Case Study - Xerox Essay Example for Free

Case Study Xerox Essay This case describes the visioning process at Xerox Canada. The chairman, CEO and president of Xerox Canada have been meeting with her leadership team since eight oclock in the morning to craft the organizations new vision statement. Three and a half hours into the meeting the team hits a road block. With 30 minutes left in the session, the CEO must decide whether and how to proceed. First let us list what McGarry has done correctly prior to the visioning process meeting: 1. Understanding of the old vision/culture: Here we can say that McGarry has a good insight of the old culture prevailing within the Xerox Canada through her coast to coast traveling in order to meet and learn the concerns of the Xerox Canada employees, during the restructuring period. Her knowledge of the old culture has eased her task of educating the employees about the upcoming new system or culture. (Refer to Mc Garry’s arrival in Canada section) 2. Encourage innovative employees: During the restructuring period McGarry continued to encourage innovative employees and encourage them to impart their ideas to the other members of the group in order to bring out new ideas that would bring changes for the betterment of the Xerox Canada. (Refer to Employees-Inspired-Initiatives section last paragraph). 3. Properly identify the need to call for a visioning process at Xerox? McGarry’s careful evaluation of the situation and her coming to the conclusion that it was necessary to synthesize a vision statement (that would coordinate all of the concepts, initiatives and activities of Xerox Canada) was, I my opinion, a good call. (Refer to The Visioning Process section). 4. Understanding the value of the visioning process and not to impose unilaterally a new vision: McGarry understood the importance of not imposing a new vision. And she went on to gain a common consensus of the group (pre-visioning process meeting activities) before making any changes to the vision of the organization. (Refer to The Visioning Process section). Now let us talk about what, to my point of view McGarry, could have done differently: The half day session McGarry called on June 14, 1994 to craft the organization’s new mission statement, should have been panned over a two day session. In my opinion McGarry definitely under estimated the tasks ahead. As we all know the purpose of identifying the preferred future vision is to gather the strategic planners within the organization (here Mc Garry’s leadership team) around a collective future vision, some of whom (leadership team) will be the core collaborative group and some of whom will be additional stakeholders. The main objective of visioning activity and its process steps is to gather the strategic planning participants (leadership team) around a preferred future vision to help energize them, get their creative juices flowing, get them talking and interacting, and set the tone strategic plan development – a new vision. This was well done during the first three hours. However half a day is insufficient to complete such an activity which is about building a successfully bridge between Xerox’s current state and their preferred future. I strongly believe that this visioning process activity could have been broken into the following sub activities and carried out over the entire day. This activity should have been broken down into the following sequence i) Have participants worked individually or in small group to discuss the Current State of the organization and envisage the Ideal State of the organization. ii) Keeping in mind the first exercise they have completed, have these same groups brainstormed on their preferred future vision. iii) Regroup all teams in order to share the ideas the teams have separately produced during the brainstorming session. The second day should have been broken in the following steps: iv) Discuss with the participants (teams) their insights from what have been shared collectively the previous day. Record any implications for the upcoming vision statement on flip chart and keep these records visible and accessible to the participants as they continue their debriefing session. v) Allow participants, if necessary, to regroup in order to modify/re-align their ideas which resulted from the brainstorming session (previous day). vi) Regroup in order to share any new ideas from the re-alignment session. vii) Select as a team the final vision statement. Here, to my point of view, the key ingredient was time. McGarry should have not expected the visioning process to be completed in such a short time. The old culture is a set of strong beliefs and norms which cannot be altered quickly; McGarry had to be patient in order for the mindset change to take effect within the visioning process.