Pete Brooks and Dan Gantman were managers in on-line, Brooks announced that all of his people a result, the messages she sent to each were incon- was left without a leader and he ended up leave an IT department that was part of the information were busy and that he couldn't assign anyone to sistent. In fact, during their separate conversations, ing the organization. Brooks stayed on, but staff services group at Balt Healthcare Corporation, help. Similarly, anytime Gantman needed access to it appeared that Young began supporting Brooks at all levels of the organization were upset that a large organization that provided health care a piece of hardware within the IT unit, Brooks made and criticizing Gantman. Gantman began to with- his behavior had not been questioned. Similarly, products to a global market. Brooks was the gen- it complicated to get that access. Gantman became draw, productivity in both groups suffered, and he the organization lost a lot of respect for Young's eral manager of the IT department and had been increasingly frustrated by Brooks's lack of coopera- became more hostile, stubborn, and bitter. ability to address conflict. Losses in productive- working in the unit for most of his 16 years with tion and he was quite open about his feelings of In the end, Gantman felt sabotaged not only by ity and morale among staff in many areas in the Balt. The IT department had global responsibility being sabotaged. His complaints reached the high- Brooks but by Young as well. He took a leave organization resulted from the conflict between for developing and maintaining the organiza- est levels of management as well as other members of absence based on Young's advice. His project two employees. tion's intranets, Web sites, and internal networks. of the information services staff. Brooks ran his department with a traditional and formal management style where communication After several frustrating attempts to speak with traveled vertically through the hierarchy. Brooks about the situation, Gantman consulted Marilyn Young, the vice president for information Gantman recently had been assigned to Brooks's services. Young, like others in the organization, was department to operate a small experimental group aware of the conflict. She requested assistance from charged with developing E-commerce solutions for the human resources manager and an organization the organization and the industry. This was state- development specialist. The OD specialist met with of-the-art development work with enormous future Brooks and Gantman separately to understand the implications for the organization as it explored history of the conflict and each individual's contri- the possibility of sales, business-to-business, and bution to it. Although different styles were partly to other supply-chain opportunities on the Internet. blame, the differences in the two work processes Gantman, in contrast to Brooks, had a manage- were also contributing to the problem. Brooks's ment style that stressed the value of open com- organization was primarily routine development 2) How to solve the company's issue? Recommend any two (2) suitable munication channels to promote teamwork and and maintenance tasks that allowed for considera- OD interventions. collaboration. ble preplanning and scheduling of resources. The biggest challenge in Gantman's work was Gantman's project, however, was highly creative [10 marks] managing the transition from design into produc- and unpredictable. There was little opportunity to tion. Senior management at Balt believed that by give Brooks advance notice regarding the experi- assigning Gantman's team to Brooks's organiza- mental team's needs for equipment and other tion, the resources required to manage this transi- resources. GUIDELINE FOR ANSWER tion would be more readily available to Gantman's The OD specialist recommended several strategies group. In fact, it was generally agreed that Brooks's to Young, including a direct confrontation, the Recommendation 1 strengths complemented Gantman's weaknesses. purchase of additional hardware and software, and Whereas Gantman was a better designer, Brooks mandating the antagonists' cooperation. Young Defination had operational expertise that would help in bring- responded that there was no available budget for Explanation ing Gantman's ideas on-line. purchasing new equipment and admitted that she Example Unfortunately, the trouble started almost as soon as did not have any confidence in her ability to facili- the assignment was announced. Although in front tate the needed communication and leadership for of their bosses, Brooks had agreed to work with her staff. She asked the OD specialist to facilitate Recommendation 2 Gantman to make the project a success, his support a more direct process. Agreements were made in Defination was lukewarm at best. Gantman and Brooks had a writing about how the process would work, include history of conflict in the organization. Neither one ing Young meeting with Gantman and Brooks to Explanation respected the other's style, and prior conflicts had discuss the problem between them and how it Example been swept under the carpet, creating a considerable was affecting the organization. But Young did not amount of pent-up animosity. Operationally, when follow through on the agreement. She never met Gantman's group needed resources to bring an idea with Brooks and Gantman at the same time and, as