A Brief Note On The Article Communities Of Commitment, By Kofman And Senge

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

In collaboration, all parts of the team are working together to achieve the same mission. Collaboration builds espirit de corps, which is directly connected to mutual trust. Research shows that teams with a higher sense of espirit de corps trust each other more. They have a sense of comradeship. These teams know that each individual is going to pull their own weight and do what they need to do in order to accomplish a mission. This heightens teamwork, as team members are more inclined to collaborate with each other. A leader must also get to know their subordinates individually. When each person feels like their leader has their best interest in mind, this fosters a climate that develops mutual trust and shared understanding. Through all these concepts, the leader may establish a climate which continues the development of trust and understanding between leaders and subordinates produced through the distributive and collaborative leadership process.

Furthermore, one should think of culture, structure and systems as a “whole system” (Goold & Campbell, 2002) instead of independent, individual elements. The conclusion must be that collectively, these three elements create the foundation of an organization.

Reid Hastie, in his book “Wiser,” discusses many of the common points of how groups succeed and fail mainly due to group think. Throughout his years of research, he found a number of attributes that effective teams have in common. From his book, we have extracted ten important lessons that we believe are the most important for teams to learn and implement to be high performing. These findings also relate to the “5 Dysfunctions of a Team” that are outlined by Patrick Lencioni. Teachings taken from “Wiser” are symptoms, or indicators, of dysfunctions within a team, and many of his solutions help teams to overcome certain dysfunctions.

Mending the communication systems in the individual and team levels is crucial to averting escalation of conflicts (McLaughlin, Pearce, & Trenoweth, 2013). Furthermore, an active, two-way communication rhythm is essential to building trust-worthy relationships, avoiding and resolving conflicts, and cultivating a sense of teamwork. In the case, when both teams decided that they are willing to actively listen and take note of each other’s apprehensions, the floodgates to therapeutic communication were opened, which facilitated for a respectful and productive exchange of ideas. According to Yoder-Wise (2011), “trust is the basis by which leaders/managers facilitate the activities and the progress of the team” (p. 357). Effective communication and mutual trust also generate a better working environment, which successively result in staff retention and satisfaction. Therefore, if there is a clear and substantial communication among team members, then building and maintaining trust will more feasible, which will consequently lead to the realization of the team’s mission and

Due to this, the effort to identify and understand how trends and traits making up organizational culture have been a priority amongst most organizations seeking to improve the effectiveness of strategic leadership. According to Schein (2004), the reason why such issues as culture and leadership is important stems from one of the critical factors, that is the fact that certain trends and traits are shared among a group hence forming a shared culture. Schein also explains other critical elements of culture such as structural stability. The definition of culture within an organization creates some sense of stability as it defines the identity

Absence of trust (among team members) - this is where the team members is not open with one another and their unwillingness to be vulnerable. Not open with one another about mistakes and weaknesses makes it impossible to build trust in a team.

The team is assembled and the task is allocated. Team members behave independently, with anxieties about inclusion and exclusion. Their time is spent planning, collecting information and bonding, with an apparent willingness to conform. This can happen whenever new circumstances occur within a group, or when new challenges or projects are set within established

Cultural organization is unique and configures their norms, beliefs, values, and behavioral characteristics into the individual and groups that unite to get things accomplished. Patterns begin to evolve and become a rule of basic assumption; whether it is a new idea, one recently discovered or under development by a certain group as they learn to cope with internal integration and external adaptation problems. Cultural characteristics are hard to define because culture is multi-dimensional with integrated components that intertwine at different levels and ever-changing which takes time to establish and therefore time to change it also. Culture becomes the fabric or social glue that unites its participants, this will counteract any processes that are different becomes an unavoidable side-effect of life in an organization. Mutual understandings and a shared system of meanings becomes the basis of communication in a cultural organization. Functions of a society need to be fulfilled with a certain amount of satisfaction or culture can impede the efficiency of that organization. Problems with this concept arise when trying to categorize culture or when, why, or how corporate culture should be changed or finding the best, healthiest or most desirable one.

Mull (2016) has a video that creates a theory that there are four main concepts to make the team stronger. These concepts include, not tolerating disrespect, overworking employees, having people with bad or toxic personalities, and not having enough interaction between staff members. Getting to know one another is important and it builds stronger relationships.

Low level of trust between team members. In order to regained the higher level of trust between teams member, I would recommend Michael Abram to work on “team development” under the different stages which include forming, storming, norming performing and adjourning that would allow the team members to know each other, understand each other respect each other’s viewpoints, as well as know how to co-ordinate with each other respectfully.

Organization culture is the matter that holds a company intact. This is what makes each

Thirdly, our communication skills were better enhanced and we were able to build up on our synergy levels. In such an environment where communication is open and free-flowing, people were able to bring in new ideas, concepts and attitudes which benefitted the entire group. The problem with ineffective communication, especially where diverse groups are involved is that issues such as stereotyping are bound to crop up. This, in turn, caused team members to become increasingly self-conscious and often kept to themselves for fear of being judged. Much to it, the aspect of self-disclosure becomes almost elusive because no one is willing to step out of their comfort zone and steer a relevant discussion to the project at hand. In a scenario whereby team members are free to talk and express their ideas and feelings without being judged, the fear of revealing one’s true self is diminished tremendously (Peri et al., 2000). This is because such an environment fosters trust, values and ethics. Contrary to this, an environment that is characterized by prejudices and presumptions about others disintegrates this trust and often results to reduced productivity among the members. Cooperation and trust are two aspects that often determine the overall performance of a group. Where there is trust, team players become

As illustrated in the article, “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A)”, managing a global team is an intricate task that requires special and specific skills (Neely & Delong, 2009). Greg James, the Global Manager, at Sun Microsystems is faced with many layers of problems that have manifested with a crisis with HS Holdings. Greg uncovered more serious problems as he traveled across the globe to assess problems with HS Holdings. This predicament is illustrated by his statement to Lawry, one of the Vice Presidents at Sun Microsystems, “the issues are more complex than I realized” (Neely & Delong, p.4, 2009). He has realized that

The core constraint of virtually every organization The Goldratt Institute has worked with over the past 16+ years is that organizations are structured, measured and managed in parts, rather than as a whole. The results of this are lower than expected overall performance results, difficulties securing or maintaining a strategic advantage in the marketplace, financial hardships, seemingly constant fire-fighting, customer service expectations being rarely met, the constraint constantly shifting from one place to another and chronic conflicts between people representing different parts of the organization, to name a