Individual Blog Week 3

This week leadership was in the spotlight. The question is “are leaders as important as we think they are?” The argument has been made that leadership is extremely important in smaller companies and teams, and almost irrelevant in large corporations. Pfeffer and Sutton explored the half-truths of are leaders in control, and if they have an influence. They explore this theory greater. For example, studies have been done, and systematic quantitative research shows that leadership can influence organizational performance. It was found that having a leader with experience and the right knowledge could increase a firm’s performance. For example, in the 1980’s Ford was desperate for a change. They employed a CEO who knew something about cars and trucks, not just how to run a business. A leader needs to be knowledgeable of the product and their values need to be in line with the companies. The theory that leaders have more control in smaller organizations, make the criteria for a leader even more crucial. The decisions made by these leaders can create financial crisis for small organizations, so finding a leader with the right experience and track records are a must, because of their influence on the organization. Then there is the opposite argument that managers have far less influence over performance. This study was done over 20 years studying the performance of 167 companies. It was found that other variables such as economic conditions had a greater impact on the company then changes in leadership or leadership style. Do you feel that leaders have a major influence on companies? Or do you side with the idea that leadership is not what drives a company?

I think another great point from this session came from Melissa Thomas-Hunt’s video on "Team Dynamics." Shared vs. non-shared knowledge is something that we all need to think about when in a group setting. There is always the common knowledge between a group and then hesitation to consider anything that strays from that knowledge. But sometimes it’s the unique thoughts that are unrelated to the shared knowledge that could be a solution, or a great idea for a company. We also need to consider whose voice gets to be heard. It is very important to allow all to speak and share ideas no matter where they fall on the hierarchy. This is where some of the best ideas come from. There has to be a culture in which all feel comfortable to speak and share their solutions.

This week was also focused on how to prevent conflict within teams. There was a relevant article from Harvard Business Review titled “4 Ways to Decrease Conflict Within Global Teams”, that offers four tips to decrease conflicts while working as a team. Pamela Hinds author of this piece bases her advice off of multiple studies, and experiments done to different companies throughout the world. She has studied teams in-depth to find that team members are worried that their jobs will be shipped over seas, making them resistant to form relationships with those in say India, which causes a riff in the workplace. In another study of 43 teams, 22 collocated and 21 distributed from a large multinational company, it was proven that harmonious teams have a shared identity, and this significantly reduced conflict. Through interviewing and receiving first person responses on the extent to which their work tools or processes were incompatible, priorities were different and information about what others were doing was incomplete. When the differences were high, conflict soared. It was found as long as team members understood what is different they were less likely to blame each other reducing conflict.  Site visits were found to be a powerful way to understand how processes and practices varied and built rapport. She also found that informal, unplanned communication dramatically reduces conflict. Hinds uses sound facts and data from experiments that she has done, and evaluated this data to share.

 

I found many of the EIA videos very rewarding. I always feel that I take a lot of knowledge away from the speakers. Professor Wendeln, and Melissa Thomas-Hunt, I think gave some terrific insight into team dynamics, and I found that very rewarding. I hope to be able to take as much away from the session next week as I did this week. I hope to relate this information on teams and leadership into power, politics and conflict negotiation.