Masters in Business Administration

Organizational Behaviour

Group A

ARRANZ,Nuria; BERNARD,Matthew; MOURA CARDOSO,Júlia; MONZEL,Martin

Satera Case

1. How would you describe the cognitive styles of Ira Lovas and David Bennett? How
would you describe their personality in terms of the Big Five factors?

Ira Lovas (44) is Senior Mechanical Engineer at Imatron Systems Inc. and has been with the
company for 15 years. Like Ira Lovas, David Bennett (39) is Senior Mechanical Engineer and
furthermore as Lovas he holds a Master’s Degree, a patent and is co-leading the effort to
tdesign the mechanical aspects of the imaging system. Besides their duration in the
company, Lovas’ and Bennett’s educational background and job profile are identical.

Regarding cognitive styles, Lovas and Bennett have been struggling with finding common
solutions/opinions to achieve their deadlines and get to design the projects properly. Based
on the personality Type A and Type B model, both engineers can be classified as Type A,
they both have a strong desire to achieve. However, their methods by which they strive to
achieve are quite different. Lovas is very pragmatic and seems to be always careful about
details, practicing micromanagement in some situations. His cognitive style results in him
being conservative about his own ideas - and he does not express his own ideas on the best
way to “sell” it to the other team members. Bennett is more challenge-oriented and he likes
to question others’ opinions. In contrast to Lovas, his cognitive style challenges the status
quo and strays outside of industry standards. He is in a direct conflict with Lovas and neither
of them seem to accept the criticisms well.

Both Lovas’ and Bennett’s personalities are described below according to the Big Five
personality characteristics: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional
Stability and Openness to Experience.

When it comes to Extraversion, defined as “the tendency to experience positive emotional

states and feel good about oneself and the world around one”, Bennett can be defined as
highly extroverted, while Lovas in many aspects lacks a greater amount. So Lovas is
described as “generally quiet, typically making comments at team meetings only when
specifically addressed”. Gary Pinto, the team leader, even advised Lovas to “present his
ideas with more confidence”. On the other hand, Bennett has a high amount of self-esteem
and thinks his ideas are “far superior to those of Lovas”. Pinto even notes that “no meeting
goes silent for very long of David is in the room”. When both engineers are to present their
ideas, “Bennett enthusiastically volunteered to present his design first”.
If Agreeableness is “the tendency to get along well with others and cooperate”, both men
lack this personality factor which can be considered a main reason the collaboration suffers,
leading to a delay in realizing the project, meeting deadlines and hindering the result from
being optimal by combining the strengths and competences of both engineers. They “fail to
find a common ground”. Bennett struggles to cooperate when stating that if he “was the sole
leader of the mechanical team, [...] [they] could really make some progress” and furthermore,
Pinto mentions that “David [Bennett] is not very cooperative and is insistent on doing things
his way”, also exemplifying his inability to accept criticism.

Conscientiousness related to “the extent to which a person is reliable, careful, scrupulous,

and preserving”, is clearly Lovas’ strength and Bennett’s biggest weakness at the same time.
Highly conscientious, Lovas is described as “methodical and detail oriented”, “solid engineer
with good technical judgement”, and contributing “a great sense of security and reliability to
the team”. Pinto praises him by saying that he “can hand him any technology, and he will
make it better”. Even before his presentation of the design Lovas proactively had researched
an outsourcing option for his model which he presented as “cool, calm, and collected”. In a
direct confrontation with Bennett, Lovas seems aware of this strength arguing that he prides
himself “on being a critical thinker - a person who takes the time to look at a problem from
several different perspectives and to integrate various pieces of evidence into a cogent
solution”. Bennett’s weakness of conscientiousness becomes clear when Pinto describes his
ideas as “often met with silence and looks of confusion”. Although having “incredible
potential - it is just that he thinks on a completely different wavelength”. Consequently Pinto
encouraged Bennett to “try a somewhat more methodical approach of solving problems”.

Hints on the Emotional Stability of Lovas and Bennett are not as clearly stated as other
factors of the Big Five, but we can assume that both men are at the same level, if in different
ways. So both lack strong communication with the team, are rather acting on their own and
whereas Lovas may be even shy in meetings, Bennett’s extroversion may not be
misinterpreted as an enormous possession of emotional stability; for example, Pinto heard
“sadness” in his voice when Bennett confronted Lovas with his subjective assumption that all
his ideas are rejected. Although both men lack emotional stability rather than other
personality factors, emotional stability for both is stable.

Finally, Openness to Experience reflecting “the extent to which a person is original, has
broad interests, and is willing to take risks” can clearly be named Bennett’s strength,
whereas it is Lovas’ biggest weakness. Unlike Lovas tending to “focus on applying tried and
true methods of solving a problem”, Bennett approaches “problems from several different
angles at once, was interested in the ‘big picture’, and, almost without exception, wanted to
solve problems in ways that had never been tried before”. David Bennett “always thinks that
there must be a better way” whereas Pinto judges that “Ira [Lovas] isn’t the type to cook up
some brand new technology”. In contrast, Pinto on Bennett even goes so far saying that his
“ideas will lead this company to a technological breakthrough”.
2. What team malfunctions is being caused by the individual differences between
Lovas and Bennett? Which of those individual differences are key to the conflict?

The individual and direct conflict between Bennett and Lovas is an interpersonal
disagreement stemming from two aspects. In part, disagreement is due to both men’s lack of
agreeableness; as well, it seems to be equally caused by their differences in Conscientiousness
as well as in Openness to Experience. Lovas seems focused on the needs of the client and
organization (finishing on time) whereas Bennett seems more eager to prove himself. Because
of this conflict, the team is not able to meet deadlines, to agree on conclusions or to reach a
final design to test. They will have to face external intervention (Pinto) so that a mediator can
help the team to lead and head towards the future in a productive way.

Katherine Baxter, another member of the team, describes the severe consequences of
Lovas and Bennett as even “dysfunctional” and the team becoming “paralyzed when a major
design decision needs to be made - [as] nobody wants to face the consequences of
choosing one of the engineers’ ideas over the other’s”. Another engineer, Steve Rowling,
goes even so far to say that “ ‘team’ is perhaps the wrong word to use when describing this
collection of people”, caused by the steady conflict of the senior engineers. As the team
leader, Pinto’s discomfort with this situation and specifically his reaction after the
presentations of the designs, namely not intervening, moderating and/or leading a
constructive discussion with the whole team, prove the severity of this problem. The lack of
communication between them is damaging the team’s performance and relationships.
Specifically, Lovas’ and Bennett’s behaviour will dramatically slow the progress and as a
consequence, meeting delivery deadlines cannot be met, which will be sanctioned with a
penalty. “In the worst-case scenario, the project would fail, seriously undermining RID’s
future”. This highlights one other aspect: that the conflict between two individuals is
consuming much of Pinto's time, possibly at the cost of Pinto's interaction with the rest of the
team in both time and/or quality.

3. Present three possible options that manager Gary Pinto has to address the
situation and evaluate them. What is your recommendation for him?

With the hard time between Bennett and Lovas, tension has risen and the team is not
reaching the designs as much as they should. This tension is determining the dynamic of the
whole team, because as team leaders, the other members of the entire design team are not
in an ideal position to criticize or give any inputs either.

Since it appears that the lack of agreeableness between dominant characters is causing a
lack of clear communication, which is the root cause of the problem, three following solutions
are recommended in decreasing order of preference:

1) Gary Pinto applies a hierarchical approach, focused on communication. Pinto is the

team leader. Being indirectly criticised by his team members (Baxter in particular) to
“make the call on which support structure was best suited for the imaging system”,
make him aware that delegating responsibility to the senior engineers caused these
conflicts in the first place. While mostly valued by the senior management for his
leading skills, he himself “doubted his team-leading abilities”, whereas at the same
 time believed that “hierarchy was necessary in a company”. These descriptions of
Pinto’s self-awareness and beliefs in a functioning team complement, since in
practice, Pinto does not currently apply a hierarchical approach which at the same
time would be one possible solution to address the problem. Disagreeableness must
be encountered with leadership. For example, in the team meeting Pinto would have
needed to define the next steps that the team should take, delegating Lovas and
Bennett to develop the beehive model in a lighter way, instead of remaining silent
(non-hierarchically). Communication of both Lovas and Bennett, as well as Pinto as
the team leader, is the very key to finding an arrangement to further collaborate and
combine both ideas in order to have an optimal result.

2) Gary Pinto consults the company’s Human Resources Management to assign a

professional internal mediator, if available. If there is no internal capacity, Pinto also
in collaboration with Human Resources should engage an external mediator or
psychologist. The goal of this process should be a reconciliation of both men and a
fruitful collaboration. As the whole team has been directly affected by the continuous
disagreements, in addition to the work with Lovas and Bennett, teamworking events
can also be considered.

3) Garry Pinto elects Lovas to be in command of this job and suggests Bennett to work
with Innovation Management. Assigning Bennett to a more risky and creative team
and encouraging him to leave this project would mean that Pinto would be able to
identify both team members’ strengths and give them more weight. Whereas Lovas’
strength clearly is Conscientiousness, giving him more authority in process
management, for example, Bennett’s strength of Openness to Experience could be
fundamental to make him work closely with innovation management.

The first option is preferred, since it is the only option that does not apply radical changes on
the team structure yet would still remain based on leadership and communication.