Dick Spencer - 1 Andri Tribowo Dick Spencer Case September...

Andri Tribowo
Dick Spencer Case
September 3, 2007
Dr. J. Humphreys
In this set of case, Dick Spencer, a plant manager of Modrow Company had gone through
several job positions during his career. Consequently, there have been considerable problems in
how a variety of job task influences him to work. The significant problem that Spencer might
have is how to deal with micro-management, communication, work-family conflict, and
frustration in the work place which I believe as a four-major issue in this case analysis.
Micro-management
As today’s businesses continue to expand, workers are often expected to perform well on
their jobs. This is what truly happened to Spencer who has a tendency to micro manage his field
plant employees; therefore, I consider that micro-management is the most important issue in this
set of case. According to Wright (2000), “Micro-management means to manage things closely;
to evaluate under close scrutiny; to manage a small portion of a larger process” (p.362). Spencer
actually has a good target of setting up the goals made by upper management, but it means to be
remarkably negative to some people around him. He truly makes his subordinates feel
uncomfortable simply by watching them overwhelmingly with superb supervision.
This type of approach in context of management will somewhat deteriorate instead of
escalating the job performance since it will result in lack of productivity in workers. In the
certain company which is coping with a mass-production system where the detail of process is
greatly important, I believe that it will be more beneficial to apply a micro-management
approach. Moreover, the labors are obligated to focus on a specific process on job task rather
than the outcomes that are accomplished. It really seems to be very negatively by utilizing micro-
1

management style into the Modrow Company; and of course it will affect not only the system but
also the company as a whole, as Wright (2000) states that it is often responsible for increased
paperwork, last minute meetings, restrictive bureaucratic policies, stunted creativity, and bad
decision making (Robert F. Wright, 2000). More importantly, it has also come to my attention
that micro-management has something to do with trust. I suspect that micro-management group
in where Spencer typically involves is more likely hard to trust people they are working with, as
Wright (2000) also points out that the establishment of trust is an important step in the process of
becoming a flexible manager (Robert F. Wright, 2000). It means that when we trust our
subordinates to let them do their job in the certain way, we simply do not need either to supervise
or even to over control them excessively.
It is obvious when Spencer shows up at several departments, such as on the plant floor,
design offices, and accountant offices when he does not need to do so. The risks here are that
employees become exhausted due to the fact that they feel so uncomfortable to be over