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Q.

1) Present a summary of the case highlighting the main features of the


company and the situation faced by Charles Moore and his team?

 Main Features of the Company


 This case is about one of the division of Chattanooga Food Corporation (CFC) Ice Cream
Division with revenues of $150m.
 Chattanooga Food Corporation (CFC) is a family–controlled enterprise found in the same
name in 1936 by Charlie Moore’s grandfather.
 In 1996 CFC comprised three divisions: Grocery Products (revenues= $245 m), Specialty
Foods (revenues= $215 m) and Ice Cream (revenues= $150 m).
 It was one of the largest regional manufacturers of ice cream in US.
 It’s having primary supermarkets and related food chains customers, and trading as a
producer of mid-priced basic flavors of ice creams products.
 Current Situation
 Stay & Shop, Chattanooga Ice Cream’s third-largest customer had decided to replace
Chattanooga with Seal test line in its entire southeast region. But they do have 90 days
until Stay & Shop will be gone as a customer
 Even though CFC performed well in recent years but from last four years its ice cream
division experienced flat sales, declining operating profitability and its cost is increasing.
 Facing aggressive competition from premium & super premium ice creams brands
especially
 in “mix-in” ice cream flavors.
 Product line in dull providing just five flavors and no mix-ins
 US per capita consumption of ice cream slowed.
 Its 3 out of 7 members of the top management leave in five years that also upset
venerable pattern of relationship.
 Not have information system to a more extensive product line.
 Stores are out of stock and back ordered way too frequently.
 Division is working on new project of nonfat formulation

 Previous Attempts to Improve Performance


 Charles Moore, who was the grandson of the founder, took over as new President and
General Manager.
 It hired a new vice president of marketing, Barry Walkins, to replace Ben Wedemeyer,
who was pressured to take early retirement.
 Brought in Stephanie Krane to update the division’s information system and control
 function.
 In 1994 they introduced new line of frozen yogurt.
 In 1995 to reduce the cost they closed its original manufacturing plans and consolidated
in its two newer plants.

But they were not succeeded in returning the profitability & performance to its previous level.
That’s why division was unable to dividend cash up to its parent in 1995.

Past leader vs. New One Decision Making Style

 Ideas Proposed from Several Department Heads

1. Les Holly-VP Sales

Replace the volume which was lost from Stay & Shop leaving

This idea does not work since this will not solve any problems which in the future may arise
since it does not solve the problem why Stay & Shop leaved in the first place.

2. Stephanie Krane-VP & Controller

Cut expenses by the same amount as the operating profit losing at Stay & Shop

This might work in the short run, but this solution does not solve the problem in the long-run.
Customers will again in the long run choice for the competitors who have a bigger assortment
and we will face the same problem repeatedly.

3. Barry Walkins-VP Marketing& Kent Donaldson-VP R&D

Invest in expanding the product line to compete head on with competitors

The best solution to solving the problem is to invest heavily in expanding the assortment, offer
mixed-in ice-cream and increase the marketing program. As described in the case, the market
changed over the last few decades with a big increase in demand for more luxurious ice-cream,
mixed-in ice- cream etc. Chattanooga did not do anything with this trend.
4.Billy Fale-VP Production

Eliminate chocolate chip flavor to lower the production cost

Cutting product line could have negative consequences for the company’s image and the
perception of the clients.

Past leader vs. New One Decision Making Style

 Personalities of department Heads


 Barry Walkins: He is very creative and had a good intuitive sense of what consumers
wanted but disorganized and often lacks follow through;
 Billy Fale: He is a very knowledgeable and disciplined and competing, vice president of
production but a bit rigid in his thinking and anchored in the past.
 Kent Donaldson: He would be classified as collaborating Vice president of research &
development and had conflicts with Walkins.
 Les Holly: The division’s sales manager who tends to withhold information and
sometimes does not follow through.
 Stephanie Krane: She had a strong record of delivering on her promises.
 Frank O’Brien: He is uncooperative, avoiding and unassertive.
Q.2) According to the Fiedler’s contingency model, which leadership style
should Charles Moore adopt to match the situational requirements?

 Leadership Style of Charles Moore

Leadership style of Charles Moore is more relationship oriented. He believes in the value of
group base decisions, collaborative environment and brings people together formally to share
information, consult on decisions and form consensus

 Situational Favorableness

1. Leader-member relations: Leader-member relations are not good as followers are not
showing respect towards the leader in morning meeting. Leader did not build trust and
department heads are reluctant to give opinions on any matter. (pg. 2) There is high
turnover of employees due to which employee’s morale is down. (pg. 2)

2. Task Structure: Task structure is unstructured and ambiguous work with no clear
objectives and guidelines. Leader did not provide directions to complete the task.
(Morning meeting)

3. Position power: Charles Moore has strong position power to influence his
subordinates. He can use this power to assign projects and reward them on their
accomplishments.

According to Fiedler’s contingency model appropriate style for situation is relationship, the
employee centered approach. As Charles Moore’s leadership style is relationship oriented,
Fiedler would suggest him to change the situation to match the leadership style. He should build
trust and confidence among employees and provide support and clear guidelines to achieve their
goals. He should assign responsibilities to each team member. Moore needs to convey that team
cohesiveness is a must and this will go a long way to help ensure no further loss of business.
Q.3) According to Hershey and Blanchard’s situation leadership which
leadership style Charles Moore is currently using? Is there a proper match
between his current Leadership style and follower’s readiness and is it
successful? Which other leadership style could Charles Moore adopts which
matches follower’s readiness and makes him successful as well?

According to Hershey and Blanchard’s situation leadership, Charles Moore is currently using
the participating style. In this style, leaders focus more on the relationships and less on the
direction. The leader works with the team and shares decision making responsibilities. Moore
believed in the value of group based decisions and liked to bring together formally to share
information, consult on decisions and forge consensus. This belief has been reinforced by his
early experience at National Geographic magazine where writers, photographers and editors
worked in small teams to plan and execute stories for the publication. Working that way
produced a great product, he thought. But through this leadership style, He found out that every
individual was blaming to other individual and began to conflict arise.
His current leadership style does not match with the follower’s readiness and this is not
successful. In this situation, followers can do the job but may be unwilling to start or complete
the task. Moore’s predecessor as a general manager had worked directly for the company’s
founder as far back as 1947 and been the undisputed leader of the division. He knew more about
the business than anyone else and had a well-developed network for gathering and
communicating information. Confident that he knew what was best in most situations, he rarely
felt the need to consult his subordinates and reserved important decisions to himself. With the
business doing well, there seemed no reason to question his leadership. In Moore’s weekly staff
meetings, he found that the department heads were reluctant to opine on any matters outside of
their own functional domains. In private, however, they questioned the competence and
trustworthy of one another, were defensive when things went wrong and almost always laid the
blame for errors or problems at the feet of another department.

 Recommended Styles

Moore’s should adopt the telling leadership style. In this style, leader emphasizes task

oriented behavior and be very directive and autocratic, because in this current situation, he hired
two now employees so members are new and inexperienced, and needs a lot of help, direction,
and encouragement to get the job done. All the head of departments have low relationship among
themselves and task is high that the increasing the profits. Moore should just tell the decisions
that what to do and how to accomplish the task.

Barry Walkins’ readiness level was 3 because he was able but unwilling to take the
responsibility of current issue as Charlie Moore said (Page :4) ‘ Walkin was highly creative and
had a good intuitive sense of what consumers wanted but he was not well organized and often
lacked follow through’.
 Then there was Billy Fale, his readiness level was R3 though he worked more than 30 years
for CFC and Moore said Billy Fale, A knowledgeable and disciplined executive but bit rigid
and anchored in his thinking.
 Les Holly the only right guy in this situation he got his readiness level 4 because he was able
and willing to do his task and he didn’t blame any other department for this failure.
 StepheneKrane’s readiness level is R1 she was unable and unwilling to do any job as she
was not even aware of her new MIS system’s deadlines and was blaming new hiring of his IT
officer.
 Kent Donaldson’s readiness level is R2 because he was Unable somehow but willing to do
his job but he was not admitting his fault of stemming products and put blame on Walkin that
he pressurize him to release the product before it was adequately tasted and recommended
style for him is selling.
 Frank O’Brien is Able and Unwilling to work with group so his readiness level is R3. And
recommended style for him is participating.

Q.4) According to the Path-goal of leadership explain and justify which


Leadership style should Charles Moore adopt which matches subordinate and
environment characteristics?
The Path-Goal model is a theory based on specifying a leader's style or behavior that best fits the
employee and work environment in order to achieve goals (House, Mitchell, 1974). The goal is
to increase an employee's motivation, empowerment, and satisfaction so that they become
productive members of the organization. It generally follows these basic steps as shown in the
graphic below: I. Determine the employee and environmental characteristics

II. Select a leadership style

III. Focus on motivational factors that will help the employee succeed

Currently Charles Moore was using participative style of leadership which does not match the
situation. According participative leadership style, follower should have internal locus of control,
and ability should be high. But according to the case study ,there exist external locus of control,
everyone is blaming one another for the failure, ability as a group is also low ,task structure was
also complex and non repetitive and at authoritarianism they were high, they want to be told that
what to do and how to do the job. Charles Moore has position power and according to the
situation, he should make the important decision himself and should use directive style of
leadership which is more appropriate for the situation.

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