Please read the case provided at the end and answer the following questions. Each question carries equal points.

1. What do you think is the problem in the Antioch plant? What is the cause of that problem? (3 Points)
2. How do you think Stephen and his team of managers might cut through the cultural and language differences to create a more collaborative and productive workforce? (3 Points)
3. How might Stephen and his management team work through their own discomfort and frustration with other languages and cultures? (4 Points)

Diversity Nightmare

Stephen Gulliford jumped at the chance to take over management of the southeastern regional manufacturing plant for Jordan (pronounced jr-dn) Carpets. With corporate headquarters and the main manufacturing facility located outside Tucson, Arizona, the company expanded four years earlier, with a new facility located in the Antioch section of metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee.

Since its founding in 1990, the company prided itself on utilizing the knowledge and carpeting/weaving skills of a diverse workforce. The Tucson facility was largely composed of Mexican Americans and Native Americans whose cultures boasted outstanding weaving and carpeting traditions.

In an effort to improve production and quality, Stephen had successfully developed and implemented manufacturing teams in the Tucson plant, providing cross-functional coordination and opening greater opportunity for task variety and responsibility for workers. An environment of friendly competition developed between teams, and the plant had experienced improved output through a more inclusive work environment. Native American and Mexican American employees had worked well together and communication within and across departments had improved dramatically.

Stephen hoped to bring that same success to the Antioch plant, which suffered from slow production and numerous complaints from both management and workers about the effect of the work environment on morale and performance.

Antioch had been selected as a site for manufacturing because, like Tucson, it offered a community rich in diversity. The southeast corner of Nashville/Davidson County running from Antioch Pike, spreading west toward Nolensville Road and east to Murfreesboro Pike, was teeming with diverse immigrant populations dominated by Hispanics, but including Somali and Sudanese refugees, an estimated 30,000 Egyptians, and the largest Kurdish population outside the Middle East, as well as scatterings of other ethnic groups. An astonishing 93 languages were spoken in metro schools. Small businesses had popped up across the city, but particularly along this southeast corridor. Local government, universities, and organizations around the city encouraged dialogue and celebrated diversity, highlighted by Centennial Parks annual Celebration of Cultures. A potential employment pool of hardworking immigrants from cultures rich in carpet-making traditions and in need of jobs made the city a perfect expansion location for Jordan.

Stephen was certain that, as in Tucson, the implementation of manufacturing teams throughout the Antioch plant would result in a turnaround in production and overall quality. However, within months of his arrival, one highly respected Antioch department manager resigned in anger, accusing Stephen and other company representatives of undercutting his authority. Another manager who transferred to Antioch from Tucson likewise resigned, claiming the diversity within this plants workforce made it impossible to build teams or to develop communication. This is an impossible situation, he reported to Tucson. The people want to work and need to work. They show up and work hard. But they stick together with others from their own culture, often speaking a native language. I cannot train people or create and manage cross-department teams when I cannot be understood and I cannot understand them. Its chaos down here.

Were trying, Stephen assured Tucson. But communication problems are unbelievable. Just getting information to workers is challenging. We abandoned the overwhelming task of providing basic instructions in a variety of languages and tried the IKEA method of using picture instructions that could be understood by everyone. That works for signage, but not for training materials for team development.

Stephen and his managers use of onsite interpreters from among the workers was time consuming and costly, and on occasion, the translations were flawed, leading to mistakes and more delays, particularly in regard to machine maintenance issues.

We thought we had lucked out, Stephen explained. Because within each immigrant population in the plant, we have a number of highly educated, English-speaking people who cant get certified here in America in their fields of expertise and so they take whatever jobs are available. So, for example, I have a guy with a masters degree in architecture and another with an automotive engineering degree. But without going back to school to get the certifications required here in America, they cant get jobs in those fields. So we took these educated people and assigned them as leaders of the various teams. Did that solve our problems? No. Because within the various cultures groups recognize their own leaders and they may be members of a certain family. We have entire neighborhoods from back home that can completely monopolize that ethnic group. So some teams will listen to and follow my hand-picked educated English-speaking guy and some teams will brush him off.

If you need a visual representation of the problem, one Antioch manager explained to Carson Anderson, the head of HR in Tucson, you only have to look at the lunchroom. The Egyptians are all sitting together in one section; the Sudanese are together in another; the Hispanics are somewhere elseand everyone is chattering away in their language

And Im supposed to take all of this and create working teams? Stephen complained. Now I understand why international treaty negotiations break down.

Okay, lets all take a breath here, COO Travis Collins suggested. Diversity is working in Tucson. You have lots of examples. So why cant we model whats already working and create a workable structure for this plant?

Source: Daft, R. L and Marcic, D. (2014). Building Management Skills: An Action First Approach, South-Western CENGAGE Learning, USA.