other senior managers from operations group.

Smithers failed to create effective mechanism and practices to solve the problems he had identified. He reflected a lot, but did little to establish better understanding and communication between the engineering and operations sectors. He did not design specific viable motivation and reward system to encourage employee's participation in management. When the implementation of TQM experienced problems, he became frustrated without taking proper action.

As Kottler's book also points out, a change in corporate culture is only effective if there is follow through. Change management only begins with a change in corporate mindset through initiates such as TQM training. Continues care and feeding is required in order to ensure enhancement of individual behavior is deep rooted.

Can this change initiate be revived?

It is difficult and often impossible to revive a change initiate after when faith by both the employees as well as senior management is lost or was never there to begin with. For this particular case, a solid guiding coalition must be created where there is tooth to tail oversight of the program. Those involved in the change process must also work together as a team to ensure that every stage of the process is implemented. Every efforts must be made for constant communication of the new vision and corporate strategy. Non-traditional ideas need to be encouraged where short-term wins are established.

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