Level 6 Teamwork

Scenario:

A daily newspaper is changing from an afternoon to a morning delivery schedule. This change affects every employee, from the editor to the delivery people. The paper will have a 10:00 P.M. press deadline, and the reporters will be unable to write complete stories for many evening sports events, cultural events, and community meetings. The editor has told the team of five reporters to propose a revised schedule of assignments. This schedule should take into account each reporter's area of expertise and still ensure that all important stories are covered by the deadline.

When the team meets to discuss this schedule, a major concern is how to make the evening stories as timely as possible within the new time constraints. Team members offer several suggestions regarding how to shift assignments around to accommodate the deadline. One of the reporters insists on covering only the political stories, which are his particular interest. Another reporter argues that the political reporter should help out the sports writer by preparing background material in the afternoon for the evening's sports stories. The political reporter refuses, saying that he wasn't hired to work on sports and doesn't know anything about them. The sports writer complains that the change to a morning edition is the whole problem, that coverage of evening sports events is going to be ruined, and that management doesn't know what they are doing. The cultural reporter agrees and adds that he is thinking about finding a job elsewhere. The society reporter retorts that he should do just that; she hates doing the society stories and would take the cultural assignment in a minute.