ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR II

Case Study

A flat organization is an organization that has an organizational structure with few

or no levels of middle management between staffs and executives.

Problems:

Nobody in the organization knew the concrete meaning, roles and

responsibilities of their job designation. The roles of various job designations
like seek, support and see are not clear to most of the employs as each
interpret them in a different way.
Within office hours coffee chats were scheduled which used to carry on for
hours, hampering the work. Moreover, the exact purpose of the chats was
also not clearly notified.
Members of the committee were not selected on the basis of their potential
but on the experience they have mainly at EBC, a contrary to demographic
governance method chosen to be followed in EBC. Referring to the case,
Wren was a victim of this. He was removed from ballot just because he had
just a college degree and had only two years of work experience with EBC.
Even senior officials used to come late at meetings.
The organization failed to create and maintain a proper organization culture.
This can be understood from the fact that when the employees were waiting
for the project manager, who was late at meeting, to come, all were busy
making fun of the Leadership carter.
The CEO has an entire conference room (Passion)for his own use, quiet
contrary to what he says or tries to portray as his actual organizational
culture is. This leads to a negative impact on the organizational culture.
There were too many meetings held which used to hamper the actual course
of work. This can be understood from Wilfers frustration regarding the Town
Hall meeting
Uneven work target distribution to achieve an overall goal. This highlights the
inefficiency of management. The eligibility of bonus criteria announced by
Harmon highlights this fact.
Slow hiring process led to hampering of work and excess load on the existing
workers.
CEO failed to give direct answers or solutions to his employees. His
metaphorical answers used to make things more complex.

Solutions:

The Organization must move from flat structure to hieratical

structure: When an organization is in its nascent stage then flat structure
works fine but as it grows flat structure becomes difficult to be controlled and
hieratical structure is needed as the job roles and responsibilities needs to
get divided with a head in each segment to control that section. When EBC
was new it did not face much problem and was growing at a rapid pace but

as it grew problems started to erupt which suggest that its the time to shift
to hieratical structure.
The Job roles and responsibilities of various designations needs to
be clearly defined so that each one knows what they need to do.
The organization must install the proper organization culture among
its employees: The senior members including the CEO must follow the rules
and regulations properly what is written or what they want to portray
because it is from them the new comers are going to learn.(The Passion
highlights even the top level does not follow what they say.) The leadership
carter had some serious issues which needed to be solved so that it clearly
highlights the culture of the organization.
The CEO must encourage some of his young and efficient employers
to take up the charge and hold the reins and take the company
forward. He should constantly back them up and be at their side to support
them and help them when needed.
In short, its the time for the CEO to prove his leadership as well as
managerial skills.

Some observations:The Good

The employees mostly share an informal work relationship so there is no

group politics among them.
Due to flat organizational structure,fast and clear communication is possible.
Subordinates are free from close and strict supervision and are hence free to
take their own decisions regarding work.

The Bad

Since they can take their own decisions,everyone can come up with a
different solution to a problem.This leads to product inconsistency and
variation in goods delivered to clients.
Juniors and fresher have no one to look up to as their guides or mentor from
whom they can learn or follow.This was probably the reason why no one
came forward to hold the reigns once the four senior leaders left the
company.
Harmon talked about democracy and open culture,but in reality he stuck to
people with experience and those who were much more aligned with his
ideas to be promoted as council heads or to continue in the company.

SWOT Analysis
Strength:

A celebrated person as their CEO

Pathfinders in the sector of ethical business.

Office was state of the art

Weakness:

Weak company culture

No clear boundaries for a persons responsibilities or reach.
Huge difference between what the employees perceived as the company
values and what actually happened at the company.

Opportunity:

They could very well be the market leaders in their business

They could set an example to the entire world as to how a company could be
successful with a flat structure
The increasing interest in corporate ethics would greatly help in their growth

Threat:

The hierarchical competition may very well lure away their most valuable
employees and managers
The integrity of the CEO can be questioned because he is not always
following what hes preaching.
Companies may very well develop their own ethical departments that could
reduce their usefulness.