Final Team Selection

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Introduction

After careful consideration, the following candidates have been chosen to work on the West Coast Transit Marketing Project: Natalie, Elizabeth, Katelyn, Bob, William, and Ian. The following candidates were chosen because we believed they demonstrated traits, skills, and experience that best fit the requirements of the project. We used the theory of probability to strategically discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and how their strengths and weakness would affect the team.

Natalie was chosen because she demonstrated strong verbal and written communication skills. She is charismatic, ambitious, well liked among her peers, and is motivated by challenges and competitive opportunities. Elizabeth was chosen due to her collaborative nature and leadership skills. Elizabeth meets required deadlines and has proven she can get the job done. Katelyn was chosen because she shows great promise in her knowledge and abilities within the company. She is a go getter; detail oriented, and can complete impeccable work under intense pressure. We chose Bob due to his experience and knowledge of the company. William was chosen for his easy-going personality, willingness to work with others, and his previous experience in leading projects. Lastly, Ian was chosen for his creative ideas and his understanding of technology. Ian is smart, self-motivated, and can complete work in a timely manner.

Michael, Doug, Susan, and Tiffany however showed promise but, were not chosen for the project. While Michael could bring out strengthens of his co-workers, his depressive nature and willingness to abandon projects before completing them was a huge concern. Doug is known for having high quality work but his temper and previous documented “lash outs” create a hostile environment for other co-workers. Susan has been known to be a great team player; however her lack of motivation and overlooking of important details makes her a liability. While Tiffany may know her position, and accomplish her duties, her cynical attitude and minimum worth ethic could prove destructive to the project. We stand behind the candidates we have chosen and believe that their marketing strategy will re-establish the company’s market dominance.

Motivational Strategies

We would propose to use the performance improvement cycle to integrate: goal-setting, monitoring, evaluating, providing feedback, coaching, and a reward based system for our team. Our marketing team has a clear line of sight, to develop a marketing strategy that will drive up sales for West Coast Transit. They are on a strict timeline complete it within six weeks, to coincide with the release of the new Boeing 747. Our requirement is to create a team that can work together for the good of the company and produce the needed results, fast.

“Theory suggests that although individuals may have different sets of goals, they can be motivated if they believe that: there is a positive correlation between efforts and performance, favorable performance will result in a desirable reward, the reward will satisfy an important need, and the desire to satisfy the need is strong enough to make the effort worthwhile.” (University of Cambridge, 2016). McClelland’s Need Theory would include members like Natalie, Katelyn, and William who have needs to achieve, to belong, or control. The Goal-Setting Theory would include Elizabeth, Bob and Ian, who need clearer structure and direction for motivation. With some team members, highly driven to achieve, they complement other members who lack direction. Pairing Elizabeth with Katelyn would help Elizabeth who has trouble branching out and has a weakness for developing new skills. Katelyn is very driven, but impatient which pairs nicely with Elizabeth, who is more patient. To properly motivate the team, different motivational strategies would need to be used. Natalie and Bob are learning to be goal oriented. Katelyn and Ian have been identified as being performance-prove goal oriented, seeking public praise. Elizabeth and William are performance-avoid goal oriented, “motivated by avoiding negative outcomes” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

Our goal is to drive up sales and retain customers with the concurrent release of the new aircraft. Our team members need to collaborate in order to accomplish their goal and focus on the aspects that are attainable. Each member needs to support one another by using their strengths to offset their weaknesses. We propose continuous feedback as an additional motivational technique. We propose the implementation of a 360 degree approach so that both the management and team members would have an anonymous way of reporting and monitoring expectations holistically. Monetary rewards were identified as a motivational factor and although cannot be rewarded now, we would propose to devise other types of rewards, both extrinsic and intrinsic depending on the person. A “one size fits all” approach will not be effective for this team. Natalie, Katelyn, and Bob look for extrinsic rewards like a promotion, a bonus, or praise while others like Elizabeth, William and Ian would be motivated with an intrinsic reward like self-achievement, meaningfulness, trust, skill recognition and a collaborative climate.

Challenges

There are six potential challenges our team could face. These challenges consist of dealing with conflict, quality of work, communication and collaboration, motivation, and trust. Natalie and Elizabeth can diplomatically handle conflict situations. Katelyn and Ian both tend to feel they are right and demonstrate an unwillingness to back down in arguments. Bob tends to overreact, while William shuts down during a conflict. However, we believe each member will offset each other. It will be important for the team to identify a method to efficiently find a resolution to their differences.

Major conflict within any team, especially in the workplace, can be a huge barrier to accomplishing company goals. This could potentially stifle the success of the company. Attitude is described as a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2013). Each member of this team has very strong personalities. According to Forbes, leadership and conflict go hand-in-hand (Myatt, 2012). There are five ways to handle conflict resolution. First, define acceptable behavior; start from the beginning establishing what will be acceptable interaction and what is not. Second, address conflict head on; it is important not to let things fester because that same issue will come up and become a worse argument later. Third, understanding the “what’s in it for me” factor; everyone must be clear on the vision and direction of the team goals for everyone to be on the same page. Fourth, the importance factor; it is important to figure out if the issue is worth creating unnecessary conflict. Lastly, view conflict as an opportunity; see it as a way for the growth of the project (Myatt, 2012). Collaboration is imperative, but it is important for the team to not let their strong personalities get in the way of the task at hand. We believe continuous monitoring and feedback will help to mediate.

We noted that quality of work could potentially be an issue due to varied styles and approaches of the team members. The team is comprised of Elizabeth and Ian who would like to be efficient but do not have an eye for detail. William is a perfectionist resulting in missed deadlines. Bob takes on too much and quality suffers, and Katelyn and Natalie produce great work under pressure. The team will need to identify subcomponents of the work that suits each individual’s style and plays to those strengths

. They will also need to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Results Oriented, and Time Bound) goals to ensure that all the team members know exactly what the deliverables are and the timelines. It will also be important for this team to accompany SMART goals with personalized feedback, resources to support goal achievement, and tie in to the organizations mission to be most effective (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p.261).

Communication and collaboration are the key concepts to any successful team. On this team, Natalie, Elizabeth, Katelyn, Bob, William, and Ian all possess the potential to have a successful partnership, despite their differing preferences of communication. Natalie is the most open in her communication. Elizabeth is identified as a great communicator, and flexible with an open mind. Elizabeth will be able to serve as the voice of reason or mediator for the team. Katelyn has a difficult time with verbal communication and being a perfectionist can affect collaboration. We believe Katelyn will serve as a leader on the written communication piece; we believe she will incorporate her perfectionism into the project and workflow and serve as an asset. Bob can be brash and unprofessional, but he has many years of experience in this industry. He is a sounding board for ideas and offers to help his lesser experienced peers. William avoids conflict, but is a team player, and Ian is very direct with communication and impatient with others. The other group members will need to be cognizant of his need for power.

Individuals on this team are motivated by different factors, we will need to incorporate various strategies to keep the team on track and motivated. Kreitner and Kinicki (2013) state that motivation is made up of several factors such as needs of the individual, a positive and supportive work environment, fair treatment, appropriately rewarding performance, clear measures, and detailed goals. Knowing that some of the team lean more toward extrinsic motivation and others more intrinsically motivated, it will be important to recognize and incorporate a balance of recognition and rewards. Knowing that trust is a foundation that any team is built on, establishing and maintaining trust amongst team members and to the organization will be vital. Natalie and Katelyn are known to not trust others on a team easily and Elizabeth is specifically motivated by an atmosphere of trust. If trust is lost amongst team members the project success can quickly erode.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have chosen Natalie, Elizabeth, Katelyn, Bob, William, and Ian for our recommendation for the team. Based on their group dynamics we believe they will have the necessary attributes to complete this project successfully and on time. In order for there to be “optimal effectiveness” in reaching goals there needs to be the right combination of leaders and followers. (Robbins & Judge, 2015). We believe that that is exactly what this team has. We propose leveraging the group dynamics, goal creation, motivation and trust building as leadership strategies. We would also like to incorporate ideas from McClelland’s Need Theory and 360 Degree feedback as motivational strategies. Using this multi-faceted plan we believe that this will increase sales and market valuation as well as building on the high quality services and customer engagement that West Coast Transit is known for.

Reference

Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational behavior (10th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Retrieved from http://gcumedia.com/digital-resources/mcgraw hill/2013/organizational behavior_ebook_10e.php

Myatt, M. (2012, February 22). 5 Keys of Dealing with Workplace Conflict. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/02/22/5-keys-to-dealing-with-workplace-conflict/#4436970b1e95

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T.A. (2015). Organizational behavior (16th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

University of Cambridge. (2016). Vroom's expectancy theory. Retrieved August 13, 2017, from

http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/dstools/vrooms-expectancy-theory