Complexity of Management

A complexity of management entails intricate actions exhibited by company’s managers, including management challenges that organizations experience every day. This also includes how management team can help reduce the complexity in an organisation. Henry and his son Richard have acquired the Vernon Road Bleaching and Dyeing Co. Ltd., which is facing difficulties working with the employees, further affecting its success. The case study depicts a clear example of complexity management where managing director, Richard, displays some leadership and management challenges that affect the company success. In particular, Richard is controlling, aggressive and does not take employee feedback positively. He also does not make solid decisions regarding leadership and solutions regarding the company’s problems. These factors affect his performance and lower the company’s progress. This paper presents an assessment of the ability to investigate and diagnose the nature, source and significance of complexity within organizations through applying appropriate academic theory and literature to real world situations. This entails a broad set out the context of the current situation of the case study organisation. Besides, this paper uses distinctive observations of issues facing the case study organisation to map out of the range of contributory factors. This entails an application of the appropriate tools including models, theories and literature to establish the most significant factors. Moreover, it evaluates how their relationship contributes to the emerging complexity of the organisation. This paper, finally, presents a conclusion of the findings from observing the case study and analysing the models, theories and literature utilized.

Case Study Video

The case study introduces the subject of the complexity of management in the Vernon Road Bleaching and Dyeing Co. Ltd., where Richard under his father, Henry, exercises his skills and knowledge to bring out more from the workers than normal. This entails pushing them to the limit to generate more revenues for the business. The family bought the company, including its workforce nine months ago; however, they are already at loggerheads, regarding leadership, management, and performance. The employees seem not motivated to perform. Richard is pushing the workers so much to the limit. This is considering that there is an urgent need for results and productivity.

It is clear that Richard has a lot of anger and aggression, which is evident in his leadership style. The workers have been implicated in the spread of this style just for results to be met. This type of aggression is frightening and can scare the employees rather than motivate them to perform their best. This is rooted in the dire need to increase production. Richard, the manager, strives to boost the performance of the employees with an aim of increasing returns and owing to the fear of losing their line of business in the market.

Jeff, on the other hand, is a dictatorial leader who is pushing the employees in a way that detaches them from him. This form of leadership and management destroy motivation and may also debilitate productivity and quality. This is why Richard, the other manager, son of the owner of the company fails to understand why the quality of production is low. He claims that there are instances where materials have snags and holes where this should not happen in a high-quality production. Richard believes that the employees are not serious and something must be done, including pushing them harder.

Jerry, a business management expert, attempts to help Richard, his father, Henry and the management team to find a proper solution for the poor delivery of the company. This includes winning the trust of the employees and further enabling them to develop a positive attitude to work, and further achieving better results. Jerry advocates for speaking with the employees, mentioning the company’s fears and concerns. He advocates for more humane ways of handling employees. This entails acknowledging the work and efforts of every employee, especially, when they make a positive impact on the company. In particular, Jerry states that it is crucial to mention ‘well done’ to the employees who do good, as this is a rewarding process that helps the employee feel acknowledged and valued for their roles in the company.

In this company, employees complain of lack of feedback from their boss, Richard, who seems to push for productivity only while disregarding their efforts and abilities, including contributions to the company. Upon listening to the advice of Jerry, Richard chooses to change his style of leadership in the company. In this regard, the employees mentioned that they are happy about the sudden change of Richard’s style of management, as fostered by Jerry. However, some of the employees mentioned that they still did not show him the ultimate trust that is expected. This can be attributed to the fear that they have always had and also considering that they will need more time to adapt to the changed ways of leadership portrayed by Richard. It is true to state that some employees were still not comfortable with his presence in the company. The employees also mentioned that if Richard will accept to work as a team in the company, this is the time that it will begin to get bigger profits, than simply being a dictatorial leader whose main aim is to push the employees harder and showing utter disregard for their efforts.

The managers, led by Richard, agreed to dismiss/lay off some workers to manage the financial constraints of the company. This is tagged along a few asset disposals that Richard made to raise income for the company. However, this move could affect the performance of the remaining employees considering that they may be worrying about the security of their jobs in future. Richard summoned the top managers to inform the remaining employees that their jobs are secured. However, they must work extra hard to raise more profits for the company.

Jeff, the factory manager, went out to explain to all employees the reason behind the laying off of some employees and claims that everything was fairing on well. However, it is evident that some employees were not happy with this move. The initiatives that the management team brings forth are based on the fact that the company is trying to build a trust with the employees. However, the laying off program seems to have destroyed the trust even more than it was before.

According to Jerry, Jeff does not have the right management skills to serve the company. In this regard, he should be relieved of his duties and have the company make profits, which Richard agrees. Richard and Henry took a step of speaking with the entire team of the company to assure them that their jobs are secure. Richard explained the reason for dismissing Jeff and the need to have a collaborative working process in the company for success to be achieved. Besides, Richard makes a great move of acknowledging the efforts of the employees and promises to work together for a common goal – success of the company as instructed by Jerry.

Richard, irrespective of the positive feedback that he received from the employees regarding the great move that he made of suspending Jeff, still considers giving Jeff a new role (sales) in the company. This is something that does not amuse the company employees, including Jerry. Richard claims that Jeff will be in the sales department and will not interfere with the workers. This move, according to Jerry, is not right and may lead to more problems to the company.

Jerry proposes that Richard should be dismissed from the company so that everything can work. He claims that Richard lacks effective management skills, which is a major problem for the company. However, one month later, Richard still cannot motivate the workers, the production level is still low and the company is sinking. Richard appears to refuse to release the director management role he holds in the company, citing that he did not wish to introduce another manager in a docket that has many problems to fix.

According to Jerry, Richard does not have proper leadership skills, which entails making solid decisions. Richard made a decision to lay off Jeff, but a week later considered bringing him back to the organisation, even though in a different department (sales), where Richard claims that Jeff will not find a chance to meet with the employees. This is a wrong move that will not benefit the company. Besides, according to Jerry, a business or an organisation is not feasible without people. In this regard, Richard does not seem to understand that the best way to run a business will be by appreciating people and working with them even more. This is considering that Richard’s leadership style is vested on putting pressure on the employees. Finally, Richard considers dismissing many more employees even after promising them that there will be no more redundancy. He chooses to bring back Jeff to manage the remaining employees, a factor that Jerry considers poor management and leadership approaches characterized by the inevitable influence of ownership and favouritism in the organisation.

A Map Out of the Range of Contributory Factors

It is clear from the mind map above that the company is experiencing some problems, which are rooted in Richard’s poor leadership and management. Richard has poor decision-making skills, which is evident in his actions in the company in a bid to solve the problem of productivity, employee morale and trust. He introduces redundancy in the company for the first time and promises the employees that there will be no more dismissal. However, this promise is not fulfilled, where he ends up dismissing more employees. This is a poor show of leadership, which destroys trust between him and the employees, and further kills production and motivation of the employees. In addition, Richard reluctantly accepts to dismiss Jeff, a wrong leader, who is also a significant barrier to the success of the organisation. He later on decides to give Jeff a job role in the sales department, with reasoning that Jeff does not have any connection with the employees, but the customers. This is a wrong move and shows that he cannot stick to his decisions.

Richard also has poor management skills that destroy the welfare of the company. In particular, Richard is aggressive and over-controlling, those factors threaten the employees, making them fear and have no trust in him. In his regard, the employees lose morale and motivation to take part in active roles in the companies, which later affects production quality. Richard only focuses on meeting the company objectives, where he states that the company needs to make more profits and therefore, the employees must be pushed to the limit. In his regard, Richard pushes the employees hard to attain the goals of the company – increasing sales and revenue. This shows a clear disconnection with the employee’s needs. The employees feel abandoned and undervalued at the expense of the success of the company.

Richard does not see the value of listening to the needs of the employees. This is seen in the way the employees complain of no feedback in the company. Richard does not take their feedback seriously. This is a serious problem, which leaves the employees distressed and with low motivation for work. As much as Richard considers only the need for success and abandons the employee feedback, the productivity still goes low. Therefore, he explains that he cannot understand why, but roots it to the poor performance. This is evident, even though Richard tries to listen to the employees in the end (trying to employ a situational leadership), but it is not effective considering that the employees still do not feel motivated.

The Significant Factors and an Evaluation of Relationship Contribution to the Emerging Complexity of the Organisation

It is evident that factors that lower employees’ motivation include redundancy, which leaves the remaining employees worried about their job security or fate rather than working to achieve the set company goals. Alban-Metcalfe and Alimo-Metcalfe suggest that incessant redundancy increases the complexity in an organisation as much as a manager seeks to achieve a positive result. Therefore, employees must conduct one-time redundancy and reassure the remaining employees of their job security. Besides, poor decision-making is a serious problem in an organisation where companies can embark on a downfall as a result of wrong and costly decisions. Mainly, these decisions are vested on the lack of consultations, lack of teamwork and touch with the entire team in an organisation. Gracia, Cifre, and Grau claim that the manager strives to come up with a great decision that will aid in boosting the performance of the company, but due to poor decision-making, the company continues to experience complexities. Conversely, according to Storey and Holti, organizations that are managed by an aggressive and controlling leader normally experience situations where employees lack motivation and morale to carry their duties as expected. This is also a major cause of poor delivery, factors, such as absconding from duty and reduced productivity. Organisations must adopt the integrative working process that borrows from teamwork to help foster the skills and abilities of the employees in achieving the company’s returns. Most of all, according to Whetten and Cameron, a leader who does not take feedbacks fail to understand the underlying problems in a company, further detaches himself or herself from the employee’s needs. This is a leading cause of the downfall of companies, where managers focus only on company objectives while overlooking the invaluable feedback of the company drivers – employees. According to Yukl, feedback helps in coming up with inclusive and integrated decision-making process. Poor listening leader fails to listen to the needs of employees and ends up implementing the wrong decisions in a company, which leads to poor results.

Conclusion

It is evident from the case study that complexity management is a common problem for companies. From the case study, Richard comes out as a poor leader and manager, who fails to take the employees’ feedback positively and ends up making wrong decisions that affect the progress of the company. It is also evident that Richard is aggressive and controlling, factors that dampen the employee’s morale and motivation, further lowering productivity and quality of production. Richard fails to consider the immediate needs of the employees and pushes them harder to achieve the company’s goals, which adds more complexities. Richard needs to adopt an integrative leadership framework that fosters motivation and understanding of the employees’ needs. This style of leadership advocates for providing the employees with comfortable working environments, where their needs are addressed effectively and the manager expresses close contacts with the employees. It is a well-known fact that those employees who work in a comfortable environment and are happy generate positive results.