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CASE STUDY #1

Case Study #1

Drew Beaulieu

Management of Organizations

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CASE STUDY #1

Case Study #1

DSS Consulting is a firm headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. They were formed in

1997 by three retired school administrators. Originating in the Mid-West and Mountain West

regions they specialized to “…help small school districts that had limited staff deal with difficult

and somewhat specialized administrative problems, such as negotiating labor agreements or

setting up procurement systems.” (DSS Consulting). Diving deeper into the company’s history,

there is a case from September 10, 2001 to highlight. Chris Peterson was a new employee of

DSS and was eventually promoted to project manager. She was assigned to manage the

Southwest region after recent success within the company to expand revenues in the area. Chris

selected a diverse team with a vision to expand revenues to the Southwest region of the United

States in similar sized school districts. Chris and her boss Meg Cooke have a few meetings over

strategies to expand the company but come to a disagreement. Chris is more focused on

marketing to same sized school districts as the company had been in the past. On the other hand,

Meg had other visions for the company and was more focused on expanding to different sized

school districts and beyond. Meg’s strategy caused anxiety within the company, making many

apprehensive to pursue the new vision set by Meg. She refused to make a compromise on the

company’s direction putting Chris in between a rock and a hard place. Chris is faced with two

options; change the vision of the project she had been very successful working on or step down

to IT specialist. Meg’s poor leadership, refusal to compromise and the lack of acceptance of

ideas from others caused the disagreement on where the company’s direction should be moving.

From the start Meg had poor participation in the project. Although Meg and Chris had

occasional and sparse meetings, these meetings never furthered the progress of the issue at hand.

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How is DSS going to focus their marketing to further the company and increase revenues?

Instead of rejecting Chris’ vision of the company, there very well was opportunity for

compromise. Meg’s leadership mentality was narrow minded and delegative. Meg needed to give

Chris more direction while checking up on her frequently to ensure progress is being made for

the expansion. If Meg had practiced more communication with Chris, they could have resolved

this issue much earlier in the process. This was due to brief and vague meetings on progress

within the region on which direction the company wants to move in. As a leader having the

accountability and control of your subordinates is crucial to maintain standards and a common

goal. Chris could have benefited from a more active leadership from Meg to keep her team on

track, communicate important news or changes, and even get suggestions for new ideas to boost

efficiency within the team. This also creates a unique bond between leader and follower which

causes a sense of community within a company. Take Jack Welch for example who believed

heavily in lower level interaction. In fact, his favorite part of being a boss was watching his

subordinates grow in the company. He was very present in the workplace making his

subordinates feel as if Welch was more of a mentor instead of an anxiety inducing authoritative

figure.

As a result of Meg’s laissez fair leadership style, she failed to understand what Chris’

team’s internal objectives were. Chris’ team was doing a great job in the eyes of Chris, but Meg

failed to check in and report with Chris and her team. If Meg had confronted Chris at the

beginning, there could have been steps to resolve the marketing plan. This would have helped

Meg complete her goal of expanding to larger school districts, as well as achieve their long-term

goal of expanding in the Southwest. Even the slightest conflict and confrontation can help keep

the team on track. In Maragret Heffernan’s Ted Talk she speaks about the importance of this

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confrontation. She describes it not so much as a confrontation in the work place but more of a

team building process to keep everyone in their best efforts to succeed. Conflict doesn’t have to

be watching someone work over their shoulder or yell at someone for a simple mistake but more

correction or subtle reminders. Having this confrontation in the work place would have brought

efficiency to the team, avoiding lost time and effort.

Final summation, this case could have turned from failure to success with greater

communication between the two teams. Meg being a Laissez fair leader, lead to both teams being

on two separate pages for the vision of the company. As a leader it is important to keep tabs on

your immediate subordinates in order to keep objectives on task and progressing to meet their

goals. The involvement a leader has with their subordinates can help push this process and make

it more efficient, unlike this case with Meg and Chris. Lots of time and energy was wasted in

Chris’ new team because there was no involvement which caused the team to drift off with their

visions and objectives. This alone can make or break a companies financial longevity.

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Works Cited

TED. “Margaret Heffernan: Why It's Time to Forget the Pecking Order at Work.” YouTube,
YouTube, 16 June 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyn_xLrtZaY.

Quantum Capital Fund. “Jack Welch on Leadership.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Feb. 2013,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5GryYk5hV8.

TED, director. Dare to Disagree. YouTube, YouTube, 6 Aug. 2012,

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=PY_kd46RfVE.

Ancona, Deborah, and David Caldwell. Chris Peterson at DSS Consulting.