In the current business world, several organizations have adopted the idea of creating a

team to address an emergency situation, to improve something that is idling or to create a new
thing from scratch, all in order to work in a more effective and efficient way. Every group faces
challenges and victories, even if small ones. According to Robbins and Judge, Teams are more
flexible and responsive to changing events than traditional departments or other forms of
permanent groupings. They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband. (Robbins 308)
It is with this in mind that this paper will analyze the case study number 3, Building a
Coalition, and develop thoughts and considerations about the issues in the study, connecting
them to the theory on building teams.
Group Development
The story begins with the creation of a new agency by the Woodson Foundation, a
nonprofit social service agency, and the public school system in Washington D.C., with the
participation of the National Coalition for Parental Involvement in Education (NCPIE), which is
an organization of parents that is involved in the school through the Parent Teacher Association
(PTA). They share a common interest in building this new agency in order to create an after
school program to help students learn.
The three separate groups opted to develop a cross-organizational development team,
responsible for implementing an operating plan. That is when the problems begin because each
group, even though they share a major interest, has their own demands and ideas. During this
part of the case it is possible to infer that the three initial groups mentioned above are developing
another smaller group, which will turn into a team once the members are chosen and the conflicts
are overcome. In my opinion, these three groups are currently in a stage of storming, or
somewhere between the formation and storming stages, where they are certainly aware of their

common purpose, which is to improve the students scores, but cant settle on what to
compromise in order to create the team. According to the case text (...) Its also worth
considering what they have in common. All are interested in meeting the needs of students. All
would like to increase student learning (Robbins 630).
We can identify the storming stage once we realize that they are sure of their common
interests but the conflicts have arisen and are preventing the groups from moving forward in the
project, due to their inability to meet each other halfway. As Robbins and Judge define, in the
storming phase Members accept the existence of the group but resist the constraints it imposes
on individuality. There is conflict over who will control the group (Robbins 275).
In order to achieve their goal, the development team needs to be created with a greater
sense of unity and a focus on the tasks they need to fulfill. It is relevant to understand that after
this initial process, which is natural, comes the norming stage, to settle conflicts, and the
performing stage, in which the group is finally functioning. Beginning on a negative note
showing resistance and incompatibility to working together does not set the group on the right
path. They must not forget that any setback can drag the group back a stage and they would need
to regroup and restart. As an experient agency, the Woodson Foundation should remember that
they were hired to be efficient and to provide their services, focusing on providing the logistical
support and staff to develop the program.
Problem Identification
The Woodson Foundation is facing a major problem in the creation of the team. As it is
not familiar with the process of group development, it did not know what to expect and therefore
was caught by surprise once the decision to build a team was made. They cannot decide on a
diverse team formation that needs to understand the cultural idiosyncrasies of the students of the

Washington D.C. school district. As the case study text suggests Each group has its own
interests, and in some cases these are directly opposed to one another. The individual interests
are not being put aside in favor of the collective interests.
This issue has appeared due to the conflicting parts that are forming the team. Because of
the fact that this will be a cross-organizational team, which according to Robbins and Judge
means that Employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from different work areas,
who come together to accomplish a task (Robbins 311), theres also a certain preoccupation that
the new team will not be able to set the strategies to develop the after school program.
To build a team, it is important to know the kind of people you are dealing with, before
attempting to make them work together. Even though this might be a popular process in some
countries and cultures, in others it might be new. It is relevant to remember that the team doesnt
only need to be created, but also managed. Some people are more prone to working well in
groups than others.
The leaders at the Woodson Foundation and from the school district need to realize that
every group member has something positive to offer, and something, lets say, not so positive.
The initial point would be to assess if everyone is a team player or not, and hire those who are
more used to dealing with people and that are emotionally stable and emotionally intelligent.
Since diversity is an issue for the problem they need to solve, hiring a staff thats not from the
same background would work better in this case.
Retrospective Evaluation
As identified earlier, the main problem in this case is that the groups dont seem to be
able to compromise, and that is jeopardizing the formation of the development team, making the
work of the leaders more difficult. Thinking about ways to solve the problem, I came to the

conclusion that the team has to be created democratically and efficiently complying to the rules
of having one member from each group.
To begin, I believe all the candidates should get together in an informal event. According to
the article from Forbes magazine, informal conversations bring people together and warm up
human relationships (...) Those are the situations where pure character is exposed and real
relationships are built. This way it will be possible to see those who gets along better and who is
a natural leader, for example.
Subsequently, on another occasion, the leaders should call a formal meeting to discuss the
goals and strategies of the job. Then, it is a good idea to start by having everyone present their
best skills. Next, defining small roles for each member and setting SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) goals is proven to be more effective. As Entrepreneur
magazine shows through Gwen Morans article, without a clear sense of what the team needs to
accomplish and how a successful outcome will be defined, it's impossible to assemble the right
group of people to get there. They should also determine the norms for the team and roles for
each member of the team.
Since everybody has the same hierarchical level, the leaders should then vote on who is
going to be the first employee from one of the groups to lead the team, and this person
consequently would chose the two other people from the remaining groups, depending on who
he or she wants to work with and checking for approval from the leaders. Throughout this whole
process, the groups must remember the importance of choosing well, as explained by Robbins
and Judge, because to increase the likelihood the team members will work well together,
managers need to understand the individual strengths each person can bring to a team, select

members with their strengths in mind, and allocate work assignments that fit with members
preferred styles (Robbins 317).
The choice of the leader is an extremely important decision because this person can be
responsible for the success of failure of the team. As Robbins and Judge state Smart team
leaders help less-intelligent team members when they struggle with a task. But a less intelligent
leader can neutralize the effect of a high-ability team (Robbins 316).
The positive part of this solution is that it is not necessary to involve more people on the
choice process, which can cause delay. The candidates themselves have to work it out and
respect their leaders decision, leaving no room for unfair accusations. Considering they will be
feeling closer to one another, they can quickly assemble and make progress. However, a counter
productive point is that once the relationships improve, people, specially the leader, may lose
sight of the goals and vote due to affinity and a chance of being chosen for the team, which can
harm the project. With this solution, it is important to relentlessly ensure that the leader and
candidates should be chosen by skills rather than relationship levels.
Another way to solve the main problem appointed is to call a meeting among parents and
other employees from the school district, present to them the idea of creating an experimental
after-school program and, once the situation is explained to all and the goals are set, they should
introduce the candidates and discuss their skills and knowledge. The community will then vote
on the three candidates to form the team, keeping in mind that there must be one from the
Woodson Foundation, one representing the school district and one from the NCPIE. Once
chosen, the team must set their goals, roles and priorities, strategies and norms, and move on.
A pro point for this solution is the fact that the choice of the team members would be
irrefutable since there would be no partiality from inside the candidates or from the leaders of the

Woodson Foundation and the school district. Even though there might be conflicts, democracy
would have prevailed. A con point is that the community might not know how well the three
chosen candidates would interact with each other and therefore force the formation of the team.
They also might not have the best knowledge about formation of teams and about the members
as well.
Reflection
To manage diversity in organizations it is important to know that each culture exists with
its backgrounds and ideas and the leader for the new development team must comprehend what
drives every member to think and behave the way they do. Nowadays the organizations need to
ensure that there is space for everybody in the workforce and that it is willing to adapt and
reasonably incorporate the diverse cultures into the organizational culture. A recommended first
step would be to assess how many different cultures there are in the organization and how many
other types of different groups there are.
The second step for effectively managing a diverse organization is to understand the
assumptions made from each diverse group and work towards not stereotyping the members,
meaning not believing they have to act exactly like they are suppose to act, and at the same
time not generalizing their culture, meaning not expecting all employees to think and act the
same way. To me, employees should be able to do things their own way, as long as it matches the
organizations culture and the teams norms. An educational workshop to increase cultural
sensitivity and reduce stereotypes can help everybody know how to act among a diverse
workplace.
The third step would be to implement support groups that can help members deal with
possible conflicts. In case disagreements appear, the organization doesnt necessarily need to

change, but the employees need to be able work together efficiently, minimizing the effect their
culture has on their individual work, or in other words as explained by Robbins and Judge they
need to establish a common way of looking at and accomplishing the major tasks, and they need
to communicate with one another often. (Robbins 58) If this is not done, bad group
relationships can harm the entire progress and lead to failure.
The fourth and final step refers to communication. Throughout separate projects and/or
on a daily routine, it is important to ensure that team members have easy access to leaders and
that the communication is open and efficient. It is not only listening to difficulties, but making
sure that they are being heard and that there is feedback and effort concerning their complaints.
Although there is not one exact plan that can eliminate conflicts due to diversity in the
workforce, these steps can assist companies to deal with unfortunate situations and guide team
leaders.
Bibliography
Moran, G. (2013, March 13). 3 Ingredients for Building Effective Teams. Retrieved January 22,
2015, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226063
Robbins, Stephen P., Timothy Judge. Organizational Behavior, 15th Edition. Pearson Learning
Solutions, 01/2012. VitalBook file.
Skuza, A. (2013, June 7). Five Ways To Build An Effective Team. Retrieved January 24, 2015,
from http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2013/06/07/five-ways-to-build-an-effective-team
Strategies for Managing Diversity. (n.d.). Retrieved January
http://ncrve.berkeley.edu/abstracts/MDS-934/MDS-934-STRATEGI.html

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