Running head: ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

Addressing Challenges of Groups and Teams Caroline Brightenburg 531/Organization Leadership August 17, 2010 Professor Gralnick

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

Addressing Challenges of Groups and Teams

Every company needs to have a strong training team for their employees. Training will provide guidance to upper management on how to deal with groups and teams. Training can provide unique opportunities for companies to prevent fraud and improve ethical practices among employees. Training can help educate, raise awareness, and increase short and long-term company profits. WorldCom was a classic example of failed corporate governance, accounting abuses, and plain greed that could have been prevented through appropriate management and employee training. In this paper I will provide an example of a training plan that could have helped prevent the crumbling of WorldCom. Developing a Training Plan: To increase the effectiveness of employees toward the achievement of business goals, it is essential to put a training plan in place that will enhance communication, group collaboration, and conflict management. A well designed training plan would display the same basic training module but with more organizational specificity on the topic to be addressed. This training plan is designed to maintain the following fundamental principles. 1. Training Goal: The desire to achieve results in effective communication, collaboration, and conflict management from employees to include an understanding of the expectation of ethical behavior. A training manager shall be responsible for designing a curriculum that would address the challenges and benefits of these components within a reasonable time frame.

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

2. Learning Objective: At the end of the training the expectation will be, employees will understand and exhibit skills in effective communication, the need for collaboration in maintaining understanding with one another and exhibit skills in conflict management and resolution. 3. Learning Methods: Employees will be expected to complete three sessions, each of which will deal with effective communication, group collaboration and conflict management to include appropriate action with regard to fraudulent and unethical behavior. The support of visual aids and other available learning tools will be used to facilitate these trainings. 4. Documentation: The company will initiate and maintain records of attendance, participation, and graduation as evidence of training. Employee personnel files will also have references of training. 5. Evaluation: Employees shall be evaluated at the end of the training to determine the individual take away from the program. The implementation of training plan like this would address the challenges and benefits derivable from effective communication, collaboration, and conflict management. How will this plan work in a company: A training plan within WorldCom would have helped leaders, managers, and supervisors better understand effective communication. The cause of the failure at WorldCom was because of the lack of communication, primarily from the companys leaders. There should have been training for all levels of employees. The training plan would have set better

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

professional standards, for all employees to follow as basic guidelines. This would have prevented the accounting fraud and the unethical practices that caused the company to crumble. Training offers a way for the employees to develop skills, improving their productivity, quality of work, and the loyalty they have to the organization. Training will improve and build employee morale and job performance. WorldCom was formed around groupthink. Groupthink is the tendency of members of a committee or profession, to conform to those opinions or feelings prevailing in their group. Victims of groupthink pressured, either directly or indirectly, to agree with the group and not express opinions that would differ with group consensus. (Websters college dictionary 2009) This was the cause of fraudulent activities at WorldCom. A well designed training plan could have helped the company avoid pressure from leaders. Application of the Training Plan: Employees will have to abide by the rules so that everyone has adequate knowledge and skills needed to perform effectively within the company. Employees within the organization are responsible for holding one another accountable for their actions. This training plan would be successful because every unique challenge has been addressed. Teamwork would allow employees to apply measures of the training to the organization, by considering all aspects, not just the delivery. This training plan provides strategies and implementations relative to an organizations developmental process. Applying the training plan strategies should have been WorldComs number one priority. Organizations must apply the strategies to ensure that the training plans will be sufficient enough for others to apply to their teams. (Emprend, Inc, 2010) The application should be reflective of positive teamwork, thorough training plan knowledge,

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

correct grammar use, and organizational skills. WorldCom could have succeeded with the use if this training plans because it would have better equip employees to run their business. Unique Challenges: Business organizations face many different challenges. The following are some of the challenges faced by todays companys; competition, decreased profits, raising employee performance, enhancing leadership, increasing customer base, allocating resources, delivering better services, increasing efficiency, increasing shareholders value, reducing costs, and customer satisfaction. (Sharma 2009) WorldCom had 65 acquisitions in a six year period. It can be very challenging for management to bring together many different organizations and have those functions as one smooth running business. A good training program would provide detailed instructions to employees of the business acquired. The training would include the rules, regulations, goals, and the mission of WorldCom. Information will be provided to all employees regarding the companies would function as one unified company. Detailed employee handbooks would be given to each employee, and the training program would discuss key points from the employee handbook. Within the WorldCom organization there was a culture of invulnerability. This invulnerability way of thinking made employees fail to respond to clear warnings of danger (Scharff, 2005). An employee training program should included fraud and ethics training and an explanation of what constitutes fraud and actions that should be taken when fraud is suspected. In conclusion, developed training programs can make or break the potential success or failure of an organization. Training employees and managers on company mission, expectations, and state and federal law to include: legal and ethical standards, is key. Managers and employees

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

need to have a set expectation and guidelines to follow. It is the responsibility of the organization to provide training and ensure that employees understand and use the training provided through follow-up with direct leadership.

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES OF GROUPS AND TEAMS

References

Emprend, Inc. 2010 Project Connections. Retrieved from www. Projectconnections.com Groupthink. (2009). In Websters new world college dictionary. Retrieved from www. yourdictionary.com Scharff, M. (2005). Understanding WorldComs accounting fraud: did groupthink play a role? Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, (), 16. Retrieved from www. allbusiness.com Scharff, M. (2005). Understanding WorldComs Accounting Fraud. Entrepreneur. Retrieved on August 12, 2010 from www. entrepreneur.com Sharma, M. (2009). Your Organizations Biggest Challenges. Retrieved on August 13, 2010 from: www. slideshare.net