1. If I were Palmer, I would let Olds to leave the team and request for an additional resource whose interest aligns with the departmental goals. Having him on the team should be discontinued, because his interest has been shifted to another team. 2. He should have discussed the issue with Sands at the early stage before it escalated out of control. He should have had everybody committed to the terms of using Crosby. Not only that but, also disallowed the carry-over of Springfield Metals work to his office. By so doing his department would not have been sub-changed on the use of the resource –Olds in this instance. Olds’ discussion should have ended at the allotted time for each project without using one project’s time on the other. 3. There was a conflict of interest. In this case, there was a dysfunctional conflict between the two mangers. Olds was at the center of the conflict. There was a silent infighting between Palmer and Crosby for sharing the resource - Olds. The stress level was high for Olds because he was dealing with two managers performing two different tasks. This was also extended to his home front. Palmer’s project deliverables were lagging behind because of his magnanimity of allowing Olds to be shared between him and Crosby. The advantage of shearing resources involves the optimization of the resources under consideration. Initially, Olds was maximally utilized by the two managers. Flexible utilization of Olds expertise was fully tapped. His expertise
The aggravating conflict was between American top-management (represented by Andrew) and Korean top-management (represented by Mr. Song) in solving the situation. Both believed that what it wants is incompatible with what the other want (mutually exclusive). The American side blamed Korean consultants' lack of experience for the problem of behind the deadline, while the Korean side blamed Ellen's capabilities. This conflict was also a dysfunctional conflict as it harmed the company's harmony and business. If the management could not find a solution to solve conflict, the company would fail to meet the deadline, which might totally kill the company's reputation.
A). Lack of Teamwork and Conflict resoultion: In relation to the case, many of the recently hires employees are not including and not trusting/age discriminating Mr. Hill. Although, there were more older employees who were upset, Mr. Hill was the one who had a massive reduction in hours. He is now going to the HR Director and Executive Director. He should have approached them earlier with the problem. (Chapter 4)
As a result Dr Brownlow decided he needed to develop his senior staff by sending them on a training course, he chose Brenda Frame and Judith Smythe for this training. Richard believed the problems lie not with his style of management but by the lack of leadership and management by Brenda Frame and Judith Smythe. Brenda and Judith implemented there ideas but Richard and Fred Windows were negative about it saying that it was just a fad as they had been on these courses and knew more about management and leadership and gained nothing from the courses. Brenda who normally would issue instruction as a manager does, turned herself into a leader my taking on board other ideas from her colleagues and creating working parties to make the working of her department run more efficiently and smoothly. She included Richards’s project staff into her working groups but he was unhappy about this even after Brenda protested and Richard adamantly refused to yield on this matter. Also at the start of the year Richard decided to off load several tasks to his three projects team leaders Ian Campbell, Carole Devlin and Joanne Cassidy. Richard only believed that Carole had the necessary experience and commitment to take on the extra work load issued and he did not consult his other staff nor did he explain the job role that it entailed.
Maintains the agenda, arranges travel, and coordinates meetings, conference calls and appointments on behalf of the Manager. Organizes and coordinates the meetings and conference calls of unit staff, special project teams and working groups.
The company began to see that their costs was higher than the other medical groups and decided to start lowering the operating cost of the hospitals by consolidating different areas of the company. The first area of interest was billing due to other companies having already done the same consolidation and had a positive result in being able to reduce costs within their companies. There would need to be a new director to oversee the new consolidated department and the two lead candidates was Kyle from the Utah office and Colleen from the Denver office. Both managers had gotten their MBAs and had started with the company when it was still starting out and growing. The board that was to decide who was to be promoted to the new position consisted of a former boss of Kyle who was biased in favor towards him to be promoted. When the board was leaning in
He did focus on one relationship with Morton, however Morton’s lack of history at the firm (as he was an outside hire) could suggest that he does not hold as much power as other senior partners. Though Hertach gets along well with him and they develop some loyalty towards each other, he should have focused on gaining support from other senior partners as well. Another facet of this audience includes his peers, the other partners. Many partners and managers beneath him had agreed privately with his concerns. He should have organized support within this group. Perhaps a coalition could have more effectively presented a united front and opinion to the senior partners.
Aspects Essential in Identifying the Appropriate Members for a Team and Ensuring the Team Is Successfully Launched
This case shows how hard it is for two people to work together for a common goal and vision when they are not on the same page; if Scott trusted and had confidence in Peterson they could succeed as a team
Management Skills: I have strong management skills which I acquired when I was managing the cerebral palsy unit of a physiotherapy clinic. Later I served as a senior officer (lieutenant) and was responsible of nearly 300 elderly residents onsite and 150 soldiers within the Turkish Armed Forces Military Senior Center. As an anchor mentor in the CPL / Safety Team, it is my responsibility to support the team leads, arrange day-to-day management within the team and help the team members at every stage.
Senior management did not appear to be very supportive or committed to this project. They did not provide vested leadership to guide and enable the project manager and his team to succeed. When problems were identified early on, resources were dispatched to the project but they served to be a bigger detriment than an aide to achieve the project objectives. Informing the senior management of problems at an early stage should render support and encouragement that will serve all the interests of the project team. However, this senior management team provided threats and intimidating management methods. Resources are commonly shared by a number of projects and distributing of critical resources will usually be made by senior/upper management. This did not appear to happen in this case.
Carter Racing and NASA examples discussed in the class taught us the value of the voice of dissension. While Stevens acts like the character of Tom from Carter Racing, Jack Bryant from Personnel Audit team would have been the voice of Paul. Carter should have included him on the team and listened to his experiences while talking to the employees and their managers. After all, his “on-the-ground” experience and intuition gained through the audit process was more likely to reveal the real situation than PAS or the brief audit reports. Just as NASA, after the Challenger Disaster instituted a rule that a launch could be vetoed by anyone in the team, including Jack in the conversation would have served as an antidote to overconfidence bias that would otherwise creep in.
There was a legitimate conflict that arose from conflicting agendas and responsibilities. The Springfield project was clearly a higher priority than the Johnsonville audit and Sands should have told Palmer, that although he is valuable to the audit, he would be more successful for the Springfield project. Palmer could have pulled another resource to take Olds place or hire a contractor to fill in the time when Olds would not be available. Olds was caught in a stressful situation where he was working in an environment in which he was being told to do two different tasks and had two different agendas by two different managers. This all led to infighting over Olds being shared across both projects and the two managers competing over for one resource. Palmer and Crosby were only concerned about their respective projects and Crosby knew what his end game was all along. Palmer was not clever enough to outwit Crosby and therefor he lost out on Olds.
Peter should have addressed the issue much sooner instead of waiting until the project was so far behind before he decided to take action. Although Peter did not get the outcome he desired, it is evident that the move the out Olds on Crosby’s project full time was better for the company and better for Olds. The consulting project that Crosby was in charge of sounds like it is a bigger deal for the firm than the audit so it in the company’s best interest to have their best people on that project. Since Peter was getting substandard work from Old’s he should make the concession to give up Olds in return for a suitable replacement and could ask for some type of
Benson Metals, a medium-sized maker of specialty steel products, has traditionally used a craftsliketechnology to produce a variety of metals. In terms of Perrow’s model of technology, task variety andtask analyzability are low, as there is still guesswork, skill, and even some “black magic” inmanufacturing products. Benson also produces metals in very small quantities—pounds not tons—so thatin terms of Woodward’s model it is small batch, and the skills and knowledge of production people aremore important than machines in getting the job done—task complexity is low.Recently, the company has moved
Though the issue looked like personal conflicts on the face, it actually stems from the friction between two departments fundamentally different in their working methods and thought processes. The fact that the two managers, Ellen and Ronnie, with different working styles leading these two departments has only compounded the problem. Ellen’s complaint was that Ronnie’s team is not sending their timesheets in time, which is leading to late payments from the insurer and shortage in cash flow. Even Ronnie acknowledges this but the solution appears to be different in each other’s minds. Ronnie is adamant that they just need more time, while Ellen is saying that genuine effort is required, not just time extensions. As much as