Managing a Global Team - Essay Example

James was an effective and brilliant leader to which he sought to carry on the same to the operations of Sun Microsystems, but he had not prepared himself for the reality that dwelled in the company (Tsedal and Delong 3). However, James managed his global team effectively as he conducted conference calls on every week at a usual time in order for the team to receive updates on the status of operations. Despite him allocating time for these video conference calls, the Indian team felt as though they were not party to the global operations of the company as the addressing of their concerns were always last on the agenda sheet.

Further, the time difference also proved ineffective for the Indian team as they felt that the time allocated by James for the weekly conference calls were at a time considered by many to be family time. James also failed to understand the causes of the failure to meet deadlines with the Middle East team and was quick to pass judgement that they were incompetent and that he was inconsiderate to the French team. The implication of this was that the US team was his favorite as he considered them more competent as compared to the other teams hence making James to have poorly managed his global teams (Tsedal and Delong 10). 2. .

The other companies that supply HS Holdings with software and hardware could have also been liable for the losses as this was not entirely Sun Company’s fault (12). Further, James is responsible for this crisis because he did not treat the Indian team with the regard that they required hence making them not to work in tandem with the organizational goals of Sun Microsystems. 3. What role did the “Open Work” environment play in the case? The ‘open work’ policy was a program that allowed employees to work across different time zones by incorporating technology, support systems, and apparatus by using technology that would make this process achievable.

The application of this program by Sun Microsystems began in 1995 where the physical presence of an employee was not necessary in ensuring that the company was operational (7). This led Sun to reduce its housing fixed assets by a significant percentage, which also translated to the saving of millions of dollars. The application of the ‘open work’ program in this case was in terms of the recruitment of team members in the Far East countries as many worked from home while others worked at Sun’s facilities, which registered efficiency and cost reduction (8).

James also made use of the video conferencing facility, which allowed him to schedule meetings with all team members at the same time making the Company to save on the travel expenses for the global team manager. Therefore, the ‘open work’ program applied by Sun through James served as a cost reduction measure and a uniting factor for the global team members. 4. What role did diversity play on this team? In this case, diversity played an important role in the recruitment of the global team members as James recruited