Managing a team in any organization is a critical component of the organization's success. Team managers should therefore consider adopting effective team management strategies in order to achieve optimum performance from their employees. Besides optimum performance, the management strategies should also effectively address conflict resolutions among the employees among other issues that can impact their performance. Some of the components of effective team management include;
Ø Clear Mission
Ø Clear Roles
Ø Good Systems
Ø Proper Communication
Ø Healthy Relationships
Ø Good Leadership
The paper will also focus on the source of conflicts in the company and propose techniques to be used to address these conflicts.
Based on the six components, the teams in different location were connected by virtual means. Despite connections, the teams in the different locations continued to perform poorly because of a number of reasons. First component of effective team performance is developing a clear mission to guide the performance of each individual in the team. The organization had its own mission, but the managers failed to develop specific mission for the specific subgroup members. The various small teams failed to meet and share their own respective needs and goals. The team manages in the two merger failed to adequately define the role of each team player.
Secondly, the team manages in the two merger failed to adequately define the role of each team player. This is detrimental to quality performance since players in the team are not so sure of their respective roles and responsibilities. It would have been good for the core team to have also met separately for more in-depth discussions about how they would work together specifying the role of each individual as understand roles & responsibilities of others would prove important.
Thirdly, the management failed to adequately use the available systems to improve interactions between the teams in different locations. Agree on strategy which was lacking between the two teams. The project manager failed to develop action plan where there was no clarification of the procedures and no one was held responsible. There was no welcoming of creativity within the group For instance, Didier strongly controlled the way meetings were being conducted and the information which was being shared among members, as a project manager, he failed to allow for idea exchange and the system was not favorable for them to do so, instance, he frequently put together an agenda for meetings without input from other team members. Further, he would allot only l0 minutes for other issues not on the agenda and only if time permitted which was a hostile environment for interdependency among team members. The US counterpart felt that their ideas were being rejected which was a major hindrance for the teamwork for PharmMed.
Interaction between the teams is important to the performance since it promotes effective communication among team players. Communication is a key component to effective performance because without it there will be little or no sharing of ideas, issues and knowledge among other functions. Building strong relationships( What did they do or was locking in this area?) between team members and other teams is also important to the performance of the team. This was lacking from the first instance. The project manager was not able to create such an environment and in many instances including stopping discussion by declaring that the team as a whole need not be concerned, filtering communication channels and information among the team members. Team members should be willing to give and receive constructive criticism and provide authentic feedback, was not present in the case of PharmMed merger group. Karine, the global user lead, and Merline the global IS lead, wanted to direct the focal points for passing information across sub teams through her.
Leadership is also critical in this function because of a number of reasons. Other than providing good management to the team, good leadership also facilitate effective resolution of conflicts between team members which is important in boosting the morale of team members. Effective, leadership was lacking as the one present was dictatorial and one which lacks interpersonal skills. Understanding, effective and all round leadership was missing.
The second issue that derailed the performance of team players on the merger companies was emergence of conflicts. The conflicts among these teams came from different sources (Conflicts sources?)ranging from management to systems. To begin with, the conflicts emerged from the point of merging of the two companies where one of the team had to abandon a project they had been initially working on for a substantial amount of time. The project dubbed perspective had to be abandoned in favor of the new project vigilance because of the merging. This in a way de-motivated the employees who were working with all their efforts to see the project through to its implementation. This therefore was a source of one of the conflicts to the team. Secondly, the management of the two mergers did not effectively synchronize and coordinate their activities. Synchronization includes combining the team into one entity and having one communication channel. The top management in the United States and France head offices did not work together in harmony. This in a way was a source of conflict to the teams in the different locations. The teams therefore could not effectively work together to achieve high performance levels because of the management conflicts between the functional units in the two mergers. The third source of conflicts was the use of systems. The two mergers failed to effectively synchronize their systems to work together in harmony. The necessary medium and communication medium was not set. Exchanging of ideas in various stages was lacking. so many decisions which would have been made collaboratively were made by individual that is team leader or the project manager, for instance, during a core team teleconference; the team was discussing important data country fields that would need to be included in the system and how it would have affected the process, as the team was exploring the implications of the changes, Didier stopped their discussion by declaring that the team as a whole need not be concerned. Another instance was when the cultural agenda was scraped off last minute without prior notice. All these factors contribute to the development of tension between the team members.
The team managers however tired their best to address these issues and adopt a number of strategies to address them.(How do differentiation, task relationships and resource scarcity apply here?) The MD, Lance Francine for instance wrote a letter to all the team members in all the locations addressed to all the team players. In the letter he tries to address most of the conflicts that were affecting the employees. He effectively explained to the team players why the perspective project had to be abandoned and instead embark on the vigilance project. This was a significant step towards promoting communication in the mergers companies which as discussed above is one of the most effective components that boosts team's performance. In the letter, he also included the name of his deputy as a sign of interaction between the two merger companies. In the letter, Lance tires to focus on some of the strategies that the company would use to resolve most of the conflicts affecting the teams. One of the strategies he presents in his letter to the team is appointing Halina Ducret and Teo Reynard to act as sponsors of the sub-teams. The two were in a better position to handle most of the challenges that were facing the vigilance project since they had experience in database management and they were also senior managers in the respective mergers. It was kind of win-win strategy in solving the problem. Before Lance's, people were not interested in solving the problem, team members were storming out of the meeting creating unnecessary tension. Therefore only Lance's tried to solve the conflict.
The approach that Lance took in his email message had a number of benefits and weaknesses(Which modes of conflict resolution were used? ) as far as conflict resolution is concerned. Acknowledging the presence of conflicts in the implementation of the vigilance project had some impacts on the perceptions of the employees. On the positive side, the employees felt that the new company had identified the challenges facing the project and was committed to resolving the conflicts. On the negative side however, the employees would lose trust and morale in implementing the new project since it was characterized by many challenges. Appointing Halina Ducret and Teoto lead the subordinate teams also had a positive impact on the team since the two had adequate experience in the field. Some of the players in the top management who thought they could do better than the appointees however could also get de-motivated and even some might end up discourage other team members from working towards successful implementation of the new project.
The conflicting teams failed to effectively address a number of issues that impacted the systems, and relationships. They for instance failed to learn how the new systems worked after the merging of the two companies thereby derailing the good performance. Secondly the team failed to build healthy relationships with the new members from the merging companies. This negatively impacted the team building between the two groups of employees from the different companies. Despite the challenges facing the teams in the merger, they however succeeded in building a strong leadership by allowing the management to choose two of their team members to lead them in implementing the new project. The team also allowed the management to successfully implement the decision that was going to solve the conflict that was affecting the performance of the two teams.
In conclusion, Lance could have however used a different approach in addressing these conflicts in order to effectively solve the conflicts. He should have begun by setting the objectives of the conflict resolution plan by first identifying the behavior of individuals in the conflict. Secondly, he should have identified the sources of the conflict in order to help him in developing an effective strategy that would effectively satisfy most of the needs of each party in the conflict. He could have achieved this by conducting a inquisitive research in the conflict and soliciting facts from the parties of the conflict. This conflict resolution plan would have helped him to effectively solve the conflict that was facing the vigilance project and help in promoting the performance of the employees in the team.
Disputes and differences are more likely to be worked out among colleagues than dictated by those at the top. Indentifying the sources of conflict, team leaders need to correct communication methods and role Identification within the group and sub-team. Active listening to the concerns and needs of team members and valuing their contribution should be a priority in addressing conflict. This could help to create an effective work environment. Team members should be willing to give and receive constructive criticism and provide authentic feedback, was not present in the case of PharmMed merger group.