Jeanne Lewis at Staples

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Jeanne Lewis at Staples
Managing Organizational Change
Case Submitted
by
Jana Navaneethan
Musfique Rahman
Venkat Polavarapu
Date: 05/02/2013
Introduction:
Jeanne Lewis started as a summer intern at Staples Inc, in the Marketing department in
1991. At 1993, she started at Staples as a Marketing Manager for Sales and Forecasting
Field Marketing. Soon after, she secured the position of Director of New England
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Operations handling with 50 stores with budget of 250 millions. Lewis believed that
Marketing, which served as both an architect and driver of the Staples brand, would play a
critical role in Staples continued success. She also felt that the marketing departments
operating style was not suited for evolving competitive realities. She questioned the
departments overall strategy and execution and wanted to initiate action to fix some of the
departments structures, systems and staffing. Assessing her leadership style and tenacity in
her decisions and her ability to handle such demanding work environment, within a year
she was promoted to the position of the Director of Sales for 150 stores on the East Coast.
She was promoted again and became the VP and the Divisional Merchandising Manager
for furniture and decorative supplies with the budget of 350 millions, right after she earned
the position of SVP of Small Business and Retail Marketing. Lewis’ rapid shifting from
operations, sales, mechanizing, and marketing taught her lot about Staples culture.
This case study describes closer view of her leadership and management style.
Challenges:
First, preoccupation with the merger caused organizational problems to go unanswered. By
the time Jeanne Lewis stepped in to begin making changes, Staples Inc. had gotten off
course in terms of growth and profit earnings. Also, Staples’ long-time, loyal employees
were comfortable with the old way of doing things, and her plans to get rid of those “old
ways" caused apprehension among an already weary staff. This apprehension and lack of
trust caused a personal barrier to communications because employees would place their
focus on being defensive and distrustful of Lewis, therefore distorting whatever message
she was trying to get across to them. Another personal barrier to communication within the
company came shortly after the failed merger, when the only remaining member of the
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