Lecture Day 1: Designing and Managing Highly Effective Teams
December 14, 2019
Although a highly popular method of organizing work, teamwork is not always the most effective method for facilitating high performance. This session will explore how to decide when teams are most effective (and when they are not), how to create high-functioning teams, and how leaders can support teamwork to enhance job performance. Beyond the technical expertise of team members, this session will delve into the importance of personality in designing effective teams that are balanced, high functioning, and effective. We will also explore how team functioning can derail when teams are unbalanced, leading to conflict and, ultimately, failure.
David Zweig (PhD University of Waterloo) is the Chair of the Department of Management and an Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour and HR Management at U of T Scarborough.
Lecture Day 2: Innovation
December 15, 2019
Innovation can take on many forms, including a company’s products, services, organization, and even its strategy. But how does a firm continually prepare itself to innovate? Even when a firm realizes that it must innovate—because of increasing worldwide competition and the shortening of product and service life cycles—many organizations don’t know how to prepare themselves to do so. This course will examine the resources and capabilities of the firm and work to see how they are acquired, developed, and organized in ways that can enable efficient innovation, particularly in support of time-to-market (TTM) strategies.
Bill McConkey is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at U of T Scarborough and a serial entrepreneur.