Osim Group

UVA-BP-0399

THE OSIM GROUP (A)

On Thursday, June 12, 1997, Tom Stark was walking toward the office of Bob Cedarholm,

OSIM Group’s chairman of the board, contemplating the alleged internal “revolt” to overthrow Dave

Wright, the president. Tom was wondering what and how much to say to Bob during their

impending meeting.

Tom had returned to work at OSIM Group just three days earlier, following a one year inresidence Executive Management Program at a prestigious Eastern business school. Prior to this

time, Tom had earned a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from MIT, and had spent nine years at OSIM

Group. Now, at age 37, he was OSIM Group’s first Director of Strategic Planning and had the task

of introducing strategic planning to the company. From the first day, however, in addition to the

technical task of strategic planning, Tom had also been confronted with this highly charged political

situation. It was made even more complicated for Tom because Dave Wright had acted as Tom’s

mentor during much of Tom’s time at OSIM Group and had sponsored him in the Management

Program. The situation had implications for the future of the firm, Tom’s relationship with Dave,

his career, and his personal ethics.

In his mind, Tom was going over his first days back at OSIM Group:

I came back to work on June 9, a Monday, and I had a conversation with the

president about start-up tasks and priorities. Then on Wednesday, Frank Lewisburg,

the Marketing Director, invited me out to lunch. We spent about two and one-half

hours together. During this lunch period, he brought up a number of points rather

forcefully. The first one was that there is a conspiracy going on in the company.

Frank and other members of the group feel that company goals are not being

achieved because of Dave Wright’s ineffective leadership and they are meeting

nightly, essentially to discuss how to remove Dave or to make him ineffective so that

the company can move ahead on its growth plans. He...