Leadership Case Study: Coke's Teamwork, Competition, and Innovation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of a leadership case study focused on Coca-Cola. The study examines Davis's approach to fostering teamwork and improving communication among employees and with customers. It explores the role of competition and its impact on employee efficiency, highlighting the importance of healthy competition and the potential drawbacks of excessive competitiveness. The report further analyzes the connection between employee involvement in sports teams and effective team performance, drawing parallels between sports teams and business scenarios. Finally, the report suggests alternative approaches Davis could have implemented to enhance teamwork, such as implementing reward and recognition programs, incorporating social activities, and clearly defining roles within teams. The analysis draws upon multiple academic sources to support the key arguments.

Running Head: PART B
LEADERSHIP CASE STUDY: PART B

2PART B
Answer 1.
Davis focused on changes that would affect the customers of Coke and not just their
consumers. He facilitated teamwork within the members by getting people together and
making them interact with themselves. Increased interaction results in better employee-
employer relations as well as employee-customer relations (Noe et al. 2017). More
employees in the organisation were given the chance to interact with the customers
developing a connection between the two. According to Davis, nothing can replace direct
interaction and its benefits for bringing the employees of an organisation together. He tried to
promote teamwork within the organisation by facilitating direct communication within the
employees that would bring them together. Increased and improved communication also
extended to the interactions of the employees with the authorities as well as the customers. As
seen by Davis to be important aspects contributing to the success of the business are team
harmony and trust. The employees in an organisation are not going to outperform themselves
and contribute to the development of the whole organisation if there is no trust or team
harmony present among them (Muirhead and Schechter, 2016). Team harmony, trust and
connectivity among employees helps to create effective teams that can work to improve the
working of the organisation. A good connection between the employees also depicts
satisfaction in their work. Kostyra and Klapper (2016) opined that the more satisfied the
employees, the more likely they are to be dedicated and give their best performance. Davis
has therefore tried to integrate teamwork and team spirit with the employees of Coke. He has
started this by improving communications.
To improve communications within the employees of an organisation, it is important
to hold meetings, seminars, HR training sessions where the individual employees come in
contact with the larger part of the organisation and provide the chance to facilitate interaction
among the members. Interaction between the employees and customers would only rise when
more and more employees get the chance to connect with the employees (Lacerenza et al.
2018). Davis has tried to create an environment where the interaction among the employees
are clear and they have a proper understanding of the roles they need to play. Employees
were made to come in contact with the customer and roles were regulated so that no
employee had to be stuck at boring behind the desk jobs. Simply speaking, in order to make
Coke a teamwork based company Davis had focused on developing the communication
among the stakeholders of the company with the help of developing mutual trust and
understanding along with engaging them in direct interaction.

3PART B
Answer 2.
According to Betta (2016), competition is an effective method to grow the efficiency
of the employees in their work. Healthy competition if initiated in a proper manner will
contribute to the employees trying to better themselves. Due to the presence of competitions,
employees or the teams would want to improve their work in order to be better than the parts
of the organisation or different organizations. Davis has tried to produce healthy competition
between the various states in the Asian - Pacific region that are relative to each state.
However, he has refrained from using competition among the sectors of each state. This
would help to reduce or eliminate any bitter or competitive feelings among the organisation
in different states promoting integration. David had used the competition in the states in such
a way that it motivates the employees and is careful to not discourage them through the
competition in the workplace.
Competition has many positive functions that help in the development of the
organisation by fuelling the employees to work better than others in the organisation
(McNeese et al. 2017). However, they might have certain negative impacts. If not generated
properly, competition can give rise to stressful work and increase anxiety in the workplace. In
order to stay at the top of the competition, individuals would try to knock off the one at the
top and occupy the place creating anxiety in the mind of the workers. This can be avoided by
reminding every employee that teamwork is the first and foremost goal of the entire
organization. Without proper integration of teamwork within the employees, competition in
an organisation can work to further affect the team morale (Mumford, 2015). When any team
in the organisation loses its morale, their productivity as a team is more likely to go down.
Gaffney (2015) mentioned that it is important to not promote too much
competitiveness with the organisations because they can damage the team spirit and give rise
to a negative work environment where employees are only concerned about bringing another
employee down in order to take the place occupied by the latter. In such processes, the
overall development and achievements of the organisation as a whole become irrelevant to
the employees.
Answer 3.

4PART B
The statement made in the case report “involvement in sporting teams by employees
is positively associated with more effective employees” can be related to effective team
performance. Sports teams are an instance of showing how a successful team works. For
example, in a basketball or football game, each individual players are responsible for
contributing to the goals of a winning game. In business scenario also for achieving a
common objective or goal, every team member have to provide their best performance in
order to achieve the goal efficiently. Team members collaborate on different activities which
bring out the defined outcomes (Graham et al. 2016). The statement made by Davis is
referred for hiring potential candidates into involving themselves into the company goal and
objectives. This can be successfully validated by knowing they involved in a team sport
which means they have a fair idea of how to achieve a goal by collaborating with other team
members. Employee engagement and motivation are already being instilled among the
candidates if they are from a sports background. This means the employees have the quality
of persevering, excellent time management, have a tendency of putting the team first and can
handle failures by learning from it. According to Agarwal and Adjirackor (2016), when a
team is down or under stress for performing effectively, a competitive athlete always finds a
way from winning through the situation. Sportsperson is very much ingrained with sheer
determination for achieving their goals and also take the corporate challenge with the same
persistence and relentless in working and motivating other team members while performing
the task. Further, Betta (2016) added that an athlete or sportsman has a sense of
accountability for their own role as well as the role of team members. An employee
recognising the distinct role of each member provides an immense possibility of achieving
the goals efficiently. They are less intolerant for blaming others for any mishaps and commit
better to the performance in the future. An individual from a sports background has proved in
producing a healthy team culture which also diminished the politics and creates a positive
working environment in a workplace.
Answer 4.
The approach taken by Davis was more about encouraging the workforce to involve in
innovation, face to face communication and deliver a better level of performance. In order to
bring value to company Davis created an innovative and progressive manufacturer work
culture which ultimately brought success to the business of Coke. There are however few
other approaches that could have been implemented by Davis to develop teamwork at Coke.
By implementing rewards and recognition programs would enable the groups to achieving a

5PART B
better performance. Creating incentives at the work to work as a team and providing praise
along with a token of appreciation would have definitely encouraged quality teamwork
(McNeese et al. 2017). Also by incorporating social activities, the team members can know
each other and also become comfortable for discussing a variety of issues. If roles for each of
team members are shared among each other prior to the commencement of the project this
will make them more comfortable and help in effective team building.
Within a successful team, any individual should understand their role and the effort
required by each member to achieve a common objective. The skills and experience should
be discussed so that group are aware and accept each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This
enhanced understanding of each other would automatically attract a greater appreciation from
Davis. Lacerenza et al. (2018) argued that the rewards and recognition should not only be
kept for progress but also for promoting collaboration and innovative thinking even if it is not
implemented directly into the business operation. This will encourage every individual to
participate with their full potential and bring value to the business operations. By letting team
members overcome the existing issues in the company and work together would also bring
recognition and appreciation (Graham et al. 2016). The motivating factors of employees vary
from cash bonuses to flexible working schedule to extra paid time off or access to corporate
perks (Noe et al. 2017). All these can be incorporated into incentives for better performance
and engage a group effort instead of individual effort which would further contribute towards
increased productivity of the business operations.

6PART B
References
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Betta, M., 2016. Self and others in team-based learning: Acquiring teamwork skills for
business. Journal of Education for Business, 91(2), pp.69-74.
Gaffney, P., 2015. The nature and meaning of teamwork. Journal of the Philosophy of
Sport, 42(1), pp.1-22.
Graham, C.M., Daniel, H. and Doore, B., 2016. Millennial Teamwork and Technical
Proficiency's Impact on Virtual Team Effectiveness: Implications for Business Educators and
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Lacerenza, C.N., Marlow, S.L., Tannenbaum, S.I. and Salas, E., 2018. Team development
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McNeese, N.J., Cooke, N.J., Gray, R. and Fedele, M., 2017. Knowledge elicitation methods
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Muirhead, B. and Schechter, S., 2016. Real Language Meets Real Business. Employability
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Mumford, S., 2015. In praise of teamwork. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 42(1), pp.51-
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Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource
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