’t hit your numbers, he would tear all over you,” said William Kirkpatrick, an operating manager who worked with Dunlap at both Scott and Sunbeam (Byrne 138). Al Dunlap led by directive behavior, where there was a strong reliance on one-way communication, giving out tasks, and telling followers what to do and often how to do them. Also, having power does not give you the right to disrespect the people under you. Mutual respect is a required common ground in order for harmony to prevail in the company. As relationships soured and people losing hope, decision making strictly funneled down to Dunlap since he was basically unapproachable. It is almost a known fact that management teams are more likely to make better decisions that one person based on his own perspective. This was evident as time passed during his reign. Dunlap’s restructuring plan called for laying half of the company’s 6000 employees and 87% of its products. A human resources division was cut from 75 to 17 (Byrne 134). These major layoffs led to major shortages of skilled and experienced talent throughout the corporation so that the amount of work needed to be done was impossible. Dunlap’s layoffs also included the firing of computer staff. In the midst of all this confusion, the company decided to upgrade computer systems, but with no back up available. Problems occurred, computers went down for months and orders had to be taken down manually, it was a disaster. “We couldn’t bill our customers. We couldn’t keep track of our shipments. Customers were calling day and night, asking where their orders were. Our customers were irate,” described Donald Uzzi, executive vice-president for worldwide consumer products (Byrne 134). As time passed, managers got fed up with how Dunlap was constructing operations. As his decisions made situations worse, he still expected his employees to make the originally expecte...
