Executive Information Simulation - Teleswitches Company

Executive Summary

Organizational culture is the most difficult attribute of a company to change and can tend to persist and strengthen over time. Hofstede refers to it as the "software of the mind", and this is clearly evident when analyzing the culture present at Teleswitches during the Executive Information System (EIS) simulation that our group carried out.

Numerous instances of power and politics within Teleswitches affected decisions made by our group, and it became apparent that leveraging the social networks in their company could prove to be largely beneficial for us. Informal social networks, such as coffee groups, are sometimes the most effective when attempting to bring about a culture of change within a company. We also learned that by taking the time initially to get to know members of the organization, one can optimize decisions and make an impact right away. It is crucial to understand the complex social environment in an organization as that will help us navigate through the even more complex organizational network and culture.

As for our group, we went from an extremely collectivistic approach in the beginning that took up a significant amount of time, to a more individualistic approach in the later stages of the case. Motivation became an issue as time went along, and we definitely experienced the common information effect. Confirmation biases were also experienced during our case, details of which will be explained in the analysis to follow. There was no one powerful person in our group, but 3 of the 5 members consistently spoke a lot more than the others. However, interestingly enough, better decisions and outcomes were obtained from the 2 members who did not speak much as they were able to bring out fresh ideas and a unique perspective each time.

This case was a great learning experience, practical and very applicable to reality. Our group managed to get 10 adopters out of a possible 22, and albeit our exercise took longer than expected, we felt that none of the time was wasted but was instead all value-added discussions.

Group Strategy

Before beginning the exciting case study, our group expended some useful time preparing a strategy for decision-making and also developed a few principles which would govern our process. We decided to stick with the highest ethical standards and gave everyone a fair chance to speak and be heard. In addition, we focused on ensuring that only 1 person was speaking at once.

In terms of strategy, after we had learned that the CEO Ann Finkelbaum was a strict, resistant-to-change type of leader who had refused to adopt the corporate EIS, we decided that a mix of top-down and sequential strategy would be required. We inferred that Ann possessed a significant amount of power and influence within the company, and thereby any decision would have to be relayed and approved