Read the case study entitled, "The Creativity Developmental Committee"

Then, answer the questions after the case study.

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Imagine yourself as a project director serving on this committee: What resources do you, and the other project directors, bring to the committee that could be a source of influence? What constraints, if any, do the resources place on Tom, the lab manager?

Tom was the manager of three research and development laboratories for a large chemical and materials corporation. He supervised general operations, budgeting, personnel, and proposal development for the labs. Each lab had several projects, and each project team was headed by a project director who was usually a scientist or an engineer. Tom had been a project director for ten years at another of the corporation's labs and had been promoted to lab manager four years ago. Although he had to transfer across the country to take this job, he felt he had earned the respect of his subordinates. He had been regarded as an outsider at first, but he worked hard to be accepted, and the lab's productivity had gone up over the last two years. Tom's major worry was keeping track of everything. His busy schedule kept him from close supervision over projects.

As in most labs, each project generally went its own way. As long as it produced results, a project enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. Morale was usually high among the research staff. They knew they were on the leading edge of the corporation's success and they enjoyed it. The visibility and importance of innovative research were shown by the fact that project directors were regularly promoted. It was in this milieu that Tom decided that productivity might be still further increased if research creativity were heightened.

Research teams often met to discuss ideas and to decide on future directions. In these meetings, ideas were often improved, but they could also be killed or cut off. Tom had studied research on decision making, which indicated that groups often suppress good ideas without a hearing. The research suggested ways of preventing this suppression and of enhancing group creativity. Tom hoped to harness these findings by developing standard procedures through which idea development would be enhanced rather than hindered during these meetings.

Tom asked four project directors if they would be willing to work with him to review the research and meet regularly over the summer to help formulate appropriate procedures. The four agreed to take on the task, and the group began its work enthusiastically.

During the first six weeks of the summer the group met weekly to discuss relevant articles and books and to hear consultants. The group was able to narrow down a set of about fifteen procedures and programs to four prime ones. Eventually, two programs emerged as possibilities. However as the list was narrowed from four to two, there was a clear split in how the group felt.

One procedure was strongly favored by three of the project directors. The fourth project director liked the procedure better than the other option but was less vocal in showing her support for it. In general, the project directors felt the procedure they favored was far more consistent with what project teams were currently doing and with the problems faced by the corporation. They believed the second program, which involved a lot of writing and the use of special voting procedures, was too abstract for working research scientists to accept. It would be difficult, they said, to use this procedure because everyone would have to fill out forms and explain ideas in writing before a meeting could be held. Because of the already heavy workloads, their people would not go along with the program. Researchers would ridicule the program and be prejudiced against future attempts to stimulate creativity.

Tom argued that the second program was more comprehensive, had a broader conception of problems, and would help develop more creative ideas than the first, which was a fairly conservative "brainstorming" process. Although discussion focused on the substantive nature of each program and its relation to the objective of creativity, the project directors knew that the program Tom favored was one he had been trained in at his former lab. Tom was a good friend of the consultant who had developed it. The project directors talked outside meetings about this friendship and questioned whether it was shaping Tom's attitudes. The climate of the group, which had initially been positive and enthusiastic, grew tense as issues connected to the power relations between the manager and project directors surfaced.

Although the project directors knew Tom could choose the program he wanted, the way in which the final choice would be made was never clarified at the beginning of the summer. The time that the project directors spent reading and evaluating the programs created an implicit expectation that they would have an equal say in the final choice. At the same time, the project directors had all worked at the lab for at least four years and had experienced firsthand the relative power of managers and project directors. They heard horror stories of project directors who had gotten on the manager's "wrong side" and been denied promotion or fired. When push came to shove, they expected the lab manager to have greater power and to be willing to use it.

At its final meeting, the group discussed the two programs for quite some time, but there seemed to be little movement. Somewhat hesitantly, Tom turned to each project director individually and asked, "How upset would you be if I choose the program I prefer?" One project director said he was uncomfortable answering. Two indicated that they felt they would have difficulty using the creativity program as it was currently designed. The fourth said she thought she could live with it. After these answers were given, Tom told the project directors he would leave a memo in their mailboxes informing them of the final decision.

Two weeks after this discussion, the project directors were told that the second program, the one the manager preferred, would be ordered. The memo also said that the other program would be used, on an experimental basis, by one of the eighteen projects. The decision caused considerable resentment-the project directors felt "used." They saw little reason in having spent so much time discussing programs if Tom was just going to choose the program he wanted regardless of their preferences. When it began in the fall, one of the project directors told his team that the program would be recommended rather than required, and he explained that it might have to be adapted extensively to fit the unit's style. This director made this decision without telling the manager. Although the move was in clear violation of authority, he knew Tom could not visit the teams often and was therefore unlikely to find out about it. Another project director instituted the program but commented afterward that he felt he had not integrated it into his unit well. He questioned how much effort he had actually invested in making the program "work."

The incident had a significant impact on the way Tom was seen by the project directors. Several commented that they had lost respect for him and that they saw Tom as someone who was willing to manipulate people for his own purposes. This opinion filtered to other corporate project directors and scientists through the grapevine and caused Tom considerable difficulties in a labor grievance during the following year. In this dispute, several researchers banded together and defied the manager because they believed he would eventually back down. In addition, the project director who made the program optional for his workers served as a model for similar defiance by others. Once the directors saw that "optional" use of the program would go unpunished, they felt free to do the same, further reducing Tom's control. Eventually, Tom transferred to another division of the corporation.

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• Identify the resource or resources of aleast 2 different peoplein the case study. identify the person, the resource, and why you think the resource is potentially important to this scenario. (Resources include Normative resources: resources that come from the authority of family and societal roles. Affective resources: resources that refer to the level of involvement, affection, and dependence someone can provide. Since humans are gregarious creatures, having someone love us is a valued resource. Personal resources: resources that refer to elements that come from different personality characteristics that people have. Cognitive resources: resources that come from insights people have that they can share. Intelligence, awareness, or life experiences are all ways people could gather insights that might be useful to themselves or others. Economic resources: resources that are connect to money and possessions).
• Apply the scarcity principle of power and the prerogative principle of power to the case study. Please explain the principles and discuss why you think it is at play in this situation.
• Identify four conflict tactics you see at work in this case study, including direct, direct and virtual, indirect, and hidden tactics. For each discuss the tactic as you understand it and explain how you see it being used in this situation.