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UVA-OB-0706
Making the Tough Team Call (B)

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UVA-OB-0706

MAKING THE TOUGH TEAM CALL (B)

It was over.
The software team from the International Management Program (IMP) had just
successfully completed their formal presentation to an audience of over 100 Continental AG toplevel executives and managers, including the CEO, and four members of the Vorstnd.
Following tough questions from the audience that were well-handled, the mentor openly and
publicly acknowledged the work of the team and the contribution of the IMP to the development
of future Continental-Teves managers. Given the stature of this mentor at Continental-Teves,
these words represented quite an accomplishment, especially given where the project was at only
six weeks before. (See OB-0705 for a full description.)
Gudrun Dammermann-Priess, IMP program director, reflected on the day in Module 4 in
Stadtoldendorf, Germany, when the software team was summoned:
After a long conversation with my fellow facilitators, it seemed important to let
the team know just how poorly they were doing, encourage them to take
responsibility and rectify the situation, and build in a safe-guard in case the
quality of their project work did not improve. As a facilitating team, we decided
to be direct and straightforward, make no excuses, take no excuses, and make it
clear to the team that their futures within the company were in jeopardy.
We first encouraged the team to share their perspectives of their work. All agreed
immediately that their project was poor and that they had made little progress on
it. At least they understood the seriousness of the situation, and we did not have
to convince them that their work was substandard.
When asked what they were going to do about it, they immediately began
countering with why the situation was as bad as it was. Winkel complained that
the mentors had provided no direction, and they were not at liberty to go beyond
the obvious; Meier stated that he was ready to reimburse IMP and the mentor for
the money invested. Id rather quit, right now, he said. I will not offer a
This case was prepared by Associate Professor Lynn A. Isabella. It was written as a basis for class discussion rather
than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright 2000 by the
University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send
an e-mail to sales@dardenpublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwisewithout the permission of the Darden School Foundation.

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substandard report. Caldwell stated frankly that he didnt feel his career would
be affected at all because of his location in the States versus Hanover. Caldwell
said, I just want this to be done, so I can get back to my regular work.
At one point one of the facilitators looked Winkel and Meier straight in the eye and said:
You guys are acting like you are in kindergarten. This is not kindergarten. This is
the big leagues, so suck it up, stop acting like children and figure out a way to get
this project finished.
I told them that in four weeks they must present their project to me and another one of the
facilitators. If the presentation had not made substantial progress and was evaluated as
still substandard, the team would not be allowed to continue and would be responsible for
explaining to their mentor why his investment was not being realized. I also reminded
them that this was the first time in the history of IMP that such action was deemed
necessary.
The team was stunned.
Reflections from Caldwell
I think that the intervention of the team was key. It may have been needed at the
end of module 3. Anyway it worked. Our team needed the hard reality that our
results were not acceptable. I am not sure that ever entered my mind until that
point. I knew we could have worked harder, but you need to hear it from others.
This also brought us closer from the standpoint of accomplishing a goal.
We had a meeting after module 4 that really helped us. Meeting outside the
modules was key for us. We began to concentrate on the task. We got much
more done when we were together. Even though there was much that could be
done individually, you need time to discuss it. E-mail and phone calls did not
work. We had too many differences of opinion to sort out via email. We also
insisted on tapping into our lead mentor, who had been hard to reach before. Our
co-mentor was easier to get to, but the lead mentor confirmed our direction and
provided helpful killer questions. During the week we were all together, we were
able to finish slides and agree on them. There was compromisea lot of
compromise.
Again, the time outside the module was important. We were totally focused on
the attitude of compromise. If we had not been between Modules 4 and 5, we just
never would have made it. I do feel that this should be encouraged from the
beginning. I would have gone over to Germany for another meeting, but my

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bosses did not know if this was part of the deal. You have to see it from the
General Tire side. Not many know about IMP or understand the actual demands.
I know that it may have been observed that we did not spend lots of time together
at the modules. I personally wanted to take the opportunity to get to know the
other members of IMP. It was about building a network with these people too. I
will admit that you do not feel like spending time with people you are arguing
with all the time.
One interesting thing that you may not know: We actually all liked each other
personally. We got along great on a personal level. Winkel and Meier share
many of the same interests. They both like and play piano. They are both
interested in music and singing. They had more in common than I did with either
of them. When the conversations were about personal things we all interacted
well. We are all very professional. We take our work seriously. We were not
about to let our regular jobs go during IMP. I feel that some teams had greater
freedom in this area. When IMP was escalated to our individual priority list, the
project came together.
I learned many things about working in a team. Mostly that it is up to team
members to finally compromise. If we had not finally compromised, it would not
have mattered if the CEO himself had intervened. You have to have compromise
to make a team work, or you have to get rid of team members. Getting rid of
team members was not an option for us. I am glad it was not an option because it
proved to me that you can work through really difficult situations. I know that
our team has learned that there is a benefit to working through difficult times.
There are a few things that I could have done differently:
1. I could have asked for help regarding our team. I thought it was part of the IMP to work
through the difficult team assignments alone. I should have recognized the difference
between team challenges and refusal to compromise. I actually thought that I would be
looked down on if I asked for help about the team dynamics. I wish I had brought it up
earlier.
2. I would have insisted on team meetings outside the module.
3. I would have insisted on meeting our lead mentor when we needed him, not only when
his schedule permitted. I know there is a practical side to this issue, but he should have
made time for us before the end.
All and all, teams are about people working together. We did that based on our teams
decision to work together. The intervention from the consultants helped, but ultimately,
it is the choice of the team members to work together.

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Reflections from Meier

Winkel and I were in Frankfurt recently and presented the outcome of our project
to a wider audience, including key account managers, technicians, and the targetcosting departments. It was really a good experiencetheir interest was
enormous. The audience agreed to the main results of our analysis, especially,
that achieving good prices for software functions is mainly market-position
dependent.
All in all, it was very satisfactory to see that this project had a practical impact.
Winkel and I had some time on the train to discuss some of the things that
happened during the project. I would like to make some additional comments:
1. What I am writing now is mainly on the psychology of the whole thing. It is
not about blaming anybody, it is just my own perception. Though the
comment was written as a retrospective, it was only meant to point out what
happened during the project. It was not meant to express that I feel like I
always acted adequately, professionally, and effectively. It is quite obvious
also to me that this was surely not the case.
2. I still claim to have had something like the right concept in mind from a
very early stage of the project. I grasped the business situation exactly when
our mentors introduced the project for the first time. Also I, for whatever
reasons, had the opportunity to put some more effort into understanding the
whole issue at a very early stage (between Modules 1 and 2) in comparison to
my team mates. If some of this might sound arrogant feel free to correct me if
you see things differently.
So far, so good. But then, some things happened that were surely not very helpful
for a fruitful team project.
From my sounder foundation at that point in time, I inwardly derived the right to
set the course of the project; to be more precise, I inwardly doubted the right of
my teammates in doing so. This attitude contributed massively to the difficulties
we had.
In our discussions at Module 2, I neglected the fact that Winkel as a lawyer is
somebody who very carefully weighs his words, and also the words of other
people. So, prompted by some of my phrasing, he very early got the
impressionand it never really got out of his head for quite a whilethat my
idea was to not answer the questions of our mentor at all. This was of course not
what I meant to say. I only tried to insist on the need to do something futuristic in
addition. Anyhow, this discussion was not as fruitful as it should have been.

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(One problem in our conversation might have been that I was generally using and
presupposing the principle of benevolence when making and taking comments.
The training of lawyers is to strictly apply the principle of malevolence, in order
to keep the company from danger. By these different approaches, certain
misunderstandings were pre-programmed. A little more walking in the each
others shoes would have helped a lot, on both sides.
3. I did not feel justified when we redesigned our story board within Module 4.
It was just relief that I felt we could bring the whole thing to a good end
which we finally did.
All in all, I learned a lesson in the difference between understanding a problem
and solving it theoretically and putting the solution into practice, which involves a
lot more thinking and is a problem of its own that has to be taken very seriously.