Running Header: the Compare and Contrast of Andy Grove and Michael Dell

“No organization can survive over an extended period of time without the proper focus on people as its most important resource.” – Charlie Eitel. Effective change leaders have dreams. They are aware of their current state, and where they want to go (Banutu, and Shandra, 2007). Simmons Company founded in the early 1900s, was a trade-mark leader in bed mattresses. With booming sales, the company faced a fundamental issue of whether or not it should go ahead with the new CEO - Charlie Eitel proposal. He suggested on changing the current program which could cost $7.2 million dollars, especially at the time when the company was having financial problems in the heat of the economic crisis of 9/11. Eitel’s strategy was to transformed the culture of authoritarian behavior in most plants and install a respectful friendly and stimulating work environment, similar to the organization’s Janesville plant which produces the largest revenue of $150 million” in sales out of the company’s total sales of $900 million. (Casciaro, and Edmondson, 2007).

The objective of this case is to understand the importance of crisis management. This case is intended to make the reader consider not only financial implications at the time of the event but the effects on the long term strategies of the organization. Also, the case urges participants to think about the consequences not only on the customer but on those within the organization as well.

In this paper examples of two different types of organisations were presented and their response to a natural disaster illustrates how sometimes Risk Management processes are not enough to save an organisation from unforeseen adversities. The disaster at Fukushima Daiichi is the second worst nuclear accident in history (Qiang, Xi, Xu, Chong 2013). Even though arguably it could have been avoided, it led to a near universal loss of faith in nuclear energy.

These decisions makers have defined what the organizations mission is and are constantly working towards it. Realizing that crisis management must be more than mere lip-service, leaders develop training programs around various crisis situations and drill often on various scenarios that could envelop any organization. While training leaders stress working “smarter”, managing their training time around obsessive planning for numerous crisis events means being better prepared when an actual disaster

Crisis management can be classified as a procedure with which an individual organization or organizations can manage a key occurrence that endangers or threatens the institution, its stakeholders, or even the public at large (Birkland, 2006). Lerbinger (1997) identifies 7 types of crises as follows:

All of these issues are summed up in Thompsons (2008) assertion that Groves was the right man to grow the business but not the right man to manage the business, had the right manager been in place then the organization may have been able to turn its fortunes around.

Conventional wisdom teaches us that decisive leadership drives great business. An elite group of people must come together to make tough decisions that the majority must follow. Fortunately, it appears that some are challenging this centuries old notion. In an article entitled “Management Leaders Turn Attention to Followers”, George Anders examines how and why many companies are looking to their low-ranking employees on how to better their businesses. The article focuses on three forward thinking companies: Best Buy, UPS, and Hewlett-Packard. Each company challenged its low-ranking employees to come up with solutions to better business. The result: employees who are more invested in the company’s success because they actually feel

Effective crisis management is crucial in maintaining a healthy organizational culture and maintaining public trust. The way leaders proactively plan for and also respond to a crisis is subject to intense scrutiny by members of the organization and the outside public. Respond to the questions and the posts of at least 2 colleagues.

This paper explores two leaders, one with strong success, and the other with less success, and evaluating the differences and similarities between the two leaders. Charles Schneider was the COO of eCollege, which was purchased by Pearson, from 1999 – 2001. Schneider left eCollege on unfavorable terms due to his competitive and confrontational leadership style, and he has chosen to not list eCollege in his background on either his Builder Sourcing or Mygoflight biography pages (Denver Business Journal, 2001; Builder Sourcing, n.d.; Mygoflight, n.d.). Juxtapose this with Erika Roegies. Roegies became a Vice President at TomTom when she was 35, and is now at Pearson (Linkedin, n,d,). Roegies manages a team of eight five people, across three countries. When she joined Pearson, her directive was to create a combined Program Management Organization that had been three separate groups up until that point. Roegies accomplished this, and has driven a culture of repeatable, and reliable. This paper compares and contrasts how each leader rose to power in their roles, their leader and follower relationships, each leaders use of referent power with their leaders, colleagues, and subordinates, how each leader motivated and rewards employees, as well as their self-destruct tendencies.

In recognition of the need to mitigate Campbell’s play it safe culture, Morrison set out to begin the transformation of Campbell’s culture by changing the organizational structure of the executive team. With an established vision, Morrison sought to expand the capabilities of the executive team by seeking individuals with the basic leadership characteristics of open and honest communication, cooperation, trustworthiness, and team orientation. Ultimately knowing that leaders with these characteristics could acclimate to her clearly conveyed expectations and align with her vision. Consequently, present executives who were unable to acclimate to Morrison’s conveyed expectations and vision were dismissed, while others were shifted within the organization, and outside talent was brought in (Marcus, 2014). Therefore, the previously established in-group, as outlined in the Leader Member Exchange Model, was diminished. Thus, creating a level playing field as Morrison valued what people continuously brought to the organization, not what an individual did for her personally (DuBrin, 2016; Marcus, 2014).

Leaders are conceptual thinkers and must think in the abstract. Decisions made by leaders are non-programmed decisions, which have never been made before, regarding the direction in which the leader will take the organization. The leader is hired by the Board of Directors to maximize the wealth of the stockholders whom they represent. The leaders planning horizon is generally three years and beyond, depending on the employment contract signed. The BOD reserves the right to fire the leader at any point in time, during the contract period; they feel the leader is not

This paper will compare and contrast the contributions of Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Computer, and Andy Grove, cofounder and former CEO of Intel. The paper presents each person; talks about their main contributions for their companies, problems they experienced, and their similarities and differences; and concludes by discussing the factors that may have impacted their success. The data for this paper is taken from the book, What the Best CEOs Know; 7 Exceptional Leaders and Their Lessons for Transforming Any Business (Krames, 2003).

Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t is #1 best seller book, around three million copies have been sold in different part of world. Jim Collins and his team have done a great job identifying what it takes for a company to grow altogether. The book talks about a specific type of leaders (Level 5 leaders) whose main focus is on the company and how they can make it great rather than personal gains. The author believes that people can develop in to Level 5 leaders. “Level 5 leader- an individual who blend extreme personal humility with intense professional will” .

What is a crisis management? It is an unexpected crisis that happens on the company that will affect the trust and loyalty of the stakeholder. It can be extremely costly because it will affect the company reputation and brand. For example like financial failure from poor business management, workplace violence, fires, cybercrime, computer viruses, product tampering or union strikes and other external issue like damaged economy that causes from London bombings, terrorists attacks on 11 September and others. The SHRM 2005 report indicates that only 56% organizations created or revised their disaster preparedness plans but 45% did not after the terrorist attacked on

Another major difference between Ford and Dell is organizational; at Ford purchasing was organizationally independent of product development historically but at DELL purchasing activities reporting to product development which makes them flexible to market changes.