Case Study: Mount Cedar Technologies Inc.

Introduction to Mount Cedar Tech Inc

Mount Cedar Technologies, which began as an importer and distributor of computer accessories but later grew into an IT infrastructure integrator that specializes in hardware, software and security solutions, from an employee of 6 to 170 in 2006, is having an organizational behavior challenge. The company lacked an organization structure that can help improve on its operations’ effectiveness. Even though the decision making was highly decentralized, there was no cooperation among the managers therefore, each department were making independent decisions, without coordination or communication.

 

Mount Cedar Technologies Vision

In trying to analyze and provide suggestions that can improve or enhance Mount Cedar Technologies’ organizational challenge, we need to find out what the company’s vision is. According to Neil Kokemuller (2017), A mission and vison are standard and critical elements of a company’s organization strategy. Most established companies develop organizational vision statements which serves as foundational guides in the company’s objectives. The case study has not mentioned any mission or vision statement for the company, and this is an underlying factor in shaping an organizational culture. Where mission relates to goals and refers to the overriding purpose of the organization, Vision refers to the desired future state of the organization” (Johnson et al., 2011 p.8).

Hans Hinterhuber and Wolfgang Popp (1992, p.106) defines vision as “an orientation point that guides a company’s movement in a specific direction. If the vision is realistic and appeals both to the emotions and intelligence of employees, it can integrate and direct a company”.

 

Assessing the Leadership Style

Even though John Curtis, the CEO, has been instrumental to the growth of the business, his present leadership style had become problematic to many including the top management. He surprised people by showing uninvited to meetings and employees are expected to provide impromptu responses to unprepared questions thrown at them. Since Curtis has been perceived as being an issue, he cannot be recommended as a change leader. So, Mount Cedar Tech. need to restructure its organization, and what the company need is a distributed leadership which could be used to effect an organizational change. Research has also shown how change is driven by large number of organizational members, in an approach that is called “leadership constellations” (p. 17)

 

Creating an Organizational Structure that Promotes Creativity

The case study identified that the company lacked an organization structure that can help improve on its operations’ effectiveness. And one way to achieve this to create an organizational structure that promotes creativity. According to “Making Innovation Structures Work”, a McKinsey Global Survey results, Executive say their companies use multiple organizational approach to drive innovation and that the success of these efforts depends on integrated strategy.

While 86% say the structure of their separate functions positively influences outcomes, results however suggested that the most important factor of success is how creativity is integrated into corporate strategy. Therefore, some of the general characteristics of organizational innovation Mount Cedar Tech. can put in place to promote creativity, are

• Allowing everybody understand that they are capable of generating creative ideas
• Organizational culture that can smother creativity
• If any one comes up with a great idea, let them understand – ‘no need to tell, just show it’

 

Improving Mount Cedar Tech. using Communication and Employee Empowerment

At Mount Cedar Technologies, decision making was highly decentralized which resulted in the loss of possible gains to be obtained from cooperation among managers. Ideally, having a flat structure and decentralized decision making should make an organization work more efficiently, and allow it to react quickly to business situation, however, if there is no coordination or proper communication, there will be a resulting silo effect in which each department will make decisions by itself.

Research has shown that effective lateral and work group communication leads to an improvement in overall company performance. Here are a few ways organization communication can increase decision making effectiveness and a productive organizational behavior

• When information is not transferred correctly to the right people, there might be miscommunication as seen at Mount Cedar Tech. it is important to have a good communication system, so that everyone understands the goal and can work together towards it. E.g. to launch a new product on Facebook, new goals and tasks should be properly communicated to the employees
• Effective communication can also empower employees and improve productivity if they have more information, about specific tasks. Mount Cedar Tech employees where not empowered and were not encouraged to risk taking. In fact, department managers acknowledged that they were busy reacting to problems and customer issues, allowing them no time to coordinate or listen to their employees. This is because managers don’t have information about how to deal with specific tasks.
• Communication also creates healthy and productive cultures in an organization. If employees and managers have good working relationships with each other, the organizational behavior of the company improves.
• Effective organizational communication also increases accountability. When employees and managers are provided with clear instructions, they know what is expected from each of them. This will break silo effect in an organization, and managers can work together in tandem with the organization mission and vision.

 

Addressing Diversity and Minority

Christensen and Cornelissen (2011, pp. 402-3) argue that organizations have to work with many voices, with different views and ideas, so that communication can be ambiguous and inconsistent for this reason of accommodating diversity in an organization: “vague and equivocal language allows organizations to talk about themselves in ways that integrate a variety of members and stakeholders without alienating anyone”. This is key to Mount Cedar Tech. as it was also lagging in the advancement of women and minorities.

 

Organizational Motivation and Reward

Finally, it is important to keep employees motivated and rewarded. Mount Cedar Tech, experienced complaints from employees who did not feel equitable treated, which resulted in the loss of talented employees. According to Lipman (2013) here are 5 easy ways (which are self-explanatory) to motivate employees

• Align individual economic interests with company performance
• Take a genuine interest in the future path of an employee’s career
• Take a genuine interest in their work-life balance
• Listen
• Do unto others as you would have done unto you

 

Mount Cedar Technologies Inc.

Designing A High-Performance Organization

 

Adebola Oyinloye

California Miramar University

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE

 

References

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., Buchanan, D.A. (2016). “Managing Organizational Change”: A Multiple Perspectives Approach. New York NY. McGraw-Hill Education

Neil Kokemuller (2017). “Importance of Mission Vision in Organizational Strategy” http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-mission-vision-organizational-strategy-16000.html

McKinsey & Company (September 2012). Making Innovation Structures work: Mckinsey Global Survey results. http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/making-innovation-structures-work-mckinsey-global-survey-results

Pavel Aramyan (Octoboer, 2015). 5 ways workplace communication effectiveness can increase productivity. http://explore.easyprojects.net/blog/5-ways-workplace-communication-effectiveness-can-increase-productivity

Victor Lipman (March, 2013). 5 Easy Ways to Motivate and and Demotivate Employees. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/03/18/5-easy-ways-to-motivate-and-demotivate-employees/#344ce3e9682d