The Lumen and Absorb Teams at Crutchfield Chemical Engineering Case

The case at hand can be broken down into the following broad heads:

Situational Analysis:
On the onset of the case we observe that there is a climate of insecurity in the company due to a recent companywide downsizing. The situation at hand points out to a significant difference in the productivity of the Lumen and the Absorb teams. Further, from the data provided we can see that the average daily intrinsic motivation for Lumen v/s Absorb in is 5.0 to 3.3. We can safely conclude that Team members of Lumen are more intrinsically motivated than the ones in Absorb team. We observe that even the freedom and will to innovate is more in Lumen team than team Absorb. We see that Max, the team leader of Lumen, seems to be a better leader in comparison to Chip, the leader of team Absorb.

Problem Identification:
We see the core problem at hand is the difference between the attitude and the leadership styles of the two team leads. The main issues can be classified as follows: 1. Chip micro-manages his employees and thinks that he has to know everything. This brings down the confidence level and consequently the performance of his team members because he is not open to the suggestions and insights of his subordinates. On the other hand Max allows people to take lead on their assignment and leaves scope for experimentation. This is in line with the Self Efficacy theory which states that an individuals confidence in performing a task themselves leads to better performance. 2. Chip is insensitive towards his team members. He overburdens them with work without consulting. He does not take insights and inputs from his team while making decisions and does not seek consensus. 3. Chip lacks integrity because he wanted to be politically correct every time. Even while knowing that certain clients wont be profitable, he still pursued them. 4. There was also lack of a proper communication channel. Chip did not discuss or keep people updated on certain issues of relevance. 5. Added to this there was a mortal fear of downsizing, which discourages people to innovate and restricts creativity. In such a negative climate people tend to take the safer and a more accepted route. 6. In the absorb team most people fell in the Neglect category according to response to job dissatisfaction model, one fell in the exit category, which is a dangerous situation.

Recommendations:
We would recommend Paul Burke to take the following steps to motivate teams to be more creative and more productive:

Group 9: (Ayush),(Mickey),(Prerna),(Sanoj),(Sushant),(Nitish)

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1) For the Lumen team i. Max already has done a good job in managing lumen team. To maintain the good moral and highly motivated team culture, Burke can reward, recognize and appreciate Max and his team for the success they have achieved. 2) For the Absorb team i. First, the business and product strategy of Absorb should be reconsidered. It is very unlikely the finished product in Absorb team can help company to generate any revenue. ii. Second, Burke can help Chip to realize the current issues and help him to improve his management skills. Additionally, he can provide opportunities to Chip by asking him to attend management training or courses. Chip will need to learn how to trust his team members. He also might not know that his intrusion into others work has caused frustration to his employees. iii. Paul should ask Chip to introduce an employee involvement program which encourages the theory of participative management which would increase the transparency and participation in decision making within the team and help to decrease a sort of unhealthy hierarchy that has formed within the team. iv. Additionally, Paul should ask Chip to try building a positive team culture and team spirit. For example, setting up some moral boosting event to celebrate the team success and reward individuals through either skill based incentives or a profit sharing plan to recognize their contribution.

Group 9: (Ayush),(Mickey),(Prerna),(Sanoj),(Sushant),(Nitish)

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