Anja Rosengaard Fog 20.12.

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Yahoo case analysis


Written by Anja Rosengaard Fog
Ba Information Management
Introduction to Organizational Communication
Mareike Buss
Characters: 9618
Hand in 20.12.2013


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Yahoo case analysis
Introduction
The American internet corporation Yahoo, has for the past years been struggling to keep the
company in balance. Yahoo employees have been victims of constantly changes of leadership
and top management and have been dragged in different directions in desperate attempts to
do right. In 2012, new CEO Marissa Mayer became in charge of the company, and finally
cultural change within the company seemed to go in a positive direction (Yeung K., 2013).
How does leadership, power and control influence changes in organizational culture? And
which efforts needs to be improved to gain employee participation? These questions will be
elaborated on through a cultural perspective in this paper.
Theoretical framework
To understand the perspectives of the influence that leadership can cause, one need to be
aware of the definition of a leader. Schein, E. H. (2010) describes leadership as someone who
influence others behavior and thereby someone who is capable of creating a new
organizational culture if needed. Therefore, the culture within an organization is often an image
of the given leadership. As a leader, some major tools become important, Schein, E. H. (2010)
proposes both primary- and secondary tools, which have an impact on how the company can
think and operate. Especially primary tools, as how the leaders focus their attention, and deals
with organizational crisis, are both important thoughts toward the leadership within Yahoo.
Another important aspect of leadership is the employee participation within the organizational
culture. To affect the employee participation, Stohl, C. & Cheney, G. paradoxes of power,
especially the paradox of leadership becomes an essential element, because it helps one to
understand how to manage the paradox efficient.
Leadership with its belonging power and control, and the employee participations often
controlled thereby, can lead to the consequences of an organizational change. To understand
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how the organizational change within Yahoo can go in a positive direction, the theory of Larkin,
T.J and Larkin, S., 1996, is suitable. The theory explains, through three components, how an
effective change should proceed.
Through these foregoing approaches and theories about leadership, power and organizational
change, an analysis of how the leadership within the internet corporation Yahoo, lead to an
organizational change is now more foreseeable.
Analysis
Before the current CEO Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, four others in the same position have
desperately tried to affect and change the company into success (K. Yeung, 2013). Yahoo was
falling behind its competitors in the market, they had too many visions, and none of the
previous CEOs seemed to be able to realize them. Unsustainable products were on the market,
and the popularity of the services was declining. (Yeung, K., 2013, p. 5).
Yahoos difficulties continued because of the shifting leadership. In four years four different
CEOs were replaced of one another (Yeung, K., 2013, p. 1, 2). The problem was the difference
in how they focused their attention on the visions for the company. People were fired, which
made the CEOs visions even harder to realize, and employees began to build a resistance to the
changes that were implemented.
One could argue that the primary tool, in how to use attention to implement visions and work
structure proposed by Schein, E. H. (2010) was failing repeatedly. The CEOs were not specific
enough in their actions to make the employees believe in them and therefore nothing
happened.
When Marissa Meyer became CEO, she made her vision very clear through her attention to
mobile service. As Schein, E. H. (2010, p.237) argues, the most powerful mechanism is the
attention. If one pays attention to certain things repeatedly, the attention can communicate a
message and implement the leaders vision to the employees. This was exactly what Marissa
Mayer did. She cut down on services to sharpen her focus on the mobile effort, and bought a
range of small companies that should bolster her vision. She also initiated the idea Series of
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sprint which was her plan and guideline to turn the company around. The idea consisted of
three major focus points. The first was great people, which she believed the company needed
to fulfill point number two, which was great products. When these two goals were realized,
they together could create the core one, advertising business (Indvik, L., 2013, p. 7). By this
idea, Marissa Mayer showed the employees that they were needed to make this goal a reality.
Employees had earlier left the company because of the shifting leadership, but were now
coming back, because of Marissa Meyers effort to improve focus through her attention and
employee participation. By letting, the employees test the new products, her focus points were
implemented at the same time as the employee interest and belief in the company was
increased (Yeung, K., 2013, p.4).
When a company like Yahoo faces a crisis, the underlying assumptions are revealed by the way
the leader deals with the crisis. Therefore, underlying assumptions can create new norms and
culture change within the company. Schein, E. H. (2010) argues that a company crisis results in
employee anxiety; therefore an attempt from the leader to reduce anxiety is a powerful
motivating tool for the employees. Marissa Mayer can be seen as using this primary tool, by
introducing afternoon FYIs, which is a weekly ritual, where employees have the chance to ask
any questions to Marissa Mayer and the rest of the top management (Stone, B.,2013, p.8).
Thereby, the employees got knowledge and visibility of what was going on within Yahoo,
getting knowledge of the unknown can reduced anxiety and resistance toward organizational
change.
The paradoxes of leadership described by Stohl, C. & Cheney, G., show that the employee
participation will improve, if the leader is charismatic and inspiring and has the ability to
maintain democracy (Stohl, C. & Cheney, G., 2001). The weekly FYI meetings prove that
Marissa Mayer made an effort to maintain democracy within the work culture. She too made
an internal online service where employees could complain about things within the
organization. She has done two things at Yahoo She has made it an attractive place for top
talent to work, and she has begun to release products that engage consumers on a daily basis
Says Ben Ling, a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures and a former Google colleague
(Stone, B., 2013, p.8).
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From this quote, one can see that Marissa Mayers hard work in improving the work culture
within Yahoo is paying off. People are more attracted to the company than before. This is a big
step forward for her visions of the three sprint, because top talent employees, is what make
the company able to achieve the second goal of great products.

Larkin T.J. and Larkin S., propose through their theory how to communicate a change into
success, and how to avoid resistance, for companies facing necessary changes in order to
survive. The theory of Larkin, T.J. and Larkin, S., consists of three components. (Larkin, T.J and
Larkin S., Harvard Business review, 1996). Number one; communicate only facts instead of
talking in values, which otherwise often is proposed because top management think that the
employees wants the changes revealed in numbers. Number two; Communicate face-to-face,
top management should not relay on video conferences and big meetings, they should be
personal, and make sure that the employees understand as individuals what the organizational
change would mean to them. Number three; Target Frontline employees, those who actually
makes the products and delivers the service. It is important to communicate the change in a
right way to those employees, who will feel the change in their work- process and culture
(Larkin, T.J and Larkin, S., Harvard Business review, 1996).
If one takes a look at Marissa Mayers leadership within Yahoo the theory by Larkin, T.J. and
Larkin, S., can be seen implemented. Especially those employees who work within the division
called Mobile and Emerging products, which exceeds 300 people, experience the principles
described in this theory. Here they have certain goals to reach, communicated as facts. By this,
employees from the division knows the change they are facing, is not measured in value but in
goals to pursue. The mission is to build the largest software-only mobile development team in
the world and to create applications based on Yahoos commonly used Web services, such as its
Fantasy Football League and the feed of headlines and entertainment news on its homepage,
says Adam Cahan the top manager of the division (Stone, B., 2013, p. 10). From this quote, the
change is seen communicated as visions for the division. This makes it possible for the
employees to understand and relate to, opposed reverse to strict values expected achieved in a
certain amount of time.
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In the example from the Mobile and Emerging products division, one can also see results of the
face-to-face component. Marissa Mayers focuses on the personal attention, where she uses
her energy to encourage the employees to work faster and think bigger. She even chooses to
use a big part of the office wall, with the purpose of showing the product launches and
suggestions for apps to engage employees in Yahoos visions (Stone, B., 2013, p. 11).This could
also be seen as a powerful motivator toward the employee participation as well. Thereby,
Marissa Mayer manages to focus on both face- to- face communication and to reach out to
frontline employees, as Larkin, T.J. and Larkin, S., proposed as an efficient way to achieve
successful organizational change.
Through an insight within Yahoos organization, the different approaches and theories, gives
one a better understanding, of what the company is going through, and which improvements
that have been made, to affect the company into an positive organizational change. Therefore,
it is now more convenient to look at the consequences and conclusions.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that Yahoo has been plagued with difficulties, and that the declining
popularity has frightened both top management and the employees. The tense situation
resulted in anxiety within the work culture and drastic decisions made by CEOs in an attempt to
save Yahoo. Thus, it seems to be just specific modifications, which could be the answer to the
turnaround.
Marissa Mayer had a clear vision for Yahoo and she put all her energy in reaching out to every
employee so they were convinced that they could realize this vision together. She used her
attention to implement her thoughts in the companys work culture and made it visibility within
Yahoo. This should reduce the anxiety and improve the employee participation.
She wanted to be face to face with everybody, so that employees could perform his or her best.
Marissa Mayer believed in the project so much that she made employees, both current and
former ones believe in it too. A new organizational culture is growing due to her leadership.
Thus of cause it is a longer process to turn a company around from crisis to success, Marissa
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Mayer uses her power as a leader to inspire people to participate in the democracy within the
culture of Yahoo. Her vision is to change Yahoo into something greater, and therefore her
leadership becomes a reflection of the changes in the organizational culture.



















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Bibliography
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Stohl C. & Cheney G., Communication and the Dilemmas of Organizational Democracy,
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