[MUSIC] Great to see you made it all the way to the Capstone assignment. So, I'm here to discuss with you today the gas gas case from the perspective of organizational behavior, managing people. So, let's look at what we can discover using the perspectives that we have discussed so far in the four weeks in the course managing people. So, clearly we have a situation here in which a decision has to be made within a group of people. Namely, the board of Gas Gas. So, of course, the first thing coming to mind, then, is our session on teamwork. This is where we discussed can a team be more effective or less effective than an individual in team decision making, and what can we do to improve it? So, this will be the first thing we're going to be discussing. The second thing is going to be what are the implications of the decision for the GAS GAS employees? Let's get started with the first thing, board decision making. Do you remember that we discussed the two different perspectives on diversity? So, we said there was a more positive perspective on diversity in which team members could pool together their diversity in experiences, perspectives, and interests in order to make good decisions. We also discussed the more negative perspective, where we said that teams with people who are very different also may suffer from the effects of negative similarity attraction mechanisms. So, because we tend to be more attracted, and work together more easily, towards people who are more similar, it may be harder if you work with people who are very different in a team. And do you also remember that we discussed how the situation plays a role in whether or not the more positive or the more negative perspective on diversity is taking effect? You will remember the complexity of the task, right? Do you remember that we discussed when a situation is very complex, when there is a lot of new material and unstructured information, complex decisions, this is a situation in which a team of people, or a group of people working together, could, in fact, make better decisions than the individual can. So, if we look here, this is clearly a situation in which diversity of the board members should help in making better decisions. That is, in theory, of course. Because, you also remember that we said in order for a team to leverage this diversity, they also need to make sure that they have the right processes in place. That is, that they communicate, that they discuss, that they have psychological safety, that they have the appropriate amount of task related conflict in order to make sure that their diversity in perspectives and interest comes to the table. So, if we look at a board composition here, we can clearly see that there is diversity in terms of the interest that people have in the decision. There are different stakeholders with a different share in the company. So, we can see that a diversity and a difference in opinion clearly comes from that. So, if we want to understand what the board can do to accelerate and to make sure that they make the best decision, what would you advise them from the perspective of the processes? Do you remember that we discussed the difference between task conflict, process conflict, and relationship conflict? If so, you will no doubt see that in this situation, where we need complex arguments, complex perspectives to come to the table to come forward in the discussion, that what this board needs in order to come to a decision which in the end is best for GAS GAS, we need task conflict. So, we want the diverse perspective, we want the board members to bring together, to bring to the table, all the different perspectives and information that they have, and to discuss about that in a way in which all arguments openly come to the table. And that they, then, in the process, in the discussion, get discussed in order to arrive at an optimal decision. They may also have some process conflicts. Do you remember, we said process conflict is especially good in the beginning, and also in the middle of a team meeting or a team project? So, for sure we can imagine our board members to explicitly discuss how they are going to go about making their decision. Are they going to vote when they don't agree? How much time are they going to be spending? What if they cannot come to any consensus decision making? This is the type of discussion that would fall under the heading of process conflict. What we want to avoid is, of course, relationship conflict. And it's very easy for what starts out as a task related discussion, so just a debate about arguments, to evolve into the personal intense and emotional conflict. And this is what we don't want, because what tends to happen in the situation where there's relationship conflict, people get so attached to their personal opinion they are not really open anymore to start discussing more rational, more objective type of arguments. So, for the board members of GASGAS, we would advise them to make use of their diversity in perspectives and interests, and to bring to the table all the arguments and all the ideas they can see, in order to come to a decision which, in the end, is best for GASGAS. The final point I want to discuss here, is the question of top team teamness. Because in our lecture on teamwork, we are kind of assuming in a way, that a team, or a group of people, in fact, functions as a team. And now, in this GASGAS case, we're talking about a board. So, no doubt, some of you have already started wondering, is the board a team? Can we really expect these directors to work as a team? Is that feasible? Does that fit with the nature of the people of the personalities that we may find at the top of organizations? And, well, if you're wondering this, this is, in fact, a question that is also in the scientific field very much a topic of debate and discussion. [MUSIC]
