Directions: Use the case study below to answer the following question.

Question: Using evidence from what we've learned in class and in the course text, what are three observations you can make about Team Kale and/or Team Quinoa? *Note*- Three total observations, not three per team.

• Observations can include anything we've covered in class up to this point (e.g., stages of group development, diversity, team design, etc.).
• For each observation,
  • 1) State your observation/claim, "After reading the case study, it appears Team Kale...."
  • 2) Back up your claim with evidence.
  • 3) State how this influences team success.
  • 4) If appropriate, make a recommendation for how to improve the situation.
• Each observation should be its own paragraph.

Case Study - Organit Team Project Backgrou nd Organit Wholefoods is a national retailer of high-end organic products. In business since 1934, Organit is one of the most well established grocery stores in the country. Each year, employees designated with leadership potential are hand-selected to complete a training offered by the company. This training is an intense, eight week experience which has employees team up to collaborate on a project. The goal of the training is that Organit will identify leaders who ourish within a collaborative environment. Throughout the eight week experience, teams are challenged to develop the next product to be sold on Organit shelves. Successful teams have developed amazing products that have yielded the company tremendous prot. Other teams have sunk during this challenge, creating nothing but anger and resentment among team members and Organit ownership. Encouraged by positive results, but frustrated with some teams' dreadful performance, Organit brought in a team of researchers to interview two teams that were on both ends of the spectrum (i.e. one highly successful and one highly dysfunctional). The interview began with the researchers asking each team a simple prompt, \"tell us about your team" Listed below are the responses provided. Success Story: Team Kale's Response We can condently say this is the most dynamic team we have ever been a part of. Our team consists of Aisha, Adam, Remy, and Marissa. One of the reasons we have been successful is that each member brings a unique skill set to the team; starting with our team leader, Aisha. Aisha does a great job keeping us focused and on task during our meetings. Remy and Marissa have strong, outgoing personalities which helped build relationships with the retailers needed to market our product, an organic ice cream bar. However, we would never have been successful without Adam, who doesn't speak up a lot, but when he does, reminds our team of the expectations outlined by Organit. While our team is successful now, there were times where we didn't feel as accomplished. During week three of our project, things got tense when Aisha struggled to manage constant side conversations during team meetings. More than anyone, Adam was frustrated by the lack of focus within the group. Realizing our group was headed for trouble, Aisha brought in Helen, a human resources expert with Organit, to refocus the group. This was an extraordinary move by Aisha as we were able to collectively develop our group vision statement: "Team Kale will pioneer a new, protable market within Organit foods by developing and marketing on organic ice cream bar. Through respect and utilization of the unique strengths found within our group, Team Kale will forever change the Organit product line.\" After creating that vision, team members enthusiastically bought into the future of Team Kale because their individual values and ideals were embodied in a collective statement. From that moment forward, we were a team guided by our vision, driven to make a positive difference. Failure Example: Team Quinoa's Response Our team includes Roger, Kristen, Trey, and Ying. Our team was assigned to develop a new product for Organit, the company we all work for. Unfortunately, none of our team members has a background in product development, so we were at a disadvantage from the very beginning. When discussing how to approach this project, we quickly realized it was a way for Organit to observe who the best leader within each group is. Knowing this could cause ghts within our group, we implemented a creative solution. Each member of the team would be the leader of the group for a week. While we are sure this idea would have worked, we weren't given enough time to successfully implement our idea. Nonetheless, here is how our group meetings went. During week one, Roger took the lead for our group. Roger did a great job of getting our group started by pairing his outgoing personality with his ability to ask a lot of questions, which engaged each member of our team. During week two, Trey took on the leadership role. Trey brought a unique perspective to the leader role, as his focused and directive style was geared toward improving the quality of our group's interactions. This was great for our team, as it helped build us into a group of people that could get along with each other. During week three, Kristen stepped up as the leader. We all agree that Kristen has the best chance of becoming an executive at Organit because of her conict management style. You see, it was during this time that our group started to realize some potential conicts were brewing. Kristen did a greatjob steering our team away from topics we disagreed on to topics in which we could come to a consensus. During week four, Ying took over as the leader of the group. Ying has a lot of strengths, but as he stated early in the grou p's process, leading is not one of them. Du ring the rst three weeks, Ying ourished as a supporter of all the ideas offered by other group members. During his leadership week, we looked to Ying for new ideas, but he was much less assertive with his idea sharing than we expected. After week four, our group kept up this rotation of leaders. We are each condent that, while our group never really got in sync and didn't come close to coming up with a great new product, we were all able to showcase what we can do as leaders