Leadership failures and team dysfunction at Decision Tech

Leadership

Attributes of effective teams

Establishment of team "Norms"

Four stages of team development

Seven tools for developing team leader credibility

Three different Roles

Attributes of effective teams

Decision tech began to fall apart after two years into their business. Though the company had all the resources that any company would need to achieve success, the company missed crucial deadlines and could not stop attrition of key personnel.

The board of the company ultimately decided to change the leadership. It was evident that the company executives and the workers were not functioning as a team. This has resulted in the dismal performance of the company. The morale of the company was down as well. When the CEO was asked to step down, the employees were not surprise.

As a team the Decision Tech team lacked a few vital qualities that are needed for most teams to succeed.

The first quality that is required for an effective team is members of the team are found to be more efficient working together than alone. In decision Tech team this was clearly lacking among the members of the team. The employees clearly agreed that under the leadership of the CEO, the atmosphere in the company had deteriorated and thus it is evident that the individual team members did not function as a team and hence could not flourish.

In effective teams there is generally a have a high level of trust among members. In teams that are successful, the individual members are generally interested in others' success as well as their own. IN the Decision Tech team, this was completely missing. The team under the CEO had no sense of camaraderie and there was no unity in the team, let along individuals getting happy at o other's success and therefore the level of commitment was mutated. In fact the middle management and the executive were troubled with a lot of back stabbing. Things took a lot of time to get completed and the results were not good.

Another requirement for effective teams is that the members care for and nurture one another. Members are valued and appreciated and treated as an integral part of the team. From the above facts stated about the Decision Tech team, this was not at all present in the team. Therefore the team did not do well.

Establishment of team "Norms"

Before the appointment of Kathryn as the CEO of the company, the board of directors, who worked and functioned and took decision as a team, went through the normative process that teams undergo when they were deciding on the appointment of Kathryn. The Chairman of the company acted as the team leader of the team though the views and opinions of the other board members were taken into account.

The team was trying to build up a norm for the decision of appointment of Kathryn and the typical behaviors that are seen at the time of norm formation were visible.

The team members were communicating with each other, one of the primary behaviors during the stage of norms formation in a team. The board members openly communicated with each other on the issue. The communication was to such a good level that even the sanity of the chairman was questioned about his persistence to hire Kathryn.

The team exhibited behaviors of shared stereotypes as the members finally dismissed the rumors and talk against the appointment of Kathryn and believed the Chairman when he assured them that Kathryn would succeed.

The behavior of illusion of invulnerability was exhibited that entails that the team has faith in the past records of success. In this case the board had faith that the extremely good instincts of the chairman, that had been successful in the past, would again succeed. The board members washed away case of the former CEO as an aberration.

The team showed behaviors of rationalization when they agreed that Decision tech was in a desperate condition and that there not too many executives were willing to take the responsibility of CEO of the company given the sorry state of the company. The team rationalized away the threats to ensure that a consensus was built.

The board team believed themselves to be lucky to have got Kathryn and exhibited the behavior of illusion of morality where team members believe that they are not likely to make wrong decision as they are moral individuals.

Four stages of team development

The off-site meetings conducted by Kathryn in the novel were for the purpose of building up of the team. The formative process of the team at Decision Tech followed the four stages of building a team. These were:

Forming

This is the first stage of the formation of a team. At this stage, the various members of a team are brought together and a relatively new team is formed. Individuals are most often not sure about their roles and responsibilities and hence there is anxiousness prevalent at this stage. While, on the other hand, there might be others who could be excited about the tasks that they were about to be given. This was evident from the novel where Kathryn brought the executive team to an off-site meeting. There were executives like Mike who were apprehensive while there were others who were interested about the tam formation like Nick. However it is apparent from the novel that none of the members of the team were aware completely about what their roles and responsibilities would be. The team member also came to know a little bit about each other. Kathryn in the novel did this when everyone was asked to talk about their past childhood except about their careers.

Norming

This is usually the second stage of a teambuilding exercise where certain rules and norms applicable to the team are developed. This was the primary work that was done by Kathryn at the off-site meeting. Through extensive interactions she managed to draw up a chart of what the team should not do and what behavioral changes were required in the team to achieve success and to turn Decision tech back onto the path of success. For example, Kathryn established that the team lacked trust among the team members, there was fear of conflict within the team and hence everyone confronted the other during meetings, there was lack of commitment for the achievement of the team goal, accountability was often avoided and there was more emphasis on the personal achievement than the inattention to achieve the team results. The novel clearly sets these as norms that are to be avoided by the team to be able to function properly.

Storming

This is the third stage of team building where the people themselves try to achieve more than those that were set in the norming stage. In the novel, the participation of Mike in the debates and discussion after initial hic ups is an indication of the storming that Kathryn created in the team while they were on the off-site meeting. There were also occasions when Kathryn insisted that team members should confront and debate the comments of each other and many of the team members did so during the meetings and the session. This resulted in the exhibition of storming in the team building exercise for Decision tech.

Performing

The performing stage of team building is achieved when the team through hard work leads to the achievement of the coals for the team without any disturbance or friction in between. This happened at the Decision Tech when the team came back from the off-site meeting and performed well to achieve that which had not been achieved in the preceding two years of the company's history.

The essential behavioral changes that the team at the Decision tech managed to gather form the off-site meetings were trust building in one another, betterment of personal relations, intent to confront team members in a constructive manner, participating in the meetings and discussions and improvement of overall morale of the team.

Three different Roles

The task of facilitating role was performed critically and most efficiently by Jan Merisno, the chief financial officer. This is so because is among the most dependable among the executives of the company. She helped in giving directions in financial matters at all times, and monitored and urged the company in financial matters. She also had a touch with reality and kept a check on the expenses of the company.

The relationship building role was performed by Jeff Rawlins. He was never rude and always agreed to do whatever the executives asked him to do. He was every careful about the commitments and did not let tension develop due to his failing a commitment. He was harmonizing and believed in building a consensus and generally supportive to other people.

The best example among the executive playing a blocking role was Martin. Whenever he spoke he tried to dominate on the pretext of his superior technological knowledge. He was overanalyzing as he had some sarcastic comment when someone said something wrong in any technical matter. He did not help the meetings progress by not participating and engaging in the meetings and remained passive in most of the interactions with other colleagues.