Bern Fly Rod Company

Bern Fly Rod Company is a small manufacturer of high-quality graphite, fly-fishing rods. It sells its products to fly-fishing shops throughout the United States and Canada. Bern began as a small company with four salespeople, all family members of the owner. Due to the high popularity and recent growth in fly-fishing, Bern now employs a sales force of sixteen and for the first time employs nonfamily members. The salespeople travel around the country giving fly-casting demos of their new models. Once the sales orders are generated, inventory availability is determined and, if necessary, the salesperson sends the order directly to the manufacturing department for immediate production. Sales staff compensation is tied directly to their sales figures. Bern’s financial statements for the December year-end reflect unprecedented sales, 35 percent higher than last year. Further, sales for December account for 40 percent of all sales. Last year, December sales accounted for only 20 percent of all sales.

Required:

Analyze the above situation and assess any potential internal control issues and exposures. Discuss some preventive measures this firm may wish to implement.

Communicating Through Change (extracted from Case study: Communicating through change. Managing and leading people through organizational change. Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page Ltd. 197-199.)

A company has decided to restructure in preparation for new product launches. As a result of the restructuring, several staff roles were to be made redundant. Jay, the team manager, had to inform 90% of the team that they would be displaced. This manager was just one of 200 team managers that had to make this kind of announcement. The managers were asked to delay delivering the unfortunate news until December (after the managers were told about it in September) because the senior leadership team wanted the staff to remain focused on their work for the remainder of the year and improve business performance. However, not all of the managers remained silent, and staff anticipated that the change was coming.

During the three months from September to December, the senior leadership did not communicate with the managers. At the middle-management and non-leadership levels, people were asking if they were going to lose their jobs. Rumors spread about some having secure jobs while others didn’t know. Manager Jay continued to communicate with his team but not giving specifics until December, when he let the team know that there would be a 90% cut. Jay worked hard and helped find jobs inside and outside of the company for all of those laid off. However, he was bothered that the senior leadership remained silent, and it caused a lack of support and commitment for the change the company was trying to make.

Directions
You learned about John Kotter’s 8-Process/Accelerator cyclical model of change. It involves creating a sense of urgency, building and maintaining a guiding coalition, formulating a strategic vision, communicating to get buy-in, removing barriers, celebrating short-term wins, never letting up, and making strategic changes part of the culture.

Using your knowledge about the model from your learning, read Scenario 3 above, and apply the steps to creating change. Be creative and provide information that you feel should be added to make the model work in this situation.

To help you evaluate the situation at the company above and how you might want to approach your recommendations, consider if transparency from leadership would be valuable; what type and frequency of communication would help; what would help staff feel committed ownership of the change; and what should have been done to solicit/collect feedback.

The content of this section of your paper should be a minimum of 2 pages long, double-spaced, and include at least two scholarly references.