Aston-Blair Inc. Case

1582 Words7 Pages
Table Of Contents 1. Organizational Context 3 2. Analysis 3 3. Problems Facing Bacon 5 4. What Should Bacon Do? 5 5. Roll Back - Creation of Task Force 6 Boundary Management 6 X-Teams 6 Team Process Methodology & Evaluation 6 1. Organizational Context • The company had a great period of growth since it started in 1881, until 1990. • The company sold its products to a wide range of customers. • The company was affected by an economic slowdown and a declining price of gold (1990 recession). • This economic slowdown affected the company’s sales to industrial customers and jewelery manufacturers. • These changes caused excessive inventories. • Wynn Aston III, chief executive, decided to reexamine the company procedures for forecasting sales. • Peter Casey (Vice president of marketing) and Chis Trott (Vice president of corporate planning) were chosen to create a task force to investigate and find a solution for this problem. • The team selected passed through different steps: task force formation, initial meeting of task force, preparation of the task force report and the August 4 report. • During these steps, the task force team made several mistakes that caused conflict in the presentation of the oral report and to other members of the organization. 2. Analysis • Old-timers created resistance to new and young MBA members instead of respecting the designated positions (for example that a young member would lead the task force). This reflects insecurity demonstrated by the old-timers as well as a lack of trust in the decisions made by the top level officials in appointing the task force. • Mistakes in the Team Selection for the Task: there was a lack of communication between sub groups, lack of knowledge on what they are doing separately and as team, lack of coordination, lack of feedback, conflicts, selection

More about Aston-Blair Inc. Case

Open Document