Organizational Change

Unit 3 - Project 1

Developing High Performance

April 8, 2006

MGT 420-0602A-02 Organizational Change

Read The OD Letters in Chapter 7 of your text. You are to act as an OD practitioner who has been asked to advise Ryan on how to work with the XRS Laser Group. Create a case analysis using the "Case Analysis Format" as it appears on page 212 of your text. You can add additional space to this format if you need room to fully explain or examine different sections of the form. Additionally, make certain that you justify your recommendations to the XRS Laser Group management.

THE OD LETTERS

Case Analysis

Name:

I. Problems

A. Macro

1. John Everet will act as the playboy by displaying a lack of involvement through his joking around.

2. John will display dominating behavior in order to assert his superiority. He will also interrupt others by talking about activities not related to the team building activities.

B. Micro

1. John's team will display blocking behavior by joking around and letting others know that he doesn't take the retreat seriously. He will purposefully annoy the others teams focused on team building.

2. John and several others will leave the retreat early on the last day and find a way to interrupt the other teams focused on team building. John and several others will not return for the early afternoon session and the retreat will end with the rest of the members drifting off into little groups and doing whatever they want.

II. Causes

1. The XRS Project team is not turning out any results and John Everet has been the team manager for over two years.

2. John Everet is under a lot of pressure from his department head to get the project moving at a faster pace.

3. The company will require an outsider from another division to go along on the annual retreat and help with the training on team retreats and to bring in a new perspective to the project.

III. Systems affected

1. "Structural: The structure of the organization will be broken down because John will not take the team training seriously.

2. Psychosocial: The psychosocial system functioning of the organization will not be present. Norms are the organized and shared ideas regarding what group members should do and feel, how this behavior should be regulated, and what sanctions should be applied when behavior does not coincide with social expectations.

3. Technical: There were no technical systems affected.

4. Managerial: A better understanding of the XRS Project team's behavior will be needed to help John adapt to the role of coach. There needs to be a stronger reliance of the work team meaning that John must have the ability to help the team become more keenly aware of how it is operating. A work team that is more keenly aware of how it operates will be better able to analyze and solve its own problems.

5. Goals: There didn't appear to be any goals set for the XRS Project team so therefore they had not turned out any results in over two years.

IV. Alternatives

1. The manager uses must use several techniques to analyze the communications processes in the work group:

Observe: How often and how long does each member talk during a group discussion? These observations can be easily recorded on paper and referred to later when analyzing group behavior. It is also useful to keep a record of who talks to whom or to use a sociogram.

Identify: Who are the most influential listeners in the group? Noticing eye contact between members can give insights on the communication processes. Sometimes one person, and