| Course | C205 Leading Teams |
|---|---|
| Task | Task 2 |
| Paper type | Team performance improvement proposal |
| Length | About 1,000 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 |
| School | Western Governors University (WGU) |
| Program | MS Management and Leadership |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for C205 Task 2
Nobody Asks for Help Anymore: Five Practices of High-Performing Teams, a Diagnosis of a Composite Remote Customer Support Team and a Proposal to Restore Its Performance
Student Name
School of Business, Western Governors University
C205: Leading Teams, Task 2
Course Instructor
Month Day, Year
Nobody Asks for Help Anymore: Five Practices of High-Performing Teams, a Diagnosis of a Composite Remote Customer Support Team and a Proposal to Restore Its Performance
The Team and Its Problem
The Tier 2 support team at Pinecrest Software, a composite company selling scheduling software to dental and medical practices, has 14 agents and a team lead, all working remotely across four time zones. The team handles technical problems escalated from front-line support. Eighteen months ago it was the company's best-performing team. Since then, average time to resolve a ticket has risen from 9 to 16 hours, customer satisfaction scores have fallen from 92% to 81%, and three experienced agents have left. In interviews, agents said the same thing in different words: nobody asks for help anymore. Difficult tickets sit with one agent for days while others with the right knowledge never hear about them.
Five Practices of High-Performing Teams
First, psychological safety. Teams perform better when members believe they can ask questions, admit mistakes and raise concerns without embarrassment. A review of research on the construct found that psychological safety supports learning behaviors such as seeking help and discussing errors, and through them team performance, especially in knowledge work (Edmondson & Lei, 2014).
Second, clear, shared goals. Specific, challenging goals improve performance more than vague ones, and goals shape where people direct their effort (Locke & Latham, 2002). For teams, shared goals encourage members to help one another rather than compete.
Third, defined roles with interdependence. Members should know what they own, but the work should be designed so they depend on one another, which encourages coordination. Reviews of team research identify role clarity and task interdependence among the structural features linked to effective teams (Mathieu et al., 2008).
Fourth, dependable processes for coordination. High-performing teams agree on how work flows, how information is shared and how decisions are made, rather than leaving coordination to chance.
Fifth, regular reflection. Teams that pause to review what is working and what is not, and adjust, learn faster than teams that only execute (Edmondson & Lei, 2014).
Diagnosing the Team
Measured against these practices, the team's problems trace to its structures and norms rather than to a few weak agents.
Psychological safety has eroded. A year ago, the company introduced an individual leaderboard ranking agents by tickets closed, displayed on the team's dashboard. Agents said that asking for help now feels like admitting weakness in front of the whole team, and that experienced agents avoid helping because it lowers their own counts.
Goals conflict. The leaderboard rewards closing many tickets, while customer satisfaction depends on solving hard problems well. Agents pick easy tickets first, leaving complex ones to age.
Roles have blurred and interdependence has disappeared. When the team grew from 9 to 14 agents, specialization by product area was dropped, so no one owns expertise in integrations or billing, and there is no mechanism for routing hard tickets to whoever knows most.
Coordination depends on chance. The team's only meeting is a weekly status call in which each agent reports numbers. There is no place to discuss difficult tickets, and with members spread across four time zones, informal conversations rarely happen.
Reflection has stopped. Under pressure from rising backlogs, the team canceled its monthly retrospective six months ago.
Proposed Solution
Step one, replace individual rankings with team goals (weeks 1 and 2, owner: team lead with the support director). The public leaderboard will be removed. The team will share two goals: median resolution time under 10 hours and customer satisfaction above 90%, reviewed weekly. Individual numbers remain visible to each agent and the lead for coaching, not comparison.
Step two, restore specialization with shared ownership (weeks 2 to 4, owner: team lead). Agents will form three pods by product area, integrations, billing and scheduling, each with a named expert. Tickets are routed to pods, and any ticket open for more than four hours is flagged for the pod to discuss.
Step three, create a daily swarm (week 3 onward, owner: rotating pod expert). A 20-minute video call at the overlap of time zones reviews the three oldest or hardest tickets, and anyone who can help does. Asking for help becomes the routine, not the exception.
Step four, rebuild psychological safety (ongoing, owner: team lead). The lead will open each swarm by describing a ticket she struggled with, thank agents who raise problems early and recognize helping, not only closing, in team meetings.
Step five, reinstate reflection (monthly, owner: team). A one-hour retrospective will ask what helped, what got in the way and what to change, with at least one agreed change each month.
Measuring Improvement
Team outcomes will be tracked weekly: median resolution time, share of tickets older than 48 hours and customer satisfaction. Team climate will be measured quarterly with a short survey that includes psychological safety items, such as whether it is easy to ask other members for help. The team lead will also track how many tickets receive help from a second agent, a direct measure of the behavior the team lost. The support director and the team lead will go over these measures together twice a month during the first quarter, so that problems with the new routines are caught early rather than at the end of the quarter, and the team will see the numbers at each retrospective. If resolution time does not fall below 12 hours within three months, the team will review which steps are working in the retrospective and adjust.
Conclusion
The Tier 2 team did not lose its skill; it lost the conditions that let its skill be shared. An individual leaderboard eroded psychological safety and set goals against each other, growth erased specialization, and the loss of meetings and reflection left coordination to chance. The proposed solution restores each practice that high-performing teams depend on, with owners, timelines and measures, so that asking for help becomes normal again. The same approach, fixing the conditions rather than replacing the people, is also far cheaper than hiring and training replacements for the experienced agents the team cannot afford to lose.
References
Edmondson, A. C., & Lei, Z. (2014). Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 23-43. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091305
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705-717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
Mathieu, J., Maynard, M. T., Rapp, T., & Gilson, L. (2008). Team effectiveness 1997-2007: A review of recent advancements and a glimpse into the future. Journal of Management, 34(3), 410-476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206308316061
What the C205 Task 2 instructions ask
The second C205 task asks you to diagnose a team and propose improvements. You will usually describe the team and its performance problem, explain practices of high-performing teams with research, compare the team with those practices, propose steps and describe how improvement will be measured. Evaluators look for a problem shown with data, practices supported by research, a diagnosis that traces causes to structures and norms rather than individuals, steps with owners and timing and measures of both outcomes and climate. A proposal that blames weak members, or recommends team building without addressing causes, usually falls short on the diagnosis aspects. Measures of team climate, such as a short psychological safety survey, show whether the conditions have changed.
How this C205 Task 2 example is built
The proposal opens with the team, its work and the numbers that show decline. The practices section explains five practices, each with research. The diagnosis compares the team with each practice and explains what went wrong, such as a leaderboard that punished agents for helping colleagues. The proposed solution is a sequence of steps, each with weeks and an owner. The measurement section tracks resolution time, older tickets and satisfaction weekly and team climate quarterly. The conclusion states that the team lost the conditions that let its skill be shared, not its skill, and that the steps restore those conditions. Notes explain how each section answers the task. Owners are named by role.
Where the C205 Task 2 rubric puts the marks
C205 Task 2 aspects are scored competent, approaching competence or not evident. The opening aspect wants the slide in performance shown with numbers. A practices aspect rewards high-performing team practices explained with research. A diagnosis aspect looks for causes traced to the team's structures and norms. A solution aspect wants specific steps with owners and timing. A measurement aspect asks for outcome and climate measures. Evaluators notice when the diagnosis avoids blaming individuals and when steps address the causes found. They expect team research, such as work on psychological safety, cited correctly. Separate headings for every practice make the diagnosis easy to follow. Steps listed with weeks show a realistic sequence.
C205 Task 2 help: what sends it back
C205 Task 2 proposals lose marks when the diagnosis blames people. Look for structures, incentives and norms that shape behavior. Practices may be listed without research, so cite a source for each. Steps can be generic, such as hold a retreat; name the change, owner and week. Measures often track outcomes only, so add a climate measure that shows whether trust is returning. The proposal may ignore remote work; address how practices apply when members rarely meet. Last, keep the solution focused on the causes you found, since a long list of unrelated fixes suggests the diagnosis was not used. Cite each practice's source.
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C205 Task 2 questions, answered
What practices fit C205 Task 2?
Practices supported by team research, such as psychological safety, shared goals, clear roles, regular feedback and learning routines. The sample explains five and compares the team with each.
Is the C205 team real?
No. Pinecrest Software's Tier 2 team is a teaching composite, not a real case. The research on high-performing teams cited in the proposal is real. Use a team you know, with names changed.
How is improvement measured in C205 Task 2?
With outcome measures, such as resolution time and satisfaction, tracked weekly, and a team climate measure tracked quarterly to show whether conditions such as trust have changed.
Why remove the leaderboard in the C205 sample?
Because it ranked agents against each other, which discouraged helping colleagues and eroded psychological safety. Team goals replace it so helping counts. Measures should reward what the team needs.
Where can I find a free C205 Task 2 sample paper?
The Tier 2 support team proposal is reproduced above with notes on the diagnosis. Describe the team you are diagnosing, and your first custom C205 Task 2 is written free.