Introduction

Bill Hunt has been the CEO of Resonus Corporation, a hearing aid innovator and producer, for the past 15 years.
Bill Hunt has been always proud of the company’s family culture. He believed in retaining the importance of hard work in the organization through informal connections among its managers rather than encouraging bureaucracy in its development. Even though nearly all of the executive personnel at Resonus Corporation were equally casual, Jacqui Blanc, the production director, followed the company’s mandated rules. On the other hand, Frank Choy is one of the company’s employees who hold the engineering role. Frank Choy oversees two divisions in the company’s organizational chart: ESD (Engineering Services Design) and research. According to Hunt’s informal ties inside the firm, Resonus has seen inter-departmental friction and slight delays in product manufacture. As a result, several engineering directors have been sacked. The problem has surfaced in one of the cases where Resonus’ research director, Doc Kalandry, despite being a subordinate of Frank does not give due respect to Frank’s authority. Still, Doc informally addresses his department’s information directly to Bill Hunt and has never treated Frank Choy as his supervisor in the business process. The company’s unequal power distribution has resulted in several difficulties, which will be explored utilizing organizational behaviour perspectives. At Resonus, the problem was interdepartmental disagreement, which caused a lot of delays in product development. Many engineering directors have been dismissed or have left after only one to two years on the job. Doc Kalandry used to implement uneven power with the help of the CEO. As a result, the Engineering Director and the Production Director were under a lot of stress.

Discussion

The lawsuit concerns Resonus Corporation’s departmental issues. According to Frank Choy, interdepartmental disputes wore him down. He noticed that employees took the brunt of the responsibility rather than the credit for problems that could have been avoided if proper procedures had been followed. He traced the issue to the company’s CEO, Bill Hunt, who replied with a lack of urgency, asking staff to stay courteous and advising them to learn to work together better. He even sacked the former engineering director because of the office’s continuous squabbles (Dalati, Raudeliūnienė, & Davidavičienė, 2017). He believed the issue was not how departments were handled but how people learned to fit within the current organizational culture. Since the company’s founder had nurtured him to retain the organization’s family atmosphere, Hunt insisted on developing informal connections amongst managers. Because of the informal ties, the organization’s reaction to department heads has been weak. For example, ‘Doc’ Kalandry, the corporation’s research director who reports directly to the CEO, has never felt the need to acknowledge Chow as his director.

Hunt had had a strong relationship with Doc from his first position at the firm when he worked in the research department, and he is still extremely close to him, as most workers are aware (Dutta & Khatri, 2017). Hunt even refers to Doc as a living genius, and his ideas are seen as the company’s key to success. Although everyone appeared to adore Doc’s unbridled excitement for his inventions, a few ESD employees believed that his director needed to manage him better. Choy and his team believed that the production supervisors constantly critiqued their work, but the higher research team’s explanations were accepted without complaint. Because the research team is in charge of the design modifications, the ESD team feels that those criticisms should be directed. They claim that, given their job experience, they shouldn’t have to justify their talents continuously and should instead focus on getting things done. The most recent snafu arose when Doc proposed a last-minute innovation, which Hunt approved without contacting other departments engaged in the research and production process (Fitria, Mukhtar, & Akbar, 2017). The breakthrough was a new nano processor technology that will be used in hearing aids.

Findings

The example illustrates that the organization’s departments lacked cooperation and unity in identifying innovative, efficient, and cost-effective interventions. When dealing with his friends like Doc, Hunt’s leadership was prejudiced and lacked objectivity. Doc Kalandry, according to the CEO, was a genius when it came to product creation and management. Doc Kalandry utilized this to improve his appeal, gain information control, and assert himself further when putting his ideas into action (Bratton et al., 2021). Despite the failures of Doc’s prior inventions, Hunt continued to support and favour him, causing staff dissatisfaction. Anyone who raised the matter was regarded as aggressive, which is why Choy’s predecessor was sacked. Employees could get along with Doc’s inventions even though they knew it would be impossible to produce the product on time. This type of behaviour eventually led to bad organizational relations, which significantly impacted the organization’s success. The first influence strategy shown in this case study was quiet authority, which was the most significant because it was utilized exclusively by the CEO. The CEO then utilized assertiveness when he felt too much opposition made a vision a reality (Arif, Zainudin, & Hamid, 2019). He views it as aggressive, and while he dislikes firing individuals, he will do so. Even though she has a minor role, Jacqui Blanc would also fit into this group because she is renowned for being severe and formal. Our last influencing strategy is an upward appeal. Kalandry relied on it heavily to get his way. He appeals to a higher authority in this case and positions himself as Hunt’s right-hand man.

Recommendations

The first thing that I would suggest is that they address the challenges they face in leadership – or rather, the lack thereof – due to selective attention. They should approach this challenge by requiring all existing leaders to acknowledge the possibility of prejudice in the workplace and assess all possible options jointly (Dutta, & Khatri, 2017). After that, there’s communication and constructive conflict to consider. Individuals must effectively communicate, pay close attention to others, offer a hand when required, support one another, and allow for debate so that a solution may be reached as a team rather than everyone criticizing one area. Finally, Choy is what I believe to be the most severe issue that requires the most attention. Not to suggest he is a problem, but he can’t allow his fear of speaking up for his department prevent him from informing the director and CEO about the company’s significant problem (Okafor & Afolabi, 2021). Choy is unable to achieve his objectives due to the power system. He needs to talk to Hunt more and persuade him, and if it doesn’t work, he needs to be more aggressive.

Conclusion

At Resonus, the problem was interdepartmental disagreement, which caused a lot of delays in product development. Because the positions of Research Director, Production Director, and Engineering Director are all the same in the firm, they should have equal authority. The CEO will have more authority than they do, but it is the CEO’s responsibility to ensure that control over choices is divided fairly. The Engineering Director should have complete engineering authority, the Production Director should have full production authority, and the Research Director should have full research authority. They should not be permitted to intervene in each other’s areas so that their subordinates are not under pressure.

References

Arif, S., Zainudin, H. K., & Hamid, A. (2019). Influence of Leadership, Organizational Culture, Work Motivation, and Job Satisfaction of Performance Principles of Senior High School in Medan City. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-Journal), 239-254.
Bratton, J., Callinan, M., Forshaw, C., &Sawchuk, P. (2021). Work and organizational behaviour. Red Globe Press, Macmillan International Higher Education.
Dalati, S., Raudeliūnienė, J., &Davidavičienė, V. (2017). Sustainable leadership, organizational trust on job satisfaction: empirical evidence from higher education institutions in Syria. Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 15(1), 14-27.
Dutta, S., & Khatri, P. (2017). Servant leadership and positive organizational behaviour: the road ahead to reduce employees’ turnover intentions. On The Horizon, 25(1), 60-82. https://doi.org/10.1108/oth-06-2016-0029
Fitria, H., Mukhtar, M., & Akbar, M. (2017). The Effect of Organizational Structure And Leadership Style on Teacher Performance In Private Secondary School. IJHCM (International Journal of Human Capital Management), 1(02), 101-112.
Okafor, C., &Afolabi, D. O. (2021). Leadership style, organizational behaviour and employee productivity: A study of ECOWAS Commission, Abuja, Nigeria. International Journal of Development and Management Review, 16(1), 114-130.