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Case Incident A Virtual Team at T.A.Stearns

Question 1 Why is this group a team? Answer 1 This group can be easily seen as a
team in which there is a formal group of four people who have pre-defined roles
to perform. The group members here are part of a virtual team which means they
can operate from anywhere they wish to, that is , they just have to check once a
day through e-mails, messages and group conferencing softwares . Here are the r
easons why this group is a team : 1. The team has shared leadership roles. All t
he four members of the team have full independence to work from anywhere and has
a say in the decisions made by the team. 2. Team has individual and mutual acco
untability 3. The team has specific purpose The soul goal of this team is to pre
pare highly technical both in terms of the tax laws they cover and the code in w
hich they are written. 4. The team has a collective work products They have a te
am which works together to solve big problems through programming such as buildi
ng complex macros for the company. 5. The team encourages open-ended, active pro
blem solving meetings They talk to each other daily via mails and messages and g
roup conferencing softwares. 6. The team measures performance by assessing colle
ctive work products 7. The team discusses, decides and does real work They openl
y discuss with each other the problems and make decisions there by leading to pr
ogramming new programmes for the firms. Here the team goes beyond the traditiona
l formal work groups by having a collective, synergistic (the whole is greater t
han the sum of its parts) effect.

Question 3 What, if, any, characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the wo

rk team? Answer 3 Following is a brief look at the situation T.A.Stearns is a na
tional tax accounting firm whose main business is tax preparation services for i
ndividuals. It has a superior reputation due to its quality of advice and the ex
cellence of service. The key is the state-of-the-art computer databases and anal
ysis tools used when counselling clients which are developed by highly trained i
ndividuals. The creation of the programs is done in a virtual environment by tea
ms. Here four programmers named Tom Andrews, Cy Crane, Marge Dector, and Megan H
arris work at home and are connected to each other and the company by email, tel
ephone and conference software. The team is virtual in nature and formal and the
y can work wherever they want but have to check in daily, onsite meetings among
programmers take place only few times in a year, though they meet informally out
side of these scheduled occasions. The team exchanges emails many times a day an
d often they are amusing as well as well work-related. Also once about a month t
he whole group gets together. Now lets have a brief look at how the problem arose
due to groupthink Programmers develop programming tools called macro that helps
them to do their work more efficiently when a major program change is required
due to changes/amendments in laws. Cy became obsessed with the prospect of creat
ing a shortcut that could save huge amount of time and he was successful in doin
g so. He told Tom about it who tried it and found it clicked. Stearns has an emp
loyee suggestion program rewarding employees for innovations saving company mone
y. It gives an employee five percent of savings generated over a period of three
months and a profit-sharing plan. The members of team wanted a time for leisure
and consulting work and feared their group might suffer if the management learn
ed about their innovation. This way the work of four people could be done by thr
ee and one could lose the job, so they kept it to themselves. Now as the busy se
ason came they distributed the macro to other members of the team and swore them
to secrecy. They set a level of production that would not arouse the managements
suspicion. For several months this continued and they pushed to more quality wo
rk with more leisure time. However, Dave Regan, the in-house manager of the work
team, picked up the innovation several weeks after it was first implemented. He
found out that the production time had gone down a bit, while quality had shot
up. He found proofs to his doubt in emails of Marge to Cy. He hinted it to Tom b
ut he would not tell the truth. Finally things began to go out of control as Cy
boasted his trick to a member of another virtual team and Dave took

Cy out to a lunch. At the lunch Cy revealed about the innovation and that the te
ams action had been justified to protect itself. Groupthink A dysfunction of high
ly cohesive groups and teams that has received a lot of attention has been refer
red to as groupthink. In groupthink there is a deterioration of mental efficienc
y, reality testing, and moral judgement that results from in-group pressure. It
results from the pressures on individual members to conform and reach consensus
that there is no realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action in a decis
ion, and deviant, minority, or unpopoular views are suppressed. Following are th
e characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team There is the ill
usion of invulnerability There is excessive optimism and risk taking. As we can s
ee here there is excessive optimism and risk taking behaviour shown by the team
as they kept the innovation to themselves having optimism regarding that the man
agement wont easily find out about it. Also the risk taking behaviour can be seen
when they ignore the company policy for their own benefits. There are rationali
sations by the members of the group to discount warnings. This can be seen when
the members ignore the threat of being caught and whwn Dave hinted Tom he ration
alised thinking if everythings all right why does dave has to worry. There is an
unquestioned belief in the groups inherent morality The group ignores questionabl
e ethical or moral issues or stances. Here the group ignores the moral issues an
d stances by keeping the innovation to themselves knowing about the company poli
cy of suggested rewards. Working for Stearns for a long time they should have be
en more loyal. Those who oppose the group are stereotyped as evil, weak or stupi
d. Here not a singleperson in any team leaked the secret of the macro to the man
agement, though, it is hard to believe that no one had any morality or loyalty f
or Stearns. There is direct pressure on any member who questions the stereotypes
. Similar to above no one questioned Cy and Tom for being immoral and their unre
alistic approach. There is self-censorship of any deviation from the apparent gr
oup consensus. This can be easily seen in this case as no one person came out wi
th the truth unless it was finally out. There is the illusion of unanimity silen
ce is interpreted as consent. Here Cy and Tom swore the other members to the oat
h of secrecy thinking what they thought was everybodys thinking but this actually
might not have been the case.

There are self-appointed mind guards who protect the group from adverse informat
ion. In this case study Tom was the self-appointed mind guard who kept the infor
mation of Dave hinting to him about the innovation to himself thinking that ther
e would be nothing done as long as the work was done well and company was in pro
fit. Question 4 Has Dave been an effective team leader? Explain your position. A
nswer Yes, Dave is an effective team leader according to my interpretation becau
se he knows how to converse with employees in different situations without offen
ding them in any way. In this case when Cy developed a program using his superio
r programming skills to reduce his man- hours and increase productivity, he told
about it only to his colleagues so that they benefit from it and enjoy some lei
sure time. He didnt tell about it to Dave(his boss) because he feared that since
his program helps in doing the work of four people by only three people, one of
them might lose their job because of him. Another reason contributing to his sec
recy was that their team would get only 5% of the profit generated by the aid of
their innovation only for three months which was very less in comparison to the
leisure time they had. The group even increased the quality of their work so as
to not arouse any suspicion. But Cy made the terrible mistake of telling about
his program to a member from another group which aroused Daves suspicions. Dave w
as wondering for a few weeks after the implementation of the program as to why t
he production time had decreased and the quality of work had shot up. He got his
first inkling form an e-mail he intercepted from Marge (another member of the t
eam) to Cy thanking him for his brilliant thinking. Dave tried to confront Tom (
group member) trying not to create an embarrassing situation but got no further
leads. He did not even tell his boss about his suspicions since quality and prod
uctivity were up. But one day Dave learned that Cy had boasted about his trick p
rogram to a person from another team in the company. Dave decided that the matte
r had gone out of hands and pulled the reins by inviting Cy to lunch and asking
him to explain what was happening. This method was wise and effective as it gave
a sense of security to the offender who pleaded guilty immediately but insisted
that the reasons were justified so as to protect himself. This manner of interr
ogation and his good use of intellect to cover an embarrassing situation shows t
hat he is an effective team leader. Also he respects the sentiments and

feelings of others which makes him a considerate man leading to his effective te
am leadership.