Business Management For Learning And Education

Discuss about the Business Management for Learning and Education.

In today’s competitive business environment, it is essential for the firms to build a strong team so that organisational work can be implemented effectively. In developing the better teams, there are various factors that work such as people, their personality, education, background, gender and experience. These factors help the firms to establish a better team and motivate team members to work collectively to achieve organisational goals (Eckstein 2013). But, at the same time, in managing the complex organisational environment, managers face various challenges. In this, the main challenge in front of managers is that how to build a perfect team and its composition to meet the firm’s objectives. The uneven analytical intelligence of the team and team members also creates the challenges to the managers to manage the organisational environment (Erez, et al. 2013).

In this way, this report discusses the learning from the talent pool to build perfect teams by taking the case of Google Inc.  It is because, in Google, there are different skills and knowledge employees, who are working in the different teams.

The case study profiles a 25 years old but experienced student, Julia Rozovsky, who participated in two study groups in order to get experience and enjoyment during the study of MBA degree at one of the top American University. She found that in both the groups, people have skills and knowledge. In this, one group had people, who argued for the leadership position, criticising one another’s ideas, and experiencing conflicts (Duhigg 2016). On the other hand, another group was different from the first group as the group and the people were warm and friendly.

Due to becoming global and more complex business environment, Google has focused on the team building activities to ensure the success in the global marketplace. In this, the firm was launched Project Aristotle in order to study the different teams to identify why some teams stumbled and some soared. For this, Julia was assigned for the project and identified that understanding and influencing are some group norms that help the teams to improve their productivity in the firm (Duhigg 2016). But, Julia needed to work further in order to identify the norms, which play important role in the organisation to build a team. In this, Julia invited two groups for the discussion, Team A and Team B. Team A included professionals, who have experience and knowledge related to the field. On the other hand, Team B included the successful executives and middle managers.

Identification of issues and problems

From the case study, it is analysed that there are different factors that develop the effective teams. But, Julia faced issues in determining the critical norms and behaviours that are important in forming effective teams within the firm (Duhigg 2016). It is because sometimes, the norms of one effective team contrasted with another, who is equally successful in the organisation.

From the given case study of Google, it is analysed that in forming the better and effective team, the firm faced issue related to the determination of team norms. It is because these norms decide the nature and behaviour of teams within the firm. One of the major issues was also related to that one team can succeed in one environment but, fail in another. It is because due to lack of managerial communication or lack effective working environment may cause the failure of the team (Zohar & Polachek 2014). In this, the theory of managerial communication believes that communication between team members are essential to work in the different environments. Through establishing communication, team members can share their issues and experience with the other team members, which can be effective in developing teams within the firm (Duhigg 2016).

It is also found that understanding and influencing group norms or unwritten rules were the key to improving group performance. It is also analysed that in the good teams, everyone spoke roughly the same amount, which is one of the ways to encourage unwritten rules in the teams. Along with this, it is also found that if the team does fail, the manager needs to do lots more to rebuilding the team, which takes more time and cost of the firm in the industry (Robbins & Judge 2012).

There are various alternatives that can be used by Google to resolve the issues. In this, team coaching can be effective and one of the supportive alternatives that could be used by the firm to encourage communication among the teams and their members. In this, a team of 5-8 people, who are from different backgrounds and skills, can be formed. In this, it is essential for the firm to recruit team members, who have the experience on the same field. Due to this, Google can effectively provide the coaching to the new and existing teams so that they can improve their performance to achieve the outcomes (Rousseau, Aube & Tremblay 2013).

At the same time, the managers can also talk about the role that the team member needs to play in the team. In this, team leader can also align the team members’ role and work with the larger mission of the organisation and communicate their contribution. Through this, the team leader can change the norms of the team and lead it towards the success path (Eckstein 2013).

Possible Solutions

Along with this, in the alternatives, the team manager or leader can establish group norms for communication at the beginning of the project. In this, the use of explicit communication can be effective to value every team member views and perception. This can also lead the team manager to establish safe communication at the time of differences in opinions. Through this, the team manager can provide a similar working environment to the team members as they experienced previously (Ostrom 2014). It can also be effective in rebuilding the team quickly with less or no cost at the time of failure of the team. It is because through establishing group norms for the communication, team members can share their stories and feedbacks in order to build better team for the accomplishment of organisational and project objectives significantly.

In order to resolve the issues, the development of group norms for communication at the beginning of the project can be effective. It is because due to this, the team leader can effectively lead the new team within the organisation. In this, the establishment of group norms can also be effective for Matt in defining the roles to the group members and access their feedbacks to build and establish effective team at the workplace (McLaughlin & Vitak 2012). At the same time, the use of group norms for communicating can also be supportive in making strong working environment, where everyone’s voice will be valued and to make a safe communication, where the leader receive different opinion and ideas.

At the same time, it will be an effective solution to improve the attitude and behaviour or team members in order to develop the supportive teams to achieve organisational objectives whether these are technical or related to the market. Along with this, the development of group norms for communication can also be supportive in establishing culture of ownership, which can also be effective in directly talk with the team members and resolve their queries and communicate difficult information in a way that safeguard relationships (Eckstein 2013).

This proposed solution can also be realistic and beneficial for Google in terms of managing the teams in the different situations. It is because due to IT-intensive field and environment, Google can motivate team members to proactively work on the accepting critiques of their work without taking it as a personal criticism. It can also help the firm to make team members more responsible towards their work as well as organisational process (Douglas 2016). Through this, the members can also motivate to develop strong teams to achieve organisational objectives.

Proposed Solution

On the basis of above, it can be recommended to Google that it should develop the explicit communication among the team members as a short-term action. Due to this, the team members clearly understand the instructions and information without any misinterpretation. Through this, Matt can also speak at length about the work project and roles of the team members in the project (Hall 2015). Due to this, Matt can also ensure the success of team in the organisation and raise the team output to provide competitive advantages to the firm.

Along with this, the firm can also recruit an external coach for providing training and coaching to the team members about the work and communication. The recruitment of external coach can be effective for the firm to assist the team members in their roles and also support the team to identify and address barriers to its own performance (Karthik 2014). Through this, the firm or Matt can provide full focus to the team to achieve its goals without any interference.

References

Douglas, E 2016, What Google Learned About the Perfect Team, viewed 22 August 2016, <https://www.business2community.com/leadership/google-learned-perfect-team-01539343#u4XOMCx0rKG2qkws.97>.

Duhigg, C 2016, What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. viewed 22 August 2016, <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html>.

Eckstein, J 2013, Agile Software Development with Distributed Teams: Staying Agile in a Global World, Addison-Wesley, New York.  

Erez, M, Lisak, A, Harush, R, Glikson, E, Nouri, R & Shokef, E 2013, ‘Going global: Developing management students' cultural intelligence and global identity in culturally diverse virtual teams’, Academy of Management Learning & Education, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 330-355.

Hall, T 2015, 5 Research Backed Practices to Build a High Performing Team. Viewed 22 August 2016, <https://connectionculture.com/5-research-backed-practices-to-build-a-high-performing-team/>.

Karthik, M 2014, 14 Ways to Help Teams Communicate Better. Viewed 22 August 2016 <https://www.workshifting.com/2014/07/14-ways-help-teams-communicate-better.html>.

McLaughlin, C & Vitak, J 2012, ‘Norm evolution and violation on Facebook’, New Media & Society, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 299-315.

Ostrom, E 2014, ‘Collective action and the evolution of social norms’, Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, vol. 6, issue 4, p. 235-252.

Robbins, SP & Judge, T 2012, Essentials of organizational behaviour, Pearson, Boston.

Rousseau, V, Aubé, C & Tremblay, S 2013, ‘Team coaching and innovation in work teams: An examination of the motivational and behavioral intervening mechanisms’, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 344-364.

Zohar, D & Polachek, T 2014, ‘Discourse-based intervention for modifying supervisory communication as leverage for safety climate and performance improvement: A randomized field study’, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 99, no. 1, pp. 113.