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CHAPTER 10: LEADING TEAMS 301

IN THE LEAD outside of work. But that’s just fine with CEO Jerry Giampaglia, who has seen
this diverse team accomplish amazing results, driving revenue from $3 million to
$20 million in five years. “We’re nothing alike when we’re outside this company,”

Giampaglia says, “but when we walk through those doors, we’re clicking.”
For a decade, Mark IV was run by a tightly-knit group of friends and family,
mostly men, who thought alike, acted alike, and often met for drinks or sporting
events after work. It was an agreeable and satisfying work environment. The trouble
was, Mark IV was in a rut, providing the same three basic services as every other
courier service in town and unable to push past the $3 million mark in revenues.
Giampaglia had an insight that things were likely to stay the same as long as the
company was run by the same homogeneous top management team. So he started
filling open positions with a more diverse mix of people that he likely would have

shunned in the past.
Now, meetings are often raucous and consensus isn’t easy to achieve. People
argue opinions back and forth and challenge one another’s assumptions. The dis-
agreements have sparked new ideas and new ways of thinking. Mark IV now cus-
tomizes its services to meet the needs of clients. Revenue has increased more than
six-fold. “In the old company, the challenges found us and we sweated them out,”
Giampaglia says. “Now, we create challenges and love fi nding solutions.”
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Jerry Giampaglia discovered what many leaders now know: team diversity
can provide a healthy level of disagreement that sparks innovation and leads to
better decision making. However, despite the value of some confl ict, confl ict that
is too strong or is not handled appropriately can limit team members’ satisfaction
and performance. For example, a new product team at a company that manufac-
tures and sells upscale children’s furniture found their differing perspectives and
working styles to be a significant source of conflict during crunch times. Members

who needed peace and quiet were irked at those who wanted music playing in
the background. Compulsively neat members found it almost impossible to work
with those who liked working among stacks of clutter. Fortunately, this team was
able to overcome these divisive issues for the sake of the project. 26
Diversity can provide fertile ground for disagreements and disputes that may
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be based on personal rather than team issues. In particular, racial and national
differences can interfere with team interaction and performance, particularly in
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the short term. Teams made up of racially and culturally diverse members tend
to have more difficulty learning to work well together, but, with effective leader-

ship and conflict resolution, the problems seem to dissipate over time. The benefi ts
and challenges of diversity will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.
Interdependence Interdependence means the extent to which team members de- Interdependence
Interdependence
the extent to which team
pend on each other for information, resources, or ideas to accomplish their tasks. the extent to which team
members depend on each other
members depend on each other
Tasks such as performing surgery or directing military operations, for example,
for information, resources, or
for information, resources, or
require a high degree of interaction and exchange, whereas tasks such as assembly- ideas to accomplish their tasks
ideas to accomplish their tasks
line manufacturing require very little. 29
Three types of interdependence can affect teams: pooled, sequential, and re-
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ciprocal. In pooled interdependence, the lowest form of interdependence, members Pooled interdependence
Pooled interdependence
the lowest form of team
are fairly independent of one another in completing their work, participating on the lowest form of team
interdependence; members are
interdependence; members are
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a team, but not as a team. They may share a machine or a common secretary,
relatively independent of one
relatively independent of one
but most of their work is done independently. An example might be a sales team, another in completing their work
another in completing their work
with each salesperson responsible for his or her own sales area and customers,
but sharing the same appointment secretary. Salespersons need not interact to ac-
complish their work and little day-to-day coordination is needed. 32