COURSE: LEADERSHIP, ENGAGEMENT, AND PEOPLE PERFORMANCE

CASE STUDY: THE TEAM THAT WASN’T

Student Name: Apoorv Gupta

1. A brief summary of the major problem areas at FireArt. (80

Question I
Word).

i. Sales trend at FireArt has flattened in last 3 Months

ii. National Glassmaking Industry that is a large enterprise has
entered FireArt’s niche market space.
iii. As the competitor is far superior with resource &
technology, it will dominate the market.
iv. Inefficient and non-cohesive top tier management team,
with Randy being a blocker.

Question I 2. List and elaborate on the reasons, responsible for sub-standard

business results at FireArt, associated with the below-
mentioned people.

a) The FireArt Team led by Eric (80 words)

i. Lack of Motivation
Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation triggers are missing
from the team which has resulted in the team being demotivated
towards effort.
ii. Lack of Synergy
The team members lack synergy amongst themselves which
further escalates ineffective performance from them.
iii. Lack of Conflict resolution technique
Eric is unable to use conflict resolution techniques effectively
 in order to resolve conflicts among team members.

Question I 2. List and elaborate on the reasons, responsible for sub-standard

business results at FireArt, associated with the below-mentioned
people.

b) The FireArt Team led by Randy Louderback (80 words)

i. Attitude of defection
He is inclined to disrupt the processes set in place and answers
questions with obnoxious vagueness.
ii. Lacks teamwork quality
Randy himself believes in individuals executing great works
contrary to teams. For him teams do not deliver on executing
the vision.
iii. Egoist
Randy drives meetings full of self-importance and disregard to
others’ opinions. He shots down ideas of his own team mates
bluntly.
Question I 3. List and elaborate on the reasons, responsible for sub-standard
business results at FireArt, associated with the below-mentioned
people.

c) The FireArt Team led by Eric Holt (80 words)

i. Eric is more of a dominated leader who fails to exercise his

authority.
ii. Eric is not able to set and run the agenda and is more of an
observer.
iii. Contrary to being proactive, he’s more of reactive and passive
and does not lead the pack with addressing the issues at hand.
iv. Intimidated with Randy and lets him run the show freely.
v. He’s more of a facilitator than a leader as designated by the
CEO.

1. Steps that Eric should adopt as the next course of action divided
Question II
under the following timelines: (80 words each)

c) Short-term (1-3 months)

i. Becoming Team Leader

Confront Randy on his discerning attitude and guide on
building a performance improvement plan. Let him know of the
consequences on his behavior not improving.
ii. Team Charter
Build brainstorming team to define problem statements and
plan. Decide timelines and assign accountability to members.
 iii. Process Improvement
Incorporate transparency to the process. Build automation for
processes that are repeatable.
iv. Support from Top Management
Involve top management for overhauling process so they are on
top of it. Get the mandates approved and communication
channel established.

1. Steps that Eric should adopt as the next course of action divided
Question II
under the following timelines: (80 words each)

d) Mid-term (3+ Months)

i. Meet everyone in the team individually and in group to

establish first repo.
ii. Motivate open forums, brainstorming and discussion to
encourage transparency, trust and sense of common vision.
iii. Set clear expectations and roadmap to vision with the team.
iv. Communicate consequences and reward on behavior, work
attitude, initiatives.
v. Communicate straight but hard to Randy of possible end
results if behavior is not mended.
vi. Build programs and table agendas to instill confidence and
accountability led team ethics.
 1. Pick any three recommendations and elaborate on their
Question II
importance and relevance. (80 words)

Recommendation 1 : Support from Top Management

Eric should put together a team including top level managers. Eric
should build the qualities of a leader, start setting agendas and lead
the meetings instead of observing them.

He must adhere to Relationship triangle and focus on stressing

upon the 3 corners of the triangle with building strong relationship
with an individual in the organization, strong relationship with the
team as a whole and promote individual within those teams to have
strong cohesion with his/her team at large.

2. Pick any three recommendations and elaborate on their

Question II
importance and relevance. (80 words)

Recommendation 2 : Brainstorming and Discussion Forum

 Eric should announce through team meetings and check progress
during the same. To promote open forum, team members should
not just be comfortable with success but with mistakes and
conflicts. Let team members’ feeling be elicited, agreement
reached, and next steps decided.

Eric should speak to Jake, for his presence in some meetings. Eric
can delegate special consultant force to Randy who acts as an
expert guide to the team rather than giving him the authority to
drive the team.

1. Pick any three recommendations and elaborate on their

Question II
importance and relevance. (80 words)

Recommendation 3 : Instill confidence and self-accountability

Eric should work on his leadership skills and define his style. This
can include Warrior or Wizard approach, in defining approach.
Promote discussions, disagreements, conflicts within the team.

All this can help Eric become a leader who not only inspires his
team but to whom the team looks forward to guidance. He should
instill values of accountability for completing assigned tasks on
priority. Eric can also work on RnR’s, performance-based
recognitions, kudos and other team motivating programs at work.
 1. Analyze Jack Derry as an inspirational leader of his organization
Question III
under the following headers, based on your learnings from
Module 3

a) Sensing (80 words)

i. Jack realized that to moving forward internal processes and

working of the company needed improvement.
ii. He embraced that the market was evolving and, he needed an
action plan to fight National Glass company, who was to enter
FineArt’s niche market. He onboarded Eric, who understood
dynamics of the market and could help guide the change.
iii. He knew as Eric was an expert in market understanding, he did
not intervene in process as he might have become a blocker to
Eric’s efforts.

1. Analyze Jack Derry as an inspirational leader of his

Question III
organization under the following headers, based on your
learnings from Module 3

b) Relating (80 words)

 i. Jack was low on this aspect of leadership as he did not show
signs of Reassurance in the time of crisis and did not reach out
to other people at FineArt for support.
ii. There appears to be a lack of strategical and operations
networking between leaders of different teams. Absence of non-
transactional (informal) relationships reflected upon poor
leadership and it is also where Jack did not put his effort on
improving it.

1. Analyze Jack Derry as an inspirational leader of his

Question III
organization under the following headers, based on your
learnings from Module 3

c) Visioning (80 words)

i. Jack could have done a lot more when it comes to visioning.

His plan of building company’s strategic realignment plan,
executing and winning the same in 6 months was vague and
lacked specific timelines and expectations associated with them.
Nor did the plan of action had any vision.
ii. He should have adopted Hoshin planning approach for better
navigation. Though the right thing he did was to onboard Eric
to drive change in the market foreseeing the challenges that
were there.
 1. Analyze Jack Derry as an inspirational leader of his
Question III
organization under the following headers, based on your
learnings from Module 3

d) Executing (80 words)

i. Jack was satisfactory when it comes to execution element of

leadership. He mobilized a team to work on core issues at hand
in order to achieve overall positive growth.
ii. He could have been more proactive in being a part of team
meetings and could have discussed different perspectives of
every member. Performance metrics should have been
discussed in these meetings which didn’t. Jack could have also
built an open platform to discuss on execution plans.

2. Recommend any changes or alternative steps that Jack Derry

Question III
could have taken to be a more effective leader.

i. Jack should explain the objectives to Eric. Run performance

discussions with teams on the progress and discuss on open
consensus for next steps.
ii. Jack must implement organization wide Hoshin Kanri process.
iii. He should be proactive in expecting and receiving MOMs of
meetings from Eric which can further improve efficiencies and
enable a sense of urgency within the project teams.
iv. He should create a RnR program where team members should
be suitably awarded for completing their objectives and their
accomplishments should be company wide communicated.