Case Study 3 (W-10 HW)

Case Study 3: Building a Coalition Arjav Chauhan King Graduate Monroe College Org. Behavior & Leadership in 21st Century - MG630 March 16, 2018  Abstract Building a coalition consists of teams or groups working together to achieve a common goal while using available resources effectively and efficiently. The purpose of a case study is to build a focused plan, look for a common ground, and work together to mutually benefit the school-system, Woodson foundation, and NCPIE. A coalition program is planned to create movement by changing the diversity issues and its progress towards the public good. The planning of coalition involves building various stages to break diversity issues and challenges faced by school staff and school students, such as identifying group leaders, conducting background research, organizing meetings with parents, students, and employees in order to develop messages and tactics to demolish the present challenges through after-school activity.  Building a Coalition The case study "Building a Coalition", explains the program developed by a nonprofit social organization Woodson Foundation collaborating with public schools and National Coalition for Parental Involvement in Education (NCPIE) in Washington D.C. to work on student performance. The study is clearly shows how the school is struggling with the high crime rate and low educational performance of the students. Nevertheless, due to the disrespectful environment and offensive classroom behavior of students, few of good teachers have left the school. The team (The Woodson Foundation, Public Schools System of Washington D.C. and NCPIE), expects a program outline in order to offer a fair chance to each student and specifically they want to ensure the brighter future for school students. In after-school program, NCPIE will represent parents on behalf of PTA (Robbins & Judge, 2012). Five different levels of stages were considered while forming a team in order to develop the after-school program. The five stages are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and adjourning. Reviewing the dominant perspective on the team formation and performance, it is likely that few of development team members will have a difference in opinion regarding parent involvement in program development. The "Forming Stage" will help individuals in the teams to learn about each other and to identify a group leader. The first (formation) stage will help to construct a plan and developing an executive team. The team will be formed by members of Woodson Foundation, NCPIE, and School. Teams are responsible to present an operational plan which could help improving student's performance. Once forming a team, the group will proceed to the next stage “Storming Stage”. The first question suggests that: effective development team-members should have an understanding of team operations. In the organizational behavior, very skilled, motivated, and committed members fail to reach the optimum level of output. In most cases, when a team leader (manager) is unable to establish a framework effectively, it leads the team performance process ending-up producing ineffective results. It is important that each member of the team should work on the individual task assigned by the manager. “As smaller the team is, the more important each member’s role in the team, and the more room there will be to collaborate with each other instead of just managing.” (J. Rampton, 2016). In general practice, organizations prefer to set up project-based teams and at the later stage management reconfigure them, without paying enough attention to the group development has been achieved by the team. In the present case study, it is important to place a support system, reward offering and defining the group responsibilities. Successful teams have authentic, transformational leaders who can show authority even during the time of teams resisting the directions. The group leader should frequently arrange team meetings, and motivate team members to test their skills to solve a problem. In the organization, it often appears that some tasks are cannot be accomplished in given time frame. So, it is wise to coordinate with other team members to work collectively. According to the book, when groups and teams have extra time to process multiple pieces of information and they coordinate with their personal experiences, the committees often "trapped in love" with a particular solution. This kind of emotionally biased situation occurs in the organization when the groups of people makes a decision collectively and divert their focus to process only. In order to avoid such problems related to collaborative decision making, an organization should only consider the process when it is necessary and it appear that group decision will result better than individual decision making. Managers communicating with teams should always consider if the decision-making process contains any self-biases or not. It is also important to know whether during the decision-making process, did team have developed an emotional attachment to the process or the scientific approach has been practiced. In the present case, firstly the school system recommending the jobs unionization and the board is overly concerned about losing the operations if they do not hold the positions. Secondly, Woodson Foundation is made up of Caucasian professionals. The concern of bias and emotional decision making appears here which may affect the proper understanding of affected community. Diversity is one of the main reasons of group conflict, specifically in the short term and it often affects group's morale negatively which also results in higher dropouts. According to one study, two culturally diverse groups were examined. The group-1 was made up of members from different countries and the group -2 was made up of members from the same country. After a certain period of time, both groups have performed equally well, however, the group of the diverse member in it was less satisfied with their group and were less cohesive and had experienced more conflicts. In the study, it was observed those members' holding diverse opinions and biased point of views in the group leads the group to experience more conflicts. However, a manager who was able to motivate the group to concentrate on the task and encouraged individuals was able to reduce the conflicts in-between team members and was able to enhance the group performance. An effect of diversity on different groups is uncertain. Especially, it is very hard to collaborate with a diverse group in the short term. However, in long run, if group members are open to negotiating their differences diversity could become a helpful tool for a group to be creative and a better team. Nevertheless, in an award-winning paper, the author concluded that the business case (in terms of demonstrable financial results) for diversity remains difficult to support on the extant research (Kochan et al, 2003). Knowing that managing a diverse group can be extremely challenging, and it is something which has often proven impossible, as a school system Woodson Foundation, should begin their program with clear objectives, and predetermined steps in which they are going to step forward to achieve success. And because the after-school program is going to be an experimental activity, the program is open for almost any quick changes. In a diverse culture, positively handled negotiations can support long-term relationships. The negotiating situation will allow the diverse teams to develop the win-win feeling for each other, and even if one team wins, the other team will share the feeling of joy due to negotiation. Groups can make use of integrative negotiation, and part the solution in different stages according to their significance. Once the solution has been established, the group may focus on how each side could achieve their highest level of satisfaction. The process will not satisfy all the desired needs; however, each group will receive the significant satisfaction of accomplishment. An effective team cannot be built in an overnight. The cohesive team building takes time, efforts and practice to be able to work cohesively and effectively. The successful team consists of cooperative team-members, shared goals and common objectives as a team. Productivity can be only achieved through teamwork and resolving the conflicts, at the same time not constantly arguing with each other. The school is struggling with issues, such as lower student performance, criminal activities, and high turnovers of good teachers due to the less supportive behavior of students in classes. School representatives and Woodson foundation want to create more unionized jobs in a way that represent the present school board policies. At the same time, school-system is also afraid of Woodson foundation taking a dominant role in the whole program, they do not wish to be controlled by another system. Woodson foundation mainly consists of White professionals and their structure is quite dominant, realizing the situation school-administration wish to keep their own policies and terms in place to be at the center of the after-school program. According to the case study, Woodson foundation functions traditionally, emphasizing on efficiency and experiments. Their sterling services have received many awards. On the other hand, NCPIE matches the more demographic diversity of the location handled by public schools, and they are in favor of giving more power and control to parents. School-system, Woodson Foundation, and NCPIE, each of them have their self-interest in the program and they share the same goal of brightening students' future. They really want to support student learning process. Both the Woodson Foundation and NCPIE have agreed to one point that, more parental involvement in the program is necessary. All in all, to make an after-school program success transformational and authentic leadership is required. The leader of the new program has to play an inspiring role, in order to transcend self-interest and respect for diverse-culture in students. In such program, the leader cannot be only a visionary, he/she has to challenge the status quo and inspire new ideas. The leader has to promote the program in a way which can instill pride and generate respect. To manage diversity issues in the present case study, a leader should consider assisting parents, students, and employees with personal issues and must build an environment in which all students and teachers can feel safe, confident, and unchallenged for their diversity as a whole.  References: Behfar, K., Friedman, R., & Brett, J. (2016). Managing co-occurring conflicts in teams. Group Decision and Negotiation, 25(3), 501-536. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10726-015-9450-x Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1781310576?accountid=41012 Sanders, A. C. (1999). Diversity management: A comparison between the issues of diversity identified by leaders in the private sector and leaders in public schools (Order No. 1396357). Available from ABI/INFORM Collection. (304587993). Retrieved from Shaw, J. B. (2004). A FAIR GO FOR ALL? THE IMPACT OF INTRAGROUP DIVERSITY AND DIVERSITY-MANAGEMENT SKILLS ON STUDENT EXPERIENCES AND OUTCOMES IN TEAM-BASED CLASS PROJECTS. Journal of Management Education, 28(2), 139-169. Tucker, K., & McNerney, S. L. (1992). Building coalitions to initiate change. The Public Relations Journal, 48(1), 28. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/195923919?accountid=41012 CASE STUDY 3: BUILDING A COALITION 8 Running head: CASE STUDY 3: BUILDING A COALITION 1