The CEO of Dynica Software Solutions Company has just announced that you are the new River Woods plant manager. You have been with the Dynica for 3.5 years as Vice President of Product Design & Engineering. You are 38 years old and have a bachelor's degree in environmental science, a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Georgia Tech University. Before Dynica you worked for 6 years as a plant manager for Intel in Atlanta. You were personally chosen by the CEO of Dynica Software Solutions for this position. In addition to your outstanding academic credentials, one of the key reasons you were selected by the CEO for this position was that he felt that your short time with the company would free you from the "old way of thinking" and allow you to bring fresh ideas to this new plant organization. One of the first management decisions you made was to appoint the most senior person in each Edgemont plant department to your management team to assist you with the roll out of the new decentralized plant based organizational structure in River Woods. (ie. Production, Final Assembly, Quality Control, etc). To help implement the new operational changes, you meet with your management team once each week to discuss new ideas and progress on the proposed changes. During these meetings your management team is encouraged to express their concerns/ideas about the new operational structure. Once a month you have also included the VP of Marketing from corporate headquarters to participate in your weekly plant management meetings to help keep everyone focused on the importance of the customer needs and customer satisfaction. Your observations after 6 months as the new Dynica Plant Manager are as follows: In your weekly meetings you have found that the management team you selected seems very cooperative and positive about all of the changes that have taken place. During the meetings they all seem to be reasonable, supportive and cooperative with you and your role as the new plant manager. However, along with their cooperative attitude, you have observed that they

also seem to be more comfortable working with and discussing whatever operational concerns they have with their former line managers in the old reporting structure at headquarters. You are starting to feel that many of your new ideas for running and managing the River Woods plant and improving productivity are not actually being implemented in a timely manner..... if at all. You have also observed that your management team also enjoys a very close connection to the production workers that they manage. In spite of these close relationships with their subordinates on the production floor, productivity is down, environmental standards are not being met, and production quality standards have been slipping. You are aware that the CEO of Dynica is concerned because he has started to call you more frequently for updates. During a phone call yesterday, he mentioned that he has heard rumors of unhappiness among the workers from other members of his executive management team. Also, he mentioned that customer product complaints have risen 15 % since the new plant was opened and the new organizational structure was implemented. You feel the cooperation that you are sensing at your weekly meetings is hiding some concerns that your management team has regarding the changes you have made and perhaps even some doubts about your overall management ability. This situation threatens to derail your career at Dynica Software Solutions if you can't get it turned around quickly. You obviously need to make some changes and you need a new management strategy to get your management team and the River Woods plant turned around. In short, things are not going well, and it is obvious some things need to change sooner rather than later. In 2-4 pages please address the following questions. As usual please embrace the concepts from the text in your responses to the following questions.

1) What do you feel are the causes for the lack of management effectiveness you are experiencing? 

2) Based on your qualifications and experience listed above, what personal power strengths and/or weaknesses might be contributing to your situation. (See pages 230 -234 in the text) Is there anything you can do to increase your power and influence? 

3) Based on the current situation, how might you use the three influencing techniques to be most effective in getting your management team on board with you? 

4) What can you do to quickly turn the new plant and this career threatening situation around? Please include what specific ideas you have for immediate actions you might take before your next weekly managers meeting to improve your influence, and cooperation with your management team.