Straight Arrow Systems Corp. located in Los Angeles, develops and builds custom systems. Its major customer is the military market. One of its current projects is to develop personnel identification and tracking system, referred to as the PITS. Bob Slug is the team leader for the hardware development work package. There has been a higher than normal turnover of people on Bob's team. Today, Bob is just finishing up a brief orientation meeting with his newest team member, Brad. It is Brad's first day at Straight Arrow Systems. Brad recently graduated from a large university in southern California. His father is in the military, and prior to college, Brad lived in various countries where his father was stationed. "Before I introduce you to the rest of the team at the weekly project team meeting this afternoon, I want to briefly give you some background on each of the people so you know what you're in for," Bob told Brad, as he rolled his eyes. He continued, "They certainly are a different group of characters. Sometimes I wonder how we get anything done. You'll probably eventually hear that we’ve had some turnover on the team, but I think it was for the best. There were people who just didn't fit in, if you know what I mean.

"First, there's the Asian lady: Yoko something or other. I can't pronounce it so I just call her 'Yoyo,'" Bob says with a chuckle. He continues, "Those people are good at detailed tasks so I pretty much assign her to double-check the work of some of the other people. By the way, whenever she brings in lunch, it smells up the whole place, as you can imagine. Who knows what kinds of food they eat. "Then there’s Autumn. Cute! She looks like she’s still in high school. She's always got one of those iPods plugged into her ears so it's hard to take her seriously. When she talks, she uses all these 'techie' terms. These young people just don’t know how to communicate; all they do is sit in front of their computer all day. And she is always asking me how she is doing. I mean, I'm not her mommy. Anyway, I kind of got my arm twisted into hiring her because management said I didn't have enough females on my team. Then they wonder why I have turn- over. Next thing you know, she'll be pregnant and leave, too. "And I have Jared, the kid with the tattoo. Need I say anything more?" said Bob, as he shook his head. "If he doesn’t respect his own body, how can I expect him to respect my authority? He probably gave his parents a hard time, too. "Tyrell is the black guy, obviously. He doesn't say much; probably doesn't feel like he fits in because he's the only black on the team, and you know how they like to always hang out with each other. I expect he'll probably leave so I don't give him any long-term tasks.. . . . . .

Required:

1. Bob is demonstrating what behaviors with respect to valuing team diversity? What are some alternative choices for what Brad can do next? What should he do?

2. What should any of the team members do?

3. What could be done to improve the climate for diversity in this case?

4. What do you think Bob’s direct supervisor would do if she were aware of Bob’s actions?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 It seems that Bob is not ready to accept team diversity He does not like a diverse set of people A... View the full answer