Essay: Organisational Behaviour: An Analysis Of A Team-Based Approach To Working In The Case Of Phil Jones

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to discuss at length and critically evaluate group and team development and behavioural theories in practice, with reference to the case study concerning Phil Jones and his Gulf Project Team, within Engineering Co, evaluating if a team based approach to work is effective within organisations. It firstly establishes to what extent Phil Jones’ analysis of his group’s current situation is accurate, referring Tuckman and Jensen’s stages of group development in evaluating this. Then it discusses the possible interventions that could be made by Phil to allow his team to get back on track, and reach the performing stage of team development. It is then noted that a possible intervention that could assist the team in reaching this stage is to become a virtual team. The potential issues facing virtual teams are then evaluated, and are contrasted with the issues faced by Phil Jones’ team, with possible solutions offered to issues facing such virtual teams and virtual team leaders, allowing them to reach the performing stage. Finally this essay critically analyses the strengths and weaknesses of a team-based approach to work as a whole, drawing from Phils Jones’ case, a range of literature, and anecdotal experience to conclude that the use of a team-based approach to work can be an effective way of working, through the use of strong e-leadership skills and technology to manage teams virtually.

Introduction

In contemporary society a team-based approach to working is becoming evermore common (Callanhan, 2004), and has become prominent among project teams in the engineering industry (Schaffer et al, 2012). Hence it is unsurprising that a project team; a group of individuals whom come together for an individual task, disbanding after its conclusion (Poel, Stoker and Van der Zee, 2014), is used in Phil Jones’ case for the Gulf Project within Engineering Co. Despite the high popularity of a team-based approach to project work, it is debatable if such approaches are the most efficient way of working, due to the myriad of issues which can arise amongst a team due to poor leadership, leading to them struggling to perform. However when teams succeed the benefits of a team-based approach to project work are reaped (Terry, 1999). Hence through an analysis of group and team development, discussion of interventions made to aid team development, and an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of a team-based approach, with reference to Phil Jones’ case, it can be established if a team-based approach to project work is effective within organisations in modern society.

Tuckman and Jensen’s Stages of Group Development in the Case of Phil Jones

Initially Phil Jones lacked the training to deal with people issues amongst the group and lead his team. Initially it must be noted that teams and groups are defined differently. A group consists of a number of individuals all of whom accomplish their tasks independently, which have a similar purpose (Gilley and Kerno Jr, 2010). Smith (1967) also gives the description of a group saying that it is two or more individuals who collaborate, share common objectives and norms and have a communal identity. Although different researchers, both give a similar description of a group in that individuals still have common goals. The definition of a team is very similar to a group, however; a group may not be a team but a team may be a group. Hence these terms cannot be used interchangeably. Baldwin et al (2008) defined a team as a group of individuals who have a great amount intercommunication and interdependence, sharing equal responsibility in their appointed objective. The clear difference between a group and a team is therefore the higher level of interdependence and equal responsibility a team has in achieving their objective.

To remedy his teams’ issues, to make them stop working as a group and start working as a team, Phil read about the stages of group development (Tuckman 1965). Tuckman and Jensen (1977), defined five group development stages, the initial two of which are; forming (Tuckman 1965); when team members get to know each other; unlikely to disagree with their teammates to avoid conflict at an early stage, and storming; defined by Bonebright (2009), as involving disagreements; with frictions in the group as the individual roles and tasks of team members can be unclear, leading to work moving slower than anticipated and team tensions. Phil concluded his group was stuck at the storming stage, and struggled to see how to resolve conflict and reach stages three, four and five defined by Tuckman and Jensen (1977) as; norming; where group members understand their roles and goals, feeling belonging among the team; storming; where the group works effectively as one, building on each others strengths and weaknesses, and finally adjourning; where the group completes their project, evaluates and disbands.

Using Tuckman and Jensen’s 1977 stages of group development conclusively Phil’s diagnosis of the situation is correct, as there are similarities between the storming stage of group development and Phil’s teams position. The case study exemplifies the transition of the team from the forming stage to the storming stage. Phil generated competition within the team, as in his opinion a team needs disagreements to achieve creative innovative ideas. Phil’s point of view is that teams need some debate, as this is what happens among teams in the storming stage, in order to reach the norming stage. Instead of this, the team ended up with more issues than accomplishments, getting stuck in the storming stage, resulting in Phil having to deal with more disputes between team members than project developments. This is common; according to Gersick (1988) many teams end up being stuck in the storming stage, never moving onto the performing stage due to poor management of disputes by leaders like Phil. Hence the project is falling behind due to the lack of clarity of instruction regarding team members roles from Phil as a leader, leading to multiple members completing the same work, resulting in a waste of capital and time. Fapohunda (2013) claims clarity is one of the main elements that concerns team members at storming stage, stating it is often the cause of all disputes regarding roles within in the team. This suggests that due to poor leadership from Phil through misguided attempts to bring the group together through conflict, to gain a sense of belonging as found in the norming stage, interventions are needed to overcome mistakes made by Phil to get out of the storming stage.

Hackman’s Team Leadership Mistakes In the Case Of Phil Jones

Hackman’s work (1998) is used to show the common mistakes made with teams, all of which are a common feature in the Gulf Project Team at Engineering Co. One of the obvious mistakes defined by Hackman (1998) and displayed by Phil Jones is attempting to build a team by managing them as individuals, encouraging members to lack communication with each other, hampering the norming stages characteristic of team spirit. In Phil’s team this is difficult to avoid, as the physical distance of the members placed in different locations hampers any attempt from Phil to motivate members not only communicate with him; the only member to have physically met everyone, but to communicate with each other to gain a sense of team belonging. This leads to another mistake featured in Hackman’s 1998 work, exemplified by The Gulf Project Team; a lack of agreement regarding roles, authority, and boundaries for all team members. This issue is also difficult to avoid within Phil’s team, as it is harder for the team to agree on limitations, delegation and boundaries if they can’t physically meet and work things out, suggesting that distance has again hampered the teams communication and sense of belonging. This exemplifies a further mistake made on Phil’s part featured in Hackman’s 1998 work; a clear lack of planning and execution of tasks. To resolve this Phil must show organisational skill, delegating work effectively, to stop time being wasted through duplicated work, fracturing the teams’ sense of belonging further.

The final mistake shown by Phil Jones featured in Hackman’s 1998 work, is assuming all the members of the ‘team’ have the necessary skills to work together, despite being a diverse group from multiple cultural backgrounds, who are unknown to each other. Phil shows poor leadership regarding his cultural awareness surrounding his authority and responsibility in decision-making, and is naïve, being “sure everything would somehow have fallen into place as at first people appeared to be committed to the project and the team”. The forming stage is crucial to team development. By distancing himself from this stage, encouraging team conflict over team belonging despite members’ diversity in the teams’ early stages, he has created a fractured team. He must rectify this; as workplace diversity is becoming increasingly important in society (Parham and Muller, 2008). Phil must not see this as an issue to progress, and accept today’s workforce is diversified. Instead of taking a Laissez-Faire approach, he must look to use this as an advantage, working to integrate cultures to produce the end result.

Phil is correct that his team is still in the storming stage of Tuckman’s stages development; hence he must address such mistakes. Phil must show leadership in the initial stages of getting the team back on track ensuring that until the team is norming it does not control itself, accepting delegation and clarity of roles and working practice. Once the team has a better understanding of each other he can allow them more freedom, as Matsudaira (2016) states “being a good leader means allowing the people around you to be experts in their domains”. Hence through understanding his team members and delegating efficiently Phil can get the best out of everyone, by drawing on motivation theories using social identity to get the best out of the team, giving each member a task suited to their skills they can be proud of. Lewis (2011) states social identity “refers to the desire of individuals to strive to maintain some perceived distinctiveness”. Hence if through interventions all dispersed group members can be motivated to take pride in the work through motivational leadership and a feeling of belonging through their role in the team, there will be no duplication of work and less conflict. Hence a key intervention Phil Jones could use to remedy all such issues and allow team to perform, and hence work as a team efficiently is the use of a virtual team.

The Use Of Virtual Project Teams To Reach The Performing Group Development Stage

A virtual team is defined as “a group of people who interact through interdependent tasks guided by common purpose and work across space, time, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by information, communication, and transport technologies” (Gassman and Von Zedtwitz, 2003 p.244). Hence though leading a team in person is difficult (Lilian 2014), virtual project team leaders face greater issues. Kayworth and Leidner (2002) found virtual project teams face similar issues to traditional teams, more strongly in virtual settings, coupled with challenges linked to dispersion of members, high reliance on technology and strong communication. Consequently specific leadership strategies are needed. The strategy utilized by managers of virtual teams is e-leadership, defined as “a social influence process, mediated by advanced information technologies, to produce a change in attitudes, feelings, thinking, behaviour and/or performance with individuals, groups or organisations” (Avolio, Kahai and Dodge, 2001 p.617). Hence e-leaders utilize technology to resolve virtual team issues by influencing team behaviour, as the goals of leadership; motivation, vision, determination and innovation (Spicker, 2012) are unchanged, however the mediums implemented to resolve issues are vastly different in virtual project teams.

The initial issue e-leaders face when managing a virtual project team is distance. Distance in a virtual team is established by geography, time zone, and familiarity among team members. In Phil’s case, geography and time zone impeded the team’s success, as though cultural differences were the reason why Phil was the key communicator in the team, to some extent the issue of coordinating an appropriate time for group communication due to differing time zones hampered simultaneous work, proving detrimental in motivating the team to communicate with each other individually. Studies show this assumption. Cummings (2011) found differing work hours caused by time zones burdens team members and leaders. Such levels of dispersion of team members as in Phil’s case can hinder team members familiarity with each other, as he is the only person on the team to have communicated with all team members, reducing social familiarity, which is important to how teams operate (Zaccaro and Bader, 2002). To remedy this e-leaders can address distance by responding quickly to distance specific issues regarding deadlines, then finding a good time to use virtual meeting software, enhancing feelings of closeness through diverse technologies, achieving team performance and greater organisational values. Hence in Phil’s case making the team virtual would be positive in this aspect, as the use of technology would aid the team’s success as schedules and deadlines could easily be accessed by all. Furthermore greater feeling of closeness among team members through the use of virtual meetings could be made, allowing team members to contact each other directly, rather than through Phil.

Though physical distance can be remedied through this, cultural diversity regarding national culture, and values caused by dispersion requires other strategies to be taken. Diversity can be problematic as like in Phil’s case cultural expectations regarding work ethic, work execution and job roles can vary regionally (Burnelle, 2012), causing friction, misunderstandings and fractured communication in the team, with further difficulties when there is a language barrier. E-leaders can solve issues related to cultural diversity by designing team-building sessions through technological mediums to ensure team members understand each other’s cultural differences. They can also address ambiguous online communications, ensuring no misunderstandings. Furthermore promoting a sense of belonging in a virtual team keeps members engaged and stops feelings of isolation from the rest of the team, reducing in and out groups (Leonard, 2011). Therefore through accommodating diversity through teambuilding and technology Phil would be best making his project team virtual as it reduces cultural frictions, and improves members sense of belonging.

Though diversity can cause communication errors within a virtual team, such errors can also be caused by technological breakdowns and, as in Phil’s case; a lack of clarity given by leaders regarding the roles and behavioural expectations of team members, leading to work being completed incorrectly. Hence if the qualities of effective communication; “quantity, frequency and accuracy of information exchange” (Gallenkamp et al 2011, p.8) are unfulfilled, communication breakdowns occur, causing frictions and hampering the team’s success as in Phil’s team. Communication is difficult in a virtual team, as face-to-face communication is omitted from most communicative mediums, potentially deterring emphasis on certain points. The lack of face-to-face contact may cause interactions to lose social or contextual information (Purvanova and Bono, 2009), such as a member’s higher professional status, or higher level of expertise on a subject. Hence to resolve such issues, e-leaders must ensure it becomes habit to team members to maintain continuous contact with each other, and analysing communications to ensure clarity is given regarding roles and expectations. Video-chat technologies can mediate this issue. Hence by making his team virtual Phil could resolve his teams and his own communicative issues.

Hence by improving communication e-leaders create social belonging within a virtual team, eventually creating trust. Trust is important within virtual teams as it motivates individual members to fulfil their role, building dependability (Uber Grosse, 2002). If trust is not achieved conflicts and low group satisfaction occur, deterring the team’s chance of success, as in Phil’s case. E-leaders can create trust through video-chats and electronic meeting systems, promoting communication, joint-efforts and a shared understanding of team issues. Hence through motivating his team to communicate effectively and hence building trust through technological mediums, over-coming distance and diversity, Phil could bring his team to performing stage as a virtual team, by becoming an e-leader. Therefore the use of project teams can be effective within modern society, should a virtual team be used due to recent technological innovations.

Strengths and Weaknesses Of A Team Based Approach to Work

However even when using a virtual team there are strengths and weaknesses of a team based approach to work, within a group of individuals. Some may say a team-based approach to work is far more effective than accomplishing a complex task individually. This is because several people can divide the work up, decreasing individual workload and providing many different ideas to cope with the complexity of a task. Wageman (1997) stated several viewpoints are more suitable when the task is complicated. This is also supported by Klein (2005) stating multiple people are required to carry out a task if the workload is extravagant. Working in a team on a complex task also increases levels of creativity when completing a task. Amabile, et al. (1996) states teamwork increases creativity, as members all have different and diverse backgrounds, combined with the fact that members’ ideas are challenged by others within the team to reach common goals. Furthermore Moreland (2006) explains that working in a team will increase the ability of members’ to specifically remember and recall important project information to reach common goals. This is because members of a group are aware of each other and remember different pieces of information better than other members would. If a member forgets a piece of information another may remember and be able to recall it due to goal interdependence. The degree of goal interdependence will have a significant impact on all members of a team. If there is a high level of objective interdependence, this will enhance team members’ execution of current tasks (Emans, et al., 2001). The authors believe that a high degree of goal interdependence promotes cooperation amongst group members, hence improving performance when carrying out projects. Furthermore Emans, et al. (2001) states that this greater execution of interdependent tasks is positively correlated to group members job satisfaction.

However using a team is not always the most efficient method to complete a task, as each member of the team has a different perspective. Therefore, in team discussions, each team member will have different perceptions, which makes decision time-consuming. Hinsz, et al. (2003) noted how teams are very contemplative in operation; hence their time to make a decision is very slow; whereas an individual’s decision-making process is much faster. Cognitive thinking is also impeded due to the way people communicate in teams (Cooke, et al., 2013). Diehl and Stroebe (1987) elaborated saying that communication of ideas and knowledge interrupts cognitive thinking by preventing other team members from creating ideas. This is so as one person in a team talks at a time, hence planting their idea first and mitigating others thoughts. Members also suffer from being able to challenge a group decision once it is already being carried out. Hence even if the decision is working out poorly, group individuals will generally fail at proposing alternative strategies. Hinsz (2015) stated that teams cause members to lose their own self-awareness and even if a member has knowledge that a team decision is incorrect, or working ineffectively they will not query it.

One of the most substantial disadvantages of working in a team is social loafing. Usually one member of a large team tends to exert much less effort than the rest of the team. This not only causes frustration in other members, but also reduces the quality of the project. Harkins, et al. (1979) found that in larger groups the average performance of each person decreased, with the explanation that some individuals felt like they could slack whilst remaining undetected using the group. However now more than ever it is difficult for individuals not to be called out on ‘social loafing’ in a group, if a project team is managed effectively through technology. With the innovation of cloud based constantly editable software such as Google Docs, e-leaders such as Phil Jones can continuously check on the pace of work uploaded by his team members, ensuring work is completed accurately, creativley and at an appropriate pace to ensure deadlines are met, and furthermore giving such leaders the ability to know which individual team members are doing the majority of the work, allowing social loafers to be pulled up through virtual devices.

Conclusions

Conclusively a team-based approach to work though popular, can be inefficient if team leaders fail to assert their authority and leadership skills in early group formation ad storming stages, hindering their team from reaching the performing group development stage as defined by Tuckman and Jensen’s stages of group development. However should interventions be put in place such as a virtual team, teams can overcome the variety of social and communicative challenges that can face a failing dispersed team as defined by Hackman’s work, and as exemplified in The Gulf Project Team. Hence virtual teams can allow teams to perform effectively, with a review of literature concluding the use of a team-based approach to project work is effective within organisations in modern society, due to recent technological advances.

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