{"id":411,"date":"2017-04-06T18:56:37","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T22:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/?p=411"},"modified":"2018-09-09T16:14:24","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T20:14:24","slug":"teaming-in-the-global-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/2017\/04\/06\/teaming-in-the-global-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaming in the Global Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bob Greene, MS<\/strong>
\nLeadership and Team Development Coach and Consultant<\/strong><\/p>\n

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GFM students developing their “teaming” skills in a workshop during the New York Seminar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Students in the Graduate Fashion Management<\/a> (GFM) program are developing as leaders who can innovate successfully in the ever-changing global fashion industry. Today\u2019s and tomorrow\u2019s leaders need to be successful not only when problems are routine or primarily technical, but in uncharted territory, where learning and creativity are essential. Ronald Heifetz and his colleagues talk about the need for leadership that can successfully meet \u201cadaptive challenges\u201d in addition to more \u201ctechnical problems.\u201d\u00a0 In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership<\/em>, they write that \u201c[i]n an increasingly flat, globalized third-millenium world, where innovation occurs so quickly, just having the best product at any moment in time is not a sustainable plan.\u201d (p.21) Companies and leaders are being challenged to shift how they have operated in the past and embrace a new emphasis on relationship-building and engaging with complexity and change.<\/p>\n

Amy Edmondson suggests that \u201cteaming\u201d embodies the mindset and skills required for the global marketplace. In contrast to previous perspectives that saw teams as static and long-lasting, Edmondson emphasizes today\u2019s workforce may participate on numerous teams that change their membership over time for different projects. Edmondson talks about teaming<\/em> as a verb, and that people must learn team skills that they can carry from team to team, project to project. And, of course, many of these projects will be adaptive challenges rather than routine, technical, problems, so it\u2019s vital that learning is a central quality of effective teaming. Edmondson, as well as Heifetz and his colleagues, say that leaders must focus on bringing out the best in others, rather than simply rely on command-and-control.<\/p>\n

GFM students have a remarkable opportunity to learn and practice teaming skills as they work on three different case study teams and take on real-world challenges that don\u2019t have easy answers and require creativity. During my workshop early in the New York City seminar, I encourage GFM students to pay attention to how they are teaming and what they are learning from the process. Ideas and tools for effective teaming that I introduce include:<\/p>\n