D: Recommend ways that Lauren could build relationships and trust during this in
ID: 352576 • Letter: D
Question
D: Recommend ways that Lauren could build relationships and trust during this initial meeting.
Recommend actions Lauren should take now to resolve the conflicts listed in the directions?
Discuss what Lauren could have done to prevent the conflicts from occurring in the first place.
Lauren is assigned team leader of a cross-functional team for a very important project to the company. Lauren reviews the profiles of the six team members her boss gave her. She is both intrigued and anxious when she sees that team members are geographically dispersed.
Lauren works in the Atlanta office. One team member is in India; another is in Germany; and the rest live in the United States, but in different time zones. Two staff members are in the eastern time zone (Virginia and North Carolina) and two staff members are in the central time zone (Texas and Louisiana).
Lauren has never managed a virtual team and is unsure what special skills it will take to be successful. She begins to wonder what competencies are necessary for virtual team leaders and members. She studies the team member profiles and creates a matrix to evaluate each member’s strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of working virtually. She includes herself because she realizes she needs to evaluate her own strengths and weaknesses. Lauren thinks about the challenges and opportunities she will face managing this virtual team.
Team Member Matrix
Team Member
Location (Time Zone)
CommunicationPreferences
Virtual experience
Strengths
Weaknesses
Lauren (Team Manager)
Atlanta, GA (Eastern)
No
Building and maintaining trust.
Performance management and coaching.
Networking.
Appropriate use of information technology.
Developing and adapting standard team processes.
Managing across cultures.
Santosh
Pune, India (GMT+05:30)
Instant messaging
Yes
Interpersonal awareness.
Use of technology.
Self-management.
Project management.
John
Wilmington, NC (Eastern)
Telephone
No
Networking face-to-face.
Use of technology.
Spanning boundaries.
Joyce
Norfolk, VA (Eastern)
Yes
Self-management.
Project management.
Networking.
Helga
Berlin, Germany (Central European)
SharePoint; Webconferencing (with video)
Yes
Use of technology.
Interpersonal awareness.
Project management.
Adam
Dallas, TX (Central)
Instant messaging, discussion boards
No
Networking via technology.
Spanning boundaries.
Use of technology.
Brenda
New Orleans, LA (Central)
Instant messaging; blogs; SharePoint; e-mail
Yes
Use of technology.
Interpersonal awareness.
Networking.
Spanning boundaries.
Self-management.
Team Member
Location (Time Zone)
CommunicationPreferences
Virtual experience
Strengths
Weaknesses
Lauren (Team Manager)
Atlanta, GA (Eastern)
No
Building and maintaining trust.
Performance management and coaching.
Networking.
Appropriate use of information technology.
Developing and adapting standard team processes.
Managing across cultures.
Santosh
Pune, India (GMT+05:30)
Instant messaging
Yes
Interpersonal awareness.
Use of technology.
Self-management.
Project management.
John
Wilmington, NC (Eastern)
Telephone
No
Networking face-to-face.
Use of technology.
Spanning boundaries.
Joyce
Norfolk, VA (Eastern)
Yes
Self-management.
Project management.
Networking.
Helga
Berlin, Germany (Central European)
SharePoint; Webconferencing (with video)
Yes
Use of technology.
Interpersonal awareness.
Project management.
Adam
Dallas, TX (Central)
Instant messaging, discussion boards
No
Networking via technology.
Spanning boundaries.
Use of technology.
Brenda
New Orleans, LA (Central)
Instant messaging; blogs; SharePoint; e-mail
Yes
Use of technology.
Interpersonal awareness.
Networking.
Spanning boundaries.
Self-management.
Explanation / Answer
Answer:
Part -1: Introduction
It's mandatory to have good trust and relationship amongs the employees and top managements, in an organization. Without this, there won't be a harmonized workplace. Having this, will provide employees organised and happy. Bulding trust and relationship amongst team or employees in an organization, will provide job satisfaction and expected output, to achieve the target.
Part -2: Recommeded ways for Lauren, to bulid trust and relationship
Building trust and realtionship always plays a major role in an organization. Whether it's an virtual team or direct team, these are important, where the needs to concentrate on, to achieve the target.
There are certains ways recommended for Lauren, to build turst and relationship, among the virtual team (Technical team). It's been mentioned below,
Part -3: Recommended action to resolve conflicts
It's good to have no fear on conflicts, instead need to embrace it. It's not possible to prevent conflicts all the time, but it's good to bring resolution, in a more healthy fashion. A good team lead is capable of doing it.
Since the team tends to be virtual, there are certain recommended action that Lauren can follow to resolve the conflicts.
It's good for a team lead to analyze strength and weakness of the team. Looking the team members matrix technology common factor which connects them. Everyone has their own good technical expertise. So it's important for the team lead to use their skill effectively. The real challange for Lauren is, she needs to create a space and time for team members to have a discussion with each other, because team members are from different time zone and don't use to have face to face communication, everyday.
Lack of Communication amongst the team, is the first thing to avoid, inorder to prevent conflicts among the team. It can be avoided by create a common time space, for the team to have an interaction
Since the team members can't see what other's teammate are into, it bit difficult to get the respone immediately, which team lack of trust. In order to avoid this conflict, the team lead should share each memebers time schedule to everyone in the team and also she needs to provide the common time for the team to have discussion everyday, to share their thoughts.
Lack of social interaction can make team members despondents and feels them to be demotivated. Inorder to avoid this conflict, Lauren can create a time space for the team to enjoy, by sharing the swift update on everyone lives before every meeting. For example: a discussion about weekend and upcoming holiday plans, among themselves.
It's important for Lauren to maitain an team spirit amongst the team, by guiding them in proper direction. It's good to provide the team a clear vision on team's goal and should make every memebers goal to be chained towards team's common goal. Lack of Team Spirit, is one major conflict that needs to be avoided.
Since team members are from different region, there's a chance of having a cultural conflict. Inorder to avoid this conflict, Lauren needs to provide a healthy time space for the team memebers to share about their culture, team lead should have proper intervention in between, to maintain the harmony, during the discussion. Lauren needs to ensure that all the team members respect everyone's culture, to have a healthy team.
Part -4: Discussion and Conclusion
Eventhough we tend to be much careful on addressing the task, it's difficult to prevent the conflicts. So, Lauren needs have a good leadership qualities, to bring resolution to the conflicts mentioned above. Although, identifying the geographical disparity and team members weakness, is good to prevent conflits. It would be great, if she could gather more information about the team, from the person who handled the team prior her, will aid to prevent conflicts occuring in the first place.
Hope all the above explantion, will provide clarification to the queries.
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