Internal Competition

INTERNAL COMPETITION
Garrison Withers
Internal Competition-A Curse for Team Performance

Garrison Withers
University Texas at Dallas
Garrison Withers
Internal Competition- A Curse for Team Performance

Throughout the analysis of performance for FIS Consulting Services concerning a
specific project dealing with the development of ERP training materials reported by Steve
Fernandez, HR manager for the company, there seemed to be numerous and destructive
behaviors that directly effected the teams performance. Such actions caused process loss, by
weakening group development and the teams processes leading to a decrease in job performance
as well as an increase stress.
Using Tuckmans Model of Group Development, which has four stages of task activity
and group structure the team could be examined on how effective they were working in a team
environment. When the teams task activities were looked upon there seemed to be many issues
with the second and third stages, emotional response to the task demands and open exchange of
relevant interpretations. The issues of these specific stages mostly concerned the team leader
Pete Philly. He exhibited this by never responding to the teams emails or even failing to
communicate with the clients themselves according to Shalini. The lack of effort on Pete Philly
essentially lead to a lower job performance, when more new members came on someone would
suspect that this extra support of a workforce would be helpful especially associated with a
project team, but it did not. (Colquitt 357) As the group structure of the team was analyzed you
had no development of group cohesion, an emotional bond between members, due to the
divisions within the team itself. (Colquitt 405)
Division within the team members also lead to virtually no task, goal, outcome or
interdependence. Task interdependence, the degree to which team members interact with one
another and rely on each other for information, materials, resources. (Colquitt 362) This
eventually led to slower production of materials and factions being formed. The non-existent task
interdependence was even encouraged by the team leader, Sai Rishi, who according to reports
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was reluctant to work with members outside of these sub groups. As such behavior wasnt
enough, noted by Sara Shalini and Lia Aarthi, teams and specifically Rishi denied granting
access of important documents to other members of the team while freely sharing this
information with his designated sub group. Also the meetings where every member of the group
would attend contained only conflicting opinion between each small group, causing there to be
little or no goal interdependence whatsoever. Goal interdependence only is present when team
members have a shared vision of the teams goal and align their individual goals with that vision.
(Colquitt 364) Next the teams outcome interdependence was actually affected more due to how
the group or might you say each individual was evaluated in their performance during the
project. The evaluations were based solely on individualistic performance rather on how the
group as a whole produced, greatly weakening outcome interdependence, which exists when
team members share in the rewards that the team earns. (Colquitt 365)
Although the interdependence of the group was lacking exponentially and group
development was nowhere to found, the majority of process loss was caused by the ineffective
usage of the teams processes. Team processes, described as the different types of
communication, activities, and interactions within a team to produce a desired goal. (Colquitt
392) As seen in the task work processes, specifically hierarchical sensitivity, which means how a
leader weighs the opinions of the other members effectively. (Colquitt 397) This behavior
applied to Pete Philly who was eventually swayed by Rishis continuance of always trying to win
Petes favor over by giving him gifts, being by his side routinely as well as always agreeing with
Mr. Philly. Such hierarchical sensitivity led to Rishi gaining control of decisions to be made
about the project while Mr. Philly continued to isolate himself from performing his work. Also
while Rishi, who disliked Sara, became more and more of the project manager. Sara was soon
treated differently from Philly, which was shown in the deadlines being pushed up with no
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explanation, a distasteful attitude toward her, and being criticized by Mr. Philly during a meeting
for not meeting a deadline, which she actually had accomplished. Another weak area of the task
processes of the team was ambassador activities, referring to how communication is used to
obtain resources, protect, and support the team throughout the project. (Colquitt 398) A perfect
example of the abstinence related to ambassador activities is how Philly and Rishi presented the
first draft, which Sara wrote, to the client without going through the proper editing procedure.
Behavior such as this was completely counter to ambassador activities. Philly and Rishi failed to
support and protect Saras reputation; they went out of their way to damage it.
Next the teamwork processes, which contain transition processes, action processes and
interpersonal processes had many faults specifically within the interpersonal processes
Interpersonal processes deal with how teams manage conflict while going the work of project
and how team members are motivated to perform tasks. (Colquitt 400) Routinely seen in the
report is the incompetence by Pete Philly to solve or even admire the conflicts within the team.
Especially in the meetings there seems to only be strife and no resolution between each
dissenting opinion created by split off groups. The team also lacked important motivation to
complete the training materials. There even seemed to be gossip of other members by Rishi,
jeopardizing any sense of motivation from the team leader.
Overall with these types of behaviors occurring within the team, job performance differed
from member to member. Job performance referring to the behaviors of the members that either
contributed positively or negatively to teams goal. (Colquitt 32-33) The members lacking in job
performance from the report were Rishi and Pete in how they showed no citizenship behavior a
subtopic of job performance, which is voluntary activities that may or not be rewarded but
contributed to the organization. (Colquitt 39) Their voluntary actions damage the reputation of
FIS consulting services by going out of their way to embarrass Sara in front of clients. This
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behavior led to the client being unhappy and filing a complaint.

The handling of the project caused Sara to experience stress, a psychological response to
demands that possess certain stakes for the person and that tax or exceed the persons capacity or
resources. Even though she was faced with numerous adversities during the project, Sara was
still able to create a respectable first draft while also meeting difficult deadlines on time. She
showed strong organizational commit, the desire to remain a part of an organization while facing
opposition from her superiors who were attempting to try to keep her from doing her job.
For the future, FIS consulting services should respond quicker to team conflicts by
sending a HR representative from the company to try to keep any conflict within the team. There
also should be put in place a procedure that when a team leader or project manager or any
employee placed in a management positions shows behavior that could be destructive to group
cohesion they would removed immediately. The last suggestions would to not allow a team to
grow to exponential size, which would reduce divisions as well as changing the evaluation
process. The changes of the evaluation process should include the team being judged by more
than a single person and the scale of performance more weighted on how the group performs and
not each individual.

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INTERNAL COMPETITION

Internal Competition-A Curse for Team Performance

Internal Competition- A Curse for Team Performance

behavior led to the client being unhappy and filing a complaint.

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