Swapnil Team Management

8/9/2019 Swapnil Team Management

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TEAM MANAGEMENT

Topic: Principles of Team Building

Swapnil Baban Bhadrige

Roll No:33

MBA – Insurance & Banking

Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University

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Introduction

You are likely to find yourself working on at least one team during your

career; serving on a team can be an enormously rewarding experience,

allowing you to more fully develop your potential. It can also be enormouslyfrustrating, if the team is dysfunctional or doesn't have a clearly defined

purpose, for example. Despite their potential pitfalls, more and more,

organizations are utilizing teams to tackle the issues and problems facing

them.

Understanding what makes a team effective and being a good team player

make you a more valuable employee as well as increase your chances for

enjoyment and satisfaction in your career. This module will introduce you to

concepts of team building and offer you strategies for ensuring that teams

with which you are involved are as successful as possible.

Our lives abound with examples of teams - from basketball to study groups

to accident investigation boards. In the engineering world, teams are formed

to handle projects, processes, and designs, and may be ongoing or

temporary. Examples of project teams include proposal writing teams (to

learn more about proposal writing, check out the PPC module Writing

Winning Proposals: An Introduction) and problem solving or accidentinvestigation teams, such as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

Process teams may be ongoing functional teams responsible for maintaining

functional processes such as assembly plant management, or temporary

process improvement or reengineering teams, responsible for improving or

optimizing process by which a product or service is delivered. Design teams

are those responsible for the design and development of new products or

processes.

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A team is a group of people coming together to collaborate on a task for

which they are mutually accountable; it is not just a collection of people

grouped together for administrative convenience. To become a team, a group

must have:

• Shared Responsibility

• Shared Information

• Unity of Purpose

• A clearly defined Objective

• Authority (Power)

A useful team outperforms a group and outperforms all reasonable

expectations of its individual members. That is, a team produces synergy,

where one plus one equals a lot more than two! Good team members are

deeply committed to each other's personal growth and success, as well as

that of the team.

Team members not only cooperate in all aspects of their mutual tasks and

goals; they share in what are traditionally thought of as management

functions, such as planning, organizing, setting performance goals, assessing

the team's performance, developing their own strategies to manage change,

and securing their own resources. An ideal team offers three major benefits

to an organization:

• It maximizes the organization's human resources. Members help and

lead each other and share in each other's successes and failures.

Members are more willing to take chances, because they do not

shoulder all the blame for failures, and they enjoy the satisfaction of

the group's successes.

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• A team will outperform a group of individuals because of the

synergistic effect of a team

• There is continuous improvement, as team members pull together and

push aside their personal conflicts

You might wonder what makes a team so successful when its members are

the same people who already work for the organization. Experts who have

studied teams say the benefits to the individual - less stress because of

shared responsibilities, and feelings of involvement and accomplishment -

result in increased productivity, increased quality of work, increasedemployee morale, reduced cost, reduced losses and, ultimately, increased

profits.

Despite best team building efforts, many organizations are still operating on

low power when it comes to producing desired results. They’ve invested

time and dollars in events that supposedly help team members bond and

function coherently, yet results are short term at best.

So what’s the problem? Every situation is unique, but here are a few

possibilities:

Some or all members don’t want to function as a team. They’ve become

accustomed to operating independently and don’t see the value of operating

as a whole.

Team building isn’t linked to business results. Instead the team experienced

artificial feel good exercises. Although the team has learned about each

other’s behavioral styles, motivational profiles, individual strengths, etc.,

they have failed to connect their efforts to desired business outcomes.

There’s no follow-up beyond a one-time event. A successful team building

process should be approached strategically, not as a one-time event hoping

for the best. It should result in actionable ideas to help the team and

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organization achieve their goals. Continued learning, action and

reinforcement are critical.

Of all of the potential issues that can negatively affect teambuilding, here are

some of the most common impediments to team success in my experienceand ways to overcome them.

Team Building Impediment: Fuzzy focus

In this situation, the team doesn’t really know how to function. Either the

team has lost focus on results or members have never been clear of their

goals in the first place. Instead, they’ve become too internally fixated on

other team members—judging what they’re doing, making assumptions,

speculating, back stabbing, finger pointing, etc. Without a clear focus, team

members frequently react to events in their immediate environment. They

become distracted by other team members or simply respond to whatever

issue lands in their lap. There’s no strategic team focus or energy to move

forward.

Suggestion: As the leader, you must step in and clarify big picture goals and

expectations. In order to do complete this task effectively, you must

communicate the goals in a number ways that appeal to a variety of team

members. Some may need a visual representation (e.g., a roadmap); othersmay need to know the “why‿ behind the goals to buy in. Check for clarity.

Ask the team to articulate their understanding of the overall goals in their

own words. Then clarify or correct as needed.

Team Building Impediment: Lack of leadership

Leadership is critical to help the team succeed. Without it, team members

will resort to their own methods. Some will run as far and fast as they can to

prove themselves, pushing boundaries and taking on too much risk. Others

will sit idle for as long as they can, performing as little as possible, yet

complaining about how much work needs to get done. Some leaders are too

busy concentrating on their own political or career agenda. Other leaders just

don’t understand their role or possess good leadership skills.

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Suggestion: Conduct regular strategic focus sessions. Strong leaders will

help the team focus on the goal (the what) and key strategies (the how). Hold

consistent informal one-on-one development meetings with direct reports togain feedback, uncover trouble spots and leverage opportunities. If you need

to build leadership skills yourself, make that a priority. If you value your

career, find a coach or mentor to help you. Remember, in order to develop

others – you must first develop yourself.

Team Building Impediment: Stuck in sameness

The team is stuck in practices that may have been established years ago.

They’ve gotten lazy or stopped trying new approaches. New team members

may be frustrated by the apparent lack of openness to new ideas or ways of

operating. Experienced team members defend the way things have always

been done.

Suggestion: Identify one aspect of the team that you would be excited to see

change come about. Talk with your team to make sure everyone agrees it

would be worth it to affect change in that area. Determine what the best

possible outcome could be if the team made the change, adopted a new

procedure, tried a new approach or do whatever it is you’re suggesting. Thencall for ideas from the team on how to make it happen. Generating

excitement about new possibilities makes it easier for the team to get

unstuck.

The most effective teams can maintain best practices while adapting to new

environments or organizational changes. They are not content with sameness

or status quo. Their best practices include constantly seeking new and better

ways to perform their job. They are not content with going through the

motions or frivolous exercises that may help increase awareness, but stopthere.

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Final Thoughts:

It doesn’t matter if Bob is a blue, green or yellow if he can’t connect his self-

awareness to results. The same applies at the team level. Team members

may find it interesting to learn more about team members, but be sure to

help translate learning into results.

Great team leaders spend time clarifying goals, cultivating their own

leadership skills and identifying new ways to achieve great results. Not to be

confused with micromanaging, an effective leader will check in from time to

time to make sure the organization’s goals and strategies remain clear. At the

same time, they help build capability of individual team members versus

taking on the work of the team themselves.

Simply opening productive and constructive communication to a greater

degree will help leaders increase their effectiveness and their teams function

most effectively. Leaders often feel unnecessary pressure to tell everyone on

the team what to do. Focus on influencing versus doing.

Team building is a means to an end, not an end in itself

The Path to Team Building Success

How to create effective teams, teamwork, and team building is a challenge

in every organization. Work environments tend to foster rugged individuals

working on personal goals for personal gain. Typically, reward, recognition,

and pay systems single out the achievements of individual employees.

Appraisal, performance management, and goal setting systems most

frequently focus on individual goals and progress. Promotions and additional

authority are also bestowed on individuals. Given these factors, is it any

wonder that teams and teamwork are an uphill battle in most organizations?

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Here is the information you need to develop teamwork and effective work

teams in your organization. Use this information for team building.

Teams Employee involvement, teams, and employee empowerment enable

people to make decisions about their work. This employee involvement,

teambuilding approach, and employee empowerment increases loyalty and

fosters ownership. These links tell you how to do team building and

effectively involve people.

Employee Empowerment: How to Empower Employees

Employee empowerment is a strategy and philosophy that enables

employees to make decisions about their jobs. Employee empowerment

helps employees own their work and take responsibility for their results.

Employee empowerment helps employees serve customers at the level of the

organization where the customer interface exists.

Employee Involvement: Involve Employees in Decision Making

Employee involvement is creating an environment in which people have an

impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs. Employee involvement

is not the goal nor is it a tool, as practiced in many organizations. Employee

involvement is a management and leadership philosophy about how people

are enabled to contribute to continuous improvement and the ongoing

success of their organization.

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Team Building Creates Successful Teams

People in every workplace talk about team building, working as a team, and

my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team buildingor how to develop an effective team. Many view teams as the best

organization design for involving all employees in creating business success

and profitability. Learn how team building helps enable the success of work

teams and teamwork.

Teams and Team Building Resources

Find recommended reading to help you create effective work teams,

successful teamwork, and team building ideas and activities.

Meeting Management for Team Meetings

Ineffective team meetings use critical resources, sap organizational energy

and movement, and affect employee morale. Find out how to make your

team meetings work for you.

Team Energizers, Icebreakers, and Team Building Activities

Icebreakers, energizers, and activities heighten the effectiveness of training

and team building sessions when targeted to the training, speaking, or

facilitation topic and the needs of the learners or participants.

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Team Building Holidays

Find ideas for successful teams, effective team work, and team building

around holiday ideas and themes.

Positive Work Relationships Contribute to Effective Teams

Want to work more effectively with people at work? Whether your

relationship is with your team, supervisor, manager, customer or coworker,

you want to make your interpersonal relationships positive, supportive,

clear, and empowering.

I trust these resources will help you create successful and effective teams

and teamwork. Happy team building

Team Building is about Discovering How People Think and Work

Team building programme around the world are a growing phenomena. It is

a common practice for most organisations today to hold team-building

events at either department level or company level at least once a year. One

of the main reasons is that most managers today believe team-building

events are able to bond organisation members together both horizontally

(between subordinates) and vertically (between managers and subordinates).

However, what is lacking is the understanding of the concept of team

building. As a result, team building events today often end up to become

merely a trip to the park, a one night stay at a posh resort or an afternoon of

games. The outcome has left much to be desired unless the concept of team building is well understood which is essential to maximize the benefits for

the time spent.

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Robbins and Coulter (1999) in their book "Management" defines team

building as "interaction among members of work teams to learn how each

member thinks and works". Unfortunately, in today's practice, the definition

of team building has been misinterpreted. The key phrase here is "to learn

how each member thinks and works".

Team building events therefore should go beyond the idea of a "trip to the

park". They have to allow for learning about how each member of the team

thinks and works in relation to the workplace. On the contrary however,

most team-building practitioners today are commonly using so-called team-

building events to simply ‘encourage’ people to work together, not learn

about how each team member actually thinks and behaves. The common

message carried behind the way most team-building games is "you all must

learn to work as a team". The facilitator needs to do more - they need to

provide structured opportunity for helping team members learn more deeply

about how each person operates in the workplace.

In the Malaysian context, the wrong perception of team building has come

about, I believe, due to many team-building practitioners running team

building event army-style. Although the games and activities used may have

been modified to suit civilians, the methodology behind the training is still

very much army-styled.

I was in the army and I know what team building army-style is about. You

are made to work as a team. If you do not, the whole team suffers. Take a

point in case – everyone has to fall- in sharp at 6.30am for physical training

every day. If one person is late, the rest of the platoon members will have to

endure physical punishment together with him. You see, in the army, you

are made to work as a team. It is a necessity to survive, it is not a choice.

However, this is not true in the corporate world. Not all organisations are

made in such a way that if they don’t work as a team, the organisation willnot survive. In fact, some organisations promote individualism. AT&T,

Ford, Motorola, Google and other large U.S.-based companies are examples

of companies that encourage individual achievement and recognition

(Robbins, 2001)

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Adults do not just learn to work as a team from a one or two day event. So,

why don't people just ‘learn to work as a team’ by just attending a few

games and activities as part a team building event?

Barrier 1. Adults are more complicated than children

As adults, we are much more complicated now as we have been when we

were much younger. Lets’ compare to when we were much younger, say 13

years old. In those days, people generally easily acquainted with classmates,

worked and played with them. On average, special efforts to "learn to work

with others" are unnecessary because children live and grow together. As

we get older, we learn to become more skeptical of others. This is often

culturally reinforced. We are no longer as naïve in our ideas about other

people. Combined with the rapid shifts in workplace environments and personnel, this eventually makes it harder to work as a team.

Barrier 2. Adults are more inflexible in accepting changes and other

people’s values

As we grow, we become more inflexible and intolerable of others. We may

not accept others’ views and opinions and therefore, may not so easily

change ourselves so that we may be able to work with others. However, we

may try to compromise as we work along. Therefore, by just asking adults

to work together is not the answer. Working together takes time, it takes

effort. Some people may not even gel together after years of being in the

same office. It does not help by asking people to work as a team; they have

to experience and understand other people's ways of working and being in

order to really believe in their capacity to find effective ways of working

together.

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Barrier 3. Is teaching team building really relevant to workers' needs?

Adults are able to learn things if it is applicable to them. Teach someone

how to use the Personal Digital Assistant and he/she will probably learn it in

a few minutes if he owns one. However, teach him how to do somemathematics problem s/he will probably forgets it in a few hours if he does

not need to use it. If it’s applicable, is memorable. Therefore, adults do not

need to learn to work as a team. They have already obtained the skills of

working with others. There are exceptions to this of course! If the job

determines that they have to work together, they will. Therefore, it is often

redundant or unnecessary to teach people ‘how to work as a team’. If they

do not, simply speak, they have decided not to and they will abide with that

decision. You can’t teach an old dog a new trick – so to speak. Therefore,

team building events is not the answer to all failing teams.

To make team-building events practical and beneficial, consider the

following:

Solution 1. Allow for interaction that leads to understanding

A ‘trip to the park’ will not 'just work'. It may promote interaction, everyone

may have a good laugh, but it is not structured. The best they could

probably remember is that they ‘had a good time’. It has to be structured.You must be able to lay out your goals. At which level of interaction are

they at? To which level do you want them to interact? Bear in mind the

purpose of interaction is to create understanding, and understanding that will

help each other to know where they come from and why do they act in a

certain manner. Useful information could be gained e.g. the persons family

background, how was s/he brought up, what are his pastimes, who are his

friends. All this may just surface from the interaction, but generally needs

more structured prompting.

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Solution 2. Provide behavioral opportunities for revealing underlying

thinking and behavior patterns

Initiative games are best used to see how we behave. A problem is given to

a team to solve. Each of the team members may have different ways of solving the puzzle. By allowing team members to understand why Mr. A or

Mr. B and Mr. C makes certain decision will enable the team mates to

understand better why Mr. A makes such decisions in the workplace. The

process is crucial, not the ends…it is the means. During one raft building

activity, one facilitator shouted to the team ‘If your raft sinks will just show

that you are unable to work as a team’. My friends, it is not important if the

raft sinks or not, most importantly, how each of them makes decision and

reacted in front of the eyes of their team mates is the most important!

Team building events are meant to take people away from the office and put

them in an unfamiliar place. It is where people are most likely dressed

informally and therefore, behave differently. At these occasions, positions

in office are often forgotten and the true self thus appears. As one

participant once said ‘we tend to put down our guard and behave

differently’. Not only do we act differently, we say different things too. The

way we act and behave out of the formal work setting is often our more true

self. Team building experiences should help to show our true ‘human’nature. We may start to notice that Director A has a great sense of humour –

a real joker. Or the HR director has a kind, caring soul. Knowing each

other’s true attitude and behaviour will often change our perceptions of

fellow workers. The next time you meet Director A along the office

corridor, you would probably give him a cheeky smile – a reminder of what

happened at the team building event the other day!

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Conclusion

People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team,

and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work

or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadestsense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than yourself. It has a lot

to do with your understanding of the mission or objectives of your

organization.

In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the

organization. You work with fellow members of the organization to produce

these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong

to a specific department, you are unified with other organization members to

accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions;your function exists to serve the bigger picture.

You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of

developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific

goal. People confuse the two-team building objectives. This is why their

participants deem so many team building seminars, meetings, retreats and

activities failures. Leaders failed to define the team they wanted to build.

Developing an overall sense of teamwork is different from building an

effective, focused work team when you consider team-building approaches.

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Bibliography

www.google.com

www.professionalpractice.asme.com

www.wilderdom.com

www.thiagi.com/ws-team-building.html

www.citeman.com

www.wikipedia.com

www.monsterindia.com

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