Communication of Business

    Case study “He says he’s the Doctor….” “Doctor who?” “The DOCTOR, he says.” “Oh… put him straight through to the boss.” Those were the first words you heard as you walked into the office. It was six months since you started at Paul Goodman and Associates, a boutique management consulting firm specialising in communication advisory services. That snippet of conversation was the beginning of what was soon to be the most interesting and challenging project of your career to date. Passing by reception you headed up to your boss’s office for the next assignment. Miss Drexler was in her office looking at a report when you entered. No doubt she was reading the report that you had sent her last night. Along with some of the other graduates you had spent a whole month working on the report and had finally finished your hundred page “masterpiece” around 10pm. You were so glad to hit the “send’ button on the email but now you began to worry about what she might say. “This is good work. Really good work.” A feeling of relief swept over you as you realised that all the hard work was worth your boss’s approval. “Now, about your next job. I know I promised that you could work with me on the Tuco Nachos case but something important has come up. Go to Paul’s office, he wants you to work with him.” As you turned to leave, you saw Mr. Goodman walking up the corridor towards you. “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go!” Two minutes later you found yourself sitting in the passenger seat of Mr. Goodman’s car riding to the client. He explained that he had just received a call from Dr. Wally Heisenberg, the CEO of MagicIce Enterprises and an old friend. Mr. Goodman then described how they were good friends who had met many years ago at university. He had spent the last 30 years building up a successful management consulting firm and Wally had founded MagicIce Enterprises, a leading company in the frozen food industry. The Meeting “Glad you came Paul. Really need you here. Thought I could handle it myself but this is getting out of control and you know when things get tough…Better call Paul!” Turning to you, Wally continued, “You know, this man you work for? He is a genius! Always bailing me out of trouble when I need him. You know, many years ago… when we were at university together, whenever I got drunk at the local bar …umm… Elkheads it was called, he was the guy to always make sure I got home safely. He never let any of his friends drink and drive. Told us always to call him if we were drunk and he would always get us home safely.” Over the next hour, Wally went on to explain to Mr. Goodman the problem he was having at the company. MagicIce was losing market share to a number of new entrants in the frozen food market. This was especially true of their main product “MagicIce Icecream”. To meet this challenge, Wally had decided to restructure his whole company and split it in two. One part of the company would keep the name “MagicIce” and concentrate on MagicIce Icecream and its related desserts. The other half would concentrate on frozen dinners like MagicChicken. This second division would be called MHH (MHH stands for Make Hot at Home). His second in charge, Skyla Black would be in charge of MagicIce while he would personally run MHH with another manager Charles MacThrill. While the plan was simple and would actually create more jobs overall, something had gone wrong. After hearing about the plans, the factory workers had decided to go on strike. All work at the company’s four frozen food factories had stopped and Wally was worried that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his contracts with the supermarkets if he didn’t get the workers back to work in the next day or two. This would mean that his products would not be on the supermarket shelves and they would be replaced by all his competitors’ products. The consequences were clear. MagicIce would lose more market share and Wally was worried that this would ultimately lead to job cuts. In an attempt to solve the problem Wally had sent one of his best managers, Franco Shreider to negotiate with the employees yesterday afternoon. However, the negotiations had created more tensions and problems. Franco reported that the employees on the factory floor were not being reasonable. He said that they had demanded guaranteed contracts for the next three years and had even asked for a pay rise (most factory employees were long term casual workers and the increased competition meant that there was no room for pay rises). The chief representative for the employees, Michael Trout, was so angry at Franco that he had spat at Franco and threatened to hit him if he didn’t tell Wally to come down to the factory and guarantee their jobs. He said that Wally was a *##!???** and that he wanted to “smash Wally’s face” Another employee, Augustus Ring had stolen several truckloads of frozen chickens and rumor had it that he had given the chickens to his cousin who ran a fast food chicken restaurant. Wally was clearly agitated by the situation. He explained that he really cared about his factory workers. In the “old days” when they only had one factory, he would often go to the factory and just have lunch with the factory workers. They would tell him about their families and he would tell them about his aspirations of making MagicIce bigger and better. Given this, he thought that somebody from the factory would have spoken to him and told him what the problem were before calling a strike. After listening to Wally, Mr. Goodman told him that more information is required before he could advise on the situation. Knowing that you have a friend working at MagicIce (you had told him about her at the last company social), he sends you to find out more. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jessie’s view Jessie Redman is a good friend of yours. You both studied for your undergraduate degrees at the local university at the same time. She graduated with a degree in science (food technology) and you graduated in business. Since leaving university she had taken up a junior manager position in the quality assurance division of MagicIce. When you ask about the situation she explains that she is quite puzzled. She says that the workers generally liked Wally. Many of the older workers have told her stories of how the company has faced many trials over the years and especially during the global financial crisis. It was Wally who had inspired them to keep going during these tough times and many of them credited Wally for keeping them employed. When things were tough, Wally even took a huge cut in his remuneration to help keep the company afloat. One story she had heard was that during the tough times, Wally would come to their small factory after 6pm to help them on the factory floor. He swept the floors and helped pack the trucks. The employees so loved Wally that they had created a Facebook page called “Where is Wally” dedicated to him. Employees would post pictures of themselves with Wally, and stories of how Wally had helped the employee achieve their goals. Jessie further explains that she was surprised that the negotiations had degenerated so fast but didn’t know why. When you ask her whether she had ever met Michael Trout or Augustus Ring she replies that she knows them but not closely. What she does know is that Michael Trout is an elderly man who should have retired but has continued to work in order to support his grandson who had recently lost his parents in a tragic accident. Michael’s story As Jessie walks you down to your car she waves to an old man in the carpark wearing a “MagicIce” jacket. Curious about him you walk up to him and introduce yourself. He tells you he is Michael Trout but, “most people call me Fish”. Seizing the opportunity, you decide to take Michael out for coffee and while there, ask him about what happened during the negotiation as well as what he thinks of Wally and the restructuring plans. “I don’t know what got into me yesterday. Franco just started yelling at me. He didn’t want to hear what we had to say. He told me that we were all lucky to have our jobs and that if he was the boss he would fire me as soon as he could. He said, we all better get back to work now I told him we were all worried about the plans and wanted a guarantee about our jobs but he just wouldn’t listen. He kept threatening me and I told him we wouldn’t get back to work without some kind of guarantee about our jobs. Told me I was a bad employee and that if I cared about my people I would get them back to work because they weren’t being paid while we were on strike. I know Franco was frustrated. His bonus is tied to quarterly sales and this quarter we haven’t been going so well. But you know..., my grandson just lost his parents and I lost a lot of money recently in a bad investment. When he threatened to fire me. I just lost my cool. This situation at MagicIce isn’t good. We are losing market share and management’s plan to restructure the company won’t help. It’s a bad idea. Splitting the company into two will mean double the administration and double the costs. We tried to tell management, MacThrill and Black, but they were very dismissive. You know, back in the old days, things would have been different. We would have told Wally directly. But I haven’t seen Wally around the factory in months. He’s probably busy trying to work out all this restructuring.” Thanking him you return to the office around 4pm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back in the office As you enter the office, you see Mr. Goodman talking to Miss Drexler. Turning to you he says, “Well, how was your meeting with your friend? Got any ideas?” Before you have time to reply Mr. Goodman explains that he has another meeting but he wants to hear your thoughts. As he walks towards his car he says to you, “Draft up a report on the communication issues at MagicIce and what you think should be done. I’ve left a file on your desk that you might find useful. Make sure your report is good. Something that I could just hand directly to Dr. Heisenberg. Oh…and he’s not Miss Drexler. None of this 100-page long report stuff. 2000 words will be enough.” Supplementary information The file left on the desk holds the results of a recent staff survey of MagicIce employees. The survey was conducted by the HR department and staff could complete the survey anonymously. Wally did not complete the survey. The surveys asked the respondents to provide a rating for each question using the scale below: 1) Completely Disagree 2) Mostly Disagree
3) Neither Agree or Disagree 4) Mostly Agree
5) Completely Agree