Mr Dumas is a famous French chef who moved from Paris to Sydney on 1 November 2018 to work for an Australian fine dining restaurant. His remuneration includes a salary of $350,000 plus $50,000 bonus per year and a contractual term of two years. Mr Dumas would be paid a lump sum of $500,000 in return for his promise that, if he resigns, he would not set up in a business in Sydney in competition with an Australian fine dining restaurant for 3 years. Mrs Dumas moved to Sydney with her husband and three children. Mr Dumas obtained permanent residence since 1 November 2018 and bought the following assets in Sydney: A vintage motor vehicle built in 1961: acquired on 15 November 2018 at a cost of $150,000. Mr Dumas intended it to be kept as a long-term investment. A family house in Chatswood: acquired on 1 December 2018 at a cost of $1,200,000 10,000 Shares in BHP: acquired on 1 January 2019 at a cost of $300,000 were sold for $320,000 on 15 May 2020. During the financial year 2020, Mr Dumas signed the contract with SBS TV channel around November 2019 and agreed to travel to New Zealand in December 2019 for filming The Food Show. The fee of $100,000 will be paid out to him once the show is released on TV in August 2020. On 1 May 2020, Mr Dumas sold the following overseas assets which he bought before he came to Australia: 30,000 shares in a USA company: acquired on 1 July 1982 at a cost of $15,000 and was sold for $35,000 on 1 May 2020. The market value was $6,000 as at 1 November 2018. An investment flat in Paris: acquired on 15 July 2018 at a cost of $230,000 and was sold for $200,000 on 1 May 2020. Mr Dumas still maintains a bank account at the Bank of Paris in France which earned a total of $8,500(2018/2019) and $10,000(2019/2020) in interest income. He neither repatriated nor declared any part of the interest derived in France because he has paid 15% withholding tax. Hence, at the time of lodging his Australian tax return, Mr Dumas declared his Australian sourced income only. Mr Dumas lodged his 2018/19 tax return on 15 August 2019 and received a notice of assessment on 25 October 2019. On 15 February 2020, he received a notice of amended assessment which included his Australian taxable income the amounts derived in French. The amended assessment required Mr Dumas to pay $4,250 additional tax to the ATO. Mr Dumas and his family decided to relocate to New Zealand indefinitely and left Australia on 30 June 2020 to set up a high-end restaurant. On 10 July 2020, he also received a lump sum payment of $500,000 under the terms of his remuneration package with his Australian employer.

Required: Under what circumstances and on what grounds could the ATO issue the amended assessment for the year 2018/2019?

What should Mr Dumas do if he decides to dispute this amended assessment, and what time limits would apply for the dispute to be commenced?

Advise Mr Dumas on what amounts may be included in his Australian taxable income for the 2019/20 tax year.

Calculate his taxable income for the year ending 30 June 2020.

Researchers identified a number of new undergraduate students who said they suffered from “examination panic” and they felt they were not performing as well as they could on timed examinations. Researchers decided to conduct an experiment and randomly divided the students into three equal groups that would carry out a timed test as part of one of three treatment programs: one to undergo therapy sessions before the test day; the second to receive the tranquilizer just before the test; and the third to receive a placebo (a sugar tablet) just before the test.  When the results were collected, it was found that the distributions of scores were highly irregular, neither normal nor showing homogeneity of variance; therefore a one-way ANOVA was not appropriate.  Using the students data set, conduct a Kruskal-Wallis test. Show all the hypothesis testing steps. Write the results in APA format and include a copy of the SPSS output.

The assumptions for this test are:

1. All the samples are independent and randomly selected.

2. Each sample has at least 5 observations.

3. The k probability distributions are continuous.

4. The data is not normally distributed

Student Data.

Scores	Groups
70	1
64	1
63	1
57	1
55	1
51	1
44	1
42	1
80	2
79	2
74	2
67	2
57	2
54	2
52	2
42	2
48	3
46	3
45	3
40	3
38	3
34	3
27	3
21	3

On 1 November 2019, Billy, who worked as a banker, returned from Japan for business trip with his luggage in the Hong Kong Airport. There was a long queue for taxi, so he decided to take the airport shuttle bus to meet an important client, Success Ltd., concerning a loan arrangement for the merger and acquisition. Because Billy was in a hurry, he left his luggage in the shuttle bus. The luggage contained his proposal and some business documents related to Success Ltd. which were important and confidential. Billy was extremely nervous to get his luggage back and put an advertisement in a local newspapers. The advertisement mentioned that he was willing to pay a reward of HK$20,000 to any person who returned the luggage to him. To show his sincerity, Billy also deposited HK$5,000 as deposit in the bank account. This has also been referred in the newspapers advertisement.

David, the shuttle bus driver, found Billy’s luggage in the shuttle bus, went to the address printed on the tag of the luggage, and returned the luggage to Billy, without reading the advertisement. Billy was very delighted that his luggage was returned and gave David HK1,000 as a reward for his help. David subsequently read the newspapers advertisement and now wants to claim the HK$20,000 reward. Billy refused to pay and said that David was not entitled to the reward. In fact, Billy would like to claim back the HK$1,000 reward that he paid earlier to David.

Billy then went to a skiing holiday. Before leaving he orders a grey carpet for his new home from Quality Carpet Ltd’s (QCL) sample book and has paid HK$20,000 to QCL. The back of the sample has a sticker on it which describes the carpet as 100 percent wool. Billy also bought an expensive set of new skis from Alpine Ltd. (AL) for HK$25,000. The first time Billy uses the skis they snap into pieces. On his return from holiday, Billy discovers the colour of the carpet is pink and 100 percent polypropylene.

Early this month, Billy booked his car into Tan’s garage for a service. When he collected the car Tan told Billy that the work was complete, but in fact, Tan had forgotten to fully tighten the handbrake cable. Billy lived on a hill and when he got home he applied the handbrake and got out. The handbrake failed to hold the car which rolled down the hill and crushed Jill, who was loading shopping into the back of her car.

As a result of the collision, Billy’s car was damaged and Jill was injured.

1. Advise David: whether he is entitled to claim the HK$20,000 reward from Billy.

2. Advise Billy as to her rights and remedies against QCL and AL under sale of goods law.

3. Discuss the rights and remedies of Billy and Jill against Tan.

(Total: 20 marks)

Sample A is from a 35 year old male who visited his GP complaining of chest pain during exercise. An ECG taken at rest was normal but ischaemic changes developed on exercise. A family history revealed that his father died of a heart attack at the age of 45 years. The laboratory test results for his fasting blood sample were as follows:

Analyte                       Patient values                        Reference range for fasting

     blood sample

Sodium                                    139                              135-145 mmol/L

Potassium                                4.1                               3.0-5.0 mmol/L

Total protein                           69                                65-80 g/L

Albumin                                  35                                35-47 g/L

Calcium                                  9.3                               9.0-10.5 mg/dl

Lactate dehydrogenase           250                              90-190 IU/L

Creatine kinase                       129                              30-60 IU/L

Asparatate transaminase         70                                < 40 IU/L

Gamma glutamyl transferase 30                                < 50 IU/L

Total Bilirubin                        13                                0.4-15 μmol/L

Glucose                                   12                                3.5-5.5 mmol/L

Fructosamine                          351                              205-285 μmol/L

Cholesterol                             

            Total                            7.2                               <5.2mmol/L

            HDL                            1.4                               >1.5 mmol/L

            LDL                            ?                                  <3.5 mmol/L

Triglycerides                           2.95                             <1.7mmol/L

On the gradient gel electrophoresis, plasma sample for this patient showed the presence of small dense LDL particle.

1. Calculate and comment on the LDL cholesterol values. What does the presence of small dense LDL mean?
2. How many cardiovascular risk factors does this patient have?
3. Discuss the type of hyperlipidaemia this patient is likely to have.
4. What further tests and dietary/drug treatments would you recommend for this patient?

(a) Using the armspanSpring2020.csv data from class, test the hypothesis that those who identify as female have a shorter armspan than those who do not so identify. Write out the null and alternative hypotheses, give the value of the test statistic and the p-value, and state your conclusion using a 5% significance level. Use R for all computations.

(b) Interpret, in your own words, the meaning of the p-value you got in part (a).

(c) Find a 95% confidence interval for the mean armspan using the data in armspanSpring2020.csv. Use R.
(d) What assumptions must you make if we wish to interpret this interval to apply to all UCLA students? Which of these assumptions do you think are met adn which are not?
(e) Find a 95% confidence interval for the difference between mean armspan and mean heights. Does it contain 0? Why is this surprising or not-surprising?

height	armspan	is.female
67	NA	1
70	40	0
64	67	1
71	70	0
72	49	0
62	61	1
72	74	0
71	68	0
63	60	1
69	69	0
67	68	1
63	63	1
60	60	1
66	66	0
61	61	1
69	68	0
65	65	1
72	72	0
70	70	0
73	77	0
65	61	1
68	72	1
62	55	NA
71	74	0
72	70	0
66	22	1
65	67	1
64	62	0
65	62	1
73	69	0
67	77	0
60	62	1
70	59	0
68	66	1
65	65	1
72	69	0
62	52	1
69	66	0
68	67	0
65	66	1
65	64	0
66	65	1
62	52	1
64	62	1
66	65	1
69	69	0
64	65	1
70	74	0
65	69	0
70	80	0
63	NA	1
67	70	1
64	64	1
64	62	1
6	5.7	0
67	67	1
72	71	0
73	75	0
68	68	0
67	63	1
66	67	1
67	36	0
68	72	0
73	70	0
70	70	0
70	72	0
60	58	0
70	68	0
62	63	0
68	68	1
67	67	NA
68	71	0
65	48	1
70	76	0
69	70	0
69	66	0
58	55	NA
64	64	0

Please help with the r codes especially. It is my first time using it and I'm having a hard time. Thanks!

Consider the job of customer service representative who takes telephone calls from customers of a retailer that sells online and through catalogs. HR is conducting job design on this job.

What measures can an employer take to design this job to make it motivating? What measures can an employer take to design this job to make it ergonomic? Be specific and elaborate.

One representative from the CDC claimed that as many as 25% of people who have Covid-19 may not be showing any symptoms. If this is true, what is the probability of randomly choosing 450 people who are experiencing no symptoms and 110 or less of them actually have the virus?

Make sketches and label all variables and give the appropriate calculator command.

What is the inequality that must be true in order to treat the sample proportions in this problem as being normally distributed?

David, who has suffered from ALS for twenty years, is now hospitalized in a private religious hospital on a respirator. He spoke with his physician before he became incapacitated and asked that he be allowed to die if the suffering became too much for him. The physician agreed that, while he would not give David any drugs to assist a suicide, he would discontinue David’s respirator if asked to do so. David has now indicated through a prearranged code of blinking eye movements that he wants the respirator discontinued. David had signed his living will before he became ill, indicating that he did not want extraordinary means keeping him alive. The nursing staff has alerted the hospital administrator about the impending discontinuation of the respirator. The administrator tells the physician that this is against the hospital’s policy. She states that once a patient is placed on a respirator, the family must seek a court order to have him or her removed from this type of life support. In addition, it is against hospital policy to have any staff members present during such a procedure. After consulting with the family, the physician orders an ambulance to transport the patient back to his home, where the physician discontinues the life support.

ANALYZE THIS CASE STUDY USING THE  Seven-Step Decision Model

Urgent!!

please answer the following question from the article below.

1. Who is the least motivated person at FireArt and why? Recommend at least 2

actions Eric can take to more effectively motivate this employee. Explain how your

recommendations are supported by a specific theory of motivation.

2. Randy Louderback believes that the best ideas “never came out of a team. Brilliant

ideas come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization

to implement them." Under which conditions is this belief accurate? Under which

conditions is this belief inaccurate?

3. How would you describe the level of task interdependence at FireArt? Describe 3

ways Eric Holt can increase task interdependence in his team (1 recommendation

per type of task interdependence). Which of these recommendations do you

believe would be most effective and why?

4. Which team roles are present and absent at FireArt? What are the implications of

these roles for Eric Holt and his team’s performance?

5. What are the types and sources of conflict at FireArt? Which conflict handling styles

are present and absent among FireArt employees? What are 2 ways Eric Holt can

improve his conflict management?

6. Describe the organizational culture of FireArt? How does this culture affect Eric

Holt’s experience and effectiveness as a manager? Based on the Model of Team

Effectiveness, provide at least 5 recommendations to help Eric Holt better build and

manage teams.

The last thing Eric Holt had expected to miss about New York City was its sunrises. Seeing one usually

meant he had pulled another all-nighter at the consulting firm where, as a vice president, he had

managed three teams of manufacturing specialists. But as he stood on the balcony of his new apartment

in the small Indiana city that was now his home, Eric suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for the way the

dawn plays off the skyscrapers of Manhattan. In the next moment, though, he let out a sardonic laugh.

The dawn light was not what he missed about New York. What he missed was the feeling of

accomplishment that usually accompanied those sunrises.

An all-nighter in New York had meant hours of intense work with a cadre of committed, enthusiastic

colleagues. Give and take. Humor. Progress. Here, so far anyway, that was unthinkable. As the director

of strategy at FireArt, Inc., a regional glass manufacturer, Eric spent all his time trying to get his new

team to make it through a meeting without the tension level becoming unbearable. Six of the top-level

managers involved seemed determined to turn the company around, but the seventh seemed equally

determined to sabotage the process. Forget camaraderie. There had been three meetings so far, and

Eric hadn't even been able to get everyone on the same side of an issue.

Eric stepped inside his apartment and checked the clock: only three more hours before he had to watch

as Randy Louderback, FireArt's charismatic director of sales and marketing, either dominated the group's

discussion or withdrew entirely, tapping his pen on the table to indicate his boredom. Sometimes he

withheld information vital to the group's debate; other times he coolly denigrated people's comments.

Still, Eric realized, Randy held the group together because of his dynamic personality, his almost

legendary past, and his close relationship with FireArt's CEO that he could not be ignored. And at least

once during each meeting, he offered an insight about the industry or the company that was so

perceptive that Eric knew he shouldn't be ignored.

As he prepared to leave for the office, Eric felt the familiar frustration that had started building during

the team's first meeting a month earlier. It was then that Randy had first insinuated, with what sounded

like a joke, that he wasn't cut out to be a team player.

FireArt, Inc., was in trouble- not deep trouble, but enough for its CEO, Jack Derry, to make strategic

repositioning Eric's top and only task. The company, a family-owned maker of wine goblets, beer steins,

ashtrays, and other glass novelties had succeeded for nearly 80 years as a high-quality, high-price

producer, catering to hundreds of Midwestern clients. It traditionally did big business every football

season, selling commemorative knickknacks to the fans of teams such as the Fighting Irish, the

Wolverines, and the Golden Gophers. In the spring, there was always a rush of demand for senior prom

items -- champagne goblets emblazoned with a school's name or beer mugs with a school's crest, for

example. Fraternities and sororities were steady customers. Year after year, FireArt showed respectable

increases at the top and bottom lines, posting $86 million in revenues and $3 million in earnings three

years before Eric arrived.

In the last 18 months, though, sales and earnings had flattened. Jack, a grandnephew of the company's

founder, thought he knew what was happening. Until recently, large national glass companies had been

able to make money only through mass production. Now, however, thanks to new technologies in the

glassmaking industry, those companies could execute short runs profitably. They had begun to enter

FireArt's niche, Jack had told Eric, and, with their superior resources, it was just a matter of time before

they would own it.

"You have 1 responsibility as FireArt's new director of strategy," Jack had said to Eric on his first day.

"That's to put together a team of our top people, one person from each division, and have a plan for the

company's strategic realignment up, running, and winning within 6 months."

Eric had immediately compiled a list of the senior managers from human resources, manufacturing,

finance, distribution, design, and marketing, and had set a date for the first meeting. Then, drawing on

his years as a consultant who had worked almost solely in team environments, Eric had carefully

prepared a structure and guidelines for the group's discussions, disagreements, and decisions, which he

planned to propose to the members for their input before they began working together.

Successful groups are part art, part science, Eric knew, but he also believed that with every member's

full commitment, a team proved the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Knowing

that managers at FireArt were unaccustomed to the team process, however, Eric imagined he might get

some resistance from one or two members.

For one, he had been worried about Ray LaPierre of manufacturing. Ray was a giant of a man who had

run the furnaces for some 35 years, following in his father's footsteps. Although he was a former high

school football star who was known among factory workers for his hearty laugh and practical jokes, Ray

usually didn't say much around FireArt's executives, citing his lack of higher education as the reason. Eric

had thought the team atmosphere might intimidate him.

Eric had also anticipated a bit of a fight from Maureen Turner of the design division, who was known to

complain that FireArt didn't appreciate its six artists. Eric expected Maureen might hesitate to

collaborate with people who didn't understand the design process.

Ironically, both those fears had proved groundless, but another, more difficult problem had arisen. The

wild card had turned out to be Randy. Eric had met Randy once before the team started its work and

had found him to be enormously intelligent, energetic, and good-humored. What's more, Jack Derry had

confirmed his impressions, telling him that Randy "had the best mind" at FireArt. It was also from Jack

that Eric had first learned of Randy's hardscrabble yet inspirational personal history.

Poor as a child, he had worked as a security guard and short-order cook to put himself through the state

college, from which he graduated with top honors. Soon after, he started his own advertising and market

research firm in Indianapolis, and within the decade, he had built it into a company employing 50 people

to service some of the region's most prestigious accounts. His success brought with it a measure of fame:

articles in the local media, invitations to the statehouse, even an honorary degree from an Indiana

business college. But in the late 1980s, Randy's firm suffered the same fate as many other advertising

shops, and he was forced to declare, bankruptcy. FireArt considered it a coup when it landed him as

director of marketing, since he had let it be known that he was offered at least two dozen other jobs.

"Randy is the future of this company," Jack Derry had told Eric. "If he can't help you, no one can. I look

forward to hearing what a team with his kind of horsepower can come up with to steer us away from

the mess we're in."

Those words echoed in Eric's mind as he sat, with increasing anxiety, through the team's first and second

meetings. Though Eric had planned an agenda for each meeting and tried to keep the discussions on

track, Randy always seemed to find a way to disrupt the process. Time and time again, he shot down

other people's ideas, or he simply didn't pay attention. He also answered most questions put to him with

maddening vagueness. "I'll have my assistant look into it when he gets a moment," he replied when one

team member asked him to list FireArt's five largest customers. "Some days you eat the bear, and other

days the bear eats you," he joked another time, when asked why sales to fraternities had recently nosedived.

Randy's negativism, however, was countered by occasional comments so insightful that they stopped

the conversation cold or turned it around entirely -- comments that demonstrated extraordinary

knowledge about competitors or glass technology or customers' buying patterns. The help wouldn't last,

though, Randy would quickly revert to his role as team renegade.

The third meeting, last week, had ended in chaos. Ray LaPierre, Maureen Turner, and the distribution

director, Carl Simmons, had each planned to present cost-cutting proposals, and at first it looked as

though the group were making good progress.

Ray opened the meeting, proposing a plan for FireArt to cut throughput time by 3% and raw-materials

costs by 2%, thereby positioning the company to compete better on price. It was obvious from his

detailed presentation that he had put a lot of thought into his comments, and it was evident that he was

fighting a certain amount of nervousness as he made them.

"I know I don't have the book smarts of most of you in this room," he had begun, "but here goes anyway."

During his presentation, Ray stopped several times to answer questions from the team, and as he went

on, his nervousness transformed into his usual ebullience. "That wasn't so bad!" he laughed to himself

as he sat down at the end, flashing a grin at Eric. "Maybe we can turn this old ship around."

Maureen Turner had followed Ray. While not disagreeing with him -- she praised his comments, in fact

-- she argued that FireArt also needed to invest in new artists, pitching its competitive advantage in

better design and wider variety. Unlike Ray, Maureen had made this case to FireArt's top executives

many times, only to be rebuffed, and some of her frustration seeped through as she explained her

reasoning yet again. At one point, her voice almost broke as she described how hard she had worked in

her first ten years at FireArt, hoping that someone in management would recognize the creativity of her

designs. "But no one did," she recalled with a sad shake of her head. "That's why when I was made

director of the department, I made sure all the artists were respected for what they are -- artists, not

worker ants. There's a difference, you know." However, just as with Ray LaPierre, Maureen's comments

lost their defensiveness as the group members, with the exception of Randy, who remained impassive,

greeted her words with nods of encouragement.

By the time Carl Simmons of distribution started to speak, the mood in the room was approaching

buoyant. Carl, a quiet and meticulous man, jumped from his seat and practically paced the room as he

described his ideas. FireArt, he said, should play to its strength as a service-oriented company and

restructure its trucking system to increase the speed of delivery. He described how a similar strategy had

been adopted with excellent results at his last job at a ceramics plant. Carl had joined FireArt just six

months earlier. It was when Carl began to describe those results in detail that Randy brought the meeting

to an unpleasant halt by letting out a loud groan. "Let's just do everything, why don't we, including

redesign the kitchen sink!" he cried with mock enthusiasm. That remark sent Carl back quickly to his

seat, where he halfheartedly summed up his comments. A few minutes later, he excused himself, saying

he had another meeting. Soon the others made excuses to leave, too, and the room became empty.

No wonder Eric was apprehensive about the fourth meeting. He was therefore surprised when he

entered the room and found the whole group, save Randy, already assembled.

Ten minutes passed in awkward small talk, and, looking from face to face, Eric could see his own

frustration reflected. He also detected an edge of panic -- just what he had hoped to avoid. He decided

he had to raise the topic of Randy's attitude openly, but just as he started, Randy ambled into the room,

smiling. "Sorry, folks," he said lightly, holding up a cup of coffee as if it were explanation enough for his

tardiness.

"Randy, I'm glad you're here," Eric began, "because I think today we should begin by talking about the

group itself -- "

Randy cut Eric off with a small, sarcastic laugh. "Uh-oh, I knew this was going to happen," he said.

Before Eric could answer, Ray LaPierre stood up and walked over to Randy, bending over to look him in

the eye.

"You just don't care, do you?" he began, his voice so angry it startled everyone in the room.

Everyone except Randy. "Quite the contrary -- I care very much," he answered breezily. "I just don't

believe this is how change should be made. A brilliant idea never came out of a team. Brilliant ideas

come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization to implement them."

"That's a lot of bull," Ray shot back. "You just want all the credit for the success, and you don't want to

share it with anyone."

"That's absurd," Randy laughed again. "I'm not trying to impress anyone here at FireArt. I don't need to.

I want this company to succeed as much as you do, but I believe, and I believe passionately, that groups

are useless. Consensus means mediocrity. I'm sorry, but it does."

"But you haven't even tried to reach consensus with us," Maureen interjected. "It's as if you don't care

what we all have to say. We can't work alone for a solution -- we need to understand each other. Don't

you see that?"

The room was silent as Randy shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He stared at the table, a blank

expression on his face.

It was Eric who broke the silence. "Randy, this is a team. You are part of it," he said, trying to catch

Randy's eye without success. "Perhaps we should start again -- "

Randy stopped him by holding up his cup, as if making a toast. "Okay, look, I'll behave from now on," he

said. The words held promise, but he was smirking as he spoke them -- something no one at the table

missed. Eric took a deep breath before he answered; as much as he wanted and needed Randy

Louderback's help, he was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps Randy's personality and his past

experiences simply made it impossible for him to participate in the delicate process of ego surrender

that any kind of teamwork requires.

"Listen, everyone, I know this is a challenge," Eric began, but he was cut short by Randy's pencil-tapping

on the table. A moment later, Ray LaPierre was standing again.

"Forget it. This is never going to work. It's just a waste of time for all of us," he said, more resigned than

gruff. "We're all in this together, or there's no point." He headed for the door, and before Eric could stop

him, two others were at his heels.

Urgent!!

please answer the following question from the article below.

1. Who is the least motivated person at FireArt and why? Recommend at least 2

actions Eric can take to more effectively motivate this employee. Explain how your

recommendations are supported by a specific theory of motivation.

2. Randy Louderback believes that the best ideas “never came out of a team. Brilliant

ideas come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization

to implement them." Under which conditions is this belief accurate? Under which

conditions is this belief inaccurate?

3. How would you describe the level of task interdependence at FireArt? Describe 3

ways Eric Holt can increase task interdependence in his team (1 recommendation

per type of task interdependence). Which of these recommendations do you

believe would be most effective and why?

4. Which team roles are present and absent at FireArt? What are the implications of

these roles for Eric Holt and his team’s performance?

5. What are the types and sources of conflict at FireArt? Which conflict handling styles

are present and absent among FireArt employees? What are 2 ways Eric Holt can

improve his conflict management?

6. Describe the organizational culture of FireArt? How does this culture affect Eric

Holt’s experience and effectiveness as a manager? Based on the Model of Team

Effectiveness, provide at least 5 recommendations to help Eric Holt better build and

manage teams.

The last thing Eric Holt had expected to miss about New York City was its sunrises. Seeing one usually

meant he had pulled another all-nighter at the consulting firm where, as a vice president, he had

managed three teams of manufacturing specialists. But as he stood on the balcony of his new apartment

in the small Indiana city that was now his home, Eric suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for the way the

dawn plays off the skyscrapers of Manhattan. In the next moment, though, he let out a sardonic laugh.

The dawn light was not what he missed about New York. What he missed was the feeling of

accomplishment that usually accompanied those sunrises.

An all-nighter in New York had meant hours of intense work with a cadre of committed, enthusiastic

colleagues. Give and take. Humor. Progress. Here, so far anyway, that was unthinkable. As the director

of strategy at FireArt, Inc., a regional glass manufacturer, Eric spent all his time trying to get his new

team to make it through a meeting without the tension level becoming unbearable. Six of the top-level

managers involved seemed determined to turn the company around, but the seventh seemed equally

determined to sabotage the process. Forget camaraderie. There had been three meetings so far, and

Eric hadn't even been able to get everyone on the same side of an issue.

Eric stepped inside his apartment and checked the clock: only three more hours before he had to watch

as Randy Louderback, FireArt's charismatic director of sales and marketing, either dominated the group's

discussion or withdrew entirely, tapping his pen on the table to indicate his boredom. Sometimes he

withheld information vital to the group's debate; other times he coolly denigrated people's comments.

Still, Eric realized, Randy held the group together because of his dynamic personality, his almost

legendary past, and his close relationship with FireArt's CEO that he could not be ignored. And at least

once during each meeting, he offered an insight about the industry or the company that was so

perceptive that Eric knew he shouldn't be ignored.

As he prepared to leave for the office, Eric felt the familiar frustration that had started building during

the team's first meeting a month earlier. It was then that Randy had first insinuated, with what sounded

like a joke, that he wasn't cut out to be a team player.

FireArt, Inc., was in trouble- not deep trouble, but enough for its CEO, Jack Derry, to make strategic

repositioning Eric's top and only task. The company, a family-owned maker of wine goblets, beer steins,

ashtrays, and other glass novelties had succeeded for nearly 80 years as a high-quality, high-price

producer, catering to hundreds of Midwestern clients. It traditionally did big business every football

season, selling commemorative knickknacks to the fans of teams such as the Fighting Irish, the

Wolverines, and the Golden Gophers. In the spring, there was always a rush of demand for senior prom

items -- champagne goblets emblazoned with a school's name or beer mugs with a school's crest, for

example. Fraternities and sororities were steady customers. Year after year, FireArt showed respectable

increases at the top and bottom lines, posting $86 million in revenues and $3 million in earnings three

years before Eric arrived.

In the last 18 months, though, sales and earnings had flattened. Jack, a grandnephew of the company's

founder, thought he knew what was happening. Until recently, large national glass companies had been

able to make money only through mass production. Now, however, thanks to new technologies in the

glassmaking industry, those companies could execute short runs profitably. They had begun to enter

FireArt's niche, Jack had told Eric, and, with their superior resources, it was just a matter of time before

they would own it.

"You have 1 responsibility as FireArt's new director of strategy," Jack had said to Eric on his first day.

"That's to put together a team of our top people, one person from each division, and have a plan for the

company's strategic realignment up, running, and winning within 6 months."

Eric had immediately compiled a list of the senior managers from human resources, manufacturing,

finance, distribution, design, and marketing, and had set a date for the first meeting. Then, drawing on

his years as a consultant who had worked almost solely in team environments, Eric had carefully

prepared a structure and guidelines for the group's discussions, disagreements, and decisions, which he

planned to propose to the members for their input before they began working together.

Successful groups are part art, part science, Eric knew, but he also believed that with every member's

full commitment, a team proved the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Knowing

that managers at FireArt were unaccustomed to the team process, however, Eric imagined he might get

some resistance from one or two members.

For one, he had been worried about Ray LaPierre of manufacturing. Ray was a giant of a man who had

run the furnaces for some 35 years, following in his father's footsteps. Although he was a former high

school football star who was known among factory workers for his hearty laugh and practical jokes, Ray

usually didn't say much around FireArt's executives, citing his lack of higher education as the reason. Eric

had thought the team atmosphere might intimidate him.

Eric had also anticipated a bit of a fight from Maureen Turner of the design division, who was known to

complain that FireArt didn't appreciate its six artists. Eric expected Maureen might hesitate to

collaborate with people who didn't understand the design process.

Ironically, both those fears had proved groundless, but another, more difficult problem had arisen. The

wild card had turned out to be Randy. Eric had met Randy once before the team started its work and

had found him to be enormously intelligent, energetic, and good-humored. What's more, Jack Derry had

confirmed his impressions, telling him that Randy "had the best mind" at FireArt. It was also from Jack

that Eric had first learned of Randy's hardscrabble yet inspirational personal history.

Poor as a child, he had worked as a security guard and short-order cook to put himself through the state

college, from which he graduated with top honors. Soon after, he started his own advertising and market

research firm in Indianapolis, and within the decade, he had built it into a company employing 50 people

to service some of the region's most prestigious accounts. His success brought with it a measure of fame:

articles in the local media, invitations to the statehouse, even an honorary degree from an Indiana

business college. But in the late 1980s, Randy's firm suffered the same fate as many other advertising

shops, and he was forced to declare, bankruptcy. FireArt considered it a coup when it landed him as

director of marketing, since he had let it be known that he was offered at least two dozen other jobs.

"Randy is the future of this company," Jack Derry had told Eric. "If he can't help you, no one can. I look

forward to hearing what a team with his kind of horsepower can come up with to steer us away from

the mess we're in."

Those words echoed in Eric's mind as he sat, with increasing anxiety, through the team's first and second

meetings. Though Eric had planned an agenda for each meeting and tried to keep the discussions on

track, Randy always seemed to find a way to disrupt the process. Time and time again, he shot down

other people's ideas, or he simply didn't pay attention. He also answered most questions put to him with

maddening vagueness. "I'll have my assistant look into it when he gets a moment," he replied when one

team member asked him to list FireArt's five largest customers. "Some days you eat the bear, and other

days the bear eats you," he joked another time, when asked why sales to fraternities had recently nosedived.

Randy's negativism, however, was countered by occasional comments so insightful that they stopped

the conversation cold or turned it around entirely -- comments that demonstrated extraordinary

knowledge about competitors or glass technology or customers' buying patterns. The help wouldn't last,

though, Randy would quickly revert to his role as team renegade.

The third meeting, last week, had ended in chaos. Ray LaPierre, Maureen Turner, and the distribution

director, Carl Simmons, had each planned to present cost-cutting proposals, and at first it looked as

though the group were making good progress.

Ray opened the meeting, proposing a plan for FireArt to cut throughput time by 3% and raw-materials

costs by 2%, thereby positioning the company to compete better on price. It was obvious from his

detailed presentation that he had put a lot of thought into his comments, and it was evident that he was

fighting a certain amount of nervousness as he made them.

"I know I don't have the book smarts of most of you in this room," he had begun, "but here goes anyway."

During his presentation, Ray stopped several times to answer questions from the team, and as he went

on, his nervousness transformed into his usual ebullience. "That wasn't so bad!" he laughed to himself

as he sat down at the end, flashing a grin at Eric. "Maybe we can turn this old ship around."

Maureen Turner had followed Ray. While not disagreeing with him -- she praised his comments, in fact

-- she argued that FireArt also needed to invest in new artists, pitching its competitive advantage in

better design and wider variety. Unlike Ray, Maureen had made this case to FireArt's top executives

many times, only to be rebuffed, and some of her frustration seeped through as she explained her

reasoning yet again. At one point, her voice almost broke as she described how hard she had worked in

her first ten years at FireArt, hoping that someone in management would recognize the creativity of her

designs. "But no one did," she recalled with a sad shake of her head. "That's why when I was made

director of the department, I made sure all the artists were respected for what they are -- artists, not

worker ants. There's a difference, you know." However, just as with Ray LaPierre, Maureen's comments

lost their defensiveness as the group members, with the exception of Randy, who remained impassive,

greeted her words with nods of encouragement.

By the time Carl Simmons of distribution started to speak, the mood in the room was approaching

buoyant. Carl, a quiet and meticulous man, jumped from his seat and practically paced the room as he

described his ideas. FireArt, he said, should play to its strength as a service-oriented company and

restructure its trucking system to increase the speed of delivery. He described how a similar strategy had

been adopted with excellent results at his last job at a ceramics plant. Carl had joined FireArt just six

months earlier. It was when Carl began to describe those results in detail that Randy brought the meeting

to an unpleasant halt by letting out a loud groan. "Let's just do everything, why don't we, including

redesign the kitchen sink!" he cried with mock enthusiasm. That remark sent Carl back quickly to his

seat, where he halfheartedly summed up his comments. A few minutes later, he excused himself, saying

he had another meeting. Soon the others made excuses to leave, too, and the room became empty.

No wonder Eric was apprehensive about the fourth meeting. He was therefore surprised when he

entered the room and found the whole group, save Randy, already assembled.

Ten minutes passed in awkward small talk, and, looking from face to face, Eric could see his own

frustration reflected. He also detected an edge of panic -- just what he had hoped to avoid. He decided

he had to raise the topic of Randy's attitude openly, but just as he started, Randy ambled into the room,

smiling. "Sorry, folks," he said lightly, holding up a cup of coffee as if it were explanation enough for his

tardiness.

"Randy, I'm glad you're here," Eric began, "because I think today we should begin by talking about the

group itself -- "

Randy cut Eric off with a small, sarcastic laugh. "Uh-oh, I knew this was going to happen," he said.

Before Eric could answer, Ray LaPierre stood up and walked over to Randy, bending over to look him in

the eye.

"You just don't care, do you?" he began, his voice so angry it startled everyone in the room.

Everyone except Randy. "Quite the contrary -- I care very much," he answered breezily. "I just don't

believe this is how change should be made. A brilliant idea never came out of a team. Brilliant ideas

come from brilliant individuals, who then inspire others in the organization to implement them."

"That's a lot of bull," Ray shot back. "You just want all the credit for the success, and you don't want to

share it with anyone."

"That's absurd," Randy laughed again. "I'm not trying to impress anyone here at FireArt. I don't need to.

I want this company to succeed as much as you do, but I believe, and I believe passionately, that groups

are useless. Consensus means mediocrity. I'm sorry, but it does."

"But you haven't even tried to reach consensus with us," Maureen interjected. "It's as if you don't care

what we all have to say. We can't work alone for a solution -- we need to understand each other. Don't

you see that?"

The room was silent as Randy shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. He stared at the table, a blank

expression on his face.

It was Eric who broke the silence. "Randy, this is a team. You are part of it," he said, trying to catch

Randy's eye without success. "Perhaps we should start again -- "

Randy stopped him by holding up his cup, as if making a toast. "Okay, look, I'll behave from now on," he

said. The words held promise, but he was smirking as he spoke them -- something no one at the table

missed. Eric took a deep breath before he answered; as much as he wanted and needed Randy

Louderback's help, he was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps Randy's personality and his past

experiences simply made it impossible for him to participate in the delicate process of ego surrender

that any kind of teamwork requires.

"Listen, everyone, I know this is a challenge," Eric began, but he was cut short by Randy's pencil-tapping

on the table. A moment later, Ray LaPierre was standing again.

"Forget it. This is never going to work. It's just a waste of time for all of us," he said, more resigned than

gruff. "We're all in this together, or there's no point." He headed for the door, and before Eric could stop

him, two others were at his heels.