Devereaux-Dering Group Dashing to catch a cab at the corner of Sixth and Vine, t
ID: 352148 • Letter: D
Question
Devereaux-Dering Group
Dashing to catch a cab at the corner of Sixth and Vine, the account team was exhilarated. After a quick exchange of high fives, three of the four jumped into the backseat of a cab to return to the Manhattan offices of Devereaux-Dering, a global advertising agency with offices in New York, Hong Kong, and Paris. The team couldn’t wait to tell their team leader, Kurt Lansing, that they had won the BMW account that morning. The fourth team member, Brad Fitzgerald, stood apart from the animated group, studying his BlackBerry and then hailing a cab for an afternoon flight out of LaGuardia.
After a two-year slump in sales, Devereaux-Dering needed a big score like the BMW account. To drive new business and land high-profile accounts like this one, the company had hired Kurt Lansing, an MBA from Wharton, with prominent status in the advertising industry. His job was to lead a new business team to study the market, develop strategies, and acquire major accounts. Lansing hand-selected four high achievers for his team that represented each area of the business: Brad Fitzgerald, creative director; Trish Roderick, account services; Adrienne Walsh, production manager; and Tyler Green, brand strategy.
“That was a shocker!” said Roderick as she scooted across the backseat of the cab to make room for her teammates. “The client didn’t seem too impressed with our presentation until Fitzgerald presented the last set of slides describing the global campaign. They loved it. I think he single-handedly clinched the deal when he presented the tag line for the Asian market,” she said excitedly.
“He’s a real whiz, alright,” muttered Green. “The eighth wonder of the world.” Sighing deeply and losing his earlier exuberance, Green said, “We couldn’t have bagged the deal without him, and I know we’ll all get credit. But none of us knew he planned to present that last part of the global campaign. I know he was working on that tag line late last night, but there was plenty of time this morning to get team input on it. I hate surprises in front of a client. I felt like a fool, even if we did win the business.”
“He’s a regular white knight,” chuckled Walsh, “riding in at the last minute to save the day. I suppose we should appreciate him, but he’s just so irritating. He snapped at me last week for not telling him about a client who was upset about delays in their ad campaign. I reminded him that I had told him about it in our status meeting, but he wasn’t listening at the time. He was glued to his precious BlackBerry, as usual. Why have team meetings if he isn’t going to participate?”
Roderick was surprised by her teammates’ reaction to Fitzgerald. She thought they had been working well together. She was quickly discovering, however, an undercurrent of resent- ment. This was the first time that she had been exposed to the conflict that was simmering below the surface. No doubt, Fitzgerald did have a strong ego and aggressive personality. A pre- viously successful entrepreneur, Fitzgerald had a track record of success and was very ambitious. However, she did notice that he didn’t show respect for differing opinions or invite collaboration on ideas. She wondered if he was placing his own success above the team’s. But why complain if the team was sharing the credit and earning fat bonuses along with him? She was content to go with the status quo. “You know,” she said, “we’re darn lucky to be on his team.”
She stared out the cab window at the passing traffic and listened to her two teammates con- tinue to grouse. “I should have known something was up when I walked past his office last night and saw him working with the new copywriter. They must have been hashing out the new tag line,” smirked Green. “We are a team, aren’t we? The system is bigger than the individ- ual, remember? He doesn’t seem too concerned about the welfare of the team—only his own.”
“Well, let’s all have a heart-to-heart with Mr. McWhiz,” said Walsh sarcastically. “I’m sure he’ll see things our way. We’ll give him a brief overview of Teamwork 101. That will go over great!” As the cab pulled to the curb, they tossed the driver a $20 bill and headed to their offices on the 40th floor. They would all stop to see the team leader, Kurt Lansing, first.
In the meantime, Lansing smiled broadly when he received Fitzgerald’s text message that they had won the BMW account. Sinking back in his chair, he marveled at the cohesiveness and success of his team. All that time building a shared vision and building trust was starting to pay off.
Directions:
Write a short summary, and then answer all of the questions.
1. What factors do you think are affecting this team’s cohesiveness? Explain.
2. If you were the team leader, what could you do to bring Fitzgerald into the team more and foster better relationships among the team members?
3. As a team member, what would you do? Should the three members of the team con- front Fitzgerald with their concerns? Should they inform Kurt Lansing? Explain your answers.
Explanation / Answer
The case is about group dynamics and how even during times of distress when a big client like BMW is secured the team members and not all that happy. It shows how one persons running the show as a hero impacts other members negatively.
1. What factors do you think are affecting this team’s cohesiveness? Explain.
Brad Fitzgerald is a genius and does very high quality work but as is the case with most outstanding performers he does not care about the feelings and emotions of other members at work. He thinks that just by doing his job right he is doing justice to his work but he is oblivious to the fact that he also has to take into account the feelings of other group members and shed the feeling of being a hero.
Secondly the other team members are not able to see him as very different from them. They see him as an arrogant person but none of them had tried to talk with him in order to clear things out. Though not quite apparent from the case but there is an indication that they have slight inferiority complex.
2. If you were the team leader, what could you do to bring Fitzgerald into the team more and foster better relationships among the team members?
IF I were the team leader I would talk with every person alone in a informal sitting and try to hear out their opinions regarding what is the issue and what needs to be done. I will then talk with fitz and through him will try to understand what he thinks about the way he works and what improvements if any is he plannning on. As he is my best guy I will not criticize him but I will through an informal indication show him that if he wants to achieve success he needs to improve his people skills and thus by targeting his need for achievement get him to improve more.
3. As a team member, what would you do? Should the three members of the team con- front Fitzgerald with their concerns? Should they inform Kurt Lansing? Explain your answers.
I think it is better if the 3 team members try talking out with Fitz and have his opinions at least. So that they can know what he thinks of the situation . Many a times a person may be simply unaware of the issue and hence is not focussed on that. If that does not work then they should inform Kurt
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