24 Team dynamics
Prof. Geeta Bansal
1. Module :Meaning and Processof Business Communication
2. Learning Outcome
3. Introduction :
3.1 Why Teams Work: Benefits To Organizations And Individuals
3.2 Teams Lessons In Team Building From Geese
3.3 The winning traits of effective teams
4. Types Of Teams: Self Managed Teams, Virtual Teams, Cross Functional, Quality Circles.
5. A Model Of Team Effectiveness
6. Summary
2. LEARNING OUTCOME
- After going through the lesson , you should be able to ;
- Understand the concept of teams and its benefits to both the individuals and the organizations.
- Find out the different types of teams that are emerging in today’s global workplace
- Outline the characteristics and winning traits of teams
- Find out how team effectiveness can be ensured with diversified workforce
3. INTRODUCTION
According to Tom Peters, The amount of performance improvement that is possible from turned on teams is not small it is enormous Team building has become one of the most popular and widely used interventions for improving the management of industrial and governmental organizations. Today’s organizations are utilizing teams more and more to meet customer demands and stay competitive in a changing marketplace. Teams are replacing individuals as the basic building blocks of modern organizations. The corporate sector here and abroad is gradually realizing the tremendous potential of teams enabling companies to take more creative and informed decisions and effective coordination without the need for close supervision.
Team is a group of two or more people, who interact and influence each other but has some characteristics in greater degree than ordinary groups, including a higher commitment common goals and a high degree of interdependency and interaction. In Nut shell ,A Team is a group organized to work together to accomplish a set of objectives that cannot be achieved effectively by individuals
Before proceeding further let us recall the difference between groups vs teams as discussed in the previous lesson. While a group is where two or more people having common interests and objectives are in constant interaction with each other, a team comprises of a group of people possessing complimentary skills and abilities which are put into practice for the achievement of the desired goals and objectives. Again it is important to remember that all the teams are groups but not all groups are work teams. There could be a number of work teams like a baseball team where members have set responsibilities, it could be like a football team where all the members work in absolute coordination with each other, or it could be like doubles tennis team , where members have primary yet flexible responsibilities.
3.1 WHY TEAMS WORK: BENEFITS TO ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS
The basic premise behind working in teams is to en cash the collective energies efforts abilities knowledge and creativity of the individuals to achieve the tasks which cannot be performed alone, which are quite voluminous in nature, complicated complex and are interrelated to each other. It entails several benefits to the organizations and the individuals as outlined below;
Benefits to Organizations: Encouragement to Teamwork And Collaboration
The organizations tend to benefit from the collaborated efforts of its members who are dispersed throughout the organization in the form of empowered and collaborated workforce.
Benefits to Individuals: Psychological Intimacy, Integrated Involvement
Psychological intimacy: On the other hand the individuals tend to gain from the psychological intimacy that is the natural outcome of any team. The members share a warm and affectionate relationship with each other, resulting in the feeling of security and emotional support.
Integrated involvement: The second advantage to the individuals is with regard to integrated involvement of the individuals which is achieved through the closeness experienced during the course of activities undertaken together .it gives the members a sense of social identity where their abilities are valued and recognized by others. While psychological intimacy is more emotion based, integrated involvement is more behaviorally oriented.
3.2 LESSONS IN TEAMWORK FROM GEESE
There is an age old fable which we usually share with our children to tell them the significance of teams and the role of the team leader to make them understand how important it is to be together to achieve our goals. It would be pertinent to mention here that India being a collectivistic culture relies heavily on team work which is an inherent part of our work setting and is clearly visible .
Let us recall the same to take some lessons which can be applied in our day today working in the organizations
Fact 1: As each goose flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the birds that follow. By flying in a V-formation, the whole flock adds 72% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.
Lesson: People who share a common direction/purpose and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of another.
Fact 2: When a goose flies out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.
Lesson: If we have as much sense as a goose, we stay in formation with those headed where we want to go. We are willing to accept their help and give out help to others.
Fact 3: When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies to the point position.
Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. As with geese, people are interdependent on each other’s skills, capabilities, and unique arrangements of gifts, talents, and resources. Shared leadership and interdependence gives us each a chance to lead as well as opportunities to rest.
Fact 4: The geese flying in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
Lesson: We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. In groups where there is encouragement, the production is greater. The power of encouragement is the quality of honking we seek.
Fact 5:When a goose gets sick, wounded, or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then they launch out with another formation or catch up with the flock.
Lesson: If we had as much sense as geese we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.
3.3 THE WINNING TRAITS OF EFFECTIVE TEAMS
As can be understood from the geese, team building should have the following characteristics.
1. They should have strong top management support and an effective and efficient leadership, may be level five leadership
which is replete with professional will and humility
2. Teams must be small in size, the ideal size being 6-8 members.
3. The team must specify its goals clearly in unambiguous terms before jumping into the fire (task)
4. They must have the capacity to work within limited resources and budgets.
5. The team members should have complementary skills.
6. They must have a distinct working style and methodology.
7. They must be trained to achieve what they are supposed to.
8. Last but not the least, teams must be rewarded and recognized for their performance and achievements.
Today’s organizations are utilizing teams more and more to meet customer demands and stay competitive in a changing marketplace. Some examples from team gains :
• Proctor & Gamble had 30-50% lower manufacturing costs.
• Kodak improved SPC by 228%, safety by 67%, output by 12% and decreased costs by 11%.
• GE improved productivity by 250%.
• Ford had lower defect rate than most Japanese competitors.
• General Motors relies on teams to improve its product quality.
• Domino’s pizza sends its managers to leading concept Boot Camp to learn team building skills.
4. TYPES OF TEAMS
In today’s high tech age not all the teams work together physically, there has been an emergence of virtual teams which enables the organizations to have access to expertise scattered across the globe at the touch of a screen. Another phenomenon in team work which is gaining popularity is the self managed teams and cross functional teams and quality circles which will be discussed in this section. See figure 1.
Figure 1 : Types Of Teams
1. Self Directed Or Self Managed Teams
Self directed or self Managed Teams can be defined in terms of interdependent individuals who can self regulate their behavior on relatively whole tasks. There are four foundations On which SMT’S’s rests , these are :
1. Creation Of Self Directed Teams, Giving Them Complete Responsibility For The Completion Of The Task.
2. Giving Them Complete Autonomy To Manage All The Work Related Issues By Themselves.
3. They Regulate and Control The Performance Of Their Members And Give Them Frequent Feedbacks.
4. All This Is Possible With The Implementation Of The Socio Technical Systems, Which Enables The Team Member To Enjoy, Enriched Jobs.
Socio Technical Systems Are Based On The Premise That The Organization Can Experience Higher Bouts Of Productivity With The Optimization Of The Social ( Human ) And Technical Subsystems That Are Embedded In The Work Unit.
Now It Is Important To Remember That These SMT’S are Sub Units Of The Larger Organization And Their Strategies Should Be Linked To the Organization Only.
2. Virtual Teams
A virtual team can be defined in terms of a group of interdependent members who work together on a common task while they are located across the planet.
This is a newer smarter cheaper and faster way of accomplishing the tasks being used by global organizations in the information age. The virtual teams are proving to be quite a success as it enhances team productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness apart from proving vast experiences of the global and diversified workforce who apply their local and global exposures in taking the right decisions for the organizations.
The success of virtual teams however depend upon the presence of shared understanding between the team members which is conspicuous by its absence in the virtual teams. This is more so because of the diversified workforce who are not experiencing personal touch and communication with each other, besides they share lesser team spirit and information sharing. Thus it becomes imperative for the virtual teams to increase their shared understanding by increasing their mode of communication by sharing quality and quantity of information which might be useful for the achievement of the goals.
3. Cross Functional Teams
A cross functional team is characterized by the presence of a group of people each possessing specialized skills which are applied for the achievement of the task with a high degree of interdependence.
CFT’s are different from the regular teams in the sense that they are temporary in nature as they come into existence for the achievement of some specific objectives; the organization has high performance expectations from them. Here the members possess specialized skills only e. g marketing finance, production, IT etc. and they tend to identify themselves with those functions more strongly. The success of the CFT would depend upon top management support apart from high degree of coordination understanding and support amongst the team members who should have the ability to appreciate and listen to other persons viewpoint from a different specialized functional area. This also gives the members an opportunity to slip into the shoes of the other functional area expert and gets a better understanding of his function. This obviously leads to higher performance backed by rational and informed decisions on the part of the team members.
4. Quality Circles
Quality Circle is a small group activity where in a small group of employees on voluntary basis meet periodically to discuss work-related problem. Experience with quality Circle in Japan and elsewhere is very encouraging in terms of involvement of workers in the work-related matters and psychological satisfaction
In a last few years, many companies, both in private sector and public sector have experimented with Quality Circle and the results are very encouraging.
In fact, Quality Circle is an important HRD mechanism for the involvement of workers at the grass root levels.
Organizations like JK Jute, Bharat Electronics, BHEL, HMT etc. and some service Organizations like banks have experimented with Quality Circles in recent years.
FIGURE 2 : QUALITY CIRCLES
The types of teams discussed in the above section are not exhaustive in nature , there are other types of teams as well, but these are the most prominent ones that you might encounter .
5. A MODEL OF TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
This model of team effectiveness is an outcome of previously conducted team focused studies by researchers who feel that this model can be used by practitioners across the organizations to enhance team effectiveness . The model has outlined three most important variables which influence team effectiveness: these are teamwork processes including team defining processes, action processes and interpersonal processes which if managed properly will result in high levels of team performance, their well being and job satisfaction. Of course with the presence of the moderators in the form of creating a lot of task interdependence and ensuring an ideal team size. All these processes will in turn lead to success of the teams , which will further lead to the creation of high performing mental sates called team potency, team cohesion and team mental models.
Let us review all these processes to understand their contribution in enhancing team effectiveness in the organizations. See figure 3.
Figure 3 : A Model of Team Effectiveness
TEAM WORK PROCESSES
The model of team effectiveness as exhibited above shows that team effectiveness can be achieved through effective management of these three team work processes which are interdependent on each other in the sense that engaging the team in setting up the team’s mission , strategy and goals will result in higher tem effectiveness and also improved action processes in the form of better team monitoring and coordination, which will in turn reduce the level of conflict of any nature and will motivate and manage the emotional sides of the team members.
1. Team Defining Process: Engaging members in the articulation of teams mission, strategy and goals.
Setting Mission: Entails Clarifying The Reasons For The Team To Come Into Existence, Describing Its Raison d’etre ( Reason For Being ) And Its Core Activity.
Team Strategy: Outlining The Road Map Which Will Enable Them To Sail Through The Current State To The Desired State Of Existence.
Team Goals: Outlining The Specifications Of The Quantity, Quality And The Time Limits Within Which The Task Is To Be Accomplished.
2. Action Processes: Implementing team goals through regular reviews, continuous alignment of goals and coaching and guiding and directing the team
Implementation: After the careful outlining of the teams mission and strategy, the next logical step is careful tracking which involves starting the implementation, coordination and having team support behaviors. It involves seeing through the tasks and ensuring that there are no deviations in the decided path and if any, corrective action should be taken immediately.
Coordinating: involves ensuring that the efforts of all the team members are directed in the same direction
Team monitoring and backup behaviors: involves that the members act as coaches to each other and assist each other in the completion of the tasks if required.
3. Interpersonal Processes; Actions taken by members to manage interpersonal relations at the workplace encompassing motivating, resolving conflicts and managing emotions of the team members.
Motivation: can be enhanced by the presence of top management support, absence of conflicts in team members, reducing the inequities in reward systems, right scheduling the tasks and completing the task on time. Apart from these, team motivation can be enhanced through introducing high levels of involvement, communication and trust of the members.
Conflict Management: Enhancing mutual understanding of the team members will lead to more creative and innovative environment in the organization.
Emotional Management: Encouraging the team members to be emotionally intelligent by being aware of the emotions of self and others at the workplace and managing destructive emotions will definitely enhance team effectiveness.
Moderators: There are two variables that impact the team effectiveness, these are Task Interdependence and Team Size.
1.Task Interdependence: is ensured done when the member’s tasks are designed and lined up in the manner that the task of one member is dependent upon the other team members inputs.
2.Team Size: It is an established fact that small ( 3-4 ) and medium sized teams( 5-7) perform better than the larger teams (8-14), hence an ideal team size should be maintained for maximum efficiency and outputs by the team members.
Team Effectiveness : The final outcome of all the above processes is team effectiveness which results in the output which meets the expectations with regard to the standards , quantity and quality while at the same time enhancing the members well being and satisfaction and also ensuring capacity building in the members.
1.Team Performance: The team’s high performance is the result of effective and efficient teams which is clearly visible in the organizations performance in terms of sales, growth , profits, innovative and differentiated products by the company.
2.Employee Wellbeing Satisfaction: a workplace which aims at maximizing the integration of the employee goals of being healthy and safe and the organization’s objectives of profitability and productivity creates a psychologically healthy workplace, which in turn leads to a productive and committed workforce.
3.Job Satisfaction: research has established positive relationship between team work and job satisfaction which in turn is an outcome of well managed team processes encompassing well defined team processes action processes and interpersonal processes.
4.Capacity Building: working in interdependent teams also entails the benefits to the individuals in terms of their capacity building as team members tend to learn from each other in long associations during team work.
Emergent states of team behavior
When the teams work together for a considerable period of time, there is every likelihood that there are three emergent states that appear in terms of increased team cohesiveness, increased team potency and the emergence of mental models.
Team cohesion: It can be understood in terms of increased cohesiveness and bonding amongst the team members which tends to develop naturally during their long interactions with each other.
Team potency: It can be understood in terms of increased belief of the team members that they can perform better as teams across various in the organization.
Team mental models: It can be understood in terms of increased and shared mutual understanding between the team members which is usually implicit in nature and enhances team’s effectiveness.
The model thus discussed above can prove to be quite helpful for the practicing mangers in leading successful and effective teams.
SUMMARY
In the lesson we have discussed about the meaning of teams, types of teams , why teams are important and also outlined an effective model for enhancing team effectiveness.
Team can be defined as a group of individuals with diverse capabilities and skills who come together to achieve the organizational goals. In today’s fast paced global environment, we have different types of teams ranging from the self managed and directed teams, to cross functional teams to quality circle to the increasing emergence of virtual teams in this digital age. A model of team effectiveness has also been discussed. The model has outlined three most important variables which influence team effectiveness: these are teamwork processes including team defining processes, action processes and interpersonal processes which if managed properly will result in high levels of team performance, their well being and job satisfaction, of course with the presence of the moderators in the form of creating a lot of task interdependence and ensuring an ideal team size .All these processes will in turn lead to success of the teams , which will further lead to the creation of high performing mental sates called team potency, team cohesion and team mental models.
Thus Team work is the mantra for today’s organizations and has become a way of corporate life.
Learn More:
- L.M. Prasad, Management Process and Organizational, Sultan Chand & Sons.
- Ahmed Abad (1972),”Management and Organizational Development”, Rachna Prakashan, N.Delhi
- Arnold and Feidman, “Organization Behaviour”, McGraw Hill International, New York.
- Apple White, Phillip B. (1965), Organizational Behavior”, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
- Argyris C (1957), “Personality and Organization”, Harper and Raw, New York
- Davis Keith and Scott William G. (1969), “Human Relations and Organizational Behaviour: Readings and Comments”, McGraw Hill, New York.
- Harrell, T.W. (1972), “Industrial Psychology”, McGraw Hill, New York.
- Likert R (1961), “The Human Organization”, McGraw Hill, New York
- Mintzberg H. (1973), “The Nature of Managerial Work”, Harper and Row, New York