Critical Thinking in a Management Position Problem in the Truss Shop

Problem in the Truss Shop
Introduction
A truss has snapped during testing and employee has been injured. This is a major setback for the truss company, as it was anticipating getting these trusses to market soon. Now it looks like management is concerned the trusses might not be safe. The sales people are concerned they will lose their commissions if the sales they have booked do not go through. The public is concerned the company is misleading them on the quality of the trusses and the safety of the workplace. One employee already appears to be informing the public about the company’s issues. What should management do? This paper will analyze the issue, consider it from multiple viewpoints and provide an ethical and critical recommendation on how the company should proceed.
Explanation of the Issue
This is a simple problem lying under what appears to be a complex issue. On the surface it appears that chaos is enveloping the truss shop. Employees are unhappy. Managers are worried. Owners are fearful. The public wants to know what is going on. Big promises have been made and now it appears as though the company might be in danger of failing to deliver on those promises. So what is the actual issue?
First of all, it is important to look at the facts of the case. What is known is that one of the new innovative trusses engineered by the company was undergoing a stress test. This is a normal operation that should be done. The purpose of the stress test is to see how much weight the truss can hold before it breaks. Now, while the truss did break during the test, it did not break below the expected threshold. The truss was engineered to hold up to a specific weight and it did just that. When more weight was added the truss broke. Even though some people assumed the truss would support the extra weight, the reality was that the truss did exactly what was expected of it by the engineers. The threshold is the truss’s limit. The stress test proved that.
What is not known is whether that limit is enough to satisfy the company’s commercial customers. Big claims have been made about this new, cheap, innovative truss. It needs to be found out whether the threshold is enough to satisfy the demands of commercial consumers since they will make up the market for this truss. If the threshold is not at their needed range, the truss company is looking at a big problem. That is information that still needs to be obtained.
The other issue here is that a worker was injured when the truss broke. Why was the worker injured? Was the worker not practicing good safety precautions? This is the other information that is missing. People are panicking because a worker was injured on the floor, but more information is needed before anyone jumps to a hasty conclusion. The employee who went to the public to tell about what is going on in the company did not do the company justice by rushing off to report first before the company had time to gather all the information. It was a case of a worker wanting to be the first to the market with the information. Unfortunately, the information he rushed off with is going to be all conjecture.
Analysis of the Information
When analyzing the information it is important to think critically about the problem and to decide what information is most relevant (Pherson, 2013). A good analytic thinker will know when it is wise to challenge assumptions, when to consider alternative explanations, and when to realize that the data is inconsistent. The best way to analyze is to look at the key drivers that best explain what happened. In this case, the best explanation for what happened is that the truss failed because it was overloaded, as stated by the engineers and that there is nothing surprising here or necessarily bad for the company. The truss did exactly what it was designed to do up to the threshold it was designed to do it. But what about the injured worker? The best explanation here is that the worker or the manager likely was not following safety protocol. That is something that still needs to determined as the data is incomplete.
The sales people are upset because they have made promises to clients and they want to be sure that those clients are satisfied. If the trusses are delayed for more testing because owners are scared about the trusses’ quality, it means sales will fall. So it has to be determined whether the extra testing is actually needed. Is it being called for just because owners are nervous, given what happened with the worker being injured? Or is the testing needed because it has not been done sufficient to industry standards? These are questions that have to be answered.
One should not make decisions based on information that is not relevant. The injury of the worker should not be regarded as relevant to the problem of the trusses. The trusses are either meeting expectations or they are not. They have either been tested sufficiently and found to meet their weight threshold or they have not. Those two questions need to be settled. The worker’s injury should not factor in to how the company thinks about its trusses.
Consideration of Alternative Viewpoints and Conclusions
However, if one is going to factor in the injury of the worker, one can explore alternative viewpoints, such as that of the worker who ran off to the public to give news about the company’s situation. It is possible that this worker did so because he was concerned about the stakeholders. The act may not have been malicious. Perhaps there is more to what is going on than what has been reported so far. Perhaps the worker who was injured was following safe protocol and yet he was still injured. That is something that needs to be investigated. If it is found that the safety protocols were followed, then they either need to be improved or the issue with the broken truss needs to be explored further. Perhaps it was not expected that the truss would break the way it did. If not, it should be put to the engineers so that they can give their opinion on the matter.
The sales people are likely to have their own viewpoints as well. They are coming from the standpoint of business relationships and contracts. If they promise buyers that a truss will be available to them by a certain date they want to be able to make good on that promise. It is all a part of being true to one’s word. If they go back on their word, they may never make another sale to the client again. The standpoint of the sales people has to be considered. Can the company proceed in a safe and timely manner so that the sales people are not left hanging out to dry? That is another question that has to be asked.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Once the data is gathered and all the questions are answered, the company will be able to proceed sufficiently with addressing the issue. Since the data is still incomplete at this time, some recommendations can be given based on what is known.
First off, the company has to find out whether the trusses are maintaining weight at the threshold that has been promised to consumers. If so, and if the trusses have been tested sufficiently, there is no reason to panic just because a worker has been injured. That injury is a separate issue. What matters is that the trusses are doing what they were designed to do and are doing what the public has been told they will do. If this is all accurate then the truss sales can go ahead and the sales people have nothing to worry about.
Secondly, if the injured worker was hurt through his own fault then that is one thing. If, however, the worker was following safety protocol at the time, that is another thing altogether. If the worker was not following protocol, then it has to be determined why he was not. Did he not know? Was he negligent? Was management not paying attention? Who is at fault and what should be done? If protocol was not followed, someone will have to take the blame. Either more training is needed, or better enforcement is needed.
If the worker was following protocol and protocol still failed to protect him that means protocol has to be improved. It is no one’s fault—it is just that protocol has been insufficient in foreseeing possible dangers. That can be addressed through upgrading the protocol.
Finally, there is the problem of the worker scandalizing the public. This worker should be interviewed to see what his motivations were. If he is concerned about the company, he should understand that the company cannot be sold out in this manner. Information has to be considered rightly before allegations are made. The worker must not appear to be a martyr, who was fired for brining important information to the public. If the information was wrong or inappropriately shared, that is something that management can address separately. The worker should not be fired in retaliation, but if there are problems that require the worker to be fired, that is another issue.
References
Pherson, R. H. (2013). The five habits of the master thinker. Journal of Strategic Security, 6(3), 54–60.