Logistics Assignment Paper: Case Studies on My Way or the Highway

Case Studies on My Way or the Highway

Case study 2

Introduction

Jack Reynolds bought Tea and More together with two partners but bought out his partners along the way. Jack made decisions concerning all matters in the company, The company started out small making revenues less than U.S. $1 million annually, but by 2009, the revenues had grown to U.S. $29 million annually. Jack put in more hours of work due to the company’s growth. He was often discontented with the work of his employees and thought that the employees were not innovative enough. Jack’s strictness and tight control increased employee turnover, the company consequently wasted time and money in training recruits. Additionally, the company faced tough competition, delays, and mix-ups in production and sales. Employees began complaining about poor compensation for travel, and Jack felt they were letting him down. Jack, therefore, called a meeting to discuss solutions to these problems.

Main Problem

Micromanagement by Jack led to increased employee turnover, wasted management time on training new employees, and shifted his focus from important management issues.

Possible Solutions

            Delegation of Duties. Jack should delegate responsibility to his employees. Delegating responsibilities creates accountability among employees (Hajdini, 2010). When employees feel accountable, they are driven to work hard. The most significant advantage of delegation is that it allows a leader to focus on the significant aspects of the company. The disadvantage of delegation is that tasks might not be done as expected. Another negative factor is that the manager loses touch with some of the aspects of the business.       

            Prioritizing Duties. Before delegating, Jack should prioritize his tasks to those that can add value to the organization. He should leave the insignificant aspects such as monitoring sales to supervisors. The advantage of this solution is that it helps the manager choose the duties he would want to delegate. Similar to delegation, prioritization of functions and tasks might lead to unsatisfactory performance.

            Hiring a CEO. While delegating duties is a temporary, hiring a CEO is permanent. By employing a CEO, Jack will have shared his management workload. The CEO will handle most of the responsibilities and grant Jack more time to himself. Hiring a CEO takes the workload off the sole proprietor’s back (Chambers, 2009). Jack will be able to enjoy more time to himself, relieve stress, thus cease to be emotional. However, a CEO might not be as passionate as Jack is about the business and this might lead to a reduction in revenues.

            Allow Mistakes Even in well-run organizations, mistakes occur. Jack should be more tolerant to mistakes because openly abhorring employees’ mistakes instills pressure in them, and they might end up making mistakes. The disadvantage of allowing mistakes is that the manager might appear to be excessively lenient.

Best Solution and Rationale

Hiring a CEO is the best decision. A CEO is the highest-ranking administrator in an association. Their primary duties include managing operations, making major decisions, and acting as a medium of communication between a business owner, and the employee (Chambers, 2009). Therefore, the CEO will allow Jack time for non-business related activities. Jack will not overwork or micromanage the organization. Unlike in delegation, a CEO is a permanent form of delegation, and it allows the business owner to delegate major operations. CEO will be able to handle the rapid growth at TAM.

Implementation

The hiring of a CEO will be implemented through recruitment. Jack and the other top leaders will create a list of possible candidates then all of the candidates will be interviewed, and the best candidate selected from the group. The CEO will then be trained by Jack about important aspects of the company. The CEO can work under Jack as an apprentice for a period of time and when Jack is certain the CEO is good enough, he can leave them to run the company. The CEO will correspond with Jack on important matters and give him feedback about the company’s welfare once in a while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Chambers, H. E. (2009). My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide:            Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition. ReadHowYouWant. com.

Hajdini, I. (2010). Innovation Management: The Leadership Role of the CEO: Case studies:          Yahoo and Google. München: GRIN Verlag GmbH.