Leadership 7th Edition by Andrew DuBrin, Ann Fisher, Andrew DuBrin

Exercise 18

Calvin is the director of disaster insurance at a global insurance company. He has a large department of his own in New York, but he is also the team leader of ten different representatives around the world. Each team member is responsible for encouraging the sales representatives in offices around the globe to sell disaster insurance to cover such risks as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks.
As Calvin describes it, "I wear two major hats. One hat is the leader of my own group of professionals in the disaster insurance field. My other major hat is that of a team leader and product manager who is trying to get team members around the worlds to facilitate the sale of disaster insurance. What makes this hat so difficult is that the team members do not really report to me. To complicate matters further, the reps who actually sell the insurance do not actually report to the members of my team."
When asked how the disaster insurance team was performing, Calvin replied, "Not as well as I would like. I have to keep chasing after the team members to remind them of their roles in helping the company cover disaster risks. Hillary, my team leader in Great Britain, told me that I need to trigger an earthquake in Europe to get clients interested in more disaster insurance. She asked me to start a major flood as a second possibility."
"Another problem I'm facing," said Calvin, "is that I don't see much integrated effort among the team members. I do see a few e-mails sent to the group discussing common concerns, but I don't see much coordinated effort.
"We held a videoconference early this year, attempting to get everybody on board pulling together. One problem was that we couldn't get full participation because of the difficulty in finding a time to meet because of the wide spread in time zones. We had a few laughs, with Tom from Australia saying that his wife thought he was headed out to the pub, not really attending a late-night meeting.
"Another hurdle I need to conquer is that there seem to be some cross-cultural differences in the importance businesspeople attach to disaster insurance. Sophie, our team member in Columbia, told me that executives in South American countries worry less about potential disasters than do Americans. As a result, she said it is difficult for her to be as heavily committed to selling disaster insurance as some of the other team members."
"One of my biggest agenda items for the year," concluded Calvin, "is to get my disaster insurance team coordinating their efforts better."
What might Calvin do to provide stronger leadership to his global team?