One important thing that Greg James’s global team is missing and needs to focus on is ‘Communication’. No leader can single handedly boost performance of the team. Hence to prevent such mishaps from happening again and to get best out of the team, a things need to be fixed from both Greg’s end and in the team. Of course it is Greg’s responsibility to ensure that team carries out the necessary changes, but let’s look at them individually.
What needs to be change in Greg’s team going forward?
Greg’s team currently can be viewed as a bunch of sub teams complaining against each other mainly because they have failed to understand each other. They lack the two fundamental things of a team; ‘Trust’ and ‘Coordination’. In the words of Judith A. Ross in the article “Make Your Good Team Great”, “Team achieve superior levels of participation, cooperation, and collaboration because their members trust one another, share a strong sense of group identity, and have confidence in their effectiveness as a team”. The levels of emotional intelligence was critically low in Greg’s global team. While a certain level of familiarity occurs naturally when people work in the same location, it is difficult to build within global teams, notes Debra Nunes, vice president, executive leadership team practice for the Hay Group. Here, the leader plays a critical role.
We come to know that all of Greg’s weekly conference calls were an all-business type. He needs to allot some time during the calls for the team members to socialize and establish a common ground. In the article “Team Camaraderie : Can you have Too much?” by Judith A.Ross there is mention about a leader who managed to sew his far-flung team together by the allotting extra time during the calls just to socialize and talk informally. The same can be implement by Greg. Also the frequency of the calls can be increased instead of following