OB-II Assignment (Individual)

Term II
PGP1 (2014-15)
Submitted by:
Barnendu Sarkar
2014PGP078
Section-H
1. What were the challenges you faced when working as a member of this group for this
subject? How did you manage these challenges?

Our group consisted of seven members with diverse educational and cultural backgrounds.
The level of demographic difference was very high as the members were from different
parts of the country like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and
Andhra Pradesh. But everyone was well accustomed with Hindi apart from me. The first
major problem which I faced as a part of this group was the language barrier. I am born and
brought up in Kolkata where Bengali is the major language followed by English. I completed
my graduation from Regional Engineering College, West Bengal where Hindi as a language
was not quite prevalent. Hence I was not well accustomed to communicating in Hindi which
emerged as the common language of communication in our group. Consequently I often felt
that I wasnt an integral part of the team and this was adversely affecting the group
cohesiveness. I was gradually being alienated by the group as its members started perceiving
me as an unsocial entity but no one actually knew where the real problem was. I decided to
come up with a solution to this problem as it was creating increasing stress in my social life.
One fine evening I invited everyone for tea in mess no. 2 and told them about the problem I
was facing upfront. I explained everyone the reason for not being able to participate
effectively in the informal team processes. The members did understand my problem and
emphasized on modifying this particular group norm by adopting English as the primary
language. It did take some time for the new group norm to emerge but eventually English
became the primary language of communication and I was able to participate effectively in
the formal as well as informal team processes. Over the course of time I also started taking
Hindi lessons from Kulmeet and due to his support I am not quite intimidated in
communicating in Hindi now..
Peer evaluation emerged as one of the major group norms. This increased the level of
competition among the team members in completing the assigned tasks with maximum
precision and perfection. Consequently I started to put even greater efforts towards the group
tasks assigned to me as an individual member. This gave birth to a new challenge which was
the inability to focus on my individual studies due to increased pressure of meeting the group
expectations. There were two ways of solving this problem. One was reducing my efforts
towards the group assignments and focussing on my individual studies. The second was
resorting to efficient time management. I chose the latter and I dealt with this problem by

eliminating low productive activities which consumed my time. I took the following steps to
effectively manage my time:

2.

I stopped wasting my time playing video games and started devoting that time
towards academics.
Instead of spending 1-2 hours a day talking over phone with my fiance, I cut down
the conversation period to just 30 minutes. She being a management student too
understood my problems readily and supported me with all she could.
I also made efforts to control my sleeping pattern. I slept around 8-9 hours a day
during my graduation days and the habit still remained. With the course of time I
reduced it to around 6-7 hours a day. It did take some time but finally I was able to
change my habits which helped in effectively accommodating group tasks as well as
individual studies within the 24 hour period of a day. All I have learnt through this
process is that time management is the key to success in a b-school.
Describe your interest in the subject and if there was any change in the interest
levels over the term.
Marketing Management was one subject I was really excited about, as I believed that
it would broaden my existing skillset regarding making presentations related to
quantitative and qualitative analysis pertaining to different industrial situations. Our
faculty Prof. Manoj Motiani also emphasized on the fact on how and what the
recruiters to IIM Indore expected, their respective feedback and how in-depth
knowledge related to marketing management and quantitative analysis could help
students be better prepared to convert those summer internships into prestigious Preplacement offers from the companies. It is a general trend that freshers mostly get
offers from the marketing domain. Being a fresher I was deeply motivated to put
maximum efforts towards this particular subject
For the purpose of evaluation we were asked to prepare reports pertaining to a wide
array of industrial situations involving rigorous data crunching and qualitative
analysis. The assignments given were very huge (in terms of data) and time
consuming. But still, the work seemed very interesting and challenging as the classes
for other courses had not yet started with full momentum. Due to the high level of
interest generated in me, I took active participation in the marketing classes and was
always the first to complete the group as well as the individual assignments.
Sometimes even my friends came to me seeking help regarding completing those
assignments. In short, I devoted maximum efforts to this subject because of the
interest generated in me.
There were certain changes in the interest levels over the term. First, our interest
levels were high as this was a subject through which we could better understand the
industrial constraints and be better prepared for our summer placements. Further, this
subject provided the chance to understand about various industrial situations through
the reports accessed from other teams (our faculty had shared all reports on the
common network). With the course of time the sessions of other subjects also began

and assignments/projects started coming our way. The assignments of marketing were
so tedious and huge that it started affecting my performance in other subjects.
Marketing assignments eventually became a nightmare as they hindered my focus on
other subjects; adversely affecting my performance in various quizzes, class
participation, presentations, etc.
The tedious process of data crunching, report preparation and situational analysis of a
wide array of companies slowed down our interests. We not only needed to research
and put down what is available, but also needed to put our views and recommendation
and future trends in context with the quantitative analysis shown in the reports
Midway though, we picked up momentum by assigning specific tasks and goals and
milestones and managed to finish the assignment on time. But I must conclude that it
has improved my skills related to time management and crisis management in
addition to contributing significantly towards my analytic skills in the field of
marketing.
3. Who were the low and high participating members of the group? How did the group
manage the high/low participators?

Simrat was the member who put maximum efforts towards group assignments/projects of any
kind. She not only participated actively in the tasks but also motivated others to achieve
increased level of perfection and accuracy. She is a living example of the fact that leadership
is something which is intrinsic and can never be culminated through formal training and
academic courses. She harnessed her leadership skills by effectively structuring the team
through assigning tasks to members in line with their individual skillsets and specifying the
goals, role demands, task complexity, deadlines, etc. In addition to this she also compiled
and edited the final reports along with Navya. Moreover, the high level of emotional
intelligence possessed by her enabled to solve the personal problems of the members which
were creating stress and adversely affecting productivity. While all other members were only
concerned about their individual roles/tasks, Simrat emerged as the one who fulfilled multiple
roles of being an individual performer, leader, guide and editor.
Contrary to Simrat, Harshal was the least performing participant of the group. We had great
expectations from him due to his vast knowledge base regarding all the major subjects of
study. But he never seemed interested on playing the role of a guide by sharing his
knowledge with others. He was undoubtedly the most skilled member of the group. But his
skills never quite contributed towards the group. This is mainly because of the fact that
Harshal was only interested in putting efforts towards his individual studies and was least
interested in participating in the group activities. While quizzes, term papers, individual
submissions are directly related to a persons efforts, group tasks can often be ignored if the
other members of the team are productive and sincere. Harshal was perhaps caught up with
this particular thought and hence he completed the tasks assigned to him as a group member
very superficially.

His reluctance adversely affected team productivity and eventually led to social loafing. To
deal with this, direct warnings were given to Harshal. Simrat made it clear to him that things
were not going to work for him as well as the team if he continued his negligence. She even
threatened to complain about him if he doesnt take part in the tasks henceforth. While others
demanded him to be reprimanded collectively, Simrat emphasized on dealing with this
personally with Harshal in the presence of others. She requested other members remain silent
while she brings out the issue in front of Harshal. Though Harshal didnt quite like what
happened, but his efforts did increase after that incident. He started participating more
effectively as compared to earlier but he was still not among the highest performers of the
group although the marginal increase in his efforts and hence performance did help the group
to overcome social loafing.
Simrat was the best performer of the group and everybody knew about it since it was visible.
Hence we strictly adhered by her orders and never quite annoyed her since she was the
backbone of the entire group. We also ensured that she is well motivated by the team
members so that she doesnt lose interest with the course of time.

4.

Reflect on the different identity issues (refer to the reading Identity Issues in
Teams) that you faced in your group?

I faced a lot of identity issues while working with the group. The main reason behind this is
the high level of demographic as well as cultural differences among the different group
members. Every team member had a unique identity in accordance with their demographic
and cultural backgrounds. It is not practically possible to understand and respect all the
individual identities and I was facing a lot of problem with this regard. In short I wasnt able
to find any congruence between my own identity and values with that of others.
I wanted to create a positive impression about myself in the minds of other group members
and emerge as the most likeable member of the group. So I tried to do more work compared
to others and even started assisting other members with the task designated to them by the
group leader. In other words, I was perhaps having a self enhancement motive. This
increased the level of expectation of the other members on me. A few of them including
Harshal, Abhishek and Pulkit started taking me for granted thinking that I will anyway
complete their part of the work even if they dont take any initiative. Consequently, they
stopped attending group meetings and began exploring the city through frequent visits to
places like C21 mall, TI mall, Sayaji Hotel, etc. This not only led to social loafing but also
increased the pressure on me. At that point of time I felt that the group is lacking identity
congruence since one member (me) was dedicated towards performance and few others were
enjoying themselves
One of the most common problems of identity which I faced was of being misunderstood for
something which I had not really meant to hurt anyones feelings or credibility. There was an
instance when I pinpointed an error in Navyas analysis and asked her to make suitable
changes. While I made the recommendation thinking solely about the teams submission, she
thought that I was just trying to act superior by pinpointing something which wasnt even

incorrect. This incident made me feel that the values or the identity exhibited by me are not
in line with that of the team. While I am a person who believes in discussing issues and
problems straight on face, the team (especially Navya) was perhaps not able to understand
this trait of mine. Instead they thought that I am just trying to act cool when I actually tried
to discuss problems/issues face to face. This particular instance urged me to change my ways.
I understood that one cant always display his felt emotions as there is a chance of people
misunderstanding him. I started avoiding her since then. However a month later, we sorted
out our differences over a team dinner planned by Kulmeet. Identity issues are bound to be
present in every group. The only way one can tackle them is through emotional intelligence
and understanding the other person by keeping himself on the others shoes.