CASE 14. Can This Virtual Team Work? Jim Towne heads a newly formed information

Question

CASE 14. 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

Explanation / Answer

1. Out of the characteristics mentioned in table 14.1, the key characteristic which seems to be missing is structuring for results. The professionals are supposed to implement technology innovations for a global business. However, they have been located in various parts of the world and the exchangeof inputs is not proving to be beneficial. Further, as can be seen from a team member's unread inbox, effective communication for driving results is not taking place. Even the characteristic "collaborating" seems to be missing.

2. If Jim's leadership role has been minimal till now, he should intervene immediately and get to the root cause of the problem that his team has been facing. Jim should intervene at the internal level as most of the problems are rooted either in the structure or the behavior of the team.His action should be task oriented as making the team gain focus on the goal, structuring the team in the most beneficial manner , taking decisions and driving them towards excellence is extremely important given the current scenario.

3. The specific leadership functions which Jim needs to implement is that of collaborating as the team is far away from each other and a high degree of collaboration takes prominence in such a case. However, it is to be noted that no one specific function can drive a team towards success and all aspects of the problem hampering the team's progress have to be looked into.

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