Chapter 14, Problem 1SL

Summary Introduction

To determine:

This question seeks to point out behavior characteristics of best and worst teams in terms of personal satisfaction and team performance. Two teams are formed and each member lists out his team's positive traits leading to effective performance (called 'This') as well as negative traits implicit in worst ranking. We then have to discuss most important behaviors' for "this" (making effective team work) and for "That' (preventive effective team work).

Introduction:

Team performance and personal satisfaction are interrelated. If there is no personal satisfaction effective teamwork will be a far cry. So effective leaders have to be aware of these factors so that this positive behavior can be developed and nurtured in order to get superior world class team performance.

Here we have formed two teams 'A' and 'B'. A is ranked best team; conversely, B is ranked worst team. These teams are judged on the basis of a "Special Project work related to finding best multi bagger value creators by the team to invest one billion dollar spare funds lying with the company. In the group the team members are as under (For the benefit and creativity and best world- view on project we have listed here 4 top richest billionaire and value investors on the planet as on 18.08.2018)

Group members are- Team A- 1. Warren Buffet, 2. J.K.Rowling

        Team B 3.Bill Gates 4. Peter Lynch

I am member of team A and representing Warren buffet as the group member.

For team performance and personal satisfaction, various positive traits like cohesiveness, raising the bar, flexibility and feedback are needed. Factors having these traits are in Team A which is winner and in 'This' category with behaviors for effective team work. Lack of these factors has prevented growth of team B in "That' category with behaviors impeding efficient team work & performance. In a class scenario each of the 4 members discusses essential ingredients to make effective team working.

Explanation of Solution

Personal satisfaction is defined as "one's experience of a sense of fulfillment of a need". It connotes the quality or the state of being satisfied by an individual in an organization.

We can define Team performance as the "extent to which a team is able to meet its output goals or other performance criteria". The targets comprise quality, functionality, and credibility of output, expectations of teammates, cost, efficiency, completion and other standard parameters.

First part of the question wants listing specific behaviors in terms of personal satisfaction and team performance. These are key factors for team efficiency across the world.

Effective Teamwork involves harmonization of individual efforts and work toward a common goal of an organization with high satisfaction levels and stupendous performance by the members.

Team A- Best team has following "This" behavioral factors that has made it achieve effective team work.

1-Flexibilty

2-creativity and innovation

3-commitment and perseverance

4- Perfect cohesiveness among the members

5-Participatory approach

6- Raising the bar

7- High collaboration levels

Group members are of team A are 1. Warren Buffet and 2. J.K.Rowling. Both have above traits. Both are global best performers in their fields as on date. These members had an indefatigable perseverence to outshine others by employing best international bench marks.

They always kept competition in mind and innovated and made mid-course corrections. Warren buffet had started as a paper seller at the age of eleven with first paper sold at 5 pence. He invested that and every second worked hard to produce best results so he is now dubbed as Best Value investor in world history in last 1000 years. Similarly J K Rowling had above factors influencing best performance of her company. Right now she is the highest paid and richest author on earth.

Her case is a unique turnaround story. By continuously raising the best, an indomitable spirit, and inculcation and nurturing of best writer, author traits with glittering quality writings begun at age 55 made her an international writer queen and richest author today. Her company had cohesion, commitment, and an eye to be on top of world and work towards that quality untiringly.

Thus, above Team A with above team members is judged as "This" team, with best behavioral traits for superior and effective teamwork.

Worst Team behaviors (Team B- "That" behaviors)-

Team with 3. George Soros 4. Peter Lynch is adjudged as worst team. We are outing here below the behaviors of worst team. These factors in "That"(poorly performing team) impede effective team work resulting into low personal satisfaction and starkly poor performance matrices.

1- Lack of good leadership qualities,

2- Not leading by example

3- Poor communication

4- Clarity lacking

5- Egoistic members

6- Bad interpersonal relations

7- Lack of flexibility

8- Poor adaptability traits to counter competition

These are few factors. If a team has above behavioral traits, it will have daily coordination problems, poor interpersonal relations, constant power struggles and effective team work will be severely hampered in such teams.

In class:

In the class, we have made a group of above 4 members. Each member narrates their brief stories and worst and best experiences. We conduct a brain storing session in class with above group members on the project work related to investment banking. In it the company has one billion dollars to invest and its members to brainstorm, research, spot, and identify best value companies to invest to earn maximum returns basing on best business fundamentals, low debt levels, sound management, business durability and longevity, low valuations, and other important parameters. In the brain storming session all members put forth their views and rationale. Members subsequently arrive at investing in companies with best business models, nil debt, low valuations, increasing bottom lines and profitability. These are like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, P&G, and Berkshire Hathaway etc.

After identifying and listing opportunities and behaviors the members walk around the class and review for last minute project work improvements.

Finally after deliberations and discussions, the group arrives at the following.

Most Important Behaviors for "This" on a team:

1- Members from effective team work team have high emotional Intelligence. It helps us orient progressively for meeting organization goals while maintaining good interpersonal relations.

2- A sharing and Understanding team - A performing and successful team shares information, responsibilities and are empathetic and understanding. This instills confidence and ownership among the members leading to better productivity and good work place atmosphere.

3- Clarity of goals is delineated to avoid any ambiguity at any level - Unclear goals which are not specific and exact led to confusion and lower output. So having this behavioral trait leads to speedy action and unambiguous focused action by the best organizations.

4- S.M.A.R.T. goals setting. This involves setting goals which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reachable, and with clear Timelines (SMART). Any goal or behavior succeeds if the target has above 5 parameters. This avoids unnecessary heartburns among team members in case goals are not reached as in advance they are set holistically, realistically, and considering all factors into account.

5- Constantly "Raise the Bar", innovate, and outperform to meet best international benchmarks in industry. This positive behavior is most critical because unless we innovate and regularly raise the efficiency bars, the organization may fail in long run especially in current virtual and highly digitalized and disruptive environment.

Most Important Behaviors for "That" on a team:

1- Egoistic behavior, Members focus on their personal aggrandizement instead of focusing on broad organizational teamwork. This is very deleterious to achieve successful team performance and enriching personal satisfaction levels.

2- Lack of delegation- There is decentralization, so team has to wait. There is no much flat structure independence and flexibility. This behavior mars creativity among the members and leads to delay and subsequent opportunity and business losses.

3- Communication breakdown - Worst organizations lack proper timely specific communication. Even employees sometimes act in a depart mentalist isolated manner forgetting overall organization objectives. This brings non coordination as well.

4- Strained interpersonal relations- Due to these behaviors, job satisfaction levels dip low thereby impacting team performance and productivity adversely.

5- No initive taking, creativity, and innovation. If employees lack them, they cannot contribute their best and cannot face the competition headlong. In today's utterly completive business environment each team must have creativity, initiative taking spirit and innovate as per demand speedily as per dynamic ever changing market demands. If these behaviors are lacking, teams are sooner or later bound to fail or underperform with numerous attendant issues preventing effective teamwork and business growth.

These are few negative behaviors that prevent an effective team work and thus fall in "That" category. For effective and successful teamwork above negative influencing behaviors should be removed from the team.

Conclusion

In the given detailed exercise involving effective team work, identification of positive and negative factors impinging on effective team work, personal satisfaction, and better team performance, we have highlighted and formed two teams. Respective traits of both teams have been highlighted setting out reasons why the team behavior is best or worst. Detailed brainstorming was done and each member of the group discussed the influencing behaviors.

Thereafter, most important factors for "This" and "That" behavior have been elaborated above. 'This' behaviors led to effective team work and "that" behaviors led to stunted team work and worst tem behaviors.