22 Team Management in library and information centre

Dr Kshema Prakash

I. Objectives

The objectives of the unit/module are to:

Elaborate the concept of a team;

Describe the procedure of what and how to build a team;

Discuss the concept of team management in general and role of a leader in team management;

Explain about the teams and their management in libraries; and utilization, merits and demerits of teams

II. Learning Outcomes

After going through this unit/module, you will learn the concept and importance of a team, team building process, team management in general and role of a leader in team management, teams and team management in libraries; and advantages and disadvantages of team and team management.

III. Structure

1. Introduction

2. Team and team management

2.1. Definition of “team”

2.2. Features of “team”

2.3. Team management

3. Team building and management

3.1. Important points to be considered while building a team

3.2. Types of team players

3.3. Types of teams

3.4. The essentials of team building and team management

4. Role of a team leader

5. Application of team management in library & information centres

6. Advantages and disadvantages of teams

7. Summary

8. References

1. Introduction

Managers are required in all the activities of organizations: budgeting, designing, selling, creating, financing, accounting, and artistic presentation. Larger the size of an organization, more the number of managers needed. Everyone employed in an organization is affected by management principles, processes, policies, and practices as they are either a manager or a subordinate to a manager, and usually they are both. Teams refer to the administration of a group of people assembled to work on a particular project or to perform a particular function within an organization. Team management typically involves setting team priorities and performance objectives, reviewing performance and methods employed, and spearheading the team’s decision making process.

We all have to work with people. These may be loosely known as a team, department, squad, crew—even a posse. The mistake a lot of managers make is to think they are managing people. They think that people are their tools. Make the people successful and you have the successful manager—or so the theory goes. So what is a team and how does it operate? If we are going to be successful managers, we have to know the answers to these questions.

In view of the above, in this module, we will introduce you to the concept of team management, need for team management in libraries and information organizations and benefits of team management.

2. Team and Team Management

There are some tasks which cannot be done alone. Individuals need to come together to discuss work related activities and other things among themselves and work together towards the realization of common goals. The individuals forming a team should ideally think more or less on the same lines and should have similar interests and objective. People with absolutely different tastes cannot form a team. Their goals have to be the same. Every team is formed to achieve a predefined goal and it is the responsibility of each and every member to contribute his/her level best and accomplish the assigned task within the stipulated time frame. The team members must complement each other and come to each other’s help whenever required. Individual performances do not matter much in a team and every individual should strive hard and work in unison.

2.1 Definition of “Team”

According to Susan M. Heathfield “a team is any group of people organized to work together interdependently and cooperatively to meet the needs of their customers by accomplishing a purpose and goals”.

A team can also be defined as “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable” – Katzenback & Smith.

2.2 Features of “Team”

– A team is a permanent task force or committee,

– Teams are meant especially for conducting tasks that are high in complexity, and

– Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort.

2.3 Team Management

Team management refers to the techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common objective. Team members need to learn how to help one another; help other team members realize their true potential and create an environment that allows everyone to go beyond their limitations. Team management typically involves setting team priorities and performance objectives, reviewing performance and methods employed and spearheading the teams’ decision making process.

A team thus is not just a collection of people but is an organization with its own dynamics, qualities, and conventions. And team management refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common goal, i.e., team.

3. Team Building and Management

As aforesaid, a team is a group of people working towards a common goal. Team Building is the process of enabling that group of people to reach their goal. Decision to build a team requires cautious analysis to study the level of complexity, interdependence and objectives of the tasks. Team Building is an ongoing process.

Apart from identifying and roping in the potential team members, the stages involved in team building also include classifying the goal, identifying the inhibiters and removing them. Team building will lead to good communication with participants as team members and individuals. A team relies heavily on collective work products, while single leader units depend heavily on individual work products.

3.1 Important points to be considered while building a team

– The team has to set goals and objectives as to why it has been set up;

– Define roles and identify right team members;

– Once an idea is finalised what to achieve with team, identify the roles need to fill

and types of people for those roles;

– Ensure space for functioning, budget, hardware and software needs and other resources needed;

– Formulate guidelines to work smoothly; and

– Define the method of members working in a team.

The value base of a team lies in interpersonal trust, concern for addressing issues and problems. The team members not only share expectations for accomplishing group tasks, but trust and support one another. Teams require various resources and supporting conditions in order to be effective. Unless and until the top management is committed to making teams effective, these resources may not be forthcoming when needed. A team is motivated primarily by its purpose for performance and depends heavily on collective work products.

There are many stages to build a team. In each of these stages, basic orientations are to be induced to members. They are: a) Orientation to goal and tasks, and b) orientation to people and relationships.

The first stage is building awareness and forming the group. The members are appraised of the desired goals, tasks to be performed by individual member, the interconnectedness of tasks to the achievement of the goals. The desired relationship-orientation lies in one’s preference to be a member of the team, acceptance of the team members, the resolving of dependencies, and creating cohesiveness to achieving goals.

The second stage is one of facing problems, conflicts and facing the realities. Intrapersonal task conflicts may be resolved by task and role clarification and by building confidence in one’s abilities through the necessary socio-emotional support viz., training, counselling, etc. Interpersonal conflicts can be resolved by streamlining and focussing on the positive side of the conflicts. Openness, sharing of each other’s concerns, improving one’s listening and communication skills will enhance the relationship-orientation. At this stage dealing with the feelings of people effectively becomes important to achieve clarity of purpose and overcoming other problems.

The third stage is cooperation. Cooperation can be made possible when individuals are clearer about their respective roles and understand different ways of achieving the group goal. Relationships are managed by mutual trust, openness in communication and cooperative behaviour. The relationship-orientation is interpersonal trust, a feeling of belongingness and collaboration to the group.

The fourth and the last stage is concentrated on goal achievement. This stage is related with generation of ideas, decision making and problem solving. Short-term and long-term goals are to be earmarked. The task-orientation is decision making, goal attainment and change implementation. The relationship orientation is focussed in the direction of having a high morale. Reaching short-term goals adds to the individual and the group’s trust in the commitment to further accomplishments and sense of pride and responsibility. This stage is related to performance and result orientation.

After the successful implementation of goals, the group may review its performance which could be a good feedback for future. In team building a leader needs to exhibit greater transactional skills in the initial stages till the team-building outcomes such as awareness, clarification, belongingness and acceptance. Later, as the team matures, the leader needs to exhibit greater transformational skills to bring about team-building outcomes such as achievement of set goals and objectives, pride and satisfaction.

3.2 Types of team players

Successful teams are made up of a collection of effective individuals. These are people who are experienced, have problem solving ability, openness to addressing the problem, and are action-oriented. In order to make a positive difference, teams should be constituted with individuals who are good team players to ensure the success of achieving set goals and objectives. In addition, the composition of a team shall provide for flexibility of opinions and roles to include a facilitator in the role of a process consultant, a practical down to earth person, an innovative and a strategic thinker.

However, for all practical purposes, a team should comprise of a healthy mix of individuals with different capabilities and capacities. Let us term them as A, B and C types of players. Human Resource department plays a major role in identifying employee groups as the categorisation will be based on the individual’s performance. If they exceed the set goals, then they will be ‘A players’; if expectations are met, then ‘B’ and if unmet, then ‘C players’. Most leaders are highly motivated ‘A players’; they tend to undervalue ‘B’ players who have a different world view. The ‘A players’ are star-performers. They are the employees who put their professional lives ahead of their personal ones because they are striving to accomplish more or move upward in the organisation. The ‘B players’ are competent, steady performers who balance their work and personal lives while still doing the bulk of the work of the organisation. While, the “C players are the underperformers who are not achieving enough to satisfy. As an organization cannot have a majority of A and B types of players and opt to totally do away with C type of players, the organization should bear in mind that whatever teams are created for various tasks from time to time, a healthy mix of all these three types of players are required and are to be balanced. It not only provides for good leader-follower hierarchy in the team but may also motivate the underperformers to do well. Hence, to realise the highest returns on human capital, an organization must recognise who their A, B and C players are.

Teams involve a high degree of interdependence among members. Therefore, the members must be highly skilled and experienced in their respective area of specialisation. The utilization of unique expertise of the members must be explored in a team.

The interdependence of members is much greater in teams than in groups and the members of teams must feel empowered to share role in their own areas of expertise. Teams can be called effective when they meet three types of performance criteria viz.,

a) how well does their output meet the user needs, b) whether the team members increase their capacity to work effectively with one another, and c) whether the working team creates member satisfaction.

A perfect team member is one, who:

– Is committed to group goals or tasks and feels his or her team membership;

– Is cooperative, friendly and concerned about others;

– Is involved in patient hearing of others, displays empathy, is understanding, and values the ideas of others;

– Identifies and respects individual differences;

– Includes others in the decision-making process; and

– Deals positively during interpersonal conflicts and acknowledges them.

3.3 Types of teams

We can broadly classify the types of teams into three categories. These can be:

– Functional or Vertical;

– Cross-functional or Horizontal; and

– Self-managed or Self-directed.

They can be used for different purposes viz., to create new products, complete specific projects, ensure quality, or replace operating departments.

Functional or Vertical team

It is a team in which work is carried out within a functionally organised group, in which people work together to carry out the same or similar functions. Functional teams perform specific organizational functions and include members from several vertical levels of the hierarchy. In other words, a functional team is composed of a manager and his or her subordinates for a particular functional area. Accounting, personnel, and purchasing departments are examples of functional teams. Groups of people from the same work area or department meet on a regular basis to analyze customer needs, solve problems, provide members with support, promote continuous improvement, and share information.

Functional teams are traditional corporate teams often coinciding with a whole department or part of it. Functional teams are needed because a lot of developmental work does not fit the normal working practices of project teams. Generally, these groups are collection of individuals who work individually or in groups of two or three to do small and relatively independent jobs.

Cross-functional or Horizontal teams

These teams are made up of experts in various specialties (or functions) working together on various organizational tasks. Team members come from such departments as research and development, design, engineering, marketing, and distribution. This is another example of self-managed teams. These teams are often empowered to take decisions without the approval of management.

These have become popular due to the increasing need for coordination of various functions within an organization and to promote the exchange of knowledge and practice across disciplines and functions. A cross-functional team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility. A more specific definition by Holland (2000) views a cross-functional team as ‘a group of people who apply different skills, with a high degree of interdependence to ensure the effective delivery of a common organisational objective’.

Cross-functional teams are particularly suitable for creative activities such as creating new product. The main advantage of cross-functional teams is their heterogeneity in technical background, age and values. These teams tend to have lower group cohesiveness and job satisfaction and higher turnover. The success of cross-functional teams depends upon setting reachable goals, taking commitment from team members, framing rules for team activities, effective management of relationships among people, and ensuring success and confidence in team effort. Cross-functional teams assist in the planning and implementation of activities and projects.

Self-managed or Self-directed Work Teams

These are one of the forms of team building. In a self-managed team, a group of employees are made into a team responsible for a set of total task functions. They take decisions concerning a varied range of issues that govern the task, viz., team morale, division of roles, quality issues, managing conflicts, planning for resources, etc. Employees have utmost degree of autonomy and control over their immediate behaviour. Self-directed work teams, or self-managed teams usually operate without managers and are responsible for complete work processes or segments that deliver products or services to external or internal customers. Self-directed work teams (SDWTs) are designed to give employees a feeling of “ownership” of the whole job/activity/product/project.

No matter what type of team is formed, the benefits of teamwork are many, including synergy and increased skills, knowledge, productivity, flexibility, and commitment. Among the other benefits are increased job satisfaction, employee empowerment, and improved quality and organizational effectiveness.

Self-managed work teams are known or meant for goal setting, shared leadership for team meetings, trust among members, individual and mutual accountability, result oriented performance and proactive nature in problem solving. They have the advantage of promoting collaborative work relationships among employees. These teams have the capability to think, innovation and pushing responsibility down to the lowest level.

The self-managed teams also contribute to informal learning and teaching among their own members. It is more conducive to applied learning than a simulated classroom environment. Self-management in a team needs knowledge of each other’s abilities and complex learning, personalities, attitudes and work behaviour. Therefore, prior to the formation of any team, individual member is required to be appraised of the knowledge and skills of other members. Self-managed teams solve problems at lowest level and complete tasks with little supervision.

3.4 The essentials of team building and team management

A team’s behaviour is characterized by the following elements:

– A goal which is commonly decided by its members;

– Interdependence, where team members accept to work together and support each other;

– Commitment, to reach the set goals through group effort; and

– Accountability, where individual member is accountable to top management for achieving or reaching the goal.

According to Frank LaFasto, when building a team, the following dynamics are fundamental to the team’s success.

Team relationships: For a team to be successful the members of the team must be able to give and receive feedback.

Team problem solving: An effective team depends on how focused and clear the goal of the team is. A relaxed, comfortable and accepting environment and finally, open and honest communication.

Team leadership: Effective team leadership depends on leadership competencies. A competent leader is: focused on the goal, ensures a collaborative climate, builds confidence of team members, sets priorities, demonstrates sufficient “know-how” and manages performance through feedback.

Organizational environment: The climate and culture of the organization must be conductive to team behaviour.

For an organization to have a successful team and manage it to achieve its specific goals, the following essential components have to be set in place:

– A clear vision and mission;

– Efficient leadership;

– Right mix of team members;

– Training; and

– Motivation and appreciation.

Let us look at each one of them in detail.

Vision: An inspiring vision motivates the team members to achieve the goal. It need not be grand or necessarily innovative always, but it has to be sensible and clear. The team has to be made clear about the vision, the mission, the goal and its outcome. The team has to be assured that it has been built for a common purpose and each team member is supposed to work towards a common goal, so that the team members do not ward off in different directions. The team also has to be notified ahead and addressed for the possible hindrances, obstacles and trade-offs. Encouraging autonomy within the team members will guide them to make the right decision for themselves instead of waiting and depending on others for support.

Efficient leadership: When managing a team of people, the right leadership style has to be adapted so that it meets each person’s needs. In general, there are four types of approaches: directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating. Depending on the level of the employee’s competence and commitment, the right style or a mix of these styles has to be opted.

Right team: As discussed above in the “Types of team players”, choosing a right mix for a team is very essential. It is not good for the team to have everyone with the same skills and perspective. A good team comprises of people with varying technical and functional expertise who bring different approaches to problem-solving and decision-making tasks.

Training: Training plays a crucial role in the success of a team. Both on-job and off-site trainings are essential for a team to achieve desired goals, as the team members may always not be armed with requisite skills for the team’s mission. Lack of training will entail the team members to de-motivation and underperformance. The employees should always be trained for right skills.

Motivation and appreciation: One of the key responsibilities of a manager as an effective leader is to inspire the team, to motivate them to give their best on the job, make difficult changes, and overcome major obstacles. Employees desire and deserve to be motivated in different ways. While achievers are motivated by their own accomplishments, the steady players are often motivated by timely appreciation and recognition. The underperformers may require different kind of motivation like rewards. Employees who are slow to react can be frustrating, especially in environments where it is imperative to respond and adapt to change quickly. While they need support and coercion to move ahead, rewards for their small achievements often prove to be great propellers.

4. Role of a Team Leader

A team leader is one who plays an important role in guiding the team members and motivating them to stay focussed. He also sets a goal and objective for the team. The team leader invites suggestions from one and all and discusses the issues in an open forum for setting the goal. He will make his team members well aware of their roles and responsibilities. He shall assign duties and responsibilities as per their interest and specialisation for them to accept the challenges willingly.

The first principle of team building is to lead a team effectively; a leader must establish leadership with each member. Most effective team leaders build their relationships of trust and loyalty. Team leader will be impartial and support one and all equally. As a team leader constant motivation for his team members extended so that they perform even better the next time.

A team leader is someone who provides guidance, direction and leadership to a group of other individuals for the purpose of achieving a key result. The team leader monitors the quantitative and qualitative result that is to be achieved. You have to be able to work with other executives, to mobilize their cooperation and to leverage the capabilities of their organizations and their people in the pursuit of the objectives and fulfilment of responsibilities.

As a team leader, building an effective team is important. Discussing team values and goals; considering each employee’s ideas as valuable, to be clear in communication; encouraging team members to share information helps as a leader to be a successful in building team.

Team leaders are also responsible for facilitating the information processing activities engaged by the team as it accomplishes its task. The most potent leadership processes that foster collective information processes include encouraging and coaching team members to engage in problem identification, diagnosis, solution generation, and solution selection activities (Kozlowski et al., 1996).

What specific leader behaviours facilitate this team learning process? Tannenbaum et al. (1998) offer the following prescriptive leadership activities (pp. 253–259):

– Provide a self-critique early in the post action review.

– Accept feedback and ideas from others.

– Avoid person-oriented feedback; focus on task-focused feedback.

– Provide specific, constructive suggestions when providing feedback.

– Encourage active team member participation during briefings and reviews and not simply state one’s own observations and interpretations of the team’s performance.

– Guide briefings to include discussions of ‘‘teamwork’’ processes, as well as ‘‘task work.’’

– Refer to prior pre-briefs and team performance when conducting subsequent debriefs.

– Vocalize satisfaction when individual team members or the team as a whole demonstrate improvements.

A team leader creates a positive ambience at the work place. In case of conflict, he tries to resolve the fight immediately. As a leader, he owns mistakes of his team members and plays the role of a mentor to extend his talent and share experience. The team leader is the face of every team as well as the organization. He shall set an example to others.

Contrary to the popular belief, teams are not always the best way to get work done. Problems with coordination, competition, and motivation can undermine even the most well designated and expertly managed teams. The success of a team depends on the leader’s efficiency to overcome barriers to effective team functioning. The following points have to be kept in mind by every leader for effective team management:

Designate a naysayer: Usually when a team is formed, the group members are herded to think in the similar direction and perspective. Though this is good for the team’s goal, it is desirable that one of the team members plays the role of a devil’s advocate, who can challenge the ideas of the group. It will avoid any possible pitfalls in the project.

Keep the team small: Research shows that people’s efforts quickly diminish as team size increases. This is because team members reduce their input when they feel less responsible for the output. Hence, teams should always be as small as possible. This may mean including slightly fewer members than the task at hand requires. If reducing the size of a current team is not an option, dividing up a complex task into manageable bits, where every member of the team is accountable for one part of it, can be considered.

Keep the team together: Established teams work better than those whose composition frequently changes. Though the idea of swapping team members out is a good from the point of view that every employee will get to learn new skills, frequent changes or swapping out will diminish the effectiveness of teams.

Model collaborative behaviour: As children ape the elders’ behaviour, so employees also emulate what they see at the top. Leaders should visibly work together and even fill in for each other on occasions that demand such collaboration and cooperation.

Conflict management: Conflict is a ubiquitous element of an organization that runs across the teams as well. Conflict is not always necessarily bad. It can be constructive as well as destructive. It is imperative for a manager and a leader to identify the nature of conflict and understand its magnitude and gravity to address it effectively.

5. Application of Team Management in Library & Information Centres

Management is related to make things happen, organizing people, meeting competition, finishing tasks and leading people. This is also a fact as far as library management is concerned. Management is different from administration. Management makes the polices and plans implemented which is laid down by the administration.

Being a successful library team leader means identifying, allowing for and managing personalities, differing working styles, organizational procedures and management factors. Through effective planning and developing key competencies, a library manager or leader can transform a team striving for success into a performance driven team that achieves excellence. It also helps sharing information from within and outside the library to ensure that effects and interrelationships are identified and addressed.

The library functions include acquisitions, resource building, managing physical and virtual collection and ensure smooth accessibility, provide on demand services, retrieval and dissemination of information. The library management comprises of top, middle and first line managers. Librarian is a top-level person; deputy librarian is in middle and assistant librarian in the first line of management. Commitment, culture and environment are being maintained by a librarian. Coordination among the departments, its planning and strategy implementation are handled by middle level management.

Formulating objectives and strategy, motivating and encouraging team member to accomplish the set objectives is the job of a librarian who is the leader in library team management. There are liaison roles for instance; deals with booksellers, database vendors, library professional bodies, system specialists and in-house committees are also taken care by the librarian. At middle level, library managers provide information related to new information products, new policies, new technology, new development, etc. to its users.

According to Henry Mint berg, managers engage in four decision sub-roles: as an entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. Librarian acts as an entrepreneur when he focuses on a new service, extends a service and funding for projects. He functions as a disturbance handler when implements change, reducing costs, and cutting workforce and as a trouble shooter in solving problems from time to time. He allocates resources when budgets are prepared and deploys staff for different tasks. As a team leader, librarian negotiates projects, schedules, goals, outcomes and promotes services as a part of routine activity of the library.

Technical skills are being displayed by librarian when taking vital decisions, viz. identification and selection of appropriate sources for resources development, databases, identifying of useful books, serials and selective multimedia resources or materials and choice of appropriate library automation software. Managing human skills to function effectively with colleagues, peers, users and management within the organization also forms a part of the leader. The librarian as a chief executive at the helm of affairs clearly visualizes the role of the library, value the library can provide in meeting the objectives and also be able to communicate his vision of the library to his own colleagues as well as to the team members. He has to identify or recognize, understand complex problems and perspectives. The ability to motivate team members to deliver results is an essential prerequisite for librarians. The capability to discuss meaningfully in professional and organizational environments, and able to face the competition are needed. Skills to deal effectively, frame rules and standards via suitable mechanisms of counselling and punishment are essential for effective management. Librarian should be aware of and be sensitive to the general and the specific environment of the organization of which the library is a part. He should also understand the needs of customers, their information needs, suppliers, local internet connectivity to constitute some of the specific environments.

Team Management can be implemented to maximise the use of resources in libraries and their value to learning, teaching and research and to ensure they are accessible and searchable. All organisations are complex systems. Depending upon factors such as the size, availability of other resources like technology and manpower the team activity can be taken up. Various managerial systems and processes need to be designed in order to have effective team management and perform managerial functions like problem solving, decision-making, communicating and leadership in the face of this complexity. Formal rules, policies, etc. are created for governing the managerial functions, process and organisational systems.

The library management leader has to plan, decide, control, lead, devise strategy and also manage change, when needed. Planning involves defining the goals and creating methods to achieve them. In team management, members have to put forth greater effort for a well thought out plan, because plans come out with specific courses of action and feedback mechanisms. It encourages persistence in the pursuit of longer term objectives of the organization. Planning also helps to accomplish goals and encourage activities to be directed and cautions when there is distraction from goals. With the help of task strategies, milestones and benchmarks could be worked out in achieving set goals. Librarians can make greater impact when plans have been devised carefully. Planning helps in developing commitment, formulate action plans, track progress and maintain smooth functioning.

For application of team management, the organisational processes and controls, their features such as depth, flexibility and complexity need to be explored. Various activities and processes are subject to ambiguity, uncertainty and the possibility of unfavourable outcomes. Assignment of work to people, allotment place for specific activities and determining procedures will help team members. A strategic management approach to effectiveness provides guidelines to achieve team goals. Financial management and quantitative techniques such as statistical data, project management techniques and operations research help team management in achieving high levels of efficiency in their performance. Contingency management which focuses on a range of alternative styles, preferences and choices are also available for the team. In a team everyone has a potential for development, learning and choice, then collective human effort is organised in a democratic manner and fairness, so as to support and facilitate the effort to realise the team member potential. This would lead to satisfaction and a feeling of effectiveness for the team.

Team members have to adjust to changing environments and the corresponding changes and have to decide how to respond to anything, for example, a situation, a person or a proposition, based on their perception of what is happening around them, what it means for them and how it is going to affect them.

In a typical academic setting, the Library Management Team (LMT) constitutes an administrative advisory group to the University Librarian. Its functions include:

Structuring a process for long-range strategic planning for the library in the context of university- wide planning processes.
Coordinating the identification of funding needs and preparation of budget requests within the context of the university’s budget process, and other funding opportunities.
Participating in internal resource allocation decisions.
Sharing information from within and outside the library to ensure that effects and interrelationships are identified and addressed.
Establishing task forces and working groups of library faculty and staff to address specific projects and needs.

The time commitment to serve in this role typically involves:

– Attending the LMT meetings.

– Reviewing the LMT agenda and materials distributed in advance in preparation for the meetings.

– Completing any special tasks as assigned by LMT.

– Serving on the Staff Training and Development Committee.

– Convening library-wide staff meetings including establishing meeting time, setting agendas and coordinating follow up activities (typically once per semester or more often, if necessary.)

– Consulting with staff to identify staff concerns for presentation at LMT.

The Senior Management Team takes the lead in setting strategic directions for all aspects of the library’s services and operations. It meets regularly to discuss the business of the library and agree priorities in achieving its overall goals. The librarian is responsible for developing strategic plans. The plan will emphasize on clarity, how library will serve the customers, what relative position it will have in the organization. Vision is one or more short and inspiring statements of what library wants to achieve at some point in the future.

Middle management develops and carries on with tactical plans to achieve the library’s mission. These plans specify how a library utilizes resources, budges and manpower to achieve specific goals within its own mission.

The development of teams and teamwork has grown dramatically in all types of organizations for one simple reason. No one person has the ability to deliver the kinds of products and services required in today’s highly competitive marketplace. Organizations must depend on the cooperative nature of many teams to create successful ventures and outcomes. Mostly libraries have an acquisition, circulation and resource sharing policies. A well documented policy reveals why it exists and the outcomes that is intended to be achieved.

Decision making is important and fundamentally involves the choice of available solution. It is an area of study consisting of many disciplines. Considerable theoretical and empirical research provides a better understanding of the dynamics of decision making. Intuition will help in decision making which depends on past experiences and works well in routine decisions.

6. Advantages and Disadvantages of Teams

In view of the above discussion, the advantages of disadvantages of teams in libraries and information organisations are:

Advantages	Disadvantages
Team-based organizations filter decision making down to all levels of management,while traditionally structured organizations rely on top management to make decisions.	Team-based organizations value team performance over individual performance.
It requires that all employees participate in the decision making process.	Lack of individual focus can be a disadvantage of team-based organization.
Employees feel they are part of the total organization rather than members of an individual department.	Motivating individuals in a team-based organization can be more challenging as participants seek recognition for their individual contributions.
They run more efficiently and effectively.	They are decentralised rather than hierarchical.
Teams create an environment of support and propel people towards implementation	Lack of centralisation is a disadvantage of team-based organization.
A team environment can boost the confidence of individual talent allowing them to do their best work.	Decentralisation can lead to coordination and control problems for management.
Team membership can provide social facilitation and support for difficult tasks and situations.	Conflict may develop between team members or other teams.
Greater autonomy, variety, identity, significance, and feedback for employees can occur.	Less flexibility may be experienced in personnel replacement or transfer.
Teams can foster greater cooperation among team members	Teams may be time-consuming due to need for coordination and consensus.

7. Summary

A team is a permanent task force or committee. Teams are meant for working towards a common goal. Team management refers to techniques, processes and tools for organizing and coordinating a group of individuals working towards a common objective. Team building will lead to good communication with participants as team members and individuals. Successful teams are made up of a collection of effective individuals.

There are four stages in team building: 1) building awareness and forming the group,

2) facing problems, conflicts and facing the realities, 3) cooperation, and 4) goal achievement. In team building, a leader needs to exhibit greater transactional skills in the initial stages. The team-building outcomes such as awareness, clarification, belongingness and acceptance. There are different types of teams, viz. functional team, cross-functional team and self-directed or self-managed work teams. The benefits of teamwork are: increase in individual skills, knowledge, productivity, flexibility and commitment.

A team leader is a person who plays a vital role in guiding the team members and motivating them to stay focussed. Leadership is the process of influencing others to achieve set goals. Leaders take risks, long term decisions and convince team members of the correctness of those decisions. The success of a team depends on the leader’s efficiency to overcome barriers to effective team functioning. Team leaders are also responsible for facilitating the information processing activities engaged by the team as it accomplishes its task. Being a successful library team leader means identifying, allowing for and managing personalities, differing working styles, organization procedures and management factors. Team management can be implemented to maximise the use of resources in library and their value to learning, teaching and research. Team management has its own advantages and disadvantages too.

8. References

Adair, J. (2011). Leadership and Motivation. New Delhi, Kogan Page.
Evans, G.E. and Ward, P.L. (2007). Management Basics for Information Professionals, 2nd Ed. New York, Neal-Schuman Publishers.
Harvard Business Review. www.hbr.org.
Robbins, S. et al. (2009). Organizational Behavior, 13th Ed. New Delhi, Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.

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A balance of extroverts and introverts à Good team;
Most good teams have one analytic thinker on board;
All team members are not created equal;
Teams perform better when they include both men and women;
Like-minded thinking or diversity? Both are essential; and
Work is never evenly divided.

Interesting Facts

Team Building is the process of enabling that group of people to reach their goal.
There are many stages to build a team. In each of these stages basic orientations are to be induced to members. They are: a) Orientation to goal and tasks, and b) orientation to people and relationships.
Teams could be: Functional or Vertical; Cross-functional or Horizontal; and Self-managed or Self-directed
Successful team management requires the following components:

A clear vision and mission;
Efficient leadership;
Right mix of team members;
Training; and
Motivation and appreciation.