MGMT24885 – CASE LEADER ASSIGNMENT

You are the Case Leader for Case #3 – “Leading a Disconnected Team”
(see attached)
Case Leader Instructions:

You have one week to prepare to facilitate this case. You will work with your
team of 4-6 people (randomly assigned on the day) to attain consensus on the
answers to the case questions. You will have approximately 30 minutes to facilitate your case. Please
include the following in your facilitation:

 An Agenda
 An Ice Breaker activity (approximately 5 minutes to help the group get comfortable)
 A list of probing questions for your team (see the questions at the bottom of the case – these
are a starting point; you may want to add more questions to dive deeper into the content by
creating some questions of your own)
 Ensure that you are prepared to ask your participants for feedback when the case is done. There
will be 15 minutes available for a debrief:
o Ask each participant to please provide and explain in detail ONE leadership quality that
they observed from you in your meeting; each person must provide a different response

You are welcome to assign various roles to your team members, such as a note-taker or timekeeper. You
need to ensure that all team members are engaged in your meeting. Try to make your meeting
interesting, fun and informative.

Please do not send your case to anyone in advance of the class. (On the day of the case, your
instructor will reveal the cases in SLATE).

Once your group has achieved consensus on all case questions, you can thank your team for their
participation and adjourn your meeting. (Please follow the direction of your professor on the timeframe
in which to do this.) At this point, you will ask your participants the feedback question (above).

Assignment Submission:

Copy and complete the Case Report on page 2. Please use bullets and point form; you can expand the
cell size as needed to express your answers. Name the file “Lastname_Firstname Case Report”.

Upload your files (Case Report, Agenda, Ice Breaker and all of your notes from the team’s discussion) to
the drop box in SLATE called Case Leader Assignment – Case #3 by the deadline.

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MGMT24885 – CASE LEADER ASSIGNMENT

Complete the following grid for your Case Report:

Case # 3 Name of Case:

“Leading a Disconnected Team”
List 3 things you did prior 1. Prepare a detailed PowerPoint.
to class to prepare to lead 2. Search online for unique ice breaker ideas.
your case meeting. 3. Read the case thoroughly so that I know what it is that I am talking
(3 marks) about.

What was your Ice Ice Breaker Activity name: Survive on deserted Island
Breaker Activity? (1 mark) Description of its success or lack of success: It kind of worked because at
Was it successful? If yes, first the participants were interested in it but later it kind of begin to get
why? If no, why not? boring so I would say it’s in the middle.
(1 marks)
List and describe 3 other 1. Everyone was providing their own ideas and thoughts about
successes of your questions.
meeting. 2. If there was anything lacking, they would even point that out and say
(3 marks) it clearly.
3. Everyone waited patiently for their turn to come and then spoke
instead of just speaking and not listening.
Explain in detail 1 Challenge you faced: Writing and thinking about an ice breaker.
challenge you Future plan: I do read a lot of stories and books that is where I got the
experienced prior to or idea for this ice breaker, but I think I need to reform a lot of things like
during your meeting. how I perceive the situation and also how others will perceive it. I also
(1 mark) need to work on my sense of humour and the level of sarcasm, because
What would you do to it is either the people will laugh at the ice breaker means it worked or
change this for a future will just keep on thinking about what just happened means it didn’t work
facilitation? like sometimes jokes can be too dark and no one laughs.
(2 marks)
List 3 strengths you 1. Listening I believe I have good listening skills as I listen to
believe you have as a everything first and then decide what needs to be
leader and explain why. done.
(6 marks) *Answers must be 2. Emotional I do not get swayed by the emotions because I
different than participant
Intelligence know what I have to do, and I will do it no matter
feedback (below)
the circumstances.
3. Inspiration I look up to some of the great individuals born in
this world like Steve Jobs, my father and
someone I can’t say the name, but these people
have inspired to up until now and I believe the
will keep on doing so.
Describe one leadership Leadership Skill to improve: Talking skills.
skill you would like to How you will work on this: I am a shy guy, and I don’t like to talk to much
work on (1 mark) and how and just get straight to the point without anything in between and I
you intend to work on it. would like to improve it because being too direct can be harmful
(2 marks) sometimes for both me and the other person.
PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK 1. Manjot Kaur Creative – Can create weird situations out of
List each leadership simple things.
quality provided by your 2. Khushpreet Kaur Spokesperson – If I were to put in a situation to

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MGMT24885 – CASE LEADER ASSIGNMENT

team members, and the convince someone I can do that.

reason they chose it. 3. Gurwinder Kaur Vision – Sees ahead and likes to get work done
(5 marks) before deadline.
4. Rajeev Hachhethu Collaborative – Adjusts to the level of others and
listen before speaks.
5.
TOTAL /25

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MGMT24885 – CASE LEADER ASSIGNMENT

Case #3 – “Leading a Disconnected Team”

It is only 3 months into your new job as an Office Administrator at JLP Research and you are pleasantly
surprised when you are selected for the company’s Task Force Team. The team is tasked with
developing a new system for training all staff on the company’s new database software. You believe this
will be a great opportunity to get to know people in a variety of departments in the company as well as
gaining some exposure for yourself, particularly by demonstrating your extensive technical skills learned
in the OA Program at Sheridan. However, after only a few short meetings with your new Task Force
Team, you are starting to wonder about how successful this team will be, even though the team consists
of some of the top talent in the company.

Firstly, you sense that no one is overly committed to developing good ideas for the project, except for
Ryan. However, you suspect that Ryan has an ulterior motive and simply wants the team to come up
with a good plan because, as he put it, “This could be my ticket to the top”. While he encourages the
team to be productive, he often looks bored and personally never has anything concrete to offer, other
than trying to push the team to make risky, expensive, decisions that would “make a statement”. And
then there is Kim, who can’t get past her negativity to try to be creative, because she is convinced that
spending money on an extensive training program is a very bad idea in this poor economy, and she
stated from the outset that she hates teamwork because of bad experiences in the past. Sarah and
Andrew are great to work with but they seem to be stretched thin with their main job duties and are
never able to devote time to attend any of the meetings (or if they do attend, they are distracted with
their work on their laptops, are constantly engaged in their own side conversations, or will get up and
leave in the middle of the meeting to handle something). They tend to just “agree” with any of the
group decisions in order to move forward. In the last meeting, Sarah also informed the team that she
would be in China for the next month working on another project and would try to participate when she
could but feared she would be limited in her contributions. And who knows about Chase, he only rarely
raises his head from his iPhone just long enough to mutter, “sounds good to me”. On many occasions,
he is so distracted that when he jumps into the conversation, he often goes off topic and digresses into
unrelated areas that are not part of the meeting agenda.

With all this talent you feel that the Task Force Team should be able to put together a strong proposal,
but with the way things have progressed so far, you are starting to wonder how it will happen.

Q1 – What is the major problem in this case and what are the core issues impacting the team’s
progress?

 The major problem in this case is the lack of teamwork and effective collaboration, which is
hindering the progress of the team.
 Core issues impacting the team’s progress are conflicts and negativity, distractions and lack of
clear leadership and decision making, lack of effective communication, no motivation and
holding meetings without any clear agenda or plan.

Q2 – Can you identify any “Problem People” on this team?

 Ryan - He appears motivated but primarily for personal gain, often advocating for risky and
expensive decisions.
 Kim - Extremely negative and resistant to teamwork, because of poor past experiences.

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Adapted from De Janasz, Dowd and Schneider (2015). Interpersonal Skills in Organizations. 5th Edition. McGraw Hill. New
York, New York.
MGMT24885 – CASE LEADER ASSIGNMENT

 Sarah - Overcommitted with her main job duties and uses laptop during meetings.
 Andrew – Behaves like Sarah, he is overcommitted and distracted and participates minimally in
meetings.
 Chase - Highly disconnected, constantly focused on his iPhone and rarely contributes but, when
he does, his comments are off-topic.

Q3 – What conflict management strategy or strategies do you think would help the team function
better?

 Collaborating with the team to address major conflicts and align team goals through well-
structured meetings.
 Compromise with the team by understanding what everyone thinks of the project and then
balancing different priorities and goals without overburdening everyone.
 Creating an environment that becomes fun to be in and everyone loves to participate which will
intern improve accountability and focus for the whole team and everyone could feel the
motivation to move forward with the project.
 Working together to resolve any interpersonal issues, negative experiences and encourage
positiveness throughout the whole team.

Q4 – What suggestions do you have for preventing ongoing or future conflict within this team?

 Establishing clear goals and expectations can lead to better teamwork. Also, specifying roles and
deadlines for all the team members to make sure everyone is being help accountable for their
work.
 Creating a safe and fun space for all the team members to express their ideas, problems, and
provide feedback without getting judged.
 Making all the future meeting more structured and making sure to distribute detailed agendas
before meetings to keep the discussions focused and productive.

Q5 – What could you do to assume the leadership of this team? How could you guide the team into
the “Norming Stage” of team work to accomplish the team goal?

 Volunteer to take the responsibility of the whole team and offering to make changes during
organizing meetings, creating new agendas, and tracking progress.
 Guide the Team into Norming Stage:
o Introducing clear goals, roles, and deadlines.
o Building relationships and addressing individual problems.
o Promoting open communication and feedback during meetings and teamwork.

Q6 – What could the team do after the project was completed, in order to learn from this experience?

 The team could conduct post-project feedback report.

 They can celebrate all the small and major successes they achieved while working on their
personal as well as reported mistakes.
 They can ask for personal feedback and maybe note the lessons they learned.
 Maybe discuss if everyone would love to work together in the same team again on some other
project.

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Adapted from De Janasz, Dowd and Schneider (2015). Interpersonal Skills in Organizations. 5th Edition. McGraw Hill. New
York, New York.