The Chattanooga Ice Cream Division Case

Context and Background of the Case
The Chattanooga Ice Cream was one of the three divisions of Chattanooga Food Corporation. Since 1992 the sales flattered and profits declined consistently. While US per capita consumption of ice cream diminished, the competition in its market increased considerably. In order to remediate the division’s performance, Chattanooga Ice Cream took several actions which included the promotion of Charles Moore to head of the division in 1993, the hiring of a new vice president of marketing, Barry Walkins, and of Stephanie Krane to upgrade the division’s information systems and control function, the introduction of a line of frozen yogurt and the closing of its original …show more content…

As the senior executives do not trust each other, they do not engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict
• Lack of commitment: because of the fear of conflict, team member do not fully express themselves during meetings and they will not feel like they have been listened. Consequently, they will not buy in decision.
• Avoidance of accountability: because they do not buy-in, they do not hold accountable for the decisions taken
As a consequence of these five dysfunctions, the team members act as solo performers trying to defend their ego instead of work towards a common goal.
Recommendations
It is evident that no matter what decision Moore takes to revert to situation of the division, no agreement or at least no real accountability for any agreement will be reached until the heads of department start working as a real team. Some actions that he could take to turn this into a team effort are:
• He could hire an expert on team building to organize a workshop far from the office where each team member can do an individual self assessment and a self-assessment as a team in order to create a trustworthiness environment. They need to understand the dynamic of a team.
• Since no one does a self assessment of their own department, he could ask each of the team members to come up with the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of their own department. Then, he should lead the team to do an assessment of the strengths, weaknesses and