Managing A Global Team : Greg James At Sun Microsystems, Inc. Essay

The ability to interact in a diverse environment is imperative in today’s society. By modifying our attitude towards a variety of terrains, we are able to develop creativity, flexibility and empathy. Additionally, celebrating differences involves a complex process that can be an opportunity for reflection and self discovery. At Tek, Tariq Khan may have that opportunity. Currently, the company is facing diverse challenges. Besides employee satisfaction declining, insensitivity towards social and cultural practices are the norm. Additionally, working across boundaries is exhausting and the situation has gotten critical. This paper examines diverse challenges Tek is facing, complex concepts

In multinational companies, business leadership has numerous challenges. There has been a prevailing imperative towards the development of partnerships and strategic alliances. This has been because of the need for companies to lower production costs, carry out distribution in a foreign country, or succeed in the face of varied regulatory environments. The result has been the need for business leaders to frequently interact with and manage as well as be managed by culturally diverse populations.

Levitt (2014) defines culture as the coherent, learned, shared views of a group of people and about life’s concerns that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior. Macy’s corporate culture possesses a diverse leadership team to target their diverse customers and locations. Diversity, based on experiences and passion, gives the Macy’s leadership team new perspectives to promote successful business. Levitt (2014) suggests organizational diversity can be considered as a mixture of people with different group identities working in the same social system. A multi-cultural team of Americans, Italians, Germans and Swiss would adapt well in the rich bouquet of culture in Zurich, Switzerland. As a new team leader, the biggest concern would be establishing integrations between the different cultures working together at Macys.

Cox and Blake (1991), maintained that cultural diversity would impact six areas of organizational effectiveness, including the capability to attract human resources, cost, innovation, creativity, and problem solving, marketing, and flexibility. The revealing fields studied were innovation and creativity, problem solving, and structural flexibility, this was accomplished through information and decision making processes. Creativity and innovation can be supported by "diversity of perspectives and less emphasis on conformity to the norms of the past" (Cox and Blake, 1991, p. 47), which will increase the ability of the organization to create and innovate. The problem-solving contention maintains that better decisions would be produced through additional perspectives developed in various problem solving groups (Cox and Blake, 1991). Finally, the flexibility argument designates that multicultural management practices would result in changes that meant "that the system will become less determinant, less standardized, and therefore more fluid" (Cox and Blake, 1991, p. 47). These fluctuations are likely to increase the

The authors of the white paper conducted a series of interviews designed to solicit the knowledge and opinions of 18 CEO’s and C-suite executives of Fortune 500 companies to put together a list of characteristics and prerequisites that are vital to the successful trajectory of an effective business leader. Among a series of such requirements, global exposure through global assignments was a repeating mantra. Hand in hand with this was cultural sensitivity. One of the quotes cited in the white paper declared, “You have to have a very open, inclusive, global perspective – the ability to connect the dots, to really assimilate different

The world is a growing and changing place, and in business we have seen many changes occur. Most of these changes are of a result of globalization and multiculturalism Diverse and virtual teams have developed in response. The work force has become more diverse and spread out, and it has forced managers to adjust and change their management styles to adapt to the new work force needs. This paper will address the risks, the benefits, and the ways managers plan to manage the new diverse and mobile teams.

“Diversity management is the key to growth in today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace”1. Diversity is to have a different people in the same organization and thin with the same group. We are not the same all of people have different ideas, culture and gender. Because now the word be closer like a small village and we should know how to deal with all of people with their own ideas, culture and things. In addition, each people have a specific ability in a specific experience, education and knowledge. So it is hard to get all of that talent from same country, area or zone. So the diversity will help the company to become better from the different talent and ability from each country, because the organization

Choice of not seeing diversity of culture results in limiting the ability for its management. This involved minimizing the issues being caused while there is maximization of advantages and key benefits allowed (Latimer, 2012). When there is lack of consideration across diversity of culture, foreigners end up becoming mere projections related to organizations.

In a global economy, U.S. companies are becoming more diverse, whether through a global customer base, or through acquisition of other companies based outside of the U.S. With these developments the workplace becomes an amalgamation of individuals with different worldviews. These differences are the result of different educational backgrounds, and cultural norms. Though there are sometimes impediments that are created due to a conflict in viewpoints, overwhelmingly the benefits from the variety of perspectives outweighs any of the detriments. This view is not only one held by me personally, but one that most quality managers of successful international companies hold true as well. My interview with my direct manager, Dianna Ulrich-Hope, proved valuable in confirming my notions. As a Director of Pricing at Micro Focus, a global software company, her insights regarding international collaboration amongst professionals helped see how my cultural agility competencies align, and how to leverage them.

Multicultural teams have become more common in our organizations, and contemporary international management literature has identified that the management of multicultural teams is an

Broad definitions seek insertion, but do not allow for identification of the differences between functional and social diversity. These differences make the organization confused and leave it in unclear state, as a result most diversity management program adopted fails due to lack of reliability in the definition of diversity. The impacts of diversity in the workplace can be both positive or negative. Some negative effects include dysfunctional conflicts, lost productivity, and difficulty to achieve synergy in group settings. Positive effects include a strong knowledge and skills base created by a variety of cultural experiences, an in-house resource of cultural trainers and informers, and greater readiness to expand the business international and globally. For the most part, the effects of cultural diversity in the workplace depend on how well they are being managed by the organizational leaders. With the right strategic planning and commitment, top management can enhance the positive effects and reduce the unfavorable effects of cultural diversity in the workplace. After analyzing many research work and business report on this topic, we found out that diversity have no absolute effect and can only be judged by the way it’s implemented. It need joint and integrated effort starting from the top management to the non-managerial levels, supervisors should lead employees the right way, coordinate and stay available to any conflict or diversity problem. After doing all your best you can eventually judge the diversity plan and evaluate how successful was it, because no generalization can be

In order to form a leadership that keep on with the passage of time, international leaders and managers ought to demonstrate likely competences in cross-cultural cognizance and practice. It is vital they recognize the value of leadership and managerial potentials, and to grow and sustain effective leadership approaches and methods for abiding diversity management (Ulrich and Smallwood, 2012). The conjecture emerges is that successful and effective international leaders and managers holds key to solve the secret of working with diverse workforce and dealing with them for the purpose of organizational development in order to enhance competitiveness.

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

They’ve been feeling disconnected as well as feeling discomfort by team members as their two managers, Nazr and Ashok, don’t get along. There’s an underlying and perceived racism going on between the two teams as well. They were not able to focus on the problem at hand and understand one another since the trust and respect were not established among members. Another dysfunction this team is facing is lack of leadership. It is no doubt that Greg is well established and valuable employee of Sun Microsystems, Inc. with many notable accomplishments. However, he overlooked specific challenges of leading a virtual global team and the importance of his role as a leader. As Hill stresses, “it is essential to understand the role of leadership within teams to ensure team success and to avoid team failure” (Hill, 2010, p.242). Effective leadership is even more crucial with virtual teams and demands “50% more investment” (Dyer, Dyer, & Dyer, 2007, as cited in Hill, 2010, p.248). Greg failed to read all the “personal and contextual nuances” and potential conflicts among his team members (Hill, 2010, p.248). He failed to understand potential meaning of silence, misunderstandings, team process, and overlooked signs that have eventually led to discontentment and misunderstandings of his team members. Greg formed his team rather quickly, composed of seven members from France, Inida, UAE, and US. James hired them based on their credentials and impressive resumes, but he didn’t

Many opportunities are associated with a culturally diverse workplace and global expansion may have potential to provide just such a diverse work group. Cross-culturalism in business can provide leaders and employees with a wonderful opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and cultures. In addition, “the more opportunities for business leaders to interact with people from different cultures, the more likely they will be to have positive attitudes from different cultures and identify, learn and apply diverse culturally-appropriate business behaviors” (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012, p. 614). Culturally diverse environments offer a multitude of benefits including “the variety of perspectives, skills and personal attributes” (Matveeve & Nelson, 2004, p. 254). Moreover, multicultural teams have potential to “generate more ideas of higher quality in brainstorming tasks” (Matveeve &