Eismann: The Dysfunctional Conflict Between Frank And Nolan

Abbot’s weak integration also leads to dysfunctional conflict between Frank and Nolan. Specifically, administrative intensity is low as evidenced by Nolan’s professional relationship with Frank and the other executives. Nolan has an extremely large span of control because he insists on employees at all levels of the company reporting to him. Therefore, he cannot oversee and give guidance to all of these employees. While Nolan seeks to oversee each employee at Abbot, his large span of control does not allow him to oversee all decisions in reality, which leads to a high level of decentralization. Employees at all levels of the company make decisions that sometimes contradict each other, causing a high level of confusion which leads to personal …show more content…
For the communication system, we believe that a more centralized system is necessary in order to improve decision making among departments. This can be done through weekly lunches among department executives, voicing information from each department. After every meeting, a department executive can send a memo to Eismann regarding the discussion so communication between the two parent companies increases. In terms of structure, there will be higher administrative intensity. More specifically, implementing a narrower span of control across the company. Therefore, less employees will be under a supervisor, providing clear communication channels across teams. If this gets implemented, Abbot will have a uniform communication system across the entire company that reports back to Houston Electronics. Additionally, this will create an overall culture that stresses the importance of communication and will help make roles more clear across the organization. However, there is a chance that Nolan won’t be on board with this idea due to his deteriorating relationship with Frank. On top of that, many employees in the organization view Nolan as a leader, so if Nolan doesn’t go along with the idea, they might not buy into the new …show more content…
As mentioned before, Nolan may resist Frank’s ideas. If he resists them publicly, the rest of the employees may follow his lead since Nolan is their president. If Nolan does not agree with Frank’s plan or work towards improving his behavior after the communication and structure changes are made, Eismann will need to fire Nolan and promote Frank to president. Frank’s plan will not work without a powerful guiding coalition and Nolan’s support as president is key to getting other employees on board. Therefore, firing him will show employees of Abbot that Nolan’s impulsive behavior is unacceptable. Abbot needs a leader that others can look up to during this time of change for the company and if that means firing Nolan then that is just what Eismann will have to do. Since Nolan spent most of his time at Houston Electronics, Frank was the one providing most of the leadership to Abbot anyways and has already been preparing to take over as president. This will eliminate the issue of poor leadership. Another potential issue is that it may take a long time to implement all of these changes and for employees to get used to the new culture. To help with this, there should be multiple trainings about the new communication system within the company so employees can get used to it faster. In addition,