Introduction
Team development is the process of upgrading the skills of the team members, improving the interaction between them, and enhancing the overall working conditions of the team to increase the effectiveness of their work. Thus, team leaders must be able to identify, shape, support, motivate, lead, and inspire their teams to improve their performance and achieve professional goals. In order to do that, leaders must create an environment conducive to teamwork. This could be accomplished by continually motivating the team by giving them challenges and opportunities, providing them with timely feedback and support when needed, and encouraging and rewarding good work. Moreover, it is also the leader’s responsibility to act as a mediator in case issues arise and navigate the team through the process of problem-solving. Implementing effective management strategies is imperative for successful teamwork.
Problem Statement
A small marketing agency team started encountering issues with keeping high performance as the number of projects it needed to complete steadily increased. The team was comprised of two copywriters and three designers, all with different levels of experience and backgrounds, with one project manager and one art director leading it. The workflow was constantly interrupted as designers argued among themselves about which style and concept to use for each project, and the art director could not mediate conflicts. The copywriters were unsatisfied with vague instructions and references given by the project manager, and could not establish specific writing narratives and guidelines for different projects. While the team still managed to complete the tasks and create successful marketing campaigns, it often could not manage its workload and violated deadlines, while the managing head of the agency kept accepting more new projects. After eight months of such tension and pressure, one copywriter and one designer have left the team and the agency completely.
Analysis
With two of the team members out of seven quitting the agency altogether, the company has faced a significant problem with maintaining performance while training new employees and allowing them to adjust to the team. Moreover, the managing head of the agency had to analyze the existing issues in the teamwork that caused employees’ resignations and develop a more tailored approach to organizing teamwork. Overall, the main problem that the company has encountered is the misalignment of its current organizational culture with the values and goals of the employees, as well as a lack of strategic management.
Diversity Management Issues
Both the art director and the project manager were supposed to guide the team through different projects and maintain a healthy atmosphere by mediating and resolving conflicts. However, they did not consider employees’ diverse backgrounds, motivations, values, and approaches to tasks, failing to apply strategic management skills to operate the team. Leaders must understand the systematic errors that affect their decision-making processes, and address them accordingly, taking into account behavioral issues and other biases (Beshears & Gino, 2015). Beshears and Gino (2015) add that poor decision-making in leaders is due to two main causes: insufficient motivation and cognitive biases. Each of the issues could be resolved if a proper organizational culture was established in the agency, and the team leaders had tailored tools to manage employees more efficiently.
The process of organizing and successfully running a business in a diverse setting – especially carrying out serious projects – is not only laborious and painstaking but also quite complex in terms of strategic management. The multi-background workforce combines different professional skills and values, worldviews, and work attitudes, which have a great impact on the functioning of the company in general and the communication process in particular. Cultural and other types of diversity greatly impact the possibilities of a project’s success, especially in terms of finishing it on time, by creating barriers to employees’ mutual understanding and timely coordination. Roberson (2006) supplies that “by focusing on the advantages of employing members of different identity groups in organizations, the theme of diversity largely ignores the dynamics and consequences of exclusion” (p. 214). Indeed, the ability to choose between talented professionals with different backgrounds does give a business serious benefits, after all, but the issues are also plenty. Studies show that diversity in an enterprise will inevitably lead to conflicts and difficulties in mutual understanding if it is not taken seriously and is not controlled.
As a result of these issues, the potential labor productivity decreases, creativity and innovative activities are reduced, staff turnover is growing and employees might even avoid doing their work. This was precisely what happened with the discussed team: each employee had a different understanding of project goals, communication was weak, and conflicts arose due to differences in experience levels and visions. Gupta (2021) specifically expresses “the need to keep the workforce engaged while taking into consideration the diverse backgrounds of employees” (p. 1). Research suggests that even diversity training might not be able to resolve such issues, failing to deconstruct different biases in people’s behavior toward each other (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016). Active help in promoting diversity, mentoring, social accountability, and other engagement methods are more effective in facilitating a healthy working atmosphere (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016). The agency’s managing leads needed to develop a better understanding of how to operate employees with various backgrounds.
Conflicts among Employees
World business practice shows that companies are often faced with problems associated with people with conflicts related to differences in background, which might result in incorrect or belated management decisions. Hewlett et al. (2009) explain that “leaders need to acquire diversity to establish a culture in which all employees feel free to contribute ideas” (para 8). The team in question had employees with very different cultural upbringings, and as a result, their visions on what is appropriate and/or would work in each marketing campaign varied significantly. Meanwhile, the leaders were unable to address these differences properly and could not provide equal opportunities for each employee. This created tension and conflicts, with the art director and project manager having to interfere and choose certain concepts without compromise, prompting further dissatisfaction among employees.
Organizational Culture Problem
The market culture implemented in the agency had only facilitated these problems. Due to the ever-present profit run that defines the modern market, this kind of culture ties the organization together with an emphasis on winning. Success is measured in market share and market penetration, and leading the competition is considered the most crucial task for every employee. Employees were unable to compromise on ideas and concepts due to harsh deadlines and the general atmosphere of overall competition, even between each other, created unnecessary conflicts. Joni and Bayer (2009) supply that in an environment where employees are overwhelmed, the amount of dysfunctional fighting rises. The team was not allowed to argue with the leaders or question their assumptions or intentions, even if serious potential errors in their plans were evident, so the employees fought between themselves.
Application
No organization can work only on the basis of technology or management hierarchy – it must actively form an internal culture of behavior and motivation. New approaches to management presuppose, first of all, the creation of a strong organizational culture of the appropriate type. This culture would specifically contribute to the growth of personnel, and, through it – to the innovative potential of the organization as a whole.
Implementation of New Organizational Culture
The behavior that the staff demonstrates and which the manager can evaluate through visible signs can be due to a deep layer of needs, beliefs, and values of a person. These are formed under the influence of external stimuli. In order to successfully change the behavior of its employees, the company must be one of the effective external stimuli. Thus, it has to actively form a specific organizational culture – in the case of the discussed team, an adhocratic culture would be the appropriate choice. Kraśnicka et al. (2017) claim that “in certain areas, organizational culture strengthens the connection between management innovation and enterprise performance” (p. 754). With the right choice of organizational culture, the enterprise’s innovative human resources would increase, as employees will have different personality traits.
The culture of adhocracy attracts people who prefer to solve new problems. It is mainly focused on getting work done, and adhocratic organizations prefer to develop a wide variety of projects simultaneously. This type of culture requires a constant search for appropriate resources and personnel to be carried out, and influence in the organization is based more on expert power than on the power of a position. Each individual believes that they are all engaged in a common cause. It is a result-oriented team culture that erases individual goals and status differences among employees. Operational and working groups and project teams are formed for the implementation of special goals, and they can be reformed, disbanded, or extended. Within the framework of this culture, people get the opportunity to control their work themselves, evaluate its results, and establish good working relationships based on individual abilities rather than status.
Establishing Individual and Motivation Practices
Besides the introduction of adhocracy, it could be beneficial to base the organizational culture of the agency on the concept of a complete and effective management system of team motivation. Latham and Pinder (2005) state that “when people believe themselves to be inefficacious, they are likely to exert little or no effort even in environments that provide opportunities for growth” (p. 494). Thus, it is imperative for leaders to manage team development more efficiently using the employees’ ambitions and goals instead of ignoring their potential usefulness. Moreover, it is also a powerful tool to create a positive microclimate in the team, which could help support the creative potential of the workers and motivate them to use innovative methods.
In the corporate motivational system, a healthy and proper management system establishes a rational and fair structure for remunerating employees’ labor depending on their professional level and qualifications, as well as the results of their work. It also gently pushes employees to constantly improve and develop, which should be the main task of the organization’s motivational policy. Complex interaction and integration of corporate concepts of motivation and organizational culture involves combining them into a single whole to carry out joint practical actions and educational activities that lead to a synergistic effect. Overall, in the personnel motivation system, strong management allows the company to achieve a balance between power and responsibility and effectively stimulate its employees’ innovative work attitude.
Introducing Social and Cultural Diversity Management
Cultural and other diversification of the discussed team supplies questions about the correction of the agency’s established diversity management, taking into account background differences. The experience of solving diversity problems presents concepts of managing social and cultural diversity more efficiently. In many studies, the management of socio-cultural diversity is recognized as a key strategic aspect of international companies. Velten and Lashley (2018) support this claim, stating that “working in a culturally diverse field, the tendency of employees to get entangled in interpersonal conflicts is intensified” (p. 107). Social and cultural diversity management applies to the relationship between individuals and groups, and it helps resolve background contradictions that naturally arise in the working environment. Proper cultural management and diversity training continue to be quite important for peaceful and productive coexistence of group and individual interests.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the agency discussed in this paper should implement fundamental changes to its work approaches and attitudes, or it risks increasing employees’ continued dissatisfaction and, subsequently, resignation. A proper organizational culture remains the most effective lever of influence on the employees of any enterprise and a means of ensuring the required comfort for their labor. Moreover, the culture connects employees’ inner ambitions and aspirations with the goals of the company they are working for in order to maintain a thriving business. An organizational culture concerns all activities of an innovative organization and influences the efficiency of its work by affecting human innovation potential. Thus, with the skillful use of adhocratic culture combined with diversity management, the agency can support its innovation sensitivity and secure the commercialization of existing, as well as potential projects.
References
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