Ben & Jerry’s Case Study Essay

Team building was not the most effective guidance to launch an Organizational Develop custodyt lying-in, in the case of Ben and Jerrys. There be twain critical phone numbers that mustiness be dealt with before any shape of aggroup building should be attempted. The first issue would be creating much of a consensus between the founders and the Board about the trance of the ideal boldness and the goals of the OD effort. The second issue is the interpersonal difference between Ben and Chico.The advisor may have used Ben and Jerrys idiosyncratic personalities to his advantage in order to gloss oer the lack of agreement on the social club vision between the founders and the board. The board members were asked to write down their differing visions on account and the adviser performed a ritual of burning these to represent transformation and coming together of care and the Board. This is only a metaphor, and did not have the mean effect on either the Board or Ben and Jerry . Both Ben and Jerry cool off felt a separation in values between themselves and management after the team building retreat. This was demonstrated by the managers wearing we are weird buttons after the team building. Rather than the ritual burning of the ideas, the consultant would have better served the clients with an intergroup infringe resolution process.The division over the vision of Ben and Jerrys had become dysfunctional and was creating conflict which polarized the two groups. The groups being the free-wheeling, flower child minded founders and the more business minded managers. This problem was affecting the productivity and effectiveness of the organization at large and must be dealt with and fixed before any hitchs are carried out and lower levels of the organization. Management must buy-in to the OD effort, and if they feel that the founders are flawed in their business strategy, it forget be impossible for management to carry out their wishes for the way they i ndispensability their business to grow and prosper. The consultant has acknowledged the problem, yet performed no authentic interferences to try and resolve it.There was also no mention of a consensus on the focus of the OD effort. It seems that the consultant just tried to bring up everyone happy without any real conflict resolution interventions. The next issue that should precede any team building exercises would be an intervention for Ben and Chico. The two men have a large presence and influence over the entire organization. They also represent the larger groups which are in conflict over the fundamental philosophy of the organization. The employees consider them to be two titans of big businessman with legendary arguments.The consultant should have focused on a third-party intervention between these two change agents. If these two powerful and influential men could come together and resolve some of their conflict, that would be the next pellucid step in properly motivatin g and developing the organization. This is a introductory skill that OD practitioners should have, yet the consultant made no effort to address the conflicts between the two. Its also very likely that the conflict between Ben and Chico could be the root cause of the polarization of the two groups in the entire organization. If that is the case, you would have to address this issue in order for team building to be effective.The teambuilding efforts of the consultant were appropriate and needed, but only after the two more primary issues are dealt with. The effectiveness of this OD intervention was thwarted by the lack of attention to conflicts in ideology.