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OB Case Study

Case Incident

A Virtual Team at T.A.Stearns

Question 1

Why is this group a team?

Answer 1

This group can be easily seen as a team in which there is a formal group of four people who

have pre-defined roles to perform. The group members here are part of a virtual team

which means they can operate from anywhere they wish to, that is , they just have to check

once a day through e-mails, messages and group conferencing softwares .

Here are the reasons why this group is a team :

1. The team has shared leadership roles.

All the four members of the team have full independence to work from anywhere

and has a say in the decisions made by the team.

2. Team has individual and mutual accountability

3. The team has specific purpose

The soul goal of this team is to prepare highly technical both in terms of the tax laws

they cover and the code in which they are written.

4. The team has a collective work products

They have a team which works together to solve big problems through programming

such as building complex macros for the company.

5. The team encourages open-ended, active problem solving meetings

They talk to each other daily via mails and messages and group conferencing

softwares.

6. The team measures performance by assessing collective work products

7. The team discusses, decides and does real work

They openly discuss with each other the problems and make decisions there by

leading to programming new programmes for the firms.

Here the team goes beyond the traditional formal work groups by having a

collective, synergistic (the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts) effect.

Question 3

What, if, any, characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team?

Answer 3

Following is a brief look at the situation -

T.A.Stearns is a national tax accounting firm whose main business is tax preparation services

for individuals. It has a superior reputation due to its quality of advice and the excellence of

service. The key is the state-of-the-art computer databases and analysis tools used when

counselling clients which are developed by highly trained individuals. The creation of the

programs is done in a virtual environment by teams. Here four programmers named Tom

Andrews, Cy Crane, Marge Dector, and Megan Harris work at home and are connected to

each other and the company by email, telephone and conference software. The team is

virtual in nature and formal and they can work wherever they want but have to check in

daily, onsite meetings among programmers take place only few times in a year, though they

meet informally outside of these scheduled occasions. The team exchanges emails many

times a day and often they are amusing as well as well work-related. Also once about a

month the whole group gets together.

Now let’s have a brief look at how the problem arose due to groupthink -

Programmers develop programming tools called macro that helps them to do their work

more efficiently when a major program change is required due to changes/amendments in

laws. Cy became obsessed with the prospect of creating a shortcut that could save huge

amount of time and he was successful in doing so. He told Tom about it who tried it and

found it clicked.

Stearns has an employee suggestion program rewarding employees for innovations saving

company money. It gives an employee five percent of savings generated over a period of

three months and a profit-sharing plan. The members of team wanted a time for leisure and

consulting work and feared their group might suffer if the management learned about

their innovation. This way the work of four people could be done by three and one could

lose the job, so they kept it to themselves. Now as the busy season came they distributed

the macro to other members of the team and swore them to secrecy. They set a level of

production that would not arouse the management’s suspicion. For several months this

continued and they pushed to more quality work with more leisure time.

However, Dave Regan, the in-house manager of the work team, picked up the innovation

several weeks after it was first implemented. He found out that the production time had

gone down a bit, while quality had shot up. He found proofs to his doubt in emails of

Marge to Cy. He hinted it to Tom but he would not tell the truth. Finally things began to go

out of control as Cy boasted his trick to a member of another virtual team and Dave took

Cy out to a lunch. At the lunch Cy revealed about the innovation and that the team’s action

had been justified to protect itself.

Groupthink -

A dysfunction of highly cohesive groups and teams that has received a lot of attention has

been referred to as groupthink. In groupthink there is a deterioration of mental efficiency,

reality testing, and moral judgement that results from in-group pressure. It results from the

pressures on individual members to conform and reach consensus that there is no realistic

appraisal of alternative courses of action in a decision, and deviant, minority, or unpopoular

views are suppressed.

Following are the characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team –

There is the illusion of invulnerability –There is excessive optimism and risk taking. As we

can see here there is excessive optimism and risk taking behaviour shown by the team as

they kept the innovation to themselves having optimism regarding that the management

won’t easily find out about it. Also the risk taking behaviour can be seen when they ignore

the company policy for their own benefits.

There are rationalisations by the members of the group to discount warnings.

This can be seen when the members ignore the threat of being caught and whwn Dave

hinted Tom he rationalised thinking if everything’s all right why does dave has to worry.

There is an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality – The group ignores

questionable ethical or moral issues or stances. Here the group ignores the moral issues and

stances by keeping the innovation to themselves knowing about the company policy of

suggested rewards. Working for Stearns for a long time they should have been more loyal.

Those who oppose the group are stereotyped as evil, weak or stupid. Here not a

singleperson in any team leaked the secret of the macro to the management, though, it is

hard to believe that no one had any morality or loyalty for Stearns.

There is direct pressure on any member who questions the stereotypes. Similar to above no

one questioned Cy and Tom for being immoral and their unrealistic approach.

There is self-censorship of any deviation from the apparent group consensus. This can be

easily seen in this case as no one person came out with the truth unless it was finally out.

There is the illusion of unanimity – silence is interpreted as consent. Here Cy and Tom

swore the other members to the oath of secrecy thinking what they thought was

everybody’s thinking but this actually might not have been the case.

There are self-appointed mind guards who protect the group from adverse information. In

this case study Tom was the self-appointed mind guard who kept the information of Dave

hinting to him about the innovation to himself thinking that there would be nothing done as

long as the work was done well and company was in profit.

Question 4

Has Dave been an effective team leader? Explain your position.

Answer

Yes, Dave is an effective team leader according to my interpretation because he knows how

to converse with employees in different situations without offending them in any way.

In this case when Cy developed a program using his superior programming skills to reduce

his man- hours and increase productivity, he told about it only to his colleagues so that they

benefit from it and enjoy some leisure time. He didn’t tell about it to Dave(his boss) because

he feared that since his program helps in doing the work of four people by only three

people, one of them might lose their job because of him. Another reason contributing to his

secrecy was that their team would get only 5% of the profit generated by the aid of their

innovation only for three months which was very less in comparison to the leisure time they

had. The group even increased the quality of their work so as to not arouse any suspicion.

But Cy made the terrible mistake of telling about his program to a member from another

group which aroused Dave’s suspicions.

Dave was wondering for a few weeks after the implementation of the program as to why

the production time had decreased and the quality of work had shot up. He got his first

inkling form an e-mail he intercepted from Marge (another member of the team) to Cy

thanking him for his brilliant thinking.

Dave tried to confront Tom (group member) trying not to create an embarrassing situation

but got no further leads. He did not even tell his boss about his suspicions since quality and

productivity were up.

But one day Dave learned that Cy had boasted about his trick program to a person from

another team in the company. Dave decided that the matter had gone out of hands and

pulled the reins by inviting Cy to lunch and asking him to explain what was happening.

This method was wise and effective as it gave a sense of security to the offender who

pleaded guilty immediately but insisted that the reasons were justified so as to protect

himself.

This manner of interrogation and his good use of intellect to cover an embarrassing

situation shows that he is an effective team leader. Also he respects the sentiments and

feelings of others which makes him a considerate man leading to his effective team

leadership.