Team or Leadership Intervention

.Intervention Proposal Template

Executive Summary

County Office stands as a global front-runner in technology services and solutions. Specialising in enterprise networking, cloud solutions, and unified communications, among other areas. CO has both virtual and physical teams working for it all over the world, in several different time zones and across many different cultures. This is especially true of its project management team. The team operates as a set of virtual groups, this means that members of the project management department "live" in a set of different cultures. Project managers also live metaphorically in the "virtual culture" of the project space. They must adapt to the specifics of each project's conditions and virtual team dynamics. For CO's current leadership, this makes overcoming the challenges of virtual team communication and collaboration more vital to ensure not only the success of the kinds of complex, hard-to-manage situations that projects often become but also the thriving of a workforce that otherwise has no office to call home.

Stage 1: Advise

CO's use of teams based in diverse geographies creates a special set of problems for them. The members of these virtual teams often work in different time zones and come from different cultural backgrounds. Working in different time zones creates a situation where only a small amount of interaction time is available for all team members. They must work hard to create an acceptable amount of interaction and connection among all team members (Gibson & Gibbs, 2006).

Being a "virtual leader" comes with the same obstacles to building a good team atmosphere that team members themselves face. VLS may have difficulty making their presence felt and in involving everyone in the team, recognising individual’s contributions and imagining what the team will look like in the future if all goes well. (Ou et al., 2014; Avolio et al., 2009)

Self-determination theory (SDT) holds that individuals are most motivated when they experience intrinsic rewards from their work and its outcomes. Intrinsic rewards and job satisfaction are most likely when three basic psychological needs are fulfilled: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In virtual teams, the absence of face-to-face interaction can undermine the development of autonomy. VT members can easily begin to feel uncertain and incompetent and may experience a kind of relatedness deprivation that translates, adversely, into motivation and engagement (Maslach et al., 2001).

The theory of social exchange (Blau, 1964) places a spotlight on reciprocity and trust as fundamental building blocks of good relationships—especially in what are sometimes referred to as "teams of trust." These are teams that, for all the virtuality of their existence and apart from being in the same physical space, can work together because they trust and, even like each other.

Will a complete, all-encompassing intervention aimed at increasing the three components of SDT - together with trust, motivation, and goal setting, have an impact on the virtual teams that work in CO, on employee engagement, team cohesion, and the success rate of projects they execute?

Stage 2: Diagnosis

We will start by surveying all the virtual team members and sending them a couple of questionnaires. One is the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ), it measures how well teams get along and how much they feel like they belong (Carron et al., 1985). Another is the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), which assesses how "engaged" people are in their work—essentially, how much they are working and how deeply absorbed they are in it (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Finally, we will assess something that is very important in any team's success: trust among team members (e.g., Mayer & Davis, 1999). We will conduct deep, semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of team members and leaders. These interviews will allow us to explore in detail the team members and leader’s experiences with interaction, collaboration, and, most importantly, virtual leadership. We chose not to use a structured interview format because we suspect the "conversation" part of the interview will yield rich insights. And we are paying special attention to team member leadership in the virtual environment because these virtual leaders are responsible for half of the virtual team experience. Work Preference Inventory (WPI) will provide a window into the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of the team members. Understanding what (if anything) motivates them can only help with the project (Amabile et al., 1994). The WPI is a good choice for this because it has strong psychometric properties, and my choice of it may offer a scholarly veneer.

Ethical considerations: Those who take part in this research will be fully briefed on both the reason for the research and their role in it. No individual response will ever be shared with management, ensuring that all data remains private. This is a voluntary research project. No individual is obligated to participate, and any who choose to participate may withdraw at any time without consequence

Stage 3: Design

CO’s virtual teams face some specific and significant difficulties. To get to the bottom of what is going wrong, we will adopt a data-gathering method that uses both numbers and words. First, we will create a virtual environment in which all members of the virtual team will be able to respond to an anonymous questionnaire sent to the entire team. The first part of the instrument contains a series of statements about the team's "environment." These statements come from the validated Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Carron et al., 1985). Team members will respond to these in terms of how much they agree with the statements.

In addition to the survey information, in-depth interviews will be performed with a representative sample of virtual team members and leaders. These interviews will yield a much deeper understanding of the individual experiences and the varied virtual work environments. We will explore the members' challenges and the leaders' strategies concerning computing, collaborating, and communicating across the virtual space—what we fumble and what we do well. The Work Preference Inventory (WPI; Amabile et al., 1994) will be used to investigate the motivational dynamics of members of virtual teams. This is a well-validated instrument that reveals whether individuals are primarily motivated by intrinsic factors (such as the enjoyment and challenge of work) or by extrinsic factors (such as rewards and recognition). Collecting data will occur with the highest ethical standards. All the people who will help with the project will know exactly why the project is being done, and they will be guaranteed that no one will know what they said if they are asked a question.

We will treat the project's confidentiality like a "top-secret" operation. We can't go without voluntary consent. We have combined different methods and followed all the ethical rules to the letter. Therefore, we have come to a complex and well-formed understanding of the problems that the virtual teams at CO face. This understanding is so much deeper than a mere knowledge of the situation that it allows us to immediately proceed to the next phase of our work: developing a plan to intervene with the teams.

Stage 4: Implement

We will gradually implement the intervention, focusing on all virtual project teams and their leaders at CO We will integrate the key elements of the intervention into existing onboarding and development programs so that the virtual project teams can participate fully and so that the virtual project teams can see the importance of the content for their virtual success (Hertel et al., 2005). Key components include up to three virtual team-building workshops—interactive workshops that help virtual project team members get to know one another and build trust (Gibson & Gibbs, 2006). Training in goal setting and feedback will arm our teams with new virtual tools to use when they are setting and achieving clear, collaborative goals and when they are giving each other feedback. With these processes and more technology-enabled competence on their virtual leadership plate, they will serve as excellent role models for our associates (Locke & Latham, 1990). Leadership in the virtual world is different. Our leaders who are not used to leading virtually will get virtual leadership training. This is not just a step off the cliff after falling into the competence trap; it is a way to build trust, model good practices, and empower our associates (Avolio et al., 2009). The program will be framed as an opportunity for personal and professional growth, as well as a chance to improve team performance.

Stage 5: Evaluation

A mixed-method strategy will be used to determine whether the intervention is effective (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). This means we will employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches to gather data. The first of these is the same pre- and post-intervention survey method described in the diagnosis section. As a reminder, the same well-tested and understood engagement and trust measuring tools, such as the GEQ and UWES, along with the baseline “trust” measures, will be used after the intervention to gauge change. The second approach is the same kind of qualitative follow-up that was used in the first phase of the study. In addition, we will use objective metrics of organizational performance—rates of project completion, scores of client satisfaction, and turnover rates of employees—to understand the systematic effect of this intervention on collaboration and retention. We will identify statistically significant changes in performance and satisfaction/preference survey scores over time. When analysing our qualitative data, we will use thematic analysis to surface patterns and insights relevant to improvement and the effectiveness of a virtual team in a state of "business as usual" and coordination under high-stakes circumstances—improving the likelihood of both retaining virtual team members and ensuring their success.