Gurinder Parmar

Student Number: 37096021

Case Study: Robin Ash and Printzhof Press

1) What impact is Printzhofs history and organizational culture likely to have on

Ashs efforts to revitalize the business? How responsive to change is the
culture?

Printzhofs history and current organizational culture will have a negative impact on
any change efforts Ash tries to put forth. First, Earnest Nygrien is still actively
involved in the business, has a board seat in EEH and owns 4% of the voting stock.
Furthermore, Nygrien represents the families view on what Printzhof stands for or
the historian of companys culture. Second, some of the most influential senior
managers, who have been with the firm for over 30 years, have also cultivated their
own views of the company and how Printzhof should conduct its business. Based on
the above factors, and the initial dinner Ash had with Davidson and co, I believe the
culture would not be very responsive to change. As an example, even the simple
process of looking for cost reductions in the Salary and Administration costs line
item on the invoice statement was mired with excuses.

2) What are the interests of key individuals and groups that Ash must take into
account when developing an action plan to implement the organizational
changes she wishes to make?

Bob Richards and the EEH executive teams interests are to focus on increasing
market share, sales revenue and profits. Cutting costs to be in line with other
business units but without going too far and affecting the positive aspects of the
culture. So how far and how fast must she go to show progress and hence continue
to get the much needed favourable backup and support from EEH to carry on with
the improvements?

Paul Davidson, and to a certain degree Harry Raines, on the other end of the
spectrum would rather maintain his status quo in terms of retaining great resources,
access to his authors and the network of new authors, and maintaining influence or
staying in favour with Lars Kross. Paul and his views must be understood and either
the organizational change needs to make sense to him or he needs to be given a
chance to be brought on board.

Earnest Nygrien, as the patriarch, must also be considered. To him, performance is

fine and practices are right. He may also object to any far sweeping changes to
organization if they undermined the culture that his previous forefathers worked so
hard to cultivate.

3) How would you feel if you were in Robin Ashs shoes as COO? As a change
leader, what dilemmas does she face?
Gurinder Parmar
Student Number: 37096021

Not only does Ash battle with multiple personality types, many of the people who
are quite head strong, but she also must realign their attitudes and behaviours in a
way that drives value and growth for the firm. Personally, I would feel quite excited
with the opportunity to manage change across with such a long history and older
senior managers. One of the major dilemmas would be to go beyond the numbers
to convince management. This could be pulled off using the tipping point principles
that focus on the cognitive hurdles.

Secondly, most senior managers have been with the firm for over 30+ years and
have generous salaries along with their own secretaries. Utilizing the principles
outlined in Theory E, an approach that focuses on increasing shareholder value, it
would be wise to cut costs through reorganization efforts. First clearly
understanding the new direction of the firm and establishing the senior leadership
in a way that is more cost effective, without impacting the long term objectives of
the firm. Changes both in Human Resources and Product Development would be the
focus. Of course, getting Kross and Nygren on board with these types of changes
first would be important.

Finally, two strategies to be implemented could be to recruit new authors who were
multimedia savy, convincing them to publish with them, and persuade existing
authors to develop ancillaries that professors and students had a demand for. These
would directly help with EEHs goals to increase market share, sales revenue and
profits.

Case Study: Leading Change at Simmons (A)

1) How does this case exemplify certain principles of effective change

leadership? Be specific in your observations.

We can see Eitel uses both Theory E and Theory O principles effectively.

First, once Eitel was brought on he acted quickly to recruit new leadership and raise
market awareness, both of which were goals that Fenway had wanted
accomplished. This was done through reorganizing his top management, cutting
costs and bringing in new leadership to fill those re-organized roles. More
specifically, Eitel implemented many hard decisions early on that could be classified
under Theory E. Strategies implemented to maximize shareholder value through
restructuring and downsizing.

Furthermore, Eitel visited the top accounts and all of the plants within the first 90
days to understand or develop a complete 360 degree view.

Finally, Eitel made clear what his goals were as a leader to his organization. This
was a promise to fix the motivational problems systemic through the plants and
Gurinder Parmar
Student Number: 37096021

deliver on the products that their customers wanted. From a Theory O principle,
Eitel wanted to adjust the culture to root out the motivational problems.

2) Should Simmons proceed with a broad roll-out of GGOL? If so, how would you
justify the $7.2 million investment to Fenway? If not, why not? What
alternatives are there from a change management perspective?

Spending 7.2M over a 3 year period, especially in what will shape up to be an

uncertain time for Simmons, on program that is unproven in this industry is difficult
to justify. Reviewing the phases, the program seems to be geared towards the
leadership or management team. Before making any recommendation on a broad
roll-out, it would be smart to modify the phases in two distinct ways such that it
works for the plants. First why not pay attention to the bright spots, especially in
Janesville? The top down command and control decision making, with little
involvement from the bottom layers, may negatively effect the chance efforts
especially if an important aspect is missed. Second, we dont know how the new
plants will work after we eliminate the financial incentives and encourage the plants
to coordinate and cooperate under one company. Therefore, it would be wise to get
detailed feedback and revise GGOL to fit the companys needs before implementing
any further GGOL training sessions.

If the above can be taken into account, then my recommendation would be to

launch GGOL at two locations, where one location would be the Janesville plant and
another at a location that is distinct in some way to the other two plants. If the
documented efficiency gains or cost reductions can be forecasted to save the firm
at least $400,000 per plant over 3 years then the argument could be more
compelling. Revising and testing GGOL would allow some time to pass and
determine the market conditions and how business is impacted by losing some key
customers.

3) Assuming Eitel elects to proceed with the broad roll-out of GGOL, what should
the management team do to guide the implementation from an
organizational change perspective? What could go wrong? How might they
prevent things from going wrong?

As mentioned above, to guide the implementation my recommendation would be to

test the program at 2 plants one of which includes the Janesville plant to ensure
that GGOL is applicable and can pay for itself. On a medium to long term horizon,
the last thing you want to do is misdiagnose the root cause of the motivation
problem. To prevent this from occurring, it would be wise to focus some attention on
the bright spots of the Janesville plant. It would also be wise to collect data on the
cost savings or production increases achieved.

GGOL has positive aspects, some of which correlate well with what is recommended
under Kotters 8 step change model. There are many things missing though,
including a guiding coalition that has clearly communicated the vision to all levels.
Gurinder Parmar
Student Number: 37096021

The same guiding coalition needs to communicate what kind of benefits will come
from the cultural changes GGOL will provide. The GGOL course is relatively quick,
and there could be a real concern that the program does not provide sustained
results. To prevent this it would be wise to plan for and create short term wins other
plants are experiencing, clearly communicating them throughout the organization.
Finally, due to the decision to let plant managers go, it would be wise to pay
attention to the informal networks that have formed and keep the influencers in
mind as GGOL is rolled out at each plant.
Gurinder Parmar
Student Number: 37096021

Case Study: Marie Jackson: Revitalizing Renfield Farms

1) In her capacity as a change leader, what is your evaluation of Jacksons first

few months on the job?

Jackson made it clear what her mission was for the company. She was quite humble
to outline that she would need everyones help and input, to foster positive change.
This was greeted positively.

She also immersed herself, having discussions with retailers and consumers to
deliver on her promise to restore the reputation of Renfield and generate
sustainable growth. Furthermore, she also shared her findings with senior managers
and included them in the problem solving exercise to fix problems. This started to
establish a sense of urgency, which is so important to build upon any change.

Jackson acted swiftly to restructure departments and lines of reporting within her
domain of expertise. This was in an effort to better understand what consumers
wanted, establish links and stay close to consumers through social media, act on
insights, develop new products and market them through new media channels.

Finally, she understood who the influential people throughout the organization were
and brought in individuals from different roles or business units to develop priorities
for change.

2) What is your assessment of Renfields vision? How effective do you feel this
new vision will be in navigating organizational change and, more specifically,
guiding daily behaviour of employees?

The vision needed to be put together based on where the company wanted to go or
could competitively go as well as factoring in the perception of the brand or the
companys capabilities. Having this in place would have made for a more
constructive planning team meeting in August 2013 and allowed for larger far
reaching changes as opposed to establishing a set of annual changes. Irrespective,
the final form of Renfields vision allows for growth into processed or non-organic
products. Aside from the impact to the brand on a long term scale, it will allow for
greater and longer term growth of the business. The new vision will be effective but
only after some structural changes are made, specifically to how incentives are
handled. I do believe that daily behaviours will need to be still worked out, and this
can be accomplished through more frequent interaction down the chain through
measuring KPIs that guide employees in the direction of the positive behaviours
needed to be successful.

3) What other systems, processes, structure, incentives, etc. need to be put in

place to meet the vision and ensure the organizational change at Renfield
sticks?
Gurinder Parmar
Student Number: 37096021

If product development is to be delegated out of Jacksons hands, such that the

organization can become self-sufficient, then the priority needs to be on modifying
or restructuring the bonus structure for business unit leaders. With the
organizational change to centralize product development it makes it more difficult
for business unit leaders to buy into new products. If ideas are funnelled back to
product development, there may be more champions and hence a higher likelihood
that the innovative products that the consumers want could make its way through
the R&D cycle to the shelves.

The final two points for sustainable change can be taken from the successes Home
Depot had in aligning its vision down to the stores. Communication lines need to be
formalized between business units and corporate. This serves two purposes, first to
track the effectiveness of the various strategies and second to recognize short term
wins and communicate them throughout the rest of the organization. This can be
formalized through the use of standard data templates and holding weekly
conference calls to run through key performance indicators.

Some processes need to be put in place to track the resource allocation issue and
rein in costs. On a semi-annual or annual basis, strategic, operating and resource
planning meetings for top managers could be implemented where managers agree
on cost cuts that dont jeopardize growth in the new visions direction. Furthermore,
employees can be brought in to understand where costs could be cut through the
use of employee task forces.