Name: ___________________________________

Case Study:

ID # : ___________________

The blue ribbon committee

Mayor Sam Hanks is nearly completing his first term in the office of the
representatives. He feels his record has been pretty good, except for
the issue of housing. He has been able to avoid doing anything about
housing so far and feels very strongly that this issue must not come to
a head before the next election. The voters are too evenly divided on
the issue, and he would lose a substantial number of votes no matter
what stand he took.
Yet with pressure increasing from both sides, he had to do something.
After much distress, he has finally come upon what he thinks is an
ideal solution to this dilemma. He has appointed a committee to study
the problem and make some recommendation. To make sure that the
committee will not be able to complete before the election, it was
important to pick the right people. So he collected the people from
wide cross section of the community so that all concerned parties will
be represented. He had made the committee very large. He had taken
particular care in selecting people who have widely divergent,
outspoken, public views on the housing issue.

Do you think Sams strategy of using the committee to delay

taking stand on the housing issue will work? Why or why not?

What are some of the important dynamics of this committee? Do

you think the committee will arrive at a good solution?

OB- Session Four

CASE STUDY

Group Behaviors Assignment/

Name: ___________________________________

Case study:

Bad

ID # : ___________________

brakes

Michael is a maintenance supervisor of a large taxi cab company. He

had been very concerned because the cab drivers were not reporting
potential mechanical problem. Several months ago he implemented a
preventive maintenance program.

This program depends upon the

drivers by filling out a detailed report what they suspect any problem.
But this was not happening, as on number of occasion the cabs here
having problems on the route and becoming unsafe in certain cased ,
which created a high degree of risk for company rep as well as the
drivers themselves suffered from a loss of fares and tips. Some of the
times there lives were at stake. Michael decided to try a new approach.
He would respond directly to each report of a potential mechanical
problem sent in by a driver with a return memo indicating what the
maintenance activity has been done in addition, the personal memo
thanking the driver for reporting the problem an encouraged reporting
any further problems with the cabs, in less than a month the number of
field repairs calls had decreased by half and the number of turned in
potential problems reported had tripled.

1. In communication terms how would you explain the success of

Michael follow up memo to the drivers.
2. Explain the three communication process in this company ( i.e.
downward , upward and interactive)

OB- Session Four

CASE STUDY

Group Behaviors Assignment/