DDBA 8151 Week 1 Presenting Problem Discussion Example

Week 1 Discussion: The Presenting Problem

"They Have Stopped Acting Like Owners": Recording a Presenting Problem at a Twelve-Yard Building Supply Company Exactly as It Was Framed, Beside What I Have Seen, Before Naming Any Cause

How the Problem Was Put

I work as a regional sales coordinator at a family-owned company that runs twelve lumber and building-supply yards across Georgia and the Carolinas, about 340 employees in all. At the quarterly operations meeting in August, the vice president of operations described the problem this way: "Our yard managers have stopped acting like owners. They push every decision up to the region." Heads nodded around the table. The phrase has since appeared in two emails from the regional directors. It has become the name of the problem.

What I Have Observed Directly

I want to set down what I have actually seen, without interpretation.

Credit-limit exceptions for contractor accounts, which yard managers used to approve themselves for amounts up to $25,000, are now sent to the regional credit office. In my region, I counted 47 such requests forwarded in the last quarter; I do not remember more than a handful a year before.

Contractors are waiting longer. Two framing contractors told me last month that they had moved part of their orders to a competitor because a credit decision took most of a week.

Two outside sales representatives in my region resigned in the same quarter. Both mentioned lost contractor business in their exit conversations with me, though neither said that was the reason they left.

Yard managers still make other decisions on their own: staffing, delivery schedules and inventory orders look the same to me as before.

Where the Evidence Is

Several records inside the company could show what is happening: the credit exception log kept by the regional credit office, the delegated authority matrix that sets each role's approval limits, the company's restructuring announcement from eighteen months ago, the most recent external audit letter and the exit interview summaries held by human resources. The people closest to it are the yard managers themselves, the regional credit manager, the regional directors and the vice president who framed the problem. Yin (2018) recommends drawing on several kinds of evidence for any case, and these records together with interviews would give that range.

Why I Am Not Naming a Cause Yet

"Stopped acting like owners" is an explanation disguised as a description. It locates the problem in the managers' attitude. It might be right. But the pattern I have observed is narrow: one type of decision, credit exceptions, changed, while others did not. Schein (1999) warns that the problem a client brings is often not the problem that needs solving, and that a helper who accepts the first framing may end up solving the wrong one. Coghlan and Brannick (2014) note that insiders researching their own organization face a particular risk of adopting the organization's language as if it were a finding. I am an insider, so that risk is mine.

Question for Classmates

What is the exact phrase someone in your organization uses for your problem, and does what you have observed fit it everywhere or only in one place?

Reply to Noor

Noor, your hospital's director calls the scheduling problem "nurse burnout," but you list unfilled shifts concentrated on two units. Would burnout explain why the other units are fine?

Reply to Ben

Ben, you have already named transformational leadership as the fix for your team's turnover. What did you observe that a different cause, such as pay or schedules, would not also explain?

References

Coghlan, D., & Brannick, T. (2014). Doing action research in your own organization (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Schein, E. H. (1999). Process consultation revisited: Building the helping relationship. Addison-Wesley.

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). SAGE Publications.