Case Study: \'Sam\'s Decision\' Sam was not feeling on top of things at work but
ID: 360348 • Letter: C
Question
Case Study:
'Sam's Decision' Sam was not feeling on top of things at work but had to call this team meeting. The day had been crammed with meetings and the only time possible was 5pm. It would be knocking off time for some of the team, but the need to get this project started meant the meeting would need to occur today. Walking into the room the banter that could be heard down the hallway seemed to come to an abrupt end. A sudden feeling of dread and a reminder of succumbing to bullying antics at school came to mind. All five members of the team were present and they sat the furthest end of the meeting room, Sam could tell this was going to be another uphill battle. This particular group was the hardest to work with. Becoming the manager last year should have been a career high point, instead it had been nothing but push-back, the passive aggressive type. Nothing was ever addressed directly, all the negative talk happened in the corridor or around the photocopier. Entering the meeting room Sam tripped over one of the chairs parked in the doorway and tried to make light of the time of day to draw attention away from feeling such dread. ‘This new project required action and now’, Sam noted. Chris the Executive Manager had already laid down the rules – ‘this is a major client, major opportunity with major rewards for the business’. ‘Make it happen Sam’, were Chris’s departing remarks when they met the previous afternoon, there was to be no excuse with missing the deadline. Sam told the team about the project and the deadlines and asked for volunteers for the work. ‘The work would be challenging and high profile’ said Sam. That was meant to make the work irresistible to the team. It didn’t, there was silence, no one said anything and no-one volunteered. Sam looked around the room, Anne straightened her back and said she was already overloaded with Megan on maternity leave; Peter who had recently been knocked back on a transfer out of the team said he was also about to go on annual leave and shrugged that there was no point him working on the project. As Sam looked around the room, the next response came from Felicity; she had been called in to meet with Chris the Executive Manager over a week ago for inappropriately addressing a client. She was still furious about what she saw as a breach of natural justice and she was determined not be helpful in this instance. Sam was sure at least Abdullah would agree to take on the project but he too was silent. The new recruit to the team was Deborah, but she just looked nervous and refused to make eye contact. The meeting was a disaster. Sam could feel the meeting slipping away without any volunteers or agreement on how to proceed. A sense of fury was welling up inside. Sam felt that the only option was to close the meeting; it was already 6 o’clock. Chris would not be pleased to hear that that the only way the project could be completed would be for Sam to do it or risk forgoing a lucrative project. Sam returned to the office to find another string of emails with unfinished work.
What advice will you give to Sam? Adress the concepts of
Workplace Context: Large Multi-national
Management Style: Micro-manager
Workplace issue: Conflict
Write 375 words to answer the question.
Explanation / Answer
'The main issue in front of Sam is that he needs to deliver a crucial and important project to one of his prestigious clients and he is unable to delegate the work to any of the available team members. Various personal and interpersonal reasons have been cited in the case as reasons for the members to not to accept the responsibility. First of all, Sam is unable to make use of his legitimate power over the matter. His approach to the team members is rather a laissez-faire type where he wants to hear the commitments spontaneously from his team rather than putting the responsibility autocratically. While that is good for a more evolved form of the team, presently is unuseful for Sam as the team members are not sufficiently motivated. If Sam wants to pursue the same approach, he needs to ensure that the members are empowered and motivated. Note that only mentioning that the project is going to be "challenging and high profile" may not be sufficient. Instead, Sam should explain to him team members the benefits and win-wins in details and especially o highlight how a member taking up the responsibility can be ahead of the others. If still, such form of motivation does not work, Sam should change his leadership style and use the form of coercive form of leadership while disregarding the project manager's direction will harm a team member and should firmly assign the responsibility to one of the team members.
Furthermore, there are also problems regarding Sam's conflict management techniques. It seems from the case facts that he is more or less relying on an accommodative form of conflict management. For example, the issue with Anne, Felicity, Abdullah, and Deborah are behavioral and can be addressed by negotiating and dealing with an assertive form of conflict management. Sam should use a collaborative (high assertion, high cooperation) style of conflict management here and should reinforce Anne and Felicity with Deborah or Abdullah to reduce their problems/ behavioral issues.
Finally, if everything stills remain such adverse, Sam needs to take the help of the chain of command existing in the organization and inform the next level of hierarchy well in advance regarding these barriers and ask for intervention.