P&P641 Harvard Case Study Assessment 3.

&P641 Harvard Case Study Assessment 3.

dy Assessment 3.

Sohaib Hussnain

Student Id # 18295069

1. What caused the conflict between the project managers and the other employees
and what recommendations/ solutions based on your academic research into OB
theory do you suggest?
A peek into the Case Study:
BEC was founded by professional psychologists and initially hired undergraduate as
well as professional psychologists as its employees for assistance of its customers.
In China BEC was a Pioneer of providing EAP services to employees of other
organizations and since there was a scope for such services in the market, BEC was
a success before there was increased demand and competition and other
companies moved into the same business of EAP; hence forcing MR. Zheng to go for
restructuring.
After having a look at the current structure of BEC we can see that like any
conventional organization there are departments to perform relevant tasks and also
there are hired two project managers who work projects through.
The question:
If we critically look at the question itself, a conflict between project managers and
the employees is put under consideration. Could this possibly refer to the fact that
newly hired Project managers are not accepted as a part of the company? Could
that issue be just that typical Resistance to Change thing? Because it is very much
clear that work pressure is passed on to the employees from companys managers
too then why specifically Project Managers?
Probable causes of conflict:

Although Mr. Zheng went for restructuring to maximize profits and market share,
but invited more conflict and lesser employee satisfaction to his company. Which
could be the reason Resistance to change is a combination of an individual
reaction to frustration with strong group induced forces (Thomson 2004, P 264).
There are pin pointed few of the probable causes that may have contributed to the
conflict.

Fluid tasks for employees.

Fluid tasks actually mean that the nature of tasks assigned to employees keep
changing during a project or employee is involved in two or more different natures
of tasks at a same time. This can cause confusion and lack of concentration at one
kind of task. Employees at BEC are having to perform fluid tasks; on one hand with
their project managers and on the other with their department managers.
The expected impact of fluid tasks on team performance is negative (Fisher and
Ittner 1999; Bohn2000; Repenning 2001): when work is changed in-process, a
teams existing processes are disrupted an the team may find its previous efforts to
be of little value (Robert S. Huckman, Bradley R. Staats 2010, 3)

Psychologists as Managers?

We can never undermine the importance of relevant qualification. According to a

study by Chris Selby Smith and Lee Ridoutt (2005, 15) Qualifications were
considered important by 90% of respondents when making human resource
planning and recruitment decisions. The Respondents also did noted that
importance of the formal qualifications is influenced by the stage of the career of
the person being recruited: persons later in their employment career tend to be
judged more on experience and skills than on their formal qualifications.
Unfortunately, the conflict mentioned aroused between Ms. Song and Mr. Yang who
both report to Mr. Zheng who is a professional psychologist. This should ring a bell.
Mr. Zheng does not have a qualification in Management. Although he has a
successful company which is still thriving but this success could be attributed to the
wide and ever growing scope of EAP in the market. Same could be the case with Ms.
Song. She, being a professional Psychologist, might come up with brilliant new ideas
for the company but leading a team and is a total different thing. She was also
hesitant to give orders. Mr. Yang on the other hand is qualified and professional
manager with past experience and hence both might lack a mental sync due to
different back grounds. Change averseness; a common response to
restructuring.
Employees are used to get orders from their bosses/managers so someone new
coming in and telling them to do additional things is obviously a kind of change the

employees would resist. It is a natural response regardless of how much the change
would benefit the company. But more than the employees, managers seem to be in
conflict with the Project managers. Obviously they might want their
employees/subordinates for themselves instead of tired and over worked ones
working on multiple assignments. This might be the reason Mr. Yang flares up on
receiving more tasks from Ms. Song. It must be kept in mind that BEC is a small
organization where there are few managers and people work closely. Concerns
particular to SMEs include their relative lack of control over their environment,
commingling of business and personal priorities, and lack of resources to carry out
the magnitude of change that is appropriate to meet accurately diagnosed problems
or recognized opportunities. (Gerald, Susman, Karen Jansen & Judd Michael 2006, 4)

Threat to Authority:

Taking risk averseness to a next level, managers were used to pass order instead of
taking them. It is in human nature not to accept shared authority. Addition of project
managers who are proving to being more benefits than ever to the company; the
managers could possibly sense the shifting of authority in the near future which
might be disturbing. Most people deal with change-related stress and anxiety by
trying to maintain a sense of control over their lives. People achieve this feeling of
control by believing that they can make sense of what will happen to them and that
they have an influence over the outcome of events (Managing Change In
organizations: A Practice Guide 2013)

Most probable solutions:

After having discussed all the possible factors that seem to be contributing to the
conflict and having read some of good and relevant literature (references given),
few solutions have been proposed as follows:
Multidimensional Project Teams:
Taking a look at the responsibilities each department perform and the flow of work
across the departments boundaries i.e. the information from one department
becomes input for the other, I suggest there should be independent
multidimensional project teams instead of department teams. Each project team
should constitute of people/specialists who were previously working in marketing,
R&D, Training and Consultation departments. Each team should independently
initiate projects and work them through instead that departments moving
information back and forth most likely causing delay or overload of work to cause
stress and bad temper; where information ultimately has to fall in execution of
Projects. Multidimensional teams can prove out to be more agile because all the

personnel previously working in separate departments now working closely rite from
proposing a new idea at R&D level to the execution of the idea at marketing,
consulting and training level is taking place in close team coordination.
Also agile Project teams can easily work more closely to the customers and can
provide them with value added tailor made services without much trouble. Actually
flow of information is the trick. The success of any training program depends on how
quickly information flows back and forth and how accurately. According to Kathleen
Hass (2007) The Agile Teams identifies and prioritizes the features based on
business value, and after high risk components of the system are produced, works
on the highest value features first. This approach works if the solution can be
delivered incrementally to the customer.

Team familiarity

Team familiarity refers to how many times, if or not, the team members have
worked together before. If the team members have idea how the other person
works, it might become relatively easier to coordinate with that person. The idea of
multidimensional Project teams at BEC will beget team familiarity after having
worked on a couple of projects which is most likely to result in team harmony and
better results
Because team familiarity aids in the locating, sharing, and application of knowledge
resident within a team, team familiarity may address many problems created by
interpersonal diversity without compromising the potential benefits. (Robert S.
Huckman, Bradley R. Staats 2010, 8)

Project Managers not Department Managers:

Although Mr. Zheng was on right direction to restructure and hire Project Managers,
but it obviously lead to few conflicts between department managers and project
managers, and a lot of stress and confusion among employees. There should be
only project managers leading project teams instead of department managers. The
confusion of authority would also diminish as there would be only project managers.
Discussion:
Change Management is a very diverse and complex process as there are many
factors to consider. Partial change towards the market trends can bring various
issues as much as it brings betterment. Success can never be counted in numbers
as to how much profitable the company is. Satisfied employees can be counted in
long termed success especially when there is growing competition in the market.
Hiring project Managers could be a good step for BEC but along with it welcomed

conflict and lesser employee satisfaction because the CEO failed to foresee certain
issues which were most likely to arise.

Bibliography
Thomson 2004. Organisation and Identities. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
(Page 264)
https://books.google.com.au/books?
id=bIwdH2rwz_QC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Electronic Book (Accessed on 13/05/2015)

Gerald, Susman, Karen Jansen & Judd Michael 2006, Innovation and Change
Management in Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Companies. Final
Report of Task 4 RFP 05-480-5823 Contract No. SB1341-03-Z-0015/65364 (P
4)
http://www.smeal.psu.edu/cmtoc/cmtoc/research/nistcm.pdf
(Accessed on 14/05/2015)
Kathleen Hass 2007, The blending of traditional and agile project
management. Published originally on pmworldtoday.com (May 2007)
http://courses.cecs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP3120/local_docs/readings/theblending-of-traditional-and-agile-project-management.pdf
(Accessed on 12/05/2015)
Robert S. Huckman & Bradley R. Staats 2010, Fluid Tasks and Fluid Teams:
The Impact of Diversity in Experience and Team Familiarity on Team
Performance. (P 1-3 & 8) http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/09145.pdf
(Accessed on 11/05/2015)

Managing Change In organizations: A Practice Guide 2013. Published by PMI,

Inc.
(P
11)
http://www.pmi.org/~/media/Files/Home/ManagingChangeInOrganizations_A_P
ractice_Guide.ashx (Accessed on 11/05/2015)
Lester Coach and John R. P. French, JR. Overcoming resistance to change.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/1/4/512
(Accessed on 12/05/2015)
Chris Selby Smith and Lee Ridoutt 2005, The importance employers attach to
employee qualifications. Monash University acer center for the economics
of education and training. Working paper no. 61 (15)

http://monash.edu/education/noncms/centres/ceet/docs/workingpapers/wp61june05cssridoutt.pdf
(Accessed on 13/05/2015)

Project And People

- Semester 1 2015

MarkingguideforAssessment3:HarvardCaseStudyEssay(40%)
Name_____________________________________________
Mark/40

Name _____________________________________________________________
Case Study (answer 1 question)
Word count 1200 words
per question (+/- 10%
not including
references)

Question No:
Feedback

Area covered

1) Are the
recommendations/solutions
provided practical to
implement and a good fit for
the context? (6)

/12

2) Are the
recommendations/solutions
based on a sound theoretical
basis? (6)

/12

3) Has the student

demonstrated critical thinking
skills in responding to these
issues, ie they have gone
beyond description and
demonstrated deep, critical
analysis to arrive at their
recommendations/solutions?
(4)

/8

4) Does the student use

appropriate academic writing
style and referencing? (4)

/8

Total marks

/40