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it about teamwork and the reason why each individual need understand teamwork
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Why competitive individualism needs to be replaced by teamwork
By J. Allyn Bradford
In todayís workplace project leaders need to solve intricate problems and to take ideas from an initial stage through a series of complex processes to a successful completion. This kind of work cannot be done alone. There are just too many demands, task requirements and varied sources of information required to do it without the support of others.
The following incident illustrates the limitations of competitive individualism and how it can be replaced by teamwork:
Jeannie was a highly efficient, aggressive, competitive Vice President. But her project team was in disarray. Though he had an MBA from a prestigious university on the East Coast, she knew nothing about teamwork. Her attitude was that
she was the boss and others were expected others to comply. They didnít.
One Monday morning she was called into the CEOís office. "Get them to work together or youíre fired!" was what Jeannie heard. Upon hearing this, Jeannie was bright enough to find ways to completely re-orient herself and her team. The results were astonishing.
She and her team learned how to listen with empathy, build ideas together and support each other in achieving individual goals. She made an 180 degree turn from the old, command and control model to one which was interactive, supportive and cooperative. As a result, her team became number one in the company.
Though it has a happy ending, this brief account of an actual experience indicates how an obsolete model of leadership can alienate the best resource we have: the people who work cooperatively with us.
"In our present time, we must begin to celebrate collective entrepreneurship", says Robert Reich, the economist, in an article describing how the team, not the individual, is the hero. To make our corporate systems work, he says, we need "endeavors in which the whole of the effort is greater than the sum of individual contributions. We need to honor our teams more, our aggressive leaders and maverick geniuses less." (Reich 77-78)
According to Reich, the "myth of individualism" came into our culture through the popular stories of Horatio Alger in the last century. Ragged Dick, the hero of these stories, rose from a lowly station in life by dint of individual effort to earn a respectable job and the promise of a better life. The heroic individual became our cultural ideal.
The dominant corporate culture still promotes the tradition of heroic individualism in which the boss gets credit for what others have done. The strong focus we have on individual achievement in our culture discounts other people and how we need them to accomplish our goals. No wonder so many people feel depressed in the workplace today! They are, as Reich indicates, overburdened by the weight of an outworn cultural myth.
In her insightful book about contemporary organizations Margaret Wheatley says that: "Loneliness has pervaded not only our science, but whole cultures. In America we have raised individualism to its highest expression, each of us protecting our boundaries, asserting our rights, creating a culture that ëleaves the individual suspended in glorious, but terrifying isolation.í" (Wheatley 30)
We have all learned at home at school and on the job to compete as individuals for awards, attention and prizes. But the reality is that, more often than not, it is through teamwork that we get things done.
Though the myth of individualism proclaimed that the key to the great "American Dream" was to be found through individual competition, it is really not so. To be a lone individual without support, surrounded by adversaries, in the corporate culture is more like an American Nightmare.
Working Together
Team skills are quite different from those of competing individuals. They involve cooperation, mutual support and accountability to the team. These skills are needed in families for members to support and encourage each other. They are also needed at school for students to learn together. And they are needed on the job in managing projects, making informed decisions and solving intricate problems.
These skills can expand limited resources, develop new ideas and to build viable relationships An individual alone has but a limited perception of the range of possibilities in a situation. A team taps into a variety of perceptions and so widens the scope of available information, options and ideas. When various heads come together in teamwork--which means listening, developing ideas and building on each otherís insights--not only are more ideas generated but also a mutual acceptance and trust builds among the participants through the interaction.
The quality and effectiveness of individual strategies is also greatly enhanced when team members constructively question each othersí
thought process. A team can help clarify hidden factors, such as the nature of the resistance or the level of trust in a particular situation. The interaction that comes from working and thinking together in a team also helps an individual avoid making assumptions that are not reality based. Team members do this by asking questions such as: "Is the data sufficient?" "Is it accurate?" or "What is the source?"
For example, a Customer Education department I worked with in a Midwestern corporation assumed quite naturally that their teaching was up to date. That was until one member of their education team happened to overhear some customers questioning whether they were getting the right information on how to run the expensive, new equipment they had just bought. At this point questions, like those indicated above, were raised. When they checked it out, they were shocked to find that their instructions were out of date.
Consequently, with the help of upper management, they set up an interdepartmental team to keep them current in their presentations about company products consisting of representatives from engineering, marketing and production. If any of their educational materials were inaccurate or out of date, it would show up
at these meetings, not in presentations to customers.
Team Learning
Of course not all teams are well organized. Nor do all team members understand the real meaning of teamwork. A poorly organized team probably functions worse than a collection of competing individuals.
Teams need to learn certain skills as a team to function effectively. Peter Senge coined the phrase "team learning" to show how teams go through the steps in the learning process together, not just as individuals. That means they are willing to experiment and learn from their results by sharing insights, reflecting on outcomes and really listening to each other.
According to A. J. Chopra, an expert in innovative team process, "If you use peopleís heads in a good way, theyíll let you borrow their hearts." You do this, Chopra says, by really listening for what is of value in what they say. "New ideas rarely come to
mind fully formed, so they are vulnerable to attack. To voice such ideas is to risk being ridiculed or thought impractical or even irresponsible. If people feel that they can take such risks with you in a way that is not only safe but productive, then working with you becomes a positive experience." (Chopra 10-12)
Teams learn to function effectively when they provide much needed guidance and support to individual members. Teams can fill the gap left by the downsizing of middle managers. As teams fill this gap, they give individuals a place to belong in the organizational system.
How Teams Fill the Gap
According to the book, Wisdom of Teams "a real team autonomously develops it own common purpose, performance goals, working approach and methods for mutual accountability" In other words, they organize themselves. This stands in contrast to "pseudo teams" which call themselves teams but are really just competing individuals." (Katzenbach and Smith 61-64)
Team members can help each other by developing a system for supporting their individual goals. After setting their team performance goals a self-organizing team can set then cooperate in achieving their individual goals. If team members really do learn how to develop and train each other, their competence will improve and so will their morale and their performance as well.
Real teams provide the support individuals need to manage their way through the complex problems and issues that confront them. It is a lot easier to get recognition and help from the members of your team than it is to try to get the attention of a boss that is too busy to give you the time.
Becoming a "member" of a team is important to new people, in an organization too. New hires are keenly sensitive to signals that indicate how they will be treated by others. They carefully watch how others respond to what they say and do because they know that the way they get treated will largely determine their success in the organization
A well functioning team interacts directly with its members in an intermeshed set of relationships based on trust that constantly gives support and guidance to the individuals involved. When this happens, individual performance in the team exceeds what any one of them could do alone.
Professionals
The role of people at work today has shifted from a passive one in which they followed orders, to an active one in which they take informed risks. Those once known as "Workers" in the old bureaucratic system, have become "Professionals" in todayís complex workplace. That calls for the use of initiative by well informed people who can make intelligent decisions. (Hammer 1-15)
These professionals need teams to manage complex processes, to network with a variety of resources and to do creative problem solving. Teams provide the means, as well as the practice and coaching required to achieve competence in doing these things, as noted before.
Teams do not replace the traditional organizational structure. Rather they work within it to offer individuals a more dynamic process and a creative energy flow throughout the organization.
For example, the administrative personnel of a mid-sized company I worked with on the East Cost created an innovative new process in their organization system: a problem solving support group. These administrators were people who work as secretaries and receptionists. They had never before met as team. But, in the midst of a training program, they used a little creative imagination to create a new entity. Now they meet once a week with their supervisor to help each other solve the problems they have with indifferent bosses, irate clients and unreliable suppliers. They fine tune their problem solving skills as they work together on their own real issues.
Synergy
As noted above, synergy can multiply a teamís resources far beyond the limitations of the
individual contributors. It happens when team members work cooperatively to share ideas, recognize the value of each member's contribution and jointly craft those ideas into viable options.
In a recent book on biology and social systems, Kevin Kelly points out how a single honey bee can do nothing by itself. But in the hive it becomes part of a highly productive operation to make honey. There occurs in this process, Kelly says, "a hive mind" consisting of many individual bees working together collectively. (Kelly 11).
Synergy multiplies the resources of team members through the interaction of a variety of contributors who see a problem from diverse perspectives. When this happens the collective brain, or what Kelly would call the "hive mind", of the team takes on an enriched and enlarged life of its own which is exciting to all involved and can produce highly innovative results.
"Our team is like a blueberry pancake" a member of a creative team on the West Coast once told me during a training session. He was speaking of how leadership operates in his team. "Itís flat", he said.
"Weíre all equal. But there are the blueberries. They are the ones who get the action going." Taking initiative in setting a goal and making a commitment to bring about constructive results puts a person in a leadership role, like those "blueberries".
Peter Block, a prominent organizational consultant, describes this kind of leadership in terms of commitment to a personal vision: "The essence of political skill is building support", he says. "This takes place through dialogue and the most compelling dialogue we can have is about our vision. Leadership is keeping others focused on our vision and this means we have to get comfortable talking about it." (Block 121 )
A New Model for Leadership
A model invented and promoted by Synectics, Inc., a Cambridge consulting firm, works effectively for the kind of leadership Block describes.
The Synectics model actually requires dual leadership to make their process work: one person
facilitates the process, the other is committed the to the pursuit of a vision or a goal. The team members work together to generate ideas to help the one with the goal create a viable achievement strategy to implement his or her vision.
In this model individuals readily set goals that are aligned with team and organizational objectives. Even though most new ideas are incomplete and easily destroyed, as noted previously, skillful facilitation can manage the process to create an environment that allows creativity to flourish.
This process works best if the facilitator rotates from one meeting to the next. That way fresh energy comes with each new process leader. Of course it can be quite a challenge for some team members to facilitate the process for the first time, but with help from the team they can readily acquire the needed skills, as in the previous example of the administrative personnel team.
A group of engineers in the Department of Public Works I worked with in a small town in Eastern Massachusetts exemplified how well this process can work by the way they embraced it. They were
all union, with the traditional attitudes of that group. None of them had ever conducted a meeting before. But when they learned how to work this process, their productivity soared because they realized they could solve their problems by themselves better than management could do it for them.
Conclusion
With the support of management, and by working cooperatively, effective teams can readily help individuals adapt to new situations, solve intricate problems, multiply their resources and create constructive change in the workplace. Individuals are most effective when they do not work alone but with others on a team.
J. Allyn Bradford is a consultant, specializing in Team Effectiveness, who has worked with over 25 major corporations in the US and abroad. © Allyn Bradford
Sources:
Block, P.: The Empowered Manager, Jossey-Bass, 1990
Chopra, A.J.: Managing the People Side of Innovation, Kumarian Press, 1999
Hammer, M.: Re-Engineering the Corporation, Harper Business, 1993
Katzenbach and Smith: The Wisdom of Teams, Harper Business,1993
Kelley, K: Out of Control, The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, Addison-Wesley, l994
Reich, R. The Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneurship Reconsidered, The Team as Hero, May-June 1987
Nolan,V: The Innovatorís Handbook, Problem Solving, Communication and Teamwork, Penguin Books, 1989
Wheatley, M.: Leadership and the New Science, Berrett-Koehler, 1994
1. Small Business >2. Managing Employees >3. Teamwork
Characteristics of Effective Teamworkby George N. Root III, Demand Media
Effective teamwork has its own characteristics.
Related Articles What Is the Most Effective Way to Foster Teamwork? What Actions Can the Project Manager Take to Ensure Effective Teamwork? How do I Achieve Effective Teamwork? Examples of Barriers to Effective Teamwork Effective Teamwork & Interpersonal Skills Factors Affecting Effective Teamwork
Effective teamwork creates its own set of characteristics that makes it possible to see the cohesion in a group. When an efficient team gets to work, the structure that has been put into place helps the group obtain productive results. In order to create a productive team, you first need to be able to identify the characteristics of effective teamwork.
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Unified Commitment to a GoalA team is created to complete the goals it is given. An effective team is committed to completing its goal by using the team's resources. It does not mean that as individuals the
people that make up the team share the same point of view or are all in agreement on what is best for the group. It means that when the team is presented with a goal, they can come together and work as a single unit to complete the task.
ParticipationIn order for a team to act as a team everyone must be participating in the creation of a solution. A team does not have extra members. Each member of a team is essential to the team's success, and when the group is given a task, each member knows what their job is and sets out to put in their fair share of the effort.
Related Reading: Factors Affecting Effective Teamwork
Open CommunicationA team is able to communicate effectively and there is a feeling of open communication between all members of the group. Issues within a team are handled by face-to-face communication. Team members do not talk behind each other's back as there is a respect developed among team members that necessitates direct and open communication on all issues.
Decision-MakingA team has a hierarchy and a built-in decision-making system that helps it to react quickly and effectively to all situations. The members of the group are respected for their various areas of expertise, and the leader of the group has developed the ability to obtain the group members' opinions to formulate the group's response. This applies to decisions made within the group ranging from resolving internal conflict to a potential change in group leadership.
Efficient Use of IdeasBrainstorming is one way that groups come up with the solution to a problem. An effective team is able to gather information from each member and formulate that information into a response. The team becomes adept at dismissing ideas that will not work, and including effective ideas into what would become the team's solution to an issue.
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References (3) Team Building Portal: The Unique Characteristics of an Effective Team Team Building Solutions: Characteristics of Teamwork NDT Resource Center: Teamwork in the Classroom
Resources (1) Don Murray & Associates: Characteristics of Effective Teams
About the AuthorGeorge N. Root III began writing professionally in 1985. His publishing credits include a weekly column in the "Lockport Union Sun and Journal" along with the "Spectrum," the "Niagara Falls Gazette," "Tonawanda News," "Watertown Daily News" and the "Buffalo News." Root has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the State University of New York, Buffalo.
Why is Teamwork Important?
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Why is teamwork important? Well it’s one thing to create a team, but quite another to
create teamwork.
Just as it’s one thing to join a team, but quite another to perform as a team member. To put it simply, teams don’t
work without teamwork. On this page you’ll find 8 good reasons why teamwork is important.
Are you studying or looking for student resources to answer this question then click here: STUDENT
RESOURCES .
What is teamwork? There are several ways to define teamwork but for some colour why not think of it as the French
do. The French language has an excellent expression to describe it: esprit de corps.
This means a sense of unity, of enthusiasm for common interests and responsibilities, as developed among a group
of persons closely associated in a task, cause, enterprise, etc.
Teamwork can be likened to two compounds, almost essential to modern life. It’s the glue which keeps a
team together, a bond which promotes strength, unity, reliability and support.
Teamwork is also the oil that makes the team work. It can enable smoother movement towards targets, can prolong
forward momentum, and can help teams to overcome obstacles.
Teamwork has the potential to underpin so much of what is valuable in work. In fact, the benefits to be gained from
teamwork synergies are essential for the effective management of resources.
Why is Teamwork Important? 8 Good Reasons!
What a difference teamwork makes. Teams and teamwork have become a central part of our work life. Why is
teamwork important? Because:
Teamwork:
1. Creates synergy – where the sum is greater than the parts.
2. Supports a more empowered way of working, removing constraints which may prevent someone doing
their job properly.
3. Promotes flatter and leaner structures, with less hierarchy.
4. Encourages multi-disciplinary work where teams cut across organizational divides.
5. Fosters flexibility and responsiveness, especially the ability to respond to change.
6. Pleases customers who like working with good teams (sometimes the customer may be part of the
team).
7. Promotes the sense of achievement, equity and camaraderie, essential for a motivated workplace.
8. When managed properly, teamwork is a better way to work!
Why is teamwork important? It doesn’t mean everybody doing the same thing or everybody being able to do each
other’s jobs. It’s more a means to a synergistic way of working, where the sum is greater than the parts. Properly
managed, teamwork maximizes strengths, bringing out the best in each team member, a key theme on this site.
These specific, possibly unique individual strengths are then complimented by the strengths of others, or of the team
as a unit.
The value of teamwork is regularly seen in sports. How often do we see teams made up of expensive star players
outperformed by teams with players who may be individually less talented. Assuming transfer price tags really are an
indicator of talent! The answer lies in two things. The synergistic value of teamwork (our glue and oil), and in the
crucial role of the manager.
Characteristics of Effective Teamwork
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Building and sustaining high-performing teams
One of the crucial characteristics of effective teamwork is synergy. When synergy is achieved then a team moves
towards high performance.
Continuing our series on stages of team development using our STAR team model, in this article we consider how to
help a team achieve and sustain high performance. Aspects of synergy will be developed during the performance
stage of the model. However high performance, the subject of this article, is where the team starts to exceed its
results and to re-define some of its goals, both consistently.
Whilst every team and context is different a few important characteristics of effective teamwork can provide a basis
on which to develop your approach to developing a team that consistently performs to a high level.
Characteristics of effective teamwork – the STAR team model
The STAR team model suggests that effective teamwork in the workplace happens when four elements
(Strengths, Teamwork, Alignment and Results) are in place:
Individuals flourish as they use and develop their Strengths
People come together building relationships that result in effective Teamwork
The team leader Aligns the team through effective communication of purpose, so that individual strengths
combine with teamwork to deliver the teams results
Together everyone achieves more as performance flows and Results that are meaningful and rewarding to the
team are achieved
A different emphasis and focus for each of the STAR model elements is needed at different stages of the team’s
development.
For high performance, all three aspects of the STAR model are equally important, and the team balances the three
areas of results, strengths and teamwork according to the situation. The teams impact spreads beyond its immediate
context to influence other teams and the wider organization.
Typically team synergy is demonstrated when:
The team finds new ways of working
Team members initiate change
The team sets fresh challenges
Team members spreads good practice
Team members coach and support each other and start to do so with other teams
Team members take the lead more often in their area of expertise
Connections are made across team, more widely across the organisation and with customers which bring
increasing value to what the team does.
In this phase the team leader should look for synergy by:
Exploring connections
Bring things together – ideas, people, skills, other teams – so that they combine in a way that delivers much
more than if they were apart.
Encouraging the team to take on fresh challenges
Supporting new skills development
Renewing strengths
Encouraging individuals to experience flow ( sense of working at peak performance, where skills and level of
challenge are matched) in what they do
Promoting innovation
Being outward looking
Team leaders should also encourage the team to be outward looking:
Connecting, encouraging, finding potential
Releasing team members to lead themselves
At this stage the team increasingly leads and certainly manages itself, as the maturity and capability of team
members is evident. The leader’s role is one of serving the team by helping to create the conditions for high
performance.
Synergy is one of the distinguishing characteristics of effective teamwork, but it is not always easily found. There
does need to be a sense of vigilance and determination to reap the rewards of a team that is performing for the wider
benefit of the organization.
Teamwork Concept
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The STAR Team Model
Developing a teamwork concept involves bringing together ideas and insights to inform and shape the concept. Here
we explain the ideas which shaped the STAR team model, using three distinct strands of teamwork theory. Briefly
introduced in our teamwork theories article, these were:
Team development stages
Team leadership styles
Outside factors that influence teams (within the organisation and in the wider context)
How do these teamwork concepts fit with the STAR team model?
Teamwork concept STAGES: Team Stages
Team development theories, such as Tuckman’s group development stages, recognise that teams develop through
different stages. This provides a progression from initial formation through to performance. Whilst they give a useful
understanding of different team requirements at different times, there are a number of questions that aren’t
particularly well answered by the models. For example:
How should you lead at the different stages of a team’s development?
How do you identify when you are progressing through a stage?
How does the team develop in the organisational setting?
How is it affected by other outside influences?
Group stages theory doesn’t explicitly answer these questions. To do so, and thus to build a more robust teamwork
concept, ideas about team leadership and outside factors need to be introduced.
Teamwork concept STYLES: Leadership Styles
The second strand of theories suggests that leadership activity will be different at different stages of the team
development. This is a common notion in management studies, that many models are in fact situational, and that the
approach adopted should change dependant on the context. This idea is also common to a number of leadership
theories, which suggest leaders should adapt their behaviours and actions according to the situation. For example,
contingency or situational leadership models tend to offer a continuum of responses a leader might take, from a
directive approach where the leader steers the team, to approaches that tend towards delegation, where team
members have much more say about what and how they do things.
Other models recognise different functions of leadership. One well known example is John Adair’s action centred
leadership, which emphasizes leaders placing a focus on the task, team and the individual. The balance of focus will
vary from situation to situation.
In the STAR team model we have brought together some of these theories, highlighting the leader’s role in aligning
individual strengths with teamwork, to achieve meaningful results. The STAR team model incorporates the idea that a
leader needs to behave differently given the different stages of team development. The leader’s focus of attention will
vary at different stages of the team’s development.
For example, during the formation of the team it is important to ensure that team members are clear about why they
are in the team, and what they are expected to achieve. So the primary focus in this stage will be on results, whilst
recognizing that aspects of teamwork and strengths will still need attention. During other stages the focus will switch
to the importance of teamwork and strengths.
To further develop the teamwork concept, these second set of theories about leadership can be applied to the first
(group development) to answer the question: “where should your emphasis be during the different stages?” What do
you need to look out for and what activities do you need to focus on at the different stages a team goes through?
Teamwork concept SITUATION: Organisational and wider context
Thirdly, teams do not exist in a vacuum; their effectiveness can be greatly influenced by factors external to the team,
from other teams, the wider organization and external factors outside the organisation. Whilst group stage theories
such as Tuckman’s model provide a useful way to think about how a team develops they place little emphasis on the
external environment. Similarly leadership models can too often focus on the leadership needs of the team and not
enough recognition is given to the leader’s role outside of the team.
A number of researchers have expanded team theory to include an emphasis on the context within which the team
operates. For example Sunstrom and colleagues view teams as embedded within an organization and suggest that
team effectiveness is therefore dependant on how the boundaries work between teams and other teams, and how the
organisational context impacts on the team. It raises the important role of the team leader in establishing boundaries,
and in ensuring the links between other teams work well, and that the systems and processes in the wider
organization support and encourage the effectiveness of the team.
To develop a teamwork concept such as STAR teams then it is important to blend together three strands of teamwork
theories:
Group development stages
Contingency and situational leadership
and finally recognizing that
teams exist in an organizational and wider external setting that can support or inhibit teams.
If you do have the time to read more on this topic, why not go to our teamwork articles. To read more of about our
teamwork concept – the STAR team model- see our articles teamwork theories, teamwork defined and teamwork in
the workplace. For a more general introduction to team a good place to start might be to think through why is
teamwork important , or you may want to think about how you define teamwork or reminding yourself of the benefits
of teamwork.
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