In Mixed Company Chapter Six

1
In Mixed Company Chapter Six

• Developing Effective Teams

2
Level of Cooperation The Working Together
Imperative

• Teams typically manifest a higher level of
  cooperation than standard groups.
• The essence of all teams is collaborative
  interdependence.

3
Diversity of Skills Looking for Complementary

• Teams usually consist of members with more
  diverse skills than those found in standard
  groups.
• Teams typically have a stronger group identity
  than standard groups. Team members have a sense
  of cohesiveness and oneness that exceeds the
  typical, standard, small group.

4
Team Members

• Assembling the optimum combination of individuals
  is the starting point for team building.
• There is no solid evidence that any specific
  personality trait such as conscientiousness,
  extroversion, agreeableness, and so forth likely
  contributes significantly to team success.

5
Egocentrism

• Those who communicate egocentrically reveal the
  me-first attitude that promotes team friction
  and weakens team cohesiveness.
• We-oriented team members typically are more
  inclined than egocentric members to improve their
  own performance and to enhance other members
  performance.

6
Cynicism

• Teams are a system, so even a single member can
  demoralize an entire team. The attitude that most
  destroys teamwork and team effectiveness is
  cynicism.
• Cynics focus on the negative, predicting failure
  and looking for someone or something to
  criticize, sapping the energy from the team with
  their negativity.

7
Team Member Removal

• The principal candidates for expulsion from a
  team should be those who persistently display
  incompetent communication, especially if they
  show no interest in improving, and those with
  egocentrical and cynical attitudes that disrupt
  team relationships.

8
Experience and Problem-Solving Abilities Core
Competencies

• Although the problem-solving potential of
  technical experience is necessary for team
  effectiveness, other elements are also required.

9
Guidelines for Managing Membership Diversity

1. Accept diversity as an advantage, not a
   disadvantage for the team.
2. Choose team members for their complementary skill
   and knowledge but also for their similarity of
   attitude.
3. Choose a superordinate, transcending goal to
   bridge differences.
4. Be respectful of all team members and avoid
   cultural bias.
5. Keep communication open and solicit feedback.

10
Communication Training Developing Members
Competence

• Training must be an integral part of the team
  equation for success.
• Training programs that teach team members
  specific communication knowledge and skills
  relevant to the teams task are effective in
  enhancing teamwork and team effectiveness.

11
Clear Goals Everyone on the Same Page

• A few clear goals that each team member can
  recite from memory are preferable to goals that
  are too numerous for members to recall.

12
Cooperative Goals Interdependent Challenges

• Cooperative goals enhance team performance.
• Superordinate goals, a specific kind of
  cooperative goal that overrides differences that
  members may have because it supersedes less
  important competitive goals is particularly
  effective for developing teamwork.

13
Challenging Goals Denting the Universe

• Teams need challenging goals to spark members
  best efforts.
• Members need to feel that they are embarking on a
  shared mission, with a common vision of how to
  translate the dream into a team achievement.

14
Commitment to Goals A Passion to Succeed

• In a study of 1.4 million workers in 66 countries
  for the Gallup Organization, one key finding was
  that trusting that ones coworkers share a
  commitment to quality is a key to great team
  performance.
• Although not always possible, whenever
  participatory goal setting can be instituted it
  is advisable to do so.

15
Symbolic Convergence

• Symbolic Convergence theory, focuses on how
  people communicating with each other develop and
  share stories that create a convergence, a
  group identity that is larger and more coherent
  than the isolated experiences of individual group
  members.

16
The Language of We

• Team accountability means that the team, rather
  than individual members, assumes responsibility
  for success and failure.
• Team success is also a matter of collective
  responsibility, and team talk should reflect this.

17
Appropriate Roles for Team Members Choosing
Wisely

• A team must have every group function covered by
  a qualified member playing a specific role so
  there is little or no duplication of effort.
• Finding the appropriate roles for each team
  member can be a big challenge. It is vital,
  however, that each member plays the role suited
  to his or her abilities.
• Finding the appropriate team member for each
  vital role permits full utilization of the teams
  resources.
• One of the responsibilities of a team leader is
  to make determination regarding role designations.

18
Definition of Empowerment Four Dimensions

• There are four dimensions of empowerment
  potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact.
• Group potency is the shared belief among team
  members that they can be effective as a team.
• Those teams whose members are confident that
  their team can perform effectively, not just on a
  single task but across many different tasks
  typically perform effectively, whereas teams with
  low group potency do not perform well.

19
Definition of Empowerment Four Dimensions

• Meaningfulness is a teams perception that its
  tasks are important, valuable, and worthwhile.
• Autonomy is the degree to which team members
  experience substantial freedom, independence, and
  discretion in their work. Autonomy doesnt mean
  that teams have no supervision or guidance.
• Impact is the degree of significance given by
  those outside of the team, typically the teams
  organization, to the work produced by the team.

20
Hierarchical Organizations

• Traditionally, organizations have been
  hierarchical, meaning members of the organization
  are rank ordered in a kind of pyramid of power
  CEOs, presidents, vice president etc.

21
Self-Managing Work Teams

• Self-Managing Work Teams embrace empowerment.
  After sufficient training and education, team
  members share responsibility for planning,
  organizing, setting goals, making decisions, and
  solving problems.
• They have a great deal of autonomy because they
  are self-managed, and since they control a great
  deal of their own decision making and problem
  solving, team results seem meaningful to members
  and have impact on organizations.

22
Impediments to Team Empowerment

• There are four primary impediments to team
  empowerment.
• Organization can sabotage their own teams. When
  organizations establish teams but fail to provide
  sufficient structural support for team
  empowerment, the organization is merely paying
  lip service to the concept of empowering teams.

23
Impediments to Team Empowerment

• Not everyone embraces teams. If team leaders are
  held responsible for team failure when team
  decisions may contradict the leaders preference,
  it is not difficult to understand the reluctance
  of the leader to embrace self-managing teams.
• When participation is decision making is a sham,
  empowerment is thwarted. If the team is not
  trusted to make careful, deliberative decisions,
  and if the teams choices are not respected, then
  participative decision making will quickly be
  perceived as a deceptive game that only creates
  the illusion of choice.

24
Impediments to Team Empowerment

• Finally, when rewards are distributed based on
  individual effort or ability, not team success,
  empowerment is impeded.
• There are essentially three ways rewards can be
  distributed in a group winner-take-all,
  equitable distribution (proportional), and equal
  distribution.

25
Establishing Individual Accountability Minimum
Standards

• Individual accountability, which establishes a
  minimum standard of effort and performance for
  each team member to share the fruits to team
  success.
• The focus should be on raising all team members
  above the minimum standards-way above if
  possible-not on looking for ways to designate
  failures.
• Individual accountability merely establishes a
  floor below which no one should drop, not a
  ceiling that only a very few can reach.

26
Fostering Participative Leadership Nurturing
Empowerment

• Team leaders dont act like bosses or supervisors
  if they hope to be effective. Team leaders are
  teachers and facilitators, they are open to input
  from team members.
• An effective team leader is a competent
  communicator capable of using supportive
  communication and avoiding defensive
  communication patterns with team members.
• Leaders create an environment in which making a
  mistake is an expected part of learning.
• When mistakes are made, members are encouraged to
  learn from the errors