A Discussion of the Executive Retreat of 60 Executives - Case Study Example

Management Case Study Analysis of the Case: In this particular case study, we focus on a discussion of the Executive retreat of 60 executives each containing 12 members in a five group session. During the 15 days' program the group members involved in several educational and academic activities. The educational activities focused greatly on making the group adopt the most appropriate decisions at the proper time. As opposed to it, the prime concern of the retreat session was to get involved in the athletic activities. Stages of Development- During the first session of the retreat, every member of the group were made know each other. John Matthew's group leader was Mr. Mark, who described to his team members about group dynamics and team effectiveness. Enough time needed to be provided in order to understand each other and proper co-ordination among the team members is of paramount importance. The group leader Mark gave a proper direction and scrutiny to its team members. For the effective undertaking of this session, proper co-ordination among the team members was essential. Working in a group is more dynamic as well as challenging than doing things on one's own. Motivation helps to improve the morale of the team members. Thus, the group leader needs encourage the team members to achieve the goals that they set. It is also necessary to provide a clear idea to the members about the group norms. The goals shall be achievable through team efforts of the group members. Team spirit and effective communication are the key factors behind the proper implementation of the norms of the group. Along with group dynamics and team effectiveness, proper leadership and supervision are necessary for the retreat group's success. Effective training and development programs are also necessary. The members of each group are different from one another on the basis of their knowledge and skills. They come from different environment and are mainly from three locations. While undertaking the session, Mr. Mark, the group leader maintained the group systematically, by arranging seating properly for the team members, and discussed their ultimate goals. The major goals of the team members were to accumulate competitive power, assimilate the essential quality to cope with other groups, reach the best in sports or athelitical activities, running around 25miles, and the like. The group also aimed at developing a sound atmosphere. As the retreat session went on, it could be clearly evaluated that the group was developing in athletic efforts, rather than those of academicals. When the first week of the training session ended, the participants of the group were called to undertake a self evaluation. Even though the group members knew each other, their strength and weaknesses, and so on, they were reluctant to charge each other. Both academic and athletic programs of Mark's group were good enough, but it turned out to be the worst when compared it with those of competitors. Mr. Mark was worried, because he was responsible for developing effective steps to overcome those problems an effectively. After a few days' gap, Mr. Mark planned another procedure known as Project X, by dividing the group members in to two, i.e. six members each. This project aimed at evaluating the capability and skills of the group members. This project would help in analyzing whether the group members will be able to tackle the problem, and their ability to provide a solution for it within the stipulated time period. But the Mark's group performed badly, which made the group leader quiet disappoint. The goals so set by the group remained unachievable. The leadership qualities of Mr. Mark were not remarkable. And the members were unable to attain the goals. The members of the group consist of their own personal merits, but there is a lack of group or team effectiveness to attain these goals. More than this, after the failure of Project X, the group decided to modify the goals on the basis of success and failures attained by them. The Mark's group was unable to attain the original goals. Still, the group followed its original goals. By evaluating the overall performance of the group, it is very clear that one of the main reasons behind the group failure and non accomplishment of the goals was the lack of efficient leadership. One of the main goals of Mark Group was to undertake athletical activities in a better manner, but eventually it also turned out to be a failure. Apart from these, Mark group also failed to accomplish its third goal of finishing around twenty five miles. The group members reached very close to its last and final goals of maintaining a harmonious relation to each other. "TMT demographic composition is relatively stable, the TMT task is dynamic and variable. In some situations, team members have similar information and interests (a symmetric distribution); in others, information or interests diverge (an asymmetric distribution)" (Edmondson et al 2003). But by evaluating the overall results and performance, it is very clear from the fact that the retreat group of John Matthew was a failure at all. Group's Development- John Matthew's group development helped the team members a lot to improve. Even though the over all results of the group turned out to be a failure, then also the Mark's group improved a lot in several aspects. The group had developed effectively a harmonious relationship between the team members. Being a member of the group means the members require face to face interaction, an aim towards a common goal etc. It is necessary for the group members to maintain a clear understanding about their goals and requirements. "Human beings exhibit some characteristic behavior patterns in groups. People involved in managing groups and group members themselves can benefit from studying theories and doing practical exercises which help them to better understand people's behavior in groups and group dynamics" (Neill 2007). The team members of the retreat group of Marks were not as much as good as a group, but personally the members were quiet good with certain inherent qualities. The performance of the Mark's group should be implemented through adequate and effective leadership and proper motivation. Self confidence and mutual co-ordination is also essential for the effective performance of the group members. The combination of both technical and educational skill is required for the adequate performance of the group. Achievement of the stipulated goals requires a n effective implementation of the group efforts. Group's Performance- Mark's group divided its goals in to several activities like- Competing with the other groups involved in retreat. Aiming to attain their level best in the sports. Running around 25 miles every day. Focusing on developing a harmonious atmosphere. The group tried in the best suitable manner for attaining these aforesaid goals, but the result of the performance of Mark's retreat group was unsatisfactory due to the lack of qualitative leadership, style of functioning, and authority-responsibility relations. Members of the group were good enough to attain the goals, but they were not eager to attain this effectively. Implementation of strategies in to actions and effective motivation of employees are crucial for the better performance of a group. "The Performance Group (TPG) specializes in supporting leaders and organizations to transform strategy into actions, results and motivated employees. TPG assist companies in creating change by designing processes to make each unit, leader and individual motivated and capable of understanding what the strategy actually means for people involved and the jobs being done" (Break through performance through people. 2004). Group's abilities- The Mark's group requires certain qualities or abilities to carry out their work in effectively. Ethical principles and organizational behavior contribute to certain extend in the overall performance of a group or team. Moral standards are mainly relating with values of fairness, honesty, respect, and truth. These standards set what is right and wrong. A manager needs to ensure that all this values are imbued in their activities. Each individual develops his/her own values and beliefs, through exposure to the cultural religious context generally their surrounding background environment influence this values and norms. These values and norms are influence their all activities. People believe in the rule of Laws and regulations, and on the basis of this, it is possible for governing human conduct in society. The moral standards are mostly positive. The minimum set of moral standards that help to govern the behavior of an individual are in society. In the present day competitive world, many organizations mainly focus on their ultimate goal of profit maximization and they are not concerned about their means to achieve goals. Modern managers have realized the importance of ethics in business, and so they give more priority for ethics in their business decisions and try to ensure their decisions are ethical. Profit maximization is the main purpose of business and all managers shall ensure that their activities are ethically oriented towards fulfilling this objective. So, it was very necessary for the Mark's group to follow various principles required to carry on the business to accomplish their goals in a best possible manner. Comparison and contrast of the abilities of the group members: There were twelve members in the group. The group leader was in charge of all the administrative matters of the group. He is one of the faculty members. His name was mark. He is a person with good experience in the corporate world. He fostered the policy of co-operation among the group. The first person in the group was Wally. He was a person with good managerial ability as he has got a good corporate experience. But he lacked technical ability. The second person was Dave who also had experience as corporate personality but lacked technical training. He possesses very good writing skill. He is a person with great passion for sexual emotions. Jim is a person with good taste for managing financial matters as he is a financial analyst. Bob was also a person with good managerial ability as he has experience as a production manager. Larry was a person who has good artistic skill apart from the managerial ability. But even though he possessed good artistic skill he exposed it very less. He is an exact contrast to the Dave as he has got very limited writing skill. In contrast Dave is very good in writing. But Dave is very good in speaking ability. But the next person Rich was good at both writing and speaking and he was a good presence in the group. Wayne was a person who has every thing on a limited range. He is an average in speaking and writing. Ollie was the one with good athletic spirit. Professionally he possesses very good marketing skill. He was also good at writing and speaking. The next one was Gary who had an unsatisfactory academic background but good speaking ability. He has poor athletic skill. The next person Burrell was good in speaking and average in writing. He enjoys good sportsman spirit and therefore he was appointed the basketball coach. The next person Paul possesses good engineering background as he was a manager of engineering in an electronics company. He is an average student too. The last person was John Mathew was very good speaking ability. He is only an average in writing. Impact of personality on the group's performance: One of the goals of the group was to maintain a harmonious environment and relationship in the group. In order to maintain a harmonious relationship in the group what is vital is the good behavior and personality of the members of the group. But in some instances the behavior of the group members affected the harmony and goal achievement of the group. One of the impacts of the character of the group was the poor leadership. Due to poor leadership the group was not able to achieve proper goals. One of the worst effects of personality happened in the 25 miles jogging. Bob committed an unethical practice during the jogging session. He did not run all the miles he was assigned. This incident made the entire group members to lose trust in Bob. This was actually a shortfall in the achievement of goals. Another certain instances really helped the group to maintain a harmonious relationship in the group that is even after Bob was suspected of being committed cheating the group members did not raised it as a big issue. Reasons for non accomplishment of goals: The group even after being well equipped with talented members failed in achieving the goals. The first goal of the group was to be the first one among all other groups in terms of performance. But the group was not able to achieve this goal and also they ranked worst among all other groups. The failure of the group was discovered in the first evaluation itself. Gary was the leader of the group. Every member in the group had their own qualities to portray. The reason for the failure is the poor performance of the individual members but they did not blame each for that. The second goal was that they would be the best one in sports. The group has good potential members for achieving this goal. Ollie was the first person who is talented in athletics. He proved that by winning in two events. Gary was the person in charge of monitoring the athletic activities. But he proved his inefficiency not only by poor monitoring but through his poor performance as well. It was his poor performance that leads the group to stay back in the athletic activities. Another reason for the failure in athletic was the unethical practice committed by Bob. The group was not well disciplined during the practice session of sports. There was less monitoring by anyone during the practice session. Even though Gray had tried to maintain discipline in the group during the practice session his effort proved to be ineffective. His spirit to monitor was the one with short life. The members spent all the practice session joking. Therefore, there was less practice for athletics in the group. This lead to the failure of the group in achieving its second goal that is to be first in athletics. The third objective of the group was that everyone in the group would run 25 miles. This also faced the horrible result of failure. Only six members among the twelve were able to finish the 25 miles jogging. Apart from this one of the members committed an unethical practice by not running all the miles. Bob was suspected of committing this by Wally and Larry. The incident not resulted in losing of the position but also the trust that everyone had on Bob. After this incident the other members of the group distrusted Bob on all matters. This also became harmful to the harmony of the group. The last and the final goal of the group were to maintain a harmonious relationship among the members of the group. Even though the group failed to achieve the first three goals they came closer to the achievement of the final goal. A critical incident took place in the group which led to a situation in which the harmonious relationship in the group would be spoiled. It was when Bob committed the unethical practice. But the group members did not raise it as an issue to harm the harmony of the group. They managed to maintain a harmonious relationship by not speaking or discussing about the incident in the group. This was really helpful for the group to maintain its harmonious relationship till the end. The group cannot claim this as a success as the harmony was already been spoiled when Bob was being suspected of the unethical act. But the group showed another great example of harmony when the seat of Paul was left vacant when he was hospitalized. This showed the group's concern for Paul. Therefore, it can be said that the group performed or it achieved only the fourth goal. But it failed to achieve the goals where the real performance of the group was examined. Recommendations for the group to perform in future When careful analysis of the case the following recommendations can be drawn for the group if it were to accomplish the goals again. 1. Better leadership: One of the major drawbacks of the group was the lack of an efficient leader. The group did not have a good focus in order to achieve the listed goals. Poor leadership in the group was evident when the group performed in an undisciplined manner during the practice session for athletes. Even though Gray was monitoring the session it was ineffective. There was less control exercised by him when all the members were joking and wasting time during the practice session. A participative leadership style must be used by the leader. "A Participative Leader, rather than taking autocratic decisions, seeks to involve other people in the process, possibly including subordinates, peers, superiors and other stakeholders" (Participative leadership. 2007). Therefore, appointing an efficient leader would help to resolve such problem in future. 2. Identify each others ability properly: Another recommendation for the group is that they should identify the talents and abilities of the group members before proceeding with the program. Providing continuous practice to the members who are not at all good in Athletics is a waste of time and effort. Instead of that the real talents of the group must be explored at the program. 3. Proper rules of control: The group should at the very beginning itself establish a proper list of rules to be followed at the program. A member should also be allotted the responsibility of monitoring and assessing whether the group is working beyond the rules or not. The member to be appointed as the leader of the activity should necessarily be the one with a very good leadership quality. 4. Specialized authority for each activity: Even when the group is having a leader to look after the overall activities separate leaders are to be assigned to look after each activity. A separate leader must be assigned to look after the academic activities. Similarly, for sports separate leader has to be assigned. When most of the group members are assigned one or other duties they never tend to break the rules. Bibliography Break through performance through people. (2004) [online].The Performance group. Last accessed 14 December 2007 at: http://www.the-performancegroup.com/ EDMONDSON, Amy C et al. (2003). Abstract. A dynamic model of top management team effectiveness: managing unstructured task streams. [online]. Science Direct. Last accessed 14 December 2007 at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5N-48BM6VP-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8a2b68434146b92611e2496a72cdcfba. NEILL, James (2007). Group Dynamics, processes, and Development. Introduction to group dynamics. Last accessed 14 December 2007 at: http://wilderdom.com/Group.html Participative leadership. (2007). Style. [online]. Changing minds.org. Last accessed 14 December 2007 at: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/participative_leadership.htm Read More