Maureen Frye at Quaker Steel and Alloy Corporation
Group Report
Maureen Frye at Quaker Steel and Alloy Corporation
What were the mistakes made by Maureen Frye?
Frye made several mistakes with respect to her initial attempt to implement change, however there are wider company issues beyond Frye’s immediate control that also contributed to the failure of her initiative.
Having seen her original memo attract criticism for its arbitrary nature, Frye failed to fully comprehend the reasons for the initial rejection of her proposal, when she proceeded with her January 1995 meeting with the DSMs. This is due to the fact that Frye did not properly understand the way in which the sales department worked. On page 7 it is mentioned that “Frye had not been able to spend as much time in the field as she had hoped”, while on page 9 Frye says “we gave them a rough outline of what we wanted done, and we expected the DSMs to follow through as they saw fit”. As a result of this, we speculate that she was unaware of the large degree of autonomy afforded to individual salespeople by the regional DSMs. In a scenario where there is ordinarily a large degree of autonomy, a “rough outline” presented to people who then have to pass on the concept to their respective subordinates is totally inadequate.
Frye showed a complete lack of empathy with the changes involved for the sales force. She has not solicited widespread feedback on her proposals and from her position behind a computer analyzing cold hard numbers, she has entirely underestimated the change involved to the nature of the sales force’s work. Additionally she has made no effort to understand their motivations and frustrations.
Frye does not appear to have engaged the General Sales Managers at all. By sidelining them in this way she removes their motivation to ensure correct implementation. She thus effectively discards what could be very effective resources that exert direct line responsibility over the employees who will ultimately need to implement
Maureen Frye at Quaker Steel and Alloy Corporation
What were the mistakes made by Maureen Frye?
Frye made several mistakes with respect to her initial attempt to implement change, however there are wider company issues beyond Frye’s immediate control that also contributed to the failure of her initiative.
Having seen her original memo attract criticism for its arbitrary nature, Frye failed to fully comprehend the reasons for the initial rejection of her proposal, when she proceeded with her January 1995 meeting with the DSMs. This is due to the fact that Frye did not properly understand the way in which the sales department worked. On page 7 it is mentioned that “Frye had not been able to spend as much time in the field as she had hoped”, while on page 9 Frye says “we gave them a rough outline of what we wanted done, and we expected the DSMs to follow through as they saw fit”. As a result of this, we speculate that she was unaware of the large degree of autonomy afforded to individual salespeople by the regional DSMs. In a scenario where there is ordinarily a large degree of autonomy, a “rough outline” presented to people who then have to pass on the concept to their respective subordinates is totally inadequate.
Frye showed a complete lack of empathy with the changes involved for the sales force. She has not solicited widespread feedback on her proposals and from her position behind a computer analyzing cold hard numbers, she has entirely underestimated the change involved to the nature of the sales force’s work. Additionally she has made no effort to understand their motivations and frustrations.
Frye does not appear to have engaged the General Sales Managers at all. By sidelining them in this way she removes their motivation to ensure correct implementation. She thus effectively discards what could be very effective resources that exert direct line responsibility over the employees who will ultimately need to implement