IBAX
... the organization to resolve other crucial issues. Goodman faces many challenges in regards to organizational and employee issues. The lack of capable leadership is one critical matter that Goodman will need to deal with quickly and effectively. Before taking the helm of IBAX, Goodman must fully develop his personal vision of how the corporation should ultimately function. Ideally, IBAX should be envisioned as both a learning and a teaching organization. The organization should be modeled and taught from top to bottom with open channels of communication for soliciting bottom up learning as well. The vision should encompass a management structured around formal teams, with the ultimate goal of each team being an integral part of the IBAX organization. IBAX should also act as a part of a larger intra-organizational team that includes suppliers, customers and an even larger world community. Such a vision would therefore take a systems view of IBAX and encourage systems thinking throughout the corporation. Of course, Jeff Goodman cannot change IBAX alone. He must seek out and hire individuals that support his vision. Two critical positions that must be filled by Goodman are the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The CTO should be responsible for both Information Technology and R&D. Other important positions that must be filed with individuals that are on-board with Goodman’s vision are the Vice President of Operations, the Vice President of Quality/Regulatory, and the Vice President of Sales/Marketing. A Vice President of Human Resources (HR) is also needed; however, only if the existing HR executive is capable of assuming that position should he/she be retained with the corporation. It is extremely important for Jeff Goodman to put highly qualified individual that are supportive of his vision to ensure success. Once the top executive positions are filled, Goodman should move on to creating a Senior Leadership Team. This team should be made up not only of these top executives m but also have the upper managers from each of the various IBAX facilities. In order to develop this group into a functioning team, deliberate team-building activities should be initiated. This team needs to know what tasks it will be performing as a team. Also, the team will need to learn to create and sustain an environment conducive to "learningful" conversations that are a balance between inquiry into what others are communicating and personal advocacy. Respect and honesty are fundamental to this process. However, it should be made perfectly clear that as CEO, Goodman reserves the right to make the final decisions. Perhaps the first tasks of this Senior Leadership Team should be determining the channels of communication it will use for top down and bottom up communication within the organization and committing to initiating a Teaching Cycle approach to leading organizational change. It is important to use these channels to inform the organization of every step in the change process beginning with how the leadership is structured and how IBAX will become a great company by being both a teaching and a learning organization. It is important to inform the entire corporation that the process of team forming and team building demonstrated at the top of the organization will be taught and reinforced throughout the organization. This will clearly demonstrate top management's commitment to fundamental change at IBAX and the inclusiveness of all associates in the process. Tasks for Senior Leadership Team · Assess Current State of Corporation · Articulate Corporate Vision, Mission and Core Values · Develop a Plan for Fundamental Change The Senior Leadership Team of IBAX needs to assess the current state of the corporation prior to implementing any fundamental organizational changes. There are very likely some very good things about IBAX that should be recognized and encouraged as part of the change process, and these need to be known and valued by the Senior Leadership Team. In order to reinforce a systems approach to the entire corporation, five (5) key components of the overall system need to be assessed. Answering the following questions will facilitate that assessment: 1) What is the current mission of IBAX? 2) What is the current identity of IBAX? 3) What is IBAX’s relationship with key stakeholders? 4) How is the work of IBAX organized? 5) What is the IBAX culture (i.e., its values, assumptions, norms and artifacts)? From this review of the current state of IBAX, its inconsistencies with Goodman's vision for the corporation should become evident. Perhaps the fundamental reasons for the IBAX image of low product quality, customer satisfaction, and financial performance will become clear as well. The Senior Leadership Team should proceed to formulate a compelling vision of how the above five questions should be answered. This should then lead to formation of a corporate vision, mission and core values to communicate to the corporation and provide a compelling foundation for future changes. Because of the immediate poor state of IBAX, the Senior Leadership Team should develop specific long and short-term goals for the organization. These must include specific product/service quality, facility productivity, and both internal and external customer satisfaction goals to address the ongoing deficiencies in these three areas. To be poised to successfully accomplish these goals, the Senior Leadership Team must identify the supporting sub teams and management structure that must be formed and made accountable for specific goals. Very likely, each person on the Senior Leadership Team should become a champion for a specific goal and lead the organization in achieving that goal while clearly articulating how it fits together with a systems approach to managing and changing IBAX. Included could also be leadership teams at each facility and/or product leadership teams, who would set goals supporting the larger corporate goals. Once all of these things are done, a formal teaching cycle should be initiated. This involves top management teaching the corporate core values, vision, and mission to the very next level of management below them. They in turn teach the corporate core values, vision, and mission to the management immediately under them, and so on. This should continue until front line managers/supervisors have trained all of the employees who report to them about the corporate core values, vision, and mission. In this way, top down buy-in is demonstrated and bottom up communication can be sought. At every step along the way of developing and then implementing fundamental change at IBAX, three things should consistently occur. First, leadership should be demonstrated by a top down training cycle where each level of management teaches and consistently models the change to be made to the next lower management level until everyone has been trained by the level of management most directly responsible for them. Second, communication of the plan and of the activities, both productive and not, should be openly communicated throughout. This involves focus on what was learned from each activity, whether it resulted from success or failure. It also involves creating and sustaining an environment of respect, honesty and truth. Third, team building activities should be a natural and ongoing part of doing business. Focus must remain on the task and the process and all of this supports the environment where teaching and learning are central to IBAX success. Organization & Employee Issues: Structure · Matrix organizational structure o Departmentalizes the organization o Facilitates coordination within organization · Flat reporting and team structure o Diminishes poor communication o Shapes organization’s culture IBAX needs to create a formal organizational structure after the senior management team forms. Because of the nature of IBAX’s business, a matrix structure can departmentalize the company in both terms of functional and product. The strength of functional departmentalization is putting like-specialists (i.e. engineers) together, minimizing the employment necessary, and allowing pooling and sharing specialized resources across products. IBAX apparently has weakness in communications between departments, yet it has multiple products (i.e. Series 4000, Series 5000 and department-based information/networking systems products) to produce and expand. A matrix structure gives a company ability to facilitate coordination when it has a multiplicity of complex and interdependent activities. Because IBAX grew mostly through acquisitions, it needs a certain degree of bureaucracy to centralize the authority, formalize the organization goals, regulate its operating policy and procedures, and therefore, shape its organization culture as a whole. At the same breadth; the direct and frequent contact between different divisions in the matrix can make for better communication and more flexibility. The matrix reduces bureau pathologies. The dual lines of authority can prevent people from becoming over protective with their little “empire”. The matrix provides the organization with both the best resources and an effective way of ensuring an efficient deployment. When we establish the matrix structure for IBAX, we also need to keep the reporting structure as simple as possible. Instead of a hierarchical structure, we encourage IBAX to shape a Flat reporting structure. This type of structure will diminish the poor communication IBAX’s currently experiencing in its highly bureaucratic corporate structure. Team structure involves the use of teams as the central device to coordinate work activities. It breaks down departmental barriers and decentralizes decision making to the work team level. With a Flat reporting structure and “open” door policy, employees’ talent will be demonstrated at its maximum level. A Flat structure gives employees a sense of belonging, changes their attitudes and therefore better shapes the organization’s culture. Organization & Employee Issues: Cross-Functional Teams Key Tasks Implemented by Cross Functional Teams 1. Managing continuous and organization-wide change o Establishes institutional excellence o Establishes innovation processes o Establishes continuous improvement processes 2. Implementing specific tasks o Managing complex problems o Negotiating complex deals The idea of using cross-functional teams is a highly effective method to streamline operations and define effective solutions to communication and quality problems within the IBAX organization. Departments within the IBAX organization appear to be isolated psychologically and geographically. As a result departments set their own goals, agendas and objectives. Product development involved no input from development, sales, marketing, or regulatory groups resulting in poor quality products and dissatisfied customers. Establishing cross-functional teams will improve communications, develop new ideas, improve exchange of information, and improve and coordinate activities across all departments. Cross-functional teams will aid the IBAX organization in leading innovation and change in the corporate culture. It will provide a solid foundation of organizational learning where the needs and preferences of customers can be better anticipated. It will also provide a foundation for neutralizing or averting customer complaints before they occur. Benefits of Cross Functional Teams · Builds a sense of informality, trust, and shared understanding of the future of the organization · Allows team members opportunities to discuss trends and discontinuities in relation to technologies, customer needs, and systems and product/services · Identifies goals in relationship to resources · Develops an implementation strategy and delivery plan for innovation, change, and quality When cross-functional teams are integrated into the organizational matrix, significant opportunities are presented for improvements in customer focus as well as managing complexity, creativity, and organizational learning. Cross- functional teams will gain employee commitment to the quality process, give them greater opportunity to become quality and customer orientated, and motivate them to strive for continuous improvements. These teams will give ownership for quality to employees, elicit ideas about improvement, and empower employees to make more decisions and perform tasks that are quality related; hence, progress toward corporate goals of quality and customer satisfaction is accelerated. IBAX is currently a fragmented organization with operations not centralized in a single geographic location. Cost analysis and productivity and performance evaluations are necessary to determine if operational efforts can be consolidated. Employees within the organization contain valuable expertise, technical skills, and knowledge. Every effort should be made to retain productive employees. This may involve retraining, reassignment, and relocation. However, consolidating operations may result in a reduction in the workforce. Terminating employees often results in mutual distrust, respect, and confidence in management. Therefore in the event of layoffs, terminated employees should be given adequate severance packages. In addition career counseling and job consultants should be made available to aid terminated employees in finding new jobs. Marketing Issues · Eliminate marketing of the Series 3000 product · Conduct research to consider remarketing Series 3000 to other target markets · Build product line focus · Halt sales of the Series 4000 product · Design and produce upgraded Series 4000 and 5000 products · Logo change on an improved quality version of Series 4000 and 5000 · Proactively communicate with trade press IBAX has significant problems with its three core product lines, Series 3000, 4000 and 5000. Until these production problems are resolved, IBAX’s sales growth will diminish. Building product line focus will assist the company in developing realistic long-term revenue goals. IBAX should perform an analysis of what products are most promising to the future of the company. Since smaller hospitals serving 100 beds or less are being merged with or acquired by larger hospitals, the customer base for the Series 3000 product line is declining. By halting the marketing of this product, IBAX can assess whether eliminating the Series 3000 line all together would be cost effective. Also, through conducting an effective marketing research study, IBAX could find other target markets interested in purchasing the Series 3000 product line, such as nursing homes and assisted living centers. These markets could potentially benefit from a customized version of the Series 3000 product line since they are similar in size to hospitals of 100 beds or less. The communication between departments is weak. However, the implementation of cross-functional teams should resolve the communication challenges IBAX is facing. Halting sales of the Series 4000 product line is necessary until communication regardi...