Johnson had just completed her first month as man- _ First, Johnson discovered that the Japanese and Chinese H for a successful company that provides a variety of team members did not participate much in the videoconferbbased services and solutions. Last week, she was ences or telephone conference calls. bat rather preferred comed that she would be the new leader of a team that written communication in the form of faxes and c-mail. In thaded 10 individuals. To her surprise, not only were these contrast, the Australian and Mexican team members seemed members diverse in terms of their functional training to thrive on telephone calls and face-to-face meetings. SecAt expertise, but they also represented a variety of cultural ond, there appeared to be some infighting among the three kgrounds and only three were located in her office build- members of the group that were domiciled at headquirters. She quickly leamed that 7 of the 10 individuals actually Most of the past arguments seemed to be about the group's Siked from their home countries that included Japan. goals and mission. Each had a very different idea in mind in ana, Mexico, Australia, Germany, Colombia, and Egypt. terms of what the group needed to accomplish. The com-p until this point, this "virtual team" collaborated on pro- ments in written communications didn't get personal, but cets by using a variety of communication tools, including there were definitely heated debates about what objectives the cant e-mail messaging, telephone calls, videoconferene- group should be focusing on. The third potential obstacle to document sharing, and occasional meetings at head- faster decision making had to do with the sporadic use of arters. After revicwing some of the past meeting notes face-to-face meetings. To her surprise. Johnson discovered at communication transcripts among the group members, that such meetings rarely occurred and that there was no fferson realized that many of the team members had very attempt to bring the group together when it was first formed last year. Johunson expected that the team would have met and ctomers and market share. Johnson researched the past performance of her newly Discussion Questions therited virtual team. Although the overall quality of past 1 . What is Johnson's most pressing problem? Why? zcisions was quite high, the team secmed to take several 2. What can Johnson do to help her team launch the new. - anths to make those decisions. This was a potential problem product within the six-week timeframe? Be specific. cut a way to encourage the team to move faster without com- 3. Assume Johnson will select a new team to launch Tromising quality. Through a combination of analyzing past another Web-based product after this project is complete. arm meeting notes and transcripts and speaking one-on-one What do you recommend she do differently next time? aright be useful in solving the decision-making speed issue