Cliffside Holding

Introduction

Cliffside Holding Company of Massapequa has been in business for over 50 years. As a way to develop future leaders within the company, at a senior executive staff meeting, the Director of Operations suggested CHCM establish a leadership-development program. The memo (A. Ravaswami, Personal Communication, October 10, 2012) is a response from Ravaswami, Vice President of Human Resources to CHCM’s CEO on the merits of the proposal. This assignment demonstrates the application of ten (10) steps of critical thinking method developed by Browne and Keeley (2015) and is used to guide the following discussion.

Issues and conclusion

In the memo by A. Ravaswami to the CEO of CHCM, the issue raised is whether a leadership development program is necessary. Ravaswami concluded leadership development programs are not necessary.

Reasons

Ravaswami concludes leadership development programs are not necessary because he considers them wasteful and money not well spent. He mentions that if money were spent on this program, then funding for recruitment would suffer. His opinion is that leaders are born and not made. He supports his conclusion by pointing out that not one of the twelve senior executives has attended a leadership development seminar; still the company has been prosperous with an average growth rate of 12% per year. Ravaswami believes Forsythe is not really concerned about developing leaders for CHCM and instead has a personal agenda to discredit him. Further, he thinks that she wants to push the theories of Aspen institute on CHCM, which he feels “are not appropriate for the culture of CHCM”.

Ambiguous words

Ravaswami uses two words in his response to support his reasons that are ambiguous, “wasteful” and “not well spent”. It is uncertain whether Ravaswami is referring to the program’s initial cost or to cost over time. His ambiguity makes me wonder if he has experience with implementing leadership programs that did not have any positive impact. Without knowing if he has had prior experience, it is difficult to evaluate his conclusion and reason that leadership programs are wasteful. What is the definition for “not well spent?” What is the reason for this statement? Are there any prior examples of other initiatives and money spent on each of those initiatives? He states that the company has been “prosperous”. The meaning of prosperous is uncertain in the context of his argument that leadership programs are wasteful. Perhaps Ravaswami is implying that CHCM has been “prosperous” because it has not spent on wasteful programs? Ravaswami also mentions CHCM’s leadership has been successful and effective, even though none of the twelve senior executives attended a leadership development program. It is important to know how Ravaswami measures “successful”