Woody’s Veneer is a factory, which specialises in the production of Veneer. The factory started recording a decline in veneer production, loss of money, teamwork, poor leadership, and performance, leading to rising costs of recycled materials and garbage fees. The drop in performance compelled the management of the company to hire someone to evaluate and determine the reasons leading to the problems.
The problems were traced to the leadership and line managers. For instance, a visit to the factory to meet Mr. Max Brath, the factory superintended, and other line managers revealed instances, which suggested that Mr. Max was experiencing team leadership problems because he never took any disciplinary actions against Ken Howk and Dave Flares who frequently fought with each other to settle personal differences. The traits were adopted from their high school days.
More analysis revealed that the factory line managers located at the top of the top floor were in poor communication terms with the workers located below the floor, and the only open communication channel was the bulletin board. The managers were harsh and condescending to the workers.
A sense of distrust between the workers and the managers was noted to be persistent because both groups were spying on each other. Workers had started grinding some good veneer with ill motives. The workers could collaborate and work as a team to punish the management and spy on them using their communication styles such as signals to evade being noticed. Team dynamics was lacking here.
Analysis of group and concepts
Team roles
Each member of the organisation has to be assigned clearly defined roles based on their moral worth (Brown, 1988). Roles and responsibilities have to be based on norms established by the team and agreed upon by each team member to make them accountable for their actions.
Relationships
The relationships between the workers and the managers are poor making, it necessary to clearly define the norms and ethics for the employees. The relationship should be friendly for each member to feel a sense of belonging to the team (Baron, Kerr & Miller, 1992).
Culture
The company should appoint a formal team leader who defines how communication should occur in an environment of people with different cultural backgrounds to avoid the misunderstanding between the workers and the managers (Brown, 1988).
Trust
The lack of trust was causing the employees to spy on each other, which was leading to a drastic drop in the company’s performance. Trust should be created between the workers and the management to agree on ideas to work on to avoid incidents of confrontations and to spy on each other (Baron, Kerr & Miller, 1992).
Group cohesion
The working relationship between the workers and managers is poor and should be avoided by creating group cohesion to make the employees work harmoniously together (Baron, Kerr & Miller, 1992).
Group conflicts
The superintended should show leadership by addressing the rivalry between the management and workers to avoid the conflicts using open communication channels using a clearly defined conflict resolution mechanism.
References
Baron, R. S., Kerr, N. L., & Miller, N. (1992). Group process, group decision, group action. New York: Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.
Brown, R. (1988). Group processes: Dynamics within and between groups. New York: Basil Blackwell.