Scenario:
Al Waysright, a Project Engineer for Metallico, joined the team earlier this year. He had met Win Easily from Project Management Consultants during the interview sessions and was looking forward to working under him. Al’s team members seemed warm and friendly and comfortable with their work. He had acquainted himself with his team members quite well. Out of curiosity, Al causally asked one of the team members about Mr. Easily. His team member responded, “Mr. Easily does not interfere with our work. In fact, you could even say that he tries to ignore us as much as he can.” Al was surprised by the comment but decided that Mr. Easily was probably leaving them alone to do their work without any guidance to allow them to realize their full potential.
Al’s previous job was at Expert Industrial Developers (EID) working for Ivar Kontrack. Al had worked under Ivar and had looked up to him as a guide and mentor—always guiding, but never interfering. Ivar had allowed him to make his own mistakes, and he learned from them. He had always encouraged individual ideas and let the dream team discover the flaws, if any, through discussion and experience. He rarely held an individual member of his team responsible if the team as a whole failed to deliver; for him, the responsibility for any failure was collective.
As Al was going through the initial project plan, he saw that there were several problems with the project scope that would cause scope creep in the future. Excited to bring this up to Mr. Easily in the hopes of gaining praise and recognition, Al waited the next day in front of Mr. Easily’s office for an opportunity to discuss this with him. After Al waited for an hour, Mr. Easily called him in. When Al went in, Mr. Easily looked at him blankly and asked, “Yes?” Not sure whether he had recognized Al, he introduced himself. Mr. Easily said, “Ok, but why did you want to meet me?” Al started to tell him about the problems he saw with the project scope and his solutions, but before Al could even finish, Mr. Easily told him that he was busy with other things and that he would send an e-mail with the solution to all members of the team by the end of the day that the team could then implement immediately.
Al was somewhat taken aback. He slowly realized that Mr. Win Easily was the opposite of his old boss. Although he was efficient at what he did and extremely intelligent, he had neither the time nor the inclination to groom his subordinates. His solution to problems was always correct, but he was not willing to discuss or debate the merits of any other ideas that his team might have. He did not hold the team down to their deadlines nor did he ever interfere. In fact, he rarely said anything at all! If work did not get finished on time, he would just blame the team and totally disassociate himself from them.
Time and again, Al Waysright found himself thinking of Ivar Kontract, his old boss, and how he had been such a positive influence. Win, on the other hand, without actively doing anything, had managed to significantly lower Al’s motivation levels. As a result, Al gradually began to lose interest at work. It had become too mechanical for his taste. He didn’t really need to think; his boss had all the answers. Al was learning nothing new and felt his career was going nowhere. As he became more and more discouraged, his performance suffered. From being someone with immense promise and potential, Al was now in danger of becoming just another mediocre project engineer.
After gaining a deeper understanding of your own leadership and communication style, it is time to turn your focus outward to your team. To keep your team performing at a high level, it is first assumed that you have taken them through the stages of building a team: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. You will explore what you believe are the goals of motivation, some of the theories driving motivation, and what instrument you might use to measure how each project team individual is motivated.
Research at least 2 sources to support your response. Include an introduction and conclusion to this topic. Be sure to include your references and citations, and format your submission in APA format.
Based on the above scenario, discuss the following questions:
What are the differences between the levels of satisfaction that Al felt while working for the two different managers? Answer the question using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Analyze with Alderfer’s EGR theory the needs of Al that are not being met at his current job.
Al began his current job with great enthusiasm; however, despite his positive outlook, he quickly became unmotivated. Using Herzberg’s content theory, explain the probable reasons for this.
Al’s gradual performance drop in the new division was due to a lack of intangible rewards for his needs. Analyze this statement using equity theory.
The key factor in why Al felt demoralized was that his expectations were not being met. Using Vroom’s expectancy theory, explain this.
