Team Building

Personal Management

What is Team?

• “A small number of people with complementary skills who are

committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach
for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” (Katzenbach
and Smith, 1994)

• “A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of

himself and his contribution to praise the skills of the others.”
(Norman Shidle)

• “A team is more than a collection of people. It is a process of give and

take.”
(Barbara Glacel & Emile Robert Jr.)

• “A team is a number of persons associated together in work or

activity: as a group on one side (as in football or debate).” (Webster’s
9th Edition)
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Conceptions of Team

The Athletic Perspective:

Here, “team” connotes winning and losing. In an athletic arena,

winning is the ultimate goal.

The Power of Two:

Here, “team” implies partnership. This includes both business and

personal partnerships such as marriage.

Circumstantial:

Here, “team” simply means any group in the same place at the same
time. For example, in this context a company in general or all the
managers in an organization could be considered a team.

The Community Approach:

Here, a “team” is a group of individuals that share, collaborate, and
assist one another. Members look to their peers for support. This type
of team leads to workplace success!
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Why Teams?

Together
Everyone
Achieves
More
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Personal Management

Why Teams?

• “Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.”(Henry Ford)

• “Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped

alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and
psychological differences between people.”( Stephen Covey)

• “The key elements in the art of working together are how to deal with
change, how to deal with conflict, and how to reach our potential...the
needs of the team are best met when we meet the needs of individuals
persons.” (Max DePree)

• “A demanding performance challenge tends to create a team.”

(Katzenbach & Smith)

• “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.”

(H.E. Luccock)

• “Teams share the burden and divide the grief.”(Doug Smith)

• “Synergism is the simultaneous actions of separate entities which

together have greater total effect than the sum of their individual
effects.”( Buchholz and Roth)
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How Team works

• Fully and clearly identify the problem to be resolved.

o Describe all sides to the dispute.

o Listen carefully to all sides.
o Ensure everyone accepts the definition of the problem.

• Generate alternative solutions to the problems.

• Evaluate the alternative solutions.

• Ensure that all members accept decisions.

• Implement the solution to the problem.

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• Set a target date to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution.

Dysfunctions of a Team
• Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust: Members of great teams trust one
another on a fundamental, emotional level, and they are comfortable
being vulnerable with each other about their weaknesses, mistakes,
fears and behaviors. They get to a point where they can be completely
open with one another, without filters.

• Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict: …teams that trust one another are
not afraid to engage in passionate dialogue around issues and
decisions that are keys to the organization’s success. They do not
hesitate to disagree with, challenge, and question one another, all in
the spirit of finding the best answers, discovering the truth, and
making great decisions.

• Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment: …teams that engage in

unfiltered conflict are able to achieve genuine buy-in around
important decisions, even when various members of the team initially
disagree. That’s because they ensure that all opinions and ideas are
put on the table and considered, giving confidence to team members
that no stone has been left unturned.

• Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability: …teams that commit

to decisions and standards of performance do not hesitate to hold one
another accountable for adhering to those decisions and standards.
What is more, they don’t rely on the team leader as the primary source
of accountability; they go directly to theirs peers.

• Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results: … teams that trust one

another, engage in conflict, commit to decisions, and hold one another
accountable are very likely to set aside their individual needs and
agendas and focus almost exclusively on what is best for the team.
They do not five in to the temptation to place their departments, career
aspirations, or ego-driven status ahead of the collective results that
define team success.
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Ways of working with Teams

The following terms describe some of the interactions within teams:

• Team working – a group of people, normally but not always

geographically close to each other, interact on certain work matters.
They have regular meetings and are perhaps involved with joint
problem solving, but the work does not require them to know each
other really well.

• Teambuilding – a group of people are brought together who need to

work at a more intimate level of understanding. They may have
reached this stage over a period of time, but it is more likely that the
manager is actively working to form them into a certain kind of team.

• Team development – work that helps teams to become high-

performing, development is a long term process of flourishing and
growth of the entire team member and it is a result of effective team
building process.

• Team time – a general term that I use to label what really happens
when people come together! What are the stories that are told within
and about the team? What is the climate of the team? What is the
energy like? Are people’s efforts all pointing in the same direction?
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Team Building

“A group of people are brought together who need to work at a more

Intimate level of understanding. They may have reached this stage over
a period of time, but it is more likely that the manager is actively working
to form them into a certain kind of team.”

Teambuilding is what is below the iceberg’s tip.

It is sometimes unseen but is definitely felt and mostly known. It is, for
example:

• The look between two team members when a third person talks

• The silent resentments felt when one person is allocated a

particular piece of work that someone else wanted

• What really happens after people leave the meetings

• The stories that the team tells about itself and the leader
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• The identity the team has to the outside organization or customer

Basic Rules/Criteria for effective Team Building

Small numbers

• Large numbers of people have trouble interacting constructively as a

group.

• Performing teams typically function best when there are a small

number of people working together with four to six people often being
a good target.

• Single leader and effective groups also benefit from smallness but the
less resource intensive nature of process required for this types of
teams typically means they can be a little larger, in the range of twelve
to twenty-five people.
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Basic Rules/Criteria for effective Team Building

Complementary Skills

• In the enterprise high performance companies build teams based on

complementary skills—this of course requires an understanding of
what skills people have.

• It’s further complicated in a learning institution around not only

understanding what skills people have but also what skills they would
like to develop.

• Insights into technical and functional expertise, problem solving and

decision making skills and interpersonal skills are all factors that go
into the creation of effective teams.
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Basic Rules/Criteria for effective Team Building

Common Purpose

• A team’s eventual performance is directly correlated to its purpose. If

team members have a different purpose or that the purpose of the team
is unknown, it’s difficult for teams to perform effectively.

Common Goals
Common goals

Common goals
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• Specific performance goals are also essential for most teams to
function effectively and they need to be defined for or developed by
the team.

Basic Rules/Criteria for effective Team Building

Common Working Approach

• Teams that can’t standardize on the same working environments and

tools often do not function well. Incompatible software and
collaboration tools can cripple teams and cause massive hits to
productivity and effectiveness.

Mutual Accountability
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• Teams need to hold themselves accountable and be evaluated as a
team.

• Organizations that expect team performance but only reward

individual contribution in absence of accountability to a team are
often ineffective.

Team Self - Assessment

All the team members should go through a Self – Assessment test, which is a
very good exercise for solving the confusions and ambiguities, one sample is
give below:

AREA DESCRIPTION YES OR NO

Goals We have clear goals linked to our company’s

objectives and we all know what they are.
Roles People know their roles and have all they
need to do their jobs (e.g. skills, knowledge,
and equipment).
Decisions We have an agreed method for making
decisions and everyone contributes to this.
Management The manager is able to adjust his/her style to
Style get the best from the team.
Disagreement It is okay to disagree with each other and we
resolve our issues in an adult and assertive
manner.
Atmosphere We interact well and help each other when
things get tough.
Development Development is encouraged in the team, e.g.
we talk both before and after team members
go on courses.
Feedback Feedback is welcomed, upwards,
downwards and sideways.
Talent We are encouraged to work as much as we
can in the areas we are good at.
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Stages of Team Building

FORMING

STORMING

NORMING

PERFORMING

ADJOURNMENT
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Forming

• Forming is the stage when team members become acquainted with

one another. They also assess the group task and the ground rules that
will apply to that task. At this stage everyone is typically very polite
and willing to go along with suggestions made by other team
members. Team members try to avoid making enemies and are
frequently more patient with one another than they might be later in
the process.

Storming

• As the novelty of being a member of the team wears off, conflict

emerges.

• Members of the team emerge who want to exert greater influence over
the process.

• Leadership struggles begin, as do interpersonal conflicts.

• Conflicts erupt over the task requirements and the best way to achieve
that task.

• This is the stage at which listening and finding mutually acceptable

resolutions to the conflict is most important.

• The team can either emerge united and ready to take on the assigned
task, or divided, with some members taking a passive role.
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Norming
• In the norming stage team members make an effort to discover what
standards of performance are acceptable.

• What do deadlines really mean? How high a level of quality is

necessary? Does every member have to be at every meeting? What
about developing sub-teams?

• If the team can establish harmonious relationships at this stage, they

are ready to move on to the performing stage. Some teams, however,
disband at this stage.

Performing
• At this stage the team is ready to be productive and work on the task
assigned.

• Team members' roles have been established and clarified.

• Group interaction should be relatively smooth as the team applies

some of the problem-solving skills it learned in earlier stages to the
task at hand.

• If the team has reached this stage without successfully working

through the problems and issues of the earlier stages, it may disband
or regress and work through those issues.

Adjournment
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• At some point almost all teams are disbanded, whether their task is
completed or a team member leaves.

• On the one hand this can be a happy stage, with members

congratulating one another on a job well done.

• On the other hand adjournment means the disruption of working

arrangements that may have become comfortable and efficient, and
possibly the end of friendships.
Development Phases during Team Building

The The The The The

Tentative Normative Cohesive Creative Closure
phase Phase Phase (Excellent) Phase
Phase
Initial Anxious to High levels of Communication Goals have
team establish cooperativeness occurs in-depth been largely
formation direction, accomplished
rules and
structure
Focus is on Substantial Conflict and Less close
establishing aemotional differences are emotionally
Careful comfortable comfort. dealt with in a
set of constructive
relationships manner
Relate Focus is on A strong “we” Climate of high Personal or
quite establishing afeeling task / high extraneous
superficially comfortable relationship goals are
set of exists pursued
relationships
Where do I Trust pervades Truly excellent Emotional
fit in? What the team teams function and task
can I offer? atmosphere is this phase. closure
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Development Cycle in Team Building

Development Focus Agenda Points

Roles Role clarification exercises
Procedures Meetings and role clarification exercises
Relationship Experiential team building exercise
Further interventions
Task Independence Business context
Project overview
Team structure
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Alignment Values alignment exercise

Vision exercise

Leadership in Team Building

Leadership: “An attempt to use non-coercive types of influence to motivate

individuals to accomplish some goal.”

Task

Group
Individual

Action – Centered Leadership Model (Adair- 1985)

• Task: Leader knows the importance of Task , it is basically the

objective which he needs to achieve and he makes sure with his
behavior that every individual and Group as a whole know the
importance of task as well, in other words it is a job on hand which
helps or direct towards the actual goal or target.
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Personal Management
• Individual: Every individual plays a vital role in the completion of
any task and it is leader that helps every individual to perform at
his/her full potential in different conditions and circumstances.

• Group: it is combination of different flowers (Individuals) with their

own fragrance and a leader knows the skills and talent of every
individual in the group and unites them in a way where they help each
other rather than pulling each others’ legs.

Leadership in Team Building

Types of Leadership:

Leader

Charismatic Traditional Situational Appointed Functional

Styles of Leadership:

• Telling
• Selling
• Explaining
• Adapting
• Choosing
• Defining Problem
• Defining Parameters
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Low
Amount of direction

High

Low Amount of freedom High

Leadership Styles (Tannenbaum and Shimidt model-1985)

Leadership in Team Building

The Managerial Grid

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Source: Adapted and reprinted by permission of the Harvard Business Review. An exhibition from “Breakthrough in
Organization Development” by R. R. Blake, J. A. Mouton, L. B. Barnes, and L. E. Greine, November–December 1964,
p. 136. Copyright © 1964 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; all rights reserved.

Above grid clearly shows for achieving targets/goals of the Team (9, 9)
effectively, leader needs to keep both the People and Production concern in
his mind at a same time or both need same kind of attention.

Leadership in Team Building

Team Leader Roles
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Personal Management

The Challenge of Team Leadership

• Becoming an effective team leader requires:

o Learning to share information.

o Developing the ability to trust others.
o Learning to give up authority.
o Knowing when to leave their teams alone and when to
intercede.

• New roles that team leaders take on:

o Managing the team’s external boundary.

o Facilitating the team process.

Leadership in Team Building

Building Trust: The Essence of Leadership

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Types of Trust

Deterrence-based Knowledge- Identification-

Trust based Trust based Trust

Steps in Building Trust

• Practice openness.
• Be fair.
• Speak your feelings.
• Tell the truth.
• Be consistent.
• Fulfil your promises.
• Maintain confidences.
• Demonstrate confidence.

Consequences of Team Building

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Success Failure

If success then

• Great boon to an organization

• Revitalize organizations that are going downhill

• Stimulate employees to become more and more creative

• Can develop leaders for the future

• More empowered employees

• Individual achieve their personal goals

• More motivated employees

• Prepare employees for more challenging tasks

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Personal Management
• Change the culture of the organization from Autocratic to Democratic.

• Improvements in Soft skills, Employees become more trust worthy

and Tolerant.

Consequences of Team Building

In case of Failure we should,

• Understand the reasons for failures and learn how to avoid them will
keep us from repeating the mistakes others have made.

Reasons

• Poor Planning

• Lack of Trust

• I’m not paid to make decisions.

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• Poor Training

• Poor Attitude

Consequences of Team Building

• Poor Planning

• You just don’t shift from work

groups to teams by an edict
from top management.
• “Effective to this date you are a
team”.
• You have to take the time to
plan exactly what you want to
do and how you intend to do it.

• Lack of Trust

• When team members do not trust

their leader or one or more of
their teammates, the team will
fail.
• It is very easy for a person to lose
trust in another.

• I’m not paid to make decisions

• Employees who have been conditioned
to taking orders, will feel
uncomfortable, when as team
members, are asked to participate in
decision-making.
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• They feel that supervisors and managers are paid more to take
decisions.
• It is logical for them to feel that making decisions is not their job.

Consequences of Team Building

• Poor Training

• A team is like a rocket.

• The rocket is made up of many
components, and each must work.
• Each team member is a component of
the team.
• Unless all are able to perform their
functions, the team will never be able
to move ahead.
• This involves individual training as
well as training as a team.

• Poor Attitude
• Many members have about the
team process, the team leader and
often their teammates.
• All the team members are expected
to Job.” do any work that will
propel the team toward its goals.
• Yet, there are still members who
look upon their jobs as being limited
to their job descriptions.
• Team members must do whatever
has to be done to accomplish the
job.
• This includes doing work you don’t
enjoy, helping slower members
catch up, and putting aside per
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projects to keep the team on target for higher priority
assignments.