Case Study: Mutiny at the Office
The situation involved a small work team, eight staff and a new manager. The new manager was
a former colleague of about half of the team, although they hadn't worked together in a few
years. The new manager was brought in to replace a manager who had retired and who was very
well liked.
About six months after the new manager assumed the role, the team effectively mutinied. They
refused to work for the new manager, telling the director that this manager had imposed new
rules on them, ignored their knowledge and ability to do the job, treated them like children, and
didn't listen to any of their concerns or complaints. They refused to take assignments that they
didn't want, didn't make sense to them, or were different from the assignments they were used to.
The team believed that the new manager was incompetent and shouldn’t even be a manager,
wanted him to be reassigned, and wanted a new manager, ideally someone from the team of
eight, appointed.
The manager saw the situation very differently, believing that the departing manager had been
popular mainly because he hadn't managed the team, but let them get away with doing whatever
they wanted. Work efficiency had been low, there had been conflict within the team over tasks
and roles, and there had even been some anonymous complaints that people had been leaving
early or coming in late without anything being done about it. What the new manager had done, in
his own view, was to simply enforce the rules of the workplace the way they were written.
A mediator was brought in and everyone was interviewed. It became clear that, to a large degree,
both parties were right. The new manager was behaving rigidly and didn't spend much time
listening to the team members. He was intent on “whipping the team into shape.” In doing so, he
had lost the respect of the team. The team was clearly used to doing whatever it wanted, as the
previous manager had let the team handle work assignments and job duties on their own, rarely
getting involved unless things became truly chaotic. The team was used to making a lot of their
own decisions, frequently ending up with solutions that were inefficient but catered to the desires
of one or two of the more senior team members.