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Case Incident A Virtual Team at T.A.Stearns

Question 1 Why is this group a team? Answer 1 This group can be easily seen as a team in which there is a formal group of four people who have pre-defined roles to perform. The group members here are part of a virtual team which means they can operate from anywhere they wish to, that is , they just have to check once a day through e-mails, messages and group conferencing softwares . Here are the reasons why this group is a team : 1. The team has shared leadership roles. All the four members of the team have full independence to work from anywhere and has a say in the decisions made by the team. 2. Team has individual and mutual accountability 3. The team has specific purpose The soul goal of this team is to prepare highly technical both in terms of the tax laws they cover and the code in which they are written. 4. The team has a collective work products They have a team which works together to solve big problems through programming such as building complex macros for the company. 5. The team encourages open-ended, active problem solving meetings They talk to each other daily via mails and messages and group conferencing softwares. 6. The team measures performance by assessing collective work products 7. The team discusses, decides and does real work They openly discuss with each other the problems and make decisions there by leading to programming new programmes for the firms. Here the team goes beyond the traditional formal work groups by having a collective, synergistic (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) effect.

Question 3 What, if, any, characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team? Answer 3 Following is a brief look at the situation T.A.Stearns is a national tax accounting firm whose main business is tax preparation services for individuals. It has a superior reputation due to its quality of advice and the excellence of service. The key is the state-of-the-art computer databases and analysis tools used when counselling clients which are developed by highly trained individuals. The creation of the programs is done in a virtual environment by teams. Here four programmers named Tom Andrews, Cy Crane, Marge Dector, and Megan Harris work at home and are connected to each other and the company by email, telephone and conference software. The team is virtual in nature and formal and they can work wherever they want but have to check in daily, onsite meetings among programmers take place only few times in a year, though they meet informally outside of these scheduled occasions. The team exchanges emails many times a day and often they are amusing as well as well work-related. Also once about a month the whole group gets together. Now lets have a brief look at how the problem arose due to groupthink Programmers develop programming tools called macro that helps them to do their work more efficiently when a major program change is required due to changes/amendments in laws. Cy became obsessed with the prospect of creating a shortcut that could save huge amount of time and he was successful in doing so. He told Tom about it who tried it and found it clicked. Stearns has an employee suggestion program rewarding employees for innovations saving company money. It gives an employee five percent of savings generated over a period of three months and a profit-sharing plan. The members of team wanted a time for leisure and consulting work and feared their group might suffer if the management learned about their innovation. This way the work of four people could be done by three and one could lose the job, so they kept it to themselves. Now as the busy season came they distributed the macro to other members of the team and swore them to secrecy. They set a level of production that would not arouse the managements suspicion. For several months this continued and they pushed to more quality work with more leisure time. However, Dave Regan, the in-house manager of the work team, picked up the innovation several weeks after it was first implemented. He found out that the production time had gone down a bit, while quality had shot up. He found proofs to his doubt in emails of Marge to Cy. He hinted it to Tom but he would not tell the truth. Finally things began to go out of control as Cy boasted his trick to a member of another virtual team and Dave took

Cy out to a lunch. At the lunch Cy revealed about the innovation and that the teams action had been justified to protect itself. Groupthink A dysfunction of highly cohesive groups and teams that has received a lot of attention has been referred to as groupthink. In groupthink there is a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement that results from in-group pressure. It results from the pressures on individual members to conform and reach consensus that there is no realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action in a decision, and deviant, minority, or unpopoular views are suppressed. Following are the characteristics of groupthink are manifested in the work team There is the illusion of invulnerability There is excessive optimism and risk taking. As we can see here there is excessive optimism and risk taking behaviour shown by the team as they kept the innovation to themselves having optimism regarding that the management wont easily find out about it. Also the risk taking behaviour can be seen when they ignore the company policy for their own benefits. There are rationalisations by the members of the group to discount warnings. This can be seen when the members ignore the threat of being caught and whwn Dave hinted Tom he rationalised thinking if everythings all right why does dave has to worry. There is an unquestioned belief in the groups inherent morality The group ignores questionable ethical or moral issues or stances. Here the group ignores the moral issues and stances by keeping the innovation to themselves knowing about the company policy of suggested rewards. Working for Stearns for a long time they should have been more loyal. Those who oppose the group are stereotyped as evil, weak or stupid. Here not a singleperson in any team leaked the secret of the macro to the management, though, it is hard to believe that no one had any morality or loyalty for Stearns. There is direct pressure on any member who questions the stereotypes. Similar to above no one questioned Cy and Tom for being immoral and their unrealistic approach. There is self-censorship of any deviation from the apparent group consensus. This can be easily seen in this case as no one person came out with the truth unless it was finally out. There is the illusion of unanimity silence is interpreted as consent. Here Cy and Tom swore the other members to the oath of secrecy thinking what they thought was everybodys thinking but this actually might not have been the case.

There are self-appointed mind guards who protect the group from adverse information. In this case study Tom was the self-appointed mind guard who kept the information of Dave hinting to him about the innovation to himself thinking that there would be nothing done as long as the work was done well and company was in profit. Question 4 Has Dave been an effective team leader? Explain your position. Answer Yes, Dave is an effective team leader according to my interpretation because he knows how to converse with employees in different situations without offending them in any way. In this case when Cy developed a program using his superior programming skills to reduce his man- hours and increase productivity, he told about it only to his colleagues so that they benefit from it and enjoy some leisure time. He didnt tell about it to Dave(his boss) because he feared that since his program helps in doing the work of four people by only three people, one of them might lose their job because of him. Another reason contributing to his secrecy was that their team would get only 5% of the profit generated by the aid of their innovation only for three months which was very less in comparison to the leisure time they had. The group even increased the quality of their work so as to not arouse any suspicion. But Cy made the terrible mistake of telling about his program to a member from another group which aroused Daves suspicions. Dave was wondering for a few weeks after the implementation of the program as to why the production time had decreased and the quality of work had shot up. He got his first inkling form an e-mail he intercepted from Marge (another member of the team) to Cy thanking him for his brilliant thinking. Dave tried to confront Tom (group member) trying not to create an embarrassing situation but got no further leads. He did not even tell his boss about his suspicions since quality and productivity were up. But one day Dave learned that Cy had boasted about his trick program to a person from another team in the company. Dave decided that the matter had gone out of hands and pulled the reins by inviting Cy to lunch and asking him to explain what was happening. This method was wise and effective as it gave a sense of security to the offender who pleaded guilty immediately but insisted that the reasons were justified so as to protect himself. This manner of interrogation and his good use of intellect to cover an embarrassing situation shows that he is an effective team leader. Also he respects the sentiments and

feelings of others which makes him a considerate man leading to his effective team leadership.