Reference no: EM132176314

Teamwork or Division- Farecom, Inc

The last thing Jonathon Downie had expected to miss about Montego Bay Jamaica, was its sunrises. Seeing one usually meant he had pulled another all nighter at the consulting firm where, as a vice president, he had managed three teams of manufacturing specialists. But as he stood on the balcony of his new apartment in the city that was now his home, Jonathon suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for the way the dawn plays off the hotels of Montego Bay. In the next moment, though, he let out a sardonic laugh. The dawn light was not what he missed about Montego Bay, he realized. What he missed was the feeling of accomplishment that usually accompanied those sunrises. An all-nighter in Montego Bay had meant hours of intense work with a cadre of committed, enthusiastic colleagues.

Give and take. Humor. Progress. Here, so far anyway, that was unthinkable. As the director of strategy at Farecom, a regional fibre glass manufacturer, Jonathon spent all his time trying to get his new team to make it through a meeting without the tension level becoming unbearable. Six of the top-level managers involved seemed determined to turn the company around, but the seventh seemed equally determined to sabotage the process. Forget camaraderie. There had been three meetings so far, and Jonathon hadn't even been able to get everyone on the same side of an issue. Jonathon stepped inside his apartment and checked the clock: (only three more hours before he had to watch as Phillip Louderbaek, Farecom's charismatic director of sales and marketing, either dominated the group's discussion or withdrew entirely, tapping his pen on the table to indicate his boredom. Sometimes he withheld information vital to the group's debate; other times he coolly denigrated people's comments. Still, Jonathon realized Phillip held the group in such thrall because of his dynamic personality, his almost legendary past, and his close relationship with Farecom's CEO that he could not be ignored. And at least once during each meeting, he offered an insight about the industry or the company that was so perceptive that Jonathon knew he shouldn't be ignored. As he prepared to leave for the office, Jonathon felt the familiar frustration that had started building during the team's first meeting a month earlier. It was then that Phillip had first insinuated, with what sounded like a joke, that he wasn’t cut out to be a team player. "Leaders lead, followers...please pipe down! " had been his exact words, although he had smiled winningly as he spoke, and the rest of the group had laughed heartily in response. No one in the group was laughing now, though, least of all Jonathon.

Farecom, Inc., was in trouble—not deep trouble, but enough for its CEO, Tom King, to make strategic repositioning Jonathon’s top and only task. The company, a family-owned maker of parts for speedboats, waterslides, cars and other fibre glass novelties had succeeded for nearly 70 years as a high-quality, high price producer, catering to hundreds of Caribbean and International clients. Year after year, Farecom showed respectable increases at the top and bottom lines, posting $86 million in revenues and $3 million in earnings three years before Jonathon arrived.

In the last 15 months, though, sales and earnings had flattened. Tom, a grandnephew of the company’s founder, thought he knew what was happening. Until recently, large national fibreglass companies had been able to make money only through mass production. Now, however, thanks to new technologies in the fibre glassmaking industry, those companies could execute short runs profitably. They had begun to enter Farecom’s niche, Tom had told Jonathon, and, with their superior resources, it was just a matter of time before they would own it. “You have one responsibility as Farecom’s new director of strategy,” Tom had said to Jonathon on his first day. “That’s to put together a team of our top people, one person from each division, and have a comprehensive plan for the company’s strategic realignment up, running, and winning within six months.”

Jonathon had immediately compiled a list of the senior managers from human resources, manufacturing, finance, distribution, design, and marketing, and had set a date for the first meeting. Then, drawing on his years as a consultant who had worked almost solely in team environments, Jonathon had carefully prepared a structure and guidelines for the group’s discussions, disagreements, and decisions, which he planned to propose to the members for their input before they began working together. Successful groups are part art, part science, Jonathon knew, but he also believed that with every member’s full commitment, a team proved the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Knowing that managers at Farecom were unaccustomed to the team process, however, Jonathon imagined he might get some resistance from one or two members. For one, he had been worried about Chris Holden of manufacturing. Chris was a giant of a man who had run the furnaces for some 35 years, following in his father’s footsteps. Although he was a former high school football star who was known among workers in the factory for his hearty laugh and his love of practical jokes, Chris usually didn’t say much around Farecom’s executives, citing his lack of higher education as the reason. Jonathon had thought the team atmosphere might intimidate him. Jonathon had also anticipated a bit of a fight from Karen Jackson of the design division, who was known to complain that Farecom didn’t appreciate its six artists. Jonathon had expected that Karen might have a chip on her shoulder about collaborating with people who didn't understand the design process. Ironically, both those fears had proved groundless, but another, more difficult problem had arisen. The wild card had turned out to be Phillip. Jonathon had met Phillip once before the team started its work and had found him to be enormously intelligent, energetic, and good-humored. What's more, Tom King had confirmed his impressions, telling him that Phillip "had the best mind" at Farecom. It was also from Tom that Jonathon had first learned of Phillip's difficult childhood yet inspirational personal history. Poor as a child, he had worked as a security guard and short-order cook to put himself through the state college, from which he graduated with top honors. Soon after, he started his own advertising and market research firm in Kingston, and within the decade, he had built it into a company employing 50 people to service some of the Caribbean region's most prestigious accounts. His success brought with it a measure of fame: articles in the local media, invitations to the statehouse, even an honorary degree from The University of the West Indies. But in the late 1980s, Phillip's firm suffered the same fate as many other advertising shops, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. Farecom considered it a coup when it landed him as director of marketing, since he had let it be known that he was offered at least two dozen other jobs.

“Phillip is the future of this company,” Tom King had told Jonathon. “If he can’t help you, no one can. I look forward to hearing what a team with his kind of horsepower can come up with to steer us away from the mess we’re in.” Those words echoed in Jonathon’s mind as he sat, with increasing anxiety, through the team’s first and second meetings. Though Jonathon had planned an agenda for each meeting and tried to keep the discussions on track, Phillip always seemed to find a way to disrupt the process. Time and time again, he shot down other people’s ideas, or he simply didn’t pay attention. He also answered most questions put to him with maddening vagueness. "I'll have my assistant look into it when he gets a moment," Phillip replied when one team member asked him to list Farecom's five largest customers. “Some days you eat the bear, and other days the bear eats you," he joked another time, when asked why sales to fraternities had recently nose-dived. Phillip's negativism, however, was countered by occasional comments so insightful that they stopped the conversation cold or turned it around entirely - comments that demonstrated extraordinary knowledge about competitors or fibre glass technology or customers' buying patterns. The help wouldn't last, though; Phillip would quickly revert to his role as team renegade. The third meeting, last week, had ended in chaos.

Chris Holden, Karen Jackson, and the distribution director, Carl Simmons, had each planned to present cost cutting proposals, and at first it looked as though the group was making good progress. Chris opened the meeting, proposing a plan for Farecom to cut throughput time by 3% and raw-materials costs by 2%, thereby positioning the company to compete better on price. It was obvious from his detailed presentation that he had put a lot of thought into his comments, and it was evident that he was fighting a certain amount of nervousness as he made them. "I know I don't have the book smarts of most of you in this room," he had begun, "but here goes anyway." During his presentation, Chris stopped several times to answer questions from the team, and as he went on, his nervousness transformed into his usual enthusiasm. "That wasn't so bad!" he laughed to himself as he sat down at the end, flashing a grin at Jonathon. "Maybe we can turn this old ship around." Karen Jackson had followed Chris. While not disagreeing with him - she praised his comments, in fact - she argued that Farecom also needed to invest in new artists, pitching its competitive advantage in better design and wider variety. Unlike Chris, Karen had made this case to Farecom's top executives many times, only to be rebuffed, and some of her frustration seeped through as she explained her reasoning yet again. At one point, her voice almost broke as she described how hard she had worked in her first ten years at Farecom, hoping that someone in management would recognize the creativity of her designs. "But no one did," she recalled with a sad shake of her head. "That's why when I was made director of the department, I made sure all the artists were respected for what they are - artists, not worker ants. There's a difference, you know." However, just as with Chris Holden, Karen's comments lost their defensiveness as the group members, with the exception of Phillip, who remained impassive, greeted her words with nods of encouragement. By the time Carl Simmons of distribution started to speak, the mood in the room was approaching buoyant. Carl, a quiet and meticulous man, jumped from his seat and practically paced the room as he described his ideas. Farecom, he said, should play to its strength as a service-oriented company and restructure its trucking system to increase the speed of delivery. He described how a similar strategy had been adopted with excellent results at his last job at a ceramics plant. Carl had joined Farecom just six months earlier.

It was when Carl began to describe those results in detail that Phillip brought the meeting to an unpleasant halt by letting out a loud groan. "Let's just do everything, why don't we, including redesign the kitchen sink!" be cried with mock enthusiasm. That remark sent Carl back quickly to his seat, where he half-heartedly summed up his comments. A few minutes later, he excused himself, saying he had another meeting. Soon the others made excuses to leave, too, and the room became empty. No wonder Jonathon was apprehensive about the fourth meeting. He was therefore surprised when he entered the room and found the whole group, save Phillip, already assembled. Ten minutes passed in awkward small talk, and, looking from face to face, Jonathon could see his own frustration reflected. He also detected an edge of panic—just what he had hoped to avoid. He decided he had to raise the topic of Phillip’s attitude openly, but just as he started, Phillip ambled into the room, smiling. “Sorry, folks,” he said lightly, holding up a cup of coffee as if it were explanation enough for his tardiness. “Phillip, I’m glad you’re here,” Jonathon began, “because I think today we should begin by talking about the group itself—” Phillip cut Jonathon off with a small, sarcastic laugh. “Uh-oh, I knew this was going to happen,” he said. Before Jonathon could answer, Chris Holden stood up and walked over to Phillip, bending over to look him in the eye. “You just don’t care, do you?” he began, his voice so angry it startled everyone in the room. Everyone except Phillip. “Quite the contrary—I care very much,” he answered breezily. “I just don’t believe this is how change should be made. A brilliant idea never came out of a team. Brilliant ideas come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization to implement them.” “That’s a lot of bull,” Chris shot back. “You just want all the credit for the success, and you don’t want to share it with anyone.” "That's absurd," Phillip laughed again. "I'm not trying to impress anyone here at Farecom t. I don't need to. I want this company to succeed as much as you do, but I believe, and I believe passionately, that teams are useless. Consensus means mediocrity. I'm sorry, but it does." "But you haven't even tried to reach consensus with us," Karen interjected. 'It's as if you don't care what we all have to say. We can't work alone for a solution - we need to understand each other. Don't you see that?" The room was silent as Phillip shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He stared at the table, a blank expression on his face.

It was Jonathon who broke the silence. “Phillip, this is a team. You are part of it,” he said, trying to catch Phillip’s eye without success. “Perhaps we should start again—” Phillip stopped him by holding up his cup, as if making a toast. “Okay, look, I’ll behave from now on,” he said. The words held promise, but he was smirking as he spoke them—something no one at the table missed. Jonathon took a deep breath before he answered; as much as he wanted and needed Phillip’s help, he was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps Phillip’s personality and his past experiences simply made it impossible for him to participate in the delicate process of ego surrender that any kind of teamwork requires. “Listen, everyone, I know this is a challenge,” Jonathon began, but he was cut short by Phillip’s pencil tapping on the table. A moment later, Chris Holden was standing again. “Forget it. This is never going to work. It’s just a waste of time for all of us,” he said, more resigned than gruff. “We’re all in this together, or there’s no point.” He headed for the door, and before Jonathon could stop him, two others were at his heels.

Questions

What are some of the concerns and challenges that the team faced?

Examine the characteristics that the team leader should have to motivate the team to achieve their target. Do you think Jonathon fits into this profile? If you were in

Jonathon’s position, what might some of your key tasks be to bring the team together?

How can Jonathon most effectively use both management and leadership skills in his role as team leader?

At what stage of team development is the team in? Use appropriate theory to explain your answer. Discuss what you would do to facilitate group development at this stage.

Think about creating a team charter (do not create one). What categories of guidelines would you and your team agree on before beginning work? Why would you include these categories?