Case Analysis of Bob Knowlton
Case Analysis of Bob Knowlton
By: Supriya Giri
March 30, 2015
The case ‘Bob Knowlton’ revolves around a newly appointed project head for the photon unit, Bob Knowlton. Knowlton is very happy with the way things are going in his unit and his team up until a new comer Simon Fester enters the story who seems to be confident, brilliant and aggressive with his work approach. Knowlton reports to Dr. Jerrold who is the Director of research. The first thing that went wrong in this scenario was the way Fester was introduced to Knowlton. Dr. Jerrold failed to properly introduce the two gentlemen. Knowlton had no clue regarding what this new guy was doing in his group who seems to be challenging the thinking pattern of his team and Fester seems to be all over the place looking into things. This behavior of Fester alarmed Knowlton and threatened him and made him feel insecure. Simon was a guy who made an impression of “the genius guys” who was too confident and did not fear to challenge the traditional way of team work. At the end Knowlton resigns from his post in an unprofessional manner and joins a new company.
While Fester was busy pinpointing the things that could be improved for better results, Knowlton’s insecurities kept on increasing day by day. Knowlton was not confident enough to voice his opinion and concerns to Dr. Jerrold. He kept on building his own story in his mind that Fester might be a probable candidate to replace him in near future. The way Fester interfered in Knowlton’s team meeting and the way Fester made statements like “the way the problem had been analyzed was really typical of group thinking,” gave a sense of inferiority to Knowlton and he started questioning his own intellects. Dr. Jerrold also seemed to be very impressed with how Fester conducted these team meeting. He forgot to look at the big picture “Group Thinking/Team Meeting.” The main agenda behind these meetings were to have the teammates on the same page regarding where certain project
By: Supriya Giri
March 30, 2015
The case ‘Bob Knowlton’ revolves around a newly appointed project head for the photon unit, Bob Knowlton. Knowlton is very happy with the way things are going in his unit and his team up until a new comer Simon Fester enters the story who seems to be confident, brilliant and aggressive with his work approach. Knowlton reports to Dr. Jerrold who is the Director of research. The first thing that went wrong in this scenario was the way Fester was introduced to Knowlton. Dr. Jerrold failed to properly introduce the two gentlemen. Knowlton had no clue regarding what this new guy was doing in his group who seems to be challenging the thinking pattern of his team and Fester seems to be all over the place looking into things. This behavior of Fester alarmed Knowlton and threatened him and made him feel insecure. Simon was a guy who made an impression of “the genius guys” who was too confident and did not fear to challenge the traditional way of team work. At the end Knowlton resigns from his post in an unprofessional manner and joins a new company.
While Fester was busy pinpointing the things that could be improved for better results, Knowlton’s insecurities kept on increasing day by day. Knowlton was not confident enough to voice his opinion and concerns to Dr. Jerrold. He kept on building his own story in his mind that Fester might be a probable candidate to replace him in near future. The way Fester interfered in Knowlton’s team meeting and the way Fester made statements like “the way the problem had been analyzed was really typical of group thinking,” gave a sense of inferiority to Knowlton and he started questioning his own intellects. Dr. Jerrold also seemed to be very impressed with how Fester conducted these team meeting. He forgot to look at the big picture “Group Thinking/Team Meeting.” The main agenda behind these meetings were to have the teammates on the same page regarding where certain project