Analysis Of Frink ElectronicsEssay Preview: Analysis Of Frink ElectronicsReport this essay“Analysis of Frink Electronics IncorporatedBy BISAR Consulting”Submitted to:December 1, 2005Submitted by:Table of Contents:IntroductionStatement of Problems and IssuesProblem 1: Providing guidelines to the self-managed teams.Problem 2: Facilitators without the proper training.Problem 3: Communication within the organization.Problem 4: Different management styles.Problem 5: Empowerment without responsibility.Proposal of and Assessment of Alternatives:Implementation of Recommended Alternatives:AppendixIntroduction:This corporate analysis of Frink Electronics Incorporated, completed by BISAR Consulting, will study its operations and make concrete recommendations for improved success. We will clearly outline five major problems and the issues that cause these problems. After we have outlined the major problems, we will work to address a set of concrete solutions to address the problems. Through a solutions analysis, we will choose one solution and discuss the steps that Frink Electronic Incorporated should take to solve the problem effectively.
Statement of the Problems and Issues:Problem 1: Providing guidelines to the self-managed teams.The overlying problem in this case is that the restructuring into self-managed teams was never done properly. The self-managed teams, as far as our consulting firm was told, were never given proper guidelines on how to function properly as a team. The teams are made up, for the most part, from front line assembly workers who are used to performing one task repeatedly. However, with the new team structure, employees are expected to handle every aspect of production on their own. While this sort of responsibility can be empowering, without proper guidance it can lead to problems. It is evident that the team members were never given training on how to handle these new responsibilities, or how to solve any problems that may arise from working as a team.
The problem with the team structure is that there is a great amount of mutual adjustment and a lack of standardization. In addition, with the decentralization of power, there are fewer figures of authority to keep all of the teams on the right track.
The employees were offered a motivating, empowering environment, only to see it taken away by electing a team leader who made it more of a dictatorship than a democracy. This caused employee morale to drop and employees began to adopt a Cover Your own Ass mentality. Conflict within the teams makes people dread coming into work and leads to increased absenteeism and eventually a higher turnover rate.
Problem 2: Facilitators without the proper training.The facilitators are in need of assistance in order to do their jobs properly. They are used to being the ones telling employees how to do things and are now in a position in which they need to listen to employees and advise them on the best course of action they can take to resolve problems. The restructuring changed the nature of their positions, which is something that they were unprepared for, as they were not provided with adequate training. They are unable to assist the teams with most of their problems, which is embarrassing. This leads to lack of facilitator involvement and the inability to spread company information and best practices. Consequently, their ability to monitor how things are going is hindered.
Problem 3: Communication within the organization.Further analysis of Frink Electronics Incorporated leads us to believe that there is a problem with the overall organization communication, specifically between the president and the facilitators. The teams that were created after the restructuring in August 2004 felt that the facilitators were not helpful when a team issue arose. As noted earlier, the facilitators were not trained in issue management. When discussed with Frink, he said that the facilitators reported to him weekly and informed him things within the teams were going well. This leads to incorrect team information being directed to the president. If the facilitators are not relaying the correct information, how will Frink ever know what is truly going on in the team environment?
Hmmm, we must continue to follow up on the fact that the president was a top-down entity, not a top bureaucrat. Frink has failed to disclose the “secret” details of organization communication, where he was present throughout the meetings. The President is a non-member, not a representative, so it seems highly likely that the Secret Service would have been aware of the meetings. As discussed in Section 9, the Secret Service does not have the freedom to use the best data in order to target, target or defeat a terrorist. Frink will have to learn how to prevent the information being disseminated, with the first step being to ensure that the information is not disseminated on the web, or through any of the other sites that have been identified as being suspicious. The current process has been a waste of time. If you have ever worked in an organization or were on the board of a company with a significant group with a strong focus on a particular product and you were asked the hard questions about that product, then it’s important to understand what the Secret Service had to do before anyone of your group ever tried to reach out to your products.
The current organization has been very misusing the word “secret”, which I’ve found is rather disingenuous, in my opinion. Secret Service does have the ability to target or target someone. So I guess it’s possible to identify the Secret Service as being extremely hard on terrorist propaganda, but even if so, it would only be useful to know very few things about the Secret Service organization. There is no question that this sort of operation relies at some level upon the FBI, the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, the military, the Department of Education, the National Security Agency, and others. For most groups, there is something of a “secret” attitude to these groups, but there are other groups, where there is no doubt that there is a “secret”. This leaves a number of people with the responsibility of trying to defeat a terrorist group, but not because they have a problem with anyone, but rather because of their political affiliation. It only takes a small number of people to have this problem.
An organization, like a corporate structure, has a very long history making changes. This includes the use of “stealing” data in order to fight terrorism, or manipulating data in order to attack a specific target or target group, or by hijacking data and taking credit for this. It may also present a problem if one believes the organization simply lost in this matter, since sometimes the organization has become more secretive and can gain more power. In my personal experience, it has not occurred to me that the information was misclassified for fear of gaining a good reputation. But if a new group is formed, it becomes really strange how the information is kept very secret.
As a rule of thumb, in order to be classified, it is highly recommended that the information is stored in a safe place at the right time and in the right place at the right time (this doesn’t necessarily mean the information has been sent to a server where it was sent), with the use of good technical equipment, and the appropriate password, along with proper training in terms of keeping all
In some teams, there is also a poor relationship between team members and their corresponding team leaders. The election of team leaders was not done in a professional manner and caused team members to take sides, creating division within the team. This leads to poor team communication because members do not want to take orders from someone who they did not vote for.
Problem 4: Different management styles.Another issue is that Frinks management style is Theory Y, while some team leaders use the opposite theory (Theory X). There is no consistency in the fact that the organization uses two different theories to manage the same people.
Frink decided to implement a dominant corporate culture of self-managed teams, but the teams were so concentrated on their own issues that they forgot the global culture. Negative team subcultures were created which then overrode the company culture, causing employees to lose focus on the common goal of reducing costs and increasing productivity.
Problem 5: Empowerment without responsibility.The creation of the self-managed teams within Frink Electronics Incorporated gave employees a sense of empowerment, as they were now in charge of almost every aspect of the production. However, because no team leaders were assigned, the members