Ford financial crisis which has escalated over the last few years has been mainly triggered by the executive bureaucracy and royal hierarchy which is fashioned to the Ford family ties, the new appointed chief executive Alan R. Mulally articulates that the working atmosphere in this organization is very reclusive, information and communication among production stage shop floor taskforce is prohibited, this fact rationalize the employees making errors and been unable to correct them which has led to the corporation loss of $1.2 billion dollars. This fact has led to Ford degeneration to symbol of inefficiency, projected y the fact that the executive are reluctant making the culture of this organization to be dysfunctional and defeatist conflicting resulting to losing to the new Cerberus Chrysler management in sales as voiced by Kiley (2007). The case study evaluates three question that are aligned with the organization atmosphere, centrally emphasizing on fords main flaws which have degenerated to dysfunctional conflict, the role that the new chief executive Mulally has patterned to combat this conflict and will analyzed Mulally intervention of the incident involving Consumer Reports staff and two senior Ford engineers.

1. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
THE HEAT ON FORD: CASE ANALYSIS
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2. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
The Heat on Ford: Case Analysis
Situation Analysis
Ford financial crisis which has escalated over the last few years has been mainly
triggered by the executive bureaucracy and royal hierarchy which is fashioned to the Ford family
ties, the new appointed chief executive Alan R. Mulally articulates that the working atmosphere
in this organization is very reclusive, information and communication among production stage
shop floor taskforce is prohibited, this fact rationalize the employees making errors and been
unable to correct them which has led to the corporation loss of $1.2 billion dollars. This fact has
led to Ford degeneration to symbol of inefficiency, projected y the fact that the executive are
reluctant making the culture of this organization to be dysfunctional and defeatist conflicting
resulting to losing to the new Cerberus Chrysler management in sales as voiced by Kiley (2007).
The case study evaluates three question that are aligned with the organization atmosphere,
centrally emphasizing on fords main flaws which have degenerated to dysfunctional conflict, the
role that the new chief executive Mulally has patterned to combat this conflict and will analyzed
Mulally intervention of the incident involving Consumer Reports staff and two senior Ford
engineers.
Case Study Summary
According to the chairman of Automotive Research Center David E. Cole who has been
an observer of this organization, articulate that Mulally strategic plan might be frail although the
change that this organization needed was from the outside not from inside, this is due to the fact
that the conflicts in the corporation are relationship based due to the royal hierarchy governance
and dysfunctional executive bureaucracy (Scherer, 1996). According to McIntyre (2000) Mullary
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3. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
has developed a strategic plan which encompasses constructive conflict that ensures an
influential power which is legitimate, rewarding and coercive with expertise that ensures that all
the taskforce determination is rewarded and the information flow is ample at all channel of
production. This is aimed at mitigating the dysfunctional and the management practices which
are based on hierarchy grading of employment and working not to the objective of the
organization but the approval of the ford family members in the board.
Key issues
In the power point study guide 10 and 11 centralized on the course text books outlines
influence and power, conflict and negotiation in the work place. These follows the key issues
that are facing Ford Motors which include: 1.Identify the main conditions at Ford described in
this case study that seems to have generated dysfunctional conflict Key Issues? 2. What has
Mulally done to reduce or remove these sources of conflict? In what ways has he encouraged or
created more conflict? 3. The opening paragraphs of this case study describe a conflict incident
involving Consumer Reports staff and two senior Ford engineers?
One of the major contentious conditions that have been pin pointed in Ford is Royal
Hierarchy which engages employment grades and thus bores the result non flow of information
and communication making it to be reclusive. This is the fact that has influenced dysfunctional
conflict among the taskforce as they are not aware of the occurrence of the whole production
chain process, this was developed when the inventors developed the V-8 engine, this was
patterned so that the engineers could not crack the design and sell Ford creation out as voiced by
Selden (1997).
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4. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
Mullary has developed a strategic plan that includes all participating parties in this
organization to break the executive bureaucracy and royal hierarchy. The plan encompasses
sharing of information from all level of the production workforce, attendance of meeting by all
executives and management with the production subordinates available. The plan also details the
answering the right answer and combating issues that are affecting this corporation than
rationalizing as it was the culture of Ford (Kiley, 2007). Grade employment has been also
removed to encourage creativity and competition among the managers and whiz kids and this
will enable them to be recognized and rewarded for their efforts.
The conflict that Mulally witnessed between Consumer Reports staff and two senior Ford
engineers about the defect of Ford Edge crossover SUV, made him acknowledge and devise the
“if no answer do not try to answer ideology” this was from the fact that the engineers were only
being defensive and did not apprehend how they can change the flaws but instead engaged on a
blame game. This trend is which Mulally want to distinct with his strategic plan that
encompasses creation of automobile from the hard data than from the management point of view
(Wheeler, 1999).
Problem
Dysfunction in all stages of production has been due to the result of information being
not shared among all taskforce and the non appearance of the ground men in the crisis meeting as
they are the one with the knowledge of the damage and the recommendation, which would help
save Ford from failure of revenue accumulation and reaching it desired goals. Tedlow (1998)
notes that Grading of employment has also dictated information sharing by the management as
they articulate that because they are cycled from department to department, they would hold the
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5. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
information so that the person who will be offered the chair has to source for their own. This has
led to information being withheld and the chain process suffers as the final product is
encompassed with different expertise and recommending change becomes a chore incase the
managers that authorized the work force to execute certain task leaves the organization.
Alternative solutions
Mulally is also being faced with the defensive and intimidating of the management as
they have been the custom in the organization of conflicting in relationship; however his
constructive relationship is generated to help influence and assert powerful behavioral changes
from the task force. The chief executive main task would be to change the working habit of this
organization this will enable information sharing and effective communication between the
managers and the taskforce (Selden, 1997).
Mulally will also have to develop and project a rebuilding plan that would ensure that
Ford motor stay clear ahead of their new managed Cerberus Chrysler who is their main rivals.
This organization has to centralize on producing vehicles which have low consumption and their
prices are competitive with other manufactures in this industry (McIntyre, 2000). Through this
initiative they have to ditch production of non moving vehicles like mercury or jaguar. They
would mostly rely on hard data in creation of consumer friendly vehicles.
The strategic plan also emphasizes on employees not rationalizing the errors they have
committed, but rather on combating and fixing them. Through chain of information and breaking
of the complexity of manufacturing Ford vehicles Mulally exerts that most of the part of the cars
would be identical to minimize the process of designing and manufacturing this parts (Selden,
1997).
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6. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
Selected solution
To end the royal hierarchy and dysfunctional executive bureaucracy Mulally has
developed a organized information sharing through the meeting which are held weekly including
all stakeholders to assess the climate of the crisis and offer expertise in all field. The comfort of
the executive which have generated inefficiency and dysfunction would be addressed to make
the management be projected toward the objectives of the organizations. Grading of employment
would also be assessed to eliminate laxity among the top executive that are related with the Ford
family, this will ensure that the development of the vehicles are customers influenced than from
the hierarchy order of rule, which aims at pleasing the board members as echoed by Kiley
(2007).
Implementation
Effective strategic management which Mulally plans to instill in Ford is far way more
criticized, however from the track record he is capable of turning around this organization as he
did with Boeing. His strategy includes training of managers and employees to share information,
as being very important facets to elevate communication awareness of the causes and
consequences of Ford failure in the market, and this will help articulate the goals and objectives
of Mulally comprehensive strategic plan (Tedlow, 1998). The plan should highlight mostly the
contentious issues that affect the organizations and analyze the facets that should be attended to
change the culture of this organization so that it may focus on its objectives. Most important,
this strategic plan should shelter the support of the executives and the taskforce, which is integral
to the overall success of the strategy.
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7. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
According to Tedlow (1998) the strategic plan should adapt an evaluation process which
details quantifiable metrics for accountability. All stakeholders associated with this organization
should foster this evaluative mechanism so that they may all be on the same page, and on the
road for improvement and recovery.
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8. The Heat On Ford: Case Analysis
References
Kiley, D. (2007). The Heat on Ford. Bllomberg BusinessWeek,
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_23/b4037036.htm Retrieved June 4,
2007.
McIntyre, S. (2000). The Failure of Fordism: Reform of the Automobile Repair Industry.
Technology and Culture Journals. 41, 2. 269-299.
Scherer, F. (1996). Industry Structure, Strategy, and Public Policy. New York: HarperCollins.
Selden, P. (1997). Sales Process Engineering: A Personal Workshop. Milwaukee: ASQ Quality
Press.
Tedlow, R. (1998). The Struggle for Dominance in the Automobile Market: the Early Years of
Ford and General Motors. Business and Economic History. 17. 49-62.
Wheeler, D. (1999). Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos. New York:
McGraw.
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