COURSE: LEADERSHIP, ENGAGEMENT, AND PEOPLE PERFORMANCE

CASE STUDY: THE TEAM THAT WASN’T

Project Submission Template

Student Name: Aakash Rathor

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

For the last three months, sales of FineArt are stable.

Various competitors of large glassmaking industries are entering the niche market of FireArts
with better resources and technology

Absence of Cohesion in the team leading to inefficiency in performance.

Lack of Mutual Understanding in the team leading to ambiguity and no clear goals

Eric created a team that belonged to different contextual backgrounds.

The team established by Eric belonged to different levels of hierarchy resulting in superiority
complexes.

After comprehensively analyzing the case, it seems that Randy is only considered about
gaining only his personal advantage, rather than working as a team.

It was also evident from Randy’s and Maureen’s examples that the team was unable to learn
from each other or leverage others expertise to grow.

Lack of reward structure in the team, monetary or otherwise leading to reduced motivation
for the members and thus lower commitments from them.
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 Holt and the CEO Jack Jerry can use the following motivations to motivate the team.

Intrinsic Motivators:

Freewill: The best way to engage employees in a workplace is by using freewill as a

motivation tool. When used properly, free will helps in improving the individual’s
performance by motivating him/her. While using Freewill Eric and Jack should state the
idea of the vision and then let them come up with the final output. Also, they should guide
the team to execute it with proper judgement.

Motive: A team performs better when they know the motive. The team puts in the effort
and works productively when having a better picture of what they are working for and what
is the outcome expected. A team of employees with a clear motive will work more
effectively and achieve goals faster.

Extrinsic Motivators:

Rewarding trophy and bonuses: A reward like a trophy or bonus never fails to bring out the
best performance among the employees. Everyone likes to be appreciated and given the
credit for their efforts. It also ensures that the employees take up the ownership and stay
motivated and perform to the best of their abilities

An Outing as a reward: Team Outings help the employees to relax and feel rewarded at the
same time. Outings are a great way to unwind and help the team to rejuvenate, enjoy and
come back charged to work better on the next project.
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

2 instances of conflict dysfunction and its evaluation:

When Eric was addressing the group, Randy intervened in the discussion by disrupting the
discussion as he did not smile/laughed properly as he smiled with a smirk. This led to an
argument between as Randy said, “Brilliant ideas do not come from a team, but it comes
from Brilliant Individuals”. Eventually, the conversation was not good, and the objective of
the meeting led to the failure.

Ray, Maureen and Carl almost came to one understanding on the opinion expressed by Ray
as the discussion was on Material costs, and new models/variants but Randy was not in
agreement with them as he did not give his attention to this discussion as he left the
meeting and other team members also lost the interest which has failed in common
conclusion on the decision of the meeting.

2 instances of commitment dysfunction and its evaluation:

Randy does not show commitment to the organizational goals as he does not attend the
meetings on time and reaches late, leaving the meeting in between, in the meeting, when
his turn came to answer he did not reply but he asked his assistant to answer which shows
lack of attention to the discussion which is lack of commitment.

Randy is lacking commitment as he never focuses on the meeting. He doesn't pay attention
to other team members. When others are speaking his behavior towards them was pathetic
as he never respected the team's decision and his commitment levels towards resolving the
problem were missing clearly. He never focused on completing the given task within the
deadline, so he failed in his commitment levels which have failed a team and an
organization.
Question IV 4.a) Analyse Jack Derry as an inspirational leader of his organisation under sensing,
relating, visioning and executing (100-150 words)

Sensing: Jack quickly realised that growth can be achieved by improving the internal
workings.

He was good at embracing change in terms of new players entering the niche market and
also sought Eric’s help in the period of change.

Relating: Jack was low on relating as leader. He wasn’t reassuring in times of crisis and
didn’t make efforts to reach out to team.

There was lack of networking and camaraderie between the team leaders, which directly
stems from poor leadership culture and jack didn’t encourage networking in the
organization.

Visioning: Jack was low on visioning as he gave very vague directions to Eric and nor did
set any expectations. His plan for realignment in 6 months lacked vision.

Executing: Jack was satisfied with team Eric build, but he could be more proactive in
executing his vision by being actively involved and creating open forums for discussions.
4.b) Recommend any changes or alternative steps that Jack Derry could have taken to be a
more effective leader (100-150 words):

Jack Derry should have been involved with Eric while selecting members for the team.

Initially, he should have done some team building activities so that everyone in the team
could have known each other well constructively.

He should have given a brief of the project, it's deadline and why they were hired for this
particular project and defined their role as per their expertise.

Allow them to work at their freewill and give them a clear motive to work more effectively.

Also, announce the reward for the best employee in this team and an outing after the
completion of the project.

Allow employees like Randy to work individually by assigning the goal of thinking out of
the box and his idea will be directly reported to Eric and Jack Derry. After approval, Eric
will brief the team and they will be evaluated and considered.