Read the 2 case studies Equal Justice and Superstars and answer the questions accordingly. Minimum of one hundred fifty words.

Equal Justice

Ariana Russo watched as three of her classmates filed out of the conference room. Then she turned back to the large wooden table and faced her fellow members (a student and three faculty members) of the university's judiciary committee.

The three studentsLucas Bakker, Ben Acker, and Valerie Golayhad just concluded their appeal against a copying conviction stemming from a group project for an international marketing course. Ariana, who happened to be in the class with the students on trial, remembered the day that the professor, Hank Schmidt, had asked Lucas, Ben, and Valerie, along with the group's leader, Conrad Novak, to stay after class. She happened to walk by the classroom a half hour later and saw four glum students emerge. Even though Conrad had a chagrined expression on his face, Lucas was the one who looked completely shattered. It didn't take long for word to spread along the ever-active grapevine that Conrad had admitted to copying his part of the group paper.

At the hearing, the students recounted how they'd quickly and unanimously settled on Conrad to lead the group. He was by far the most able student among them, someone who managed to maintain a stellar GPA even while handling a full course load and holding down a part-time job. After the group worked together for weeks analyzing the problem and devising a marketing plan, Conrad assigned a section of the final paper to each member. With the pressure of all those end-of-the-semester deadlines bearing down on them, everyone was delighted when Conrad volunteered to write the company and industry background, the section that typically took the most time to produce. Conrad gathered up everyone's contributions, assembled them into a paper, and handed the final draft to the other members. They each gave it a quick read. They liked what they saw and thought they had a good chance for an A.

Unfortunately, as Conrad readily admitted when Professor Schmidt confronted them, he had pulled the section that he'd contributed directly off the Internet. Pointing out the written policy that he had distributed at the beginning of the semester, which stated that each group member was equally responsible for the final product, the professor gave all four students a zero for the project. The group project and presentation counted for 30 percent of the course grade.

Lucas, Ben, and Valerie maintained that they were completely unaware that Conrad had cheated. "It just never occurred to us Conrad would ever need to cheat," Ben said. They were innocent bystanders, the students argued. Why should they be penalized? Besides, the consequences weren't going to fall on each of them equally. Although Conrad was suffering the embarrassment of public exposure, the failing group project grade would only put a dent in his solid GPA. Lucas, however, was already on academic probation. A zero probably meant that he wouldn't make the 2.5 GPA that he needed to stay in the business program.

At least one of the faculty members of the judiciary committee supported Professor Schmidt's actions. "We're assigning more and more group projects because increasingly that's the way these students are going to find themselves working when they get real jobs in the real world," he said. "And the fact of the matter is that if someone obtains information illegally while on the job, it's going to put the whole corporation at risk for being sued, or worse."

Even though she could see merit to both sides, Ariana was going to have to choose. If you were Ariana, how would you vote?

What Would You Do?

1. Vote to exonerate the three group project members who didn't cheat. You're convinced that they had no reason to suspect Conrad Novak of dishonesty. Exonerating them is the right thing to do.
2. Vote in support of Hank Schmidt's decision to hold each individual member accountable for the entire project. The professor clearly stated his policy at the beginning of the semester, and the students should have been more vigilant. The committee should not undercut a professor's explicit policy.
3. Vote to reduce each of the three students' penalties. Instead of a zero, each student will receive only half of the possible total points for the project, which would be an F. You're still holding students responsible for the group project, but not imposing catastrophic punishment. This compromise both undercuts the professor's policy and punishes "innocent" team members to some extent, but not as severely.

Superstars

Hi. My name is Martina Meyer. I am the newly appointed CIO of a medium-sized technology company. Our company recruits top graduates from schools of business and engineering. Talent, intellect, creativityit's all there. If you lined up this crowd for a group photo, credentials in hand, the "wow" factor would be there.

Our company is spread over a dozen states, mostly in the Northwest. The talent pool is amazing across the board, both in IT and in the rest of the company. But when the CEO hired me, he said that we are performing nowhere near our potential. On the surface, the company is doing fine. But we should be a Fortune 500 organization. With this much talent, we should be growing at a much faster rate. The CEO also said that I was inheriting "a super team with disappointing performance." His task for me was to pull the IT stars into a cohesive team that would meet company needs for new IT systems and services much faster and more effectively.

Without making our superstars feel that they were being critiqued and second-guessed, or indicating "there's a real problem here," I wanted to gather as much information and feedback as possible from the 14 team members (regional CIOs and department heads) who report to me. I held one-on-one meetings to give a voice to each person, allowing each individual to provide an honest assessment of the team as well as areas for improvement and a vision for the future of team efforts.

I was surprised by the consistency of the remarks and opinions. For example, a picture emerged of the previous CIO, who was obviously awed by the talent level of team members. Comments such as "Bob pretty much let us do what we wanted" and "Bob would start the meeting and then just fade into the background, as if he found us intimidating" were typical. The most disturbing comment, "Bob always agreed with me," was expressed by most of the team members at some point in our conversation. It was as if the regional heads believed that the CIO wanted them to succeed by doing as they thought best for themselves.

I queried members about the level of cooperation during meetings and uncovered areas of concern, including the complaint that others at the table were constantly checking their iPads and smartphones during meetings. One department head told me, "You could turn off the sound while watching one of our meetings, and just by the body language and level of attention, tell who is aligned with whom and who wishes the speaker would just shut up. It would be comical if it weren't so distressing."

Such remarks were indicative of a lack of trust and respect and a breakdown of genuine communication. One team member told me, "I recently encountered a problem that a department head from another region had successfully solved, but the information was never shared, so here I am reinventing the wheel and wasting valuable time." It was apparent that these so-called high performers were territorial, and that the "each division for itself" attitude was becoming a cultural norm that, because it was unchecked, was slowing our response to line departments and customers.

I was also struck by the similarity of the regional IT leaders in their backgrounds, comments, and attitudes, which presented a whole new dilemma: How do we create diversity, jumpstart ideas, and reignite passion? This looks like a group of individualists who don't know how to play as a team. I don't want to diminish the individual talent, but I am concerned by the lack of cohesion. I need to find a way to help people think less about themselves and more about sharing work and information and achieving collective results for the good of the company.

Team building is an art, anchored by trust and communication, and committed to mutual success. What I'm seeing looks like team dysfunction to me. Now I have to determine the steps necessary to build a cohesive, visionary team.

Questions

1. What type of team does the new CIO have? What do you see as the key problem with the team?
2. How do you think that the team evolved to this low level of cooperation and cohesiveness?
3. What suggestions do you have for the CIO to help her turn this collection of individual regional and department heads into a top-performing team? Explain.