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论文题目：IFY Leadership Assignment 4
IFY Business Assignment 4 Title: Contrasting management styles at Campbell Soup and Quaker Oats Task Weighting: 5% for Business, 10% for EAP Guidelines: Submission Date: The Campbell Soup and Quaker Oats companies are two of the largest and best known food manufacturers in the United States. In the 1990s, however, they performed very differently. While Campbell's performance and stock price boomed, Quaker's declined, largely analysts believe because of differences in the way the companies were managed and the characteristics of the people who managed them, Campbell's chief executive officer (CEO), its top manager, is David W .Johnson, an easygoing, approachable Australian who enjoys dressing up and interacting with his employees. Once, for example, he donned a red cape and dubbed himself "Souperman" while leading a rally to energize his employees. Johnson is a master at communicating his vision for Campbell's and for mobilizing the support of his managers and employees to achieve that vision. First, Johnson sets ambitious "stretch" goals for his managers to achieve, such as finding~new ways to reduce costs or using the company's resources to introduce new products for customers. Then he delegates authority and makes his managers responsible for devising a plan of action to meet these challenging goals. He holds them strictly accountable for their actions and closely watches the numbers, because changes in sales and profits reflect how well the managers are doing. Over 1,200 of Campbell's managers receive large bonuses tied to the company's performance. The success of Johnson's carefully crafted management approach is reflected in the numbers: Campbell's earnings increased by 19 percent in each of the six years after he took over, and its stock price more than doubled. Quaker Oats did not enjoy the same kind of success. Because of the company's poor performance, CEO William D. Smithburg had to fight to keep his job. The price of the company's stock did not increase for five years, and analysts think that a major reason for this sluggishness is Smithburg's approach to management. His management style is very different from Johnson's. Remote and distant from his employees, in the 1980s Smithburg used his powerful analytical skills to make brilliant tactical decisions. Like Johnson, Smithburg had always been a manager who made the big decisions and then left his managers to implement them. But when the problems facing Snapple became serious, he became increasingly involved in the day-today running of Snapple. He blamed his top executives for Snapple's problems and started to assume their responsibilities. When Snapple's problems got worse, he fired the Snapple management team and took full control over the management of the product.#p#分页标题#e# Smithburg's actions on the people front totally demoralized Quaker Oats's managers, and outside analysts began to wonder whether he had the interpersonal skills needed to manage the troubled company. Analysts also began to question his analytical abilities. Why did Smithburg pay $1.7 billion for Snapple, when most other people thought it was worth only $700 million at most? Analysts think that he was much too confident about his ability to understand the beverage business and to duplicate the success of Gatorade. ln 1997, Quaker Oats sold Snapple to Triarc Corporation for only $300 million, a huge loss.
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