Organization Communication Within Sherwin-Williams

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Organization Communication Within Sherwin-Williams The Sherwin-Williams Company has been one of the nations leading paint companies since its launch in 1866. Though the corporate headquarters is located in Cleveland, Ohio, Sherwin-Williams has hundreds of plants throughout the world and employees nearly 30,000 people. The company also has multiple divisions each with their own focus on specialized paint. For as large as The Sherwin-Williams Company is, they have done a great deal to ensure that everyone still has a voice no matter what their job description. It was my assumption that being a large company would require more of a Classical Management strategy to conduct everyday business. After researching and interviewing both the plant manager and engineering manager of a local plant in the industrial coatings division was I able to understand that a complex mix of the Classical Management Theory, Human Relations Theory, Human Resources Theory and Systems Perspective was used to efficiently communicate throughout the company. While this mixture of theories is both deep and broad, the dominant perspective is the Systems Approach. The key to Sherwin-Williams’ success is that it uses many of the features in this theory extremely well to conduct business within the company. One of the qualities of the systems approach is that it is an open system. An open system “encourages individual members to be mindful of the importance of the overall health of their industry…” (Organizational Communication p. 106). Within Sherwin-Williams, this characteristic is evident in many different places throughout the company. The most evident is within the sales division, in that sales must be very aware of the other divisions of the company in order to be knowledgeable about their product. Interaction between salesmen and their environment, in this case the plants making the

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