Dispersed Team Dynamics - Term Paper Example

Dispersed Team Dynamics: Leadership Development Summary of needed organizational resources, including organizational cost of changes and potential savings In order to introduce virtual teams and telework into the workplace of Global Digital Voice Plus (GDVP) effectively, it is necessary for the management to depend on various organizational resources. As discussed in the previous course works, creating a team culture of trust and building collaborative workplace relationships are essential to ensure the success of virtual teams. According to Ferrel and Herb (2012), communication networks constitute and integral pattern of interpersonal relationship, which is vital to facilitate information sharing within an organization or workgroup. Hence, promoting interactions between the colleagues in a virtual team is inevitable to develop communication networks. For this, the virtual team leaders must necessarily employ advanced communication technologies like Wi-Fi, instant messaging, and video chats. The effective application of technological developments would assist the leader to keep in touch with the team members constantly and to foster communicative relationships among them. Similarly, the team leader may establish an intranet facility for the team and this in turn would encourage the team members to communicate with one another more openly. It may be good for dispersed teams to hire external consultants to develop improved leadership in the virtual team environment. Such consultants are likely well aware of the digital technologies rather than face to face communication and team building methods to promote virtual team leadership. Buono (2004, p.144) reflects that the team leader can use the consultant’s expertise and experience to foster knowledge/information sharing in the workgroup environment. It is evident that the use of advanced technologies and hiring of external management consultants would incur additional costs for organizations. In case of digital communication networks and other technologies, the organization needs to spend further for maintenance and updation purposes, and this situation may increase the overall operating costs of the business. In addition, the company may have to raise additional funds to finance face to face orientation meetings and other workshop programs designed to improve interpersonal communication among the team members. Although the virtual team development requires such additional investments, this initial spending would benefit organizations to improve the performance efficiency of teams and to increase the operating revenues in the long run. To be more specific, when mutual trust and communicative relationships are improved in the virtual team environment, the team members tend to engage more actively in their work tasks, and this situation may increase the overall employee productivity. Increased employee productivity is certainly a major determinant of team success. Methods for ascertaining the changes return on investment (ROI) and success Once the virtual teams and telework are introduced and the operations are in full swing, the GDVP management has to ensure that the changes implemented are successful and they provide a fair rate of return on investment. From the case study, it is clear that the firm’s managers currently follow different leadership styles. To illustrate, three-fourth of the managers rely on an empowered management approach and encourage knowledge sharing, inter-departmental relationships, and task delegation whereas the remaining one-fourth of the managers want their suggestion simply adopted by their subordinates without questions or much discussion. Hence, it is vital for the GDVP management to make sure that these differences in management culture would not affect the performance of newly established dispersed teams. The GDVP management may rely on the performance appraisal system to ascertain the success of the changes implemented. However, it is inevitably important for the management to ensure the fairness and uprightness of the performance evaluation techniques used because virtual team members are distributed globally and belong to different cultures and backgrounds (Management study guide). Runion and McDermott (2012) indicate that before implementing a performance appraisal process, the virtual team leader must set clearly defined SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-specific) goal for the team members (p.52). Those goals should be absolutely result-oriented without any chance for subjective assessment. According to Edwards and Wilson, (2004, p.72), the success criteria must also be developed, and mutually accepted by both the team leader and team members before the project is actually launched. Such an initial arrangement can greatly aid the organizational management to employ different performance measurement tools effectively so as to obtain a clear picture of the individual employee performance as well as the overall team performance. Likewise, the top management may require the virtual team leaders to submit work reports periodically to assess their operational efficiency. Finally, it is very important to analyze the return on investment at regular intervals to make certain that the virtual teams add value to net profitability. As the company currently operates globally with its manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, R&D units, and call centers distributed worldwide, measuring the revenues generated by virtual teams accurately is not an easy task. Therefore, it is recommendable for the GDVP management to compare its previous financial reports with the financial outcomes obtained after integrating virtual teams into the company network. Such analysis can assist the organization to identify the additional revenues generated (if any) after the introduction of dispersed teams. A analytical description (including rationale why used) of the team’s a) team philosophy, structure and operating procedures, b) leadership and management style used, c) communication system and infrastructure, including IT tools, d) collaborating methods and processes, and e) assessment method The team philosophy is based on collaborative working and all the operations of the team were structured in such a way to foster shared efforts. The team leaders took great efforts to ensure that all the team members completely understand the operating procedures used and are well informed of the final outcomes expected. This policy assisted the team members to build trust in others. Similarly, the team leaders adopted a democratic leadership style to deal with team members and to manage this project. They were eager to listen to the team members and to consider their needs and opinions with extreme care and personal involvement. The team deployed contemporary communication technologies such as WhatsApp and Skype and some other traditional IT tools like e-mail and text messages to interact with one another and to facilitate information sharing. In order to build collaborative work relationship among the team members, all the members passed their cell phone numbers to others and a private group was created in a social networking website including all the team members. The parts of the work completed by individual team members were integrated to form the final project. Then the team leaders assessed the final project to ensure that it is capable of giving the readers a detailed view of the case discussed. References Buono, A. F. (2004). Creative Consulting: Innovative Perspectives on Management Consulting. US: IAP Edwards, A & Wilson, J. R. (2004). Implementing Virtual Teams: A Guide to Organizational and Human Factors. US: Gower Publishing, Ltd. Ferrell, J. Z & Herb, K. C. (2012). Improving Communication in Virtual Teams. SIOP White Paper Series. Retrieved from http://www.siop.org/WhitePapers/Visibility/VirtualTeams.pdf Management study guide. Performance Appraisal System for Virtual Teams. Retrieved from http://www.managementstudyguide.com/performance-appraisal-system-for-virtual-teams.htm Runion, M & McDermott, L. (2012). Perfect Phrases for Virtual Teamwork: Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases for Fostering Collaboration at a Distance. US: McGraw Hill Professional. Read More