45234971
So what happened and how come: Seagate is among the largest digital content storage area companies on the globe and has business in about 12-15 countries all over the world in The european countries, Asia plus the US (©2011 Seagate Technology LLC). To develop the ultimate team-building experience, yearly Seagate delivers 250 high-performing employees to Queenstown, close to Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand. This event tests almost all their physical and emotional limitations of strength (Max, 2006).
This is a very popular program between Seagate staff and is generally known as “Eco Seagate”.
The company put in a whopping amount of $9000 per person, and the goal on this exercise is to boost the employee well-being, support workplace amity, and encourage teamwork (Max, 2006). Seagate’s CEO Watkins wished participants to experience the intensity that distinguishes an informal group coming from a high executing team. This individual also really wants to strengthen his company’s traditions by rewarding these rules and thinking that encourage group work, willpower and endurance. Why would I decide to write about this? I have been earning a living for Seagate technology for about 10 years and have been witnessing this herculean effort of team building since 2001. I actually attended a scaled straight down version of Eco Seagate in early 2002, which was evenly rigorous and challenging but gave me a new way of thinking about team mechanics. The current kind of Eco Seagate is a week-long teambuilding plan, which includes a 10-mile trek, 12-mile bike trip through pile terrain, browsing through about a few miles within a kayak, rappelling down coves and more. The final day in the challenge combines these daring activities into one 25-mile (40 kilometers) contest.
On introduction in Queenstown, the two hundred fifty Seagate employees were broken into 50 teams of five persons each, generally the team users had by no means met prior to and in some cases didn’t even speak the same dialect but had been expected to interact to finish the Eco-challenge. This, which some call a social test, is family pet project of our CEO. Yearly all two hundred fifty Eco Seagate participants learn a lifelong lesson about the value of team-work. He anticipate Eco Seagate as a way to breakdown barriers, boost confidence and make firm staffers’ better team players. “Some of you will learn about teamwork since you have a great team, ” he says. A few of you will learn because your team can be described as disaster. ” (Max, 2006). Were there effects positive or negative to get the various celebrations in the situation? Undoubtedly the outcome of the exercise is very positive intended for the company and Seagate’s staff. I would term this event being a mother of all team building work out ever performed by comparable size business in the Silicon Valley. One need to realize that this is an investment toward Social capital (McShane and Von Glinow, pp. 236). After this function Seagate not simply achieves better team aspect within their personnel but would also get a stronger bonding between company as well as the employees.
Mentoring and coaching, especially on an simple basis, help people build systems they need to function across company boundaries (Gratton & Erickson, 2007). I see one negative side of this intricate team-building exercise. Two big is a lot of money to be spent on a few individuals in a large company that has forty five, 000 workers worldwide. You will discover number of additional , staff building’ programs that can achieve the same results in the event not better at a much lower cost. For me the main problem with this program is the fact you are getting on a team development exercise devoid of your instant workgroup staff.
What would you do differently? Why?: As being a manager, basically wanted to build a stronger crew, I would consider everyone in my team to such an workout so that even more cohesiveness and team skills development could be achieved for all the models. Based on my own, personal experience team building should be a continuous process and programs with this kind have only a initial impact. Rather than one massive/expensive exercise, I would suggest having even more frequent cheap programs that can help me to sustain my own team over the long period of time.
My learning related to this experience: Before you go for Ecosystem Seagate team building program, I had a feeling that I would work significantly better independently just like Scott left a comment. (Seagate Technology, 2007). My own general sense was that team work will be a burden in my experience and each person in the group would think less responsible for contributing because others are present. Initially My spouse and i suspected that people tend to slack off, or loaf, when they work in an organization more than they are doing when working alone (McShane and Vonseiten Glinow, pp. 238).
After I concluded that I would not be able to full that contest by myself because the formatting of the race was very rigorous and everybody needs to execute multiple activities at the same time just like treking, cycling, navigating, map readings, trying to find milestones and stretegic about to overcome the obstacles confronted during the competition. I began this workout with lower levels of cohesiveness with other members. That may be since we operate different places and useful areas in Seagate, talks different primary languages or perhaps we viewed the situation in a different way.
Our five-person team size played an essential role to increase the cohesiveness in initial four days of practice and familiarization stage (McShane & Von Glinow, pp. 242). Our range in knowledge and physical skills helped us to formulate our team better (McShane & Von Glinow, pp. 245). As a Manager I found that I need to be sure that diversity is effectively handled in the staff, because whether it is not, it may well lead to low cohesiveness. During four times of the acclimatization session all of us organized a lot of informal crew meetings and started with learning every single other’s abilities and failings.
During practice sessions we challenged each other based on the weaknesses, which usually helped all of us to stretch out ourselves over and above our normal physical ability. That was your first time My spouse and i realized the strength of Five “C” team member expertise (McShane & Von Glinow, pp. 244). As part of all of us building process we set up several ground rules for the final day contest and designated team jobs based on each of our strengths and willingness (McShane & Von Glinow, pp. 246-248). While using moral support of my personal team and several practice lessons of rock climbing and rappelling down the cliff, I could overcome my fear of heights and felt a bit upbeat.
If a group defines noticeable and visible accomplishment, it leads to substantially to its thoughts of cohesiveness and belongingness (McShane & Von Glinow, pp. 250). Since I know a few people who were coming from California, I expanded my network by leveraging them because brokers to “connect the separate crew clusters” (Uzzi and Dunlap, pp. 56). Some of them truly became my own social friends and one recently took me around to get a quick sight-seeing tour of Amsterdam at my eight-hour layover at AMS Schiphol airport.
Conclusion: Even though we don’t win the race, all of us successfully accomplished it regarding 50 minutes behind the first staff that handled the polishing off line. Total experience was amazing and the relevant skills that I discovered at Environment Seagate continue to be contributing to my on-the-job effectiveness, including the ability to follow through on obligations to others, definitely listen to associates, take responsibility for group successes or perhaps failures and give and recognize the beneficial feedback that will assist to improve the performance in next version.
From the activities at Ecosystem Seagate, ideally several Seagate managers will be cultivated and today contributing efficiently to form a excessive performing crew by building trust within clubs, sharing and communicating goals among team members, empowering team members, and encouraging these people through confident expectations (McShane & Von Glinow, pp. 245-251). Functions Cited * ©2011 Seagate Technology LLC. (n. g. ). About Seagate. Retrieved from About Seagate: http://www. seagate. com/www/en-us/about/ * Gratton, L., & Erickson, Big t. J. (2007). 8 Strategies to Build Collaborative Teams. Harvard Business Review, 85 (11), 100-109. Greatest extent, S. (2006, April 3). Seagate’s Morale-athon. Retrieved via Seagate’s Morale-athon: http://www. businessweek. com/magazine/content/06_14/b3978085. htm * McShane, S. L., & Vonseiten Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational Behavior: emerging expertise and practice for the real world (5th education. ). Nyc, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. * Seagate Technology. (2007, Sept 26). Eco Seagate 2007: The Bloggers (1, 2, 3). Retrieved via Eco Seagate 2007: The Bloggers (1, 2, 3): http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=4Gp7AYuZJN0 * Uzzi, B., & Dunlap, T. (December, 2005). How to build the network. Harvard Business Assessment.
