1. How well is Greg James managing his International Team? What kinds of systems has he put into place to check on the performance of the Team? How well is he motivating the team? How well is he communicating with each team?

Greg is doing a satisfactory job at managing his international team although there is quite a bit of room for improvement. He has spread his team through different continents so they will be able to work closer to the customer and immediately respond to regional problems. He made a wise decision in choosing a diverse and multitalented team. Greg James holds weekly conference calls in addition to the face to face meetings once a month. With the size of his team and their location in the world, effective communication is still a work in progress. Judging from the HS Holdings drama, James must be very attentive to the issues posed by having a global team in four major countries. There was a lack of empathy from James side in regards to a lot of issues the team faced. It’s important for the manager to hold constant conversation with his team members to better understand their daily work performance. His approach however seemed a bit lackluster and ineffective. Issues like odd team meeting timings and misunderstanding because of different pay rate, would have never blown to such an extent if James had addressed them in their infancy. Prior to James’s trip, he was not in touch with his team or their progress. Upon his return, he instituted several team meetings, one on one meetings to bring him closer to his team and to develop team closeness and trust. It is important that he creates a sound environment to foster effective communication as that is of paramount importance in smooth sailing global team relationships. 2. What are the issues that are causing the sub-teams from each country to difficulty integrating with the work and motivation of the whole global team? How does corporate policy help or hurt the team performance? What impact does the location of each team have on performance? How do the time zones impact their ability to work together?
The collaborative efforts of the sub-teams from each country are plagued by certain issues that are hindering their success. For instance, the difference in time zones makes it hard for the entire team to be wholly in sync. More importantly, as a result of the disparity in time zones, it is difficult to choose a time for the weekly meetings that will equally please each sub-team. Therefore, some sub-teams are forced to get the proverbial short end of the stick as they participate in the meeting during inconvenient hours. The open environment contributed to the crisis in the case, because it prevented immediate communication between team members to solve the problem. Additionally, it limited face to face interactions with the other team members, an important ingredient for building relationships and trust.
Furthermore, since the sub-teams are spread out differing economies, it is inevitable to note that there will be a discrepancy in salary. The team members that are disfavored by this salary gap are less likely to feel motivated as they perceive that the reward for their efforts are not being matched fairly with that of their peers. Lastly, the cultural discrepancy posed a problem in the flow of the global team. There were differences in the way the locals of certain regions approached business so they were not always able to meet up with the expectations of the corporate office. The company’s diversity seemed to serve as a detriment in some aspects as employees in the global team lacked an overall organizational culture. 3. Taking each of the 4 International teams one at a time (i.e. France, India, UAE and the U.S.) what are their strengths, weakness and complaints in contributing to the performance and the problems of the global effort?

US: They were strongly engaged wit the operations of the company. They didn’t have to rely on virtual communication or weekly meetings to diffuse information. In addition, the American employees often had stronger decision making power hence their being labeled as ‘favorites’. Not too many leaves were grantef compared to French couterparts and work loaded being distributed unfairly.
France: They had a reputable team – all trained at the top technical instituions of their country. Though their law doesn’t allow the hike, compensation mismatch was their man concern. Salary was 30 percent less than American peers, unpredictable schedule, 50 hours weekly shchedule. even though they had life long job security in comparsion to the US. France’s strict labor laws offered strong protection to the its workforce.

India: Felt like second – class citizens, Had fewer agenda items and their concerns were reviewed last and thus consiitnstely interrupted. Longer working hours and weren’t involved in innovative jobs
UAE: Felt disconnected and worried about being deemed incompetent in performance evaluations because of their unique cultural and time consuming business relationship building challenges. Missing deadlines for cultural reasons – worked at two different paces. 4. What recommendations do you have for improving the performance of the sub-teams in achieving their objectives and for helping them to feel like one global team?
Global teams are a priority for the company, because it represents a competitie strategy3 access to more talent options, closeness to the clients and ability to o*er serice at any hour of the day in any country. he same bene#ts "ere supposed to be re$ected in his team, ho"eer diersity represented a disadantage instead. 4or eample, there "as bad communication due to di*erent time-+ones, cultural di*erences a*ected relationships negatiely and there "as lac of trust.Moving on, Greg James should conduct multiple all-teams meetings to increase communication and interanct among teams. Secondly, customers and employees’ contact information should be kept up-to-date. Thirdly, James must create and practice contingency plans to address issues in a timely manner.