8 Midway Meetings

Case Summary

The group is well underway with their project. They have submitted their project proposal, met with city officials and venture capitalists, and have successfully piloted their ideas. They are still in the storming stage as they have quite a bit more work to do to take a small-scale project to a larger population. In front of business professionals and executives, this group seems strong and cohesive. However, the group is experiencing high amounts of tension. Their leader, Lauren, delegates the work to the committee members. Each group member shares equal parts of the labor. Originally, this was agreed upon; however, in the past few months, Franklin began caring for his niece and nephew because his sister passed away. He has kept up with his work but has felt overwhelmed and has missed several meetings. Lauren has not mentioned anything about Franklin’s new family situation and seems cold when he attempts to bring it up in discussion.

Patrick is easy to get along with during the meetings; however, he is often late – he works nights at his job and sometimes oversleeps.

When he is in the meeting, he is pleasant, on task, and productive. Lourdes is exceptional, she works well with others and submits all of her work on time. Lourdes and Franklin have a special bond since he took in his niece and nephew and they text each other most days – they talk about his new family situation and she provides emotional encouragement. She has decided that she would take on some of Franklin’s work as a favor until he is ready to complete his tasks at capacity. In meetings, though, Lourdes does quite a bit of multitasking, and this leads her to forget things or misinterpret the goals of the group. There is some tension when she asks a question that has already been answered or interrupts someone when she has a “great idea”.

Harold is upset because he is not the leader, but thinks that Lauren is doing an adequate job. He is preoccupied with his elderly parents and is worried about them passing away in the near future. If they do, he worries that he won’t be able to complete his tasks. He does what is asked of him, is cooperative in meetings, he is just not overly friendly.

There are issues within the group; yet, they are still able to overcome these issues and work collaboratively. They are working through the middle part of the presentation/implementation – this is a crucial time for the group and predicting their success.

Lastly, the country is going through a pandemic and a surge of social movements across the nation. This is deeply impacting several of the committee members but the leader does not want to discuss the issues because she feels it’s inappropriate to talk about personal or racial issues. The group that was once strong has now realized there are tensions that are hard to overcome.