Edward Norris and the Baltimore Police Department (B)

Abstract

This undisguised case deals with the topic of extraordinary leadership and managing crime-fighting as a business. It offers students an opportunity to design and explore a large-scale organizational change initiative and develop a comprehensive action plan for managing it. Ed Norris, an assistant commissioner in the NYPD who supervises more than 40,000 officers and is credited with assisting in the turnaround in New York's crime scene, is offered a similar job in Baltimore supervising 3,000 officers in the worst crime-laden city in America. The challenges include entrenched crime, racial tension, declining population, negative effects on business, underfunding, critical media, low arrest rates, and a police department with underused resources and a dysfunctional organization and culture. In the A case, students are asked to lay out their action plan for dealing with the situation and, in so doing, have to wrestle with most of the issues in managing large-scale organizational change. The B case (UVA-OB-0777) presents Norris's plan and proposed changes so students can compare their action plans with that of the actual leader. This case series has been taught very successfully as a two-day class. Both cases include extensive video clips for both student preparation and faculty use in class. Although similar to the Chicago Park District series (UVA-OB-0618 through UVA-OB-0621), this series is 10 years newer.