Century Medical New Boss
Please help with the following questions. This case is found
in the following text book: The Leadership Experience, third edition by Richard
L. Daft.
The New Boss
Sam Nolan clicked the mouse for one more round of solitaire
on the computer in his den. He’d been at it for more than an hour, and his wife
had long ago given up trying to persuade him to join her for a movie or a rare
Saturday night on the town. The mind-numbing game seemed to be all that calmed
Sam down enough to stop agonizing about work and how his job seemed to get
worse every day.
Nolan was Chief Information Officer at Century Medical, a
large medical products company based in Connecticut. He had joined the company
four years ago, and since that time Century had made great progress integrating
technology into its systems and processes. Nolan had already led projects to
design and build two highly successful systems for Century. One was a
benefits-administration system for the company’s human resources department.
The other was a complex Web-based purchasing system that streamlined the
process of purchasing supplies and capital goods. Although the system had been
up and running for only a few months, modest projections were that it would
save Century nearly $2 million annually. The new Web-bases system dramatically
cut the time needed for processing requests and placing orders. Purchasing
managers now had more time to work collaboratively with key stakeholders to
identify and select the best suppliers and negotiate better deals.
Nolan thought wearily of all the hours he had put in
developing trust with people throughout the company and showing them how
technology could not only save time and money but also support team-based work,
encourage open information sharing, and give people more control over their own
jobs. He smiled briefly as he recalled one long-term HR employee, 61-year-old
Ethel Moore. She had been terrified when Nolan first began showing her the
company’s intranet, but she was now one of his biggest supporters. In fact, it
had been Ethel who had first approached him with an idea about a Web-based job
posting system. The two had pulled together a team and developed an idea for
linking Century managers, internal recruiters, and job applicants using
artificial intelligence software on top of an integrated Web-based system. When
Nolan had presented the idea to his boss, executive vice-president Sandra Ivey,
she had enthusiastically endorsed it. Within a few weeks the team had
authorization to proceed with the project.
But everything began to change when Ivey resigned her
position six months later to take a plum job in New York. Ivey’s successor, Tom
Carr, seemed to have little interest in the project. During their first
meeting, Carr had openly referred to the project as a waste of time and money.
He immediately disapproved several new features suggested by the company’s
internal recruiter, even though the project team argued that the features could
double internal hiring and save millions in training costs. “Just stick to
the original plan and get it done. All this stuff needed to be handled on a
personal basis anyway,” Carr countered. “You can’t learn more from a
computer than you can talking to real people and as for internal recruiting, it
shouldn’t be so hard to talk to people if they’re already working right here in
the company.” Carr seemed to have no understanding of how and why technology
was being used. He became irritated when Ethel Moore referred to the system as
“Web-based.” He boasted that he had never visited Century’s intranet
site and suggested that “this Internet fad” would blow over in a year
or so anyway. Even Ethel’s enthusiasm couldn’t get through to him.
“Technology is for those people in the IS department. My job is people,
and yours should be too.” Near the end of the meeting, Carr even jokingly
suggested that the project team should just buy a couple of good filing
cabinets and save everyone some time and money.
Nolan sighed and leaned back in his chair. The whole project
had begun to feel like a joke. The vibrant and innovative human resources
department his team had imagined now seemed like nothing more than a pipe
dream. But despite his frustration, a new thought entered Nolan’s mind:
“Is Carr just stubborn and narrow-minded or does he have a point that HR
is a people business that doesn’t need a high-tech job posting system?”
Questions
1. Describe
the two different mental models represented in this story.
2. What are
some of the assumptions and perceptions that shape the mind-set of Sam Nolan?
Of Tom Carr?
3. Do you
think it is possible for Carr to shift to a new mental model? If you were Sam
Nolan, what would you do?
