The Wallace Group

The Wallace Group

Conduct an analysis of the Wallace Group and provide Harold Wallace, President, with a clear action plan to address the Wallace Group management issues. The analysis needs to include identification of the problem, recommendations, and education of the management staff. These issues are addressed as responses to the following questions:

 What is the most important problem facing to Wallace Group?

The simple and straightforward answer to this question is that Harold Wallace is a micromanager. Merrian-Webster On-line Dictionary defines micromanagement as to "manage with great or excessive control or attention to details" (2006). The Wallace Group has grown beyond Harold Wallace's minute-by-minute control. Harold Wallace must accept this fact, and let others, who he hired, do their part with the responsibility and accountability.

 What recommendation (s) would you make to Mr. Wallace, and in what order of priorities?

* Change the structure of the company to suit its new needs. Mr. Wallace should realign the current corporate structure by changing the current VPs for the Plastic Group, Electronics Group, and Chemical Group to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) positions. These new CEOs would have told responsibility of their assigned group with accountability to Mr. Wallace.

* Develop a management development program that ensures these new CEOs understand their new job positions and responsibilities and expectations.

* Develop and direct implementation of group and team approaches to management to newly assigned CEOs.

* Create a strong employee-centered management team to meet with each CEO and company employees to involve them in the decision-making process (i.e. by asking for their ideas and input).

* Establish, at the corporate level, a Marketing and Sales function to lead the company's three groups into the 21st Century's business expansion effort.

These recommendations alone should not be used convince Mr. Wallace of the benefit of realigning the Wallace Group. They should be presented as part of and overall proposal that includes examples of similar companies that have used these recommendations and have been successful once they applied these recommendations.

 How do you educate a manager to manage an organization as it evolves over time from an entrepreneurial structure to a more sophisticated and complex organizational structure?

The concept that the Wallace Group needs to embrace is that as their business emerges and grows beyond their current entrepreneurial structure to a more sophisticated and complex organizational structure, that they must assess the training needs of their employees and managers on a continual basis. As the organization becomes more complex, so will the daily tasks to be performed. We recommend that the Chairman (Mr. Wallace) and his newly appointed CEOs discuss the concepts addressed in Participatory Management,