Leading Teams Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Problem Statement:

Teams face huge problems in their performance in terms of the costs, in the form of time, effort and attention. The problem statement will be “how to manage these issues in order to overcome them” and let the teams work effectively and efficiently.

Data Analysis:

Teams face a lot of issues in today’s interconnected world. The effects of globalization and interdependence have changed the dynamics of the world’s corporate culture. The effects of technology in this regard cannot be ignored. Technology has entirely changed the working patterns of the organizational stakeholders who can be employees, workers, top management, etc. Moreover, the technology has evolved over the years. It keeps on changing and result of which is evident in the form of changing work patterns of the employees.

Teams face huge costs due to the changing dynamics of work environment. These costs are in the form of time, effort and attention. Building teams with these costs is very challenging. Time costs are with respect to the huge time requirements associated with building teams. It takes great effort to overcome these team building issues. A lot of attention is required by the team builders or leaders in order to manage these costs.

Time costs are due to the fact that today’s environment has become very challenging. Teams are made of diverse people who belong to different ethnicities and backgrounds. The participants of the teams belong to different cultures. The chemistry of these diverse groups is hard to merge within the groups. The problem is that these members have diversified contextual backgrounds to different cultural background and they have been accustomed to their culture rituals over their lives and it is hard to challenge this aspect of the teams. It is very difficult to overcome this issue. Effective and efficient teams try their level best to overcome these issues. However,the time taken to overcome this cost is usually long. This delays the effective team building effort.

The team builders or leaders have to proactively resolve the issues arising in the team building in today’s connected world. As discussed in time issues, same are the causes of effort issue.Endeavor is deliberately needed to overcome these issues. Teams cannot run effectively and efficiently if they are not making any effort to overcome the issues in building teams. It is the main responsibility of the team leaders to make efforts in overcoming issues, which are the result of globalization of the markets i.e. issue of time, effort and attention.

Attention is needed to be given to the efforts of overcoming the issues in building teams in today’s world. A leader should put attention towards resolving the issues of the teams.

All these costs have losses not in terms of money, but in terms of non-monetary losses. They take much time, effort and attention to overcome them. These are compulsory to overcome; otherwise teams will not be able to achieve their goals set out by the management with intention to do the work assigned; for example collaborating to bring in new product to the company’s product line, collaborating to bring in new research and development in the organization processes or any other part of it, etc.

These issues will be affecting the ultimate beneficiary of the achievement of the goals by the teams. The ultimate beneficiaries of the team work are the stakeholders of the company. In a team,failure on part of all members of the team would also affect them on the individual level as well as group level.

It affects the individual in terms of bad reputation associated with their inability to overcome the issues and make the teams run effectively. Individually, the members fail to make efforts, spend time and attention to mix the chemistry of different members and bring unification in their style of working. On the group level, again the issue of bad reputation arises as the group is labeled as ineffective in dealing with the issues of team building arising out of any challenges like diversity.

It is a constraint on the part of team management to not to fully overcome the challenges like diversity, changing technology or other challenges fully. Over here,the opportunity lies for the management to overcome these issues and bring the true synergy out of the collaborative culture.

Alternatives:

The team leader has the following alternatives to ponder upon and bring in efficiency and effectiveness by overcoming the issues of costs in terms of time, effort and attention. These alternatives are: