Cracking the Whip - Analysis of Management Systems

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Opportunities

DTS is receiving negative feedback about the way that the headquarters surveys are being conducted. There is a high level of disagreement between Davidson and Pitcher regarding the goals to obtain and the way to get them accomplished. This company is in need to find a way to solve this issue before the problem expand.

One possible solution would be to implement the Carnegie model. Research by the Carnegie group indicated that organizational-level decisions involved many managers and that a final choice was based on a coalition among those managers (Draft, 2013 p. 491). The Carnegie model emphasizes bounded rationality. Decision making often requires that groups are formed based on people who agree on goals and priorities. Management coalitions is needed in this case during the decision making. Managers must bargain about problems and build a coalition around the question of which problems to address (Draft, 2013 p. 491). It is important for managers to be able to communicate and exchange points of view to gather information, reduce ambiguity and mutually agree in the problem priority.

The Incremental Decision model could be another alternative for the problem DTS is experiencing. This model places less emphasis on the political and social factors described in the Carnegie model. The Incremental Decision model focus about the structured sequence of activities undertaken from the discovery of a problem to its solution (Draft, 2013 p. 494). This model consists in three steps: identification phase, development phase and selection phase. This method could be useful and help the company to solve not only the issue they are having between Davidson and Pitcher but also future problems that could arise by finding the problem that will fix the issue while satisfying all staff levels.

The last choice to be explore in this case is the Garbage Can Model. This model helps us to think about the whole organization and the frequent decisions being made by managers. This model describes how decision processes can seem almost random in highly organic organizations. Decisions, problems, ideas, and people flow through organizations and mix together in various combinations. The main purpose of this process, is that the organization learn that some problems may never be solved, but many are, and the organization will move toward maintaining and improving its level of performance Draft, 2013 p. 512).

Recommendations

The case of study illustrated a common problem that occurs in the business environment. Davidson and Pitcher were forgetting about the real matter… the benefit of the organization. Davidson needs to get more involve in the problem and Pitcher needs to be willing to make changes in the way he is thinking so they can reach the company goals. They need to exchange ideas and get together to analyze the problem to avoid decision mistakes. The application of the Carnegie and incremental decision models will help them to make a better decision. It is important for them to realize and accept that a solution needs to be find as a team and to leave behind individual thinking and bureaucracy. It is important that the surveys get completed on time but they cannot oversee how this could affect the performance of the rest of the staff.

In addition, they should try to adopt an adaptive corporate culture. A culture that encourage risk taking, change and improvement. This will allow managers in different departments to be more open minded when they receive feedbacks about certain situations or procedures. They will feel motivated to make changes instead of feeling judge.

References

Daft, R. L. (2013). Designing organizations for the international environment. In Organization theory & design Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Cracking the Whip by Winnie Chen on Prezi. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://prezi.com/dv9hweuocvlv/cracking-the-whip/

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