...development teams at Crutchfield Chemical Engineering in terms of motivation and creativity? The Lumen Team is obviously much more motivated and creative than the Absorb Team. This situation is created by the leadership styles of the team leaders. Max is showing very effective leadership while Chip is acting like a mere manager rather than a leader. Although trait motivation levels are similar in both teams, Chip kills all the motivation and creativeness of his team members with his insensitive, close minded and destructive attitude. We can see this from electronic daily diaries of the two teams. The Lumen Team members are highly motivated and very eager to innovate and improve inspired by their team leader, Max. However, the Absorb Team event don’t know exactly what their schedule is for the project. 2. From the electronic daily diaries what are the differences in team leader behavior, team members’ thoughts and behaviors and team dynamics? In the Lumen Team, Max allows each member to work independently on a different aspect of the project which support team members’ confidence in performing a task which in turn leads to a better performance. However, in the Absorb Team, Chip micromanages his employees and this decreases the confidence level of team members as well as their performance. In the Lumen Team, Max is very sensitive towards his team members. We can see that in Day 1 diary. Max is open to suggestions and insights of his team members. By this way, each team member...
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...For the exclusive use of V. Chugh, 2016. 9-804-118 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...
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...The Lumen and Absorb Teams at Crutchfield Chemical Engineering Case Introduction: We would like to give a brief outline of the Crutchfield chemical engineering company (CCE). This company is a U.S subsidiary of PPQ worldwide industries it was acquired in 1996 by them. It’s main line of business is speciality chemical lines and has been replacing this with engineered lines for a variety of products. CCE was in the last stage of a companywide downsizing that had resulted in an 18% reduction in work force over the past six months. In CCE there is a department called Corporate Technology Development (CTE) division. The mission of the CTE is to develop new technologies and products that could yield significant new revenue in new markets over the next five years. This CTE division consists of three departments, with one of the departments being the Polymer’s department which was under Paul Burke, who was the director of this department. This Polymer’s division was sub-divided into five project teams each with their own specific mission, team leaders and members. (They were all research and development teams.) An HR annual study of the skill sets, performance, work environment and motivation of each of Paul Burke’s research and development teams was done. The study contained good and bad news. The good news being that even though CCE had downsized the work force Paul Burke had still nearly managed to keep all the top and qualified performers in his department. The bad...
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...ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR The Lumen and Absorb Teams at Crutchfield Chemical Engineering Section 6 AE 1 Mayukh Bhattacharya- 15S526 Ridhima Modi- 15S635 Srinath Srinivasan- 15S647 Tejas B- 15S649 Parinita Vijay Kumar- 15805 INTRODUCTION: Paul Burke, the director of the Polymers division of CTD was facing a major problem as after severe downsizing the productivity had fallen. Even after the downsizing, the retention was good and balanced. The most perplexing aspect was that there were huge differences in the performance and motivation of the team Absorb and team Lumen. The work at CTD had to be very creative and hence the employees motivation was very important. After analyzing the case, we realize that the main problem with Absorb was that it was not intrinsically motivated. The solution that we came up with is there should be goal setting in Absorb and Chip needs to increase his communication with the team members to motivate them. BACKGROUND: Crutchfield Chemical Engineering, a U.S. subsidiary of PPQ Worldwide Industries, $29 billion multinational company, headquartered at Geneva. Paul Burke was the Director at Polymers Deparment in the elite Corporate Technology Division (CTD) at its Elizabeth, New Jersey Headquarters for the past 6 years. Mission of CTD: explore new technologies and product categories that would then determine the future of the company. Owing to this work profile, CTD required a set of highly motivated and creative workers and an atmosphere...
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...I. Case Context Crutchfield Chemical Engineering (CCE) is a large specialist in chemicals and fibers manufacturing. Since 1996, CCE has been replacing its commodity chemicals business with engineered lines for different manufactured products. Many company divisions have their own R&D unit, but CCE houses an elite Corporate Technology Development (CTD) division made up of three research departments dedicated to exploring new technologies and products that are potentially profitable for CCE in new markets over the next five years. In other words, CTD departments carry the heavy responsibility of creating the future of CCE. CCE is now in the last stage of its companywide downsizing that resulted in 18% workforce reduction in the last 6 months. One of the departments under CTD belongs to Paul Burke, a seasoned director of the Polymers Department who has seen many downsizing cases in his time. He oversees 5 R&D project teams, 2 of which he has noticed a large discrepancy in terms of degree of motivation and performance: Lumen having high motivation and creativity and Absorb being the opposite. To investigate, Burke hired an organizational psych expert for the study of the day-by-day dynamics of the two teams. Using 10 days' worth of electronic daily diaries collected from all members of the two teams, the study reveals rich information about team leader behaviors, team member thoughts and behaviors, team dynamics, and project progress. II. Problem/Issue Definition ...
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