Leadership style. Rudi Gassner
...ts made. Ultimately, such stubbornness creates a bad culture within the group, leading to self-censorship among subordinates and lack of debate. After all, what’s the point in arguing if you know the boss will overrule you? Gassner’s success may explain his behaviour. He states ‘I know what is good for us…because it has been successful.’ Unfortunately, as success breeds confidence, so great success can breed over-confidence, and this seems to be the case with Gassner. The Group As the table above demonstrates, the group’s problem is lack of conflict. Two Regional directors state that debate is rare. But as Eisenhardt points out, teams benefit from debate: ‘high conflict leads to consideration of more alternatives, better understanding… and… better decision making’. Without discussion, there is no exchange of ideas, diminishing the group’s effectiveness. This problem stems from unhealthy norms and an illusion of invulnerability. Though now in the performing stage, the group does not have good norms. Gassner has established a situation where most argument takes place outside the committee. A regional director states ‘I can influence him more one to one’, and Jamieson says ‘ my separate meeting with Rudi…is my best chance to influence him.’ As Eisenhardt points out, interacting solely in pairs will harm a group’s understanding of issues and of each other. Moreover, open argument helps people develop and articulate arguments more effectively, refining their solutions to counter flaws. Ultimately, what’s the point having a meeting if everything is already decided? The group, like Gassner, suffers from an illusion of invulnerability. This is stated clearly by Henn: ‘everybody in that room is the best at what he does. The absolute best and we all know it.’ The company has had six years of straight growth, during which the managers have always hit their targets. Not only may this blind them to any dangers in the future, but it may also discourage risk-taking, and lead to irrational faith in the company’s way of doing things. Recommendations A practical solution to change the one-to-one norm is to have the group meeting before the individual discussions with Rudi. That way, all matters can be discussed openly and ideas exchanged, before any decisions have been made. Ideally there would also be a ‘last chance’ meeting, allowing late changes and more flexibility in decision-making. Also, the illusion of success problem could be dealt with using scenario analysis, particularly worst case. This would force the team to deal with adverse situations and prepare them for such difficulties, perhaps removing the complacency that has stifled debate. The group itself is diverse, and could offer great variety of opinion and insight. However, it is currently structured on professor Hill’s ‘baseball model’. The members are given no scope beyond their defined pos...