The Adverts team at a company was experiencing poor performance due to several factors. They had been given too much autonomy, which made them overconfident and hurt their work. Additionally, their commercial ideas were not strong enough to attract new clients. Their decision-making process suffered from issues like groupthink, where they only considered the ideas presented by the first person rather than thoroughly discussing alternatives. This lack of diversity in perspectives negatively impacted their creativity and work. A more inclusive leadership style and decision-making technique, like brainstorming, could have helped broaden their thinking to develop more effective solutions.

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MBA 5322. Organizational Behavior, Final Exam Mini-Case
Are Five Heads Better than One?
OB MINI CASE
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Submitted to:

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Questions
Question no 1: What factors contribute to the poor performance of Adverts team?
Answer: The Company’s performance was poor as it revenues were slipping down for past few
months. The management gave them freedom of autonomy that make them over confident and
affected their performance. The commercial was racier than the ideas that need to be presented.
These were basically the major factors contributing to the poor performance of Adverts team.
Question no 2: A) Please explain group phenomena that were dominant in the Advert
team’s decision-making process in depth. (B) Then, come up with a group decision-making
technique that could have helped reduce the Adverts’ team’s sub-optimal decision in the
case. In doing so, make sure to elaborate on strengths and the steps involved in your group
decision-making technique recommendation. (4 points)
Answer: Adverts’ team did not think beyond the line. There advertisement idea was not strong
enough to attract clients because of which they refused to accept their add proposal.
Group should have added more ideas attracting clients. Moreover they should have been
confident enough to discuss and put forward more ideas to attract their clients. The idea of only
one person was not the bench mark or end of their planning and sharing of more ideas and
thoughts would have been really beneficent for the company.
Question no 3: Teams can be either homogeneous or heterogeneous in terms of age,
ethnicity, personality, experience, expertise, ability, and so on (please refer to the text
chapters: Working with Teams and Foundations of Group Behavior, and any other
relevant articles for information on team composition, diversity and its effects on team
decision-making and subsequent performance). How would you characterize the Advert
team, and how did this affect the team’s creativity and performance? (3 points)
Answer: It is a fact that there is a varied difference in the way people work as a team so in
Advert team you see people having different thoughts but still they seem to be afraid of sharing
their thoughts. Therefore they just stuck to the idea given by first person and just thought of it as
a bench mark for their future project. It didn’t prove to be fruitful for the company and so it
affected their performance negatively.

3. Question no 4: (A) How would you describe Conner’s leadership style? Why do you think
his style was ineffective? (B) If Advert company hired you as a leadership consultant to
advise the team, which leadership style(s) would you suggest and why?(4 points)
Answer: Conner focused on the common principle of attraction shared between opposite sex
while there could be many different and effective ideas to share what they want. His style was
not attractive enough to convince clients. If I got an opportunity to be a leadership consultant I
would like to involve my team and would like to see what they are up to. This will give a variety
in their thoughts that can make the chances of acceptance more evident for clients.
Question no 5: Please create a question (questions) that you believe crucial to
understanding issues presented in the case but the preceding questions did not adequately
address. Then answer your questions. (3 points)
Answer:
Question: Why Derek did not share his idea with the group?
Answer: It was because although it was a great idea flickering in his mind then also he cannot
add anything in it as all the other members showed their acceptance for that idea so he also stick
to Conner’s idea. So he could not put any innovation in the teams thinking. It also shows that
there should be a single team lead but still the team members should have an authority to share
their ideas on every project the company gets.
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