Oilwell Cable Company, originally known as Chord Cable Company based in New Jersey, has been acquired by new management and moved to Lawrence, Kansas. The original manager behind this move was Gino Strappoli, who designed a corporate structure that determined the company's success. His vision for the company was that everyone had some responsibility, right down to the production workers. One of the reasons behind this approach was that it was a continuous production process involving many decisions involving employees on site. In just a few years the company broke even and actually achieved significant milestones. In 1985, Gino left for another position and was replaced by production manager Bill Russell, whose position in turn was replaced by Norm St. Laurent. Bill Russell continued to run the company according to Gino Strappoli's principles, until the company reached a crisis point due to the stagnation of the economy and particularly the oil industry. Subsequently, some changes were made to the management process. Subsequently, the company's management was faced with the decision whether to continue operating in the same way as before or to let management make more decisions, without the involvement of the teams and employees in general. The response from employees was such that although they appreciate management consulting them on certain aspects of the business, they would not like to have certain responsibilities and would also like not to be involved in certain decisions that could be resolved without them. Because of this situation Norman St. Laurent, production manager, was faced with a decision: whether to proceed with the microp... half of the paper... 1, if their numbers were actually increasing. According to their management model and based on their previous history (growth spurt 1985-1989), they would have hired more people as production increased and would not have fired people. My recommendation for Norm would be to continue to engage teams on major decisions such as introducing microprocessor conversion, however on smaller scale projects; I wouldn't involve the teams. I would also work on creating a team that acts as a project management team as a buffer group between the management and the teams and involves them heavily in decision making and getting feedback from the teams. This would make the entire decision-making process smoother and faster and allow management to make the decision, receiving feedback from the teams, but without involving them in the actual decision..