Hal Wallace Essay

Introduction: Hal Wallace, the President of the Wallace Group Inc, Inc. runs a manufacturing company consisting of three operational groups; electronics, plastics and chemicals. In terms of sales volumn the plastic and chemical groups are comparable; however both groups combined equal approximately the size of the electronics group alone. Originally each group began as a sole proprietorship under direct operating control of Hal Wallace. Currently Hal Wallace is serving as Chairman as well as the President of the company. Since the conception of the Wallace Group, Inc. Mr. Wallace has hired various individuals to run each operational group. Jason Matthews currently serves as the Vice President of the electronics group (replacing LeRoy Tuscher). Martin Hempton currently serves as the Vice President of the Plastics operational group and Jerome Luskics serves as the Vice President of the chemicals group. Recently, Hal Wallace has realized the need for growing requirements to fill specialized positions such as finance, secretarial, legal, marketing and industrial relations. Previously these functions were associated and performed within group offices. More recently the positions have been more clearly
defined causing problems between responsibilities and relationships within group and corporate positions.
Current Issues: The most important problem facing the Wallace Group, Inc.
includes various areas within the realm of strategic management. Mr. Wallace has not clearly communicated his mission, goals, objectives and strategies within the Wallace Group, Inc. In order for all employees to understand, cooperate and share the same mission, goals, objectives and strategies as Mr. Wallace this needs to be communicated with each team and employee within the company. Currently Mr. Wallace has found himself facing the phenomenon known as punctuated equilibrium. Mr. Wallace now needs to reassess his current needs within the company in order to move forward within the company. The triggering event in this situation is the need to appoint personnel to permanent positions within each
group.
Suggestions:
Procedures such as SOP's (Standard Operating Procedures) should be established in order to describe in detail particular jobs and tasks that are to be accomplished per each new job description. Programs can be established to clearly define to each personnel the activities/steps needed to accomplish a common plan/goal. Constant evaluations and control should be utilized in order to more clearly define which process/activity as well as performance results are best suited for each department.
Educating Managers: The best method to educate a manager to manage an organization as it evolves from an entrepreneurial structure to a more sophisticated structure is to utilize Mintzberg's Modes of Strategic Decision Making. In Hal Wallace's case, the use of Logical Incrementalism would be extremely beneficial. It will help to effectively probe the future, use past experiments and teach employees from an interactive process in order to adapt to a more versatile idea of the corporations missions, objectives, goals and strategies.