Case Summary
After retirement from professional sports, George Athlete returned to his native Ottawa and started a small pub called Puck Stop with a small capital investment. It easily caught on with the students of University of Ottawa and the venture was making profit. Another Puck Stop was started in a neighbouring area. Sports Action Facilities was established in each Puck Stop. A participating video game system was introduced in the bars using satellite communication and network technology. It was decided to hold a system wide trivia contest in every Puck Stop on Tuesday nights to improve the mid week business.
The main issues in the case are as follows:
In the case, during the Brainiac game, a regular player Hannah suggested the other regulars to play cooperatively to improve the answering. They require more people to participate in the team, as currently there were only four. Another regular is Mike Colangelo, who has answered 45 questions but others contributed only one or two, which shows the weakness of the team in certain areas. The weak areas were arts and sciences. They decided to recruit more players in the team to win the contest. Hannah brought two friends and Mike added an English professor named Bob Carstairs, from the University.
A team of 15 members was developed at the end of fourth week of the contest in which ten were like Hannah and five like Mike. This contributed to the team coming in the top three ranking positions. In the eighth week, Bob introduced a new player called Wombat who usually plays the game in other bars. Along with him, the team was able to move up to the last question where there was a controversy. A conflict arises between Bob and Wombat, which made the situation worse and the team could win only by a narrow margin. (Puck Stop, 214-217).
Problem statement
The main problems identified in the team are as follows:
- The team lacks a proper structure and the combined efforts of all the individuals are missing as only some members are participating in the contest and answering the questions.
- The team lacks proper communication between the members.
- There is a lack of motivation among the team members.
Could Jack Stanley have intervened in any way to prevent the poor sales result that ultimately occurred?
This case study brings out the importance of clear interaction and motivation in any group action. Lack of communication and motivation among its members will end up in failure of the team. Even Jack Stanley, an experienced Puck Stop trouble-shooter from Ottawa who has been sent to a newly opened Puck Stop in forest hill village, was unable to guide the team with relevant information and guideline.
Jack Stanley was brought in order to develop the newly opened Puck Stop and he was supposed to hand his job over to local management once he made the unit profitable. To begin with, he was successful and was able to bring a marginal profit within a year but later he failed, as he was not consistent enough to promote the sale. In this case in order to develop midweek business, management decided to hold a system wide trivia contest (Brainiac) on Tuesday nights. The rules of the game laid great stress on team participation.
Though Jack tried to ensure that the patrons got a clear-cut idea of the contest through displayed posters and promotional texts to conserve TV feed advertising, it was not good enough to communicate and generate publicity about the game. The rules of the game did not specify the structure of participant teams, which caused a big dilemma among participants, and this might be the primary reason for the team failure. Jack, whose physical presence was there through out the event, was unable to identify the problems in the participant teams and to give the solution; instead, he was satisfied with the contest until the final event. Here the problem was poor communication. The downward flow of communication, that is, from top to bottom was not good enough to simplify the game procedure.
“Communication is physically disseminated throughout the pyramid from the top.” (Downward Communication – Communication, Slide. 5). Here, by ‘top’, it is intended to mean the management who made the rules and procedures of the game and sent it across Jack, the next level who is supposed to transfer it to the participants. Jack showed his active presence through out the event. He tried to motivate the participants by reserving a segregated section towards the rear and disconnected the jukebox for the duration of Brainiac and also offered on the house drink to players. But all this was not sufficient to stop the team from loosing and the outcome was a poor sale which was totally unexpected.
Certainly, Jack Stanley intervened some how to prevent the poor sales result but it was not at all enough. He could have done better if he had coordinated the sales along with proper communication and motivation process.
Recommendations with learning applications
Organizational Structure
An organization’s working depends mainly on the behaviour of both individuals and groups. However, looking at the organization as a whole, the focus should be on the organizational structure. Success of the organization depends upon the structure it follows. A proper organisational structure is essential for the success of any organisation. If there is no sophisticated and well-designed organisational structure, it will affect the well-being and even the survival of the organisation. Organisational structure is defined as a structure, which lays down, “how organisation’s individuals and groups are put together or organised to accomplish work.” (Organisational Structure – Chapter 14, 482).
A well-structured organization possesses well-motivated employees with proper communication. Division of labour and coordination of the members are the two basic things that an organization should do to achieve the goals. Individuals are different and it is a fact that not everyone can do everything. The physical and intellectual capacities of individuals are different and thus vertical and horizontal dimensions could be used for the division.
Communication
Proper communication is essential for the success of any organisation. “Communication is the process by which information is exchanged between a sender and a receiver.” (Chapter 10: Communication, 338). The case mainly deals with the interpersonal communication in a team. If there is no proper communication among the employees at different levels, it may affect the smooth functioning of the organisation. The communication process has to be liberalised in such a way that all the team members can contact each other. Simple communication process starts with the sender encoding his thoughts and transmitting it to the receiver. The receiver perceives the message, decodes it, and provides feedback to the sender.
A communication is effective only if the right people receive the information in right time. Mainly three forms of communication take place: downward, upward and horizontal. Upward communication is from the bottom to the top. Downward communication takes place when the management passes the information to the bottom level. Communication between departments or functional units is called horizontal communication. In order to be effective, communication should possess some basic qualities as follows: efficient time, giving proper attention to the other person in the communication, avoiding confusion regarding the problem, providing effective feedback to the sender.
Motivation of employees
Motivation is very much related to the performance of the employees. If the employees are not properly motivated, it may adversely affect their performance thereby impacting the overall performance of the organisation. It is natural that the employees will react against any new system if it is introduced all on a sudden. Different methods can be used to motivate the employees. We can have a look at the theories of motivation.
- Maslow’s Hierarchy Need theory: this theory says, “Humans have five set of needs that are arranged in a hierarchy, beginning with the most basic and compelling needs.” (Theories of Work Motivation – Chapter 5, 158).
- The physiological needs: this theory says that needs that are necessary for survival is physiological needs such as food, water, oxygen, shelter. Organizational factors that satisfy these needs include the minimum pay for survival and working conditions promoting existence. (Theories of Work Motivation – Chapter5).
Harmony at the work place
Organisational structure is the backborn of any organisation. If there is no structure for an organisation, random interaction among resources may happen, which may be without control or guidance. Proper communication or interaction among resources is possible only if there is a solid structure to the organisation. If the structure is weak, then interaction may get interrupted. “The purpose of structure is to facilitate the appropriate interaction among of resources.”
(The Propose of Structure- Organization Structure Chapter 14, slide 3). It may cause high turnover and job dissatisfaction among the employees as well. This situation disables the organization to create a harmonious work group. Only a harmonious work group can bring desired outcome. It is clear from the case that conflict between Bob and Wombat and quitting of Wombat from the team has led the team winning only by a narrow margin.
A comparison between the team of Mike and Hannah and formal organization
Hannah Kurtzman introduced a new system to improve the performance level of a game. She was a regular player who made rounds of the bar and suggested to other players to perform with full cooperation and calculate the overall efficiency of the performance. She divided the members based on mutual agreements and shared their experience regarding the assigned task. Her organization is focused on the mutual understanding of members.
She does not think about a formal structure before making the suggestions and instructions regarding an assigned task. She felt that it is very difficult and complicated task in the practical aspect of an organization. Finally, she found that it must take some more members to form a well-designed and successful form of an organisation.
The following are the important aspects of a formal organisation.
- The organisation must have a proper and well-designed structure.
- System of division of labour must be implemented for the proper functioning of the organisation.
- The organisation should establish an efficient system of payment.
- The organisation should avoid favouritism and personal bias.
- There should be a proper communication channel to avoid inconvenience in communication.
Both Hannah and Mike put together their efforts to make their team into a formal or well-designed organization. First, they established a proper communication channel to make sufficient interaction with their team. The next priority was allocation of task to the group members. As it is similar to formal organization structure, the team is considered as a major department of an organization.
Reconstructing the team
Team effort is essential to win a game, which involves more than one member. In the case study of the Puck Stop, it is clear that there was no proper and harmonious teamwork within the team. From the analysis of the case, it is clear that the team efforts were absent which caused failure of the team and made the members to be away from the games and Puck Stop itself. The theories of the organizational structure can be applied here. The division of labour is an important aspect of the organizational structure. (The Dividion and Coordination of Labour, 482).
The team led by Mike and Hannah was performing at an average level but frequent failures and lack of co-operation from within resulted in the collapse of the team. Though Hannah and Mike recruited new people to their team, some thing was still lacking. That was the ultimate cause of the collapse of the team and resulted in the team members not coming to Puck Stop itself. One day Mike surprisingly met Hannah in the Puck Stop and discussed the possibility of reconstructing the team.
However, now all the efforts must be made to avoid the reasons for failure as happened the last time. Different problems, which caused the failure, include lack of cooperation, lack of motivation and lack of proper team structure etc. In the new team structure Mike can be the leader of the team as he is having good experience and he is better than other team members. Hannah can be as assistant leader who will assist Mike and will lead the team in the absence of Mike.
Under Hannah Bob and Wombat should be placed in the team structure. Rest of the team members will come under Bob and Wombat. Mike, Hannah, Bob and Wombat are supposed to motivate the team members, as the lack of motivation was one of the chief reasons for failure on the last occasion. The concept of ‘management by objectives’ states that, managers have to motivate the subordinates for achieving the specific objectives. (Introduction to Organizational Behaviour, slide 6).
Here, in this case, the leaders like Mike and Hannah need to motivate the team members to attain the objective of the team, which is winning games. This case mainly deals with motivation and its effects on team members. Motivation is a vital part of any organization. The motivation theories say that only through proper motivation employees will be able to achieve their organizational goals, which, in turn, will result in job satisfaction. Motivation is the extent to which the efforts of the leader or manager are directed towards a goal. (Theories of Work Motivation – Chapter5).
In addition, in the newly constructed team, proper communication should be present to ensure the success of the team. Each team member should be allowed to communicate with each other, so that games can be easily won. The team can follow either of the following communication systems during the contest.
- Team members can develop a jargon, which can be used to communicate with each other during the contest. In case of contest, jargon helps to communicate the answers with peers i.e. the team members.
- Nonverbal communication through some medium like body language viz. raised eyebrows, smoke screen etc, that is, other than speech or writing. Body language, a form of non-verbal communication through bodily motions and facial expressions can be used for communication.
Works Cited
Chapter 10: Communication. 338. (Provided by the customer).
Downward Communication – Communication: Chapter 10. Slide. 5. (Provided by student).
Introduction to Organizational Behaviour, Motivation: chapter – 6. Slide 6. (Provided by student).
Organisational Structure – Chapter 14. 482. (Provided by student).
Puck Stop. 214-217. (Provided by the customer).
Theories of Work Motivation – Chapter 5. 158. (Provided by the customer).
The Propose of Structure- Organization Structure Chapter 14. slide 3. (Provided by the customer).
The Dividion and Coordination of Labour: Organizational Structure – Chapter 14. 482. (Provided by student).
Theories of Work Motivation – Chapter5: Need Theories of Work Motivation: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. (Provided by student).
Theories of Work Motivation – Chapter5: What is Motivation. (Provided by student).