Kerrie Peterson Case Summary

Kerrie Peterson’s position as General Manager of the Corporate Lending Unit at Access has landed her in the position to effect change in her department that would ultimately effect the organization overall. The recent mandate to reduce operating cost by 15% per unit was given by Chief Executive Officer, Tom Wilkes. In recent years the company had been strong and productive, but June 2000 numbers showed a decline. Access had a strong core of managers and executives. Kerrie had only been a manager for 2 years before this transition was to take place. Having just been handed these instructions, she became restless as she mulled over how to introduce this plan to her managers.. In thinking about a strategy for her department, she chose to utilize the diverse group of managers that were under her leadership. The senior management team members would meet to brainstorm and strategize. However, …show more content…
Each has its own set of issues that have been presented to Kerrie. David’s assignment to interview the senior management team in hopes of hearing how they felt about the cost reduction plan was very important in how they would proceed in devising a plan and implementing it. Again, Kerrie’s attempt to overcome the violation of the unity of direction began with David’s discovery from the senior management team interviews. Clearly, there had been a great disconnect between her and the management team. Her plan, based on David’s evaluation, was to use this team would be charged with coming up with a plan to lead the change to cost reduction. She would hear the plan of each manager, weigh its pros and cons, and make an executive decision based on the practicality of each and how effective it would be. Each team member would need to see and support the overall vision of the projected