Leading Global Teams

Tsedal  Neeley

Module Note | February 2017

Leading Global Teams

Abstract

This module aims to help students become effective leaders and members of global teams that must work together across national boundaries and toward a common goal. Students will learn to diagnose the challenges that global teams often face as well as strategies that they can employ to foster effective collaboration in those teams.
Learning to navigate the challenges associated with global teams is a critical component of today's MBA curricula. Students will emerge from their MBA programs to join companies that rely on employees from around the world to help the firms capitalize on the promise of their global reach and resources. Global teams, however, face significant challenges; physical separation and demographic differences can create social distance, or lack of emotional connection between groups, that then contributes to disruptive misunderstandings and mistrust. This module prepares students with the knowledge and skills necessary to address these challenges.

Keywords: Groups and Teams; Leadership; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;

Language: English

Format: Print

29 pages

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Citation:

Neeley, Tsedal. "Leading Global Teams." Harvard Business School Module Note 417-073, February 2017.

With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has struck for Shellye Archambeau once again. As CEO of MetricStream, she had spent the last seven years turning a tech startup on life support after the dot-com bust into a market leader of governance, risk, and compliance software for businesses. As a black female CEO, Archambeau is no stranger to adversity. Becoming a leader had been her goal since high school and she had achieved it through decades of hard work and skillful decision making. Now she faces her most critical leadership decision. She calls a meeting with her board chairman, Gunjan Sinha, to discuss the best path forward: Sell MetricStream while offers are on the table, or try to save it by looking for a big customer of the company’s risk management software against the backdrop of the financial crisis? Both options have dire consequences. Valuations are plummeting by the day. Cash is disappearing by the minute. Archambeau and Sinha need to decide and act swiftly.

Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2019 (Revised February 2020)

Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)

Tsedal Neeley, Paul Leonardi and Michael Norris

Eric Hawkins, director of engineering at AppFolio—a digital technology firm that offered cloud-based business software to small and medium sized companies—was shocked by an unusual request from his senior leadership team. Could Hawkins and one of his agile teams build a check scanner feature inside their management software? AppFolio’s founders had instructed to never build a check scanner; providing technologies to help businesses move into the digital era was a primary company goal. A scanner for paper checks would contradict the hard-won culture of software innovation and project self-selection that AppFolio and Hawkins’ teams lived by. Hawkins also worried that creating a new team to work on the check scanning project would cause workload and morale issues. But the sales team believed that this technology could close deals with larger, more complex property management companies, some with managers who wanted the check scanner feature. Several large-scale deals were on the line. Hawkins quickly assembled an agile market validation team and considered two options: hold fast to the company’s values and refuse to build the check scanner feature or capitulate and build a basic check scanner with minimum functionality. Engineers would likely consider this a “loser” project, yet sales might get a boost that could open a new revenue stream. Hawkins had to make his decision quickly.

Keywords: digital transformation; values; Agile; vision; corporate culture; Leadership; Values and Beliefs; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; United States; California;

Citation:

Neeley, Tsedal, Paul Leonardi, and Michael Norris. "Eric Hawkins Leading Agile Teams @ Digitally-Born AppFolio (A)." Harvard Business School Case 419-066, June 2019. (Revised February 2020.) View Details

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