Datavision Case Study

Case Study # 1

1. The main problem at Datavision is Larry Campbell’s decision making. When the business first started, decisions could be made by a single individual because there weren’t many decisions to be made. Upon the growth of the company, according to Campbell, “there [were] just too many decisions to make.” Large companies will deal with greater complexity, and require significant delegation of tasks in order to avoid micromanaging. Several of the vice presidents mentioned that, “Larry did it all himself.” Also, when speaking of Larry Campbell, they went on to say, “You make decisions without involving people who have the right to be involved.” This means that he was micromanaging and was not accepting input from others. When remembering the decision making in-class lecture, Larry completely failed to incorporate the aspects of the ideal group decision making process, because he did everything himself. He did not address divergent thinking and did not seek feedback or outside help. This leads to “frustrating and costly” situations, as mentioned by the vice presidents when plans have to be changed and valuable time is lost. This may have been one of the key factors behind the company’s high turnover rate. Further, Larry’s decision making shows to be a major problem when looking distribution of power in the company and respective managerial skills. One vice president explained, “We are all, except Scott [vice president, manufacturing] relatively new at managing.” This leads to a lack of structure, which should have been assessed by Larry if he had better decision making. Another poor decision made by Larry was the hiring of Tom Sisco as the manager of customer service without having the necessary titles or experience. “The vice presidents felt that the friendship between Campbell and Sisco stood in the way of business because around the company, people felt that you got promoted if you were Campbell’s friend.” Again, Larry Campbell failed to get feedback from others and made the decision on his own further showing that his decision making was the main problem.
2. The teambuilding sessions worked as intended. Before the sessions, they vice presidents had not voiced their opinions or concerns. According to one vice president, “We stay out of each other’s departments mostly because we don’t trust or approve of what the other person is doing.” Communication was lacking between them and they all felt a lack of trust amongst one another. “When the [first] meeting adjourned, the group went to dinner feeling that they worked hard and made some good progress.” Tom Sisco expressed his delight with the sessions by saying, “I felt that we could all be much more open and honest with each other, and I had a very good idea about who the vice presidents were and where they stood on certain issues.” Further, another opinion shared by several staff members was that, “[They] had all been so open that there was a collective feeling that things might really change.” The most important aspect of the sessions was to figure out the issues at hand and make the changes needed in order to fix things. Therefore, the teambuilding sessions did in fact work.
3. As the next steps in the process, I would recommend Larry Campbell delegates minor decisions in order to avoid micromanagement and frustration amongst employees. This could lead to differing views between Larry and his managers, which could potentially hurt the ultimate vision of the company. Further, I would recommend that a big decisions be made by committee, where Larry is required to get feedback from all his vice presidents before they come to a decision. This would remove the headaches of having to change plans and requires all the vice presidents to know what is going on. This might fit well with Larry, as he is a “perfectionist and expects an awful lot.” Ultimately, I would recommend that the decision’s committee follow the ideal group decision process and incorporate the aspects of framing, divergent thinking, convergence, action, and collecting and processing feedback. This will definitely be more time consuming and therefore, more costly, but it will remove all confusion and decrease the turnover rate that the company is currently expiriencing.