Find an article on line or in a magazine that relates to a text, course topic. A

Question

Find an article on line or in a magazine that relates to a text, course topic. Articles about your topic might be found online via Google or Bing, etc. searches. Or in magazines related to human resources, psychology, business management, etc. Most of which can also be found on-line. Discuss how the article relates to relevant supporting material from the text, include what the text says, how it supports the article or doesn’t. In other words, how the article supports, contradicts, and/or furthers the text material related to the topic. Make a specific conclusion about what the article means. Meaning, what is your opinion of the article’s point? In other words, is the article’s point or exploring of a technique likely to make managing employees or organization more effective and why? Then, consider an alternative view. If it’s a negative article, what positive uses/benefits could there be that the article didn’t considered? Conversely, if a positive article, or basically a review of text topic or management technique, what are the potential risks, possible failures, to be aware of? In other words, what are the pro and con implications to a manager, or expert in organizational behavior? The paper should not be more than 4 pages long double spaced. Start it with a synopsis of the article, no more than a page. It should summarize the article so that anyone reading your paper, including myself, can understand what the article was about related to a text, course topic. Then complete the paper by following the instructions above.

Explanation / Answer

The article, based in 2016-17, is about stakeholder analysis of the ousting of Cyrus Mistry, the stakeholder being the employees. It is a case study on the ousting of Cyrus Mistry as the Chairman of Tata Sons. This is my take on the article - what could have been included and what has been included.

Introduction

Tata Sons replaced Cyrus P Mistry as the chairman of the Tata conglomerate on 24th Oct, 16, and replaced him with Ratan Tata as the interim chairman. There was a committee constituted to choose a new chairman by the board. Such a decision was taken overnight and people, including Cyrus Mistry, were shocked by the decision. It was shocking because Cyrus Mistry was leading the organization for the past 4 years. Most of the Tata companies were growing within the range of 10-20% CAGR. And in spite of such good results, when a leader is changed, more so in such an abrupt manner, the employees are one of the worst affected stakeholders. It creates a sense of panic and confusion in their minds while they are trying to ascertain about their future with the company. This confusion and panic is further reinforced when the organizational matters are not solved immediately, while the chairman & the ex-chairman put on the blaming hat. This story was taking twists and turns with every new day. The employees were divided almost equally on both the sides and were eagerly hoping that the issue is resolved soon.

Change in Organizational Structure & Culture

A few days after Cyrus Mistry was ousted from being the Chairman of Tata Group, top 3 GEC members, who were hand-picked by him, Dr. Nirmalya Kumar, Dr. N S Rajan and Mr. Madhu Kannan, left the services of the company. Tata Sons, announced a lot of changes in the top hierarchy of the company. HR head was changed. A lot of A few people who were already having some responsibilities were given additional responsibilities, thus creating overlaps at the top. This may not have been the right decision when the company was already in distress after selling off the loss-making subsidiary, Corus. But, it might only be for a short period of time till the group found a proper replacement for those who have resigned.

In a reply to Mistry’s five-page agitated letter, the company said, “The tenure of the former Chairman was marked by repeated departures from the culture and ethos of the group.” Cyrus Mistry didn’t follow the “Tata Way”. He always focussed on being profit-oriented, rather than holistic development. He engaged in so many cost-cutting measures for many companies like Tata Motors, Tata Nano, etc. He had infact recommended shutting down Tata Nano plant and layoff so many employees. The result was a slight change in the culture of the organisation by focussing more on being profit-oriented rather than innovation oriented, which Tata stood for.

However, in this scenario when there was a lot of restructuring going on at the top, the employees would feel conscious about their future and would be unsure about job security. The top management needed to bring back the stability and brand reputation that Tata enjoyed before 2010. Employee engagement drives organisational culture which is based on the behaviour with which employee behave within and outside their teams. Attrition rate, an indicator of the employee engagement in the company, had started increasing lately for past many years at Tata Motors and TCS, it needed to be tackled, especially at this juncture when there is unrest due to perceived change in the culture of the company.

Leadership Style Change

Tata had done well and will do well. There had been failures such as the commercial disaster of Nano. Even though the Tata group fell flat on its face in this situation, they accepted the failure and moved on. It is an accepted norm that failure do happen and all should be given a chance to redeem themselves. Tata employees had always been given the leverage of making mistakes when stepping into new domains. As a Tata employee, what was puzzling was that, why was Cyrus Mistry not given that chance. This had created an atmosphere of “Secure Leadership” within the organization probably slowly killing the risk appetite of the employees.

Ratan Tata, who was the chairman of Tata Group for 21 years, followed Bennis & Nanus Transformational leadership style and over the years the employees had become accustomed to that. He had created many self-empowered leaders such as Gaurav Singh of Bluestone start up. With this leadership style, always kept the senior managers on their toes ensuring Tata group leaders followed the principle of flexibility and adaptability. In 2012, Cyrus Mistry stepped in, who followed an “Output driven leadership” style, emphasized on “excellence, unity and responsibility” to deliver maximum profit for all Tata businesses. This resulted in employees being shaken to stretch themselves for measurable results.

In 1991, when Ratan Tata, took over as the chairman he completely restructured the organization into a matrix style approach. This was a huge change that the entire company went through during that time. The same fear prevailed then also with the ousting of Cyrus Mistry that who the new leader will be and how the employees will be expected to gel in with new management changes.

Power and Politics

Even though Ratan Tata was no longer a part of the organization while Cyrus Mistry’s, he still was a powerhouse and most changes and decisions needs to be routed through him. In a huge conglomerate, such as Tata group, it became imperative for employees to identify the informal source of power and influence. Certain senior managers who were following Mistry’s way, now had to direct their support and loyalty to the new leader.

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