Google Case Study

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arrange periodic face-to-face meetings, team-building exercises, and leisure activities. Finally, encourage collaboration between and among team members on subtasks (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

For this kind of diverse cross-functional team to operate, it is important that trust is maintained across the groups. This is difficult since trust is fragile and easily lost. But it is a vital component of working together as a team. There are six guidelines to consider when building team trust, communication, support, respect, fairness, predictability, and competence. While each of these is important in their own right, open and honest communication is paramount (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

References

De Jong, B. A., Dirks, K. T., & Gillespie, N. (2016). Trust and team performance: A meta-analysis of main effects, moderators, and covariates. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 101(8), 1134-1150. doi:10.1037/apl0000110

Kreitner, R., Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational behaviour. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

4.

According to the text, there are two types of cohesiveness that bring groups of individuals together, Socio-emotional and instrumental. Socio-emotional cohesiveness is defined as “a sense of togetherness that develops when individuals derive emotional satisfaction from group participation (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, pg 314)." Although this type of cohesiveness is effective, it is instrumental cohesiveness that would benefit Google the most. Instrumental cohesiveness is the sense of togetherness that is derived from mutual dependence when the group members believe that the group’s goals would not be possible by acting separately. As the text explains, instrumental cohesiveness regularly updates and clarifies the group’s goals, gives every group member an important piece of the action, channels each group member’s special talents toward the common goals, reinforces every member’s contributions and frequently reminds group members they need each other to get the job done (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). Google’s Three-Thirds is an attempt to diversify their collective. Each group should know that without one of the other groups, they will not succeed. In other words, they are all necessary to function as a successful and effective group of teams and succeed or fail as a whole. The culture Google has adopted is definitely one of teamwork.

References

Kreitner, R., Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational behaviour. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

5.

Google’s Three Thirds model is effective and successful because of the diversity of their cross-functional team. This diversity should be celebrated to truly emphasize its importance in the workplace. Google needs to be prepared because as members of the groups leave or are replaced cohesiveness will become an issue, the trust built will have to be maintained and re-earned. As stated before trust is fragile and it should not be taken for granted. Teamwork competencies should be a part of regular training, to ensure that they are being utilized efficiently. Each group’s teamwork needs to be monitored because if any conflict does arise it could affect productivity (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

As members of the groups leave or are replaced cohesiveness will become an issue, the trust built will have to be maintained and re-earned. Furthermore, it is important to remember that communication is key and group meetings should regularly occur to help facilitate this. This will enable the group to share ideas and be on the same page. This cross-functional team that Google has adopted will only be successful if the group members work in cohesion. Google should concentrate on refining its Three-thirds model and facilitating the cohesion and interaction between the groups (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).

References

Kreitner, R., Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational behaviour. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.