The Team That Wasnt Eric Holt realized when entering FineArt, Inc.

that changes needed to be in order to build the company back up from where it used to be. He was failing though in his change vision because he did not accurately establish a sense of urgency nor did he create a guiding coalition without snakes and egos. Establishing a Sense of Urgency In his book, Leading Change, Kotter argues that With urgency low, its difficult to put together a group with enough power and credibility to guide the effort or to convince key individuals to spend the time necessary to create and communicate a change vision. What is meant by this argument is that even in the rare cases in which there is a recognizable committed group inside the canyon of complacency, where they can identify the direction for change, to reorganize, and so forth sooner or later, no matter how hard they push and threaten, if others dont feel the same sense of urgency, the momentum for change will probably die far short of the finish line. The people resisting the change will find a thousand ways to withhold cooperation from a process that, in their minds, they sincerely think is unnecessary or wrongheaded. Eric Holt should have seen this from the get-go in Randy. From the first meetings that Eric held, he had set an agenda and tried to keep the discussions on track, but Randy always seemed to find a way to disrupt the change process. He would constantly shoot down other peoples ideas, or he would simply just not pay attention. If questions were directed to him, he would answer them vaguely by simply saying, Ill have my assistant look into it when he gets a moment. When asked important questions about sales and revenues he would often answer with sarcastic comments avoiding the real problem at hand every time.

Eric often overlooked his negative comments because every once in awhile Randy would pop in occasional comments that were so insightful that they would stop the conversation cold or turn it around entirely. These comments demonstrated that Randy was extraordinarily bright about his competitors, the technology, and the customers buying behavior, but the help would not last long and Randy would quickly revert to his role as team renegade. His resistance to change and interact with the rest of the group was becoming a huge problem in the vision to change the company. When others, such as Maureen and Carl, started to speak Randy would bring the meetings to an unpleasant halt by letting out loud groans or mocked enthusiasm on ways to change the entirety of the company. Soon after his remarks others would become uncomfortable and return to theirs seats not wanting to finish their presentations. Momentarily after Randys outbursts other team members would excuse themselves one by one, saying they had other meetings to attend until the room became empty. With Randy unconvinced by the other team members that change was needed, urgency remained low and the group did not have enough power and credibility to guide the effort to spend the time necessary to create and communicate a change vision. Creating the Guiding Coalition In his book, Leading Change under the section Qualities to Avoid-Or Manage Carefully, Kotter argues that there are two types of individuals that should be avoided at all costs when putting together a guiding coalition. The first have egos that fill up a room, leaving no space for anybody else. The second are what Kotter calls snakes, people who create enough mistrust to kill teamwork. At Senior levels in most organizations, people have large egos. But unless they also have a realistic sense of their weaknesses and limitations, unless they can appreciate

complementary strengths from others, and unless they can subjugate their immediate interests to some greater goal, they will probably contribute about as much to a guiding coalition as does a nuclear waste. With this type of person one cane usually kiss teamwork and the transformation goodbye. Randy follows this definition to a tee. He continually mocks his teammates in meetings, shooting down their ideas or making them feel stupid for even thinking that their effort to change will even work. If he shows up to meetings he is often late with no viable excuse simply raising his coffee cup as if it is explanation enough for his tardiness. Randys biggest problem with his ego is his involvement in the team. Randy spoke out to a fellow teammate at one meeting after Ray told him to his face that he simply did not care about the change vision. Randy replied, Quite the contraryI care very much, I just dont believe this is how change should be made. A brilliant idea never came out of a team. Brilliant ideas come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization to implement them. Randy honestly believed that individuals do great work and that teams were pointless in executing the vision. Randy believed that he was, in a sense, better than everyone else and no longer needed to prove anything to the company and thought that groups were pointless. After the outburst from all the other team members, Eric broke the silence by saying to him that he needed Randys help and Randy agreed to behave from now on, but as he sat back with a smirk on his face Eric was suddenly struck with a thought in the back of his head. Perhaps Randys personality and his past experiences simply made it impossible for him to participate in the delicate process of ego surrender that any kind of teamwork requires.

Unless Eric addresses the following problems discussed in the above sections, he can expect that the company will continue to fail in its vision to change the company and bring it back up to revenues and sales that FineArt, Inc. once had.