(CASE STUDY) ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW THE CASE. THANKS)

I suggest reading the questions first at the last page before reading the case itself.

LOGE is a brick-building brand and it is headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It has been growing rapidly in the past few years. The company was started in 2015 by James, the current CEO. It sells toy-bricks that are similar to LEGO and MEGA BLOKS. In 2019. The LEGO patent for LEGO bricks expired. This meant that other toy companies that wants to use LEGO brick designs can now copy and use LEGO brick designs. This was a huge opportunity back in early 2019.

LOGE leveraged this opportunity and created more than 50 brick-sets very similar to those of LEGO. This was done in May, 2019. Fast-forward to August, 2020 and LOGE has grown from 30 employees in 1 office to over 100 employees in 3 offices: 1 in Vancouver, 1 in Paris, France, and 1 in Beijing, China. The offices in Paris and Beijing were opened to target the growing demand for LOGE brick-sets.

LOGE brick-sets sell very well because they are half the price of LEGO sets but the quality is almost the same. Most consumers wouldnt be able to tell the difference between LOGE and LEGO sets. Thats how high quality LOGE sets are.

With the much lower retail price, LOGE brick-sets is building huge market share in the brick-building industry. Unfortunately, with this huge growth, many problems started cropping up. Remember, the company only had 30 employees in early 2019. Now, in August 2020, the company has 100 employees and 2 new offices. It is basically chaos in all 3 offices. Somehow, James managed to keep everything in order, but only by the thinnest of margin. Any one catalyst can push LOGE over the edge into an unmanageable mess.

James has hired YOU, a management consultant from Kwantlen Polytechnic University Consulting Inc., to help him solve this currently manageable mess.

You arrived at the Vancouver office to meet with James. He communicated to you the issues at stake and he invited you to walk around the Vancouver office to see with your own eyes any issues that you think need solving. Also, he paid for your plane tickets and hotels, etc. to fly to Paris and Beijing to visit the other offices. He has given you 3 months to tour around all 3 offices.

1st month - August, 2020 - Vancouver Office:

The very first thing you noticed when walking around the Vancouver office was that everyone is SO quiet. There were hush-hush talking, but the office itself isnt lively. It is interesting to note that the entire office is one huge room and there are no cubicles. Everyone shares desks and everyone can see each other. There is no room for privacy. There are several departments in this office: IT, accounting, marketing, human resources, sales, and customer support. The only audible noise was from the sales department because it was the departments job to get sales for LOGE. You interviewed a few people from different departments and the mindset was to get things done and go home. When you asked the interviewees if any teamwork was done among different departments, they said that very little teamwork was done. Most work was done alone in a silo environment and work is dictated by their managers.

You also noticed that there were a few instances where managers would publicly berate other employees for things done incorrectly. You interviewed a few managers and you found it surprising that some of the managers had the same direct reports. This meant that some employees reported to more than 1 manager. The employees were confused themselves on who to report to. James, the CEO, was pushing for a more decentralized and matrix structure, so employees reporting to multiple managers seem to be the way to go. Unfortunately, for LOGEs current culture, this has created massive confusion among employees. Most of them simply dont know who to report to and most managers think they have supervisory powers over many employees when they actually do not have such powers.

You also noticed that many managers delegate responsibilities to employees in a haphazard way. There was no professionalism in how they delegated. For example, one manager simply walked over to a direct report and gave him a 3-minute speech of what he wants done. Then, one hour later, the same manager approached the employee to ask why he did not complete it yet. This was bizarre because there was no deadline given and the instructions were unclear. What was CLEAR was that the manager did not communicate effectively to the employee (his direct report).

Another interesting thing was that an employee was fired on the spot in front of everyone. Everyone in the office noticed this. You found out that this happens often because the company was growing so fast that many, many people WANT to work for LOGE. Therefore, there was always a big pool of candidates to join LOGE. Many managers see this as an excuse to fire employees who dont perform well.

Vancouver Office, Sales Department:

In the sales department, you did some interviewing and found that the sales teams were given really high sales forecasts that they have to meet monthly. You noticed that most of the sales people were generally very fidgety and super stressed out. The excuse was that LOGE was growing quickly, so it SHOULD be easy to meet lofty sales forecasts. Unfortunately, whether this was true or not, one thing was very clear: the sales teams are super stressed. Some of the sales reps also approached you and said that the sales forecasts are super lofty and that the variances +/- is very small. So, there is very little room for error. Sales members need to achieve the sales forecasts within a very narrow range and this made the jobs very, very hard. The sales members dont mind the high expectations, but they definitely do mind the very narrow range/variance. Its super hard to meet such a narrow variance regardless of whether the forecast was high, average, or low.

2nd Month - September, 2020 Beijing Office:

You flew to Beijing to visit LOGE Beijing. The very first thing you noticed was that the highest-level executive did not speak Mandarin. Some of the employees can only speak and understand Mandarin, so this might be an issue. The highest-level executive, John, was from Canada and he speaks English and French only. John was a nice guy though and he seems like a cool person to be around. He was very chill and relaxed and laid back. John was the President of LOGE China.

You noticed that many of the employees had to approach John to get direction instead of the other way around. Many employees were sitting near their desks doing nothing. But, some employees were extremely busy. It was not surprising that the busy employees were the ones that were proactive in approaching John for guidance. The employees that were doing nothing did not approach John for guidance. John also went out for many breaks whether they are for snacks, lunch, dinner, dinner # 2, dinner # 3, supper # 1, or getting a drink at the local bar. Half the time, John wasnt at the office. But hey, he was a nice guy to be around, so most employees didnt complain. Plus, most employees did not have to do anything, so that was an added plus.

Unfortunately, John was the only person in the office who had the authority to delegate tasks. There were 20 employees in the office and 1 leader. Clearly, something was wrong. The Beijing office contained 4 departments: a marketing department, HR department, accounting department, and sales department. Each department had 5 people in it.

John communicates with James once every week, so James does not entirely know the full breadth of chaos in Beijing. Video conferencing is very, very cheap, so this might be something to think about.

3rd Month October, 2020 Paris Office:

The office had around 30 employees. The top boss was Susan. Your first impression of her was that she was a very good leader. She exhibits all of the good things of a good boss: communicates really well, trusts but verifies employees, does a lot of MBWA, and employees totally respect her. The employees do exactly what they are told to do. Most of them are happy to execute on Susans decision and commands. Also, out of all of the 3 offices, this office seems to be incredibly productive. At first glance, there seems to be no issue at all in Paris. Quel surpris! Non? Bon chance!

You decided to dig a little deeper. James told you in August that Paris was actually the worst performing office out of all 3 offices. James mentioned that more and more employees were lodging complaints about the work environment in Paris. Here are some examples of complaints:

Complaint Example # 1:

In France, labor laws are very strict. In the Paris office, workers were expected to work 10 hours a day. The laws explicitly state that workers can only work 8 hours a day.

Complaint Example # 2:

Workers can work overtime, but they must be paid overtime hours if they are not managers. Some workers are complaining they werent paid overtime hours.

Complaint Example # 3:

A large demographic segment of Paris is made up of people of Asian descent. The only Asian employee in the office submitted a complaint of a lack of diversity.

For other issues, you had to dig deeper yourself. You did a little MBWA yourself, so that you could talk to the 30 employees randomly. Most employees reported to Susan directly. A few employees reported to Jessica, the VP of Loge Paris. Only 3 employees reported to Jessica. The other 27 workers reported to Susan. This seems a little weird, so you talked to both Jessica and Susan. Jessica told you she was willing to take on more managerial tasks. Susan on the other hand was super stressed in managing the 27 employees. Yet, she was unwilling to release some power to Jessica. You did a little background check on both Susan and Jessica. Both were extremely accomplished and all employees respected both bosses. You thought there might be something you could suggest to James in this scenario.

Lastly, there was only 1 person in the Paris marketing department. Jose, the marketing manager, often talks with the larger marketing department in Vancouver. You did more digging and found that the LOGE products for France was all customized for North American consumers. This seemed odd because the Paris office was meant to market LOGE to consumers in France, not North America.

In Paris, there was the 1 person in marketing, 9 people in accounting, 10 people in sales, 5 people in product development, and 5 people in finance. There are no managers in each of the departments. All employees reported to either Jessica or Susan.

4th Month November, 2020 Back at the Vancouver office.

After 3 months of traveling, eating great Chinese and French cuisines, you were ready to give your report to James, who was SUPER eager to hear what you thought of his great LOGE company.

QUESTION -1 For LOGE, does the company have a strong culture or a weak culture?

Guideline: 1 sentence. 2 marks.

2- In your answer to # 1, why does LOGE have such a culture (strong or weak)? Please give me 4 examples of either strong or weak (whichever option you chose in answer # 1).

Guideline: 1 to 2 sentences per example. 8 marks.