Case Study
Week 3

Zhengyu Gui dragonfly8563@gmail.com MGMT591
Professor Bodero
July 2014

Group Development When developing teams, a five-stage group-development model called the Tuckman Ladder is referenced most often. The model, first proposed by the educator Bruce Tuckman, is consisted of five distinct stages all teams go through: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Each stage is characterized as the following: * Forming: Characterized by a great deal of uncertainty about the group’s purpose, structure, and leadership. Not until these issues are sorted out members can think of themselves as part of the team and move on to the next stage. * Storming: Characterized by intragroup conflict. Members accept the existence of the group but resist the constraints it imposes on individuality. There is conflict over who will control the group. When this stage is complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership within the group. * Norming: Characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness. There is now a strong sense of group identity and camaraderie. This stage is complete when the group structure solidifies and the group has assimilated a common set of expectations of what defines correct member behavior. * Performing: Characterized by fully functional group. The group structure at this point is fully functional and accepted. Group energy has moved from getting to know and understand each other to performing the task at hand. * Adjourning: Characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than task performance. The group is preparing to disband. Some members are upbeat, basking in the group’s accomplishments. Others may be depressed over the loss of camaraderie and friendships gained during the work group’s life. (Robbins & Judge, The Five-Stage Model, 2012) Currently, the development team is stuck in the forming stage, as the stakeholder organizations involved in the work are still having debate over the personnel to select for the team. While in the best scenario this team focusing on executive development of the experimental after-school program will be comprised of members represent all stakeholder organizations, things would be much easier and smooth if there is a common understanding of group forming principles and process among the organizations. The stakeholder organizations need to bear in mind the purpose of the team is to help students and improve the problematic education system, and staff members to be selected for the team must also be aware of such purpose and be willing to work together to fulfill it.
Problem Identification For the Woodson Foundation, the primary problem it is facing is the different and opposed interests each organization has. As the case mentioned, the school district wants the new jobs to be unionized and operated in a way consistent with the current school board policies, so the school district can assume control of the operations of the new program. Woodson, on the other hand, emphasizes on efficiency and experimentation, and has a focus on using hard data to measure performance for all initiatives. This pattern is not consistent with the school district culture. While these two organizations could already have a hard time to reconcile each other, the third organization, the NCPIE can complicate the situation even more, as it has an intention to increase parental control. While this group is strongly committed to celebrating diversity along racial, gender, ethnic, and disability status categories, its members are most interested in the process by which changes are made, ensuring everyone has the ability to weight in. (Robbins & Judge, 2012) This interest is opposed to the school district’s goal of assuming total control of the new system.
The secondary problem Woodson is facing, as mentioned by the case, is the demographic diversity issues. While most of the students served by the school district are African Americans along with large populations of Caucasians and Hispanics, the NCPIE makeup generally matches the demographic diversity. This makes perfect sense as NCPIE is a parental group; majority of its members must be parents of the students served by the school district. However, the Woodson Foundation is an organization predominantly staffed by Caucasian professionals and based in northern Virginia. Therefore there is some concern with the idea that a new group that does not understand the demographic concerns of the community will be so involved in a major change in educational administration. (Robbins & Judge, 2012)
Retrospective Evaluation
I think that the best way to deal with both problems is to let the majority rule. Having that said, for the primary issue, we can see that both the Woodson Foundation and the NCPIE are united in their desire to see more people, including parents engaged in the system. Therefore it is important for Woodson and NCPIE to remind the school district that this after-school program is experimental. If the new jobs are to be unionized, the teaching staffs will try to negotiate salary and compensation, working hours, and so on for the jobs. While they have legitimate reasons to do so if they were full time employees of the school district, the program is only experimental now and the most important consideration should be quality and effectiveness of it, such as how student learning and test scores can be improved, instead of negotiations. If teachers begin to engage in negotiations, their teaching performance can be affected and quality and effectiveness of the program can be hurt. Therefore, the school district should loosen control of the teachers and let them act on their own behalf for these jobs. As these certified and experienced teaching staffs are helping students out, they should still get paid; but not until the experimental stage is completed and the program is officially launched, the new jobs should not be unionized. To deal with the secondary issue, same solution of let the majority rule should apply. As the students of the school district and the NCPIE makeup match up well with each other in demographic diversity, their concern of the Caucasian-based Woodson Foundation might not understand the demographic concerns of the community seems to be reasonable. Therefore for Woodson, it should consider to have a more diverse team by hiring more African Americans and Hispanics employees who directly interact with the students and parents. This will allow for better communication and interaction with them, as well as mutual trust. Woodson should also consider having a diverse management team; it should have diverse staffs in leadership positions so it can show the diverse stakeholder organizations that it has a comprehensive workforce for the major change to take place in educational administration for the community.
Reflection
To manage diversity issues, I would suggest first picking the right candidates to lead the program. The staff members selected should not only be supported by all stakeholder organizations, they must have respect and understanding of the diverse community, and be truly interested in making a change to the situation and solving the problems, because otherwise they are unlikely to exert their best effort. As they embark upon implementing the program, they must keep in mind at all times what their objective this, which is to meet the needs of the students and improve student performance. Although the program is experimental and anything can happen, to make it most effective the leaders will need to work out a comprehensive and detailed plan, which includes clearly defined results and actions in which they are going to take in order to succeed. Also the program must be under supervision by the parents; the program leaders have the responsibility to communicate and interact with students and parents and make sure their opinions are heard and taken into consideration. The Woodson Foundation and the school district should also continuously monitor performance of the leaders and effectiveness of the program, and have backup plans and personnel to compensate for the possible unanticipated outcomes. After all, the stakeholder organizations must value this important opportunity to make a change to the problematic education system, and do their best to grasp it and maximize its effectiveness.

Works Cited
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2012). Case 3 Building a Coalition. In S. P. Robbins, & T. A. Judge, Organizational Behavior (15th ed., p. 630). Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall. Retrieved July 25, 2014, from http://devry.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781269551120/pages/91733123
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2012). The Five-Stage Model. In S. P. Robbins, & T. A. Judge, Organizational Behavior (15th ed., p. 275). Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall. Retrieved July 23, 2014, from http://devry.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781269551120/pages/91732665