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INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT NAGPUR

Managing People and Performance in Organizations (MPPO)
PGP 2020-22, Term-I, End-term Exam

Name: Roll No.

Duration: 1.5 Hours (90 minutes) Maximum Marks: 40

Instructions for the Students:

i. This is an open book/notes/internet examination.
ii. The space for the answers is provided in the exam sheet. Students are advised not
to cross the page limit. Exceeding the given space will result in negative marks
iii. Students will type their answers in the given document
iv. Guidelines for typing - Font: Times New Roman, Font size: 12, Margin: Normal,
Line spacing: 1.15, Text colour: Black

Please write specific and comprehensive answers for the following questions based on the
class discussions, textbook, and readings assigned in the Managing People and Performance
in Organizations (MPPO) course. Support your answers with specific concepts discussed in
the course. Answer any four (4) questions. All questions carry 10 (ten) marks each.

Q.1: Jon Snow is a manager of a team that is taking a long time to move through the
Storming stage. There are two individuals on the team, Sansa and Robb Stark, who seem to
be unproductive when dealing with conflict and are holding the team back. What are your
suggestions for Jon Snow to help the team move through conflict management and begin
Norming and Performing? Use your insights from the case discussion ‘The team that wasn’t’.

First of all Jon Snow should look at the factors that affect team effectiveness and see how
these factors are balanced here so that the team can be effective. The composition, context
and purposes of the team formation should be very clear and both Sansa and Robb should
also know about these dynamics.

If storming occurs then again Jon can ask about the causes of these incidents to the 2
employees themselves as well as take an opinion from the other employees of the
organization as to what is the exact cause of these problems. Storming can occur due to
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differences in working styles and opinions and those can be talked and sorted out by mutual
understanding and cooperation. Also care should be taken to see that personal biases and
cultural differences are not the reasons these two are not able to work well with the team and
are unable to show team spirit.

Small tasks and projects can be given to the team so that the two people can work and interact
without taking too much stress. Gradually with all this the team can go on to norming.

If the team members are able to understand each other’s abilities and limitations then
norming becomes faster and easier.

However the main responsibility in all these activities must be Jon. He must ensure that team
bonding and team spirit develops. As we have seen in the team that wasn’t, Eric somehow
lacked in his pro activeness to talk with Randy. Randy took matters for granted and
ultimately the entire team was affected due to it. Even though Eric knew everything his lack
of taking initiative ultimately led to a very bad fallout.

So to effective in teams it is important to build an environment of trust and mutual

understanding as well as make sure that team players have cohesion within themselves.
Finally the leader should have regular feedback from the team and ensure that all ground
rules are being followed and the problematic behaviors of certain people stay in check.
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Q.2: Khal Drogo is a manager in a firm and two of his employees, Theon and Ramsey, are
blaming one another for a recent project not going well. What factors should Khal Drogo
consider in deciding whom to believe? Who else should Khal Drogo talk to before making a
decision? What should Khal Drogo do to try to reduce the likelihood of this happening again?

The things that Khal Drogo should do are-

First of all he should hold face to face discussions with both parties both individually and
together to cross check facts and arrive at a logical conclusion. He can also ask the other
office members while maintaining discretion as to form an opinion.

He should then understand why such error occurred and the particular needs of the employee
if any that caused this error. If there is some genuine concern that Theon and Ramsey have
then the matter maybe taken up linently. After this a common goal has to be setup that
required both the parties to again work simultaneously and give them a chance to be
productive.

After this if there are any barriers to achieving this common goal then those things should
also be looked and sorted out to avoid any differences further

With further talks and negotiations both Theon and Ramsey can be convinced to come to a
common resolution point where both there interests are being balanced. They can come at a
middle ground and sort out where and due to whom the problems occurred and how the risks
associated can be mitigated

Also Khal should see whether the conflict is a process conflict, relationship conflict or a task
conflict as each of these can affect the teams in different ways and also its identification and
situation due to which it arises becomes different.
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Q.3: Arya Stark works as a marketing executive at a pharmaceutical firm and often looks for
constant admiration from her manager every time she achieves a sales target. She also feels
that she is the best at her work, and no other advisor in her company has the ability or the
skills to sell the number of products that she can. Often during meetings and team-building
exercises, colleagues find her rude, distant, and antagonistic. What categories according to
the Big Five-Factor Model and other personality traits is Arya most likely to be characterized
by?

According to the big five model Arya Stark can be categorized as a person with high levels of
extraversion. Since she belongs to the sales department it can be assumed that she must be
meeting a lot of people and would need to interact a lot with them to achieve her targets.
However she is not very conscientious as she cannot be said to be very reliable and her
behavior is also not consistent with her colleagues.
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Another category in which she scores low would be agreeableness. She finds it difficult to
agree with people and the same can be said about her colleagues also. She doesn’t indulge in
collaboration and also doesn’t seem to be generous.

Regarding her openness to experience, it cannot be clearly defined without further data as we
don’t know how creative or innovative she is. Though we can presume she would have low
levels of tolerance. But it seems she might be someone who has a growth mindset as she has
done well for the company and is continuously looking to improve.

She has decent levels of Emotional stability though. She looks like someone who has
confidence and is resilient towards her work. She is self-conscious and manages to work
under stress as achieving targets in a high pressure sales job is an indicator of that.

Overall though she is not at all a good team player and should specifically work on her
intrapersonal and team building skills as these are very essential to work in an organisation
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Q.4: Mr. Tyrion was working in an administrative department as officer Administration. He

was responsible for keeping account of all the vehicles of the company apart from other
arrangements. Mr. Tyrion has been working in the company for six years in the same grade
without promotion. He was supposed to be very honest in his job. Once the general manager
of the factory, Mr. Jaime Lannister, requested for the company car during office time for his
personal work. Mr. Tyrion refused it saying that it cannot be given during the office hours as
the work would suffer. Mr. Lannister became quite upset and asked his boss Mr. Jorah
(Senior Manager Admin) permission to use the car. Mr. Jorah was very happy to oblige as
Mr. Lannister had employed one of his relatives as an employee in the factory. Hence, Mr.
Jorah shouted at Mr. Tyrion for his disobedience and threatened to transfer him to stores, if
he continued to show disrespect to senior officers. Mr. Tyrion was also an active member of
the staff union. He immediately went to union president and informed him about the misuse
of the company car for personal reasons by the General Manager at the cost of office work. It
was decided that Mr. Tyrion would send a note in writing to Mr. Jorah asking him to approve
sending the car to the house of Mr. Lannister.
What kind of power and power tactics were being used by Mr. Tyrion? What kind of
power was Mr. Jorah using? Explain the influence tactics/strategies used by Mr.
Lannister.
Mr. Lannister mainly used the fact that he had a higher authority and good relation with Mr.
Jorah to his own advantage.
Here Mr. lannister mainly used his informal power. He had no direct right to use the car but
using his influence with Mr. Jorah he could get his work done. He first tried to use rational
persuasion with Mr. Tyrion but failed as Tyrion was truthful and had integrity. He also used
personal appeal with Lannister but to no avail.
As for Mr. Jorah he was in a higher position and so used his formal power as a way to get the
car.he first appealed personally but then used ingratiation and punishment tactics to force Mr.
Tyrion to give the car. He also put a lot of pressure on Mr. Tyrion who was however not
intimidated by him and retaliated by talking to his union as using the car for personal purpose
was not the right thing to do.
As Mr. Tyrion was a union leader he used his coalition tactics to gather the support of his
coworkers and make the demand through official channels.
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Q.5: Ms. Daenerys Targaryen is the associate director of an NGO that aids children and
women. She heads the department that looks after the evaluation of training programs that the
NGO provides to children and women. She reports directly to the NGO leadership. As a
whole, the NGO has been cautious in hiring this year because of increased competition for
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funding from the government. However, they have also suffered from high staff turnover.
Two directors, three key research staff, and one staff person from the finance department
have left.

Ms. Daenerys has a demanding schedule that requires frequent travel; however, she
supervises two managers who in turn are responsible for five staff members each. Both
managers have been appointed within the last five months.

Manager 1: Bernadette has a specific background in research. She manages staff who
provide research support to another department that delivers counselling services to
women. Bernadette supports her staff and is very organized; however, she often takes a
very black and white view of issues. Upper-level leadership values Bernadette’s latest
research on the therapeutic division’s services. Bernadette is very motivated and driven
and expects the same from her staff.

Manager 2: Amy Farah Fowler has a strong background in humanities research and
evaluation. She manages employees that work on different projects within the NGO.
She is known as a problem solver and is extremely supportive of her employees. She is
very organized and has a wealth of experience in the evaluation of women services.
Amy is very capable and can sometimes take on too much.

The managers are sensing that employees are becoming overworked as everyone takes on
increased responsibilities due to high turnover. Employees have also mentioned that Ms.
Daenerys’s "glass half-empty" conversation style leaves them feeling dejected. In addition,
Ms. Daenerys has not shared budgets with her managers, so they are having difficulty
appropriately allocating work to staff. Ms. Daenerys says that she has not received enough
information from the finance department to complete the budgets. The finance department
says that they have sent her all the information they have available.

As employees become distressed, the managers are becoming frustrated. They feel like they
are unable to advocate for their staff or solve problems without crucial information like the
departmental budget.

Which leadership style do you think a leader would need to be effective in this
situation? Why?
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UNDERTAKING

I, Ascharya Debasish Mishra belonging to PGP batch 2020-2022 bearing roll number P20062 hereby
state that I haven’t used any unfair means while attempting the questions/paper.