Sampling.docx - Situation Overview The Hexadecimal company...

Situation Overview:
The Hexadecimal company has formed a team tasked with the development of organizational
development (OD) strategies and initiatives to make the company more competitive (Brown, 2011).
However after a year of effort and nearly a million dollars in costs, the OD team is having mixed results.
The company president has seemingly lost interest in the team’s efforts, the team itself is feuding, and
the credibility of the entire endeavor is being questioned by other teams in the company (Brown). The
source of dysfunction rests with the company president and the team dynamics in play within the OD
team (Brown).
Leadership Factors:
The President may have been initially excited about the potential advantage of OD however, he himself
has not articulated any sort of vision regarding the future of the company. This is critical, although data
gathered from within an organization may highlight problems and challenges confronting the company
without articulating clear vision OD recommendations will be of limited value. The company president
must describe his vision to the team and this must include desired goals and purpose (Brown, 2011). It
would also help to make a list of things the leader hopes to accomplish with the company, with an
emphasis of how the team is expected to contribute towards these related objectives (Kouzes & Posner,
2012). The President has failed to get people on the same page and path, with regard to where he wants
the company to go (Kouzes & Posner). As a result the OD team has found itself locking in a dispute over
fixing problems in the present rather than moving the organization to a desired future state.
OD Team Factors:
It is unsurprising that a team without a clear goal will develop its own agendas and favored solutions.
However, the underlying team dynamics present a more significant challenge. According to the
groundbreaking work of Dr. Bruce Tuckman, all teams need to move through these four progressive
stages of team development. These stages include forming, storming, norming, and performing
(Tuckman, 1965). It is important to point out that the team really begins to produce results when the
team progress through all four phases (Tuckman). Unfortunately at the forming stage it is important to
articulate what the goal of the group is (Tuckman). The president has failed to do this. The team has
muddled along coming up with its own goals and is stuck in the storming phase and members of the
group are fighting one another for dominance within the group (Tuckman). The team is likely to stay at
this stage unless the company president steps into the situation and clarifies his objectives for the team.

If he does this the team will likely move into “norming” where members of the group take on jobs and
roles needed to meet the overarching objectives spelled out by the president (Tuckman). Once this
occurs the team will finally start performing.