Case Study
Case Study: Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
As illustrated in the article, “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems,
Inc. (A)”, managing a global team is an intricate task that requires special and specific skills
(Neely & Delong, 2009). Greg James, the Global Manager, at Sun Microsystems is faced with
many layers of problems that have manifested with a crisis with HS Holdings. Greg uncovered
more serious problems as he traveled across the globe to assess problems with HS Holdings.
This predicament is illustrated by his statement to Lawry, one of the Vice Presidents at Sun
Microsystems, “the issues are more complex than I realized” (Neely & Delong, p.4, 2009). He
has realized that there are complex interpersonal problems that might have been overlooked,
which have impacted daily operations and meeting the goal of the team. Greg, as a leader of this
complex team, has to a huge task ahead of him as he needs to assess challenges and dysfunctions
of the team, understand his role to resolve the issue, and find solutions to move forward.
There are many challenges this global team is facing that are similar to many other virtual
global teams face. First challenge this global team is facing is inability to establish rapport and
trust due to the nature of a virtual team. It is crucial for any team to build trust and relationship,
but the “relationship function” of a virtual team “is even more critical than in traditional
collocated teams” (Hill, 2010, p.248). This mainly happens because one of top challenges of a
virtual team is the inability to read nonverbal cues (Ebrahim et al, 2009). Hill (2010) also
emphasizes the importance of virtual team leaders to “read all the personal and contextual
nuances in a world of electronic communications” (Hill, 2010, p.248). Another challenge this
team may face is managing conflicts, especially interpersonal relationships. Again, managing
interpersonal conflicts is difficult with any teams, however, it can be even more difficult when a
leader is not physically available to resolve it. There’s limitation to virtual communication when
it comes to resolving interpersonal conflicts (Ebrahim et al, 2009). It is also challenging for
members to express opinions on virtual team than on conventional teams (Hastings, 2010) as
evidenced by some of the members feeling unvalued and unheard in Greg’s global team. This
team is also facing some environmental challenges such as different time zones. As much as
Greg has tried to accommodate and be sensitive to different time zones, he still came up with a
meeting time that left some members feelings dissatisfied and unvalued. Local labor laws and
different cultures are also other challenges this team is facing as the team is made up of members
from four different countries.
With these challenges above, this global team is facing many dysfunctions that surfaced
