Three Scenes from An

THREE SCENES FROM AN
ORGANIZATION: FORM A

SCENARIO 1

The newly formed green team was having trouble making progress. The desired results were stated clearly, and management had given the team adequate resources and a reasonable amount of latitude in its approach to the task.

Nevertheless, they’ve been floundering from the beginning. They suffered through several false starts and directionless activities. They finally settled on an approach, but are now having trouble moving from one step to the next. They tend to postpone intermediate decisions or conclusions because they feel they need more information or more time or more resources.

How can you help the team get on track?

SCENARIO 2

In an effort to stimulate team activities, you establish a “Team of the Month” recognition program. Although there was a lot of excitement and many new teams formed during the first month of the program, the pace of business improvements associated with team activities has declined sharply in the past quarter.

Two months ago, you increased the reward from a $25 gift certificate for each team member to an overnight stay at a local resort hotel; however, this produced no noticeable improvement in results.

How can you best stimulate team performance?

SCENARIO 3

An ongoing team has been established in the food services department you manage. The first problem the team decided to tackle involved petty theft of utensils. You shared with the team at its formation that $650 of stainless steel flatware has disappeared since the beginning of the year. This constitutes a negative effect of 0.69% on the cafeteria profit margin. Everyone on the team is quite concerned about this situation. And as the department manager, you are experiencing significant pressure from the owners to solve this problem. On a recent business trip, your large key ring set off the metal detector at the airport. It immediately occurred to you that installing a metal detector in the exit door frame could quickly identify anyone leaving with stolen spoons. You suggested this approach at the next team meeting, but the team leader asked you to save your recommendation until the team had collected more data. You pointed out that the company’s money was “walking out the door” while the team was wasting time when a perfectly good solution was staring it in the face. The team leader thanked you for your comment and the team returned to data collection planning.

What should you do now?