Leading Teams

Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges

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• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781422101841
• eBook ISBN: 9781422163696
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Development
• Index: Business

Leading productive teams requires laying the groundwork for success and following through effectively. This guide offers immediately actionable advice on how to choose the right team members; clarify goals, rules, and responsibilities; foster trust, creativity, and risk taking; and resolve conflicts and maximize productivity.The Pocket Mentor Series offers immediate solutions to common challenges managers face on the job every day. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real life examples to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness.

Team Management: The Basics

What Is a Team?

“People acting together as a group can accomplish things that no individual acting alone could ever hope to bring about.”

—Franklin Delano Roosevelt

A team can certainly be described as a group of people organized to work together, or a group who do similar work or who report to the same person. But the kind of team you will be leading is much more than these brief descriptions.

Identify the types of “teams”

Teams are not all alike when it comes to their design or their demands on team members. To make things a bit more complicated, not every “team” is really a team, and some groups that are called by other names occasionally do phenomenal teamwork. The chart on the next page is a short list of some of the many versions of teams out there in organizations.

As you can see, a functional team may be just a group of individuals who meet periodically but who are not integrated into a team structure. On the other hand, a tiger team or a task force fits the definition of a high-performing team with collaborative activities and a shared goal.

Functional team	An organizational group that reports to a single boss and that may or may not have to work together to meet the group’s goals
Cross-functional team	A group made up of team members from different functions across the organization whose time is dedicated partially to the team’s efforts and partially to other functional responsibilities
Tiger team	A group made up of team members from different functions across the organization whose time is totally dedicated to the team’s efforts
Ad-hoc team or task force	A temporary group put together to solve a particular problem or explore a particular opportunity
Committee	An ongoing group that develops and monitors a particular philosophy, policy, or set of practices

HIGH-PERFORMING TEAM n 1: a group of people with complementary skills who interact to achieve a common objective 2: a group of people committed to a common purpose, common performance goals, and an approach for which they hold themselves collectively responsible.

Consider the benefits of teams

As Roosevelt wisely observed, a team can often outperform an individual. When teams work well, the results can be extremely powerful. Synergy created by members’ diverse skills, experiences, and motivations enables teams to respond more quickly to technological, economic, and market changes in our increasingly complex world. An effective team can make better decisions, move more quickly, and solve problems more creatively than any group of talented people working independently. And of course many people enjoy, and are motivated by, working in teams—as a result, they deliver their best performance.

Thus, the many benefits of forming a team include:

• improved performance through a broader knowledge and experience base
• greater creativity, wider perspective, and increased effectiveness in tackling problems
• a willingness to respond to changes and take on risk
• a shared responsibility for assignments and a shared commitment to goals
• a more effective delegation of tasks
• a more stimulating and motivating environment for team members

Understand the problems of teams

Given certain problems or issues, creating a team may not provide the best solution. Why? Teams don’t always function smoothly. In some situations, it is actually better to work alone. As the person responsible, you need to be aware of the potential pitfalls of team leadership. The most common problems are (1) team goals are unclear or conflicting, (2) people don’t work well together, and (3) leading a team takes time.

When you plan on using a team, think about some of the possible difficulties as well as the benefits:

• conflicts among team members, caused by various human feelings and responses
• interference with an individual’s expertise. The team process may actually diminish a team member’s ability to produce.
• time and energy spent on developing a team community
• possible slowdown of decision making
• domination by one group or faction within the team of the other members, reducing the value of the whole team’s contributions

“There are a few hallmarks of dysfunctional teams, as I’ve seen over the years. You see individuals pursing their own agendas as opposed to team agendas, unclear goals or goals that are not supported by the senior management, people who are unskilled or unsuited for teamwork, poor leadership, and/or lack of process. And you can see all these things in Dilbert.”

—Steve Sullivan,
vice president for communications

As team leader, you will need to factor in these negative aspects to make sure you achieve the power of team productivity.

How to Plan for a Productive Team

“The crucial role of language in human evolution was not the ability to exchange ideas, but the increased ability to cooperate.”

—Fritjof Capra

Before you begin assembling your own team or shaping an inherited team, plan for the process by understanding those common features of teams that determine success or failure.

Understand what teams do

Even though a team’s particular mission and goals will drive the activities it performs, any team’s work tends to follow a typical pattern.

The team will

• clarify and commit to goals
• agree on an approach to the project
• develop a process to complete the tasks
• cross-train members
• execute the process
• evaluate and self-correct the process, depending on the results of measurement and analysis
• communicate with all parties involved.

Identify the team’s purpose. A team is formed for a reason. Every member of the team has to know and understand the team’s purpose and goals.

For example, will your team make a policy recommendation or will it implement a strategic plan? Will it solve a quality problem or work on a long-term basis? Will it develop a new product or handle the needs of an immediate crisis?

Whatever the mission, you as the team leader will redirect the team to its purpose again and again.

Recognize the scope of the team’s activity. Teams often have sole authority over decisions related to team operations and processes, but upper management still has to approve and support the team’s activities. For example, a team may make resource decisions but within senior-management-determined budget limitations.

As team leader, you and your supervisors need to have a shared vision of the team’s purpose, as well as agreement in the following areas:

• personnel decisions, particularly on cross-functional teams
• expenditures beyond the budgeted level
• contracting with outside experts or consultants, or acquiring additional resources
• changes in the team’s deliverables and schedule

Be sure that all members of your team and upper management understand and agree to the scope of the team’s activities, particularly

• what decisions the team can make
• which decisions will be made outside the group
• how and when those decisions will be communicated to all involved.

Identify the characteristics of productive teams

As you plan, consider the predictable characteristics of productive teams. After all, you will be responsible for ensuring that these qualities become realities in your own team.

Within the most productive teams,

• members agree with the goals and are committed to them. If possible, the team members participate in setting realistic, specific ...

Table of contents

• Pocket Mentor Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Mentor’s Message: Juggling Managing and Leading
• Team Management: The Basics
• Tips and Tools
• Notes
• How to Order