Case Study Of Elektra Products, Inc.

The Elektra Products Inc has faced the problem: market share was declining in competition of
foreign and domestic area; new products ideas were few and far; morale was low at all time and
employees were actively seeking new jobs. Because they are disenchanted by the current culture
and they may see management as untrusted in their abilities.
Barbara Russel, a manufacturing vice president has been assigned by Martin Griffin, Elektras
new CEO who very recently made the challenge: As we face increasing competition, we need
new ideas, new energy, new sprit to make this company great. An the source for this change is
you each of you, to lead a team which will implement a plan to change management style to a
decentralized organization than encourage employee empowerment in management processing.
Ms Russell forms an active team that work hard to achieve management change. And Ms Russell
would allow employees to make decision suitable at their positions. When the Mr Griffin is not
participate in meeting the department heads responses are not workable. The resistance is
happen at the middle level management when implementation is done.
In answering first sub-question of the question no 1 of How might top management have
done a better job changing Elektra products into a new kind of organization?, we would
like to express that top management could have included the middle and lower level managers,
and the employees in the teams. The team should have received instruction 3 / 6

on the concept behind empowerment, and how the objective was to have employees at all
levels taking responsibility for decision making, at that level, and accepting responsibility for the
results. And letting them understand that positive attitude is needed in every step and every task
to be done, is practically motivated on the other hand.
For second sub-question of the question no 1 of what might they do now to get the
empowerment process back on track?, it is no doubt that getting the program back on track,
Mr Griffin needs to bring managers and employees at all levels into the teams, after all involved
have learned what the new management approach entails. And assigning the tast of quick and
easy to win to every team support them in gaining the motivation.
In answer of question no 2 of Can you think of ways Barbara could have avoided the
problems her team faced in the meeting with department heads ? we would like to answer
that Ms Russel could avoided the problems her team face by including the department heads in
her team, and charging them with identifying the challenge and obstacles to high performance in
their departments. She also should have required them to apply this approach to all levels in their
departments. Empowerment management means granting authority to subordinates. Her team
actually tried to empower lower level management without including them in the solution. 4 /
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In answering the question no 3 of If you were barbara Russell, what would you do now ?
why?,
If I were Barbara Russell, I would push slowly to reform and work for gradual support from the
other teams and I would support Martin to realize the problems with inter-departmental
communication that exist at Elektras product as he may not have been with the company for
long enough a period of time. Encouraging Martin to meet with each department head in advance
and try to collect information about the corporate culture and each department heads opinion of
his empowerment campaign and so, he might have had a better idea as to how he should
implement his reforms.
Second, by having each team membership consist of only one department, each team habitually
brought their ideas for each department to change and that did nothing to contribute to the poor
departmental communication.
The most important things for Barbara to do is to communicate to Martin the existing problems
concerning communication and trust between departments. Barbaras other choices, to push
ahead with grim determination while the CEO remains ignorant to the real cultural standard, is
doomed to failure if for no other reason than that Barbara has no definitive clout among the rest
of upper management, and thus not enough weight to throw around to effect change. She could
try to make new teams or to debate the proposals of her team, but she may not carry enough
authority to lead the other departments in such an action. Such actions could inevitably strain the
current inter-departmental communications further and may not provide any positive results
without lots of hard work.
Once Martin is made aware of the poor communication relationships that currently exist, steps
can be made to attack the problem from a different angle. Barbara, by confronting Martin on
these issues, serves herself and the campaign by showing her supervisor that she is both 5 / 6

interested in his idea and its success and by providing Martin with necessary insight into the
corporate culture that he may have yet to fully realize. As a CEO whos main function is to
please the stock holders of this publicly traded company, Martin should value the information
Barbara can provide him as it would serve to both increase his plans potential for success and to
please his bosses.
Once he is made aware of the current situation, Martin will have a better grasp on just what the
problems are that exist at Elektras product and how to solve them. As the CEO, Martin should
take a strong management stance and exert his power over the department heads by clearly
demarking the chain of command. Done effectively, Martin would thus have established among
upper management that his ideas will be implemented and that it would be wise to support him in
the campaign. This can be done by simply repeating his credos among the employees, by being
very clear on his ideas, and by encouraging open discourse among the levels of upper
management. This serves to not only define the company goals but to instill a new sense of
purpose among the employees through strong leadership.
Next, Martin needs to regroup the initial project teams so that each team consists of a variety of
employees from different departments. Having employees from different departments actually
work with and speak to each other is the first step to eventually tearing down the communication
barriers that currently exist in the company. This methodology serves other useful purposes as
well.
As well, by having a team make-up that is cross-departmental, when teams present their ideas
there will no longer exist a you against us attitude. At this point it would be nice to know more
about Martin and his history in the corporate world, and the relationship between Barbara and
Simon. With this knowledge, it becomes possible to study Martins 6 / 6
management style and track record so that more definitive conclusions can be drawn concerning
what he should do. As well, knowing how Barbara and Simon relate can offer guidelines to how
Barbara may be able to use Simon as an information tool for gauging employees opinions
regarding the empowerment campaign and the corporate culture in general. This is just the first
step towards launching Martins empowerment campaign and turning the company into a
motivated, profitable entity. Much work has yet to be done to ensure that Electra-Quik even has a
chance of becoming a market leader again, although Martin is correct in his desires to change the
corporate culture.