Case Study 1 Ted's trauma

Ted Richardson heads up a team of 14 software engineers who work on as many as five design projects at any one time. The team is highly skilled and experienced and its members work in various subgroupings and alone, depending on the task at hand. They have been together for 26 months and their team spirit is generally high.

Jim Johnson, one of the longer-serving members of the group, was an especially good employee. In fact, Ted recommended him to lead a major project and his recommendation was accepted. Although everyone was sorry to see Jim leave, they were happy about his promotion.

Ted is still angry as he relates the following story to his family at dinner:

'When Jim left, we hired a new employee named Neem Verma. After the initial "getting-to-know-you" phase, things seemed to be settling back to normal, if still a bit tense. This is Neem's first design job, so she's a bit green but smart as a whip. We've fallen a bit behind our schedules, with Jim leaving and bringing Neem up to speed and so on, and this week we missed an important milestone. Accusations have been flying and the team seems to be blaming Neem, although a couple of the women came to her defence. So a few of the blokes accused the women of sticking together and not putting the blame where it lay.

'I called an impromptu team meeting and tried to re-focus everyone on our projects. We had a quick go-round to hear where we were up to and how soon everyone thought they'd be back on track. That worked to some extent, but I could see they were still upset. No one likes missing deadlines.

'So amidst a bit of grumbling, everyone went back to work, but afterwards, a few of them told me that they couldn't work under such tension and would be "up and off" if I don't "do something". All this disruption because I recommended one of our most skilled team members for a promotion.'

Ted lapses into silence, wondering what his best course of action would be. How could things have gone so wrong so suddenly?

1. What do you think is happening in Ted's team? Is the trouble Neem's fault?
2. What should Ted have done when Neem first joined the team?
3. What should Ted's priority be in getting his team back on track? What specific steps can he take to help the team through this crisis? How can he measure his success?
4. Ted may be tempted not to recommend any other team members for other projects. Would that be a mistake? Why or why not?