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Johnsonville Sausage Co. a wholesale producer of sausage products based in the small rural town of Johnsonville, Wisconsin, has grown from a family home with a store front[to a business that experienced] $ 50 million [in sales] in 1985 [and has grown to] a business of well over 500 employees (case 1). Originally a retail based operation founded in 1945, the company decided to focus the efforts of its wholesale operations in 1965, with Ralph Stayers return from Notre Dame, where he had completed a bachelors degree in business. At this time, Ralph, who was officially named president of the company in 1978, and his father took a long hard look (case 1) at the companys retail and wholesale endeavors and made the decision to focus their efforts on building this [the wholesale] segment of the business, because it looked the most promising.
The decision to concentrate on building the wholesale segment of the business and the aftermath that has been experienced by the company can be separated into two distinguishable periods: First, the initial transition from a predominately retail oriented firm to that of producing primarily for wholesale endeavors. Second, the transition period that was designed to better utilize the growth that the company had experienced, since its founding as a wholesale producer. These periods differ primarily, because the first one accounts for the development of the conflict that the firm would experience and the second accounts for the corrective measures that were implemented. The conflict that arose within the company developed from: An ineffective organizational structure A lack of employee participation in the company decision making process These issues, however, are not all the problems that developed with Johnsonville Sausage, but they did contribute to the failing efforts of the first period to create an environment that people saw as a means to their ends (case 6).
In the beginning there was never a verbalization of a vision that articulate[d] a realistic, credible, attractive vision of the future which [would grow] out of and improve (Robbins 330) upon Johnsonville Sausage prior to the transformation to wholesale. This seems to be a crucial mistake by Ralph in the initial transformation of the company, because it failed to create the enthusiasm that people have for sporting events and other leisure activities [that] brings energy and commitment to the workplace (Robbins 330). And, not having the enthusiasm or the commitment of the employees led to people that had previously enjoyed their jobs to being careless and general morale to be just even with the national average. Visionary leadership would have been an effective tool in this initial stage. This is because the company, already putting the employees that it already had through a transition that may not easily be understood or justified, would have been able to counteract both of these issues using it as a tool.
Also, because Johnsonville did not seek to have a high rate of turnover by its employees it would have produced an environment that new employees would enter that already had a future plan established. This neo charismatic style of leadership would have accomplished this, by stressing symbolic and emotional appealing, achieving extraordinary follower commitment, and providing leadership that would relate to the average person (Robbins 327). Not having an articulated vision was further complicated by Ralph running the business from the sausage stuffer (case 4), because it created an ineffective organizational structure. The formal network of communication that was created was awkward, because it confined the entire firm to conduct its activities within the confines of a formal small-group network. This is because Ralph, making all the day-to-day decisions for the entire company acted as a central conduit for all the groups communication, which, while facilitating the effective emergence of Ralph as the leader, would further lower member satisfaction. The ex tent to which Ralph's autonomy extended even extending into the realm of research and development, where it was R&D was never formally delineated in the organization; [instead] Ralph worked on his own ideas (case 13).
This facilitation of communication ineffective in the long run, because it creates channels that provide communication between individuals and groups with the leader, without providing effective communication between the different groups. It does, however, provide fast speed, high accuracy, and the effective emergence as a leader (Robbins 291), but its effectiveness on the company as a whole, however, was voided because of its artificially large number. This is because the most effective teams are neither very small (under four of five members) or very large (over a dozen) (Robbins 266). Also, it failed to exploit the benefit that large groups have to offer regarding the ability to gain diverse input, because of the autonomy possessed by Ralph (Robbins 234). This type of group being implemented from the time that Ralph obtained the authority to make the day-to-day decisions and not being specified as a temporary or task-specific contributed to the awkwardness of the situation. It caused the five-stage group-development model to not being realized in its entirety, during this initial period.
The group had been formed by a great deal of uncertainty that was created by the lack of the firms new objectives being clearly stated. The storming stage, where members accept the group but resist the constraints that group imposes on individuality, was alleviated to an extent, because there was no conflict over who controlled the group. The third stage of nothing, where the group structure solidifies and the group assimilates a common set of expectations of what defines correct behavior, however, was never completed to the point where it led to the stage of performing, because the group failed to ever become fully functional (Robbins 219). Therefore, the last stage of adjourning concerned with wrapping up activities rather than task performance was obviously never realized.
The ineffectiveness of the companys infrastructure was further complicated by the high repetitiveness of the employees tasks. Ralph relayed one incident where he had hired someone early on, who was very competentthenit struck him that he was a soldier, carrying out orders (case 4). And, even with repeated attempts to get the employee to take on more responsibility, Ralph found that the employee couldnt; Ralph had beaten the independence out of him. Even though Ralph's assumption that his management style was responsible, motivating individuals in these jobs can be made easier through careful selection (Robbins 207), which suggests that the task itself also contributed to his observation. The lack of employee involvement was created and furthered the conflict and low satisfaction of the employees.
Job satisfaction the general attitude toward ones job, while even with the national average, is distorted with the acknowledgement that the quality of the product was slipping (case 4). This is because for the general attitude to have gone down to the national average, it originally had to be above it. And, that people [previously] seemed to enjoy their jobs and [had] taken pride in their workpeople now being careless and bad product now making its way into the market shows that there, in fact, was low satisfaction experienced by employees. With the acknowledgement that the organizational structure that Ralph had been implementing, however, came the creation of the Johnsonville Philosophy and the empowerment of the companys employees.
This change in philosophy's first step was getting together and deciding what our ends are (case 6). Not only were the objectives decided upon cohesive and revolved around performance, but they also were now articulated. This created an environment, in which the companys vision was now knowingly dependent upon the performance of an organization where everyone is an entrepreneur. Teams with increased communication demands, conflicts to be managed and meetings to run (Robbins 263), however, arent always the answer, but in this case the creation of effective teams were.
The key components that make up an effective team can be summed up into four general categories first work design, second team composition, third the resources and other contextual influences that make teams effective, fourth process variables that influence effectiveness (Robbins 263). And, with the new philosophy, these were now all issues that could be addressed. The work design category includes such variables as freedom and autonomy, the opportunity to utilize different skills and talents[and a plethora of other characteristics] that enhance member motivation and increase team effectiveness. The first move to accomplish a more motivating work design was the elimination of a traditional supervisor that was replaced with a designated lead person (case 8). This created teams that were designated to a specific function instead of an entire business.
And, within the organization of these teams, a worker proposed solution to help eliminate the monotony of the assembly line work was implemented that allowed the workers to organize the line as they saw fit (case 8). This allowed for the alternating of specific jobs within any given function that broadened the scope of workers knowledge and skills (case 8), and it also extended between specific lines as well. One worker described this new system by saying, Some days we do stuffing or packing a favor and some days they help us out. If we spent our time fighting one another, wed never get any work done. (Case 8) This shows that this new approach was helping to create cohesion within the various groups that helps to create a more efficient company, while still keeping productivity a priority. In fact, the daily production schedule that required extensive tradeoffs that often required areas to work at less than peak performance, so that others could work more efficiently shows how complicated the production process was. But, it also shows that with an increased sense of responsibility and ownership over the work (Robbins 264) this was now a complication that made the work more interesting and added to the work design.
The work design aspect was not isolated to only the jobs that were already traditionally completed by the employees. In fact, it extended into testing samples from the previous days production that served as a tool to generate worker discussion that was meant to brainstorm and discuss how the product could be improved. Also, two to three line workers from each area were involved in evaluating the manufacturing performance against the allocated budget that would coordinate with sale and accounting to develop budgets and forecasts for the companys next fiscal year. Workers were now able to participate in the purchasing of new capital, by submitting proposals for particular equipment that they felt would contribute to the quality of their performance and its efficiency. The extent to which their new responsibilities stretched was even found in owning problems. This was accomplished by the line workers accounting to the customers for complaints that stemmed from their particular involvement...
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Research essay sample on Johnsonville Sausage Co Group Case Study
