Glasspro case
The last thing Rich Thomas had expected to miss about New York City was its sunrises. Seeing one usually meant he had pulled another all-nighter at the consulting firm where, as a vice president, he had managed three teams of manufacturing specialists. But as he stood on the balcony of his new apartment in the small Ohio city that was now his home, Rich suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for the way the dawn plays off the tall buildings of Manhattan. In the next moment, though, he let out a laugh. The dawn light was not what he missed about New York, he realized. What he missed was the feeling of accomplishment that usually accompanied those sunrises.
An all-nighter in New York had meant hours of intense work with a cadre of committed, enthusiastic colleagues. Give and take. Humor. Progress. Here, so far anyway, that was unthinkable. As the Director, Strategy at GlassPro, Inc., a regional manufacturer of glass products, Rich spent of his time trying to get is new team to make it through a meeting without the tension level becoming unbearable. Six of the top-level managers involved seemed determined to turn the company around, but the seventh seemed equally determined to sabotage the process. Forget camaraderie. There had been three meetings so far, and Rich hadn’t even been able to get everyone on the same side of an issue.
Rich stepped inside his apartment and checked the clock: only three more hours before he had to watch as Art Lorimer, GlassPro’s charismatic director of sales and marketing, either dominated the group’s discussion or withdrew entirely, tapping his pen on the table to indicate his boredom. Sometimes he withheld information vital to the group’s debate; other times he coolly denigrated people’s comments. Still, Rich realized, Art held the group in such sway because of his dynamic personality, his almost legendary past and his close relationship with GlassPro’s CEO that could not be ignored. And at least once during each meeting, he offered an insight about the industry or the company that was so perceptive that Rich knew he shouldn’t be ignored.
As he prepared to leave for the office, Rich felt the familiar frustration that had started building during the team’s first meeting a month earlier. It was then that Art had first insinuated, with what sounded like a joke, that he wasn’t cut out to be a team player. “Leaders lead, followers…please pipe down!” had been his exact words, although he had smiled winningly as he spoke, and the rest of the group had laughed heartily in response. No one in the group was laughing now, though, least of all Rich.
GlassPro, Inc. was in trouble—not deep trouble, but enough for its CEO, John Berry, to make strategic repositioning Rich’s top and only task. The company, a family-owned maker of wine goblets, beer steins, ashtrays and other glass novelties, had succeeded for nearly 80 years as a high-quality, high price producer, catering to hundreds of Midwestern clients. It traditionally did big business every football season, selling commemorative knickknacks to the fans of teams such as Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish, Ohio State Buckeye’s and even the Kentucky Wildcats. In the spring, there was always a rush of demand for senior prom items—champagne goblets with a school’s name or beer mugs with the school’s crest, for example. Fraternities and sororities were steady customers. Year after year, GlassPro showed respectable increases at the top and bottom lines, posting $146 million in revenues and $6 million in earnings three years before Rich arrived.
In the last 18 months, though, sales and earning flattened. John, a grandnephew of the company’s founder, thought he knew what was happening. Until recently, large national glass companies had been ale to make money only through mass production. Now, however, thanks to new technologies in the glassmaking industry, those companies could execute short runs profitably. They had begun to enter GlassPro’s niche, John told Rich, and, with their superior resources, it was just a matter of time before they would own it.
“You have one responsibility as GlassPro’s new director of strategy,” John had said to Rich on his first day. “That’s to put together a team of our top people, one person from each division, and have a comprehensive plan for the company’s strategic realignment up, running, and winning within six months.”
Rich had immediately complied a list of the senior managers from human resources, manufacturing, finance, distribution, design, and marketing, and had set a date for the first meeting. Then, drawing on his years as a consultant who had worked almost solely in team environments, Rich had carefully prepared a structure and guidelines for the group’s discussions, disagreements, and decisions, which he planned to propose to the members for their input before they began working together.
Successful groups are part art, part science, Rick knew, but he also believed that with every member’s full commitment, a team proved the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Knowing that managers at GlassPro were unaccustomed to the team process, however, Rich imagined he might get some resistance from one or to members.
For one, he had been worried about Tom Sinclair of manufacturing. Tom was a large man who had run the furnaces for some 35 years, following in his father’s footsteps. Although he was a former high school football star who known among workers in the factory for his hearty laugh and his love of practical jokes, Tom usually didn’t say much around GlassPro’s executives, citing his lack of higher education as the reason. Rich had thought the team atmosphere might intimidate him.
Rich had also anticipated a bit of a fight from Sally Crawford of the design division, who was known to complain the GlassPro didn’t appreciate its six artists. Rich had expected that Sally might have a chip on her shoulder about collaborating with people who didn’t understand the design process.
Ironically, both those fears had proved groundless, but another, more difficult problem had arisen. The wild card had turned out to be Art. Rich had met Art once before the team started its work and had found him to be enormously intelligent, energetic, and good-humored. What’s more, John Berry had confirmed his impressions, telling him that Art “had the best mind” at GlassPro. It was also for John that Rich had first learned of Art’s difficult yet inspirational personal history.
Poor as a child, he had worked as a security guard and short-order cook to put himself through the state college, from which he graduated with top honors. Soon after, he started his own advertising and market research firm in Columbus, and within a the decade he had built it into a company employing 50 people to service some of the region’s most prestigious accounts. His success brought with it a measure of fame: articles in the local media, invitations to the statehouse, even an honorary degree from an Ohio business college. But, in the financial crisis, Art’s firm suffered the same fate as many other small advertising firms, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. GlassPro considered it a coup when it landed him as director of marketing, sine he had let it be known that he was offered at least a dozen other jobs. “Art is the future of this company,” John Berry had told Rich. “If he can’t help you, no one can. I look forward to hearing what a team with his kind of horsepower can come up with to steer us away from the mess we’re in.”
Those words echoed in Rich’s mind as he sat, with increasing anxiety, through the team’s first and second meetings. Though Rich had planned an agenda for each meeting and tried to keep the discussions on track, Art always seemed to find a way to disrupt the process. Time and time again, he shot down other people’s ideas, or he simply didn’t pay attention. He also answered most questions put to him with maddening vagueness. “I’ll have my assistant look into it when he gets a moment,” he replied when asked by a team member to list GlassPro’s five largest customers. “Some days you eat the bear, and other days the bear eats you,” he joked another time, when asked why fraternity sales had recently nose-dived.
Art’s negativism, however, was countered by occasional comments so insightful that they stopped the conversation cold or turned it around entirely – comments that demonstrated extraordinary knowledge about competitors or glass technology or customers’ buying patterns. The help wouldn’t last, though; Art would quickly revert to his role as team renegade.
The third meeting, last week, had ended in chaos. Tom Sinclair, Sally Crawford, and the distribution director, Fred Simon, had each planned to present cost-cutting proposals, and at first it looked as though the group were making good progress.
Tom opened the meeting proposing a plan for GlassPro to cut throughput time by 3% and raw materials costs by 2%, thereby positioning the company to compete better on price. It was obvious from his detailed presentation that he had put a lot of thought into his comments, and it was evident that he was fighting a certain amount of nervousness as he made them.
“I know I don’t have the book smarts of most of you in this room,” he had begun, “but here goes anyway.” During his presentation, Tom stopped several times to answer questions from the team, and as he went on, his nervousness transformed into his usual ebullience. “That wasn’t so bad!” he laughed to himself as he sat down at the end, flashing a grin at Rich. “Maybe we can turn this old ship around.”
Sally Crawford had followed Tom. While not disagreeing with him – she praised his comments, in fact – she argued that GlassPro also needed to invest in new artists, pitching its competitive advantage in better design and wider variety. Unlike Tom, Sally had made this case to GlassPro’s top executives many times, only to be rebuffed, and sone of her frustration seeped through as she explained her reasoning yet again. At one point, her voice almost broke as she described how hard she had worked in her first ten years at GlassPro, hoping that someone in management would recognize the creativity of her designs. “That’s why when I was made director of the department, I made sure all the artists were respected for what they are – artists not worker ants. There’s a difference, you know.” However, just as with Tom Sinclair, Sally’s comments lost their defensiveness as the group members, with the exception of Art, who remained impassive, greeted her words with nods of encouragement.
By the time Fred Simon of distribution started to speak, the mood in the room was approaching buoyant. Fred, a quiet and meticulous man, jumped from his seat and practically paced the room as he described his ideas. GlassPro, he said, should play to its strength as a service-oriented company and restructure its trucking system to increase the speed of delivery. He described how a similar strategy had been adopted with excellent results at his last job at a ceramics plant. Fred had joined GlassPro just six months earlier. It was when Fred began to describe those results in detail that Art brought the meeting to an unpleasant halt by letting out a loud groan. “Let’s just do everything, why don’t we, including redesign the kitchen sink!” he cried with mock enthusiasm. That remark sent Fred back quickly to his seat, where he halfheartedly summed up his comments. A few minutes later, he excused himself, saying he had another meeting. Soon the others made excuses to leave, too, and the room became empty.
No wonder Rich was apprehensive about the fourth meeting. He was therefore surprised when he entered the room and found the whole group, except Art, already assembled. Ten minutes passed in awkward small talk, and, looking from face to face, Rich could see his own frustration reflected. He also detected an edge of panic – just what he had hoped to avoid. He decided he had to raise the topic of Art’s attitude openly, but just as he started, Art ambled into the room, smiling. “Sorry, folks,” he said lightly, holding up a cup of coffee as it were explanation enough for his tardiness.
“Art, I’m glad you’re here,” Rich began, “because I think today we should begin by talking about the group itself – “ Art cut Rich off with a small, sarcastic laugh. “Uh-oh, I knew this was going to happen,” he said.
Before Rich could answer, Tom Sinclair stood up and walked over to Art, bending over to look him in the eye. “You just don’t care, do you?” he began, his voice so angry it startled everyone in the room.
Everyone except Art. “Quite the contrary – I care very much,” he answered. “I just don’t believe this is how change should be made. A brilliant idea never came out of a team. Brilliant ideas come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization to implement them.”
“That’s a lot of bull,” Tom shot back. “You just want all the credit for success, and you don’t want to share it with anyone.”
“That’s absurd,” Art laughed again. “I’m not trying to impress anyone here at GlassPro. I don’t need to. I want this company to succeed as much as you do, but I believe, and I believe passionately, that groups are useless. Consensus means mediocrity. I’m sorry, but it does.”
“But you haven’t even tried to reach consensus with us,” Sally interjected. “It’s as if you don’t care what we all have to say. We can’t work alone for a solution – we need to understand each other Don’t you see that?”
The room was silent as Art shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He stared at the table, a blank expression on his face.
It was Rich who broke the silence. “Art, this is a team. You are part of it,” he said, trying to catch Art’s eye without success. “Perhaps, we should start again –“ Art stopped him by holding up his cup, as if making a toast. “Okay, look, I’ll behave from now on,” he said. The words held promise, but he was smirking as he spoke them – something that no one at the table missed. Rich took a deep breath before he answered; as much as he wanted and needed Art Lorimer’s help, he was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps Art’s personality and past experiences simply made it impossible for him to participate in the delicate process of ego surrender that any kind of teamwork requires.
“Listen, everyone, I know this is a challenge,” Rich began, but he was cut short by Art’s pencil tapping on the table. A moment later, Tom Sinclair was standing again. “Forget it. This is never going to work. It’s just a waste of time for all of us,” he said, more resigned than gruff. “We’re all in this together, or there’s no point.” He headed for the door, and before Rich could stop him, two others were at his heels.
Using the group dynamics, group decision-making and/or team development (both stages of development and the Task Oriented Team Development model) identify the reasons why this team isn’t working and what you would recommend to make the team a success. No more than 3 pages.
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People often take distinct behaviors and roles when working together within a group. The different roles and behaviors depicted by individuals within a group have different effects on the group and the group members. Group dynamics opts to describe the existing different effects of the distinct roles and behaviors within a group. A group depicted with positive dynamics offers good management practices and are easy to spot within an organization. Unlike this, within the Glass pro organization, the management group does not depict………………..
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