|
Executive Summary执行摘要
这篇论文要花四个星期才能完成。我选择了一家与众不同的创业公司Lingoyes作为我的学习主题。研究对象必须非常容易测量。大公司太复杂，很难找出团队成员和有效绩效因素之间的内在联系。所以我选择的主题是一个12人的团队。我找到了灵戈耶队的队长，向她走去。她一直很支持我，给我提供我需要的所有信息。精疲力竭的工作集中在与所有12个成员交谈。另一个难题是，这是一家初创公司，许多规章制度和程序尚未完成。当评估我收集的数据时，结果非常模糊，有时非常抽象。为了量化和可视化所有的最终结果，我必须参考许多以前的论文和研究来得出结论并得到我需要的东西。通过大量的数据分析总结了该团队的障碍和驱动因素。其中一个明显的障碍是缓慢的过程问题，这是由民主团队氛围造成的。当团队成员表现出太多的关注和对个人的关心时，时间可能会浪费在投票和决策上。12名成员的投票权相同，这是非常平等和民主的。但事实真相是，作为一家初创公司，它必须做出快速有效的决定，在大多数情况下，这是基于一个或两个强有力的领导人（“独裁者”）。有趣的是，对于这个团队来说，这个障碍的一个来源也促成了一个司机。这12位受过良好教育、民主的成员相互尊重、相互理解，因此，他们之间的人际关系非常密切，能够有效地沟通，更好地理解对方。本文列出了这些有趣的结果，并进行了详细的分析。
This paper costs four weeks to finish. I chose one distinctive startup company LingoYes as my study subject. The study subject must be very easy measured. Big firms are too complex and hard to figure out the inner connections between team members and effective performance factors. So the subject that I chose is a 12-members team. I found the leader of LingoYes team and approached to her. She has been very supportive and feeding me all the information that I need. The exhausting work is concentrated on talking to all 12 members. Another hard issue is that this is a startup company, so many regulations and routines have not been completed yet. When evaluating the data that I collected, the result is very blur and sometimes very abstract. In order to quantify and visualize all the final results, I have to refer to many previous papers and research to conclude and to get what I need. The barriers and drivers for this team were summarized through numerous data analysis. One distinctive barrier is slow process issue which is contributed by democratic team atmosphere. When team members are showing too much concerns and caring on individuals, time could be wasted on voting and decision making. The 12 members voting weigh the same, which is very equal and democratic. But factual truth is as a startup company, it has to make quick and effective decisions, which in most of cases are based on one or two strong and powerful leader (“dictator”). The interesting fact is that one source of this barrier for this team also contributed to one of the driver. Those 12 very well educated and democratic members show great respect and mutual understanding to each other, therefore, they have very close interpersonal relationship, which allow them communicate effectively and understand each other better. Those interesting results are listed in this paper with detailed analysis.
Introduction介绍
解释
团队合作的有效性有许多因素。从足够的资源、领导能力和结构、信任氛围到成员的能力、个性和多样性等方面来看，每个团队在各个领域都有各自的优势和劣势。为了找出有效绩效背后的关键因素，我们必须深入分析每个成员的特点和背景信息，以及团队成员如何沟通和如何工作。
Interpretation
The effectiveness of teamwork has been contributed by many factors. From context wise like adequate resources, leadership and structure, climate of trust to composition side like abilities of members, personalities and diversities, each team has their advantage and weakness in various areas. In order to figure out the key factors behind the effective performance, we will have to dig into deep to analyze each members traits and background information and how team members communicate and how it works.
Scope and Range范围和范围
这项任务将是一家全新的创业公司Lingoyes，成立于2015年。我们将分析所有团队成员和相关工作领域。他们的详细背景信息将被显示出来，以进一步讨论与有效团队绩效的联系。
This assignment will a brand new startup company LingoYes, which was founded in 2015. We will analyze all team members and relevant work fields. Their detailed background information will be displayed to further discuss the connection to effective team performances.
Background Context
LingoYes Background
Founded in 2015, LingoYes is an online education branch under CIIC Training Center, aiming to create vivid and world-class language learning experience through websites, mobile applications, downloadable software and audiobooks, interactive videos with the support from thousands of language instructors around the globe. Its main products are language-learning videos that focus on Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean and Spanish, etc.
Selection
The team that I chose is very unique in many ways and can be regard as a very good subject to study. It is a small sized team with a wide range of diversity. The team models can be applied easily and the analysis is easy to proceed due to distinctive traits and easy-measured outcome. This team is a typical all-channel (or common) network).The all-channel (or comcon) network is a decentralised network that involves full discussion and participation. This network appears to work best where a high level of interaction is required among all the members in order to solve complex problems. Leadership predictability is very low. There is a fairly high level of satisfaction for members. The all-channel network may not stand up well under pressure, in which case it will either disintegrate or re-form into a wheel network. For simple tasks, it allows information flows all around the network. No one person has all the required information, which leads to poor performance. But for complex tasks, no one person becomes saturated because information flows all around the network. It results good performance.
Critical Evaluation
LingoYes is a startup company that focuses on online project. The team is recently formed within 3 monthes. Many members are still very new to each other and the nationality of different members varies. There are total 12 team members from 5 different countries, each of them hold a degree is equivalent or above bachelor’s degree.
The evaluation of LingoYes team will start from their basic property. From their role, norms, status, size, cohesiveness to diversity. The model and framework of this team will be analyzed after the basic detail displayed. Their effectiveness will by discussed from three perspectives context, composition and process.
The team model adopted is Curphy and Hogan’s Rocket Model that include context, mission, talent, norms, buy-in, power, morale, and results. Context concerns gaining team member agreement on the challenges facing the team; mission is setting team goals and benchmarks; talent focuses on the number, roles, and skills of team members; norms pertain to the rules by which team members operate; buy-in is all about fostering employee engagement; power concerns acquiring needed authority and resources; morale pertains to the level of team esprit-de-corps and conflict, and the accomplishments attained fall in to the results component (Four Models of Team Performance).
LingoYes Team Member by Nationality
Chinese: Ginny; Selina; Angela; Matt: Danny
Australian: Jeremy; Sophia; Frank
American: Sam; Ben
Korean: Wendy
Japanese: Gen
Role:
Chairperson
Identity:
Ginny
Interface:
Steer group members on project progress and contact outsource personnel to provide financial support and technical assistance.
Responsibility:
Manage project resources by planning and executing the products. Capture and report measured performance. Ensure team members seed development of future projects. Clarify goals and objectives through allocating role, responsibilities and duties within the team.
Role:
Monitor-evaluator
Identity:
Selina
Interface:
Monitor on group members progress and teaching faculty’s quality.
Responsibility:
Evaluate the achievement of individual team members. Appraise overall teaching content and resources in order to provide qualified results. Conduct office daily routine and administrative work.
Role:
Shaper
Identity:
Jeremy
Interface:
Produce core products with all co-workers. Encourage team members to build strong morale. Interact with customers to create solid bi-way communication channel. #p#分页标题#e#
Responsibility:
Produce content in various areas and translate product content into English. Present product materials in audio and video format. Contribute innovative thought in term of product format and outlook.
Role:
Implementer
Identity:
Sam
Interface:
Instruct interns and video crews to level-up format of product in order to cater foreign clients. Create multi-channel communication with clients from diversified nations.
Responsibility:
Turn innovative ideas into practical actions. Make abstract brainstorm results solid. Manage social media to gather clients. Create interactive and reliable platform for presenting product.
Role:
Coordinator
Identity:
Wendy, Angel
Interface:
Involved in decision making with heads of the office and coordinate with co-workers on project matter.
Responsibility:
Follow up office administrative work. Makes user resources available. Contribute to overall project objectives and specific team deliverables. Collaborate with project managers to resolve issues within individual projects or within portfolios.
Role:
Specialist
Identity:
Sophia, Matt, Gen
Interface:
Provide tech-support to coworkers and collaborate with projector managers to improve products quality.
Responsibility:
Establishes project support technology standards. Assists team members in the use of project support technology. Maintains project support technology. Ensures that the technical environment is in place and operational throughout the project. Establishes and maintains target environment for new applications.
Role:
Teamworker
Identity:
Frank, Ben, Danny
Interface:
Receive orders from project managers. Complete tasks with co-workers in time. Offer valuable feedback from customer to project managers.
Responsibility:
Participate in project team activities. Contribute to overall project objectives and specific team deliverables. Escalates policy issues to team lead for referral to appropriate policy making bodies. This role includes all various resources necessary to execute the project plan.
The roles of this team are very specific and clear. Their job description and responsibility are listed right after they entered. So the team is very systematic and organized. Role expectations are relatively consistent and identical, due to the previous clear job descriptions, whereas the only problem happened to role conflict. There are many overlapping jobs within this team due to its property a startup company. Many of them sometimes have to take care of the work that is beyond their range. And when their job overlaps, there will be small conflict. Another factor to contribute this matter is their various culture backgrounds (The STAR Team Model for High-Performance Teams). Although they lingua franca is English, but their understanding on it varies. When job has been assigned, they also have different degrees of comprehension on it. They will proceed according to their level o understanding. So overlapping work and culture barrier caused their role conflicts. A team role is described as a pattern of behaviour, characteristic of the way in which one team member interacts with another whose performance serves to facilitate the progress of the team as a whole. In a follow-up publication, Belbin discusses the continual evolution of team roles, which differ in a few respects from those originally identified, and adds a ninth role.6 Strength of contribution in any one role is commonly associated with particular weaknesses. These are called allowable weaknesses. Members are seldom strong in all nine team roles.The types of people identified are useful team members and form a comprehensive list. These are the key team roles and the primary characters for successful teams. Creative teamsrequire a balance of all these roles and comprise members who have characteristics complementary to each other. ‘No one’s perfect, but a team can be.’ Belbin claims that good examples of each type would prove adequate for any challenge, although not all types are necessarily needed. Other members may be welcome for their personal qualities, for example a sense of humour, but experience suggests there is no other team role that it would be useful to add.
When it comes to norms, they all have a very high standard of appearance norms and social arrangement norms. But the performance norms are a bit of different. Australians and Americans somehow tend to have a low standard of performance norms. Whereas East Asians, Japanese, Chinese and Koreans, require more than ok level. Westerns are not willing to work extra hours and they do not really talk about work after leaving office. But East Asians work 24/7. It is part of their culture group oriented culture. When one member works at field, they will all join or at least to show their encouragement and compliment, whereas, westerners do not (A Framework for Measuring Team Mental Models in Design).
Originally developed by Moreno in 1953, sociometry is a method of indicating the feelings of acceptance or rejection among members of a group.13 A sociogram is a diagrammatical illustration of the pattern of interpersonal relationships derived from sociometry. The sociogram depicts the choices, preferences, likes or dislikes and interactions between individual members. It can also be used to display the structure of the group and to record the observed frequency and/or duration of contacts among members. The basis of sociometry, however, is usually ‘buddy rating’ or ‘peer rating’. Each member is asked to nominate or to rate, privately, other members in terms of some given context or characteristic – for example, with whom they communicate, or how influential or how likeable they are. Questions may relate to either work or social activities. For example:
Who would you most prefer or least prefer as a workmate?
Who would make a good leader?
With whom would you choose and not choose to go on holiday?
Positive and negative choices may be recorded for each person, although sometimes positive choices only are required. The choices may be limited to a given number or they may be unlimited. Sometimes individuals may be asked to rank their choices.
Status wise, there has been a very harmonious environment. The power and influence from group members are equivocal. Only a few members have very strong individual personality characteristics, most of them are quite independent and contribute equally to the team target. The size of this team is relatively small 12 members. Therefore, the pace they process issues are very fast. No social loafing has been spotted in this team, due to the high quality members who are very motivated and committed. All of them have a very high working ethical standard, which they believe is the basic quality of any employees. Like what I mentioned, culturally they have been generally divided into western and eastern parts, but when at office, they still have a high cohesiveness with high norms and high productivity (Models and Frameworks for Mastering Complex Systems 3rd Edition). It is just westerners are more like to have their private time and space after office hours, on contrary, easterners tend to stick together even after work and bring family and personal issue to group they work in. As for diversity, this team has cultural, demographic, racial and gender differences (Models and Frameworks for Mastering Complex Systems 3rd Edition). It is very international and diversified. The conflicts among team members are only observed on cultural matter. All members are very well educated and have overseas working or studying experience. So demographic racial and gender diversity will not increase group conflict. And their diversity also creates innovative and inspiring ideas when it comes to products making and concept discussion. They value their diversity and respect each members’ culture (A Comprehensive System for Leaders and Coaches).
An advantage of the diagrammatical illustration, however, is that the sociogram provides a visual description of the sociometric structure of a group. It can indicate cliques and sub-groups, compatibility, and members who are popular, isolated or who act as links.
It should be noted, however, that there are several methods of compiling and drawing sociograms, and a number of potential criticisms and limitations. Problems also arise overhow to draw the sociogram and how to interpret the roles of individual members. In the experience of the author, less concern should be given to the concept of sociometry itself. It is better seen as a useful vehicle that, if handled sensitively, can serve to encourage meaningful discussions on patterns of social interactions, group behaviour and the perceptions of individual members towards each other.
DataCollection and Analysis
Data collection and analysis of this paper resembles previous the leadership paper. To reduce redundancy to this paper, please refer to previous paper.
Drivers and Barriers
There are multiple drivers and barriers to effective performance in any teams. But in this chosen team, their drivers and barriers are quite unique to other team members. A clarity of roles and responsibilities and interpersonal relationships are the key drivers I found out in this team. #p#分页标题#e#
Clarity of Roles and Responsibility
In high-performing teams, each team member has a clear grasp of his or her roles and responsibilities in achieving the shared purpose. Responses to the following diagnostic statements can help assess clarity of roles and responsibilities (Scholtes, P. (1988). The team handbook. Madison, WI: Joiner Associates). LingoYes team has this trait as their strongest motivator. They are able to work effectively under designated goals and responsibilities.
Interpersonal Relationships
Interpersonal relationships explain how members interact with each other and how they tolerate diverse perspective and conflicts in complicated situations. LingoYes team members are from various culture background and very well educated. They hold the shared understanding on multiculturalism and high standard work ethics. Those traits have helped to build the fundamental respects and foundation of mutual trust of each member. And there is a high level of trust across the whole team. Therefore, interpersonal relationship is one of the strong drivers to effective team performance.
Unlike the other examples from academic or practitioner literature, the drivers to effective team performance in this team do not involve team process and brand. When it comes to problem solving process, this team does not have a set routine or manual to follow. This team is new and young. It is forming its own unique way to solve ambiguous problems. And this team will eventually have a routine manual of its own. Other big firms have a brand advantage as a driver to effective team performance, whereas LingoYes is still at infant stage.
Barriers
When it comes to barriers, the team also shows different barriers from other regular teams. Most teams are troubled with poor performance of some team members or poor management on interest conflicts. The reasons behind those barriers are team members’ perception and extreme personality and low educational level, which eventually caused recognition variations. Groups and teams are an essential feature in the life of work organisations. Individuals on teams interact extensively with each other and with other teams in the organisation. Teambased management is used to improve communication, co-ordination and co-operation within the organisation.16 For example, as Green maintains:
The generally perceived advantages of working in teams are the release of creativity and energy, much more interaction between people satisfying the need to belong . . . teamworking can improve efficiency by people planning activities together with cooperation and communication. Team members together should be able to identify many ways to improve work organisation; how information, ideas and outputs flow and how team-working can reduce costs and improve productivity.
It is not that I don’t think teams work. They clearly do and it would be difficult to run an organisation of any size if you couldn’t create and manage a team . . . The truth is that teams are not always the right answer to a problem. Often a well-briefed and well-managed group of individuals will do a task fine . . . A further point is that some very skilled individuals are not good team players.22 However, the general feeling appears to be that the collective power of a group outshines individual performance.23 ‘Even though individuals working on their own are capable of phenomenal ingenuity, working together as a team can produce astounding results and a better decision.’24 Guirdham believes that ‘Compared with individuals, groups can make objectively better decisions to which people feel more commitment, while teams can perform functions and carry out projects better and more efficiently. This can only happen, however, if the people have the special skills and abilities needed.’25 One might expect, therefore, a higher standard of decision-making to result from group discussion. However, on the one hand, there is the danger of compromise and decisions being made in line with the ‘highest common view’ and, on the other hand, there is the phenomenon of the so-called risky-shift.
Slow Procedure
This team does not have those barriers mentioned above due to the nature of team members. But still there is one obvious issue that arises every time when they are making important decisions. Culture barrier contribute a lot to this issue. It does not mean multiculturalism is the barrier, and it is just saying the process of making a decision sometimes becomes much complicated and time-consuming. Members like to vote and list all the pros and cons when it comes to an issue that needs to be solved. Too much democracy sometimes will drag down the pace of process. Sometimes as a startup in China, the company has been autocratic in order to achieve the fast process speed (Peer responses to a team’s weakest link).
Reference
LingoYes Monthly Journal, Episode 1
Four Models of Team Performance
Jamie Harris, The STAR Team Model for High-Performance Teams
A. Neumann, P. Badke-Schaub, K. Lauche
,A Framework for Measuring Team Mental Models in Design.
Kevin Forsberg, Visualizing Project Management: Models and Frameworks for Mastering Complex Systems 3rd Edition.
Jacqueline Peters, High Performance Team Coaching: A Comprehensive System for Leaders and Coaches.
Jackson, C. L., &LePine, J. A. (2003). Peer responses to a team’s weakest link: A test and extension of LePine and Van Dyne’s model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 459–475.
Management and Organization Behavior
Learning Review Summary Appendix
"Team" is a very important chapter for all people managers.
The common goals, efficient collaboration, and role differentiation enable teams and groups to distinguish themselves from each other. Especially in the construction of the virtual team, management team because now I have a half of team are base in the western China, the geographical and regional cultural differences make the concept of virtual teams is really challenge for me.
In chapter “Working in teams and groups”, we learned many new knowledge, such as team goal setting, how to create efficient team, I already have some new ideas in my virtual team management:
(1) adjust member role positioning. Virtual team members generally are mainly knowledgeable employees, and the remote management makes the supervision and control of the organization weakened. In a virtual team, members need to be repositioned and transferred from the role of "worker" to "member". The object of membership should not be a "place", but a virtual "community" composed of all team members.
(2) define the strategic objectives of the team. In the virtual team, the strategic goal is the replacement of the leadership relationship, and the clear goal is the basis of the team work. Get feedback from employees in time to deepen understanding of goals, tasks, and roles within the team. In addition, during the operation of the team, I should try to master the working conditions of each member and correct the deviation in the work.
(3) build trust relationship. It can be said that the establishment and maintenance of trust is the core problem of virtual team management. Mutual trust is the basis of virtual team operation. A team's trust in its members is a confidence in the ability of its members, as well as confidence in their loyalty to the team's goals. Establish trust in the team, the first means to admit that "individual", which fully acknowledge, accept and respect member individual knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviour, culture, religion, etc., at the same time to have a strong sense of property right protection. Secondly, to reconstruct the organization, establish the independent working unit of the task, so that they can give full play to the advantages of knowledge structure and carry out creative activities in their respective fields. The enclosed unit of work, of course, if not timely keep up with the change of market, customer and technology, will cause great loss to the whole, as a result, members must always keep up with the pace of change, forming a continuous learning culture.
|
 |
|||
| 网站地图 |
