Question

Please dont Copy from internet Plagiarism is Prohibited

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Aiming Higher

Bancolombia is Colombia’s biggest bank. At its sleek new headquarters in Medellin, there are no plush executive chairs.Instead, everyone from the bank president to assistants use identical leather and steel ergonomic chairs. The subtle message: no one here has special privileges. The chairs, the open-space offices, and a contemporary design reflect the company’s organizational culture that recognizes individual contributions but heavily emphasizes teamwork. González Bacci, Bancolombia’s director of human resources, says that this culture developed out of the need to integrate employees from the bank’s many acquisitions and forge a single identity among employees and in the eyes of customers. “We want to reinforce the idea with our workers that achieving the group vision depend on everyone, not just on management, and we want to give clients the feeling that they are dealing with just one company, so they see no difference between the different companies in the banking group. “Teamwork is crucial to the success of this approach. Managers are asked to foster cooperation and collaboration.

All employees have both individual and collective goals. Anyone who wants to become a supervisor must meet the evaluation criteria that are heavily weighted toward people skills instead of technical skills. Whatever Bancolombia is doing, it must be working. It was named by Latin Trade magazine as one of the best workplaces in Colombia. And it was named as one of the country award winners for best banks by The Banker magazine.

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Discussion Questions

1. Describe the challenges be to creating an effective team in an organization that was growing by acquiring other companies? How could managers deal with these challenges? (200 Words)

2. Relate an idea how team work is crucial to Bancolombia’s efforts to forge a single identity? (200 Words)

                                                                                                                                   

3. Illustrate identical office chairs and an open-space office contribute to the emphasis on teamwork? How important is the physical workplace environment to the development of a teamwork atmosphere? (200 Words)

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Note: Plagiarism is Prohibited

Answer 1

1. The different teams coming from the acquired companies bring with them, different cultural attributes like shared values and work ethics among others. They have diverse values systems and upbringing methods that are different from one another. These attributes need to be aligned to the common organisational culture. The managers are faced with challenges of preparing a team with common shared values, coherence and unidirectional approach from these diverse people. Managers need to make the manpower unlearn some of the things which might not fit in the company's existing environment and learn others which can equip them for challenges of the future. In addition they have a job on their hands to inculcate the values which are common to the company' culture. The transition needs to be monitored so as to avoid any conflicts due to clash of cultures. The unification into company culture can be accomplished by fostering a culture of uniformity, similarity and equality among the employees.

2. Fostering and encouraging teamwork is a means to bring the people from different cultures together and train them in a common value system so that they can assimilate with the environment in shortest possible time. Teamwork also increases interpersonal interaction that is essential for an organisation made from employees from different origins. It is also a subtle way of inculcating feeling of equality and building a common identity among the employees who are expected to work as a unit while dealing with the customers.

3. Open space office indicates transparency among the employees while similarity in chairs indicates that company does not differentiate among the employees on the basis of their ranks and influence. Both of these are symbols of organisation's cultures that are shared by all employees. Open spaces facilitate boundless communication among the employees, thereby encouraging teamwork and building of interpersonal bonds that are essential for continuation of team culture.

Physical workplace environment says a lot about an organisation. The organisations that create silos, builds closed chambers for the senior officials and makes them privileged, also makes them inaccessible to the common people. These bounds result in hindered communications and promote decision making behind closed doors, thereby weakening the trust of common employees in the management. These man made barriers also lead to poor communication between similar ranks, where issues that are vital to organisation's interests are seldom discussed informally. These issues lead to weakening of team culture, the effects of it can be seen in organisation's performance. On the other hand, an open culture, accessible management and facilitation of open dialogue and exchange of ideas integrate the resources into a single unit having an unidirectional thinking, leading to great team efforts.