Answered: Question It is clear that the team…

Ciccarelli: Psychology_5 (5th Edition)

5th Edition

ISBN:9780134477961

Author:Saundra K. Ciccarelli, J. Noland White

Publisher:Saundra K. Ciccarelli, J. Noland White

Chapter1: The Science Of Psychology

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 1TY

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Question
It is clear that the team could use some help and Jerry has solicited your expertise.

1. Advise and make at least four strategy recommendations to Jerry on how he could facilitate
a resolution to the team’s issues. These solutions must be specific and realistic. You must
indicate why you have chosen these recommendations. Your recommendations must be
backed up by strong evidence.

Your responses must be justified by using appropriate theories, principles, models. You should avoid analysis based mainly upon personal opinion or intuition.

Teamwork in Crisis

Jerry Jones, a second-year learning team mentor, stared at his notes again. His interaction with the

team last night confirmed what he suspected. Only three weeks into the first year of an BSc.

program at a big-name school in Barbados, the learning team was in trouble. From his own

experience the year before, Jones knew that a first-rate learning team made a huge difference in a

student’s first-year experience. The corollary was also true: a bad or difficult learning team

experience could taint the entire first-year school experience. Although Jones wanted to help, he

was not at all sure how to do so. Perhaps describing the situation to his fellow peer mentors in his

second-year elective class on managing teams would draw out some good ideas. In his mind, Jones

could hear himself explain the story:

Let me first describe the team members.

Essentially, they were all around 26 years of age, athletic, and had professional backgrounds in

finance or economics. I’ll start with Bobby Bromfield, who was a self-professed introvert and who

was passionate about the Reggae Boys Football team from Jamaica. Professionally, Bloomfield

worked as a financial analyst for a few different firms. He had not travelled outside Barbados much

over the past few years. With plans to target investment banking firms for his summer internship,

Bloomfield had been spending a lot of nights networking with banking alumni and recruiters.

Jeff King was from Barbados. He worked for Intel in Bridgetown for six years before

pursuing his first degree. King spoke fluent English and was a huge cricket fan. He followed his

favourite team passionately and was also very involved in the informal Barbadian club at the

school and planned to make his favourite dish for the International Food Festival this year. After

graduation, King wanted to pursue a career in consulting and hoped to get sponsored for a visa to

live and work in the United States permanently.

Joy Gordon was the only woman on the learning team and came from a mixed-race

family—Afro- Caribbean and Caucasian. In 2002, Gordon was awarded the crown for Miss

Jamaica and had been Miss Jamaica Teen in 1999. She worked as an analyst for a private

foundation. Gordon planned to focus her career on private wealth. Despite the great amount of

networking that her chosen career path required, Gordon was very involved in the school

community. She spent a lot of time working on projects for the Black Business Student Forum and

the National Association of Women.

Keith James was originally from Nigeria and had been living in the Barbados for more than

10 years. James worked as a policy research analyst for the government of Barbados, then changed

career paths and worked as a real estate analyst. James was a first-generation college student and awarded the Robert Toigo Foundation Fellowship upon entering the BSc. program. While James

was not very involved in the school community, through the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Barbados

organization he was a Big Brother for local youths. James planned to target the consulting industry

for his summer internship.

Cameron Mitchell was the only scientist in the group. Mitchell was a member of the

university’s soccer club. Mitchell worked for Air and Product Chemicals in Barbados. He was

hired into the competitive Engineering Career Development Program consisting of three one-year

rotational assignments in varying locations and functional roles. Being single, Mitchell embraced

the social life of the school community and could often be found at the Thursday night drinking

club. Like Bloomfield, Mitchell planned on going into investment banking after graduation.

This brings us to the sixth learning team member—Fredrick Black. Black was also the

captain of the varsity football team. He spent five years in real estate investment. Black was the

only married member of the learning team, and his wife worked in the school’s admissions office.

He was very involved in the Christian fellowship program at the school and planned to continue

his career in real estate.

Transcribed Image Text:Now here's what I saw that night that brought me to share this story with you. Jones was already in the room when team members began to arrive, and James was the last to enter. "I didn't realize you were going to be here tonight," Mitchell said looking up from his computer screen. "We haven't seen you all week. Where have you been?" "I've been very busy," James responded while smiling at Mitchell, "I had to head up north for an interview on Tuesday. But thanks for sending me all the answers and class notes, so I could stay caught up." "You've already had an interview!?" This was an eye-opener for Mitchell who continued, "Company briefings haven't even started yet! And don't thank me. Joy Gordon was the one who put everything together." With that, Mitchell looked at Gordon, nodded his head, and sat down. When it looked like everyone was ready to go, Gordon cleared her throat. "Ok guys; let's do takeaways from the cases from today." Mitchell groaned lightly in response. With an arched eyebrow, Gordon asked, "Is there something wrong?" Mitchell hesitated for a moment and looked around at the other group members. "Well, we never really agreed that we should do takeaways every day. They take up at least a half hour every meeting and we might be able to make better use of that time or at least get out of here early-I'm sure that Black's wife would appreciate that!" Black just shrugged his shoulders. "I think that takeaways are great and they should really help us when exam time rolls around." King agreed with Black as did Bloomfield. Gordon asked James what his opinion was. He shrugged his shoulders and said that it didn't really matter to him either way. "Well, I guess I'm outvoted then," Mitchell said smiling slightly. "Let's keep going." Gordon looked at Mitchell, "If it helps, I can take ownership of the document and put something together at the end of the term for all of us." "Anything that helps with exams is great," Mitchell responded. Okay so none of this seems that bad right? Well please just keep listening. Gordon started with her own notes of takeaways and then asked for additional ones from the rest of the group. As they worked, they passed around the table some chocolate cookies that Black's wife had made. Black gave his takeaways and stood up to draw a chart on the board, replicating something that his professor had done in class. As King began covering his takeaways, his cell phone went off and he left the room to answer it. The group paused and several members started to check their email. King walked back in, apologized for the interruption, and presented his takeaways. Then Gordon, who had been taking notes for the group, asked James if he had anything to say. James passed because he had no input, but he looked flustered. "Who's leading the marketing case tonight?" he asked. "Well since none of us are marketing experts," Black replied, "we're just going to have to struggle through this together." "I spent some time this afternoon on the first two questions," Bloomfield told the group. "Let me go through my responses and we can talk about it as a group, OK?" Gordon and Black nodded their heads, but none of the other team members responded. Bloomfield started the case and made sure to mention that everyone was welcome to add anything as he worked his way through the questions. Once Bloomfield started to repeat himself, King interrupted. "Let me share some of the stories I've heard about people having problems with OnStar technology," he looked at Bloomfield for approval before continuing. “I think that customer perception is a good indicator of brand awareness." Black spoke up with his interpretation of the case study questions. Mitchell, who had been sitting silent the entire time then spoke up to mention that OnStar was purchased by affluent people. "No joke," James said, laughing sarcastically. Mitchell quickly turned his eyes back to his laptop. Let me provide you some background about why this was unusual. Mitchell was normally the most outgoing of the team members and often shared funny anecdotes from his class sessions. That night he was very quiet. Black appeared to notice this because he kept looking over at Mitchell with a small frown on his face, but he didn't say anything. Bloomfield brought them back to the case questions and provided his thoughts on the next question. Black waited for Bloomfield to finish before he spoke up: I really don't understand why you feel that way. I think that you are looking at this too much from a finance standpoint. I think that the important point here is that OnStar has the first mover advantage but it won't last much longer especially if they can't fix the defects in the technology. "Isn't that pretty much what I said?" Bloomfield asked the group. Before Black could reply King interrupted, "You guys do this every time! One of you thinks he has a different point and you argue about it for 15 minutes before you realize you are saying the same thing." Black and Mitchell looked at each other and neither responded to Prasad's comment. Gordon looked around the table. "I think we're working really well on this case tonight so let's not let things deteriorate, OK?" "OK, I agree," King said, "Let's continue on and talk about the 4 Ps in this situation."