La Claire and the Falling Team Spirit in the East: Case Study

The case study examines La Claire, an American cosmetic company's launch in India and the subsequent challenges faced by the marketing team led by Martha. Despite timely completion of tasks, the team lacks cohesion and mutual support, hindering team spirit. Martha's leadership is questioned as the case explores the reasons behind the disunity and suggests solutions to foster teamwork. The analysis highlights the importance of team-building activities, open communication, and understanding cultural differences within a diverse team. The case study references the Tuckman model of group development to provide a framework for understanding team dynamics and suggests strategies for Martha to improve team effectiveness, including fostering open communication and leveraging diversity. References to academic journals support the analysis.

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Title: La Claire and the Falling Team Spirit in the East

Case Study
La Claire and the Falling Team Spirit in the East
The company called La Claire is an American cosmetic company that has been newly launched
in India and is a high end cosmetic brand which also has low priced exclusive range. It has been
newly launched into the market. It is known to produce a range of pastel shades of lip-colours
and it is one of its unique selling points. The pastel lip colours are available in liquid and cake
form.
As Foreign Direct Investment in India is not allowed the company had tied up with Lakme in
order to launch into the Indian market. There was no surety as to whether the company will be
making its way into the Indian market which is one of the most diverse markets in the world. The
stretch from North to South and East and West has vast cultural disparity and there is high range
of income difference between different people of different classes. It was not an easy job to
launch in this nation yet the job was accomplished after much protocols and approvals.
After six months of functioning in the main markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore.
The team of La Claire led by Martha, the marketing head of La Claire in India was appointed for
the purpose of a customer appreciation session. This was an important event as based on the
report prepared by the customer relation team stationed here in India that La Claire would be
working on its future strategies of functioning in Indian market. The hope was positive as brands
like Dior, Estee Launder, M.A.C, Bobbie Brown, Clinique and The Body Shop have been doing
quite well In India as a result of the growing economy.
She had put together a team of 12 members. The members had come together as a team for about
a few months but they were not really functioning as a team in spirit. The task that was assigned
to each of the team members gets completed on time and there is no compromise with the quality
of work delivered but each one was doing its own part without being helpful to each other and
not working as one whole called team. No one was helping anybody and the team did not belong
with each other. If one person needed help there would be nobody trying to help in. This was
perceived by Martha as a negative and she was not sure what to really do about it plus they were
not in their native surrounding. They had come to India (Mumbai) for about a period of 1.5
years. This made it difficult for them to function as expats do face issues when they are taken off
from the native environment
One of the team member Robin Danes had a personal issue and asked of someone would take the
call with the sales team. But there was no one who would chip in. In the end it was Martha who
had to come in for help as the report had to be prepared and a talk with the sales team was very
important.
1) What was it that Martha did not do to see such disunity in team?

Martha was the team leaders and as the leader of the team there were certain things that she
should have taken care of. Although, according to the case study, there was no loss of the work,
there could have been a great loss had Martha not volunteered. In order to prevent this there has
to be certain steps taken so that in future when Martha is not there to volunteer, there cannot be
any loss of work. La Claire hopes to expand into the Indian market and from here it hopes to
penetrate into the market of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka (Kiweewa, 2018).
Martha should have laid effort in making the team members meet each other prior to the team
starting off as workers. Had they got to know each other they would have been lesser hostile to
each other or at least they could have been more helpful. Meeting each other could have been
done by an informal meeting a day before the start of the official day. Before actually starting off
to work there were several things that Martha could have done (Algashami, 2018).
First, she should have allowed the team members enough time with each other before starting to
function as a team officially. There could be provision of tea party or a dinner. This should have
given them enough time to function. With this, the informality would have gone and they could
have bonded together and this should acted helped them in interacting better and also be more
helpful to each other. Out of 12 members, 8 were from the United States of America, 2 from
Canada and 2 were from India who stayed here and were hired by La Claire as marketing
advisors (Cortina, 2018).
The people, who were selected, belonged to different countries and due to this there were issues
of communication which needed little more time than what Martha had arranged for. Here one
can bring The Tuckman Model of Group Development. The image below is a representation of
the theory which is very effective team work theory. There are several stages through which a
team grows and becomes an effective one (Harari et al 2018).
Source: (Tuckman and Jensen 1977).
2) How can she bring in change now?

So now we have to see the steps that can be taken by Martha in order to foster team work and
team spirit in the team of La Claire. Here a few steps that can be quite helpful. First Martha has
to check the basic requirements of a good team are there or not. The three main elements in a
good team are commitment and trust, open and hurdle free communication, diversity in terms of
talent (Rego and Simpson 2018).
The team must be devoted to the goal that has been set for the organisation. A close study of the
case study shows that there were no lack of commitment from the side of employees as no such
matter has been highlighted in the case study. Yet, one cannot deny that there could have been an
issue in the future. So for the moment, it is justified to say that that the matter is under control
(Mehta and Mehta 2018).
Secondly there is free and open lines communication. Here there is certain amount of labour that
has to be put in by Martha. Communication has to be fostered during the work and off the work
too. Martha can create a hangout group, a Skype group or preferably a WhatsApp group which
can be used to share some information regarding sales which are not official but for extra
knowledge or even for fun. This will create a sense of oneness amongst the employees (Crowston
and Fagnot, 2018).
As far diversity in capability is concerned there is enough diversity in the way team has been put
by La Claire.

References
Cortina, L., 2018. YouthWorks Imparts Lessons About Jobs, Workplace.
Algashami, A., Cham, S., Vuillier, L., Stefanidis, A., Phalp, K. and Ali, R., 2018, October. Conceptualising
Gamification Risks to Teamwork within Enterprise. In IFIP Working Conference on The Practice of
Enterprise Modeling (pp. 105-120). Springer, Cham.
Kiweewa, J.M., Gilbride, D., Luke, M. and Clingerman, T., 2018. Tracking growth factors in experiential
training groups through Tuckman’s conceptual model. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 43(3),
pp.274-296.
Crowston, K. and Fagnot, I., 2018. Stages of motivation for contributing user-generated content: A theory
and empirical test. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 109, pp.89-101.
Tuckman, B.W. and Jensen, M.A.C., 1977. Stages of small-group development revisited. Group &
Organization Studies, 2(4), pp.419-427.
Kraimer, M.L., Wayne, S.J. and Jaworski, R.A.A., 2001. Sources of support and expatriate performance:
The mediating role of expatriate adjustment. Personnel Psychology, 54(1), pp.71-99.
Harari, M.B., Reaves, A.C., Beane, D.A., Laginess, A.J. and Viswesvaran, C., 2018. Personality and
expatriate adjustment: A meta‐analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 91(3),
pp.486-517.
Mehta, A. and Mehta, N., 2018. Knowledge integration and team effectiveness: a team goal orientation
approach. Decision Sciences, 49(3), pp.445-486.
Rego, A. and Simpson, A.V., 2018. The perceived impact of leaders’ humility on team effectiveness: An
empirical study. Journal of Business Ethics, 148(1), pp.205-218.