The Effective Team Model
In order to have an effective team, there are many factors that the team members must possess and apply when working together. These factors include reliability, goal-oriented, good communication skills, support, balanced roles, listening skill and respect. While we may overlook some of these factors, the absence of any one of them can have a huge effect on the team’s ability to work with each other. Thus, it should be noted that each factor is equally important and necessary.
The article “Building High-Performance Teams” states that the expectations of a high performing team are key in the prominence of building a strong team. Consequently, good communication and listening skills comes into play. The Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and Commitment in the workplace textbook defines teams as, “Two or more people who work interdependently over some time period to accomplish common goals related to some task-oriented purpose” (Colquitt, 2010). Furthermore, it describes the term goal interdependence as, “The degree to which team members have a shared goal and align their individual goals with that vision” (Colquitt, 2010). Goal interdependence goes along with goal orientation. With goals set, teams have a direction in which to move toward. Goals also provide motivation for individuals to work together to perform the tasks that need to be done in order to reach their goal. For a group to work effectively together they need to communicate with each team member and listening to what everyone has to say. This way we can assure that the team is aligned on the expectations and the ultimate goals for a project.
Assuring the team is aligned on the objectives relies heavily on having goal oriented associates as well as having supportive and respectful members. Colquitt covers two terms relating to this matter. The first term, team task role is explained as “Behaviors that directly facilitate the accomplishment of team tasks” (Colquitt, 2010). If the team members aren’t supportive and respectful of each other, it can greatly hinder the progression of a project. It can obstruct members for contributing thoroughly and alter the team’s viability negatively. The second term, team viability, is the “The likelihood a team can work together effectively into the future” (Colquitt, 2010). If a group does not respect or support each other they will not be able to be as effective as possible. Chances are there may be feuds in a group such as this and possibilities for effective group work may not be possible in the future. On the other hand, having goal oriented associates who are dedicated to the project and are respectful and supportive of one another can lead to many accomplishments and even help to exceed the goals they set out to accomplish.
Another factor includes having balanced roles. With having balanced roles members of the team will have equal workloads that make sure there is not a big difference in the amount one person has to do compared to others. Also placing people into roles allows people to know exactly what they need to do in order to get the job done or reach their goal. With roles you can place people into roles that they are most experienced with or best at compared to other people in the group. According to Colquitt, “Teamwork processes include creative behavior, decision-making, and boundary spanning” while, “Teamwork processes have a moderate positive relationship with team performance and a strong positive relationship with team commitment” (Colquitt, 2010). By selecting and matching people with the role that they are best fit for based upon their ability and commitment may perhaps be one of the biggest solution for conflicts that surface from working in teams. Along with resolving conflicts placing people into the role that best suits them can make the group better than they were before. Without roles the group would become less organized and in turn much less efficient in their work. While with balanced and equal roles groups can become more organized and even more efficient.
Reliability is another factor that is important to having an effective team. Something similar to reliability is commitment, “Commitment, if it is to be sustained, ought to reach beyond the organization to each individual’s stake in a successful outcome.” (Dubin, 2005). If someone has low commitment towards a project their reliability will most likely be low too. That person will not get their assigned work done or hand it in on time. People will in turn rely less on that person to do their job, so they will take over the duties of that person. Ultimately that person will get pushed out of the group eventually. This in turn will cause the effectiveness and the productivity of the group to go down. Without having reliability people will not trust each other in their work which can turn into conflict within the group.
An article that greatly focuses on the building and guiding a team effectively is an article titled, “Managing Collaboration: Improving Team Effectiveness Through a Network Perspective” by Rob Cross, Kate Ehrlich, Ross Dawson and John Helferich. The article suggest that teams are becoming more and more customary in the white-collar and professional work and there is evidence now showing that it can generate hidden costs and cause a diffusion of focus throughout an organization. More prominently, it raises two important questions. First, it asks how does a leader in a distributed or large team know who is influential and if the right expertise is being brought to bear? Second, how does a leader ensure the right balance of reliance on formal structure and informal structure? (2008)
In the article "How to Cultivate Engaged", Vlachoutsicos discussed the key elements that help in performing and building well designed team. one of the elements that were discusses is being modest where it encourage all the team members to share their past experiences and how it can help the current team (Vlachoutsicos, C, 124 ). Another key element was to encourage disagreements, all ideas are welcome and nobody should feel that their idea is less important than other and the best ideas should be applied (Vlachoutsicos, C, 124 ). it also mentioned that Focusing on the agenda is one of the main factors that team members should put intocincederation (Vlachoutsicos, C, 125).
From my personal experience in the past of working as a team, I have often had one or two team members that were often louder and more opinionated than the rest. While they may be more knowledgeable and may grab the group leader and the group’s attention, such behavior can create an invisible barrier to innovation and in some cases even form a divide between the team members. At such occurrence, the leader is expected to take charge by managing the flow of information and collaboration of the team, keeping an eye on the feasible technical competencies brought forth by the team members and allocating tasks in a manner that will lead towards ideation.
In the case of unearthing who is influential and if the right expertise is being brought to bear, it is heavily stressed upon the leader. However, in order to ensure the right balance of reliance on formal and informal structure, there is always the option of climate or team development surveys, which helps indicate whether a team has become too rigid. Network analysis can even further is this assessment in the matter of the survey not giving an adequate insight. It assists leaders by showing where the team is falling into a custom of depending on roles and become flooded by bottlenecks, where a single or a number of components restricts the performance or capability of an entire team. With this, leaders can determine the correct actions to execute at the correct time.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t conclude that having an effective leader can ease the process of working in a team. Working with others can be a lot of pressure. People frequently relate the idea of working under pressure to a nature of having deadlines, but this is not the problem. In the article, “Coming Through When It Matters Most,” Heidi K. Gardner writes that, “Good teams facing performance pressure generally have the time and other resources they need to get the job done, since their projects are so important. The trouble is, they stop using them effectively” (2012). Although in the beginning, people are driven to do their best from the pressure, Gardner’s research that high stakes root anxiety amongst the group and other partakers. The anxiety causes the teams to in due course rely on hard quantitative facts rather than anecdotes and comparisons of building new ideas and seeking the opinions of the other team members.
As the pressure builds, the team’s performance declines. It comes to a point where the team returns to traditional hierarchical roles and the idea of taking everyone’s opinion into consideration begins fading. Peculiarly, this shift is not visible. I myself again have experienced the same state of affairs in some of the final projects I had to complete. Fortunately, Gardner offers five solutions to the problem. The first solution proposes that having someone that is not only an expert on the technical facets of the subject, but also has a vast understanding of many others aspect of the subject can be very beneficial. The second solution advises knowing everyone’s responsibility from the start by having a kickoff meeting for every project, regardless of whether the members have worked together prior. Gardner additionally recommends checking to see if all the team members are contributing throughout the period. In this third solution, leaders can review the progress after the first or second milestones and compare each member’s contributions. The fourth solution mentions that is important to take the time to get back on track and secure the wrong people from taking control of the project. Lastly, the last solution is to make unique knowledge more acceptable to the group. Gardner writes that, “Presenting idiosyncratic information in the context of more-general frameworks can help their anxious teammates make sense of and value their contributions” (2012). In a sense, they may not be able to help directly, but they can bring a lot to the table in a more implicit behavior.
Who would of thought that working in a team could entail so much complexity. The notion that having an effective leader is key for building a high performance team is indisputable. Moreover, the behavior of the team members can also have a huge impact on the capacity of building a high performance team. Throughout the phases of the project, teams can also be affected by pressure, reducing team performance pushing the team backwards and causing it to re-establish traditional hierarchical roles. Despite all these obstacles, Gardner’s solution bred with the factors of reliability, goal-oriented, good communication skills, support, balanced roles, listening skill and respect can help in overcoming the obstruction. In my group for this DMP project, each member displayed a great amount of commitment. This played a substantial role in ensuring that the team was persistent in overcoming any challenges such as time restrains.
The article “Building High-Performance Teams” states that the expectations of a high performing team are key in the prominence of building a strong team. Consequently, good communication and listening skills comes into play. The Organizational Behavior: Improving Performance and Commitment in the workplace textbook defines teams as, “Two or more people who work interdependently over some time period to accomplish common goals related to some task-oriented purpose” (Colquitt, 2010). Furthermore, it describes the term goal interdependence as, “The degree to which team members have a shared goal and align their individual goals with that vision” (Colquitt, 2010). Goal interdependence goes along with goal orientation. With goals set, teams have a direction in which to move toward. Goals also provide motivation for individuals to work together to perform the tasks that need to be done in order to reach their goal. For a group to work effectively together they need to communicate with each team member and listening to what everyone has to say. This way we can assure that the team is aligned on the expectations and the ultimate goals for a project.
Assuring the team is aligned on the objectives relies heavily on having goal oriented associates as well as having supportive and respectful members. Colquitt covers two terms relating to this matter. The first term, team task role is explained as “Behaviors that directly facilitate the accomplishment of team tasks” (Colquitt, 2010). If the team members aren’t supportive and respectful of each other, it can greatly hinder the progression of a project. It can obstruct members for contributing thoroughly and alter the team’s viability negatively. The second term, team viability, is the “The likelihood a team can work together effectively into the future” (Colquitt, 2010). If a group does not respect or support each other they will not be able to be as effective as possible. Chances are there may be feuds in a group such as this and possibilities for effective group work may not be possible in the future. On the other hand, having goal oriented associates who are dedicated to the project and are respectful and supportive of one another can lead to many accomplishments and even help to exceed the goals they set out to accomplish.
Another factor includes having balanced roles. With having balanced roles members of the team will have equal workloads that make sure there is not a big difference in the amount one person has to do compared to others. Also placing people into roles allows people to know exactly what they need to do in order to get the job done or reach their goal. With roles you can place people into roles that they are most experienced with or best at compared to other people in the group. According to Colquitt, “Teamwork processes include creative behavior, decision-making, and boundary spanning” while, “Teamwork processes have a moderate positive relationship with team performance and a strong positive relationship with team commitment” (Colquitt, 2010). By selecting and matching people with the role that they are best fit for based upon their ability and commitment may perhaps be one of the biggest solution for conflicts that surface from working in teams. Along with resolving conflicts placing people into the role that best suits them can make the group better than they were before. Without roles the group would become less organized and in turn much less efficient in their work. While with balanced and equal roles groups can become more organized and even more efficient.
Reliability is another factor that is important to having an effective team. Something similar to reliability is commitment, “Commitment, if it is to be sustained, ought to reach beyond the organization to each individual’s stake in a successful outcome.” (Dubin, 2005). If someone has low commitment towards a project their reliability will most likely be low too. That person will not get their assigned work done or hand it in on time. People will in turn rely less on that person to do their job, so they will take over the duties of that person. Ultimately that person will get pushed out of the group eventually. This in turn will cause the effectiveness and the productivity of the group to go down. Without having reliability people will not trust each other in their work which can turn into conflict within the group.
An article that greatly focuses on the building and guiding a team effectively is an article titled, “Managing Collaboration: Improving Team Effectiveness Through a Network Perspective” by Rob Cross, Kate Ehrlich, Ross Dawson and John Helferich. The article suggest that teams are becoming more and more customary in the white-collar and professional work and there is evidence now showing that it can generate hidden costs and cause a diffusion of focus throughout an organization. More prominently, it raises two important questions. First, it asks how does a leader in a distributed or large team know who is influential and if the right expertise is being brought to bear? Second, how does a leader ensure the right balance of reliance on formal structure and informal structure? (2008)
In the article "How to Cultivate Engaged", Vlachoutsicos discussed the key elements that help in performing and building well designed team. one of the elements that were discusses is being modest where it encourage all the team members to share their past experiences and how it can help the current team (Vlachoutsicos, C, 124 ). Another key element was to encourage disagreements, all ideas are welcome and nobody should feel that their idea is less important than other and the best ideas should be applied (Vlachoutsicos, C, 124 ). it also mentioned that Focusing on the agenda is one of the main factors that team members should put intocincederation (Vlachoutsicos, C, 125).
From my personal experience in the past of working as a team, I have often had one or two team members that were often louder and more opinionated than the rest. While they may be more knowledgeable and may grab the group leader and the group’s attention, such behavior can create an invisible barrier to innovation and in some cases even form a divide between the team members. At such occurrence, the leader is expected to take charge by managing the flow of information and collaboration of the team, keeping an eye on the feasible technical competencies brought forth by the team members and allocating tasks in a manner that will lead towards ideation.
In the case of unearthing who is influential and if the right expertise is being brought to bear, it is heavily stressed upon the leader. However, in order to ensure the right balance of reliance on formal and informal structure, there is always the option of climate or team development surveys, which helps indicate whether a team has become too rigid. Network analysis can even further is this assessment in the matter of the survey not giving an adequate insight. It assists leaders by showing where the team is falling into a custom of depending on roles and become flooded by bottlenecks, where a single or a number of components restricts the performance or capability of an entire team. With this, leaders can determine the correct actions to execute at the correct time.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t conclude that having an effective leader can ease the process of working in a team. Working with others can be a lot of pressure. People frequently relate the idea of working under pressure to a nature of having deadlines, but this is not the problem. In the article, “Coming Through When It Matters Most,” Heidi K. Gardner writes that, “Good teams facing performance pressure generally have the time and other resources they need to get the job done, since their projects are so important. The trouble is, they stop using them effectively” (2012). Although in the beginning, people are driven to do their best from the pressure, Gardner’s research that high stakes root anxiety amongst the group and other partakers. The anxiety causes the teams to in due course rely on hard quantitative facts rather than anecdotes and comparisons of building new ideas and seeking the opinions of the other team members.
As the pressure builds, the team’s performance declines. It comes to a point where the team returns to traditional hierarchical roles and the idea of taking everyone’s opinion into consideration begins fading. Peculiarly, this shift is not visible. I myself again have experienced the same state of affairs in some of the final projects I had to complete. Fortunately, Gardner offers five solutions to the problem. The first solution proposes that having someone that is not only an expert on the technical facets of the subject, but also has a vast understanding of many others aspect of the subject can be very beneficial. The second solution advises knowing everyone’s responsibility from the start by having a kickoff meeting for every project, regardless of whether the members have worked together prior. Gardner additionally recommends checking to see if all the team members are contributing throughout the period. In this third solution, leaders can review the progress after the first or second milestones and compare each member’s contributions. The fourth solution mentions that is important to take the time to get back on track and secure the wrong people from taking control of the project. Lastly, the last solution is to make unique knowledge more acceptable to the group. Gardner writes that, “Presenting idiosyncratic information in the context of more-general frameworks can help their anxious teammates make sense of and value their contributions” (2012). In a sense, they may not be able to help directly, but they can bring a lot to the table in a more implicit behavior.
Who would of thought that working in a team could entail so much complexity. The notion that having an effective leader is key for building a high performance team is indisputable. Moreover, the behavior of the team members can also have a huge impact on the capacity of building a high performance team. Throughout the phases of the project, teams can also be affected by pressure, reducing team performance pushing the team backwards and causing it to re-establish traditional hierarchical roles. Despite all these obstacles, Gardner’s solution bred with the factors of reliability, goal-oriented, good communication skills, support, balanced roles, listening skill and respect can help in overcoming the obstruction. In my group for this DMP project, each member displayed a great amount of commitment. This played a substantial role in ensuring that the team was persistent in overcoming any challenges such as time restrains.