need someone else's response to this scenario of the three questions at the end to compare.
Mack Moller was supervisor of the production department
of the Quality Shoe Company. He received a call
from the general manager informing him that production
must be cut back 20 percent due to declining sales.
Mack knew that this also meant that labor costs must
be cut by approximately 20 percent. His problem was
deciding where to make the cuts. Fortunately (as Mack
saw it), Quality Shoe was not unionized. This gave him
much more freedom to make decisions than he would
have had if Quality were unionized. Some of the obvious
alternatives were a layoff of employees based on
seniority, a reduction of the hours worked by all employees,
or a layoff of employees based on performance
evaluations. Cutbacks were rare at Quality, and Mack
knew that the current situation could cause a few waves
if not properly handled.
Mack had recently attended a supervisory seminar
on group and creative decision making and had been
quite impressed. He decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to try out some of the ideas he
had learned. He strolled out on the floor and stopped
at Ralph Russell’s workstation. Ralph had been at
Quality almost 15 years, and Mack knew that he was
well respected by all the production employees.
Mack: Ralph, we’ve got a problem. I just received
word from the boss that production and
labor must be cut by 20 percent.
Ralph: I’ve suspected that something like that might
happen with the economy in a nosedive and
everything else that is going on.
Mack: Ralph, I’d like you to get everybody in the
department together [a total of 16 people]
and discuss among yourselves how you
think the cuts should be made. Once you
reach agreement, let me know—but not later
than the day after tomorrow! Try to come up
with something creative.
Ralph: OK, Mack, but can’t you give us some
general guidelines to go by?
Mack: I guess I could, Ralph, but for starters I’d
like to see what you come up with on
your own.
Ralph: Just how much weight will our decision
carry? We don’t want to spend a lot of time
on this if our ideas aren’t going to count for
anything.
Mack: As long as it’s reasonable, I’ll implement it
in its entirety.
Questions
1. What do you think of Mack’s approach to solving
his problem?
2. How would you go about the task if you were
Ralph?
3. What do you think Mack should do if he doesn’t
think that the group’s decision is reasonable?
Responses
"someone else's responses ... to compare" -- ??
Where are your responses? There's nothing here to compare anything else with.
??