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I. Background
Mr. Pettis LeMaster, the Mercury Standard Corporations CEO, suffered a recurrence
of prostate cancer and became increasingly absent as he sought after for medical treatment. In
his absence, and with the boards approval, he made an interim arrangement for Myron
Morton to run the executive committee meetings and to continue to direct operations.
Mercurys CFO (Chief Financial Officer) was not happy with the arrangement. Myron
Morton, the vice president in charge of operations at Mercury hired Mr. Sam Shruggins, an
OD consultant, to assist what he understood to be a team development effort. Mr. Morton
pointed out that the team was generally conflict avoidant and was viewed by him as in
efficient in dealing with real issues. Mr. Myron brought in Mr. Shruggins to make the team to
be more aligned and at least pulling the same direction and to perform at higher level. On the
first meeting, Shruggins met the team but without prior notice. He then left the group with an
assessment form which was a five factor measure of personality to be accomplished and
evaluated on the next meet. Shruggins is not new to such measure as he had previously used
it and have found it to be harmless.
The second meet started by reviewing the results of the assessment and was
culminated by an activity that Shruggins conducted which was abbreviated as OCEAN
referring to openness, conscientiousness, extroversion/introversion, agreeableness and
neuroticism. The results of the test were supposed to be confidential and should be kept to
ones self as reminded by Shruggins. However, such confidentiality was broken when
employees who took the test shared through gossip the results of their co-workers. The gossip
grew and was captured by a local newspaper who then published both in print and online.
Such news brought the company to a bad light and the OD intervention was postponed.
Meanwhile, the organization is back to normal but there are times where the senior
management team are backstabbing and name call their teammate.
II. Problem statement:
How will Mercury Standard Corporation's executives overcome the barriers and improve
team effectiveness?
V. Recommendation:
We recommend Alternative Course of Action Three (3) to be implemented because it
addresses the organizational issues that Mercury Company is facing; namely on its team
effectiveness, clashing of diverse personality and internal conflicts that surrounds within the
top management. With the help of appreciative inquiry its primary process begins with
strengthening the team itself, it is evident in the case that there are hidden frustrations and
problems, and with the help of this process team may find success, positive energy is released
and the teams and individuals begins to gain a better understanding of themselves.
VI. Implementation Plan
For Mercury Company to effectively accomplish and implement Alternative Course
of Action Three (3) that is to resolved the internal conflict within the organization through the
process of appreciative inquiry. Here are the following steps that the organization should do:
1.) The organization will undergo the process of discovery which consists of engaging
Morton and relevant stakeholders in a dialogue about the strength of the organization,
their best practices, accomplishments and rewarding. Overall with this process of
laying all positive compliments it helps build an atmosphere of trust and fulfillment
on the part of every stakeholder so they may be able to proceed in a further discussion
in their current problems.
2.) There will be another meeting where the participants will look to the future and
imagine how things could be articulating and sharing their visions for the future. It
helps realign the organizational objectives and immediately resolved their problem so
they can aim for their goal. In this meeting they will also collaboratively construct a
vision for a new future and actions that move the team and organization to a desirable
new point .
3.) With the resolution of their problems their will be another discussion which
focuses less on action plans and spreadsheets and more on creating grassroots
networks of interested and committed parties who are empowered and who freely
choose to take action on their own. Considering the ineffectiveness within the team
and organization, this self-actualization helps the team to freely decide for themselves
inline of what will be good for the organization. Having said, the personal and team
conflicts will decreases as the group learned to resolve its ideational disagreements in
favor of a common future.