can This Virtual Team work?
Jim Towne heads a newly formed information technology team for a
major international corporation. The team is composed of 20 profession-
als who live and work in canada, the United states, europe, south
america, africa, and australia. all members of the team report to Jim.
The team is a virtual team connected primarily via videoconference,
group decision-support software, e-mail, text, and telephone. The team
has met twice in a face-to-face setting to set goals and plan. all of the
team members are quite competent in their respective technical areas.
some team members have a long and valued history with the company;
others have recently joined the company through a corporate merger.
The team members have never worked together on any projects.
The task of the team is to develop and implement technology innova-
tions for all global business units. The team members are excited about
the importance and the innovative nature of their assignment. They
respect each other and enjoy being part of this team. however, the team
is having difficulty getting off the ground, and the members report
being extremely overloaded. Most team members travel to business sites
at least 2 weeks each month. The travel is important, but it causes team
members to get farther behind.
The team has one half-time secretary, located in new york. her primary
responsibility is to organize travel and meetings of team members. Team
members are working on several projects at once and have great diffi-
culty finishing any of the projects. one team member has 500 unread
e-mail messages because each team member sends copies of all messages
to everyone on the team. Jim is under great pressure to prove that this
team can work and provide a valuable function to the organization.
Questions
- Which of the eight characteristics (Table 14.1) of team excellence are
lacking in this team?
- What specific leadership functions should Jim implement to improve
the team? Why?
………………..Answer Preview………………
Several characteristics lacking in the team can be attributed to the low effectiveness of the team that is currently being experienced. The first of this is the standards of excellence. These are normally limits that are set by a team leader or a team as a whole to help govern their working (Northouse, 2015). These limits often act as guidelines for what is supposed to be achieved within a certain period of time……
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