Topics covered in this Tutorial
Teamwork
Building a Team
Team Working is the ability of a group of individuals to form into a cohesive unit to achieve a common goal.
Teams have significant advantages over disorganized individuals in many work situations:
- Distribute workload evenly and co-ordinate effort (as long as everyone on the team contributes fully)
- Shared responsibility for problem-solving, testing ideas and decision-making
- Better motivation and support (through building rapport between colleagues)
However, building a successful team takes effort. To be successful, a team needs to be united in the pursuit of a goal, with an agreed process to achieve the goal. However, in addition to focusing on the goal and meeting deadlines, the needs of team members must be addressed.
When working on a team, it is important to remember to treat colleagues as you would your customers. You can use customer service skills (attitude, active listening, assertiveness, negotiation, creative thinking, questioning, and so on) to manage your relationships within the team.
Team Roles
According to Dr Meredith Belbin's analysis of how teams work, as well as the job functions they perform, each team member can take on a role within the team dynamic.
Teams require the following basic roles to succeed:
- Creators (Plant and Resource Investigator) - to originate and discover ideas
- Leaders (Coordinator and Shaper) - to organize, manage and direct the team
- Implementers (Team Builder and Team Implementer) - to build and support the team and find practical applications of ideas
- Completers (Monitor Evaluator and Completer Finisher) - to evaluate and test ideas critically and in detail
Working in a Team
It is important for each member of the team to understand and accept their role and responsibility in contributing to the group effort.
Ideally, the team should contain people capable of balancing these different roles. People are generally naturally suited to one role more than others, though they may have to take on another sympathetic role in order to balance the team.
Members of a team should take their responsibilities seriously, or they risk generating resentment from other team members. Team workers should:
- Maintain their customer service attitude, to treat their colleagues with respect
- Contribute fully to the team, while remaining open to others' ideas
- Be prompt when attending meetings and meeting deadlines
When working in a team, it must be realized that your own failures or poor behavior will affect everyone else on the team.
It is important for team members to be aware of the roles and tasks that other people are playing. This can be achieved by maintaining proper documentation of tasks and progress and by mentoring (one-to-one instruction).
This contributes to the rapport within the team, and in a practical sense, allows someone to take over in the case where a critical team member is ill or on vacation. It also helps to induct new members into the team, allowing them to contribute to the group effort more quickly.
Team Leadership
Leadership is inspiring a group of people to achieve an objective.
Many books and papers have been written trying to identify the qualities of a 'true' leader, so there are no perfect answers.
A combination of most or all of the following qualities may be considered:
- Form and organize a well-balanced and productive team, recognizing the different skills, abilities and roles that other people can bring to the team
- Encourage the best qualities in others so that they contribute fully to the team
- Maintain a balance between team members in group situations to ensure that everyone makes a useful contribution
- Deal with difficult team members and get them "back on track"
- Organize team members and delegate responsibilities
- Take responsibility for the completion of a project and the successful achievement of the goal
Skills Development Model
Dr Paul Hersey has developed a model for leadership which suggests that the leadership style must depend on the person they are trying to lead. He calls his model Situational Leadership.
This model says that the leader needs to be directive and supportive to different degrees depending upon how much confidence ability to do the job and willingness the follower has.
- A person new to the job may be unable to carry out the job at first, and will not feel totally confident...
...so, TELL
This person will need a high level of direction from the leader; in essence be told what to do.
- As the person develops, they still need to be told how to do the job, but they may feel more willing and confident...
...so, SUPPORT
The leader needs to build on the relationship, so that the follower is able to ask for help in doing the task.
- Soon, the follower may know how to do the job, but still may feel insecure...
...so, BUILD
The leader needs to build a relationship with this person. They will need less direction of what to do and how to do it and more supporting evidence of their competence to build their confidence in themselves.
- Eventually this person has been doing the job for long enough to not only know what they are doing, but also to be totally confident in the task and their competence to complete it...
...so, DELEGATE
The leader only needs to delegate the task, knowing that their relationship is strong enough to be maintained, by both people.
