TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Introduction: The team in the context is a ‘Learning Team’ of an MBA program at a big-

name school in the eastern United States and is only three weeks into the first year of the

program. A learning team is self-managed one, in which each student is both a learner and a

teacher. Tony Marshall, a second-year learning team mentor, oversees the learning team’s

meetings. The learning team comprises of individuals from diverse backgrounds. Essentially,

they are all around 26 years of age, athletic, and had professional backgrounds in finance or

economics. Introducing the team members below to gauge at group’s diversity:

Sandeep Sharma Jennifer Martin Daren Qnyealisi

• From Bangalore, India
• Degree in Technology
• Worked for Intel,
Bangalore
• Very Involved in Indian
Club in UVA
• Pursuing a career in
consulting after
graduation; hoping to
attain a visa and get a
US work sponsor
• Only Woman in learning • From Nigeria, living in
team US for 10+ years
• From a mixed race • Degree in government
family • Policy research analyst
• Crowned paegent queen in DC, then real estate
• Dual finance and IS analyst
degree • First generation college
• Pursuing a career in grad; fellowship
private wealth recipient
• Black Business Student • Big Brother for local
Forum and National youths in community
Association of Women's • Targeting the consulting
MBA's industry for summer
internship

Rob Delery Jason Cooper Tom Giffen

• Degree in Chemical
Engineering
• Member of
championship club
soccer team
undergraduate
• Hired into job rotation
program
• Pursuing career in
investment banking
• Single and member of
the Thursday Night
Drinking Club
• Former captain of varsity
football team at
Washington & Lee
University
• Degree in accounting
• Worked in real estate
investment
• Married (wife works in
school admissions)
• Member of Christian
Fellowship program
• Self professed introvert
• Passionate about
Chicago Clubs
• Worked as financial
analyst on Wall Street
• Attended london School
of Economics
• Pursuing an internship in
investment banking
firms
• Spends a lot if time
networking with alumni
and recruiters

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 TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

2. From the team meeting as mentioned in the case following issues within the team

can be observed very evidently:

2.1 Disorganized Meetings: The group does not have clearly defined goals and agenda for

the meeting in place. Team members tend to lose motivation in such scenarios. As the

group meetings are not structured, a substantial amount of time is wasted during

disagreements about what should be accomplished next. The issue cropped up when Delery

disagreed about doing takeaways for each meeting and claimed that the group never agreed

to do it every time and that time could be used more effectively.

2.2 Undesirable Relationships: At this point, many essential team skills are missing within

the group such as trust and respect. Often, individuals resist a changes when they do not

trust the person proposing it. In the absence of trust, the level of effort towards the project

could deteriorate as members begin to feel that they are not being treated equitably. Group

members can begin to feel disrespected and therefore, compromise any trust that was built

previously. This became evident when Onyealisi failed to pre-read the case and Delery

voted against splitting up the work because he believed he would have to redo Onyealisi’s

part.

The group was living with bad relationships on both an individual and team level. Referring

to big five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and

neuroticism) that influence organizational (team in this case) behavior indicates that traits

of agreeableness and openness are missing from some team members. It is important to the

team because when members counter others’ ideas and handle the process poorly this can

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 TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

lead to poor team performance and frustration. It can be seen when Griffin and Cooper

constantly argued and questioned each other’s point of views while in fact presenting the

same ideas.

2.3 Norms: Group’s undefined behavioral expectations can lead to bad norms, which

ultimately will lead to ineffectiveness and inefficiency. Bad norms fuel a variety of

problems such as poor team interaction and tardiness. When Onyealisi was late and no one

knew whether he was coming to the meeting or not is one such instance. This not only

depicts communication gap between the team members, but also can create a bad norm of

being late. Continued negligence in addressing unacceptable behavior can lead to multiple

bad norms, resulting in group conflicts. The other instance of potential bad norms forming

is when Onyealisi comes unprepared to the meeting. Unpreparedness prevented Onyealisi

from contributing meaningful ideas to the team. This can be related to continuance

commitment as he showed no passion about the group study and always exhibited a

negative attitude.

3. Things the team should do in order to resolve the issues and progress positively:

It is imperative for the team to understand here that it is quite normal for teams go through the

kind of issues the team is facing and it will highly useful for each members to go through and

understand following concepts on ‘Group management’ to get hold of existing and do course

correction to create a positive path going forward-

3.1 Stages of Group Development:

3.1.1 Forming: In this stage, the group comes together for the first time. The members

may already know each other or they may be total strangers. In either case, there is

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 TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

a level of formality, some anxiety, and a degree of guardedness as group members

are not sure what is going to happen next.

3.1.2 Storming: Participants focus less on keeping their guard up as they shed social

facades, becoming more authentic and more argumentative. Group members begin

to explore their power and influence, and they often stake out their territory by

differentiating themselves from the other group members rather than seeking

common ground. Group members often feel elated at this point, and they are much

more committed to each other and the group’s goal. Feeling energized by knowing

they can handle the tough stuff, group members are now ready to get to work.

Finding themselves more cohesive and cooperative, participants find it easy to

establish their own ground rules (or norms) and define their operating procedures

and goals.

3.1.3 Performing: Galvanized by a sense of shared vision and a feeling of unity, the

group is ready to go into high gear. Members are more interdependent, individuality

and differences are respected, and group members feel themselves to be part of a

greater entity.

3.1.4 Adjourning: Just as groups form, so do they end. Just as when we graduate from

school or leave home for the first time, these endings can be bittersweet, with group

members feeling a combination of victory, grief, and insecurity about what is

coming next. For those who like routine and bond closely with fellow group

members, this transition can be particularly challenging.

3.2 The Punctuated-Equilibrium Model: While every team has to go through these

stages, this model suggests that life of a group is much more dynamic and cyclical in nature

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 TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

and groups often progress forward during bursts of change after long periods without

change, called punctuated equilibrium.

3.3 Cohesion: It can be thought of as a kind of social glue. It refers to the degree of

camaraderie within the group. Cohesive groups are those in which members are attached

to each other and act as one unit. Generally speaking, the more cohesive a group is, the

more productive it will be and the more rewarding the experience will be for the group

members.

3.4 Social Loafing: It refers to the tendency of individuals to put in less effort when working

in a group context. It is less a matter of being lazy and more a matter of perceiving that one

will receive neither one’s fair share of rewards if the group is successful nor blame if the

group fails.

3.5 Collective efficacy: It refers to a group’s perception of its ability to successfully perform

well. Collective efficacy is influenced by a number of factors, including watching others

(“that group did it and we’re better than them”), verbal persuasion (“we can do this”), and

how a person feels (“this is a good group”). A group’s collective efficacy is related to its

performance. This relationship is higher when task interdependence is high.

4. Conversant with above concept the team would come up with following

recommendations:

4.1 Recommendation 1: Fix an agenda

Create an agenda for each meeting, with a list of goals that you wish the group should

accomplish by the end of each meeting. With this, everyone in the group know what to

expect each meeting and this would use the allotted time more efficiently. To make this

solution effective, the goals should follow the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable,

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 TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Relevant and Timely) criteria. Settling short-term SMART goals such as assigning one

member to write up a section by the next meeting, will help build the team’s efficacy and

allow them to rebuild their trust and confidence as a team.

4.2 Recommendation 2: Team Dinner or Outing for activities

Five-Stage Model suggests that the learning team is currently in the storming phase,

however, because of continuous intragroup conflict, the team should go back to the forming

stage (cyclical form of development) before moving up. To do this, the team should

schedule biweekly team outings at a sports bar or restaurant or may be hiking/trekking. As

all the team members are athletic, this common interest can be something they bond over

better. The team can increase their cohesiveness, by spending more time outside of the

classroom. Coupling this with recommendation of agenda, the team will be positioned at

the high cohesiveness and high performance norms quadrant of the relationship matrix,

which eventually leads to high productivity.

4.3 Recommendation 3: Collectively Setting Team Norms to be Abided

To have an effective team, the team needs to address pressing issues such as being

unprepared for meetings and tardiness, as these have the possibility of becoming bad

norms. Norms develop gradually as team members learn what behaviors are necessary for

effective functioning of the team. Acceptable behavior for attendance, cellphone usage,

attentiveness, and preparedness can be collectively decided, which will help meetings go

over smoothly and more productively. Members can propose that the team creates a list of

norms they all agree upon so that conflict and inefficiency are avoided in future meetings.

In the process of teamwork, having a team self-evaluation to examine team effectiveness

and whether or not everyone has followed the set norms, will enhance overall efficacy.

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TEAMWORK TURMOIL: PROBLEMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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 E-MAIL TO THE EPGP GROUP

Dear Team

It has been quite some time since we are working together to execute group assignments and

projects this semester. I had never worked before with any of you in the previous semester, so it is

a completely different and enriching experience for me to be working with a relatively slightly less

familiar group. I distinctly remember, I was so glad to know that I was grouped with you all,

individuals who I personally admired basis classroom and one-on-one interactions outside a group

space.

When I reflect back to our journey as a group, I must admit, I find that it has fared better than I

had expected. Below, I am mentioning things that went well for us:

1. One of the key positive influencers to mutual learning for us is our group’s diversity. We are

an amalgamation of individuals from Operations, Marketing & Sales, Data Analytics, Product

Management, and Risk Management domains. This mix helped each other be better exposed

to areas of business previously less accustomed with.

2. We are, I can vouch, a sincere team in various team aspects. Each one of us earnestly

contributed to each assignment and project that we accomplished together. We helped each

other understand subtle nuances of work whenever a team member required. We bettered our

learning through real work life examples from our respective domains.

3. We showed tremendous respect for each other by letting everyone present their share of

ideas/thoughts and valued the same by listening it intent fully and incorporating it in our work.

I am confident that you all would agree on my points mentioned above and I would love to receive

your views on this. Also, the critic in me has found following suboptimal for our group:
 E-MAIL TO THE EPGP GROUP

1. Though our meetings were preplanned and agenda was set, we at times missed adhering to

timeliness. We could have saved much time for individual selves had we complied with starting

a meeting sharp on time for more no. of times.

2. Sometime, even when a meeting would start on time, few of us would arrive late. This created

redundancy in debriefing and consumed more time than required. This tendency can lead to

frustration and dissonance in who are more disciplined in this aspect.

3. We did postpone our meetings considerable no. of times for one or the other reason. It would

be better if we establish certain norm and conducts for such engagements, for postponement

kind of issues interfere heavily on our personal plans.

I, believe, there are no perfect teams and there is always a scope of improvement in the ways teams

collaborate; so is the case with ours, for which we will make efforts to correct lacunas found.

Allow me to take this opportunity to express my assessment of individual members as well:

Member 1: Despite your other hectic committee engagements, the amount of efforts you put in

group activities is laudable. You are the star of our group.

Member 2: You are the one, who keeps our group’s clock ticking, not only by initiating various

discussion among us and tracking timelines but also by your invaluable inputs.

Member 3: You are the one, who has put considerable efforts in collating information for us. Your

providing us space to conduct discussions at your place reflects on you team commitment.

Member 4: We gain pace with your constant push to accomplish tasks. Bur it is sometimes that

your constant push tends to dilute the gravity of the matter discussed upon. I urge you to make us

comfortable in going to the depth of the issued discussed for better outcomes.

Looking forward to creating laurels for the group with you all in times to come.

Abhishek Upadhyay
E-MAIL TO THE EPGP GROUP