Managing a Global Team - Sun Microsystems, Inc - Assignment Example

University Managing a Global Team A term paper Submitted to Department Student Name Date Executive Summary Sun Microsystems, Inc. has taken the development and increase of software in global operation and distributed teams as its important resource to date. Geographically, it has spread its operations to India, United States, France and United Arab Emirates (UAE). There is an established global team with 45- members dealing with customer implementation issue. Greg James, the Global Manager of Sun has successfully managed the global team for more than a decade. Given the team to manage, he has been looking for clear directions for effective management of his teams. His global teams has increased their closeness to the customers across the globe, enhanced their access to large pool of talent and ensured provision of services at any hour of the day. The “Rule of 11” is an important aspect in the Sun supervision strategy where a manager has a balanced supervision role of eleven subordinates, who report to him accordingly. Despite the potential benefits from Sun global teams, there are major challenges the cross-functional team often face more so in problems that require immediate solutions. A continuous dialogue, consultation, delegation and search for alternatives have been and are still being exercised to ensure performance, reliability, maintainability and cost effectiveness of their services and products. How well has James managed his global team? Managing a global team is a complex process, and currently more complex due to dynamically changing environments and tasks1. However Greg James, has achieved quite success in his role as Global Manager in Sun. Team effectiveness, in Sun has resulted from its multiple perspectives and heterogeneity in tasks, circumstances and functional outcomes. Multiple shared realities have therefore dominated across Sun operation. Zhang observes that delegating authority is an important aspect for the development and effectiveness2. James, has considered on how and when to delegate responsibility and authority to the teams. Delegation implies empowerment and therefore responsibility on a certain activities and niche of control. There is a well defined structure for working and implementing specific activity. With his positional power he has directed, managed and supervised the Sun most important resource; the global team. The experienced competent subordinates has been delegated and held responsible to handle their work independently for the same objectives. Independent decisions from the subordinates have promoted efficiency, products development and support. He has inspired and influenced the teams to achieve the Sun vision of dynamism and efficiency. Also, through delegation and consultation with the subordinates, their skills and confidence has developed.3 Most projects for the global team in Sun requires short-term solutions. Such tasks need to be completed quickly to avoid any productivity loss. In such situation James has reacted to delegate to people who can master the delegated tasks. For instance Rahul Ashok, Nick Elliott and Robert Chan had been in a mission to Santa Clara to trace the source of HS Holdings breakdown. 1. Young, Mary Ann Von Glinow. Managing multinational teams: global perspectives. (Amsterdam Oxford: Elsevier JAI, 2005). 2. Suling Zhang Suling Zhang, et al, “Delegation in Global Software Teams: Leading or Managing?” 2009 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering, 2009. 3. Richard Daft, The leadership experience. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western, 2008. James has developed a global team of 45 members in Sun working regions. The Sun has therefore remained closer to its customers, tapped great talent and offered services around the clock. Diverse and dispersed team understands and responds to customer needs appropriately as Yip and Bik observation.4 Each team has been structured in management where the “Rule of 11” applies across supervisory functions for balance and effective feedback. The online policy for Sun teams enhance that the global team to take over the projects appropriately and his scheduled weekly conference calls have kept the team together. In his discussion he has expressive the aspect of individual as well as group consultation and therefore to reach his decision he effectively utilizes the ideas of different people, both specific and general.5 When they develop or need to implement a new product they have resulted to talent or leadership professionally suited to support the product. He has also demonstrated a critical reception, analysis of team problems in an objective manner. Compare and contrast how the various teams see as the cause of the crisis? The HS Holding incidence is a complex phenomena resulting from management, communication, relationship, defined roles, consultation and time problems.6 The discussion between Greg James and Pam Lawry, the vice president (VP), reveals the challenging issue in Sun global team. With different assigned activities done by specific group, in a different country, there is lack of central point for direction and consultation. 4. George S. Yip, Audrey J.M. Bink, Managing Global Customers: An Integrated Approach. (London: Oxford University Press, 2007). 5. Jean Binder, Global project management communication, collaboration and management across borders. (Aldershot, England Burlington, VT: Gower, 2007). 6. T L, Griffith, et al, “Conflict and Virtual Teams: In Virtual Teams that Work, American Society for Training & Development, (2003) 57:76.  Nick Elliott, the Application Support Engineer, Santa Clara Team, has the primary contact for the account. When James contacted him for an explanation of the late response since he is the one close to HS Holdings and TIC, he explained that no one called him so he learnt the problem the following day. Robert Chan and Nick from Santa Clara think that the Mumbai team dropped the ball. Nick precisely thinks that the programmed queue error is either by Jamal in Dubai or Praveen in Mumbai. They also failed to resolve the problem or timely contact Nick. Rahul Ashok, Customer Service Manager, Mumbai Team, had earlier explained to James that Praveen Devilal paged the on-call after-hours US manager three times, and in his rush to reach the on-call manager, he used the weekday contact protocol instead of weekend protocol since California was still weekend. The problem to James as he continued in the dialogue expressed that the protocol procedures was not the main issue. His further discussion with Devilal had revealed an ongoing soar relationship between Nick and Praveen. Praveen had felt insulted by Nick, when he overheard him say that Indian team was not competent. He resulted to fix the problem with his Indian colleagues instead of contacting Nick. However, information about the client was not in their support queue so he could not access it though he tried it regularly. With the phone number he had for HS Holding disconnected, the matter turned out worse. Praveen and Rahul blamed Jamal, the Dubai engineer who poorly programmed the queue, then failed to notify the appropriate people in time. According to Jamal, the queue he had created was not to be used for emergency requests. The Mumbai, to him are the people responsible for programming customer emergencies programs. Therefore the miscommunication which arose from the US, UAE and India about what the queue should do, was contentious. US wanted to streamline the way that missing account numbers were assigned to projects. They requested Rahul to get it programmed from his team but it ended up being done in Dubai. Ahmed Nazr, the manager for Dubai had the program checked and there was no problem identified before it went live. James summed up that both Dubai and Mumbai were working on the wrong instructions. On Lawry view, Greg team members were acting like separate teams, and therefore Greg James is to blame. “Build consensus, everyone fully engaged and keep it simple, manage desperate voices”. This means, that James has not succeeded in building a common team character and problem solving style.7 Nick had failed to update the contact number a few months ago when the contact person at HS Holdings moved departments. Elisabeth had dealt with upset HS Holdings manager and her phone calls to James and Nick were unsuccessful. The US team did not answer her calls and on her part, Santa Clara team was always the hardest to reach and slowest to respond. Nick Elliott is responsible for HS Holdings crisis. His reactions are criticized from Mumbai, he fails to update the customer’s contacts, the HS contact person. And his team is slow in response and always hard to reach as Elisabeth sees. As argued by Wagner, global team needs to be rational and objective in problem solving.8 7. Serce, F C, et al, “Exploring Collaboration Patterns among Global Software Development Teams”, Fourth IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering. IEEE, 2009. 8. Kimberly Harris Wagner, “An investigation of conflict management in global virtual teams”, (Los Angeles: University of California, 2002). What role did open work environment and diversity play in the case? How? The globalized economy has integrated the crucial role of geographically distributed teams across the world. The most important aspects of Sun success by design team are organizational, technological and personal. As argued by Klein this has ensured the accomplishment of the objectives, since the issue of cultural differences and long distances prevailing for Sun has been dealt with by “Open Work”.9 Through the “Open Work” Sun has got diverse employees contact, who work at multiple time zones. The choices presented to their employees to either function within the workplaces location, at home or between the alternative has created flexible work schedules, better structures for a balanced professional and social life activities for the employees. With the provision of technologies, tools, and support processes, most of their global employees work from anyplace, at any time and with whichever technology available to them. Thus 35% of all their employees work at their convenient location, with nearly 60% participating in the” Open Work” program in 2008. The program has reduced the use of real estate holdings by more than 15%, saving to a half-a-billion dollars. Reduced operating costs have resulted and promotion of eco-responsible systems has been promoted through the green approach to business idea. They have enhanced customer satisfaction and strong productivity. Other aspects that global team management deals with is offering training for managers and employees and providing resources for home-based employees.10 9. Janice A Klein, et al, “One foot in a global team, one foot at the local site: Making sense out of living in two worlds simultaneously”, Virtual teams, 8: (2001)107-125. 10. Donald D, Davis, and Janet L Bryant, “Influence at a distance: Leadership in global virtual teams” Advances in global leadership 3: (2003) 303-340. What should James do in the short and long term? James has to deal with critical phenomena that can result due to compromised working relationships, individual contribution, trust, communications, organization, accountability and productivity. The short-term needs in Sun that James needs to tackle can in streamlining some necessary aspects. First, he needs to build consensus as way to overcome communication barriers and cultivate trust among team members.11 To minimize unproductive conflicts more so with the Santa Clara and Mumbai and encourage cooperation trust is of essence. In the team, he needs to set norms and behavior which members must agree to uphold as they communicate. Though there are divergent perspectives, foster creativity, and comprehensive search and assessment options, the Sun team need to integrate these perspectives and come to a single solution. As Parker observes, James, need to clarify on each and the whole team objectives. With this, the goals of each individual team members need to be well aligned to avoid overlapping roles.12 He would also consider creating a role where a single competent person receive, analyze and direct the problem appropriately across the teams rather than complex string of communication. This is due to high-speed decision making needed and the high risk involved with poor-quality decisions. This role has to be emphasized and applied with effect. According to Lane, communication process needs to be made precise and simple so that the team can deliver effectively.13 11. Dana Mansour-Cole, et al, “Team identity formation in virtual teams: In Virtual teams”, Ed, Elsevier Science/JAI Press. (2001): 41-58. 12. Barbara Parker, Introduction to globalization and business relationships and responsibilities. (London Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE, 2005).  13. Henry W. Lane, et al, International management behavior leading with a global mindset”, (Chichester, West Sussex Hoboken, and N.J: Wiley, 2009).  The long-term requirements include the process, learning and rescheduling as Fulk discusses.11 Effective coaching and monitoring is needed to be given to the delegates to avoid assigning the urgent tasks to those who quickly master them. This ought to be a long-term vision, where he has to be patient with the delegates learning process. Thus James will coordinate the information and critical resources across the geographical locations. He needs to enhance the desired skills and knowledge of other team and consider them before implementing an issue. This is for creating balance, where the aspects of favoritism decreases and imbalanced remuneration decrease. As Oertig and Buergi observes, the team would also need a coach to ensure progressive necessary knowledge and skills.14 Since they work on same project, but from different cultural backgrounds the diversity can be managed by a neutral outsider. An external consultant would ensure critical analysis of team problem and recommend unbiased ideas for efficiency. 15 This has to be continuous to avoid discrepancies and stoppage in the processes. James will also have to manage team processes by adopting decisions driven by data, rotating and diffusing meeting locations and team leadership, scheduling face-to-face meetings and developing alternative that enrich debates.16 He has to effectively fix the conflicting expectations of global managers. Towards delegation and its effects there has been a conflict on imbalances on decision making process of Sun. This has been expressed by how James favors the U.S counterparts more than the other global teams. 14. Janet Fulk, et al, “Knowledge resource sharing in dispersed multinational teams: Three theoretical lenses”, Managing Multinational Teams Global Perspectives. Elsevier Ltd, 2005. 15. Margaret Oertig, and Thomas Buergi, “Fostering creativity in global virtual teams: Conversations with team leaders: In Higher creativity for virtual teams Developing platforms for cocreation,” Ed. (2007): 123-137. 13. Whitney Quesenbery, Global UX design and research in a connected world. (Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2012). Conclusion High successful performance of multinational corporation goals largely depends on the quality of management by the leader, due to the tremendous pressure, competition that might lead to loss of customers and find solutions to the team troubles. It is practically impossible for James to cultivate global mind-set, exploit the global scale and scope economies and maximize knowledge transfer, without mastering and understanding the management of Sun global team. Bibliography Binder, Jean. Global project management communication, collaboration and management across borders. Aldershot, England Burlington, VT: Gower, 2007. Daft, Richard. The leadership experience. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western, 2008.  Davis, Donald D, and Janet L Bryant. Influence at a distance: Leadership in global virtual teams. Advances in global leadership 3: (2003) 303-340. Fulk, Janet, Peter Monge, and Andrea Hollingshead. Knowledge resource sharing in dispersed multinational teams: Three theoretical lenses. Ed.Multinational Teams Global Perspectives. Elsevier Ltd, 2005. Griffith, T L, E A Mannix, and M A Neale. Conflict and Virtual Teams. In Virtual Teams that Work, American Society for Training & Development ed. (2003): 57:76.  Klein, Janice A, Betty J Barrett, MM Beyerlein, and ST Beyerlein. One foot in a global team, one foot at the local site: Making sense out of living in two worlds simultaneously. In Virtual teams, Ed. 8 (2001):107-125. Lane, Henry W., Martha Maznevski, Joerg Deetz, Joseph Distefano. International management behavior leading with a global mindset. Chichester, West Sussex Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2009.  Mansour-Cole, Dana, MM Beyerlein, Douglas A Johnson, and ST Beyerlein. Team identity formation in virtual teams. In Virtual teams, ed. (2001): 41-58. Elsevier Science/JAI Press.  Oertig, Margaret, and Thomas Buergi. Fostering creativity in global virtual teams: Conversations with team leaders. In Higher creativity for virtual teams Developing platforms for cocreation, ed. (2007): 123-137. Information Science Reference/IGI Global.  Parker, Barbara. Introduction to globalization and business relationships and responsibilities. London Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE, 2005. Quesenbery, Whitney. Global UX design and research in a connected world. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2012. Serce, F C, F N Alpaslan, K Swigger, R Brazile, G Dafoulas, V Lopez, and R Schumacker. Exploring Collaboration Patterns among Global Software Development Teams. 2009 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering. Ieee 2009.  Wagner, Kimberly Harris. An investigation of conflict management in global virtual teams. Los Angeles: University of California, 2002. Yip, George S., Audrey J.M. Bink. Managing Global Customers: An Integrated Approach. London: Oxford University Press, 2007. Young, Mary Ann Von Glinow. Managing multinational teams: global perspectives. Amsterdam Oxford: Elsevier JAI, 2005. Zhang, Suling Zhang Suling, M Tremaine, A E Milewski, and F Kobler. Delegation in Global Software Teams: Leading or Managing? 2009 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering, 2009. Read More