For the exclusive use of V. Chugh, 2016.

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REV: JULY 5, 2007

TERESA M. AMABILE
ELIZABETH A. SCHATZEL

The Lumen and Absorb Teams at Crutchfield
Chemical Engineering
Realizing that his next appointment would be starting momentarily, Paul Burke hurriedly attempted to tidy up his somewhat chaotic desk. The meeting was going to include discussion of some troubling data he had recently received, and he wanted space for spreading out and making notations on the charts. It was April 2003, and Burke was in his sixth year as director of the Polymers
Department in the Corporate Technology Development (CTD) division of Crutchfield Chemical
Engineering (CCE), a large, international chemicals and fibers manufacturer. CCE was in the last stages of a companywide downsizing that had resulted in an 18% reduction in force over the past six months. At 52, Burke had seen a number of prior downsizings and other organizational upheavals in his years at CCE and other firms in the industry. He was well aware that, following such changes, employee morale and performance often suffered initially but soon rebounded. However, a recent
Human Resources (HR) survey and his own observations had led him to become particularly concerned about drastic differences among his five research and development (R&D) teams in both motivation levels and performance. Wishing to reverse what seemed to be a dangerous trend, he had engaged organizational psychologist Joanna McKinty, an external consultant, to study his department and report back on what might be accounting for the differences—and what he might do to address the problem. Burke had just received a preliminary report from McKinty consisting of graphs depicting motivation data collected during the course of her study. The purpose of today’s meeting was to discuss what McKinty called “the meat of the study”—the