Archive for category: Management

Helen Demarco arrived in her office to discover a clipping from the local paper. The headlineread,“Osborne Announces Plan.”Paul Osborne had arrived two months earlier as Amtran’s newchief executive. His mandate was to“revitalize, cut costs, and improve efficiency.”After 20 years, Demarco had achieved a senior management position at the agency. She hadlittle contact with Osborne, but her boss reported to him. Demarco and her colleagues had beenwaiting to learn what the new chief had in mind. She was startled as she read the newspaperaccount. Osborne’s plan made technical assumptions directly related to her area of expertise.“Hemight be a change agent,”she thought,“but he doesn’t know much about our technology.”She immediately saw the new plan’s fatalflaws.“If he tries to implement this, it’ll be the worstmanagement mistake since the Edsel.”Two days later, Demarco and her colleagues received a memo instructing them to form acommittee to work on the revitalization plan. When the group convened, everyone agreed it wascrazy.“What do we do?”someone asked.“Why don’t we just tell him it won’t work?”said one hopeful soul.“He’s already gone public! You want to tell him his baby is ugly?”“Not me. Besides, he already thinks a lot of us are deadwood. If we tell him it’s no good,he’ll just think we’re defensive.”“Well, we can’t go ahead with it. It’ll never work and we’d be throwing away money.”“That’s true,”said Demarco thoughtfully.“But what if we tell him we’re conducting a studyof how to implement the plan?”Her suggestion was approved overwhelmingly. The group informed Osborne that they weremoving ahead on the“implementation study”and expected excellent results. They got asubstantial budget to support their“research.”Theydidnot say that the real purpose was to buytime andfind a way to minimize the damage without alienating the boss.Over time, the group assembled a lengthy technical report,filled with graphs, tables, andimpenetrable jargon. The report offered two options. Option A, Osborne’s original plan, waspresented as technically feasible but well beyond anything Amtran could afford. Option B, billedas a“modest downscaling”of the original plan, was projected as a more cost-effectivealternative.30Reframing Organizations

WEBC02 05/30/201717:25:15 Page 31When Osborne pressed the group on the huge cost disparity between the two proposals, hereceived a barrage of complicated cost-benefit projections and inscrutable technical terms.Hidden in a fog was the reality that even Option B offered few benefits at a very high cost.Osborne argued and pressed for more information. But given the apparent facts, he agreed toproceed with Option B. The“Osborne plan”was announced with fanfare and widely heralded asanother instance of Paul Osborne’s talent for revitalizing ailing organizations. Osborne had movedon to work his management magic on another organization by the time the plan came online,and his successor had to defend the underwhelming results.Helen Demarco came away with deep feelings of frustration and failure. The Osborne plan,in her view, was a wasteful mistake, and she had knowingly participated in a charade. But, sherationalized to herself, she had no other choice. Osborne was adamant. It would have beencareer suicide to try to stop him.

Consider Helen Demarco’s situation and response to the “Osborne Plan” publicized by Paul Osborne through the lenses of the Four Frames – Political, Symbolic, Human Resources and Structural. Answer this question:

How do the elements of the situation/response fit into each frame?
Provide comment on some of the following questions:

Was Helen Demarco a good manager?
What grade did she deserve for her handling of the Osborne plan?
What do people think about her responses?
Her choices?
Her options?
The power of her beliefs and theories of the situation?
Be sure your answer is supported by concepts and references from relevant materials. Also, be sure to follow the Initial Post and Response Post guidelines in the course syllabus.