Barbara and Electra Case Study

Question(1):How might top management have done a better job changing Elektra Products into a new kind of organization? What might they do now to get the empowerment process back on track?
Analysis of the case study
Main issues –
1. Declining of Market shares 2. Few new product ideas or far between 3.Poor staff relationship 4. Low staff morale
Weaknesses-
1. approach in change management 2. Organizational culture 3. creating problem solving team 4. the process of employee involvement and empowerment 5. the facilitation by Martin Griffin

The attempt to do staff empowerment is a nice try but it alone is not the complete solution for the root cause of the problems. In order to reach to the solution of all these issues, they have to find out what are the underlying causes of these issues.
The newly hired Martin Griffin mentioned in the opening speech that “As we face increasing competition, we need new ideas, new energy and new spirit to make this company great. And the source for this change is you—each one of you.” Though he mentioned that each of the staff is important, he failed to allow everyone actively participates and play important role in the program. He neglected the importance of each and everyone’s contribution and effort to the program. He should have made understand what does it means by employee involvement and empowerment; how it will help the company solves the issues and, the ways to do and requirements for the staff involvement and empowerment program.
It was worsen when the main facilitator, Martin Griffin, had excused from the session at the time Barbara and team enthusiastically presented their innovative ideas to department heads. The facilitator also fails to aim what kind of outputs he expects at the end of the session.
For the successful empowerment program, the organization structure and its enabling environment is very critical. Trust building is very important part of the program especially in this situation where