Buad Case Study

Problem Advert is a medium sized marketing company. The company received a special project from one of its most important clients to advertise the launch of a 60-inch plasma flat-screen television.

Advert assigned its talented employees: Even, Conner, Alexis, Derek and Judy to do this project. They were given the freedom to work on the project from the beginning to the end. They could come up with their ideas, hire the necessary, create and maintain the budget and present the final advertisement to the clients.

While discussing this project, Conner took the lead and proudly started telling the group about his idea for the advertisement. He told the others that he knew the clients well and that they wanted an “out of the box” commercial. Alexis was actually Minored about his idea but she agreed that they had to do something new.

Even and lady did not say anything and both agreed with Concern’s idea. Derek had also worked Ninth the clients before, more so than any of the other members. He had his own different idea than Concern’s.

However, because the rest of the team agreed with the Idea, he withheld his own commercial idea and instead also agreed with Conner. The team worked well with each other without conflict and finished the commercial a month ahead of schedule.

In the end, the clients disliked the commercial, and hired Adverts’ competitors instead. While watching television a few months later, Derek saw commercial for the flat screen television similar to the commercial he had envisioned during the original meeting. Key Problems 1 . There is a dominant member in the group (leadership).

Conner was the dominant member in the group.

2. There is a personality limit: Extroversion – Conner was the most extroverted one in the group. He assumed the leader position from the beginning and immediately communicated his idea to the group. The rest who were more introverted felt intimidated and did not convey their ideas. Agreeableness – The agreeableness level of the team was very high in that most of them directly agreed with one another. They were also very cooperative and avoided conflict by not arguing with other members of the group.

3.

Miscellany’s Theory of needs: eased on McClellan ‘s theory, Conner was more eager to satisfy his need tort Power nope), to make others behave the way he wants, while the others are more likely to have higher need for affiliation (info, the desire for closer relationship. 4. Goal-setting theory and self-efficacy theory: The team members tended to be more agreeable with Conner rather than adding their own ideas and making the initial brainstorm a conversation rather than an Immediate decision. The goal-setting theory says that specific goals with feedback lead to higher performance.

However, Conner asserted himself as the most dominant member and related more to the self-efficacy theory, that he was capable of performing the task.

. Biases Overconfidence bias – Conner was so confident with his ideas that he overestimated the outcome of it. He should have asked for other ideas rather than asking if his coworkers agreed with him. With feedback and constructive criticism, the commercial could have been much more effective. Escalation of commitment – Derek, having worked for the client before, knew that Concern’s idea would not be ideal.

He had his own ideas and opinions; however, he decided to agree with Conner because he did not want to bring down the moral of the group even though he knew that the clients would not be as inclined to accept it. . Communication Having assumed a leadership role in the group, Conner directly conveyed his idea to the other members and asked for their opinion about his idea at the end. He did not give the other members equal chance to present their ideas, which ultimately ended in their failure.

Possible Solutions In order to improve the group’s internal communication, all members should be required to develop and propose an idea. In the group, only Conner suggested an dead for the commercial.

Although, Alexis vocalizes her dissent, her desire to maintain solidarity within the group influenced her not to pitch her idea. In order to maintain a fair and unbiased environment, each individual’s detailed proposal may be submitted anonymously; as a result, this would limit corruption.

Although this method may take more time and cost the company more money, it guarantees a greater range of ideas and perspectives and increases individual participation?thus, Increasing personal autonomy. As a result, this method enhances the team’s open- mindedness, increases communication, equalizes participation, and improves productivity Another way to resolve the communication problem is to develop a team contract. In the case study, Conner? a type-A personality, extrovert, and close-minded leader ? will aim to dominate the group, due to his personality.

By developing a binding contract, both the company and the team members would agree on appropriate guidelines and steps needed to more efficiently and productively reach their goal.

Irish contract would define deadlines, guidelines, and defiant behavior, while, also, allocating skill specific Jobs to individuals. Although the a contract would limit the group’s autonomy and organizational creativity, it would ensure that the meetings Mould be more efficient in creating a well-developed product that would more fully meet company standards.

Lastly, in order to resolve the problems within the team’s composition, the company should hire a more diverse team. If each member is from a different financial, ethnic, and cultural background, and has varying work-experience and task specialization, the group will be more diverse and have a greater perspective on the task. Additionally, with a greater variety of individuals, there will most likely be a greater range in individual’s Big- 5 characteristics.

Therefore, each member’s specific kills and personality type will determine their Job role within the team. This will limit unaccredited dominance within a group.

In regard to the case study, the main issue Nothing the group’s composition was that all the members had high agreeableness scores; thus, no one wanted to ruin the team’s solidarity. However, with varying scores of agreeableness, more team members will be willing to speak against the group norm. As a result, this will increase idea innovation. Solution After careful analysis of the situation, we have come to the agreement that the main problem the group faced was corruption.

Corruption occurred in this group due to the members’ rationalization of resistance to their ideas.

Members of the group reinforced this rationalization by conforming to the opposition that Conner created in order to maintain group solidarity. Another evident cause was that Alexis avoided confrontation by simply conforming to Concern’s ideas. Although she tried to propose another idea to the team, she received an evaluation as a frown, a body gesture that expresses displeasure. In addition, another example is Trek’s action to remain quiet, even though he had the best idea for their client’s commercial.

Lastly, by remaining almost quiet to giving feedback to Concern’s idea, each member voted ‘yes”.

As the case study shows, corruption attacked this group and hindered their performance. The pressure from conformity deterred the group from considering diverse and better-fitting ideas and inhibited the group’s overall communication. Given that we have an efficient team rather than an effective team, we found that to decrease pressures we will implement a nominal group technique via electronic meeting because it has demonstrated the ability to minimize corruption by ambition pressures & conflicts The tolling plan NAS been designed to minimize communication during the cognitive process, which is the main cause of team’s problem.

Our plan is to have all the individuals within the team develop and propose an idea for the project.

Nominal corruption will restrict communication during the decision making process. During the cognitive period, members will independently “rite down ideas for the TV commercial project. After the cognitive period there will be no discussion or criticism of the proposals and members will input their data anonymously into a computer that will scramble the proposals and present them to the group.

Here they will be able to express their honest opinion by adding commentary regarding other proposals. Finally, the proposal that becomes highly ranked among the group will win, and thus, this will automatically select the proposal’s writer as the project’s leader. By using this process, excess “chitchat”, which causes digressions in the discussion, will be reduced, thus, saving time and money.

Also, there will be limited social loafing. Since every member is required to participate, there will be both an Increase in idea diversity and member contribution.

This will contribute to a high task orientation because each member will work on the project from the beginning to the end. There will also be a sense of high task orientation since every member will be focused in the final decision to begin the process to work on the project. Lastly, by all individual’s being involved in the process, there will be a shared responsibility in the product.

Thus, no one individual will be held accountability, due to the other’s desire to avoid confrontation and discomfiture. However, this process may decrease roof cohesiveness.

Because, during the cognitive period, there will be less group Interaction, it may reduce individual commitment to the project. This might occur if a team member’s idea is rejected and they are forced to develop another member’s idea. Another potential issue is the extra cost electronic meetings. Because they require more resources? such as valued time, specialized software, and software training? it might not be the most cost-efficient way for the group to interact.

Lastly the designated leader, chosen by the selection of his/her contract, may not be the cost qualified leader.

Therefore, due to the selection process, conflict may arise due to the leadership skills of the prospective leader. It is apparent that group performance is crucial for the success of the company. Nee are confident that with the solution provided Advert will increase effectiveness of their group decision-making process that will eventually lead to great success in their future projects. By doing this, Advert will gain credibility with their clients and increase the revenue of their company.

In this manner, the success of the employees Nil reflect the performance of the company.