Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cross-Functional Teams

Communicating in Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The positive impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can contribute creativity to a high-performance team. Membership diversity offers a rich pool of information, talent, and varied perspectives that can help improve team problem solving and increase creativity (Hunt, J., Osborn, R., Schermerhorn, J., 2005). Cultural diversity contributes various group input and group dynamics to the team. These two factors are essential in the high performance of a team. Cultural diversity can develop a high-performance team by allowing the diverse potentials of a team to operate. The negative impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can develop numerous of conflicts between team members. Conflicting interaction can limit or decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of productivity. There should be an awareness of the diverse culture values in order to prevent these conflicts.

In today’s world teamwork is being utilized by companies across the globe. Employers are seeing the value of teamwork and what can be accomplished when people put the strengths together. These teams consist of people from different cultures with different personalities. Conflict is inevitable when it comes to group dynamics. Conflict resolution is necessary to keep the group functioning efficiently. This paper will analyze group dynamics and focus on conflict resolution by way of communication.

In the case “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tsedal Neeley states that lack of inappropriate communication, leadership and decision-making is root of the crisis of HS Holdings. Generally, cultural diversity is based on many things one being the idea that certain characteristics should not be completely disregarded but regulated and valued as important. With this in view, diverse cultural issues can result in organizational problems. First, we must view your techniques to manage your global team and recognize the primary root of the problems. Secondly, you will need to identify who should be responsible for the crisis of HS Holdings because of miscommunication and inefficient leadership. Thirdly, defining roles and job descriptions is extremely important in an open work environment and

Nowadays, in the process of development of science technology and globalization, more and more organizations have realized that the understanding of organizational diversity and get used to the diversification of the market has become the important factors to get the market. On one hand, for the enterprise, the diversification of the workplace can help the administrators make better decisions, improve the effectiveness and innovation to solve the problem. On the other hand, for the outside of the enterprise, the improvement of the diversity of the organization is contributing to meet the needs of the different customer and different market.

frequently. In addition, maintain a good relationship and standardization also is the sources for the above problem. With a good relationship, the team can build strong relationship among each

In my current work environment every department is laid out in a work team structure. This mode of communication and work structure is a very accurate way to work and conduct business. I know in my current team we all work together and with seamless efforts. We are able to create an even and smooth work balance and work load working as a team. In our team we back each other up in every aspect. The best part about our team and its functions is the ability to cross train in each other’s job, so if anyone is out we can keep the team running without creating a lot of backup work. If team members have the wrong mental models, which is particularly likely to happen with teams under acute stress, their performance suffers (Robbins

The first problem to be identified is the cross functional teams’ inability to communicate effectively. The purpose of a cross functional team is to put people with different

In the case “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tsedal Neeley states that lack of inappropriate communication, leadership and decision-making is root of the crisis of HS Holdings. Overall, cultural diversity is based on the idea that cultural identities should not be discarded or ignored but rather maintained and valued. In view of this, diverse cultural differences can result in organizational problems. Firstly, identify your techniques to manage his global team and recognize the root of problems. Secondly, identify you should be responsible for the crisis of HS Holdings because of miscommunication and improper leadership. Thirdly, defining the important role of open work environment and diversity play in the case in order to focus on improvement of this two. Fourthly, finding out short-term development and long-term development for James to match solving organizational problem. At the end, summing all findings in a conclusion . Mentioning Greg, he is an unquestionable technical elites. After he earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Stanford University, he chose to work for the Sun Inc. Within four years, he had risen in the Data Protection and Recovery Department. Five years later, he achieved the Sun outstanding Manager award. (Neeley and Delong 5) Now, James works on a global team management position where he is struggling with team management. Within the team there was a lot of stress being built up

You also have to protect the company’s identity and the self-esteem of its people. Those two goals – making change and safeguarding identity – can easily come into conflict; pursuing them both entails a difficult and sometimes precarious balancing act.” Also, emotional bonds get created throughout the cross functional teams because they are no longer dealing with employees from just their departments. You learn from and about employees from all different levels and statuses.

During the project initiation phase, I can work collaboratively with the project sponsor in the development of project charter and lead up to the formal authorisation of the project/ new phase. From the sponsor’s project SOW (Business need, product scope), Business case etc., I can identify measurable project objectives, high level requirements, risks, summary milestones and budget and approval authorities. The key deliverables in this phase are project charter and stakeholder lists.

The evolution of globalization and the advancement of communication technology have increased the amount of cross cultural, virtual teams in existence in today’s business world. Cross cultural, virtual teams can leverage on the diverse experiences of its members to achieve good results even without the members meeting face to face.

Digitalisation and globalization brings the Diversity so called ‘’double-edged sword” everywhere. Diversity can be defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, and valuing differences among people with respect to age, class, race, ethnicity, gender, disabilities, etc. (Esty et al. 1995). The meaning of diversity within the workplace is not limited to those attributes which are observed but also include invisible characteristics such as differences in educational background, creativity, comprehension, learning style, and problem-solving ability (Nafukho et al., 2011).In order to respond to rapidly changing and challenging business environments, organizations have increasingly adopted work teams to increase organizational flexibility and innovation (Lovelace, Shapiro, & Weingart, 2001; West, 2004) and they also continue to rely on teams within the workplace to achieve goals through task performance (Garrison et al., 2010; Jackson et al., 2003; Klein et al., 2011; Mannix and Neale, 2005; van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007) because Teams are generally a small groups of people with complementary skills, who work together as a unit to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable (Wood et al. 2004). It is well reflected that Team-based organizations can promote innovation through the effective cross-fertilization of ideas because work teams help integrate various types of information and perspectives that are conducive to high-quality

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in teams? By reference to relevant theory show how can the disadvantages be reduced or avoided.

Effective cross-cultural management has to be grounded in a detailed knowledge of individual cultures. Discuss using examples from two multinational companies.