Case Study 1: Space Engineering Services

MBA 625: Leadership for Decision Makers

Michael David, Sydney Parkmond, Bryan Dau, Andrew DeLuke & Calvin White

Space Engineering Services is in the industrial and commercial refrigeration engineering

industry (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014). Companies in this industry tend to draft annual one year

contracts with their key customers, in this case supermarket chains, in an effort to reduce risk on

service delivery. As a result of this practice the industry is known to be extremely reactive, thus

making long term planning very difficult.

Due to several recent contract awards, Space Engineering Services is experiencing

growth and is expanding internationally, requiring additional personnel to address with the

demand. The company culture appears to operate in a silo, fostering an environment that lacks

trust, communication, and feeds uncertainty. Employees work in remote locations and often work

in pairs or alone in regional offices. This has led to lack of vertical and horizontal

communication, impacting the performance and engagement level of the employees.

The company culture has directly influenced and exacerbated the main issue in the case

study which is the disconnect between Space Engineering Services front line employees and its
management. Frontline employees feel they are the last to know about core company decisions

and in turn feel undervalued. This a result of a lack of internal communication strategy, face to

face manger interaction, and leadership/ HR training for managers.

The graduate student working on this project sought out to correct the core issues within

the company listed above. Her project was to design a performance management tool for

monitoring and measuring employee performance. The goal of this performance tool was to

improve the issues of change, leadership, and overall communication within the company

between employees and upper management (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014). The graduate student

obtained and collected information from employees in order to determine the disconnect between

employees and managers. The end results were lack of communication and overall feedback

resulting in dissatisfaction with the leadership and lack of morale and faith in the managers

abilities to manage the department. According to Contingency Theories, different situations

require different types of leadership (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014). With that in mind, the

graduate student took into consideration the leadership behaviors, situational variables, and the

needs of the employees. With the information collected, she was able to effectively evaluate the

situation and determine the next steps needed to promote success and improve leadership.
Utilizing the Situational Leadership Theory, the graduate student was able to evaluate the

situation at hand and understand the type of support and direction that would need to take place

to accomplish her established goals (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014). Since the managers were

found to be inexperienced and did not have any formal training in performance management, the

graduate student aimed high on directive and supportive behavior and provided sufficient

direction and support to the managers. Instead of delegating the information to the managers, she

understood the level of the followers (D1-Developing) and provided the appropriate and right

mix of direction and coaching needed to succeed (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014). She was able to
accomplish this through formal training, one-on-one interviews, and by providing guidance,

coaching, and advising to the managers (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014).

One can also apply the Path-Goal Theory to her approach. According to the Path-Goal

Theory, leaders need to motivate their employees and diminish any obstacles in order to achieve

end goals and improve overall performance (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014. The obstacles in this

particular situation would be the lack of experience and training obtained by management. By

providing the training, coaching, and overall guidance, the graduate student was able to lessen

this obstacle leading to improved performance and communication between employees and

managers.
During her time there she focused quite a bit on performance management. She

developed a SWOT analysis (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014) which measures strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This type of analysis would be of incredible value

especially if the opinions of stakeholders were taken into consideration. The stakeholders in this

case study range from employees to senior level management. Specifically, the stakeholders

include the employees- mostly engineers, managers and senior level managers.
The engineers which comprise over half of Space Engineering Services play an integral

role in the companys organizational culture (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014). Based on the various

surveys and focus groups conducted, employees need better communication from management

and the perception that management is invested in them. By creating an environment with more

effective and regular communication, employees will become more engaged, feel valued, and

ultimately bridge the gap/ disconnect between front line employees and management. This will

drive better performance for the employee as well as the employer.

Managers are responsible for helping to establish the companys culture. Often times

managers who may be highly technically skilled can lack the human interaction and leadership

skills to be effective. This leads to disengagement among employees and a lack of both
communication and understanding of the importance of inclusion in the workplace. For example,

the graduate student received feedback during the third quartile that the employees felt the

performance reviews were linked to more work or demotions (Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014),

which was not the case. The employees also felt the performance reviews were micro-

management exercises, to which the managers when asked how they explained the reviews they

stated I don't really know. Communication amongst all levels is important, but where the

rubber meets the road is if the newest member of the company knows the vision and direction

from the most senior employee.

As for senior level managers, they are not communicating and holding the mid-level

managers accountable for keeping the employees engaged, informed, and connected to the vision

and direction of the company. For instance, in the case study the graduate student introduced

performance appraisals including core competencies to the company. The lack of accountability

and communication of the value and rationale behind the performance appraisal resulted in a lack

of buy in from the managers and a performance appraisal completion rate of less than 76%.
The stakeholders could also include customers such as supermarket chains and other

services such as heating and ventilation companies. Since they are the primary parties on the

receiving end, their opinions and input on how to improve performance management could be

the game changer in how Space Engineering Services operates. Since no stakeholder is equal,

various angles and perspectives are key to having a well-rounded approach to bettering an issue.
In regards to remedying the issues that lie within Space Engineering Services, the results

from all the surveys now need to be taken into consideration. Communication can simply be

fixed by creating a network of chat rooms, message boards or e-mails where messages can work

their way up the chain and issues can be communicated and remedied quicker. They see their

line manager perhaps once a month as the core communication is by telephone. Engineers also

do not have access to e-mail, and so any company-wide communication is sent via the post.
(Schedlitzki, Edwards, 2014) If the engineers are given basic lines of communication between

levels of management, then a lot of the confusion and isolation would be taken out of the

equation between engineers, management and senior managers.

References

1. Schedlitzki, D., & Edwards, G. (2014). Studying leadership: Traditional & critical

approaches. Los Angeles: SAGE