Case Study: Every Coin Has Two Sides

Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change, 2e Donald L. Anderson

(Case Notes)

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Instructor Resource Anderson, Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change, 2e SAGE Publishing, 2018 Case Notes

Chapter 1: What Is Organization Development?

Case Study: Every Coin Has Two Sides

Case Summary

Tom is Jared’s boss, and Paul is Tom’s organization development consultant. Tom calls Paul to explain a situation regarding Jared. Initial presenting symptoms include complaints about Jared’s leadership style. Employees say they are not being taken seriously or listened to, are treated as incompetent, and are treated by Jared in a condescending manner. A previous manager of the group is described as being open, friendly, and positive. In addition, Tom mentions an unusual situation regarding the team given lavish gifts to Jared but complaining about that as well.

Paul’s interview with Jared suggests that Jared is unaware of the underlying reasons for these complaints. Jared presents himself as a participative leader who seeks the team’s input, empowers them to make decisions, and coaches them on career direction and work decisions as needed. He is clear that he pushes the team at times to improve results. He believes that he recognizes good work and wants to understand the feedback about his style.

Interviews with Jared’s team tell a very different story. Employees detail complaints about insulting comments that Jared makes to them about their productivity. Recognition actions seem to create a competitive environment. Employees who bring concerns to him feel that he can come across as defensive if they disagree, so they have given up any disagreement.Employees feel publicly humiliated in team meetings. They see examples of command and control authoritative behavior rather than participative management. Nadia’s final example shows where she attributes a negative tone to Jared’s communication where he sees a positive attempt at recognition of a successful effort.

Teaching Points

This introductory case allows students to begin to explore possibilities for organization development work. It provides examples to demonstrate how there can be multiple points of view and interpretations in a relationship.

Discussion Questions and Proposed Answers

• What or who is the source of problems in this case? How would you summarize

what is going on here?There can be multiple interpretations of who may be responsible; Jared may be doing some things that are effective but that may come across in unintended ways. He may 2 / 4

Instructor Resource Anderson, Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change, 2e SAGE Publishing, 2018 be unaware of alternative interpretations of his actions. Employees may be “reading in” to Jared’s behavior in negative ways where he is making a genuine attempt to be an effective and participative leader. They may be remembering inaccurately or embellishing what really happened (however, there do seem to be trends in the themes across employee interviews). The best responses to this question will acknowledge that there is no “black or white” answer to the management-employee relationship and not a single party at fault.

• What do you think are some of the effective actions that Jared has taken? What

actions, if any, do you think have been ineffective?Jared takes employees to lunch, makes attempts at recognition, expresses a desire to create a collaborative atmosphere on the team, and expresses interest and openness to feedback. Jared may not be seeing how his self perception translates into reality for his employees. Taking employees to lunch may come across as favoritism that creates a competitive environment. What employees report about his leadership style is contradictory to his reported style (instead of being encouraging that employees took the initiative to set a meeting with marketing, he apparently tells them they must seek his approval first).

• What do you think Paul should suggest next? What possible next steps would you

propose at the individual, team, or organization-wide levels?Responses will vary, with the objective for students to connect some of the identified problems to opportunities for an OD practitioner to intervene. On an individual level, Paul may wish to propose leadership coaching to Jared to help him identify ways to come across differently to his team. Paul may wish to propose a team workshop where opportunities to improve the leader-member relationship can be brought into the open and the team can provide direct feedback to Jared. Organizationally, there may be opportunities to redesign processes, clarify metrics, and design a formal recognition program.

• What do you think Tom’s role should be in the next steps versus Jared’s role?

Here students should identify the difference between Jared and Tom as different types of clients. Tom brought up the project to Paul in the first place, but Jared may be the one to take the primary actions.

Additional Readings

Beckhard, R. (1969). Organization development: Strategies and models. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. 3 / 4

Instructor Resource Anderson, Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change, 2e SAGE Publishing, 2018 Burke, W. W. (2002). Organization change: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Burnes, B., & Cooke, B. (2012). The past, present and future of OD: Taking the long view.Human Relations, 65, 1395–1429.Chin, R., & Benne, K. D. (1976). General strategies for effecting changes in human systems.In W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, R. Chin, & K. E. Corey (Eds.), The planning of

change (3rd ed., pp. 22–45). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Hanson, P. G., & Lubin, B. (1995). Answers to questions most frequently asked about

organization development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kahnweiler, W. M. (2002). Process consultation: A cornerstone of organization development practice. In J. Waclawski & A. H. Church (Eds.), Organization development: A data- driven approach to organizational change (pp. 149–163). San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass.Marshak, R. J. (2006). Organization development as a profession and a field. In B. B. Jones & R. Brazzel (Eds.), The NTL handbook of organization development and change: Principles, practices, and perspectives (pp. 13–27). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.Schein, E. H. (1997). The concept of “client” from a process consulting perspective: A guide for change agents. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 10, 202–216.Schein, E. H. (1999). Process consultation revisited. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Stroh, L. K., & Johnson, H. H. (2006). The basic principles of effective consulting. Mahwah,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Exercises and Activities

• Have students summarize the feedback and present it to Jared.

• Ask students to design a workshop that would involve Jared and members of the team, and

role play Jared’s role and the team’s role.

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