Arctic Mining Case Study

The project stipulates that within a seven day window the team stakes 15 claims, 60 miles in total, which would be an average of 7. 5 lengths per day between the four team members. These stipulations also include manipulation and demutualization. Mr..

Parker also informed the team members that each man Mould receive a $300 bonus, in addition to their wages, should the project be completed on time. Mr.. Parker was angry with two of the team members, Millard and Boyce, who only completed six lengths a piece on the first day, while Parker and orally completed 7 lengths each.

One the evening of the first day verbally expressed his anger and disappointment with Millard and Boyce.

As the days went on the verbal abuse continued as Millard and Boyce continued to under produce compared to Parker and Tallboy. Boyce improved his performance and Parker focused his anger on Millard. Millard continued to produce less than the rest of the team throughout the project. This often left Millard feeling mistreated and undervalued and that, no matter how hard he tried, Parker always seemed to focus on him as the bad employee.

Millard often went in early, stayed at work as long as possible, and skipped meals in hopes of reducing more. In the eyes of Parker this meant nothing, as Miller’s performance Nas still far less than the rest of the team’s.

Parker often questioned Miller’s level of dedication and work ethic. Regardless of the reasoning Millard gave on why he produced less Parker was always displaying disappointment with his performance. Iris type of behavior by Parker seemed to be motivated by the potential end result and the $300 bonus.

Parser’s treatment of Millard by singling him out fosters an unhealthy, mismanaged, and a hostile work environment for the team as a whole. There are several organizational problems with this case. Parker is displaying four behaviors towards Millard: self-fulfilling prophecy, selective attention, confirmation bias, and halo-effect.

In turn, this is causing Millard to have low Job satisfaction/ dissatisfaction and EVIL. Lastly, Arctic Mining and Parker use goal setting as an incentive to have the project completed in a timely manner, which proves devastating to the team’s overall success in the end.

A self-fulfilling prophecy 1 is “the perceptual process in which our expectations about another person cause that person to act more consistently with those expectations. ” This behavior can be damaging in a workplace environment where management may treat employees who perform better with more autonomy. Workers believed to not meet the standard may be treated with more scrutiny, criticism, or micromanagement to their work.

Parker, trot the first day when Millard missed n quota, began to form a negative expectation of Miller’s performance.

This expectation continued on day three when Parker starts feeling that Millard has a poor work ethic and voices his opinion by saying, “l thought I told you I wanted 7. 5 lengths a day. ” Finally, on day seven after being continually harassed, Millard gave into his frustration ND lack of Job satisfaction and gave up on his Job duties all together. Miller’s behavior confirms Parser’s self-fulfilling prophecy that Millard had a poor work ethic. These types of behavior in the workplace have detrimental effects to both the productivity of the persons involved and can have a negative ripple effect throughout team.

This behavior can lead to an employee having little to no care in what they do and to have very little Job satisfaction. Witnessing this behavior in a team environment can intimidate employees into doing only what they know and discouraging them from stepping outside their comfort zone. It didn’t matter to Parker how Millard improved his performance in latter days. He had already formed an opinion of Millard and projected his own failures onto Millard, therefore forming a halo-effect. A halo-effect 2 is “a perceptual error whereby our general impression of a person usually based on one prominent characteristic of that person. Parker displays confirmation bias when he shifts his attention on day five to focus solely on Millard even though he performed at the same pace as Boyce.

Confirmation bias 3 is ‘the process of screening out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions and to more readily accept confirming information. As the project furthers and the rest of the team’s production declines Parker continues to focus only on Miller’s performance. This type of behavior displayed by Parker is known as selective attention. Selective attention 4 is “the process of attending to some Information received by our senses and ignoring other information. Employees Ant to be led and receive positive feedback from their managers. This fosters employee satisfaction by setting realistic goals, career paths, and constructive criticism in order to perform better.

Being dissatisfied in your Job as a result of poor management can lead to overall Job dissatisfaction. Job dissatisfaction can lead an employee to engage in bad work habits such as a lack of quality work, team degradation, and absenteeism. On the fifth day Parker said to Millard “why don’t you do what you say you’re going to do? ” Later that evening Millard also voiced that “he was tired of being dumped” on by Parker.

This type of outspoken opinion of the treatment he was receiving from Parker exhibits how Millard was feeling about his performance and the way in which Parker was addressing it. Finally, on day seven, Millard gave into his frustration and lack of Job satisfaction and quit caring about his duties and declined additional Job assignments offered by Parker and Arctic Mining.

These behaviors are all examples of how Millard is exhibiting the five categories of the EVIL model. Job satisfaction/dissatisfaction 5 is “a persons evaluation of his or her Job and Nor context. ” This behavior is also known as the EVELYN (Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect) model.

Exit- dissatisfaction gaining over time, leaving an organization. Voice- engaging in dissatisfaction by verbalizing your emotions to other employees. Loyalty- choosing to voice or exit and organization.

Neglect- reduction in work effort, paying less attention to the quality of work being done. Goal setting 7 is “the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions by establishing performance goals. ” By improperly using goal setting an organization can shift focus from the end result being done correctly and efficiently to Just getting it done as quickly as possible in order to receive the incentive.

If a team is only focused on the incentive as the goal then a manger may be tempted to instruct his or her employees to take shortcuts in order to receive the incentive. This can also lead to mismanagement and unfavorable treatment of an employee because the manger ay only be focused on the bonus and not on having a correct division of labor in order to accomplish said goal. This was exemplified by Parser’s behavior and his adamant focus on getting the bonus and not taking a good look at how and what his employees were doing based on their abilities.

In coming up with a hasty plan of attack I think Parker shifted the focus from himself onto Millard. There are many solutions to this problem. The first is that, from the start, Parker could have evaluated his workers and their abilities. By assuming he could give everyone the same task on efferent pieces of land, each with different challenges, he was setting himself and his team up for failure. By assessing his team’s individual abilities and aligning their strengths with the appropriate geographical challenges he could have had a better plan to achieve the common goal.

Had he created a division of labor that rotated each team to a different tract, instead of Just dividing and conquering, they might have reached the goal. By rotating teams it could have created some confusion and unfamiliarity, but it would have shared the different challenges more equally thus creating more team cohesion and empathy. Better team integration would have helped foster a good working relationship as well. This could have been a little time consuming initially, but knowledge sharing and increasing communication within the team could have proven very useful.

Hiring an outside source to evaluate the terrain could have proven to be a time killer once again, but at least he could have saved himself and the team some agony and distress by Just being monetarily driven by the $300 per man bonus. He could have also hired an outside source to be the project manager since it was obvious his management skills were not that effective.

Once again this approach could have been time consuming, but in the end having an effective project manager would have alleviated a lot of stress amongst the group.

In the end good communication, team cohesion, and effective managerial skills all prove invaluable in team dynamics. Without these basic skills assuming a team will be successful could prove to be a disaster. Overall, Parker should have taken into consideration the geographical challenges each tract possessed. He should have had group brainstorming session after visiting the area with the whole team in order to mom up with the division of labor and to inspire group cohesion. Lashing out and attacking Millard on a daily basis does nothing but destroy the team’s cohesion and their confidence in Parker as their leader.

His aggressive behavior causes the rest of the team to be unlikely to approach him if they encountered any problems or needed help. Parker should have also had daily meetings at the end of the day in order for the team to express concerns about their work and share advice with each other or offer help. Had Parker offered some one-on-one counseling with each individual offering constructive feedback and small goal planning this may have helped in reaching the common goals of completing the task and receiving the bonus.