TEAM PROCESSES

Team membership:
What Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar told us about Mobilinks team membership was that people
working in a team are quite comfortable as the employees know each other as they are working
in the same organization for couple of years. Though Transactive memory system exist in
Moblinks team but to a certain extent. Team members share relevant information with each
other only if their position in front of their ultimate bosses is not held awkward.
Expertise are always available in the team according to the task of work as the teams are design
in the way that all the experience and expert people are present in the team for the achievement
of a certain task or goal. Team member are highly diverse as there is no racial or gender
discrimination in the organization.
Mobilink context of a Team:
The tasks and goal are properly designed and different Key performance Indicators (KPIs) are
formed for each team member but the team does not have sufficient autonomy to carry out the
task as the information flow resides with the person and might not be disclosed according to the
condition.
The issue working in a team is that the reward system in Mobilink according to Mr. Mirza Sohail
Asghar is that the performance evaluation is done by the ultimate bosses not by the team leader.
Which ultimately affects the performance of the individual working in the team as the employees
know their performance will be evaluated by their ultimate bosses and their promotions is at their
hands.
TEAM PROCESSES:
Task and maintenance functions:
According to Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar although the individual performanace is evaluated by
their ultimate bosses but still the performance of the individual in the team is satisfactory. As
mentioned earlier that Mobilink has a bossy organizational culture therefore the team leader
behavious like a boss and the task is carried out in a proper manner and the goals are achieved by
the team. The decision making authority resides with the team leader but still before the final
decision the team members consent is also involved.
The team members often go to a lunch or a dinner sponsored by Mobilink after the achievement
of the goal/task, which is a form of extrinsic reward.

Team Decision Making:

Decision making in teams are done by the Leader but with the participation of all the team
members excluding exceptions. Leader ask for different solutions from all the team members and
after getting all the solutions then a decision is made by the leader.
Decision making often vary from situation to situation. Small issues or problems are solved by
the team members themselves whereas when the problem are big then participation all members
are required.
Team Communication:
Team communication varies individual to individual and position to position. Individual who are
extrovert are more communicative and individual who are introvert are less communicative.
Position of the individual also matters a lot because a person who is the key personal in the team
has to interact and communicate with every team member.
The team members who are managing the boundaries of the team (inflow and outflow of
information) within the organization communicate for frequently with the team members.
Team Influence:
According to Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar at Mobilnk team influence depend upon the team
members their personal characteristics, their experience, expertise, position at Mobilink.
Team influence strongly exists in Mobilink, and most of the people in Mobilink very Efficient in
using/exercising their powers. Most of the times a person who is the most influencing personal in
the team dominate the whole team even by passing the team leader.
Team Conflicts:
Both substantive conflicts and affective conflicts occur at Mobilink. According to Mr. Mirza
Sohail Asghar conflicts are good but if they are Substantive otherwise if they are affective then
they slow down the team goal/task and team members are carried away.
The conflicts vary from individual to individual depending upon their level of influence. If the
person is highly influential for the team and for the organization then the conflict better needs to
be resolved as soon as possible otherwise it would lead to unaccomplished goals.
Team Atmosphere:
Team atmosphere has a high impact on the task completion. Every team tries to have a good,
health and friendly atmosphere.

Most of the times when teams are formed the people are friendly as according to Mr. Mirza
Sohail Asghar Mobilink has stopped hiring new employees since 5 years. So when teams are
formed then most of the times the team members know each other as they have worked with
each other at different tasks and projects.
People usually avoid taking risk as non of the team member wants to take responsibility of
anything which go wrong because the team members want to maintain their good reputation in
front of their ultimate bosses.
Emotional Issues:
As everyone working in the teams has clear roles and responsibilities so they have their identity
while being in a team. Every team members know their KPIs according to those KPIs every
team member decide their needs and wants.
Control resides with the team leader as team leader will be held accountable in particular if the
task is not completed on time and power is exercised by the individuals who have strong
network, good position, expertise, experience.

TEAMS IN ORGANIZATIONS
Boundary Management:
According to Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar the biggest problem which he has faced while working in
Mobilink is that the departments work in isolations and one department does not see other
department as the stake holder.
Every department has their own (SLAs) Service Level Agreements (Standard Operating
Procedures) and they work according to those SLAs. Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar gave an recent
example of a cheque which their team need to get it from a Finance department to carry out their
work. They needed that cheque as soon as possible but due to lack of inter-department
dependence the cheque took 3 days and their work was pending for 3 days.
Whereas Boundary Management does exist in Mobilink to interconnect with different
departments
1. Influence dimension is vertical:
In Mobilink when the parent Company Vimpel Com sets objectives at the start of the year
which needs to be achieved in a year or more. These objectives are then further communicated
with the President of Mobilink Pakistan which are further discussed with the Vice Presidents and
they are divided into different small tasks and goals which will when combined together will
make the objective achieved.

These goals/tasks are communicated with the employees and every employee has different KPIs
which help them to achieve the goal/task. At the Mid of the year these KPIs are reviewed by the
management and they see whether the teams/individuals are on the right track or not, if not then
it is rectified through communication. At the end of the year they are again reviewed and the top
management get the complete picture. Then at last the final results are matched with the
objectives.
Task Coordination:
As there are cross functional teams at Mobilink so it is easier to communicate horizontally. But
teams or team members cannot force the other teams or departments to carry out work faster as
each department has their own (SLAs) Service Level Agreements (Standard Operating
Procedures) which result in slow down of team performance and team effectiveness
Information Flow:
Information does flow vertically and horizontally but in a certain manner. Here Mr. Mirza Sohail
Asghar told us that when Mobilink changed their logo only marketing department knew that as
they were the one who changed it few finance individuals knew it and the rest of the departments
do not even know that Mobilink is changing their logo.
And on Monday when they came to office they saw that whole atmosphere of the office was
changed and New Logo was introduced. This high lights that the flow of information exist but
where necessary.
Changing logo dramatically reduced their sales and sales department were not able to meet their
targets. So due to the marketing people the sales people were unable to meet their targets. At this
point it was necessary to communicate with the Sales department that they are changing the logo
and their participation was important as their targets/goal were on stake.
X-Teams:
During our interview with Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar we came to know that X-Teams does not
exists at Mobilink. Usually when teams are formed they are Cross Functional Teams.
And Cross Functional Teams are effective, efficient as there are team members from different
departments having different skills, expertise, and experience.
Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar also told us that during his experience at Telenor even there Cross
Functional Teams were formed.

Recommendations:

Team membership exists at Mobilink but lacking organizational citizenship behavior

(OCB).
Complete information should be shared with the team members regardless of the

individual position in front of the ultimate boss.

In order to increase team effectiveness and efficiency more autonomy should be given to

the team members.

Affective conflicts should be resolved as soon as possible, sooner the better.
Influential team members should use their influencing power in a positive way.
Mobilinks need to strengthen its boundary management; departments should be highly

interdependent.
Focus on results and outcomes rather than SLAs
Performance should also be evaluated by team Leader rather than ultimate bosses
Should also work on creating X-Teams to have rapid response and quick task completion
Mobilink should focus on process rather than people
Mobilink should introduce friendly culture, it would help employees to be more creative
and will develop OCB

Interview Questions
We asked open ended Questions from Mr. Mirza Sohail Asghar inorder to get as much
information as we can: Questions which were asked are as following:

Is there formal hierarchy in the Mobilink?

How Goals are set in Mobilink?
What kind of Team exists at Mobilink?
Does Politics exist at Mobilink?
Do people use Power?
What is the culture at Mobilink?
Does Team Membership exist at Mobilink?
Does X-Teams exist Mobilink?
Is there clear line of authority?
Are there formal rules which you have to comply with?
Are there set boundaries for departments?
Are there flexibility in organization?
Is the organization networked?
At Mobilink is the organizational structure is flat or vertical?
Is the organization global?
Is the organization diverse?
What is your current company strategy?
How are the employees being rewarded?
Do you have to perform same task the same way every day?
What sort of strategic grouping do u use at Mobilink?
Does Mobilink have some sort of informal structure in their hierarchy?
Does manager act as Liaison or integrator?
Are there cross units at Mobilink permanent or temporary?
How efficiently are the resources allocated to the employees?
What sort of human resource programs do you deploy at Mobilink?