Group and Inter-group Processes

UNIT 15 LEADING AND BUILDING TEAMS Objectives

After reading this unit you should be able to:

• understand what is a team

• compare teams with groups

• distinguish between various types of teams

• describe situations when teams are preferred over individuals

• describe the processes involved in team building

• specify features of effective teams

• leadership in team building

• team sustenance

Structure

15.1 Introduction

15.2 Why Teams?

15.3 Groups and Teams: What is the Difference?

15.4 Types of Teams

15.5 Building Effective Teams

15.6 Team Effectiveness and Team Sustenance

15.7 Leadership in Team Building

15.8 Summary

15.9 Self Assessment Questions

15.10 Further Readings

15.1 INTRODUCTION

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance, goals and approach for which they hold mutually accountable. Every group can not be considered as a team. . Teams are more than sum of individual members' contributions. There exists synergy. Members of the teams possess complimentary skills and work in interdependent manner while working for agreed objectives.

Team building has emerged as a popular tool of workplace management during mid sixties and remains popular approach even now in numerous industries. Norman Hill suggested the following common knowledge among managers regarding teamwork may have served as guiding point to accept team approach to work:

Involvement is a precondition to commitment, people become involved seeing their ideas, become part of their work and work environment.

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•

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Management should work like team leaders and coaches. Management has a facilitating or developing role rather than a directing role:

Work groups have the necessary capacity to cope with their own problems provided they are aware of their capacity and problems. 38

• Employees are innately cooperative and self actualising, preferring the chance to exercise a degree of control over their work environment.

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Leading and Building Teams

• Typical hierarchical organizations and their inherent trend towards more formal rules and dysfunctional bureaucratic behaviour can become more effective and functional by eliminating status distinctions and emphasizing interpersonal trust, openness , and self disclosure.

15.2 WHY TEAMS?

Team approach to work seems to have several advantages over individual approach at work. Evidence suggests that team works better when task requires multiple skills, judgment, and experience. Further, competition demands flexibility among the players. Teams have shown more flexibility in adapting changing demands as compared to traditional departmental structure. Organizations also use teams to motivate their staff as staff gets enough opportunity to influence operational decisions by having interactions. Teams are also being used to utilise the talents available with the organizations in more efficient ways. Last but not least teams are being used to democratise the workplace where there is hierarchical relationship between the members of the workforce.

If you want to see work teams, see project teams of Infosys Techologies. These project teams are formed with a purpose to achieve the projective objectives effectively and efficiently. Members of project teams are selected on the basis of their complimentary skills and experience and their work is highly interdependent in nature. Most often part of compensation also depends on how the entire team has worked. Members of the team thoroughly discuss the problem, work closely, and communicate frequently while working on the problems.

Robbins cited the Case of Boeing Company using team approach. Boeing Company decided to follow self regulating, cross-disciplinary work teams in place of military style hierarchical structure in air craft design. The planning and development of Boeing's new 777-200 twin jet involved an intensive collaboration of designers , production experts, maintenance people, customer service staff, finance specialists and even airline customers. A small group of 8 to 10 members were given the responsibility of refining and meshing all the aspect of aircraft program from the start. The purpose was to get the feedback of each team on entire aircraft design as a whole and act quickly on ideas irrespective of who is giving the idea/feedback. Boeing Management believes that the use of teams allows the company to produce better products, faster and at a lower cost.

Now teams are being used by many organizations all over the world. Pick up any business magazine, you will invariably find on some thing on use of wok teams in various companies. General Electric, AT &T, Hewlett & Packard, Motorola, Wipro, Infosys, Federal Express, Johnson & Johnson, 3M Co, Maruti are to name few the companies that are using teams in work organizations. After all what is the reason for such popularity?

It should be kept in mind that teams are always in preferred mode of working. Teams take more time and consume more resources than individuals at work. For example, team require more communication, more conflicts are to be resolved. Thus, teams should be used only when benefits of using team definitely outweigh cost. Three points should be checked whether the task is such which can be done better' by more than one person. The nature of complexity of the task will provide the answer. If the complexity of the task is high, multiple perspective is required , teamwork may be an appropriate option. Simple and routine tasks don't require teamwork. Second, does the work generate common

goal / objective leading to possible synergy, i.e., working together has potential to generate better outcome than sum of individual contributions. And lastly, is the work interdependent? i.e., performance of members depends on performance of other members. If the work is interdependent again, teamwork is a better option. Now a days many car dealers have for customer service cells consisting of customer service personnel, mechanics, part specialists, and sales rep to provide better service. With this kind of intervention, customer is provided with better service and any of his quarries can responded to immediately to the best of his satisfaction. If the work is simple it can be done by one person, which has no potential to generate synergy and when there is interdependence among members, team work may not a good approach to follow.

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Group and Inter-group Processes

15.3 GROUPS AND TEAMS: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Group and teams may look alike but all groups are not the teams. All teams start as groups, but not all groups become teams. The elements that distinguish teams from groups are (1) full commitment by members to a common goal and mission, (2) mutual accountability, (3) shared leadership, (4) trust and a collaborative culture, (5) achievement of synergy, and (6) complementary skills. Teams are found to be higher on these six variables as compared to groups. Groups meet to share information for enabling each member to perform efficiently in his/her own area of responsibility. Normally groups may not jointly work on collective goals. Teams have full commitment to collective goals and mission. Group may have designated leader while teams have shared leadership. Similarly, group is individually accountable for performance, while teams are mutually as well as individually accountable for outcome. Groups may have random and varied skills while members in teams normally have complementary skills. Effective teams are able to attain synergy while in groups, performance is merely an addition of contribution of individual members. Teams also share the culture of trust and collaboration while groups may not share similar degree of trust and collaboration. Example of Indian Cricket Team can be taken as a case. Vision of the team is to win and play good cricket. While forming the team players complimentary skills are taken into consideration. Team may be having batting specialists, all rounders, fast bowlers, spin bowlers, fielding experts etc depending on the requirements. Performance of the bowlers depends on wicketkeeper, quality of fielding and of course on quality of bowling. Thus performance of members is interdependent. Each member of the team trust and collaborate with each other and have mutual accountability. Members of the team are fully committed to the goals and missions of the team. Here leadership ( captaincy) is decided, however, there is no rigid hierarchy. And, the defined leaders also take the views of senior players before taking crucial decisions. If an individual goal becomes important for the player than the team goals, you can see visible deviation in the. behaviour of member. A player becomes too cautious if nearing century, and comes back to normal pace only when century is achieved. Many times hostility among members is observed when there is mismatch in priorities of team goals and personals goals/ ambitions.

Numerous work organizations are redesigning /restructuring work around teams and expect to benefit from this intervention without any additional input believing that teams are able to generate synergy. Definitely, teams have potential for generating high performance in organizations, however putting teams in place is not sure route to high performance. We need to ensure certain processes and common attributes of high performance teams to attain high performance.

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Leading and Building Teams

15.4 TYPES OF TEAMS

There can be many kinds of teams. The simplest team can be a manager and his direct reports. Another example may be members of music bands. Teams can be ad-hoc or temporary groups such as task forces, committees formed for a specific purpose and for a limited time. For example, a task force is organized by district administration to deal with flood! earthquake in the area. Once the crisis, is over team gets dissolved. There can be permanent teams like members of sections and department working on issues arising out of organizational objectives. Similarly, there can be cross-functional teams bringing together experts from a variety of backgrounds to work on new and innovative problems. Now it is not necessary that team members work face to face to attain team objectives. Team members working to achieve common objectives from remote stations and connected through intranet and internet form virtual teams. Thus teams can be differentiated on four dimensions:

Purpose: Why teams have been formed? It may be for overcoming a crisis, developing a new product, improving quality or for solving a problem?

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Duration: Whether the team is of continuous/ permanent or the same is temporary/ ad-hoc nature'?

Membership: Whether membership is discipline based or the same is multidisciplinary/cross functional

Nature of interaction: Whether the interface among members is face to face or the same is mediated through computer technology?

Robbins talked about four major types of teams:

1. problem-solving teams, 2. self managed teams, 3. cross-functional teams, and 4. virtual teams

Problem-Solving Teams

This is the most classical form of teams. These teams typically consists of a small group (5 to 12 members) of employees from same department who meet for few hours weekly or fortnightly to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and work environment. These are. called problem solving teams.

In problem solving teams, people discussed problems, made suggestions for improvements in process and work methods. However, these teams were not having any authority to implement their decisions in organizations. The usual way was to make presentation before the management team which used to give go ahead signal to suggestions made by problem solving teams. Quality Circles are the examples of problem solving teams. Quality Circles are usually permanent in nature, membership is voluntary, functional or discipline based and interaction is face to face and purpose to solve the most pressing problems- quality, efficiency etc faced by the team. Quality circles have been used to improve productivity, efficiency, housekeeping, customer service and layout of the organization.

Self-Managed Work Teams

Self managed teams are improvement over problem solving teams. Since problem solving team do not have authority to implement their own decisions, they do not go beyond a point and members get demotivated that their decisions are not being implemented. Self managed teams are group of employees (typically 10 to 1.5 in number) who perform highly related or interdependent jobs and assume many of the roles assigned to their former supervisors. Typically, this includes planning and scheduling of work, assigning tasks to members; collective control over the pace of work, making operational decisions, and taking action on

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Group and Inter-group Processes

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problems. Fully self managed work teams select their members and mutually evaluate each others' performance. Thus supervisory positions become redundant and sometimes even eliminated.

In GE's locomotive-engine plant, in Grove city of Pennsylvnia, there are about 100 self managed teams and they make most of plant decisions. They manage maintenance, schedule the work and authorise equipment purchase. In Oriental Bank of Commerce employees have their own job rotation arrangement although they have not named their initiative as self managed team. Xerox, General Motors, Coor Brewing, PepsiCo, Honeywell, HP are some familiar names using self managed teams. In US approximately 30% of employers are using self managed teams. No such statistics is available for India. However, self managed teams as a concept is being accepted here too. Self managed teams are again permanent in nature, membership is functional, objective is to improve efficiency. The same are being used primarily to increase employee involvement. Otis Elevators is making successful use of self managed teams in India.

Cross-Functional Teams

Cross-functional teams consists of members belonging to same hierarchical level, but having different skills and professional background and have come together to accomplish a task. Project management teams in software organizations normally use such cross-functional teams.

Cross functional teams are being used in consultancy assignments where experts of varying background join in and provide their services. Once the assignment is over the team get dissolved. Such temporary teams of cross-functional experts are also called task force. Task force is adhoc, membership is temporary and goal is to solve the problem. Expert committees consisting of experts from diverse background which dwell upon academic programme and its content and processes can be considered cross-functional team. Such teams are normally of continuous nature and have face to face interface and purpose of such teams is to enhance the quality of product/programme.

Virtual Teams

Virtual teams use computer technology to have interface among members of the team who work together to achieve a common goal. They allow people to collaborate online through various means like wide area networks, video conferencing, email whether they are one room away or far a part. For example, team of news crew of Doordarshan providing information from various stations can be considered to work in virtual team and their goal is to provide quality news to customers/viewers. Virtual can do every thing that other teams do: share information, make decisions and complete tasks, They include members from same organizations or may have members from other organizations (for example, suppliers and collaborating organizations). Virtual teams have an advantage over traditional teams as they overcome time and space problem through computer aided technology but they also have to be more context independent as they don't receive paraverbal and nonverbal cues in communication, thus have limited social context.

15.5 BUILDING EFFECTIVE TEAMS

Team building process should be natural and be centered on specific and identifiable tasks. If the problem is challenging and capable of stimulating various aspects of team process, building of team becomes smooth. Process of team building may be further accelerated if the people selected to work on the

team are likely to work together in future as compared to individual artificially grouped. Moreover, effective teams are not static, they adapt to the task at hand. For example, a large project may unfold different phases in the project, which will require teams with varying skills and briefs. Keeping various requirements, Parkinson suggested that team building needs to cover at least five areas:

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Leading and Building Teams

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Task management. Teams should follow a systematic approach to managing the work. It should include formal goal setting, planning, organizing, time management, problem solving and review. On some aspects, members may require additional input. Many tasks may likely to go continuously, for example, review of progress. Monitoring of continuous progress may affect subsequent phases of work depending upon the progress.

Process management. This involves many interpersonal competencies like questioning, listening, summarising, encouraging, initiative, expressing opinion, synthesising, expressing and responding to feelings, gatekeeping etc. Team members need to be taught and they need to practice the same.

Inter-group communication. Teams work parallel to many other teams. Many time teams need to share resources or need to communicate to others for getting its objectives fulfilled. This requires teams to develop communication, negotiation skills and understanding of political climate in the organization.

Team style. What instance members of the team take will affect team's performance. Similarly, what instance, what role team members take will also affect teams outcome. It is therefore expected that team leaders, members adopt appropriate influencing style- matching with the needs of team members and the situation.

5. Contribution management. Since the team is nothing but a synergistic combination of individuals, while building the teams individuals skills expertise, needs and personality must be understood in the context of teamwork since these features will help in assuming various team roles. Team leaders, in particular, have to take additional responsibility to understand each member's strengths and weaknesses, and manage the team such a way that each member is able to contribute to the team endeavour to the maximum.

Teams are essentially groups, thus follow the principles of group dynamics (presented in unit 13) in the process of team formation and development. In team building process/programmes we need to take care of three key aspects for development:

Prepare the team members. People require time to adapt to team working instead of individual working. Some of the skills required for team working need to be taught, the process of teaching takes time. Similarly, many people feel that team working is resorted to due to individual incompetence. Such feelings needs to be addressed to and dealt with firmly. To do all this organization may require competent facilitators. Training, rewarding team performance over individual contribution and presenting people with positive attitude towards team working as role models may help preparing team members.

Clarify the team's objectives. A large amount of friction and conflict gets generated during forming and storming stage. Clarifying the team's objective and course of action in advance may reduce such friction or conflict. If team facilitator provides the course of action for the team along with rule of the game and role of the members are clarified and defined in advance, wastage of team's energy on unproductive issues is minimised.

Set measurable goals. Many teams grapple in the dark because they are not clear what they are willing to achieve. It is very important to establish clear

goals and develop clear indicators of measuring teams progress. Teams must develop yardsticks of measuring progress and all efforts be made by teams to achieve those objectives.

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Appendix 1 provides set of activities to check whether individual is suitably prepared to work in teams? Whether processes required for effective team functioning have been taken care of. The checklist provides good yardstick of variables involved team building process.

Behavioural Guidelines for Developing Effective Teams

Whetten and Camerom (2002) provided how the team development take place. They have supplied a comprehensive set of behavioural guidelines for developing effective teams.

As a leader of a team you must develop credibility by:

- demonstrating integrity and displaying congruence

- being clear and consistent about what you want to achieve

- creating positive energy by being optimistic and complimentary

- building a base of agreement before moving on with task accomplishment

- managing agreements and disagreements by using appropriate arguments

- encourage and coach team members to help them improve

- sharing information about the team itself and from external sources, and encorage participation

After developing credibility, you must articulate a motivating vision for the team having following attributes:

- left brained (rational objectives) and right brained (symbols and images) elements

- challenges to status quo

- passionate language based on core personal principles

- SMART (specific, measurable, aligned, realistic but stretching, and timebound)

- goals

You can play the role of effective team member in facilitating task performance by:

- giving direction

-seeking information

- giving information

- elaborating others ideas

- urging task performance

- monitoring progress

- analysing the teams processes

- testing the reality of suggestions enforcing team rules

- summarising comments

You can play the role of effective team member in building relationship among team members by:

- supporting team members

- harmonising disagreements

- relieving tension through humour

- confronting unproductive behaviour

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Leading and Building Teams

- energising others

- developing teams members abilities

- building consensus

- empathising with others

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When encountering team members who block the teams performance with unproductive behaviours, confront the behaviour and /or isolate the unproductive behaviour.

6. Provide feedback on unhelpful behaviour having following features:

- focused on the behaviour, not the person

- based on observations and descriptions rather than on inferences or personal judgements

- related to specific here and now behaviour and not past or abstract behaviour

- sharing of ideas more than the giving of advice

- based on the amount of information given on what the recipient wants or requires

- information that benefits the receiver rather than just being an emotional release

- shared at appropriate times and places

Learn to identify the stage in which the team is operating in order to help facilitate team development. Know the key attributes of the forming, norming, storming and performing stages of development,

8. In the forming stage:

- encourage team member orientation

- foster trust

- encourage relationship building

- clarify purpose and expectations

9. In the forming stage:

- foster unity

- show support provide feedback

- encourage team member empowerment

10. In the storming stage:

- manage conflict

- legitimise expression of differences

- foster interdependence

- work towards consensus building

In the performing stage:

- identify and capitalise the teams core competence

- foster innovation and continuous improvement

- encourage speed

- encourage creative problem solving and excitement levels of performance

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Box 1

Case Study

Team Building Experience: Otis Elevators

Dwivedi documented team building experience of Otis Elevators. This company initiated team building intervention at the shop floor for implementing quality, flexible manufacturing and safety standards. Encouraged by success of these teams, the company launched five cross functional management teams. As Raghu Shenoy, General Manager (Management Development), suggests that these are senior teams which are effectively running the show in the company.' These seven members self managed teams deal with the issue of : a. people, b. customers, c. organizations, d. environment, and e. infrastructure. These teams meet Raj Bajaj, Managing Director of the company, twice a month. They report their achievement to him, prepare their agenda, and establish targets for themselves. Bajaj only helps each team in preparing the proceedings. The special thing about these teams is that they have adopted a very highly differentiated procedure. Their procedure incorporated following components:

- the full team meets at least once a week

- the meeting may last half a day during which each member reviews his performance during last week with each colleague

- open discussion is encouraged by the team leader and each member gives his views on the performance of the member under review

- in case member under review has any question he can raise during discussion

- members also discuss their plans for next week

- during the six days in between the two meeting, members know that where each member is located even if the person is on tour

- team members can approach CEO for help and support only when the team leader is not available for such discussion.

15.6 TEAM EFFECTIVENESS AND TEAM SUSTENANCE

Once teams reach the performance stage, their concern centers around . effectiveness and efficiency. Before reaching at this stage team has already dealt the issues of skepticism, uncertainty, non-contribution, dependence and self-centeredness typical of forming stage. It has developed clear set of rules to deal with the problems, vision, and loyalty and have dealt with the issues of conformity and groupthink at forming stage. It has also worked through conflicts and unproductive friction and power issues typically arising at storming stage. It has now reached to a stage where they have potential to generate extraordinary performance. Teams raise questions like:

How can we continuously improve? •

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How can we nurture innovativeness and creativity?

How can we build on our core competence?

How can we maintain a high energy level in the team?

While solving any problem teams follow the philosophy of continuous improvement the essential components of the approach are specified below:

1. Customer focus: Who are the users of your product or service. They include not only people who buy organizational products but also internal customers

(such as finance, dispatch personnel) who interact with and serve others in organization.

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Leading and Building Teams

Even best can be improved: Quality is a journey and not a destination. Thus strive for continuous improvement.

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Improve everything that team does: Map every activity that is undertaken by the team. Find how improvement can be introduced in every thing that team works on. May it be a product, a service, a meeting or financial services Define Problem. Define objective of the decision. What is the problem? How to reach there from here?

Measure whatever team does: Develop measures of everything that team does. It also involves measurement of teams skills, and other resources. Improvement can be assessed only if there is reliable and valid measure of input, process, or outcome. Performance and contribution can also be assessed if there is a measure of performance.

Empower team members: Empowered teams work more effectively than low or non-empowered team.

At this stage (performing stage) team members display high degree of cohesiveness that emanates from high mutual trust, unconditional commitment to teams, mutual training and development and entrepreneurship.

Researches have revealed following attributes of effective teams:

High performance outcomes

Specific and shared purpose and vision

Mutual internal accountability

Blurring of formal status

Coordinated shared work roles

Synergy

Extraordinary high quality

Creativity and continuous improvement

High credibility and trust

10. Clarity of core competence

After effectiveness, team sustenance becomes critical issue. How does one keep a good team in its existing state of efficiency and effectiveness? In other words, how does one continue to make it function? It is difficult to maintain the core purpose and tempo of the team over a long time. As a manager you are supposed to ask yourself and the team the following questions:

• Why do we exist?

• What and who would be affected if we went out of existence?

• Are there more cost-effective ways of achieving our purpose and aim than having the current team?

• Has there been a significant change in our mission as a team. Have we perceived, or been given new responsibilities?

• Are we still the right people to be tackling this work. Does it still need a team effort?

So, a manager's task is to maintain the standards of the team and raise them, and enhance the level of cooperation which in turn results in increased effectiveness. Contrary to this mature team are found to develop apathy. As time passes by teams become more complacent and due to cohesiveness gains achieved through following diverse perspective also diminish. Mature team is also susceptible to group think and resistant to accept and implement change.

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Group and Inter-group Processes

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To counter these problems and sustain the motivation of maturing team, Robbins suggested four-pronged steps:

Prepare members to deal with the problem of maturity: Teams are given feedback that they need to face maturity issue. They are not unique. Every team goes through this phase. They should not lose heart when initial excitement dries away and conflicts start surfacing. They need to face the situation and need not lose faith in team concept.

Offer refresher training: When team is stuck they may be given refresher training in communication, team building process, conflict management and leadership. Such intervention may build confidence and mutual trust among each other.

Offer Advanced training: Members may have exhausted their skill set while working on initial problems. Now they are confronted with more complicated and difficult problems. They will benefit with advanced courses on conceptual, interpersonal and technical skills.

Learning Experience: Teams may be encouraged to own their development and search opportunities for continuous improvement. Teams should try to evolve ways to learn through dealing with members fears, conflicts and frustrations.

15.7 LEADERSHIP IN TEAM BUILDING Although in ideal conditions every member of the team is capable of providing leadership to teams, and leadership is a shared process in team approach to work. Moreover in self-managed teams, there is no requirement of a formal leader. Inspite these assertions, leadership remain an issue with teams. Who will coordinate the effort? Who will insure that members are sharing the workload properly? What will be the process of decision-making followed in the team? How conflicts will be resolved? How rules will be formed? These are some of the questions that teams will be facing within the area of leadership. Traditionally managed teams may have designated leaders, captain, boss, coordinator who provides guidance as to how team will function. Depending on his style the leader will be directive (who keeps tight control over the activities of the team), delegative (who allows team members to take responsibility for work), participative (involving and democratic team working), consultative ( listens to team members concern but retains control over decision making of team) and negotiative ( relies heavily on negotiation skills to achieve team objectives). Teams can also share leadership by playing different role showing different skills by different members. For example, team members may fulfill roles of promoter, organizer, producer maintainer and linker.

Nine Team Roles

Creator - Innovator: Initiate creative ideas

Explorer-Promoter: Champion ideas after they are initiated

Assessor-Developer: Analyse decision options

Thruster -Organizer: Provide structure

Concluder-Producer: Provide direction and follow through

Controller-Inspector: Checks for details

Upholders -Maintainers: Fight external battles

Reporters-Advisers: Seek full information

Linkers: Coordinate and integrate

Source: C Margerison & D. McCann, Team Management Practical New Approach, London: Mercury Books, 1990

Studies suggest that in traditionally managed teams two factors seems to play important role in team performance: leaders' expectations and his mood. The leaders with high expectations from their team members end up getting superior team outcomes that leaders having low expectations. Similarly, leaders displaying positive mood have better team outcomes than leaders showing poor mood. Leaders trustworthiness also affects team outcome.

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Leading and Building Teams

Trust is a positive expectation, that another will not, through words, actions, or decisions act opportunistically. P.L. Schindler and C.C Thomas (quoted in Robbins, 2001) proposed five dimensions of trust:

Integrity: Honesty and truthfulness

Competence: Reliability, predictibility, and good judgement in handling situations

Loyalty: Willingness to protect and save face for a person

Openness: Willingness to share ideas and information freely

Trust involves risk and vulnerability. Still people say trust begets trust. Following are some of the ways trust can be built:

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Demonstrate that you are working for others interest as well as your own

Be a team player

Practice openness

Be fair

Speak your feelings

Show consistency in the basic values that guide your decision making

Maintain confidences

Demonstrate competence

15.8 SUMMARY

The unit has described the importance of team approach to work and why teams are now preferred over individual approach. The unit has also highlighted under what circumstances team approach to work is not a solution to the problem. Although all teams begin as a groups, all groups don't become teams. We have differentiated teams and groups. Interdependence, mutual accountability and synergy are main features that differentiate teams from groups. We identified four types of teams: problem solving teams, self managed teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams. Team building process, behavioural guidelines to build teams and leadership have been discussed.

15.9 SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

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What is a team? Describe basic features of a team.

Why are teams becoming more important approach to work? Under what circumstances individual approach is better than team approach to work?

How group and teams differ?

Describe behavioural guidelines for building effective teams.

What are various points in Parkinson's approach to team building?

Discuss various issues involved in leading teams?

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15.10 FURTHER READINGS

Adair, J. (1986). Effetive team building. London: Gower

Dwivedi, R.S. (2001) Human relations and organizational behaviour. New Delhi: Macmillan

Parkinson, M. (1999). Teams and team building. In M . Parkinson using psychology in business. Hampshire: Gower

Robbins, S.P. (2001) Organizational behaviour (9'h ed.) . New Delhi: Pearson Education

Whetten, D. A. & Cameron, K.S. (2002). Developing management skills (5'h ed) New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Appendix 1 Activities

Activity 1

From 'Effective Team Building.' John Adair, Gower, 1986, p. 133.

Activity 2

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TASK : Purpose : Am I clear what the task is? Responsibilities : Am I clear what mine are? Objectives : Have I agreed these with my

superior, the person accountable for the group?

Programme : Have I worked one out to reach objectives?

Working conditions : Are these right for the job? Resources : Are these adequate (authority,

money, materials)? Targets : Has each member clearly defined

and agreed them? Authority : Is the line of authority clear?

(Accountability chart)? Training : Are there any gaps in the

specialist skill or abilities of individuals in the group required for the task?

Priorities : Have I planned the.time? Progress : Do I check this regularly and

evaluate? Supervision : In case of my absence who covers

for me? Example : Do I set standards by my behaviour? From 'Effective Team Building', John Adair, Grower, 1986, p.196, Activity 3

TEAM MEMBERS : Objectives : Does the team clearly understand and accept them? Standards : Do they know what standards of performance are

expected? Safety Standards : Do they know consequences of infringement? Size of team : Is the size correct? Team members : Are the right people working together? Is there a

need for subgroups to be constituted? Team Spirit : Do I look for opportunities for building teamwork

into jobs? Do methods of pay and bonus help to develop team spirit?

Discipline : Are the rules seen to be reasonable? Am I fair and impartial in enforcing them?

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Grievances : Are grievances dealt with promptly? Do I take action on matters likely to disrupt the group?

Consulation : Is this gentle? Do I encourage and welcome ideas and suggestions?

Briefing : Is this regular ? Does it cover current plans, progress and future developments?

Represent : Am I prepared to represent the feelings of the group when required?

Support : Do I visit people at their work when the team is apart? Do I then represent to the individual the whole team in my manner and encouragement?

From `Effective Team Building' John Adair, Gower, 1986, p.197. Activity 4 INDIVIDUAL :

Targets : Have they been agreed and quantified? Induction : Does s/he really know the other team members and

the organisation? Achievement : Does s/he know how his work contributes to the

overall result? Responsibilities : Has s/he got a clear and accurate job description? Ca

I delegate more to him/her? Authority : Does s/he have sufficient authority for his/her task? Training : Has adequate provision been made for training or

retaining both technical and as team member? Recognition : Do I emphasise people's successes? I failure is

criticism constructive? Growth : Does s/he see the chance of development? Does s/he

see some pattern of career? Performance : Is this regularly reviewed? Reward : Are work, capacity and pay in balance? The task : Is s/he in the right job? Has s/he the necessary

resources? The person : Do I know this person will? What makes him/her

different from others? Time/attention : Do I spend enough with individuals listening,

developing, counselling? Grievances : Are these dealt with promptly'? Security : Does s/he know about pensions redundancy and so

on

53

Leading and Building Teams

Appraisal : Is the overall performance of each individual regularly reviewed in face-to-face.

From `Effective Team Building' John Adair, Gower, 1986, p.197.

Appendix 2

Activity 5

CHECKLIST DOES YOUR TEAM NEED MAINTENANCE

Does your team need maintenance? The following questions will help you to decide:

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•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Are there any symptoms of low morale, such as a decline in the team's self-confidence, a weakening of resolve and a loss of a sense of purpose?

Has the group or organisation lost its sense of direction?

Is each individual member still clear about the team's core mission and its principal aims? Are personal goals or objectives related to that purpose?

• Is the atmosphere of the group negative and lukewarm?

Are individual members lackluster in their enthusiasms?

Has communication between members been dwindling?

Are these signs of mistrust developing?

• All groups have potential `mental fatigue' cracks. Are these cracks widening into division between individuals, cliques, or sub-groups?

Have professional and personal standards declined in the last six months?

Can you identify one or more individuals who are clearly underachieving when measured against today's group standards?

Are there complaints about your leadership?

`Effective Team Building' John Adair, Gower, 1986, p.180