What’s He Waiting for?

What’s He Waiting For?

By Robert Galford

Case Study Analysis

Mehrzad Shahi

OL600

I. Overview: Everyone at Captiva is wondering what the new Chief Operations Officer (COO) has been doing for the last 12 months. But he is wondering why he cannot get his foot in the door and why the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Captiva, Peter Tyler, has not delegated any substantial responsibilities to him?

II. Major Characters and their Roles:

a) Peter Tyler, CEO of Captiva

b) It has been 18 months since Doug Yacubian has been brought on as Chief Operations Officer (COO) to the corporation because of his great accomplishments and experiences previously with Marcella

c) Cynthia Speedwell and Ben are division presidents

III. Status quo:

There is a sense of uncertainty for everyone both senior management and the board of executives at Captiva as well as for the newly hired COO Doug Yacubian. Captiva is a cheese producer corporation that has been in the business for almost a century. This corporation under the leadership of Peter Tyler (the CEO), has transformed into three major divisions.

1. Dairy Products

2. Poultry

3. Food preparation

The company became aggressive in expansion of acquiring frozen foods, juices, and bakery products. The company is struggling with its biggest crisis in the history of the company because of a formulation error at one of the company’s manufacturing plants causing several food poisonings and subsequently recalling the whole line of products.

So, here are some of the questions arisen:

a. What qualification did Yacubian showed in his interview that made him get this position but could not bring anything to the table yet?

b. Who is the main person to be blamed and why?

c. If sharing power was the issue here, then why would Tyler be requested from Captiva’s board members to create a new position with a new...