Plagiarized-Free But "A" Work

Case One: ElectriGov ElectriGov is a government agency whose mission is to supply electric power to various

locations within the United States. The organization has three “line crews” whose job it is to

install high-voltage power lines.

The work is hard, dirty, and dangerous. Almost all of the men have had a friend who has been

seriously injured or killed while on the job. The crews typically work independently, but when

there are large projects to complete, the crews must work together. This can create serious

conflicts, since the crews often don’t agree with each other’s approaches to organizing and

managing a particular job, and none of the three foremen want to be subservient to the others.

Thus when doing large projects together, the line crews tend to compete with one another, rather

than cooperate.

On one project, the conflict became so nasty that one crew failed to inform another crew that the

wires were “hot” at a certain section of the project. This serious safety breach was reported to

senior management, who immediately launched an investigation. We, as consultants, initially

were asked to serve as part of the team investigating the causes of the safety violations. After the

initial investigation, we were asked by ElectriGov’s senior management to “clean up the

conflicts” between the crews.

The approach we used to help the crews reduce their conflicts was a variation on design A. All

three crews were brought together in one room, and the need for an interteam-development

program was discussed. Each crew was asked to commit to solving the conflicts between

themselves and the other crews and to agree to give the program a chance. Once this agreement

was achieved, each crew was then asked to meet separately to list their perceptions of the

other crews and the specific problems that they had in working with the other crews. After

meeting separately, the teams were brought back together and each crew reported its perceptions

of the other crews.

In our consulting role, we facilitated the discussion, making sure that each crew’s perceptions

were made clear and that each crew described the problematic behaviors of the other crews in

concrete, specific terms. As a ground rule, crews were asked to be descriptive and to avoid using

emotionally laden language when critiquing the other crews. After each crew presented its

perceptions of the other crews, the other crews could ask questions to clarify points that were

made, but the crews were not allowed to debate the validity of the other crews’ perceptions.

After each crew aired their views, the crews were then asked to come up with recommendations

to improve the relationship between crews. Their suggestions were listed on large poster boards

in the room. The crews discussed how they might do more advanced planning on the larger

UNIT V CASE STUDY 2

projects to determine who would do what and who would be in charge of the project. They also

considered rotating crew members to improve relationships between rews. At the end of this

interteam-building session, each crew made a public commitment to change its behavior and

implement the recommendations that were made. As a result of this intervention, the hostility

between the crews decreased and the crews now have a new approach to working with each other

on large projects that minimizes the conflicts that they had in the past.

Reference

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2013). Organizational behavior (6th Ed.).

New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.