When DGL International, a manufacturer of refinery equipment, brought in John Terrill to manage its Sales Engineering division, company executives informed him of the urgent situation. Sale Engineering, with 20 engineers, was the highest-paid, best-educated, and least-productive division in the company. The instruction to Terrill: Turn it around. Terrill called a meeting of engineers.
He showed great concern for their personal welfare and asked point blank: “What’s the problem? Why can’t we produce? Why does this division have such turnover?Without hesitation, employees launched a hail of complaints. “I was hired as an engineer, not a pencil pusher.” “We spend over half of our time writing asinine reports in triplicate for top management, and no one reads the reports.” We have to account for every penny, which doesn’t give us time to work with customers or new developments.
”After a two-hour discussion, Terrill began to envision a future in which engineers were free to work with customers and join self-directed teams for product development. Terrill concluded he had to get top management off the engineers’ back. He promised the engineers, “My job is to stay out of your way so you ca do your work, and I’ll try to keep top management off your backs, too.” He called for the day’s reports and issued an order effective immediately that the originals be turned in daily to his office rather than mailed to headquarters.For three weeks, technical reports piled up on his desk.
By month’s end, the stack was nearly three feet high. During that time no one called for the reports. When other managers entered his office and saw the stacks, they usually asked, “What’s all this?” Terrill answered, “Technical reports, No one asked to read them. Finally, at month’s end, a secretary from finance called and asked for the monthly travel and expenses report. Terrill responded, “Meet me at the president’s office tomorrow morning.
”The next morning the engineers cheered as Terrill walked through the department pushing a cart loaded with the enormous stack of reports. They knew the showdown had come.Terrill entered the president’s office and placed the stack of reports on his desk. The president and the other senior executives looked bewildered.
“This,” Terrill announced, “is the reason for the lack of productivity in the Sales Engineering division. These are the reports your people require every month. The fact that they sat on my desk all month shows that no one reads this material. I suggest that the engineers’ time could be used in a more productive manner, and that one brief monthly report from my office will satisfy the needs of the other departments.”Questions1. Does John Terrill leadership style fit the definition of leadership.
Explain.Yes, Terrill shows his leadership qualities by listening to the engineers and concerns on the problem facing by them that resulted poor productivity. Terrill is optimise that he can resolve the issue by trying to influence top management by showing them that those unnecessary reports are wasting and holding the engineers from focusing on the main objective of the department. Terrill has improved the relationship with the engineer by changing the reporting procedure and gaining their trust as well. By befriend with the engineer and using empowerment in his management, Terrill and his engineer should be able to focus and achieve success together on their shared purpose of increasing the productivity of the sales engineering division.2.
With respect to leadership evolution, in what leadership era is Terrill?Terrill is in the leadership era 3 because he shows his willingness to listen to the engineers and respects their ideas of working with customer and new development. He shows his integrity by building up the relationship with his engineers and using empowerment so that the engineers are free to develop ideas and techniques in order to improve the productivity. He is also open for change by introducing new procedure for reporting.3.
What approach would you have taken in this situation?Terrill must ensure a win-win situation between the top management and the engineers by allowing the engineers to participate more in customer relationship (so that they knows the latest market demand) and venturing new development, in return, these encourage them to improve the productivity and materialize new innovation which directly will have a good impact to the company. A tolerance approach with the top management would definitely helping Terrill to build a good relationship with them, at the same time, closing up the gap between the engineers and top management. Nowadays, human capital is very important thus leaders should adopt approaches that putting people first and build relationships with all members of the organization.
