Simmons Case StudyIn the year 2001, the Simmons Bedding Company was experiencing economic difficulties, which needed to be addressed for the company to maintain operation. Charlie Eitel, CEO of Simmons made the decision that the company had to make changes to its culture. A major change Charles Eitel contemplated was implementing the Great Game of Life (GGOL) program into the company. Introducing the GGOL program into the company will bring about positive changes to the company that will boost employee morale, employee performance, and subsequently improve the Simmons’ company.
Simmons Background
The Simmons Bedding Company is one of the biggest mattress and bed related products manufacturer in the United States. Simmons was founded in 1870, when Zalmon G. Simmons opened his first factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The company’s ability to mass produce beds since 1875 enabled the company to grow into one of the biggest companies in the United States (Casciaro & Edmonson, 2007).
In the year 2001, The Simmons Company was facing hard times. It had lost three major customers, the US economy was suffering, and Simmons had to get rid of foam using for bed cushioning because it was bad inventory. In addition, Charles Eitel the CEO had discovered that there was friction between manufacturing plants and low morale throughout many of the company factories. Charles Eitel wanted to make significant changes to the culture of the Simmons Company. One of changes that has been debated is whether the costly Great Game of Life (GGOL) program should be implemented to change the company’s culture (Casciaro & Edmonson, 2007).
The Great Game of Life (GGOL)
The Great Game of Life (GGOL) is a program developed by Larry Wilson, from Wilson Consulting. The program use psychological and sociological actions to build cohesive teams in the workplace. The program creates situations, where success is dependent on the employee’s ability to work together (Whitcomb, 2007)….