The CEO of a telephone company has been under public pressure from city official

Question

The CEO of a telephone company has been under public pressure from city officials to fix the large number of of public pay phones that do not work. The company's repair people complain that the problem is vandalism and damage caused by theft of coins from coin boxes--particularly in high crime areas in the city. The CEO says she wants the problem solved and has pledged to city officials that there will be substantial improvement by the end of the year. To ensure that this is done, she makes the managers in charge of installing and maintaining pay phones responsible for increasing the percentage of public pay phones that are fully functional. Describe actions that managers might take to show improvement in the performance measure but which do not actually lead to improvement in the organization's overall performance.

Explanation / Answer

Possible actions that could decrease performance:

Managers could install fewer phones, making it easier to maintain a smaller number of phones, but reducing the actual number of phones available.

Managers could install phones only in areas where they had little likelihood to be damaged, thereby limiting pay phone access in ‘riskier’ neighborhoods where they are most needed.

Recommendations:

Add a performance objective that requires X number of phones installed.

Establish a minimum number of phones installed within each of the geographic areas served.

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