Successful Team Building

Thomas L. QUICK

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 1992
• Print ISBN: 9780814477946
• eBook ISBN: 9780814438091
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Working in teams brings benefits to both team members and organizations for which they work. If you are a team leader, you know that getting commitment isn't always easy. SUCCESSFUL TEAM BUILDING shows you how to motivate team members, and so reap the benefits. You'll learn how to build team commitment, deal with team conflict, use creativity in problem solving and decision making, and evaluate and reward team players. The result? Your team will respond favorably to your efforts. And your boss will notice too.

PART I

THE NATURE AND BENEFITS OF A TEAM

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS A TEAM?

The most distinguishing characteristic of a team is that its members have, as their highest priority, the accomplishment of team goals. They may be strong personalities, possess highly developed specialized skills, and commit themselves to a variety of personal objectives they hope to achieve through their activity; but, to them, the most important business at hand is the success of the group in reaching the goal that its members, collectively and with one voice, have set. The members support one another, collaborate freely, and communicate openly and clearly with one another.

Most nonteam groups, on the other hand, tend to be collections of personalities with their own agendas, which may be more valuable to those personalities than the agenda that the majority of the group members seek to fulfill. Discussions and relationships in such groups are often characterized by shifting agendas, power subgroups, a going along with decisions rather than a wholehearted commitment, and even a win-lose orientation: One person or subgroup gains its wishes over another.

Don’t let your vision get diluted, but don’t be afraid of teamwork.

—JAMES B. PATTERSON

CHAIRMAN, J. WALTER THOMPSON NORTH AMERICA

KINDS OF TEAMS

There are many kinds of groups that can evolve into closely knit teams. Some of the most common are:

• Committees, which usually serve as investigative or advisory bodies reporting to the person or agency that has appointed and organized them.

• Task forces, which, most often, are temporary problem-solving groups formed to deal with issues that cross functions or lines of authority. A task force may, for its life, be full- or part-time.

Characteristics of Effective and Ineffective Teams

Effective	Ineffective
Information
Flows freely up, down, sideways	Flows mainly down, weak horizontally
Full sharing	Hoarded, withheld
Open and honest	Used to build power
	Incomplete, mixed messages
People relationships
Trusting Respectful Collaborative Supportive	Suspicious and partisan Pragmatic, based on need or liking Competitive Withholding
Conflict
Regarded as natural, even helpful	Frowned on and avoided
	Destructive
On issues, not persons	Involves personal traits and motives
Atmosphere
Open	Compartmentalized
Nonthreatening	Intimidating
Noncompetitive	Guarded
Participative	Fragmented, closed groups
Decisions
By consensus	By majority vote or forcing
Efficient use of resources	Emphasis on power
Full commitment	Confusion and dissonance
Creativity
More options	Controlled by power subgroups
Solution-oriented	Emphasis on activity and inputs
Power base
Shared by all	Hoarded
On competence	On politicking, alliances
Contribution to team	Pragmatic sharing
	Contribution to power source
Motivation
Commitment to goals set by team	Going along with imposed goals
Belonging needs satisfied	Coercion and pressure
More chance for achievement through group	Personal goals ignored
	Individual achievement valued without concern for the group
Rewards
Based on contribution to group	Basis for rewards unclear
Peer recognition	Based on subjective, often arbitrary appraisals

• Quality circles, consisting of groups of employees and supervisors who search for ways to increase the effectiveness of their work groups through higher productivity and improved quality.

• Project groups, organized to work specifically on a project, such as a new product, a new facility, or a computer program. Like the task force, the project group may have a temporary existence. When its mission has been accomplished, the group disbands.

Probably the most ambitious and complex team-building effort involves an entire work section or department, if only because in an ongoing operation the objectives change, requiring periodic review and goal-setting sessions among those who must commit and recommit themselves.

DIAGNOSING YOUR GROUP

A logical place to start your team-building effort is to look carefully at the group you manage or participate in. How is the group characterized? Complete the following diagnosticator. How many of the statements are true about your team?

GROUP DIAGNOSTICATOR

Consider each statement in terms of whether it characterizes your group or not. If the description is relevant rarely, treat the statement as if it does not apply. If it does, indicate with a check whether you observe it frequently or just occasionally.

For each “frequently” that you checked, give yourself a score of 1. “Occasionally” merits 2, and “rarely/never” rates 3. Multiply each number by the total number of statements to which you applied it. To illustrate, if you checked “occasionally” 10 times, “frequently” 10 times, and “rarely/never” 10 times, your overall score would be 60.

ANALYZING YOUR DIAGNOSIS

The higher your score, the more advanced your group in building itself toward team status. If your score is the maximum of 90 (30 times 3), you can count yourself exceptional indeed—and fortunate to have such an effectively functioning group without any (or nearly any) indicators of impediments or barriers to successful team operation. Conversely, if your score is 30, by no means can you describe your group as a team. If your total falls between 60 and 90, you are well on your way, but you still have some distance to travel before you and your associates can enjoy the plentiful benefits of working as a team rather than as a mere group.

Here are some of the meanings behind each statement:

1. If other members of the group talk to you about what is or is not going on in the group, that means a great deal of communicating occurs outside the group. The group’s progress or lack of it, to members, is not a group issue, to be discussed in and dealt with by the group as a whole. Group issues in a team are handled by the team as a team, not by members of it in outside conferences.

2. The group has not yet learned how to conduct effective meetings in which, because of good formal and informal le...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I. The Nature and Benefits of a Team
• Part II. How People Work Effectively in a Team
• Part III. Communication and Conflict in a Team
• Part IV. Creativity and Effectiveness in Team Meetings
• Part V. Evaluating and Rewarding Team Progress
• Copyright