Big Shoes to fill

Case Analysis
Rahul Tharwani

Introduction

Jack Donally was a colossal figure who commanded a lot of respect, if not affection. Just before Jack suddenly died, the board appointed Stephanie Fortas as the new CEO to lead Innostat, the world's best-known manufacturer of prosthetic limbs and surgical implants. Innostat has recently been struggling; its once generous margins have been narrowing for the past several years as other companies have found ways to engineer around its patents and develop competitive products of their own. Worse, the company seems to have lost its innovative edge: It has not launched a major new product in four years. The previous year, the board rejected a plan for a large-scale reorganization that might have addressed many of these fundamental problems. Should Stephanie revive the plan? Her coach tells her she doesn't have the clout to survive a reorg and advises her to scope out new products and drive them through the way Jack used to. Meanwhile, Stephanie deliberates about whether to fire Frank Timoshotsky, the self-effacing head of production who had been Jack's protege and who was passed over for the CEO position.

CORE ELEMENTS
CRITICAL ISSUE
Most critical issue is Inostat`s corporate culture, that they are team- oriented with the different departments and goal- oriented. They are willing to do things they are expected to do. They are not practised to think out of the box. There is no motivation factor existing in a company Inostat needs to maintain their flexibility, continually improve their quality, beat their competition in the market and continually provide the public with innovated products. Without these four cultural changes Inostat will not be successful. The chain of command that Inostat enabled is a hierarchal command. This may not work any longer because people may reject the idea of Stephanie as their president. It worked before because Jack was the founder and a very influential person and people respected him, but they may not have the same respect for Stephanie because they do not know what she is capable of yet, if she is able to run a company. Stephanie never felt herself been in such a turnaround situation.

Relevant Suggestions
Stephanie can implement theory Y, and give more empowerment to his employees so that they can form effective and efficient cross functional teams She should implement motivation theory, where employees get motivated to work to get better incentives. Stephanie can build and sustain the organizations culture by developing common goals of the individuals at Inostat. From the common goals of all the individuals in the work place she can create a mission statement for the company that will relate to all the employees.

What Should Stephanie Do? Stephanie Fortas needs to be a symbolic and transformational leader. The company doesnt need another Steve Jobs, who leads and directs his own company, they need a 360 degree change, and by the reading, I am convinced that she has the power to manage in this direction, but my very personal recommendation is to have the symbolic frame at top, not forgetting the rest ones. Her coach, Teddy Adler tells her that the company doesnt need her, but I want to believe that the way it showed at the lecture it seems more than a tricky comment to her, trying to push her on the leading companys way, the company needs a new model, and she has the background, needs new products, and she will have the opportunity to let the people explode their creativities potential. At the beginning, she will have to use her structural frame, based on that the first year will be a challenging start, so she will have to encourage the team to keep them together, establish the new goals, rules and environment, she has to be the architecture of the new era, the Fortas era. She has to establish a new vision for the company, to re-focus on their new goals and objectives, get the right people on the bus, and letting each department to do what they do best, due on that reorganization will encourage her people to focus internally on company politics and position instead of looking externally at the challenges presented by the competition and customer needs, and take advantage on her new coaching position in order to contribute to their teams with her own experience and technical skills. She has a strategic partners, who can lead the departments and manage the people to put into action their new goals and share her new vision, Frank Timoshotsky, a trustworthy employee, Jim Pappas with his all his efforts but no expertise, so she has to use her Political frame in order to establish a great relationship with this two guys, let them remain in the company, convince them to remain in the company, and promoting, recruiting, and developing the next-generation leaders to do this work

She has in her hands Innostats future, so first of all, she has to establish the greatest relationship with her inmates, listen to them, solve their problems and impact them, in order to succeed and productivity improvements and new product opportunities, decide on unprofitable product lines and using the money to invest more in the companys successful ones (sometimes is difficult to an inventor accept that an idea is no longer valid), and refunding the company, she will need liquidity to develop her new ideas. At the long term approach, on the human resource frame, reorganization will be the step to follow, and let the low level managers take more responsibility on their departments and encourage them to start to show initiatives, keeping in mind that they can be the next CEO, after her or someone else. The organizational chart, is an emotionally charged structural and symbolic frame even during a companys most stable times. But when the corporate structure is changing, the org chart can truly become fearsome, particularly in companies where, because of the political culture, employees worry about risk to their personal status. If a Stephanie fails to take definitional control of a reorganization, with its prospect of job losses, boss changes, and new modes of working, the whole company can grind to a halt, she has to show immediate results, develop her leader sense of her job, her time management and the new corporate culture. I would recommend Ms. Fortas, to focus on the symbolic frame, she has to use her skills to develop a strong leadership among his employees, establishing culture values, creativeness as part of their jobs and performances, let the heroes appear, showing their initiatives, thoughts, and leadership skills, to lead straight to success. But keeping in mind that the other three frames should be closer to her, most of all, the political frame. I would warn Stephanie on peoples tenure, based on that many of this still have a link on his previous leader, a charismatic one. So she has to transmit them the idea of a team, and an excellent way to start this is to be there, share with employees, to be one of them., and for the board, she will have a double-trouble: Most of them are alike with Jacks thoughts, so I would recommend her to take enough strength to confront and convince them that she is the one, the new boss in town.