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Case Study ‘Acton-Burnett, Inc.’

Good Essays

1-What were the mistakes made by Ryan and Keene during the whole process? The mistakes made by Ryan and Keen during the whole progress are fourfold: 1. Formation Baker is enlisted by commissioning executive Ryan and Keen to do an impossible job, both time and resource wise. Following an initial insight from Acton, the company’s chairman, Baker takes the lead to a newly created, cross functional task force. The idea is cascaded from top to down to him, across two layers of hierarchy. Very little is as well said about Acton’ and Herd’ ideas, except that they ‘feel’ that forecasting is an issue following significant loses in Q1 1975. Subsequently, Ryan and Keen appoint a task force on behalf of Baker. That Baker had no influence on …show more content…

4. Internal Politics In a group where personal ambitions, prior conflicts and internal politic clash, it is little wonder that personal and inter departmental battles will occur. The VPs should clearly have known the status quo with Hunneuus and Eldredge and select the members and leader accordingly. Furthermore, such a taskforce offers a platform for visibility to top management, and personal agenda may interfere with the group’ effectiveness and success. The VPs should have been aware of both issues before appointing Baker and / or made him aware of the rivalry with Hunneuus. 2-What mistakes did Baker make during the whole process? 1. Who does the selection The team is resulting into an ‘imposed’ unbalance of group relationships, dynamics and level of interaction where Baker did not have the choice of selection. Put simply, the taskforce is a compromise of (i) direct team colleague such as Cynthia or Jason (ii) external team member (Eldredge). The group entails experts (or old timers), junior staff such as Eldredge. Age and gender vary greatly, from 28yo (Baker) up to late 50s. The level of which Baker knows his team varies from ‘word on mouth’ and reputation, from prior conflicts and to prior effective working relationships. Given that the group members don’t know each others well, and/or are competing, Baker will have a tougher task to bring the team together

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