launch a new product within six weeks. To produce a high quality product, each of we virtual team members had to contribute their knowledge and effort in a cooperative and timely manner. Onestion L Use the material studied in Chapter 1 1 to assess the performance of the virtual 2. Apply the TEM model team and identify the problems that It suffered from and their causes. and the interactional framework to suggest solutions that could address these problems and causes. (35 points) Mini-Case 2: (35 points) When Netflix launched, we had a standard paid-time-off policy: People got 10 vacation days, 10 holidays, and a few sick days. We used an honor system-employees kept track of the days they took off and let their managers know when they'd be out. After we went public, our auditors freaked. They said Sarbanes-Oxley mandated that we account for time off. We considered instituting a formal tracking system. But then we asked, "Are companies required to give time off? If not, can't we just handle it informally and skip the accounting rule?" I did some research and found that, indeed, no California law governed vacation time. So, instead of shifting to a formal system, we went in the opposite direction: Salaried employees were told to take whatever time they felt was appropriate. Bosses and employees were asked to work it out with one another. (Hourly workers in call centers and warehouses were given a more structured policy.) We did provide some guidance. If you worked in accounting or finance, you shouldn't plan to be out during the beginning or the end of a quarter, because those were busy times. If you wanted 30 days off in a row, you needed to meet with HR. Senior leaders were urged to take vacations and to let people know about them-they were role models for the policy. (Most were happy to comply.) Some people worried about whether the system would be inconsistent-whether some bosses would allow tons of time off while others would be stingy. In general, I worried more about fairness than consistency, because the reality is that in any organization, the highest-performing and most valuable employees get more leeway. Many years ago, we eliminated formal reviews. We had held them for a while but came to realize they didn't make sense-they were too ritualistic and too infrequent. So, we asked managers and employees to have conversations about performance as an organic part of their work. In many functions-sales, engineering, product development-it's fairly obvious how well people are doing. (As companies develop better analytics to measure performance, this becomes even truer.) Building a bureaucracy and elaborate rituals around measuring performance usually doesn't improve it. Traditional corporate performance reviews are driven largely by fear of litigation. The theory is that if you want to get rid of someone, you need a paper trail documenting a history of poor achievement. At many companies, low performers are placed on "Performance Improvement Plans." These are fundamentally dishonest: They never accomplish what their name implies. When we stopped doing formal performance reviews, we instituted informal 360-degree reviews. We kept them fairly simple: People were asked to identify things that colleagues should stop, start, or continue. In the beginning, we used an anonymous software system, but over time we shifted to signed feedback, and many teams held their 360s face-to-face. HR people can't believe that a company the size of Netflix doesn't hold annual reviews. "Are you making this up just to upset us?" they ask. I'm not. If you talk simply and honestly about rformance on a regular basis, you can get good results-probably better ones than a company it grades everyone on a five-point scale.launch a new product within six weeks. To produce a high quality product, each of we virtual team members had to contribute their knowledge and effort in a cooperative and timely manner. Onestion L Use the material studied in Chapter 1 1 to assess the performance of the virtual 2. Apply the TEM model team and identify the problems that It suffered from and their causes. and the interactional framework to suggest solutions that could address these problems and causes. (35 points) Mini-Case 2: (35 points) When Netflix launched, we had a standard paid-time-off policy: People got 10 vacation days, 10 holidays, and a few sick days. We used an honor system-employees kept track of the days they took off and let their managers know when they'd be out. After we went public, our auditors freaked. They said Sarbanes-Oxley mandated that we account for time off. We considered instituting a formal tracking system. But then we asked, "Are companies required to give time off? If not, can't we just handle it informally and skip the accounting rule?" I did some research and found that, indeed, no California law governed vacation time. So, instead of shifting to a formal system, we went in the opposite direction: Salaried employees were told to take whatever time they felt was appropriate. Bosses and employees were asked to work it out with one another. (Hourly workers in call centers and warehouses were given a more structured policy.) We did provide some guidance. If you worked in accounting or finance, you shouldn't plan to be out during the beginning or the end of a quarter, because those were busy times. If you wanted 30 days off in a row, you needed to meet with HR. Senior leaders were urged to take vacations and to let people know about them-they were role models for the policy. (Most were happy to comply.) Some people worried about whether the system would be inconsistent-whether some bosses would allow tons of time off while others would be stingy. In general, I worried more about fairness than consistency, because the reality is that in any organization, the highest-performing and most valuable employees get more leeway. Many years ago, we eliminated formal reviews. We had held them for a while but came to realize they didn't make sense-they were too ritualistic and too infrequent. So, we asked managers and employees to have conversations about performance as an organic part of their work. In many functions-sales, engineering, product development-it's fairly obvious how well people are doing. (As companies develop better analytics to measure performance, this becomes even truer.) Building a bureaucracy and elaborate rituals around measuring performance usually doesn't improve it. Traditional corporate performance reviews are driven largely by fear of litigation. The theory is that if you want to get rid of someone, you need a paper trail documenting a history of poor achievement. At many companies, low performers are placed on "Performance Improvement Plans." These are fundamentally dishonest: They never accomplish what their name implies. When we stopped doing formal performance reviews, we instituted informal 360-degree reviews. We kept them fairly simple: People were asked to identify things that colleagues should stop, start, or continue. In the beginning, we used an anonymous software system, but over time we shifted to signed feedback, and many teams held their 360s face-to-face. HR people can't believe that a company the size of Netflix doesn't hold annual reviews. "Are you making this up just to upset us?" they ask. I'm not. If you talk simply and honestly about rformance on a regular basis, you can get good results-probably better ones than a company it grades everyone on a five-point scale