case study on group behaviour

8/13/2019 Case Study on Group Behaviour

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CASE STUDY ON GROUP BEHAVIOUR

Hindustan Lever Research Centre (HLRC) was set up in the year 1967 at Mumbai. Atthat time the

primary challenge was to find suitable alternatives to the edible oils and fatsthat were being used as raw

materials for soaps. Later, import substitution and exportobligations directed the focus towards non-

edible oil seeds, infant foods, perfumerychemicals, fine chemicals, polymers and nickel catalyst. This

facilitated creation of new brands which helped build new businesses.HUL believes in meritocracy and

has a comprehensive performance management system,which ensures that people are rewarded

according to their performance and abilities.Almost 47% of the entire managerial cadres are people who

have joined us throughlateral recruitment.Over the years many break through innovations have taken

place. Hindustan Lever Research gained eminence within Unilever Global R&D and became recognized

as oneof the six global R&D Centers of Unilever with the creation of Unilever Research Indiain Bangalore

in 1997.At Bangalore R&D center, a team of 10 scientists were appointed for a project onshampoo line.

Suranjan Sircar heading the team as Principal Research Scientist with thesupport of Vikas Pawar, Aparna

Damle, Jaideep Chatterjee, Amitava Pramanik asResearch Scientists. Suresh Jayaraman & Punam

Bandyopadhyay were ResearchAssociates.Vikas Pawar came up with an idea of pet shampoos during

brainstorming with the team.Hey, why dont we target the pet care segment because in India, pet

industry is beingseriously looked at as a growing industry. I had been working on this concept for a

fewweeks & have done some initial research as well, said Vikas. I think we should justfocus on the dog

segment & bring out a range of shampoos that are breed specific,contributed by Aparna Damle, who

was a new unmarried scientist in the company. Ohthats a really great idea, a breakthrough said

Jaideep & Amitava appreciating Aparna.The idea given by Aparna got support from both colleagues &

head.Vikas was although not comfortable with his credit being taken away. He also felt thatcreating

brand specific shampoos would not be a profitable innovation thus, no pointconcentrating efforts on

that. With this in mind he put his point forward but couldntgather consensus.After the discussion,

Jaideep & Amitava being friends to Vikas, consoled him & showedconfidence in his plan & thoughts.

We understand what you are going through. The ideawas yours & Aparna took all your credit. Dont

worry we are with you & be careful fromnext time.

Nevertheless, in the meeting Aparna presented her proposal for the idea mentioningrequirements &

chemical details. The meeting began with motivational speech & plan of action by the head of the team.A lot was discussed in detail & tasks were allotted alongwith deadlines.Immediately after the

presentation Jaideep & Amitava approached Aparna & eulogizedher research & proposal reiterating the

importance of breed specific range of shampoos.Vikas lay aside his ego & went ahead with full

dedication & commitment, however during the tenure of the research he noticed poor attitude of team

members. Punam wasnot regular with deadlines; she submitted her research on breeds four days after

deadline.Suresh was asked to coordinate with members looking into chemical research but


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Vikasobserved him most of the times in the recreation room, so he asked him Hi, so whatsthe progress

in chemical research so far? Suresh replied that he had done whatever hewas asked to do by senior

scientist.He reported this lack of commitment & proactive attitude to Suranjan Sircir & asked for an

action against them. Hmm I know whats happening in the team. I have worked for 20 years in this

industry & from my experience I know what to do & when to do, heretorted back. Finally the project

got completed 4 months after deadline. Vikas went back to the lab;sitting & wondering at the flaws in

the group.

Group BehaviorCase Study Analysis

The general picture that emerges out of the aforementioned case is that of confusion, aclear lack of

leadership and one that is filled with group politics. It is worsened by thegeneral negative attitude

among the members and on a whole a lack of clear cutcamaraderie among the whole members thatreally takes away a good bit of performanceamong the members.

Some observations:

With the given information, vikas as a person deserves special mention for he isthe one who seems to

have a holistic personality and a right kind of employee toguide the organization to the next level of

success. He is the one employee who inmy opinion seems to have the kind of constructive thinking for

the sake of theorganization as well as doing full justice to his job. He is honest, hardworking

andapparently one who is on the lookout for new ideas as he was the one who cameup with one duringthe brainstorming session and also he had done some researchon his own behalf regarding the same.

Aparna as a new member of the team appears to be a very ambitious, intelligentgirl who is also a very

opportunist. It is evident from the fact that when vikas presented before the group one idea that was at

the best a path or a general viewof what is to be done it was aparna who was quick to grab the

opportunity andnarrow the broad idea into a more narrow and specific direction .thus she seems

toconvey a very positive and a strong urge to perform on the job. Yet it is also clear that she doesnt

seem to be having a regard for her colleagues as it was apparentthat almost stole the vikass idea and

took the full credit to her name evenwithout sharing the honors with vikas.She seems to be a very high

on the Machscale.

Jaideep and amitava appears to share good relationship between them as a goodclique. they are very

positive minded people, it is clear from the fact that theyreally appreciated aparna, a newcomer to the


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organization and realizing well before that she was a very ambitious employee wasted no time in

extolling her work as this will appease her desire for support and recognition among fellowworkers,

something that is very important.

Among the formal groups

it is very clear that there is a proper structure in theorganization with Suranjan Sircar heading the team

as Principal Research Scientist withthe support of Vikas Pawar, Aparna Damle, Jaideep Chatterjee, and

Amitava Pramanik asResearch Scientists. Suresh Jayaraman & Punam Bandyopadhyay are

ResearchAssociates.The formal group of research scientists appears to be a very able team as they are

able toresolve and step aside their personal differences and professional competitiveness to work for

the benefit of the organization.Among the informal groups there appears to be a informal group among

vikas, jaideepand amitava. Though this informal group is against Aparna in taking away all the creditfromVikas, they never let their dissatisfaction come in the way of the progress of group.

In the formal group, the group members seem to be working prettylethargically; as is seen by the fact

that Punam didnt meet her deadlines andSuresh spent most of his time in recreation.

Moreover, the group leader/ head Suranjan Circar is too haughty to acceptany suggestions from his

subordinates.

In the informal group, there is the dissatisfaction among Vikas and his friendsfor Vikas credit being

snatched away by Aparna.

However, it is highly appreciable of Vikas that he lays aside his ego andworks with full dedication for the

better of the group.

The team of research associates of punam and Suresh seems to lack the urgeand capabilities to work at

the acceptable standards.Thus, though there clearly exists an informal group having a grudge against

theformal group, it is observed that the two never really clash. As a result, the delay inthe groups task

completion could not attributed to the existence of an informal groupworking against it but is fully

because of the wrong attitude of the group memberstowards their work.


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Flaws in the team and their solutions

Lack of seriousness -- The first flaw that one can clearly see in the group isthat its members are

somewhat casual towards their work. Although the work of the team started on a very serious and

determined note, it lost out on themsoon after; as could well be seen in the cases of Punam and Suresh.

This canbe rectified by having strong authority and controlling measures in theteam and make it the

norm to follow.

Lack of commitment -- The members do not seem to be committed enoughtowards their work. There

could be two reasons for it: either the members arenot adequately motivated or they are not serious

enough, i.e., the first pointitself.

Here is very important that the leader follow the appropriatemotivational concepts and methods to get

his team to perform at theirlevel best. May be the job at hand may not be challenging enough forsome.

In that case the job profile has to be divided with close care andmatched with the ability and needs of

the employees.

There is a clear lack of able leadership skills in the team. It is apparent thatthe team leader Mr. Suranjan

circar doesnt seem to have the samecommitment level or he is having a big ego problem. It is evident

from thefact that when vikas pointed out the flaws in the team and sought an actionagainst them, the

leader circar instead got miffed and retorted angrily. Thisclearly was a communication to vikas that as aleader he is aware of what isto be done and he doesnt need a lesson in that.

Clearly in a marketingresearch agency you need to have a flexible and participative form of leadership

and Mr. circar needs to change his approach quicklyotherwise the group results will continue to be bad

.

In a job like this where the team effort is more important and peopleconcentrate on synergies of the

team effort it is very important for the leader of the group to make sure that there is enough

camaraderie among themembers. Here aparna appears to be too self centered to think about her

coworkers which can in the long run lead to difficulties.

Thus it is job of theleader to council aparna and make sure that she understands andappreciates the

advantages of being a good team member.


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It is a rarity that there are loyal and hardworking employees like vikas whohave a very good attitude and

mindset to do the job. He is being treated rather shabbily by the management.

For employees like vikas the non monetaryincentives are as important as monetary benefits. Therefore

recognizingthe talent the management should really appreciate and keep him happyso that they can get

the optimum contribution from him.


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PERCEPTION CASE STUDYMr. K.P Bakophaid,69, a high profile investor who during his lifetimehad accumulated millions in

investments, particularly in the Microsoftshares in the 80s and then in a repeat of his talent to spot thegoldbrought Google shares cheap at $1 a share with now the sharesquoting $563\share and his long

time friend Mr. j k sinha,65 just retiredCEO of the famed PELIANCE group had been for a while

contemplatingfor a move to establish a start up in IT sector as both the gentlemenwere very bullish

about the sector in the Indian space. Their thoughts were put down to work as with favorable

developmentsat the macro economic level both pledged their funds together to starta IT start up

MACROHARD INDIA LTD, a BPO firm having primaryapplications in the back office jobs of banking and

investment bankingsector of the US and EUROPE.With this they appointed Mr. Rajiv Negad, 39 an IIM-A

pass out. He hadtill that time established himself as an expert in system analysis with aprime acumen of

business networks having earlier worked withGoldman sacs in its Hong Kong division. He jumped at the

opportunityto be the CEO of the start up.

I YEAR LATER

MACROHARD had notched up a reasonable success in its limited spaceand were looking like they were

heading in the right directions.In the mean time they hired Ms Neha Kakkar , an attractive 25 year

oldwho was also like the CEO, a pass out of IIM-A .She was a hard workingemployee and a really bright

prospect who had the right ideas andconfidence. Also her most important asset was her ability to gel

withher colleges well.Over time there developed good professional repot between Mr. Rajivand neha as

it was evident with the fact that Mr. Rajiv was reallyimpressed with the work ethics of his new

employee. In the companythere also worked adebayour, a hard working employee. Originallyfrom

Nigeria he also was a good disciplined worker who did his job well.Neha kakkar was really rising through

the ranks of her job fast.Once neha had this really bright idea of taking the company to thenext level

with her idea of venturing into the credit card processing inthe US and also she was quick to spot a

potential threat in the form of

a competitor taking away their business and for that she wanted todiscuss with Rajiv, her boss, for

which he asked her to come to thecanteen to discuss this issue over a cup of coffee.Apparently this

discussion now happened quite frequently and becausethe issue was a bit negative with the news of

falling profits andcompetitors, Rajiv asked neha not to discuss it now with her coworkersas he felt it

might have negative repercussions.3 weeks into thisdiscussion neha was again promoted as there was

an urgent need todo it . This wasnt taken well by her co workers who thought that she wasrather using

her good looks in making Rajiv do as she wished. This wasapparently being discussed and spread around

as rumors by 3 peoplein particular nitin, venkat, and karan who were spreading all sorts of rumors

around. There was this further issue that adebayor an equallyhard working candidate wasnt promoted

when neha was. In thisregard adebayour was apparently miffed and sought an explanationfrom rajiv

who responded that he didnt had that charisma andforward looking skills and therefore he will have to

wait a little bit moretime for his promotion. But in this regard an argument ensuredbetween the two,


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the news of which spread around the workplace. There was now an open talk that Rajiv was showing

favoritism towardneha and everyone wasnt being treated well. Initially Rajiv ignored thistalk. Being a

proud manager who thought that since he was notactually doing anything wrong, that should be

enoughpeople willrecognize it. Or since he wasnt actually guilty, he believed that he justdoesnt need

to defend himself further. Lastly, he also thought thatsince he was the boss people will anyway come to

respect hisdecisions.But then in the mean time situations worsened. There was a gradualloss of

productivity. Resentment built quickly with favoritism beingsuspected. Resentment quickly become

bitterness and bitterness leadto all sorts of behavior which created problems for company.Rajiv now

really disturbed with the recent developments in thecompany, quickly sought advice from his HR

manager Mr. Sachintendulkar to get the situation back to normal as quickly as possible asIn the highly

competitive IT industry he didnt want his company tomiss out on potential opportunities just because

of a simple perceptionproblem.

As a HR manager what advice and steps will you follow to solvethis problem? Whats a manager to do to

avoid the

PERCEPTION of favoritism, which can be just as damaging asactual favoritism?

CASE ANALYSIS

To begin with this is the common problem of Workplace Favoritism. It'sa major topic in HR circles. But

regardless of how little formal attentionit gets, this is an important issue that exists in nearly every

workplace,large and small. While it's not something that gets addressed inmanagement meetings, it can

have as much effect on a company asmost "high profile" management topics.Favoritism is part ofhuman nature. No two people interact similarly toany other two, so it's impossible for all workplace

relationships to be"equal". It's only natural to gravitate to people that you share commoninterests with,

and with whom you have an easy rapport. And of course, there's nothing wrong with any of this, on the

surface. Theproblems surface when one of three distinct things occurs:

1.

When a good rapport and shared interests lead to a PERCEPTIONthat an employee is getting favored

treatment from a manager

2.

When a manager ACTUALLY PROVIDES unfair preferential treatmentfor one employee at the expense of

others

3.


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Nepotism. To begin with, Mr. Rajiv, through there isnt any logical fault on his side;He commits some

silly errors that you would probably expect with acomputer engineer who hasnt exactly probed into the

human side of the business.

Even though neha is in fact a very bright employee and to befrank a front runner among her colleagues

still Rajiv committedthe silly error in being too close to her and apparently not givingenough

consideration of its impact on the psyche of the otheremployees.

He was also a bit too rude to deal with adebayor, an employeewho was quite popular in the circles as

one of the hardestworking employees. Even though rajiv was quite right inassessing the personality of

adebayor that he wasnt a verydaring employee and that there was still time for him to develop

fully into the leadership mode that is required in the highlycompetitive IT sector .Instead Rajiv should

have commented onthe positives and presented the whole thing in an amicablemanner.

He also ignored the issue in the beginning allowing the rift todevelop.Clearly there has been a serious

perception problem on the part of theemployees in that they had started to wrongly deduce that neha

isgetting promoted due to favoritism. This is a big problem but not thatbig also if the management

decides to follow some simple steps andunderstand some basic things about this wrong perception

thing.

There are many people in the workplace who are extremelysensitive, and are looking around every

corner for perceivedslights and injustices.

There are also many under-performers who look at other'srelationships, in an attempt to convince

themselves that it'ssomething other than their own shortcomings that is preventingthem from gettingahead. Like in this example the clique of nitin,valsat, and karan shows a lot of characteristics of this

behavior.People who perform well should be rewarded. And a singlemanagement style doesn't work

equally well with all employees. Somepeople need more attention to fulfill their potential, while others

excelwith less attention and more autonomy. Also it is the PERCEPTION of favoritism that does the

damage. If there is actual favoritism, you canargue that management is just getting what they deserve.

Here are some steps to avoid the problem to tackle theproblem initially:


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An open door policy is the right beginning. Further,communication channels have to be well-established

and two-way flow of information is to be encouraged and maintained.

A further step in the right direction would be to convey thereasoning of various managerial decisions

through formal andmore informal communication systems for persons at the groundlevel to appreciate

the managerial constraints and thinkingprocess. That would help employees strive for right

perceptioneven when decisions are unexplained.

By experience, everyone is aware of the perception people havewhen a male boss frequently

appreciates a particular femalestaff. One is keen in such cases to modify behavior and languagesuitably

to avoid wrong perceptions.After that the management must take the following measures toensure that

no such perception problems arise in the future.

1.

The management should do everything within their powerto insure that advancement, perks, and

compensation arebased strictly upon objective performance measures

2.

they must Strive to treat everyone fairly, if not necessarilythe same

3.

.they must Create an environment where any employeefeels comfortable discussing a perceived

injustice withmanagementthis enables managers to nipmisconceptions in the bud

4.

they should Practice an open door policythis alsocontributes to a culture of trust, which can sooth

ruffledfeathers before hurt feelings can fester and turn a situationfar sourer

5.

.the top management should also learn to Managepotential perceptions of favoritism proactivelyit's

mucheasier to prevent the perception up front, than it is to "putout the fire" once it's ragingWhile a HR

manager need not get bogged down with all possible andimaginative perceptions of people, his focus

should be to establish anopen work environment and exercise control over the informationsystem


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mechanics. A well-established and trusted system wouldinduce people to ask for reasons behind an

action or a decision, than to jump to wrong perceptions

.

case study on group behaviour

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