Principles of OB for maintaining team Dynamism in Google

Requirement

Question: Principles of OB for maintaining team Dynamism in Google

Solution

Abstract

The World is heading towards a knowledge-led economy, Knowledge has become the latest capital and it is changing business and transaction culture of the world. In the current case study, we are dealing with Google; it is an America based multinational company that holds the status of a pioneer in this knowledge-led economy of the world. This case study is an attempt to find out the pertinence of OB-related theories in the success story of Google. Here we will study the challenges and corresponding mitigating behaviors that changed the dynamism of the team. We will also pinpoint the role of effective leadership practices and Google changed the basic definition of a leader.

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An Introduction 

Industry background with reference to the case that we have in our hands 
When we have a look at the industry sector then Google is the undisputed leader of search engine market with a stake of more than 80 percent, now this implies that we have this privilege to write off competition almost completely. Google is racing alone and it is racing with itself. During the last quarter of 2015, there were more than 55,000 direct employees that were working with Google under operations like R&D, Marketing, Operations and administrative functions. 

R & D department with more than 20 thousand employees and marketing department with a head count of more than 19,000 employees can be considered as the key result areas for Google. It is the area where out of box thinking and traditional wisdom is required to meet out various problems, Google with an intention to create a "meaningful source of information" for the world started its operation. Now they have come a long way, the face three challenges 

  1. Setting up Different “Group norms” for the groups where people from different walks of life were coming together 

  2. Setting up an ideal code of behavior for the teams, for instance what should be the degree of socialization of a group and others?

  3. How to introduce new group norms in order to create a healthy environment for the work? How to introduce new group norms to increase the belongingness quotient of an employee towards the group?

Analysis of the Problem 

Group dynamism is a very important aspect when people are working in groups. From the point of view of a manager, we can identify three important aspects that are viable to attend this particular case. They are people, distinct purpose, and deliberate structure. In the case of Google, they were clubbing together people because they were in need of a different set of expertise, they were looking for some "out of the box" ideas and participation every team member was inevitable.
It was the act of collaboration that was missing in the teams that were not performing well; in the terms of management, we can identify it as a failure in negotiating agreement & commitment. In order to identify this problem we can relate it to Hawthrone experiments and its findings (Mayo, 1927-1930). 
In this study, he mentioned about the social aspects of work, how these social aspects can generate motivation for the employees to work and how they can detect them. In the current study Julia is trying to figure out the social behavior of various teams that are working, is it causing a distraction or is it causing a positive bonding between the team members?  

  1. Solution One: - Ideally, a manager should maintain a CANOE profile of each team member.With the help of some interpersonal communication sessions with each team member or the close group, he should introduce a familiarity between the groups. This type of an exercise can set up the team dynamism right because it will generate an acceptance for each other.

  2. Solution Two; - Introducing a social behavior in a group should be a channelized process when we are saying channelized then actually we are talking in the terms of goal orientation. The introduction of mind tools (Mayo, 1927-1930) can sort out the problem. According to Hawthorne study conducted in Chicago, the bonding between female employees in the organization increased their productivity considerably. 

  3. Solution  Three:- In the true spirit of Project Aristotle, new group norms can be introduced. Group norms can be introduced in various groups by introducing new communication channels. The purpose of this communication channel should be aimed to establish the principle that “work is a group activity.” 

Above-mentioned solutions in our views crease out other tangents of the set of the problems that we identified in the study. Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, 2014,  wrote in their book “how Google works” that human beings are the capital of Google, they are constantly innovating ideas to turn each and every head working for Google operations became an asset for the company”.  (Rosenberg, 2014)
In the current case study, the conflict associated with Julia is a classical case of Idiosyncrasy, he either found herself as an outlander in the team or she found herself too much involved with the team to lose the objective of the team. Here we would like to mention Henry Ford, 1947, assembly line theory that talks about the mass production of quality goods with the help of expensive workforce.(Henry Ford )
For Google it was serving as an answer, however, there was a twist in the tale, they were handling two extremes, they were not creating technology goods, they were creating products for general masses and participation of general masses in the core team was a must.
Body
The book “ How Google works" is a handbook for current startup organizations working to recreate success stories like Google, above mentioned statement, reflects the challenge that Google is facing, if you want to convert every head count into an asset, then the formation of the teams is the most important exercise. On this Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, 2014, wrote in their book “how Google works” that “moving in a group” and hunt for the targets was the initial culture in the organization which is prevailing even now.” 

  • A)    Group Dynamism: During its initial run, Google faced the challenge of handling the group dynamism. The reason was quite simple, they were required to form teams where IT process experts were rubbing shoulders with people from various industry sectors, and there were severe working culture differences. IT professionals were in a mode to search out new possibilities and people from the old school were adamant on their old practices. It was a big problem for them to identify the role of general masses in a team where sophisticated Tech-wizards were working. 

  • B)    Emotions affecting organizational Dynamics: Microsoft started it with business @ thought; Google took it to the level of information@ imagination. In both the cases, it was a speedy process, handling human beings bubbling up with positive and negative emotions was a tough task for Google. W. J. Zerbe, ‎Charmine E. J. Härtel, ‎Neal M. Ashkanasy, 2010, wrote in his book “ emotion and organizational behavior” emotions are like charged ions, they will attract towards the opposite. An ideal leader should work as an electrode to channelize this energy in a positive direction." The current case study that we have in our hands also talks about one such program where efforts of Google R & D came up with a solution and converted their team leaders into successful electrodes, see what we have in our hands. We have a success story that has seen a meteoric rise in profits and popularity and still it is counting.(W.J.Zerbe, 2010)  

Background 

Google inc was yet another search engine facing a stiff challenge in the market, browser business was in doldrums, social networking site Orkut met with a failure, there was corporate pressure, hostile takeovers were on the cards. Still, this organization never lost it track. The reason was quite simple; they never allowed their teams to waiver from the mission of bringing structured information. They met with success because of this perseverance, now they have an android platform, which is replacing many other browsers. They have already reached the new level of creating “professional social circles” and last but not the least. “If you are not visible on Google then probably you don’t exist” is the new corporate and social Mantra.  
Challenges  ahead of them. Let us talk about the current case study innovative programs like “Project Aristotle”, projects like these worked like stepping stones in the journey of Google quite considerably. Books like Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, 2014 “How Google Works” are a case study of Google’s new age organizational behavior patterns, how they converted the traditional OB wisdom into modern day practices, how they countered the difference of technology changing the culture of working place. It was an “In tray”, “Out tray” culture, the converted it into “inbox and outbox” culture. (Rosenberg, 2014). Move back to the current case study, Julia lost her face in the idiosyncrasy of the team and became a victim of role conflict, Matt on the other hand emerged as a leader of this group in spite his shortcomings. He employed his worldly wisdom and experience as a tool and gained a position in the group, these are two interpersonal cases, Project Aristotle certainly created a benchmark for the managers and gave them a reason to marshal their resources well.   
Ikujir? Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi ( 1995) in his book “The Knowledge-creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics” writes that it becomes difficult to figure out the stakes and measure the performance of an individual when we are into the business of processing knowledge. The role of a bouncing pad cannot be denied during a discussion, in order to create a team dynamism one should never forget the role of a goalkeeper during football matches." Google met with success because Goalkeepers got their dues well. The current case study of Julia and employee Matt is a classical example, Matt acted as a force of balancing for the team dynamism. It means, the qualification of leadership became different, previous to Google, it was the technically best hand who was leading the team, he was enjoying his position because he was the problem-solving head. Google culture changed it, they propagated the culture of bringing in the leaders who were more concerned about processes rather than the actual methods. (iKujro Nokana, 1995)

While searching for the human face of technology if you will neglect the technological aspects completely then it can backfire, in spite of its successful launch Google lost its steam in the realms of social media business. Too many small teams were working in too many sectors, team-bonding exercises converted many teams of Google into comfort zones of employees. Social media sites like Facebook took a leaf from it, what they started, as a “Closed group” social media activity has now become a big threat for Google. Now when we judge it on the scale of positive and negative then we find that Google has created a "parallel universe" on the internet but in the bargain, they lost their hold on the "existing universe" which was organized in a traditional way. Though the rules of the game have changed now, still it will be considered as a dent on the supremacy of the Google. 
Thomas Hobbes, 1679 wrote in his book "The Leviathan" about the structures of the society, the difference between the class and mass is of mindset, people belonging to the masses want to join the classes if an organization can diminish this culture then it opens umpteen possibilities for them. Google erased this line of mass & class, they brought people from different occupations on the same page and this is where they unlocked the doors of the treasure of success for them. (Hobbes, 1679)
Daniel Bell, 1960, in his book “The end of ideology” talked about the emergence of technical elites; he was referring to the conversion of a superior working class into the role models of a society. Google in his organizational behavior patterns adopted this practice as a motivating factor, applied it to the employees as well as on the customers because Google was out with an idea to spread a technical wisdom in the society.  (Bell, 1960)

Conclusion 

“How Google works” is a diary of the events that took place during the course of Google’s evolution. If we consider it as a milestone diary then we find that principles stated in Ikujir? Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi ( 1995) in his book The Knowledge-creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics came out very handy for them. This book talks about a Knowledge creating company and Google can be considered as the biggest ever Knowledge and information creating company that we have in the history or modern world. 
Second most important factor that we identifies in the team building exercise comes from two different era’s of management and social studies, first It was Thomas Hobbs, 1679  who mentioned about the structure of society as a motivation factor and Daniel Bell who rephrased the emergence of a new strata of “technical elites” in the society. Google met with success because it complies with the fundamental of Hobbes and follows the changing trends propagated by Daniel Bell. 
The third most important factor was the role of the leader, Google changed the qualification of the post completely and make it a little more submissive, means the technical superior person is not bound to lead the team. This practice helped young entrepreneurs in growing under the shade of a worldly wisdom of a leader who is technically not that sound.
These three factors created equilibrium in OB, team dynamism and productivity of the team and helped Google in creating one the greatest success stories of our times. 

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References 

  • Bell, D. (1960). The end of ideology . 

  • Henary Ford . (n.d.). The theory of assembly line . 1947 .

  • Hobbes, T. (1679). The Levithan .

  • iKujro Nokana, H. T. (1995). The Knowledge-creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamism .

  • Rsenberg, E. S. (2014). "How Google works". 

  • W.J.Zerbe, C. E. (2010). Emotion and Orgnizational Behaviour.

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