CRACKING THE WHIP

Cracking the Whip

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Cracking the Whip

            Harmon Davidson faces a challenge when he falls out with the head of his team, Al Pitcher. The situation reveals that he had not held the management position as the director of the headquarters management for a very long time as he discloses that he had been given the position after the retirement of the former director, Walton Drummond. Although this was not the first time he was holding the same position, it had been five years since Davidson had been there and so some changes had taken place. A dispute had led to an argument between himself and the team leader in the Department of Technical Services, DTS, Mr. Pitcher (Daft, 2010). Although he was a hardworking and impressive employee, he had a few weaknesses. Pitcher’s kind of management seemed to be the paternalism kind of management. Unfortunately, he did not seem to know or rather want to admit of his weaknesses or challenges. This is where the dispute was rooted on.

In normal organizations, disputes are likely to occur between managers and the employees or between the managers themselves. This is the case in this scenario. One of the major problems evident is that there is resistance to change. Davidson finds out that Mr. Pitcher adopts the paternalism kind of management. This kind of management portrays a manger who manages the other team members or employees as though he was a father to them and that they did not have their own rights or they did not know what to do. This kind of management makes the manager have the final say without giving other members’ thoughts and suggestions much consideration (Daft, 2010).

Another challenge is that Mr. Pitcher had no interest in the department’s culture and history. He felt that as far as his knowledge on the latest organizational theories, the rest was not important. The most challenging of all his weaknesses is that he did not know or did not accept that he had challenges or that he could be wrong on some of his decisions. This was the main cause of the argument illustrated in the scenario. It becomes a challenge to correct someone who does not feel that he or she has a weakness or a problem.