CASES for the Leadership Class
Contents
Read for Session #7b: "Paul Marshall's Department Stores"Read for Session #8b: "Atwater County Hospital East"
Read for Session #9a: "How Can You Prevent the Free Ride"
Paul Marshall's Department Stores
by Ralph H. Kilmann
Founded in 1950, Paul Marshall's (PM) operates in seven locations in the southeastern region of the United States. Its largest (and oldest) store is located in the center of a downtown area, which also serves as its corporate headquarters. Six other stores are located in suburban shopping malls. Two of these six stores were formerly PM's competitors: Salina Department Store and Joseph Klein's. They were acquired during the recession in the late 1970s when both stores were on the verge of bankruptcy. PM's board of directors believed that these "bargains" could be turned around in just a few years when the economy recovered. By the mid-1980s, renewed growth in consumer spending and continued movement of the population to the Sunbelt enabled all of PM's seven stores to prosper, including the two acquisitions.
By the late 1980s, however, PM was having great difficulty maintaining its revenue and profitability. Tremendous competition from mail-order companies threatened all traditional department stores, as did the advent of new discount outlets. Moreover, the retreat of living and shopping away from the downtown urban centers to the suburban shopping malls continued—despite several efforts to lure families and shoppers back to a renovated center city. As a result, PM's downtown store was operating at a loss for the first time in its existence.
In late 1988, PM's president, Louis T. Charns, convened a meeting of the seven-member board of directors to consider what to do about the declining business situation. Following an intense three-hour discussion, the group came to the conclusion that promoting better customer service was the solution that would save the company and restore its former success: PM would offer even better personalized, face-to-face service than it had in the past. Such an interpersonal approach could not be provided by the mail-order houses and could not be afforded by the discount stores. At the request of the president, PM's board of directors approved a new position at corporate headquarters: vice-president of customer service.
In early 1989, Paul Kennedy, who had served PM for 20 years as the personnel manager in one of its suburban stores, was offered the new position and he accepted. Since he was a strong advocate of "management by wandering around," he spent two or three afternoons every week walking around one store or another to observe—from a distance, of course—how his salespeople handled customer purchases, returns, and complaints. Whenever he noticed a lack of friendliness or limited responsiveness by any of his salespeople, he took the time to discuss the incident afterwards—in private—and to suggest how the same situation could have been handled differently.
In April 1989, while visiting one of the acquired suburban stores, Kennedy overheard some salespeople loudly grumbling about the rude customers who regularly visit the store and how employees hate to deal with such offensive people: "Our store would be better off if they shopped somewhere else!" Kennedy was extremely upset that any of PM's personnel would talk about customers in this manner—especially salespeople who interacted regularly with the store's clientele. Deeply disturbed by this experience, he decided that a much more involving effort was required to address the problem—other than his occasional encounters with a few employees.
When he returned to his office later that same day, Kennedy set up a conference call with two general managers: Charles Frans, head of the department store in question, and Richard Austin, whose department store was located just five miles away. Without referring to the specific incident that motivated his decision, Kennedy explained to both Frans and Austin that he was going to institute a more organized approach—a task force—for examining employee attitudes toward PM's customers. He reminded them that the board of directors had agreed that improved customer service was the best way to rebuild PM's competitive position and financial success. Kennedy then asked the two general managers to establish one joint task force comprised of customer service employees and others from both stores, although he left the details up to them. After Kennedy disconnected himself from the conference call, Frans and Austin continued the discussion and eventually agreed on the composition of the task force. Each of them would assign three persons: a coleader to head the joint effort plus two additional employees from the customer service area—to form a joint task force of six members. The first meeting of the whole group was scheduled to take place at the downtown office (a neutral setting) exactly four weeks later, ample time for them to select the members of the two subgroups and bring them up to speed on their special mission.
Frans was not enthusiastic about this assignment. He had been employed by PM for ten years, not counting the five years he worked as general manager of the same store when it was owned by Salina Department Store—before the acquisition. The joint task force would be the first time his employees would be working together with others from another PM department store. Making matters worse, his people would be working with Austin's employees. Since Austin's store is just five miles away in a similarly situated shopping plaza, these two sister stores had been intense rivals in the past. And even today, due to their proximity and similarity, they still compete on sales and profitability. Austin, who had been with PM for over twenty years, was known not to be particularly fond of the two acquisitions, since he was a strong advocate of growth from within the company (as was done for the five other stores). The scuttlebutt, however, was that Austin was bypassed for a key promotion to the head office because of two executives brought in by the acquisition—and he was still very bitter. Frans also was aware that PM's long-time employees viewed his department store as inferior to other PM locations, stemming from the financial problems that preceded the acquisition of his store. His employees, in fact, felt like second-class citizens and were viewed as less qualified than PM's employees in the original stores.
Since he did not want his employees on the task force to be upstaged by Austin's, Frans immediately called and asked his best employee of the store, Lauren Small from the marketing department, to colead the task force. She consistently demonstrated good management skills at defining problems and a positive "can do" attitude. Frans also called his manager of the customer service department and asked him to select his two best employees for the project. The manager selected Deborah Randall and Jeffrey Hughes, because they both had demonstrated their commitment to the success of the store through their diligence in resolving customer complaints.
Austin, general manager of the sister store, also decided to assign his three best employees to work on this project: He, too, did not want to take any chance of coming out badly as a result of the project, especially since he would be a prime candidate for promotion to the home office when one of the senior vice-presidents retired next year. Consequently, he decided to choose his most effective—and aggressive—employees so they would move ahead on the project quickly, even before Frans' employees got a chance to get started. With this maneuver, he felt, his store would demonstrate a proactive attitude toward customer service, which should leave a lasting impression on the board of directors. Consequently, he contacted Patrick McDonnell, a rather aggressive purchasing agent for the store, to colead the task force. McDonnell had shown that he could get a job done before its deadline, even if it meant pulling a few strings or bypassing the formal systems. Austin asked the manager of his customer service department to select his two best employees for the project. The manager selected William Cameron and Greg Powell, since they were both known to be very thorough in organizing their work and bringing it to completion.
The next day after Frans assigned Lauren Small to colead the task force, she called a meeting with the two other members of her subgroup: Randall and Hughes. The purpose of the meeting was twofold: to share what she had learned from Frans about the purpose of the joint task force and to consider what to recommend to the other half of the task force regarding how the project should be conducted. When the meeting ended, Small felt that the subgroup was off to a good start: Her subgroup was prepared to present three different ways for collecting data on employee attitudes toward customers and how such information could be developed into recommendations to solve the problem. She expected that the other half of the task force would also be considering how to proceed with the project, so that the whole team could agree on a course of action when they met next month as a combined group.
Indeed, that same week, Patrick McDonnell, who had been assigned by Austin to colead his store's contribution to the task force, called his people together for their initial meeting. First he described to Cameron and Powell the purpose of the task force: to help Frans' store improve its customer service. McDonnell then proceeded to ask his two associates how they could develop a solution for this problem prior to next month's first meeting of the joint task force. After several plans were considered, the subgroup decided to hire a local market research firm to conduct 50 random interviews as customers left Frans' store during the next two weeks. In this way, the subgroup would have another two weeks to study the results and recommend what employee attitudes are appropriate to express on the job and, consequently, how Frans' customers should be treated on all occasions. Since their conclusions would be based on an expert source, the subgroup felt that it would be in the best position to justify its recommendations.
Next month, as scheduled, the six members met for the first time. After brief introductions and pleasantries, Small began by proposing three ways in which the whole task force might proceed to address the deep concern about customer service—not only for the benefit of their two stores, but also to help the other five stores deal with this key problem. McDonnell and his subgroup completely ignored Small's comments: They neither looked at her while she was presenting nor responded to her suggestions. Instead, as soon as she outlined her three points, McDonnell proceeded to describe the market research study they had commissioned for Frans' store. Small and her subgroup were flabbergasted. After taking a few minutes to regain her composure, Small forcefully interrupted McDonnell's presentation and pointedly asked: "Who told you to study our store? We are here to address company-wide problems, not for you to study our store behind our backs!" McDonnell responded: "Apparently, you were misinformed about the purpose of this meeting. We were asked to present recommendations so you could improve the dismal service of your store. We are doing everything we can to help. You could at least hear us out before you get defensive and try to redirect the purpose of the meeting." At this, Small became furious: "I don't know what you think you're doing here, but we're not going to be a part of it!" With that, she signaled her two colleagues and all three walked out of the room. As soon as they got outside the downtown building, they immediately asked one another: "What should we do now?"
Analyzing the Case
This case enables your case group to practice some of the key steps of problem management. As a result, you will become more confident—and competent—in using these steps for managing complex problems. Begin by sensing one or more problems. Then proceed to define the problems of the case: the root causes behind the apparent breakdown in PM's own problem-solving process. Then propose solutions to the identified problems, and so forth. Hints: Be sure to use the five steps of problem management explicitly and avoid the errors in each step. Try to focus your discussion by explicitly using decision trees to distinguish trunks (definitions) from branches (solutions).
Copyright © 1991 by Organizational Design Consultants. All Rights Reserved.
Atwater County Hospital East
by Ralph H. Kilmann
Founded in 1885, Atwater County Hospital East (ACHE) is a 100-year-old institution serving the northeastern region of the United States. During the 1960s and 1970s, ACHE's success led to several expansion projects that increased its capacity to 350 beds with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment. Throughout these years, ACHE virtually ignored operating expenses while it provided its patients with the best medical facilities, technologies, and treatments available. Like most hospitals during that time, ACHE's patients and their insurance carriers were able to meet the high costs of such excellent health-care services.
In 1983, however, the long tradition of cost-plus pricing was brought to a sudden halt: The federal government directly attacked the astronomical rise in national health-care costs by establishing a new pricing system for Medicare hospitalization. Instead of blindly covering a hospital's costs, Medicare would pay fixed amounts depending on the type of diagnosed ailments. If the necessary medical treatments could be provided below the established payments for these diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), the hospital could make a profit. But if its costs were greater than the fixed schedule of Medicare payments, the hospital would have to absorb the loss (or pass it on to non-Medicare patients). This transformation in the health-care field quickly led to desperate efforts to regain lost revenues by better managing the business side of the hospital: by trying to expand product lines, increase market share, improve customer satisfaction, foster entrepreneurship, and develop computerized information systems to monitor costs—just as business organizations themselves have had to do in order to survive in an increasingly competitive environment.
During 1984, ACHE experienced its first major outbreak of uncertainty, confusion, stress, and anxiety—which has not gone away. Patients began complaining of poor service and rude nurses; nurses began leaving the hospital in increasing numbers; physicians began blaming the shortage of nurses for the continued decrease in patients served; employees began restricting their cooperation to coworkers inside their department while ignoring requests from other areas; administrators began putting more and more pressure on everyone to contain costs and complete paperwork on time; the marketing department began developing new health-care programs that the community did not seem to want; employees began complaining that only marketing and administrative types were growing in numbers while all other personnel were being cut back; morale began falling with everyone feeling like a second-class citizen—unappreciated and overworked.
In 1986, due to the many difficulties that ACHE was experiencing while coming to grips with the dynamic health-care industry, George Sinclair, president of ACHE, established a new personnel policy: All future job openings in the administrative side of the hospital would only be filled with business-trained personnel. When Sinclair was asked to explain the reasons for this dramatic shift in hiring policy, he indicated that very few people seemed to be taking the new business environment seriously: "Our people know how to talk cost containment, but they continue to act as if we were still in the 1960s!"
By 1989, however, it was clear that Sinclair's solution had not resolved ACHE's cost-containment problems and related issues. Although eight well-trained and experienced business managers had been hired into key marketing, accounting, and finance positions, the identical day-to-day problems were evident. While he couldn't put his finger on it, Sinclair felt that his efforts to get all employees to change their usual ways of operating was being met with some sort of "collective resistance" that was preventing even his new hires from making a difference.
While attending a conference for hospital administrators in June 1989, Sinclair heard a presentation on the topic of corporate culture. At this session, he learned that the basic values that successfully guided a firm during its "protected" years can severely hurt the same organization when faced with a very different—competitive—environment. Excited about having found a new "solution" for improving the operations of the hospital, Sinclair called a special meeting with the four members of his executive team in order to consider this new avenue for revitalizing the hospital. After hearing Sinclair's one-hour presentation, the group agreed to develop a new culture for the hospital so that all personnel would not only accept the need to be more cost conscious and customer oriented, but would also behave accordingly. Since the hospital's annual two-day management retreat was just three months away, the group decided to wait until then to proceed with establishing a new culture.
In September 1989, at an off-site location for the retreat, 30 managers heard an outside expert present a three-hour lecture that was followed by an open discussion on corporate culture: how the underlying values of the company affect everyone's behavior. That afternoon, the managers were divided into three task forces of about 10 members each. Each task force began by studying the often-stated values of ACHE's well-known founder, Dr. John Edward Haldane, and how these values became the modus operandi for the hospital: "Always provide the best patient care no matter what the cost. We are in the profession of saving lives, not dollars." That evening, each task force met to discuss the key challenges in the health-care field in the years ahead and what new set of values would be more appropriate—and realistic—in striving to meet those challenges. The next morning, each task force presented its recommended list of the new cultural values to the rest of the community.
While there was considerable disagreement about what values should guide ACHE during the next decade, there also was some overlap across the three presentations. At the end of the day, Sinclair told the managers that he was very pleased with what he had heard and that they all had done a great job. He concluded the retreat by asking each task force to appoint a representative to meet as a threesome during the next few weeks and merge the three value lists into a single recommendation for establishing ACHE's new culture.
Two months later, in mid-1989, the appointed representatives submitted their list of new cultural values to the president and his four key executives at their regularly scheduled staff meeting. The final list was conveniently represented by the acronym SERVICE:
S = Support other departments and functions.
E = Excel in the care provided to our patients.
R = Respect the dignity of your coworkers.
V = Value change and new ways of doing things.
I = Innovate with new health-care services.
C = Contain costs at every opportunity.
E = Encourage all personnel to do their very best.
Following the presentation and some question-and-answer discussion, the executive team unanimously approved the seven values and decided that all employees should receive a professionally printed copy. Two weeks later, in early December, a letter signed by the president and his senior executives announced the new culture to all members: "Effective immediately, we expect all employees of ACHE to follow seven cultural values at all times, as presented on the enclosed parchment (suitable for framing). If each of us lives according to our newly established culture of SERVICE, our hospital will be able to provide the best possible health-care service at the lowest possible cost—for the benefit of all present and future patients. We know we can rely on your active support in meeting this worthy challenge." During the next few weeks, coffee mugs with "SERVICE" stamped on the outside were distributed to all employees. In late December, wallet-sized plastic cards with the seven values printed on one side and the 1990 calendar on the other were sent to everyone with wishes for a happy new year.
During the next months, life in the hospital was "business as usual," with the same complaints expressed as before. Morale seemed to be at an all-time low. Little mention was made of cultural values—either in meetings or in the hallways—and why the effort might have failed.
Analyzing the Case
This case enables your work group to practice some of the key steps of assumptional analysis. As a result, you will become more confident—and competent—in using this powerful method for defining and solving complex problems.
You (or your group) is asked to analyze this initial conclusion for the case:
The culture of the hospital will be changed and improved as a result of sending a copy of the executives' letter to every employee. This is the implicit approach to ACHE's efforts at organization-wide improvement.
First, list about 5 to 10 stakeholders that are relevant to the initial conclusion. Naturally, stakeholders can be both inside and outside the organization. And stakeholders can be as broad as society itself or as focused as one person. If several people or groups seem to have the same stake in the conclusion, then you will find it beneficial to combine them into a larger social unit for the purpose of this analysis—for example, all employees. Alternatively, if several people or groups seem to have different stakes in the conclusion, you should treat them as separate stakeholders—the president, senior executives, and so forth.
Second, for each stakeholder, write one or more assumptions that would have to be true in order to argue—convincingly—that the conclusion, as stated, is correct.
Third, plot the relative importance and certainty of each assumption onto the assumption matrix, as described in Kilmann's book, Quantum Organizations, pages 125-128.
What have you learned now that these assumptions have been made explicit—including their relative importance and certainty? What would you recommend to ACHE concerning how they should proceed with organization-wide improvement? Can you see how the same false assumptions are implicit in your own organization?
Copyright © 1991 by Organizational Design Consultants. All Rights Reserved
How Can You Prevent the Free Ride?
by Ralph H. Kilmann
Nine Lives, a Management Learning Organization (MLO), was composed of ten members who just entered the MBA program at the University of Pittsburgh. Six members were born and raised in the U.S. and had a great variety of job experiences. The other four members came from outside the U.S.: two from Korea, one from Spain, and one from Germany—and also had a variety of full-time work experiences in small family businesses, government jobs, and large corporations. As a whole, the MLO covered all functional areas in management: finance, marketing, operations, human resources, and information systems. On the surface, it seemed that this MLO could effectively tackle any MBA project successfully, due to the work experience of the members, the diverse talent across management functions, and a rich international perspective.
During a four-day workshop, the MLO members had been fully exposed to group process (and how to use a process observer), the five key steps of problem management, the five modes of conflict management, how to identify and manage culture-gaps (the difference between the actual and desired norms), and the design and use of sanctioning systems to enforce the desired norms. By the end of the workshop, everyone in the MLO was eager to start the formal coursework in the MBA program and to tackle the projects that would be assigned in the required MLO-based courses (e.g., Organizational Behavior, Competing in a Global Economy, and Managing Strategic Performance). The mood in the MLO was positive and everyone was very polite to one another. There did not appear to be any conflicts and everyone agreed that their MLO did not need any sanctioning system: "We are professionals. We came here to learn. We don't need some silly mechanism to punish bad behavior. We will do just what is expected and required. We are the best MLO in the school."
During the first term in the MBA program (August) there was little need to meet as an MLO. While each section of required courses was composed of five MLOs each, there were no MLO projects assigned. Indeed, the first MLO-based course, Organizational Behavior, would not begin until early September. While it was apparent that other MLOs were meeting during August—as study groups or simply for socializing over the weekends—only a few members in Nine Lives tried to meet during August. In each case, the other members complained: "We don't need to meet. What's the point? If other MLOs want to waste their time, let them. Let's just focus on the courses at hand. OB doesn't start until next month."
In early September, the second term began. After a few of weeks in OB, Nine Lives scheduled a regular two-hour meeting on every Monday evening in order to plan and complete the two MLO projects: (1) an analysis and oral presentation of an assigned business case and (2) a written paper that describes and analyzes the development of the MLO from its inception in July until the end of the course in December. Both assignments required the explicit and effective use of course concepts (from the readings in the textbook and from lectures by the instructor) to provide a more in-depth, systematic, scientific analysis than could be achieved by ad hoc, piecemeal, common-sense notions. Both MLO assignments were due at the end of the term, although a mid-term status report had to be submitted to the professor in the middle of October, which was graded on a simple Pass-Fail (go or no-go) basis. The main purpose of the status report was to give specific feedback to the MLOs on how well they were proceeding toward successfully completing both MLO assignments. Besides these two MLO assignments, there was a mid-term and a final exam, taken individually, although the MLOs could prepare for the exams as a group (or subgroup) if they wished to do so. The two MLO assignments constituted 50% of the final grade for each student, with every member in the MLO receiving the same grade. The remaining 50% of each student's course grade consisted of an unweighted average of the mid-term and final exam scores (which could vary from student to student within the same MLO).
During the first scheduled Monday-evening meeting, Nine Lives decided that the exams were entirely an individual effort and that no MLO time should be taken to study for these exams. Some of the students suggested that they did not like relying on others in the MLO for reviewing the assigned topics and presenting an executive summary of the key concepts to the rest of the MLO: "What if one of us did not take the time to do it right? We would then all be hurt on the exams."
During this first scheduled Monday-evening meeting, each MLO project was assigned to one of two subgroups of five members each. Since each project seemed to have a different focus, there did not seem to be much reason for the whole MLO to be involved on both projects. It would be more efficient just to divide the projects and work into two subgroups. Besides, given that the mid-term progress report would provide the MLO feedback on how it was doing, there would be plenty of time to make the necessary mid-course corrections. Also, since there would be neither a letter nor a number grade given to the mid-term progress report (i.e., only a pass/fail notation), there was no real penalty. Even a Fail could be redone according to the professor's comments and there would still be about two months left in order to complete both MLO assignments.
Eight out of the ten MLO members attended this first meeting. Two were unable to make it due to prior commitments. Each of the non-attending members, however, was assigned to each of the two subgroups. But no process observer was appointed at the start of the meeting. The MLO felt that since every member had attended the four-day MLO workshop, each knew what to do in order to conduct an effective meeting. Moreover, as one member commented: "With only eight members present, it doesn't make sense to remove another person from the discussion by having him observe the meeting just to tell us how great we did. That seems like a complete waste of time and resources." There was also no mention of possible problem management errors at this meeting: No one questioned whether each MLO assignment, its problem definition, was understood equally well by each member; whether the MLO's understanding of these complex projects matched the professor's expectations; whether the MLO should consider different approaches, derived solutions, to best address the assignments; whether the MLO's solutions would be implemented effectively during the next several months—given the time constraints and other demands on each student; whether there should be additional mid-course assessments or evaluations conducted by the MLO, instead of relying on one-time feedback from the professor (via the status report).
Moreover, during this first meeting everyone agreed with any proposed plan as soon as it was voiced by any member: no disagreements, conflicts, or differences were surfaced, let alone discussed. Instead, everyone was extremely polite with one another. Last, there was no mention of cultural norms or sanctioning systems. Thus, there was virtually no discussion on what was expected behavior concerning the required work on the MLO projects, what constitutes high performance, and what the consequences would be for meeting or failing to meet agreed-upon standards. Indeed, the MLO was silent on what was expected of each member of each subgroup. It was again assumed that everyone would know what to do.
During the next several weeks, member attendance at the meetings got worse and worse. In one MLO meeting, only four out of the ten members showed up and they confirmed that the same trend was occurring for the more frequent subgroup meetings on the two projects. The same people were always doing the work and attending the meetings, while the other members focused their attention on other courses. A growing negative attitude was frequently voiced among several members: "We all get the same grade for the MLO assignments, so just let those who like to work on those projects do the work. Meanwhile, we can get other work done—work that has to be done on an individual basis."
With fewer people doing the required work, there was a need to schedule additional MLO meetings. But trying to schedule these meetings became a nightmare in frustration: The people who didn't attend the meeting were not present to indicate when they could be available for other meetings. Often times, members did not return phone calls or e-mail when pleas were made to contact a person who was attempting to schedule either a subgroup meeting or an emergency meeting of the whole MLO. When the non-attending members were seen in other classes, a whole host of tired excuses were heard: "I didn't know that a meeting was scheduled at that time. I must have forgotten to check my e-mail. I was sick that day. I had a family problem. I was behind on another course and I can't afford a low grade in that course. I scheduled a job interview at that time—and I am here to get a job. I'll do my best to make the next MLO meeting—and by the way, how is the project going?"
By mid October, only three students were involved in putting together the mid-term progress report for the OB professor. The report had to be handed in on a given date and no one else in the MLO seemed to care about it. The three students did the best they could, working through the last hour, inventing what had been done by the MLO and then guessing how the remaining work would be accomplished. While they were angry about how they had been let down by their MLO colleagues, the three active students still put all ten member names in alphabetical order on the cover page. They were at least relieved that they were able to submit the report to the professor on time.
The following week, the professor handed back the five progress reports to the MLOs in his OB section. Four MLOs received a Pass, but Nine Lives received a Fail. Worse yet, the specific feedback from the OB professor seriously questioned the MLO's ability to successfully complete the two assignments by the end of the course: There was a startling sharp contrast between what Nine Lives had presented in its status report vs. what the other MLOs had done. The other MLOs had taken the initiative to meet several times with their professor to clarify the purpose and definition of the two assignments, had previously received feedback on what solutions they had picked to approach the two assignments in their MLO (including how to organize into two or more subgroups, whether to use one or more project managers, how to specify work standards, how to monitor progress, how to assess goal completion).
Moreover, the other MLOs had explicitly included in their written progress reports (1) how their group process was improving from one meeting to the next, (2) how they were revising their sanctioning systems to reward positive attitudes and behavior, (3) what kinds of social functions helped deepen the getting-acquainted process among MLO members—in order to remove the initial politeness barrier and foster more trust among members, (4) what methods helped ensure that differences were explicitly surfaced, discussed, and resolved, and (5) how all members were encouraged to actively participate and contribute to both MLO projects—to enable MLO-wide learning.
After hearing the professor's summary of how the MLOs had approached the two assignments and the status of their progress to date, the MLOs were asked to spend the next 30 minutes in class reviewing the feedback they had just been given and planning next steps. The seven members of Nine Lives who were present in class rearranged their seats into a circle and then just stared at the floor: They were in a state of shock. How could this have happened? Then the majority of the members began to express their anger toward their professor: "Why didn't he meet with our MLO? Why wasn't he more specific about his expectations when he first gave us the assignment? Why weren't all the approaches used by the other MLOs made available to us? Why weren't we told exactly what to do on day one? Are the OB assignments a guessing game? Why did the professor make us waste so much valuable time on such a ridiculous assignment anyway? Most of us are majoring in Finance, not Organizational Behavior!"
But the three students in Nine Lives who did all the work in putting the progress report together were angry at the other members in their MLO: "Why didn't you come to our meetings? How can we talk about these issues if you aren't there? Don't you realize that we also have to take the other courses just like you? Don't you think we are stressed out as well? Why did you leave us to do all the work? How were three people going to do the work of ten? It's no wonder we failed the assignment!"
One angry comment was made after another. Basically, everyone in Nine Lives blamed someone else for what went wrong. After 25 minutes had gone by, the professor reminded the class that there was just five minutes left for this MLO discussion before proceeding with the primary topic for the day: "So this would be a good time for the process observer to give his report if he or she hasn't done so already." A member of Nine Lives said: "How could this have happened to us? What should we do now?" But there was silence. Then the professor began the next OB topic.
Copyright © 1991 by Organizational Design Consultants. All Rights Reserved.