Leadership Case Study

Case Summary:

The case is about Steve Arnold, a production manager at ACME Manufacturing Company in New Jersey. Steve is over occupied with assignments and has time management issues related to his work commitments. The case begins with Steve being 35 minutes late for work as he stayed up late finishing a production report for his department. Steve has a list of things to do in a day but his schedule is an organized mess, because of improper filing of important papers and unorganized schedule.

In a day Steve has to:-

  1. Attend a staff meeting, with his boss Frank Jones (without the memo of the meeting as he has misplaced it). 

  2. Meet vice president Sue Bradley, with regards to the status of the rush order of an important client.

  3. Attend a weekly meeting with the plant safety committee.

  4. Meet his department managers and supervisors with production schedules and other important issues.

  5. Meet Mr. Ferris from one of the firms that provide production materials to ACME.

Steve was well aware of all the meetings, reports and work schedules, but the issue was that it was not organized in a proper way. All his assignments were neither prioritized in order, coordinated nor were assigned to others to finish it on time.

1. What specific things did Steve do wrong and what should have been done in each instance?

Answer:

* Steve reached to work late. He should ensure that he is always on time to work or even early, since this would be more conducive to his productivity throughout the day. Whether he needs an alarm clock or for someone to wake him each day, he must find a way to ensure that he is wakes up on time and gets to work on time as well.

* Not reading the memo and the proposal for the meeting immediately. Steve should have read the memo immediately when he received it. This would have ensured that he at least knew what the agenda was which would have given his brain time to process the information even if he wasn’t actively focused...