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Chattanooga Ice Cream Case Analysis Essays

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Chattanooga Ice Cream Division Case Analysis

Abstract The Ice Cream Division of Chattanooga Food Corporation had shown declining sales for 5 consecutive years through 1996. That was the year that they lost their third largest customer, Stay & Shop. A turn around had to take place but the Ice Cream Division leadership was unsure how to accomplish this. The division was run by Charlie Moore, grandson of the company founder. Charlie was a very democratic leader but had major issues controlling and leading his team of vice presidents. The team was very dysfunctional considering they did not trust each other, had open conflict that was often malicious and mostly unproductive, a very apparent lack of commitment to …show more content…

Moore further perpetuated the behavior by not directly confronting his senior leadership team. He found that it was easier to pay repeated visits to each department to determine the critical information and the state of the business versus directing them to provide the information back to him in a method and manner of his own choosing. Moore, in essence, made he own job more difficult and time-consuming by inefficiency in his leadership approach. Moore had truly hoped that just getting them together in group meetings would get them to feel more comfortable with each other and encourage them to open up. He needed to become more active in the leadership of the meetings, using techniques similar to those defined in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The team itself is highly dysfunctional because they have a difficult time interacting with each other. They all feel that every issue contributes to the decrease in sales is completely the fault of other team members. There is no positive dialogue between the teams, and it appears that no one, including Moore, really has a finger on the pulse of what the current market looks like and how their primary demographic is changing. If they continue to blame each other and not focus on the real issues, they will all end up wondering

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