The Vision Failed High Tech Engineering (HTE) is a 50-year-old family-owned manu

Question

The Vision Failed
High Tech Engineering (HTE) is a 50-year-old family-owned manufactur- ing company with 250 employees that produces small parts for the air- craft industry. The president of HTE is Harold Barelli, who came to the company from a smaller business with strong credentials as a leader in advanced aircraft technology. Before Harold, the only other president of HTE was the founder and owner of the company. The organizational structure at HTE was very traditional, and it was supported by a very rich organizational culture.
As the new president, Harold sincerely wanted to transform HTE. He wanted to prove that new technologies and advanced management techniques could make HTE one of the best manufacturing companies in the country. To that end, Harold created a vision statement that was displayed throughout the company. The two-page statement, which had a strong democratic tone, described the overall purposes, directions, and values of the company.
During the first 3 years of Harold’s tenure as president, several major reorganizations took place at the company. These were designed by Harold and a select few of his senior managers. The intention of each reorganization was to implement advanced organizational structures to bolster the declared HTE vision.
Yet the major outcome of each of the changes was to dilute the leader- ship and create a feeling of instability among the employees. Most of the changes were made from the top down, with little input from lower or middle management. Some of the changes gave employees more con- trol in circumstances where they needed less, whereas other changes limited employee input in contexts where employees should have been given more input. There were some situations in which individual work- ers reported to three different bosses, and other situations in which one manager had far too many workers to oversee. Rather than feeling com- fortable in their various roles at HTE, employees began to feel uncertain about their responsibilities and how they contributed to stated goals of the company. The overall effect of the reorganizations was a precipitous drop in worker morale and production.
In the midst of all the changes, the vision that Harold had for the com- pany was lost. The instability that employees felt made it difficult for them to support the company’s vision. People at HTE complained that although mission statements were displayed throughout the company, no one understood in which direction they were going.
To the employees at HTE, Harold was an enigma. HTE was an American company that produced U.S. products, but Harold drove a foreign car. Harold claimed to be democratic in his style of leadership, but he was arbitrary in how he treated people. He acted in a nondirective style toward some people, and he showed arbitrary control toward others. He wanted to be seen as a hands-on manager, but he delegated operationalcontrol of the company to others while he focused on external customer relations and matters of the board of directors.
At times Harold appeared to be insensitive to employees’ concerns. He wanted HTE to be an environment in which everyone could feel empow- ered, but he often failed to listen closely to what employees were saying.
He seldom engaged in open, two-way communication. HTE had a long, rich history with many unique stories, but the employees felt that Harold either misunderstood or did not care about that history.
Four years after arriving at HTE, Harold stepped down as president after his operations officer ran the company into a large debt and cash-flow crisis. His dream of building HTE into a world-class manufacturing com- pany was never realized.
Questions
1. If you were consulting with the HTE board of directors soon after Harold started making changes, what would you advise them regard- ing Harold’s leadership from a transformational perspective?
2. DidHaroldhaveaclearvisionforHTE?Washeabletoimplementit?
3. HoweffectivewasHaroldasachangeagentandsocialarchitectforHTE?
4. WhatwouldyouadviseHaroldtododifferentlyifhehadthechance to return as president of HTE?

Explanation / Answer

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1. I would have advised the HTE board of directors to monitor Harold's performance on a regular basis in order to ensure efficiency and productivity which would have enabled the company to track and compare the output of the employees under Harold's leadership. Whereas a positive transformation is an important factor in the company's growth but its necessary to monitor the internal business environment regularly in order to identify any complications which enable the senior authorities to take some remedial steps at an early stage. Following such steps might have enabled HTE to maintain a share in the market.

2. Harold had a clear vision for HTE and sincerely wanted to transform HTE but wasn't able to implement it as the process was poorly defined to the subordinates(employees) which lead to chaos and instability and also hampered the revenue of the organization. As a result, the employees were not sure that in which way the organization was going although Harold initiated Two-way communication but couldn't address the concerns/issues of the employees. Harold failed to manage the workforce in an efficient manner and Harold was planning for the baseless future visions without having a strong managerial control. Whereas the workforce is considered as the "personal-asset" of the company which helps an organization grow and achieve its desired goal but in this case, the workforce was struggling with their directions.

3. Harold was inefficient as a change agent and social architect for HTE as A change agent is a person who helps the company to transform in a positive manner ensuring development, improvement and productivity and the social architecture refers to the design of the internal business environment that encourages the employees to attain a set of goals within a specified period of time.
Whereas, Under Harold's leadership the organizational goals were not defined properly which lead to the negative transformation in terms of operations of the organization. Harold was not taking any initiative to improve the results and functioning of the organization which lead to serious managerial problems because the goals were not defined properly and hampered the market share of the company.

4. I would advise Harold to share his goals with the employees effectively and would recommend making some changes to his leadership style which will enable the workforce/employees to be engaged in more creative ways. Self-criticism should be a focus and motivation should be provided to the workers which will allow them a certain level of freedom in order to achieve better results at their already assigned tasks, venture into new outlooks, grow dynamically, take on various projects and essentially learn from every experience. This makes up a structure run like cogs in a wheel.

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