Creating And Managing Effective Teams

Creating and Managing Effective Teams

Bill Parker

Axia College

Organizational Business/MGT245

Tiffany Stamper

August 12, 2007

Creating and Managing Effective Teams

Creating and managing effective teams in today’s work environment is much different than it was just a short time ago. With each generation of American workers come new ideas, rules, and methodologies that must be considered when developing an effective team. Some of the newer ideas may have been foreign to managers even ten years ago. An example of this is that many companies today are becoming more socially responsible. A recent article in Incentive states, “Social responsibility, it seems, is the new signing bonus” (Flanagan, p4, 2006). Rarely are managers given a perfect set of employees, a perfect environment, or a team without conflict in order to develop an effective team. These issues make it more important than ever to be able to effectively manage these teams. The simulation for Luxurion was an excellent example of managing a team well, even when the team is not put together perfectly. This paper will examine what team member were chosen, why these choices were made, issues that were worked through during the simulation and the final outcome after completing the simulation.

In the case of the Luxurion Auto simulation of creating managing effective teams I did not choose the same team as the simulator would have chosen. Not choosing the perfect team was alright because I was taught many years ago that the true test of a leader is when they are able to overcome obstacles and still accomplish the task at hand. I began the simulation by reviewing the individuals skill sets, their personal information, and the five positions that were available for the seven choices. I then tried to match this information with the jobs that were available. Because there was so little information it was difficult to understand the candidates fully, but I was confident that the choices that I made were solid. Having the right employees but using them in the wrong way is a mistake far too many employers make and was not a mistake that I wanted to make. Deploying the team members into the correct job is the critical piece of managing the team to their full potential. After deploying the team members it is important to work with them to identify, develop and use their talents (Viewpoint, 2007) towards the common goal, developing a new and exciting luxury car design.

For my team I chose Harvey to be the team Assessor/Advisor because he was a highly experienced (15 years) individual who was versatile, creative, detail oriented and high energy. I felt that this combination would be well suited for the job of Assessor/Advisor.

The next position that I filled was Creator. For this position I choose Amarita. Amarita had already proven herself by becoming one of the hottest designers in Europe and Asia while working for Ferrari. I was excited to make her a part of the creative fabric of this team because I knew that she would be able to bring “new blood” to the project which would help stimulate the creativity of the rest of the team.

The third position that was filled was that of Controller/Organizer. This position was difficult to fill because I was torn between John and Marcell. In the end I decided to place John into this position because he has 15 years of managing spearheading development projects and his ability to mentor his subordinates. I made this choice even though I understood that John could be set in his ways because I felt the experience was worth the possible negative tradeoffs that could come about because of this character defect. The key to a strengths-based approach to managing employees is to help employees like John to understand his natural patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior so that he can apply them in a positive and productive manner (Brim, 2007). By deploying John in a way that helped to maximize his innate talents he can make powerful, positive contributions that can drive the project forward.

For promoter/maintainer I felt that the choice was obvious. With Janice’s public relations background she fit the positions requirements the best of all seven candidates. Being a natural networker who is both creative and single minded at getting what she wants. This single mindedness made it easy for me to see how I could manage her through the utilization of rewards to accomplish the team goals and maintain team efficacy.

The final team member chosen was for the position of linker/producer. Marcell seemed to be the natural choice for this position. The single most important factor that made Marcell seem to be the best choice for this position was his proven ability to identify the deliverable or objective in any given situation. In the position of linker/producer, the ability to coordinate, integrate, provide directions, and follow through were areas that I felt best suited Marcell’s skill set. Marcell’s excellent project management skills and his ability to keep people on track were also important factors that I considered when making this choice.

After seeing what choices my assistant, Sarah, would have made I continued the simulation when I encountered my first obstacle. Harvey, my choice for Assessor and Advisor was running into a conflict with the other team members because he was not available to them as much as they would have liked. I met with the team members and explained that Harvey had been given the technological tools necessary so that web conferencing would be able to take place whenever he was not in the office so that the team could still reach him. I allowed Harvey to explain that he really did want to be more interactive with the rest of the team and that this technology would allow him to do so.

The next issue that was created by the simulation was that the team perceived that Amanita was pushing her own ideas and agenda not working well with the team. I explained to the group, in a team meeting the need to balance recognition of Amanita’s ideas with the team concept of maintaining creativity. I also reminded Amanita that, although her ideas were excellent, they should not stifle the creativity of the rest of the team and that all ideas should be taken into account.

Later in the simulation I used the devil’s advocate approach to move the team away from the group think mentality that had been growing. This technique was effective in keeping the team open-minded to new ideas. The constructive criticism and challenging feedback