Read the following case titled Different Strokes and answer the questions that follow.

Different Strokes

John and Shekhar were childhood friends. They went to school together in Lucknow, a city in Uttar Pradesh. Both of them belonged to middle class families. John was the only child of his parents and lived with them while Shekhar lived with his parents, grandparents and four siblings. In spite of being best friends, they had contrasting personalities. John was very outgoing person, had a large circle of friends, enjoyed socializing, could speak on any topic and was life of all gatherings and parties. Shekhar, on the other hand, was shy and reserved. He was a voracious reader and liked to spend time by himself. He was a dreamer and always dreamt of big things. He was very observant and could narrate any incident in its minutest details, but John could not recall details, even if his life depended on it. Their learning styles were also different. Shekhar learnt more by reading and John learnt more by discussing. John insisted on group study while Shekhar liked to study alone. After completing their school, both came to Delhi and completed their graduation together. They passed CAT and got admission in the same management institute in Pune. Shekhar was a high-achieving workaholic and drove himself to meet assignment deadlines. He secured a high CGPA of 9.8 while John could manage only 6.2. Coincidentally during campus placement, both were selected by the same Bengaluru based upcoming IT firm to work with. They were placed in the marketing department of the company. John fitted the job like a hand in the glove and his performance was overrated at the end of six months. Shekhars performance was below average and he was reprimanded on several occasions during the probation period. Finally, the Marketing Manager Mr. Sreenivasan advised him to look for a job somewhere else.

20 Marks

As soon as John came to know of this, he decided to meet Mr. Sharma, the HR Manager. He requested Mr. Sharma to give Shekhar another chance, but Mr. Sharma felt helpless as he knew that Mr. Sreenivasan does not want him in his team. After few discussions and looking for openings it was found that Shekhar could be relocated in the R & D division of the company which was located far away from the city. After his transfer, Shekhar decided that he would prove himself with this new opportunity that he was given. At the yearly review, his performance was judged excellent and R & D Manager Mr. Kamath considered him to be a star performer and recommended him for promotion. Around this time, the company received an important project from a prestigious client in the US. The Project Manager Shashank selected a team of 10 people from various departments in the company to work on the project. Shekhar and John were among those selected to work on the project and Shekhar was made the project leader. Shekhar was concerned about his status as project leader and felt responsible for his team as well as the deliverables. He was strict with deadlines, expected the best from each team members, and always kept them on their toes. But Shekhars way of functioning was not going well with his teammates. As the project progressed the team members felt they were being pushed too hard and Shekhars behavior was perceived as too autocratic and highly competitive. He was more business-like and aggressive in his dealing with his team mates. He did not want anyone to relax till the project was delivered. His team members began disliking him and this behaviour left John perplexed. While Shekhar was not very popular with his teammates, John was fast gaining their confidence. He was patient, relaxed, easy going and generally lacked an overriding sense of urgency. He was very concerned, caring and approachable to everyone and knew how to maintain his relationship with other people. His focus was more on maintaining relationships rather than delivering the outputs. The team dynamics worsened gradually, and started affecting the schedule of the project. Shashank noticed a gradual decline in performance and asked Shekhar to rectify the situation immediately. Shekhar decided to call an informal meeting of the team. During the meeting he tried to justify his stance on maintaining the required output and meeting deadlines. However, interactions were futile and led to complete chaos. It ended abruptly with Shekhar accusing John of being apathetic, disengaged, wasting time and distracting others in the team. John was horrified; it was not long ago when he had pleaded with HR to give Shekhar another chance. He felt miserable and accused Shekhar of being ungrateful and stress junkie, who was driving everybody crazy. He ended up by saying that success has gone into his head. Shekhar explained the whole situation to Shashank and clarified that he was only concerned about his work and the project. Shashank had heard about the excellent performance of Shekhar from Kamath and did not want to remove him from the position of Project leader. He suggested that Shekhar talk to John and resolved the issue.

Shekhar called John, and the following conversation took place between them: Shekhar: Hi John, good morning. John: Good morning, the Great Project Leader! Shekhar: I believe you are upset with me John. I am only concerned about the project. John: That is the problem. You are only concerned about yourself and do not care about anybody else. Shekhar: Look John, this project belongs to all of us. John: My foot, you just want to take the whole credit and to be honest, you are jealous of my popularity with the team Shekhar: If, as a project leader, I demand to meet deadlines and ask team members not to relax and waste time till the project is delivered, am I being unreasonable? John: Dont put on that act, and by the way, who is wasting time here? My dear, this is called relationship building; but why am I talking to you, you wont understand. Shekhar: Look John, I accept that I am not good at dealing with people, and that is precisely the reason why I need you. Since you are very good at relationship building, please help me in keeping the team together and work towards fulfilling the objectives of this project. John: I do not believe you Shekhar. You have changed so much that it is, at times, hard to believe that we were together since our school days. Shekhar: Please believe me and let us jointly try to remove the deadlock. This is important for all of us and I know that you also agree with me here. John: I am ready to put in whatever I can to make the project happen. But I need to be sure first that you are serious and not making fun of me. Shekhar: Believe me. I have never been more serious in my life. John: Okay partner done; we will make this project a great success! Shekhar: Thanks John. John: Anytime, Shekhar. The project was delivered successfully on time to the US client. Project Manager Shashank celebrated the success of the team at a five-star hotel and rewarded the whole team with a company paid holiday to the US. The team members cheered with joy and hugged each other. Standing in a corner, Shashank looked at the different strokes that made up his team and smiled. Questions: a) Discuss the personality traits of Shekhar and John and identify their personality types. b) Cite some indicators of perceptual errors in the case. c) Identify and analyze the roles played by the members in the group. Why is it important? d) Several transactions took place between Shekhar and John. Depict three of them diagrammatically in terms of ego states.