COURSE: LEADERSHIP, ENGAGEMENT, AND PEOPLE PERFORMANCE

CASE STUDY: THE TEAM THAT WASN’T

Project Submission Template

Student Name: Simran Agarwal

Question I 1. A brief summary of the problems faced by FineArt (100- 150

words)
are the problems that are detected in the team of Fire Art:
1. Lack of Cohesion: There is no cohesion & synergy among
the teammembers which further leads to the inefficiency of
performance of theteam.
2. Lack of Mutual understanding: There is no mutual
understandingamong the members of the team because there
was no clear goal setfor them.
3. Difference in Contextual Backgrounds: Eric selected the
teammembers of different contextual backgrounds.
4. Superiority complexes: The team members selected by Eric
are ofvarious levels of hierarchy such as Randy pertains from
the top level ofhierarchy, whereas, Ray pertains to lower middle
level of hierarchy.
5. Personal Biasness: After comprehensively analyzing the
case, itseems that Randy is only considered about gaining only
his personaladvantage, rather than working as a team.6. Lack of
team learning: The team members in the team are unable togain
advantage as well as they are also unable to learn from each
other.Since the most senior member in the team, Randy, is only
busy in leg COURSE: LEADERSHIP, ENGAGEMENT, AND
PEOPLE PERFORMANCE CASE STUDY: THE TEAM
THAT WASN'T Project Submission TemplateStudent Name:
Vishnu V Dev Question I 1.A brief summary of the problems
faced by FineArt (100- 150 words) Following are the problems
that are detected in the team of Fire Art: 1. Lack of Cohesion:
There is no cohesion & synergy among the team members
which further leads to the inefficiency of performance of the
 team. 2. Lack of Mutual understanding: There is no mutual
understanding among the members of the team because there
was no clear goal set for them. 3. Difference in Contextual
Backgrounds: Eric selected the team members of different
contextual backgrounds. 4. Superiority complexes: The team
members selected by Eric are of various levels of hierarchy
such as Randy pertains from the top level of hierarchy, whereas,
Ray pertains to lower middle level of hierarchy. 5. Personal
Biasness: After comprehensively analyzing the case, it seems
that Randy is only considered about gaining only his personal
advantage, rather than working as a team. 6. Lack of team
learning: The team members in the team are unable to gain
advantage as well as they are also unable to learn from each
other. Since the most senior member in the team, Randy, is only
busy in leg
pulling of other team members and does not share his skills and
expertise with other team members. 7. Lack of rewards: There
is no rewarding structure in the team, neither monetary nor non-
monetary, this has decreased the overall motivational level of
team members, which has further decreased the overall level of
commitment and dedication among the team members

Question II 2. List and elaborate on two ways which Eric Holt and CEO Jack
Derry can take in order to intrinsically and extrinsically
motivate the team.  (200 – 250 words)
a. Intrinsic motivators and its elaboration
b. Extrinsic motivators and its elaboration

Eric (Team Leader)—New to company, unproven, experience in

consulting, hadn’t earned trust with long service team members •
Randy- Self Made Man, only trusted himself. • Maureen—Upset, due
to perceived lack of respect for her department. • Ray— lack of formal
education. • Carl—new to company. • Eric has a Roadblock in Randy
due to behavior, non-team Player. • No team-building exercise
conducted for the members No Good Communication, Teamwork
Skills, and Open-mindedness. Eric Holt: • New to company Eric Holt
being as the Director of Strategy. • Experience in consulting, not in
leadership management. • Unable to earn trust with long service
members of the team. • Dominated by the fact that Randy is "The
Horsepower" • Eric failed to set expectations with the team members.•
No personal connection, understanding, capabilities with team
members. • Eric did not report Randy's situation to Jack (CEO). • No
team building activity, so everyone known each other better way

Randy Louderback: • Randy- Only trusted himself. Self-Made Man. •

Randy is essential to team both for knowledge and he has support from
the CEO. • Aggressor, Recognition, Self-Confessor. • can’t fire and
kick him off the team. Essential for team’s success. • When not
satisfied with team discussion, obstructs the flow of meeting, or pass
unethical remarks.

He believes if he can make it Independently so he can also upgrade the

FireArt Business. • Sometime his attitude was unprofessional The
FineArt Team led by Eric: • Lack of conflict resolution techniques:
Eric is unable to use conflict resolution techniques efficiently and
effectively to resolve the rising conflicts among the team members •
Lack of synergy: There is no synergy among the team members which
further leads to the inefficiency of performance of the team. • Lack of
motivation: The motivation level of the team members is very low.
Intrinsic level and Extrinsic level of motivation are quite less. Steps
that Eric should adopt. A. Short-term (1-3 months):• Leadership
qualities: Eric should display his leadership qualities by setting up an
agenda or mission statement of what they want to achieve and needs to
redefine his role in the group and take responsibility to act as team
leader. • Setting up a Goal post: Eric should set a goal post for the
 employee so that they can be targeted. • Define problem statement: Eric
needs to define the problem statement and understand his “art” and
“threshold capabilities” and develop emotional intelligence. B.
Medium-term (beyond 3 months) • Eric should create a stepwise
execution plan where progress is check in a series of meetings,
everyone contribution in each meeting is measured, implemented, and
rewarded

He should request Jake (CEO) to motivate its employees and make

them remember the mission statement of the company. • Eric should
define Randy's role in the team as it's causing lot of setbacks to the
company. • He should set up a reward system so employees can
contribute ideas to meeting, and make sure good ideas are
implemented.

Question III 3. Evaluate the 'conflict' and 'commitment' dysfunction of the

FineArt team quoting two strong instances from the case study
(150-200 words)
a. 2 instances of conflict dysfunction and its evaluation
b. 2 instances of commitment dysfunction and its
evaluation

Teams run on Commitment. Trust binds the team to work towards it

goals as a single unit without any self-proclamation. • There would be
open conflicts which can be harnessed in a good measure and turned
into a profit for the organization and binds the team more closely
 knitted. Every team member is bound to be committed to work on ideas
and plans towards the betterment of the organization and therefore
creates a Good Teamwork result. Conflictresolution:• Eric should
ensure conflict resolution measures to ensure a balance between the
team members and Randy. • Techniques such as Avoiding, Competing,
Collaborating, Accommodating, Compromising • Eric should define
Randy's place in the meeting and should make sure that randy does not
undermine any other employee or disrupt them while they are
presenting their ideas. • The Team should talk about his perspective
and ideas and invite randy to talk about his ideas while Eric should
summarize the opinions presented in the meeting by the team and
randy

Question IV 4.
a. Analyse Jack Derry as an inspirational leader of his
organisation under sensing, relating, visioning and
executing (100-150 words)
b. Recommend any changes or alternative steps that Jack
Derry could have taken to be a more effective leader
(100-150 words)

Jack as the grandnephew of the company’s founder hold the quality of

vision and had the same vision for the company, Family-owned maker
of wine goblets, beer steins, ashtrays, and other glass novelties had
succeeded as a high-quality product. He wanted to be in the market as a
leader in high-quality product but due to newer technologies, new
companies had begun to enter FireArt’s niche so in order to handle this
situation he wants to have a new direction where they can continue to
be market leader and increase revenue. Jack was able to sense of the
available information and assimilating it to predict outcomes.
Thorough internal and external information he was able to find the
reason why company is suffering the flat sales and earnings. Through
his statement it was clear he has the great sensing capability: “Large
national glass companies had been able to make money only through
mass production. Now, however, thanks to new technologies in the
glassmaking industry, those companies could execute short runs
profitably.” Jack knows the internal working of your organization, as
he refers Eric with few people recommendation in the organization that
can help him in his task. Jack speaks to people and refer to their
feedback while making decisions considering his conversation with
Eric. But when it comes to clearly communicating the instruction Jack
has failed because while talking to Eric Jack made a statement
“strategic realignment” which was not clean and lagged clear objective
point it out. 1. Sensing: • Jack Derry was quick to realize that moving
forward growth can only be achieved when the internal working of
organization is improved. • He was embracing the change that were
happening in the market and how national glass companies were
entering in the company’s niche market. He went out and got Eric, who
had a shared understanding of the market, on board to help him during
this period of change. • Though he did not take active participation
once Eric took over and did not have firsthand information of what
issues were prevailing in the team. 2. Relating: • Jack Derry was very
low on the relating aspect of leadership. He did not seek to be
reassuring, especially in the time of crisis and did not try to reach out to
the people at Fire Art. • From the case it is very clear that there was
lack of strategical and operational networking between the leader of
difference departments and absence of nontransactional relationship,
which indirectly stems from a poor leadership where jack did not
encourage networking in the organization. 3. Visioning: • Jack Derry
could do a lot more when it came to visioning. His plan for coming up
with a plan for company’s strategic realignment up, running and
winning with in 6 months was vague and lacked any specific timelines
and expectations associated with them, nor had any vision.

He could have adopted Hoshin planning approach. He did take a right

decision by appointing Eric, foreseeing the challenges that were in
existence. 4. Executing: • Jack Derry was satisfactory when it came to
execution part of leadership. He mobilized a team to work on the issue
at hand to achieve positive overall growth. • He could have been
proactive in being part of team’s meeting and discuss different
perspectives from them in person. Performance metrics of the progress
of the project should be discussed. Jack should also create an open
platform to have a common forum to discuss execution plans.
B.Recommend any changes or alternative steps that Jack Derry could
have taken to be a more effective leader (100-150 words) Executing is
all about turning plans into action in order to achieve the intended
outcomes and mobilizing teams to do so which Jack was not able to
show as a Leader. ● Jack was not having open conversations with
stakeholders to discuss perspectives about the crises, ● Jack was not
involved in team meeting set-up by Eric. ● He was not around to
answer stakeholder’s questions.

As Leader Who is executing should be able to freeze decisions and

communicating them to the organization: But Jack was not involved in
decision making and left everything on Eric.From the CEO level, the
goal to Eric is not clear. Eric, as a team leader, did not adjust the
vagueness of the goal or establish a new one in the building phase. He
tried to hold the members to an agenda only based on the CEO’s
charge: “to have a comprehensive plan for strategic realignment,
running, and winning within six months.” Consequently, the members
do not understand the purpose of the Strategic realignment and what
are the criteria or the result to be used to evaluate the win of the
strategic realignment. All the members failed to understand why they
should work together and why teamwork is more significant than
individual contribution. The CEO Jack Derry, should have attended
some of their meetings so that not only the team members would have
a clearer understanding of their objective. CEO Jack Derry, should be
able to communicate to stakeholders the requirements and actions
needed. To list out the plan. • Jack Derry should elucidate the objective
to Eric. Performance metric of the progress of the project should be
discussed with the team with consensus. • Jack could have some open
table discussion with the team members elected by Eric different
opinion in open forum. • Define role of randy as team participant of his
brilliancy rather than confirming as horsepower. • Do daily meetings
with eric and take regular feedback of team members. • Provide more
room to Eric on Randy point of view in organization.

Bringing all together as a collective effort of all team members for

betterment for the organization. • Eric should arrange for the CEO to
attend the meeting. • Eric should be firmer to make sure whether Randy
wants to work as it is described? If no, Eric should accept Randy’s
resignation. • The team should focus on developing a mission
statement. • Eric should try to create a useful and compatible role for
Randy