Problem
Adhere to the concepts of organizational behavior, and apply decision-making and problem solving techniques in formulating business policy.
Brief Introduction to the Case Study
North York Organic Stop Shops, is experiencing tremendous growth. Jennifer decided to expand the company's operations by utilizing direct and online sales. Jennifer hired a group of five employees to work on his sales team, but they did not achieve the required level of success.
The Detailed Case Study Information
The sales team was performing poorly, and Jennifer was thinking a lot about how to improve his team performance. She tried offering higher bonuses, and higher compensation, but it did not improve the sales team performance. She also called in external consultants, they advised him to change the business policy which she did, but still she did not see enough improvement.
One day Jennifer decided to call a meeting and ask the sales team to do most of the talking, on why their performance is suffering. At the start of the meeting the employees, were not co-operating and they were trying to avoid the questions. But slowly they started to talk and analyze the situation. Some of the employees complained about the unresponsiveness of other team members to their requests. While others, cited that they do not know how they should cooperate together, especially taking into consideration that nobody likes to do the admin functions. One team member cited the lack of team spirit in the sales department, and the absence of teamwork. In his own words she explained it as "it seems, like some people are colluding with others, to make sure everybody else fails. They do so to grab the weekly bonus that is offered by the company for selling a certain amount of products in a week". Jennifer did not comment on the meeting, she thanked everybody and asked them to go back to work.
Jennifer left the meeting frustrated, the sales team did not realize its full potential and that was pretty disappointing. Jennifer sat down in his office and thought about all these comments, and wrote down a couple of thoughts on the subject. She was still not able to figure out what to do. Even the external consultants were powerless at this point. While wandering in his own thoughts, an organizational behavior book fell under his sight. She stood up and took the book, and started reading. His college memories started to reappear in front of his eyes, and suddenly she realized that she should read the book, and generate some ideas.
Reading the book was exciting, Jennifer spent his evenings reading Organizational Behavior. One evening, she read about teamwork, and she realized that she should implement some of the strategies outlined in this chapter, but before she can do that she realized the need for careful analysis, and problem identification. So she decided to apply "The Five Stage Model". To analyze the problem, and then she will decide what policies should be put in place to make sure the team works efficiently. Here is a graphical representation of "The Five Stage Model" of group development:
Required
1) Briefly explain each stage of the "The Five Stage Model" of group development, and give an example of individual behavior in each stage, and group behavior in each stage.
2) Analyze and identify in which stage of team development is the sales team. Mention the exact stage of the "The Five Stage Model" of group development, and justify your answer.
3) After identifying the current problem formulate a business policy which will move the team forward on the "The Five Stage Model" of group development, towards the "Performing" stage.
Note: you can make any assumptions that are deemed necessary for this case. Clearly state your assumptions in your submissions. Your answer should be a one page Microsoft Word document.
a) Forming
b) Storming
c) Norming
d) Performing
e) Adjourning.