Organizational Development Case Study

This assignment presents a case study about organizational development consultant Jack Lawler working with the Richardson Company. Students are tasked with analyzing Lawler's diagnosis of the company's issues using the McKinsey 7S model. The analysis should focus on how Lawler identifies problems within each element of the 7S framework and proposes recommendations for improvement, particularly regarding employee morale and performance.

Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
ANALYSIS OF THE CASE STUDY OF B.R. RICHARDSON COMPANY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Letter of transmittal
DATE:
ADDRESS
Dear -----------
As agreed in our () contract, I am submitting the attached report entitled “ANALYSIS OF THE
CASE STUDY OF B.R. RICHARDSON TIMBER PRODUCTION COMPANY”.
This report discusses the case study about a timber company B.R.Richardson Timber Production
Company (BRRTPC) and discusses its organizational difficulties point out by the third party
consultant Jack Lawler. The problems of the company has been discussed using McKinsey 7S
model. Recommendations to fulfill these problems have also been made.
Hope you find this report satisfactory.
Sincerely yours,
Name of the student
ADDRESS

2CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Executive summary
The following report discuses about the case study, where a lumber company,
B.R.Richardson Timber Production Corporation (BRRTPC) is suffering from internal problems.
Workers are facing fatal accidents and the communication between sisterly companies are
hampered. Finally, the authority asked the help of an expert consultant Jack Lawler, and with the
help of his two students Lawler finds out several important organizational lacks in BRRTPC and
points out them with the help of McKinsey 7S system. The report discusses all the organizational
issues briefly and recommended few changes that can help the workers to reconnect to the
organization and fill the communication gap between the four sisterly companies.

3CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................4
Discussion............................................................................................................................5
Contract and Entering stage.............................................................................................5
Analysis of the information gathered (problem identification).......................................5
Seven factors of 7S model...............................................................................................6
Structure:......................................................................................................................6
Strategy and Technology:............................................................................................6
System:........................................................................................................................7
Staff:............................................................................................................................8
Skills............................................................................................................................9
Style:............................................................................................................................9
Shared values:..............................................................................................................9
Recommendation...............................................................................................................10
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................11
References..........................................................................................................................12

4CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Introduction
In the critical analysis of the B.R. Richardson Timber Products Corporation (BRRTPC) is
about the changes of interventions the company has applied due to the decreased productivity
and shortage of employees. This small lumber company situated in Papoose, Oregon was with
low self-esteemed, morale, safety issues and an authoritative manager. The assignment talks
about the case study in which, Lawler, a consultant along with his two students tries to gather
information about the company. The diagnosis moves from analysis to management of programs
(Ravanfar, 2015).
Jack Lawler, the consultant used an operative strategy while signing the contract. Lawler
set up few meetings with Bowman and Richardson to understand the kind of service they needed
from him. Afterwards, he offered three variety of course of actions depending on which Bowman
and Richardson could hire him. The company opted for option three; hence, the investigation
was begun independently. Prime aim of the investigation was to find out the issues affecting the
company economically and ethically. Two students of Lawler helped to analyze the perception of
the issue from employees as well as employers point of view. Consultant’s point of view was
also taken into consideration. These data or informations were used to develop this report.
Therefore, in this report, in the light of this Cases study, the change process and
management procedures are being used to analyze the business situation in BRRTPC. The
McKinsey 7S model has been used to evaluate understand and diagnose the collected
information of their work environment and employee behavior (Alshaher, 2013).

5CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Discussion
Contract and Entering stage
Entry of Consultant and part-time professor Jack Lawler occurred when the Relation
Manager of the B.R. industry, Richard Bowman asked him to take a training session for the blue-
collar employees of their lamination plant. Lawler asked for more information about the
company from Bowman. Hence, Bowman agreed to meet Lawler personally along with the
company president Richardson. However, after meeting Lawler decided to conduct an
investigation personally to understand the required training topics. In the letter, Lawler has
described the three alternatives for Bowman and Richardson. First alternative provided was to
contact in their geographic area to motivate the employees. The second alternative was to let
Lawler to be engaged in the investigation to identify the non-controlled issues and solutions to
address those problems. The final and third option provided to Bowman and Richardson was to
enable Lawler involve a team of two students to diagnose the lamination plant and to provide
recommendation. These three course of action was with different pricing options. Additional
price would have been charged depending on the course of action. The company board did not
want to spend a lot of money for investigation purpose, however wanted the expertise advice of
Lawler in the issue. Hence, Lawler’s students were allowed to visit the plant and investigate
about the problems it was facing.
Analysis of the information gathered (problem identification)
The informations gathered from the investigation can easily be categorized using the
McKinsey 7S model. Two consultants of McKinsey, Robert Waterman and Tom peters
developed this model in 1980s. This model consists of seven interdependent factors including
soft and hard factors. Hard factors are strategy, structure and system of any organization. These

6CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
factors are easily identifiable. Soft factors includes values, staff and style. These factors are less
tangible and influenced by culture. In this critical analysis, this 7S model has been employed to
interrogate the BRRTC.
Seven factors of 7S model
Structure:
Structure of an organization is defined as a framework that clearly divides the work or
task among employees, controls administrative machinery and integrates the whole organization
in one thread (Scott, 2103). Structure of BRRTC consists of four companies; however, the case
study focuses on the Papoose lamination company only. The hierarchy of personnel within the
organization was managers, supervisors and after that staff lines. Juanita Yates was the secretary
of Richardson, and she helped to manage all the companies together. The first problem identified
in the B.R.Richardson was, the companies did not have any shared goal of vision to achieve.
Creation of these companies happened with the mission to support each other, however lack of
communication and shared values hampered their collaboration. For example, BRRTPC
Lamination Company purchased only 30 percent of lumber from Richardson mill however; the
complete lumber should be purchased from the Richardson mill. Applying this strategy, the mill
could have increase its productivity and the lamination plant could have reduced its cost to
purchase raw material.
Strategy and Technology:
Strategy is defined as the action or steps taken by the organization to implement the
proposed or anticipated changes in the external environment. These strategies are applied to
achieve the advantage in the market (Peppard & Ward, 2016). Strategy implemented by
Richardson was primarily centered on the high production at the cost of long-term investments

7CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
and cost-effective transactions. The main problem identified in the area of strategy was
Richardson’s attitude towards employee’s security and turnover rates. The company did not have
any long-term plan to achieve success in the market. Authorities were only interested in
achieving daily targets and deliverables rather than long-term plans for competitive advantage.
This non-impressive strategy containing short-term goals hindered communication between
companies and hence the production was hampered and the positive interventions were shut
down.
The lamination company was profitable and one of the busy companies of Richardson
since its inception. However, Richardson seemed reluctant to upgrade the machinery or to
implement any new technology in the production. Technologies to influence good health and
safety standards were also ignored.
System:
In a healthy organization, system is defined as a purposeful and organized structure that
contains interrelated and interdependent factors. System focuses on the factors that run the
organization and controls or monitors the activities. The system of BRRTPC was not only
consists of heavy machines and hardworking labours inter-related into a functional system, it was
dangerous, antiquated and under functioning as well. According to the employee complaints, the
quality of the equipment were dangerous and the manager was reluctant to address their problem
(Scott & Davis, 2015). Furthermore, few deaths and accidents inside the production made this
point evident that the life of labours were at stake while working in the company. Supervisor at
the lamination company mentioned the machinery as “junkiest stuffs”.

8CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Target of a successful company should be proper application of the log supply, more
complete order fulfillment to achieve smooth production operations. However, the BRRTPC
systems and processes to complete their daily target. These systems put an adverse effect on the
employee’s motivation level and affected their safety. Moreover, it limits the ability of the
company to produce more products while maintaining the quality.
Staff:
After reviewing the staff of BRRTPC, it is evident that huge amount of workers are blue-
collars versus white collars. The educational qualification of the employees varied minutely and
almost everyone has graduation degree. The staff positions available at the BRRTPC Lamination
Company was supervisor, scheduler, administrative staff and quality control. a group of 15
skilled frontline labour was also there. However, there were vacancies in the company, which
needed to be filled.
The prime problem detected within the staff of the company is, they were not working as
a team. This hindered the core values to be shared across the company. In spite of being several
vacancies, there was a lack of estimated list of future employees. The human resource system
was also very poor in the organization (Nielsen & Randall, 2012). No specific performance
measurement scale was present that ultimately resulted in rare appraisals and incentive benefits.
Company hired employees in the posts that are not according to their education or experience
level. Therefore, the able staff did not get the opportunity to be promoted to higher posts. The
plant also lacked the training procedure, due to frequent reassignments. According to the
investigation, the secretary, itself, needed to be trained in multi-tasking, general office skills and
customer service, whereas the supervisor team needed training in management section (Nielsen
& Randall, 2012).

9CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
The absence of a mission, vision and core values, which decides the future goals of
corporate companies creates a situation of dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction was due to lack of
appraisals, frequent job changes, lack of training sessions, overtimes and short lunch breaks and
many more (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 2013).
Skills
In the BRRTPC organization, there were different skills present along with the skills
gaps. there was an unacceptable safety issue and worker had to stake their lives while working in
the organization. Few accidents and fatality cases strengthens the statement. According to one of
the students, who investigated the organization, workers had to work without any safety glass,
saw-bands and helmet. Communication was also compromised for the company and the
communication skills needed to be improved (Charness, 2012).
Style:
Style is comprised of the leadership style, impact of that leadership and effectiveness of
the leader of the company. The leadership is supposed to involve in the front line of workers to
enhance the competitiveness and cooperation within the work force (Dickerson, 2012). At
BRRTPC, the leadership and management was completely involved and commanding. The
supervisors had to work instead of the workers, in the absence of frontline workers. However, tis
involvement was negative as the leadership used to threaten the workers. Even after achieving
the quotas, the leadership used to assign some of workers with unplanned and mandatory
overtime duties. Expectations from the workers were high, accountability was low and the safety
was at risk (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).

10CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Shared values:
The work culture of Richardson Company was negative. Most of the supervisors and
senior management authorities forced frontline workers to do overtime and stretched the target .
Therefore, dissatisfaction, frustration and anger was common among the workers. The workers
were forced to perform their work by applying “do or die” situations for them, where die equals
to be fired from the job (Michelini & Fiorentino, 2012). The higher authorities ignored the
workers with hernia, broken legs or fingers and back pains by saying that the company covers
their medical problems that reflects the lack of a proper human resource department. Task
structure was also not defines properly within the organization. Employees used to do their daily
routine monotonously. The employees were forces to resume work even after witnessing a fatal
accident. However, despite of these negative effects, employees used to pull each other to
perform their daily work with efficiency (Pfitzer, Bockstette & Stamp, 2013).
Recommendation
Few recommendations that can be used for the betterment of the company are as follows:
 The company needs a proper Human resource management team to address the
problems and situations of the workers. There are instances of accidents and
deaths inside the company premises that has affected the mentality of every
worker. Therefore, to take care of their safety, their humanitarian rights and their
employee rights a proper human resource department is needed. The rates will fall
from 40 percent to 10 percent within 3 months.
 The employees need different trainings to understand their work role. Supervisor
and managers needed training for management issues and frontline workers need
training on working with the machines safely. They also needed training to

11CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
enhance their communication skills. Hence, a training program should be
arranged within the company premise to train every individual within 3 months.
 Feedback and appraisal are part of work environment, whereas the BRRTPC
Company did not had any specific performance measurement or appraisal
schemes to facilitate its workers. Hence, to improve the low-esteemed and morale
of the workers, the company need to implement facilitation schemes. 360 degree
feedback process should be implemented for 6 months trial and feedback should
be collected from the workers.
Conclusion
Hence, it can be concluded that work of an organizational development worker is not
simple, however being a third party the practitioner sees the company with different perspective.
This perspective allows the person to access areas and opinions that the company leadership
cannot access. In the case study provided, Jack Lawler diagnosed the company and his
perspective was reflected through McKinsey 7S model that deals with staff, structure, skills,
systems, style, shared value, strategy and technology. Close attention was provided to each of
this framework and it helped the Richardson Company to align all the issues that were hindering
the company to achieve success. Finally, few important recommendations were proposed to
fasten the speed of betterment and improve the condition of the workers.

12CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
References
Alshaher, A. A. F. (2013). The McKinsey 7S model framework for e-learning system readiness
assessment. International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology, 6(5), 1948.
Charness, A. N. (2014). The Role of Practice and Coaching in Entrepreneurial Skill Domains:
An International Comparison of LifeSpanChess Skill. The road to excellence: The
acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games.
Dickerson, D (2012). Learn the three keys to exceptional leadership. Retrieved from
http://www.thedanielislandnews.com/artman2/publish/Business_65/Learn_the_Three_Ke
ys_to_Exceptional_Leadership_printer.php
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Michelini, L., & Fiorentino, D. (2012). New business models for creating shared value. Social
Responsibility Journal, 8(4), 561-577.
Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M. (2013). Employee—organization linkages: The
psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic press.
Nielsen, K., & Randall, R. (2012). The importance of employee participation and perceptions of
changes in procedures in a teamworking intervention. Work & Stress, 26(2), 91-111.
Peppard, J., & Ward, J. (2016). The strategic management of information systems: Building a
digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.

13CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Pfitzer, M., Bockstette, V., & Stamp, M. (2013). Innovating for shared value. Harvard Business
Review, 91(9), 100-107.
Ravanfar, M. M. (2015). Analyzing Organizational Structure based on 7s model of
McKinsey. Global Journal of Management and Research: A Administration and
Management, 15(10), 6-12.
Scott, W. R. (2013). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities. Sage
Publications.
Scott, W. R., & Davis, G. F. (2015). Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open
systems perspectives. Routledge.