Creativity under the Gun at Litmus Corporation

Course: Organisational Behaviour BMGT43620 Akul Soni

Professor: Dr. Jacob Eisenberg (18203340)

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• What did you learn from reading Grady’s logs? What do you think decreases his

creative problem-solving ability on the project?

Grady is most efficient working when he is left alone or in relative quite with technical

specialist Martin Krasovitz or he is not tasked with admin work, or other out-of-lab

tests or he has some success from work he is already doing. These logs give Carmine

valuable insights into Gradys’ strategy and needs for the work environment.

There are 2 most evident reasons for the decrease in Grady’s creative problem-solving

ability on the project:

Firstly, Grady is experiencing psychological strains directly related to the negative

cognitive appraisals (Social cognitive theory) (McShane, 2013) from his work

environment, which is evident from the case where it was explicitly mentioned that

Grady by no means was accustomed to high pressure stakes environment, and the

other non-work factors such as six month time restriction imposed by the company

policy on teams working on new business development projects.

Secondly, Grady was multitasking to fulfil many demeaning roles, mostly the admin

work, which is quite evident from his logs. These role pressures were presumable the

major source of his stress. As mentioned by Grady that he believes that the admin

work is necessary, but they consume most of his time and he mentions that it would

be helpful if the admin work could be delegated to someone else.

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Organisational Behaviour BMGT43620
• What strategy do you recommend for Carmine to use in order to get Grady to

make progress on the project? Be specific and explain the rationale behind your

recommendations.

In order to get Grady to make progress on the project Carmine should temporarily

delegate some of Gradys’ tasks to his other team mates Martin and Randy. Even-

though everyone on the team knows that Grady is crucial for cracking the

development, Carmine should make sure to make his team understand Gardy’s needs

for the work environment or else this delegation of work could backfire. As a long-

term strategy, Carmine should hire a new team member and transfer all the

demeaning work from Grady to the new member. This would help Grady to

concentrate on progressing the development of product and not worry about the

admin work.

Bibliography

• McShane, S.L. & Von Glinow, Mary Ann Young 2013, Organizational behavior: emerging
knowledge, global reality, Seventh global edn, McGraw-Hill Education.

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