Analyzing The Team Management System At Virgin Group Of Companies

Virgin is a well-established venture capital organization, which is founded by a great businessman by the name of Sir Richard Branson. He is the chairman of Virgin group and involved with more than 360 organizations. Branson is managing his organization and staff in an effective manner, whilst showing great concern towards his employees. Branson and his delegation have established the Virgin Group into an organization, which has changeable teams that work together to build successful operations within the organization. The objective of this report is to analyze how different kinds of groups form relationships and how they adapt the changes, with the goal of building efficient teams.

1. According to the given table, there are different teams at Virgin group. Cross-functional teams, problem solving teams and top management teams. The cross-functional teams are managing the procedures of human resources from different departments, who are working collectively to achieve a common goal (Abudi 2009). Virgin group of airlines is one of 360 organizations and it has different departments, which work together to make sure that the organization is performing well in competitive environment. Moreover, the problem solving team consists of experienced employees who resolve some specific problems of the workers and after the problem has been resolved the team is dispersed, allowing the group members to return to their work.  For example, a problem solving team came together at Virgin at the time of check-in system failure at Australian Airports (Merhab 2012).

The top management team includes the top departments, such as; CEO, vice presidents and executives. This team works to help the company to achieve its objective and mission. At Virgin, Richard Branson will meet with the top management team to discuss some important points, which affect the achievement of organizational objectives (Sadq 2016). Furthermore, work teams include the members who work collectively with the organized efforts. An example of a work team at Virgin Airlines is their flight crew.

2. At Virgin, the effectiveness of the groups is perceived to be affected by the different stages of team development and effective functioning of the several task roles. There are 4 stages of team development, i.e. forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

Forming is the first stage of the team development. In this stage, the team members are positive. Although, some of the members are apprehensive as they have not understood what task the team will perform. The role of a leader is very important in this phase. At Virgin, Branson played an important role in this phase. He recruited the candidates with the similar standards (Preston 2013). His aim was to hire the potential employees, who seem to be very friendly. In this stage, objectives of groups are not known to the members. Virgin preferred that the groups must be diversified and the members must have good interpersonal skills.

Stages of Team Development

The second phase is storming. In this stage, there is conflict between the working styles of team members. Members start to show their individual personalities. Many teams may fail at this stage. At Virgin, the group size is considered primarily (Mubbisherahmed, 2011). They recommend a team of five or seven members, because using the odd number can help in avoiding the situation of disagreement. This size of group is not too big to overwhelm the interactions. If the group is small, then there will be less need of forming sub-groups. In this stage, the plans of the leaders can be questioned by the members.

As the team starts to work together, the members begin to solve their differences and conflicts and respect their leader. In this phase, a group works as a team. Roles and norms are formed. As Branson is a dynamic leader, there is positive collaboration among the members (Wilson, Benedict, Snow & Havercamp 2010). Group norm is an important part of this process. There is equality in the groups at Virgin. The case study shows that there is high level of synergy between navigators, co-pilot, flight attendants and aircraft captain.

After storming, the team moves into the performing stage. At this point, the hard work starts and leads to achieve the goals of the team. The leader focuses on the team members. The problems of the group are solved and goals are met. The case study analyzes that if there will be more cohesiveness in the group, then performance will be comparatively better (Preston 2013). For enhancing the performance of the group members, Branson suggests to form the groups of  people, who have similar value and attitudes. This is the major reason behind the success of groups at Virgin Group of Companies.

When the team moves to the adjourning phase, the group task comes to an end and members move off to the different tracks (Levitt 2012). The teams stay for a fixed period of time. Once the objective of the group fulfills, they engage in their routine tasks.

There are different task roles at Virgin Group, such as; group task roles and maintenance roles. Group tasks roles includes the role as a coordinator, information seeker and information giver (Grant 2015). The behavior of these employees is focused on getting the group tasks done. They coordinate and communicate the required information among the members of group. Maintenance task roles include follower, standard setter and encourager. The human resources with this task are very important for the work flow. They are concentrated on the functioning of the teams. Thus, these task roles are apparent and they influence the effectiveness and outcomes in the organization.

3. A Group can be defined as interactions between two or more individuals, who share mutual goals and norms with a common identity. It is a collection of individuals for a mutual objective. There are some characteristics of a group within the Virgin Group of companies and these characteristics align to the group behaviors and performance. The major characteristics of teams are size of the team, group norms and mutual accountability (Mubbisherahmed, 2011). Branson has formed the groups by considering all the characteristics. He preferred to form groups of odd numbers, i.e. 5 or 7. He avoided forming big groups. He assigned the tasks accordingly, as formal groups are made to perform productive tasks and informal teams are assisting in creating friendships in the working environment. Understanding the group norms is also very essential, as it helps the team in understanding how to behave with each other.

Task Roles at Virgin Group

There are some strengths and weaknesses of team member’s behaviors, such as; cohesiveness, conflict and performance. Cohesiveness is the susceptibility of a team to work together. Branson is leading his organization as a dynamic leader, so this will work as strength for its team members (Finkle & Todd 2011). The individuals can perform effectively in such a friendly environment of Virgin. Furthermore, there may be a situation of conflict among the tea members. Conflict can be defined as the situation in which an individual notices that his/her interests are being adversely affected or opposed. At Virgin, there may be dysfunctional or functional conflict among the team members. Performance of the employees can be enhanced, if they are motivated and able to communicate their ideas and participate in the decision-making process of the organization (Virgin, 2010). Management implements programmed conflict to assist the performance of the organization.

4. At Virgin Group, enhancing the social interactions enables the members to contribute to the proficiency of intelligence and knowledge (Lehman, & Dufrene, 2010). Other examples are; promoting the team work, provide feedback to the employees, take their opinions in the decision making process and increase their contribution to the team work. These interactions would support the group activities within the Virgin Group of Companies.

Conclusion

As the team management at the Virgin group is effective. Richard Branson is a good and dynamic leader. The groups are working very well with the collective goals. From the above discussion, it can be concluded the task roles and development of the teams are influencing the outcomes of the organization. Different types of teams are working with the different roles at the Virgin Group of Companies for achieving the overall objectives of organization.

References

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