MNG82001 Case Study: Analyzing Organizational Behavior & Team Dynamics

This case study examines the challenges faced by a new manager, Sam, in a medium-sized enterprise with pre-existing, rigid teams. Initially, Sam's top-down approach led to decreased productivity and high employee attrition. Through deeper analysis, Sam realized the teams resisted change due to their long-standing structure and lack of cross-cultural exposure. He shifted his strategy to a transformational leadership style, fostering cooperation by creating skill-based teams for a major project. This approach proved successful, enhancing overall team performance and individual contributions. The case highlights the importance of understanding team dynamics, adapting leadership styles, and promoting collaboration to overcome resistance to change and improve organizational outcomes. Access more solved assignments and study resources on Desklib.

Running head: CASE STUDY ON ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Case Study on Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1CASE STUDY ON ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Case Study
I worked for an organization last year. It was a medium enterprise and had more than
200 employees in two branches. When I started working there at first everything seemed fine.
After a month or two, I realized that a tension was growing among the employees. I was a
new employee and thus could not understand what was causing that tension. After a week the
reason became clear. A new manager was appointed to manage the operations of the floor.
Earlier, the office worked based on the teams and their leaders. For the last few months the
turnover of the company was receding slowly. The managers and the board of directors were
trying to find out the reason. After much analysis they decided that it is probably due to
leadership issues that the production was decreasing. The leaders were given too much
autonomy and the authority had decided to change that. The leaders managed the teams and
reported directly to the authority. Now, the scenario was about to change. The employees it
seemed were not enthusiastic about the situation as they thought that new superior means
more complications for them. The team leaders too, were not much pleased as they now had
to report to the floor manager as well as the directors. When the new manager, Sam, arrived
the next week, he received a stunted welcome. He was an enthusiastic fellow and tried to
mingle with the employees freely. Sam had a successful career till now. In his previous
company he had shown outstanding performance in leading teams that had different
compositions and dynamics. To get acquainted with the workforce, he called meetings where
he asked team leaders about any questions that they might have. The team members too were
not enthusiastic in giving him any insight to the workings of the company (Schippers, West
and Dawson 2015). This created a problem for Sam. He decided to take matters into his own
hands and called a meeting where he placed many instructions as to how he wants the work
scenario, what goals and objectives each employee must target and how they should work to

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reach there. He gave clear and specific instruction that left no room for the employees to
improvise. He thought that this will increase the productivity as the clear goals will give them
direction. What he did not expect was the subsequent fall of production at a drastic level as
well as the sudden increase of employee attrition in the organization. Within matter of weeks,
20 employees resigned and there were rumors that many more were planning to follow their
footsteps. The directors were also worried and were contemplating whether the decision to
appoint Sam had been right. Due to his past success record, they decided to give him another
chance. Sam too, was desperate. He started to dig deeper into the problem and found out that
the teams that have reacted most strongly were quite old. The members have been working in
the organization for a long time and the team leaders too were leading those teams for a long
time. The problem became clear to him at that instant. He decided that he would have to
change some of his strategies and the existing structure to succeed in his job.
In his research he saw that the composition of the team has been the same for a long
time. It has been effective till then as no changes were made in the organizational structure
and hierarchy (Gharakhani et al. 2013). The team members were unaccustomed to change
and thus when Sam arrived they reacted negatively towards it. Sam knew that he would have
to patient and make them understand the need of such changes. It took him a few months but
slowly everybody came around. Slowly, the teams started to cooperate with him. Meanwhile,
a large project came to the company that needed all the workforce to be involved to pull it
off. Sam was the operations manager and thus was given the responsibility to plan the
execution of the project. He decided to call a meeting and recreate teams according to the
teams and delegate tasks from the project according to those skill sets. Four teams were
created and each had a specific task. The team leaders too were responding better and trying
to work with the new structure. The project was delivered successfully. Eventually, when it
was time for the yearly performance appraisal, all the directors were pleased to find that the

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overall performance of the teams were much higher than it had been before. The individual
performances had also enhanced. Now, they had no doubt on Sam’s ability and strategy
making. When the appraisal was over, the directors Congratulated Sam on a job well done.
Sam too, congratulated the team and that day, in their celebratory office lunch, he could not
help but be proud for the path they have travelled.
Question 1.
What were the problems in the teams that were threats for Sam?
At the time when Sam arrived at the organization, the teams that were already
operating, were quite old. This was the reason that posed the main threat. The team members
had worked with each other for a long time and were unaccustomed to change. They reported
to the same superior for years and did not had to deal with any other authority. Thus, when
Sam came with his new methods, they took it negatively as they saw that as their loss of
freedom in workplace. Another problem were the team leaders. They earlier had the highest
authority when it came to team decisions. They reported directly to the directors. Now, when
they saw that they had a new head, they too responded in a negative manner. The
independence and authority that they had were now limited and that is why they were
uncooperative with Sam. The lack of change in the organizational structure and the rigid
mentality of the teams created the problems (Zacher and Rosing 2015). Thus, when Sam
through his transformational leadership style enforced changes, it took them a while getting
used to. Being skilled at what they did, they were able to understand the importance of the
changes soon. When new teams were created to handle the big project, they were ready to
cooperate which caused the success.

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Question 2.
What steps do you think Sam had taken that helped him keep the workforce
together and increase their performance?
Sam has always believed in inspirational leadership. When he came to the
organization, he realized that a transformational leadership method would be much more
effective. The structure and the composition of the company had not gone through any
significant change till then. New members were rarely added to the teams and even if they
did, the members either had to adapt to the team mechanisms or became frustrated and left.
Sam knew that the team members needed to learn cooperation and the best way to do that
was to create teams that had similar skill set. Another aspect of these kinds of teams is they
are mostly cross cultural teams. The formation of these teams enabled the members to
accommodate opinions of others for the sake of work. When they saw, first hand, that the
new team compositions were proving to be effective they were forced to change their rigid
mentality and adapt to the new changes (Namada 2018). They also developed a sense of
respect and trust towards Sam. Thus, after this incident, it was easier for them to follow his
ideas and instructions. The team leaders too understood that reporting to Sam did not curb
their independence but increased their chances at being successful with the project as he had
the ability to come up with new ideas and methods that eventually worked.

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References
Gharakhani, D., Rahmati, H., Farrokhi, M.R. and Farahmandian, A., 2013. Total quality
management and organizational performance. American Journal of Industrial
Engineering, 1(3), pp.46-50.
Namada, J.M., 2018. Organizational learning and competitive advantage. In Handbook of
Research on Knowledge Management for Contemporary Business Environments (pp. 86-
104). IGI Global.
Schippers, M.C., West, M.A. and Dawson, J.F., 2015. Team reflexivity and innovation: The
moderating role of team context. Journal of Management, 41(3), pp.769-788.
Zacher, H. and Rosing, K., 2015. Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation. Leadership
& Organization Development Journal, 36(1), pp.54-68.