The Bob Knowlton Case
University of Maryland University College Europe

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
The Organization’s Diagnosis 1
Proposed Strategies and Interventions 2
Evaluation of Interventions 6
Conclusion 7
Bibliography 8

Introduction
This paper will be discussing the Bob Knowlton case. First will be a discussion about what is going on in the organization. How the organization is run and the possible problems of lack of leadership and poor communication. Secondly, how to address the problems as an organizational development (OD) practitioner. This paper will discuss the different strategies of change and how to adjust them to meet the organization’s needs. The strategies discussed are structural and behavioral and how to change these in order to get the most out of the organization. Discussed are the interventions that would be utilized like employee empowerment, team building, role analysis/negotiation, stress management and third party intervention and how they will affect the organization. Finally, how to determine the success or failure of the proposed intervention. This is determined by utilizing anonymous surveys, and team meeting where they can share their results with other departments. The Organization’s Diagnosis The first area analyzed was how the organization was divided and what their relationship was to each other. Simmons Laboratories is divided up by main project heads who then oversee several projects. Some of these sections have a project head/team leader who oversee, several scientists, lab personnel, mathematicians, and secretaries (Brown, 2011). The team leader reports all finding to the main project head. However, according to the textbook the organizations self-managed work team violates the principle of unit of command (Brown, 2011). This is the principle where the team is